Kelly Ripa, Her Wedding, and Me

As a father who recently financed his daughter's wedding, I noted that, yesterday, Kelly Ripa revealed the cost of her wedding on her TV show.  Evidently, when Ripa was married sixteen years ago, she spent a whopping $270 TOTAL on her wedding--which included free air miles, cut-rate hotel accommodations, and a destination no-cost ceremony.

Good for Kelly.

I've been writing about low-cost or debt-free weddings for years . . . first in national bridal magazines, and then in book form (Before You Say "I Do" & Your Beautiful Wedding on Any Budget) and on my four-year old blog, www.weddingtopics.blogspot.com.  And having just financed my daughter's wedding (debt-free I might add--but not no cost), I can sleep well knowing my daughter has a keen grasp of simplicity, basic elegance, and a do-it-yourself attitude.

What else would one expect from a girl who wanted to get married in a barn surrounded by cow pies?

Having recently re-vamped my debt-free wedding blog, I noted yesterday that I've helped about 5000 brides create a low-cost or debt-free wedding.  And with the average cost of a wedding topping out at a whopping $27,000, it's no wonder that the greatest stresses in marriage turn out to be financial ones, and that many weddings destroy the family before a marriage can be birthed on a solid financial footing.

I enjoy writing about weddings . . . and have done so for decades.  And now that I've written the last check for my daughter's wedding, I've got a file folder filled with new ideas.