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Opinion Column

The Wedding Planner

By rick hopper

The East County News, Sep 5, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Right up until this year I was convinced that an automobile was the worst financial investment that one could make. Heck, as soon as you drive it out of the lot, a new car depreciates at least 10 percent.

However, when compared to an average wedding, buying a car almost makes as much sense as a 401 K.

Both of my stepdaughters took that long walk up the aisle this year. I figure each step they took cost their mom and I about one thousand dollars. Now that I am the proud owner of 120 chair covers and 200 little bottles filled with soapy water for blowing bubbles, we have had to make a few small cuts in our family budget.

Normally, when little boys get the mandatory facts-of-life lecture, father uses myriad gruesome diseases to discourage their sons from frivolous sexual escapades.

I think it would have far greater impact to explain to them that on the off chance that someone lays an egg, and it turns out to be a girl, that in about 25 years they can plan on pursuing a life of financial ruin.

When my wife initially dumped the joyous news of the impending marriage of both of my daughters, I felt a small tear come to my eye. Then after a brief (two-second) quiet assessment of this impending event, my tears dried up and suddenly I felt as if I had been involuntarily hurled into an infinitely deep pool of quicksand.

I hurriedly started packing items of “worth” into a couple of cedar chests I picked up at Goodwill. Dowry! Yes that’s the proper way to handle these things. Due to the fact that the betrothals were six months away, I decided to pack the frozen fish and tater tots a day or two before the actual event.

I quickly wrote two checks for $100 apiece and put them in the cedar chests along with some $5 Starbucks gift certificates. Everybody likes Starbucks.

My innocent, albeit infinite, stupidity prevented me from embracing the fact that I had just performed the equivalent of using duct tape to prevent the adverse effects of nuclear fallout.

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