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The Wedding Industry Heist aka maybe I should go in the wedding planning business

Hello World,

As you know (if you’ve been reading this blog), I got engaged on Christmas Eve 2012! For roughly two months after R.’s proposal, I was in a state of joy and almost disbelief. While our relationship seemed to be heading in that direction almost from the very start, I still found it hard to believe that after all of the time (years) I prayed for God to send the right man to me, he had arrived finally and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me…

Once I announced our engagement to friends, family, etc., everyone kept asking me whenis the date of our wedding. I had no answer for them. I was still trying to mentally adjust to being engaged let alone set the actual wedding date. This went on for January and February, and then all of a sudden, it occurred to me. If I truly did want to get married, I better start thinking of a planning a wedding. After consulting with R., we decided that a summer wedding would be nice. So I got to planning…

My Mom and Dad on their wedding day...

My Mom and Dad on their wedding day…

A few years ago with the help of a financial counselor, I revolutionized my finances and began aggressively budgeting and saving. Since then, I have become a certified cheapskate and proud of it. One of my favorite mottoes is “It it’s free, it’s for me.” So imagine my shock when I discovered the average wedding costs $25,656, according to theweddingreport.com!!! I mean according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, the yearly median family household income is $62,273. So a wedding for many Americans costs almost half of their yearly salary! Am I the only one that thinks this is crazy at best and downright irresponsible at worst?! And then when you factor in that the divorce rate is between 40 and 50 percent, many couples are just wasting money…In fact, I’ve heard that some couples are getting divorced so quickly that they are still paying off wedding expenses when they get divorced! How crazy is that? I’m not getting married to get divorced, but trust and believe that I’m planning a bargain basement wedding! Mama didn’t raise no fool! (Sidebar: Do you know the average cost of a wedding in 1945 was about $2,000? That’s what I’m talking about!)

So if you are thinking of getting married and having a decent wedding, let me just give you a few of the stats so that you can plan accordingly…These figures are based on a wedding of about 136 guests, which is the average amount of people that are invited to a wedding…

I have found that the greatest wedding expense is the cost of the reception…

The reception location costs $3,226, and the average cost for reception food is $4,757. If you want to serve liquor which you very well may need after adding up the costs, you will need to fork over $2,456 for reception bar service…

And if you want to read to see the rest of the numbers, please go to theweddingreport.com.

Since I am a certified cheapskate, I have become obsessed with cutting down the costs of planning a wedding. My goal is to have a tasteful wedding without going into a debt and allocating the majority of our wedding/marriage money for an off-the-chain honeymoon…

So I have a couple of questions for you today…

How much do you spend on your wedding/honeymoon?

Was it worth the costs?

And if you are a certified cheapskate like me, please share your tips on how to trim wedding costs short of getting married at the courthouse!

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Atlanta-Fulton Public Library Presents An Anthology of Sisterhood THIS SUNDAY!

Hello World,

As you can see just from the home page of my blog, I love my DST! Being a part of  Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated has enriched my life more than I anticipated when I became a giddy member of DST in Spring 1995! And that is hard to imagine! The day after we were presented to the University of Georgia campus, I proudly wore a Delta baseball cap, a t-shirt with two hands formed in a huge pyramid, dangling golden elephant earrings and the matching necklace and Delta socks (if I am remembering correctly). Although my line name is “Comet,” I was nicknamed “Triple Nalia” by line sisters because of all the Delta paraphernalia I wore that day and the days afterward. It was a fun time…Since then, however, my understand of sisterhood has grown much deeper beyond all of the hype that comes with being a Delta!

Soror Ruby Dee

And this year, the year of Delta’s centennial, I am especially proud to be a member of a sorority that is just as committed to sisterhood, scholarship and service as it was when it was founded in 1913 by 22 women at Howard University! And to commemorate our centennial, some of my sorority sisters joined together to create An Anthology of Sisterhood: A Compilation of 22 Shades of Red. The anthology is the brainchild of my Zeta Psi Chapter Soror Dr. Francene Breakfield. The book sprang forth from her dissertation in which she conveyed the meaning and importance of Delta sisterhood in her life from the “big sister” that mentored her as a high school student to a high school student that eventually became a “little sister” because of her influence. In fact, sisterhood has so inspired Breakfield that she formed a “support group of dissertation-challenged Deltas called ‘Doctoratebound.'” In the anthology, Breakfield, along with her co-editor L.D. Wells, coalesced 22 Deltas from 10 states who contributed more than 100 original poems, essays, short stories and lyrics. And Soror Ruby Dee, the world renowned actress, wrote the foreword and contributed a poem of her own!

