The Wedding Biz: A Complete Scam or A Complete Sham - You Be The Judge!

FIRST - WTF? What in the heck is this ridiculous thing? A pink flask - this is marketed as a bridesmaid gift (can be personalized). AAAHHH!! This is what's wrong with the wedding industry. Slap the color pink on it and the word "wedding" and you are good to go! you can sell anything this way...

I digress....

S.O. and I have been planning the wedding in earnest over the last few months and let me tell you... it has been a very eye-opening endeavor.

Add the word "wedding" to any product and immediately add 25 - 50% to the price of whatever it is you need to buy: party invitations or wedding invitations; party DJ or wedding DJ; photographer or wedding photographer. Ridiculous.

I've been trying to be as low maintenance as possible through this whole process and I've been trying to do this "my way." Which is to say - carefully, logical, and thorough. Unfortunately the wedding business is not set up this way - I am being thwarted at every turn in my efforts.

Wanting to do this "my way" or be an "unconventional bride" is quite difficult.

The industry conspires against you the moment you say "yes." I tried from the beginning to avoid BRIDAL SHOWS but was unsuccessful. We needed a florist, photographer, and DJ and thought that "wouldn't it be a great idea to go to the bridal show and kill three birds with one stone in one afternoon."

S.O. and I were able to pick a location and a caterer on our own and thought we were doing pretty well without delving into the seedy underworld of BRIDAL SHOWS but we took a chance.
OH MY GOD! From the moment we walked in to the moment we were able to escape it was the most horrifying moment of my life.

As soon as you walk in the door you have to check in at the front desk - this involves filling out a form with all of your contact information and some really fine print that i should have read. (i now get at least 3 fliers A DAY in the mail trying to sell me wedding crap.) Next you are assigned a number and you get a sheet of paper with your number printed on it 100 times. What you are supposed to do is then for every vendor you visit you put your number in a little box and at the end of the day (5 pm - must be present to win) each vendor chooses a number and that person wins a prize! Yea! AAAAHHHH - the first thing i did was throw my numbers away. While we were there looking for a florist, DJ, and photographer - it seemed like all of the other brides (most of whom were about 5 - 10 years younger than me), moms, and girlfriends were there for EVERYTHING. Caterers, Cakes, Jewelry, Dresses, etc. They even had department stores getting people to register for gifts and banks to help people sign up for mortgages. Thank god we were late and "missed" the wedding dress fashion show.

S.O. was one of about 10 males in the place that wasn't a vendor. It was quite a painful afternoon. We left with a bag full of fliers and other crap that got thrown away as soon as we got home.

Through this process I have learned that the entire wedding industry is based on the following assumptions: (this list is in no way complete)

1. the average age of a new bride is 23.

2. the engaged woman has been "dreaming" about this "special day" since she was 10 and knows exactly what she wants.

3. the traditional rules still apply and that the bride's family will pay for almost everything and therefore it is OK to have ridiculously inflated prices

4. That women become retarded as soon as we get an engagement ring on our finger and lose all rational thought

5. That every wedding couple wants the standard wedding format complete with a "tossing bouquet" and a DJ with props

6. That the groom has no opinion on anything and whose only role is to show up

I understand that assumptions are necessary if you want to serve the greatest number of people - the problem with these assumptions is that the industry is ignoring a certain part of the population and their inflexibility makes doing this any way other than the "standard way" quite difficult.

First of all, I am a 30 year old bride who HAS NOT been dreaming about this day since i was 10. When I was 10 I was imagining that I would be the first woman astronaut on Mars and that I would have a really cool job and make lots of money. I can honestly say that I don't remember EVER imagining what my wedding would be like (i did assume that i would get married however.)

Second, I am a 30 year old bride who will be paying for ALL of this herself (along with her spouse.) No parental help here. It would be nice if people in this business didn't assume that my parents are paying for ANYTHING let alone ALL of it.

Third, because there is no financial assistance from the parents I am certainly going to make rational decisions about what I am going to spend my money on. Sure a $2000 wedding dress is nice - but so is a $800 dress, etc, etc, etc.

