Money is the root to all evil. Most of the time, money issue is the root to married couple’s worries.

Before married, our finance matters do not overlap. I took charge of mine, she took charge of hers.

from nhmortgage.com

After married, we have to plan for our family. There are other issues to look into such as saving part of our salary, having joint account, saving for a new flat and for our children.

Looking at all these commitments, we seriously have to sit down and discuss our financial road map.

Wedding planning is a mega-project. It not only take up lots of energy, man-power but also lots of financial resources.

Those wedding couples who have average salaries and have been saving for a few years for their weddings, may find their bank account completely dried up by the end of their weddings.

I have shared earlier planning a wedding does not start after proposal. It comes way before proposal. I took two years to save up for my wedding before I popped the question to my wife on wedding proposal day.

I find that one needs to be financial savvy to save up for wedding. Some who had much better salary will park aside part of their money each month. Others may take up tuition and save up what they have earned. The rest who are even smarter invested what they have saved and their money pond grows bigger.

I know there are some friends of mine neve got married even though they wanted to as they have no idea where their money has gone to.
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Wedding dinner has always been so routine and we kind of expect what will definitely happen at a typical wedding dinner.

No doubt, we are there to give our blessings to the wedding couples, it could be really very boring at times especially you have to sit with strangers you may not have seen before.

Dishes were dished out one after the other and we just ate and ate, avoiding conversation.

Even if relatives do get to sit together and their bond is not close, the few hours could be one of the longest in their lives.

That is why allocation of guests to every table is important and this will determine if the guests really enjoy themselves.

A typical wedding dinner goes like this:
1. Cock-tail reception
2. Wedding 1st March-in
3. Presentation of 1st dish
4. Showing of 1st video of wedding couples’ childhood photos
5. Wedding 2nd March-in
6. Cake-cutting and champagne pouring
7. Showing of 2nd video of wedding couples’ courtship days

I managed to type the list out in less than a minute and it only shows the many weddings that I have attended are mostly the same.

The only wedding dinner that I have enjoyed most was that of my cousin’s. There was songs being sung by live singers throughout the wedding dinner.

The guests were so hyped out that they were waving hands in the air when the singers sung. It was just like a concert.

Other wedding entertainment that I could think of is playing of wedding music by a group of musicians.

And while surfing the net, I happened to find this group of musicians who call themselves “Grace Notes”
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There will no doubt that whatever you may have done is useless.

from chinatown.com.au

Wedding planning is about planning and re-planning. Marriage too works in this manner. There is no one planning that totally works.

I understand that most getting married couples may have to work. It is not easy to cope with the stress that comes from work, wedding planning and the family members.

Wedding planning is about both parties making decisions and taking the stand together.

I remember while we were planning our wedding, there would be multiple times that our parents interfered with some decisions we made “out of our own good”.

I have also heard of some stories that some parents manipulated their children’s decisions and they wanted their children to work accordingly to what parents had planned.

Many times, I wonder if the outcome will differ if the couples stand together and gracefully “confront” their parents, explaining why they had made the decisions. Moreover, they should also garner support from the parents and assure them that everything will turn out fine.

This important step marks the first step in making decisions and standing together as they progress into marriage life.
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from bali-exoticwedding.com

After talking about wedding routine part 1 and part 2 and having decided what kind of wedding you want, you may have to decide how many guests you are inviting.

This will determine which kind of hotel or restaurants to contact.

You need help from your parents to get a closer estimation.

My parent didn’t intend to invite her friends. As for my in-laws, they have to estimate a number of relatives who will be flying in from overseas.

There is a lot of liaison and coordination. Give your parents a week to get back to you. Sometimes, the relatives aren’t even sure themselves if they can come due to unpredictable reasons such oversea work posting.

When tying up with wedding venues, the date to meet the hotel coordinators must be agreeable between you, your partner and the business manager.

I remembered we made an appointment with Grand Copthorne Singapore.
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from historic-hotels-of-america-weddings.com

When wedding planning started, there is no way to stop. Once proposal has been done and a date has been set for your wedding day, you will not stop planning until the end of your wedding dinner.

I remember a typical day of my week is discussing with my wife what should we do next week.

Next we asked ourselves how should we go about planning it.

Planning takes discipline and once we decided whatever we had planned, we put our mind and heart to it.

However, our wedding planning was never smooth as both of us had to work and I was working, giving tuition as well as taking up a Graduate Diploma course in NUS.
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