“Each chapter of the book highlights a different author and allows her to share her voice and unique experience of sisterhood. Topics include positive relationships among women, spirituality, friendship, sorority life, sibling rivalry, and gender equity,” says Breakfield.

From left to right, Sorors Francene Breakfield, Neicy Wells and Katreisula Bryant Graham, contributors, along with Soror Taria Ellis Brittian, center

One of my favorite stories is about the “Sistagurl” that all women have on the inside…This is the woman that warns us when we are dealing with no good or trifling man but we continue to entertain his foolishness anyway, hoping that somehow he will change or we will change him…In this story, the author recounts morphing into a CIA agent to spy on her man to make sure he was not seeing another woman. “I would get out of my car and lay on the pavement to look under the small crack at the bottom of his garage door to see if I could see another set of wheels next to his truck. I jumped his fence to see if I saw shadows in his bedroom window.” I’m not proud to say I have been an CIA agent a time or two in my dating career…LOL…

If you would like to buy your own copy of An Anthology of Sisterhood: A Compilation of 22 Shades of Red, join contributors at Atlanta-Fulton Public Library Southwest Branch, 3665 Cascade Road, Atlanta 30331, this Sunday, April 7 at 3 p.m.  for their book launch! Books are $22. If you cannot make the book launch, you can also buy the book at sisterhood.biz, barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com.

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

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What You Thought Was Dead Can Now Come Back to LIFE!

Hello World,

Happy Easter or Happy Resurrection Day! However you choose to refer to this day, this is the day that Christians the world over celebrate the most important day in our faith! Today we celebrate that while death is a powerful foe indeed, the power of death could not and cannot compare to the indestructible power of the Lord Jesus Christ! HE IS RISEN! We no longer have to live in sin, be ruled by destructive habits and or addictions or walk through this earth alone! We have a savior and a friend in Jesus Christ! Like the Baptists, I’ve got a reason to shout! Like the Pentecostals, I’ve got a reason to get my dance on! Like the Methodists, I’ve got a reason to be in silent awe! And then do it all over again! JESUS! JESUS! JESUS! Please find yourself in somebody’s church today because the Lord has a blessing for you, and you don’t want to miss it!

And speaking of blessings, I was reading the resurrection story in Matthew 27, and I read some verses that I don’t recall reading before…Do you know that Jesus was not the only one that God rose from the dead? According to Matthew 27:51-53, “51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.” Many theologians have differing opinions of what this miraculous occurrence meant, and it is not mentioned if these people remained on Earth or ascended with Jesus back to heaven.

As a lay person or a regular ole Christian or maybe even as a writer, these verses are further evidence that the death and resurrection of Jesus is not just about spiritual good that is just good for Heaven, it is also a good that makes sense right here on Earth! What do I mean? Using my sanctified storyteller imagination, I imagine that one of the dead was a mother who had passed away while giving birth to a son who had never known his mother except through the stories of family and friends. On the day that Jesus rose, this child was able to meet his mother for the first time! I can also imagine that one of those dead was a beloved husband of an elderly widow that had not seen him in decades unless she dreamed about him at night. Can you imagine how elated she was when he came to her during the day? Or what about the young woman that died suddenly after a brief and mysterious illness leaving her family and friends to question why God allowed this tragedy to happen? I imagined that they wept after she confirmed that even death could not keep her from the ones she loved! I’m sure this day of resurrection was a day of overflowing joy!

So what does this mean for us today? First of all and most importantly, we have a risen savior that promises to give us eternal life with Him in heaven. And while we are here on Earth, Jesus can break the chains of sin, addiction and destructive habits and give us joy and peace that sustains us through everything! AND he can bring back to life what we thought was dead…Maybe you dreamed of launching a business but you no longer have the financial backing to get it going. Don’t worry. Just pray! He can bring this dream back to life. Maybe you’ve been set back by setback after setback. God can restore your life! Maybe you are still grieving the death of a loved one years later and have been unable to really move on, God can show you how to live and not die!

What you thought was dead can now come back to life…

Any thoughts?