Fourth, In this partnership the groom is as involved in the decision making as the bride is so please AT LEAST acknowledge his presence in the room when we are having a conversation about flowers, music, etc.

.... So.... fast forward a few months... it is now mid/late November and the horrific experience of the bridal show has finally stopped haunting me. We still need a DJ and florist. We have interviewed 4 florists and received a proposal from one - should get two more soon and another one by the end of next week. We are pretty good on the florist front.

We have interviewed two DJs and decided that we need to meet with at least one more to feel like we have a good idea about the range of prices and types of DJs. Having forgotten the bridal show expierence a few months ago we decide that it would be a good idea to go to a "wine and cheese" showcase event at Martin's West and meet another DJ and their company.

The company hosting the event, "The Pros," are a "full service" wedding vendor. They have DJs, videographers, and photographers.

The event was last night - 2 days before Thanksgiving. The event start time was 6:45 - we got there around 6:55. The "Pros" were not there and were stuck in traffic. Lovely. They were coming from PA (where their corporate HQ is) and there was an accident on 95 S. So much for "Pros". We got some cheese and a glass of crappy merlot and wandered around the room looking at photo albums of people who probaly have no idea that their wedding is being used to sell a product.

Around 7:30 they announce that the "program" will being in about 5 minutes. OK great. If they didn't start by 7:45 we were outta there. The program started at 7:35 with a really crappy "stand-up" introduction by the Baltimore/Washington, DC manager. He sucked. He tried to be funny. It was starting to get uncomfortable.

After a few minutes of wedding jokes about how grooms are stupid, and moms getting emotional, and how there always someone at the reception who drinks too much, the guy introduces the head douche-bag in charge of operations - head sales schmuck. This guy's job is to tell us about the different services they provide and why their company is better than the other guys. EVERYTHING that came out of this guy's mouth was a sales pitch designed to sound like a sappy story that would (hopefully for them) make you realize that you ABSOLUTELY had to have a videographer and that without a video your kids and grandkids will hate you for it.

I really needed a drink but the wine was so crappy that it wasn't worth getting up.

When this guy was done he passed the mic back to the manager who proceeded to introduce the 6 DJs that were there. Apparently the company has 30 local DJs but only 6 were able to come to the showcase.

After the first DJ was introduced they each introduced the next DJ - i think this part was supposed to show us a how each DJ spoke and sounded. 4 of the 6 were total mush mouths and had to read the introduction of the next DJ from a card. Not a good first impression.

After all of the DJs were introduced the manager started to play some music and they (the DJs) started to do the Electric Slide - to music that WASN'T the Electric Slide song. They did that for a minute and then started to pass out leis in the audience. This was one of the little things they did during receptions to get the guests involved.

Guests are supposed to pass the leis around and when the music stops whoever has one gets a prize. yea. So we pass the leis around and at this point the evening went from "uncomfortable" to "really bad".

So they stop and start the music a few times and of course there is no "real" prize - they just tell a stupid joke... Then the last time the music stops they said whoever has the leis really DOES get a prize - they "get" to go up on the dance floor and be their "party people" for the next few songs. AAAAHHHH!!!! Thank GOD neither of us had a lei. It was at that moment that the evening went from "really bad" straight though "god awful" and directly to "Most Horrifying Event - Worst Than The Bridal Show."

We took that moment as an opportunity for escape. We got up and left. We couldn't have gotten out of there fast enough. We hopped in the car and drove away as fast as we could. We couldn't shake the stink off. It was just too disgusting and weird.

After thinking about it for a minute i realized that the "showcase" was not the right sales pitch for us. Maybe that is the best way to sell your product to those people who fit the basic assumptions about people who are getting married - but it DEFINATELY was not the best way to sell your product to us. I am still traumatized. And we still need a DJ....

PS: take a look at the Comments Section. Pretty funny given what i just wrote about the industry. Does this guy really want me as a customer???