Here’s a feel-good wedding story out of Maplewood, MN:

Will Nicholson and his fiance Leah Bogen have decided to donate the entire food budget for their upcoming wedding to relief efforts in Haiti. The donation will total just over $2500. The money will go to Partners-in-Health, a group providing medical care for the earthquake victims in Haiti.

Read more and watch a video here: Minn. Couple Changes Wedding Plans to Help Haiti

Guest Blogger Profile: Jennifer Napier of OneWed.com

OneWed.com's Off-The-Chart wedding giveaway will help you save some cash.

Have you seen it yet? The pie chart or bar graph your fiancée found on a wedding site? It’s supposed to show you what percentage of your wedding budget will go for what items. Here’s the dirty insider’s secret, it leaves things out!

That’s why OneWed is offering an amazing Off-the-Chart Wedding Giveaway. We’ll give you and your wedding party all those extras that aren’t on that chart. How many extras? How about $15,000 worth?

For all the details, including how to enter our free wedding giveaway, come and visit OneWed.com.

Guest Blogger Profile: Simon Daykin

All signs are currently pointing to a major economic turnaround in 2010. However, that doesn’t mean that most Americans still aren’t feeling the crunch. This “crunch” hurts even more if you happen to be a bride or groom planning a wedding.

A rough economy doesn't have to ruin your dream wedding.

Here are four ways you can ease a little of the financial pain and still have your dream wedding.

Recession Proof Your Wedding – A lot of brides and grooms go deeply into debt for their weddings. Right now with the markets being the way that they are, that’s a little more than scary. But I’d say don’t be afraid of making some credit card purchases for your wedding but definitely stay in control. I would not advise you to take a line of credit out against your house to pay for your wedding right now. The best way to recession proof your wedding is to figure out what you can realistically spend on your wedding (chat with your parents about this too) and then stick to it. Cut down your guest list rather than trying to penny pinch to fit in your entire office floor. A smaller guest list will give you more room to make your wedding look lavish

Watch Out For the Quick Buck Vendors – Yes you want a good deal but now is not the time to be booking with anyone who hangs up a sign. You need to pick quality wedding vendors who are well established and have financially secure companies that have been around for awhile. How horrible would it be to give someone a big deposit and then not be able to get a hold of them again? I’ve seen this happen even when times aren’t tough but with people trying to make the quick buck right now you need to be extra careful.

Be Smart With Your Wedding AND Lifestyle Budget – It’s important that you make a budget for both your wedding AND your life and then stick to it. This will help you feel in control and confident with all your decisions. My downloadable templates in my product “Let’s Start Planning Your Guest List, Budget and Your Wedding Details” can really help you stay on stop of budgeting.

Be Resourceful and “Resourcefilled”- While you want to be resourceful and find great deals you also want to be resourcefilled. That means you have a bunch of resources to pull from that will help you achieve your ultimate wedding look. A wedding planner like me can really help you with this because I know great vendors to work with and I also have great resources for frugal items and sometimes even vendor discounts. Although hiring a wedding planner can take some room in your budget in the long run a wedding planner can really save you time and money. Click here to schedule an appointment.

Guest Blogger Profile: Jennifer Napier of OneWed.com

Getting married requires a whole new set of skills. For example, unless you’re a lawyer or a sports agent you probably haven’t spent a lot of time reading contracts.

Even Jerry Maguire would have trouble understanding some of these vendor contracts

Most wedding vendors and wedding venues will require you to do so. This is for their protection, as well as your own. Before you sign anything, make sure you have a full understanding of your wedding budget and, definitely, look for the hidden fees, tax and tip.  But, here’s an insider tip, if you do find that you need to get out of a contract, you may be able to work something out. Vendors not only want to keep your business, they depend on satisfied customers to gain referrals for new clients. It never hurts to ask if things can be changed, as long as you ask politely.

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TMR Announcement

We’ll be helping celebrate the launch of OneWed’s WeddingPreParty tomorrow night (August 5th). TMR Co-founder Chris Easter will serve as a guest wedding expert along with representatives from It’s a Jaime Thing, The Broke-Ass Bride and Fabuluxe Events. and  The party will run from 9-10 EST via  Twitter. You can read all of the further details here: Join Us Aug 5 for WeddingPreParty.com Twitter Launch Party!

Cheers!

Dr. Taffy Wagner is back with a guest post on playing the game of Financial Football

Try thinking about your marital finances in football terms

Let’s have some fun today grooms. It’s time to take your upcoming marriage and think of it in football terms. I’m sure most of you have either played or watched at least one football game. I’ll give you the known factors and ask you to participate:

The field is your marriage. Whether you are days away or even months away, this is the field. You are moments away from finding out the specifics so that you know the lay of the land before you begin the game.

Teams are Brides and Grooms: the soon-to-be-husbands and wives. Initially it may look like you are on separate teams in the beginning until you say “I Do.” The idea is that you are on the path to uniting.

Object: To begin talking about money and continue throughout your marriage. Money talk is not just a one time discussion.

Rules:  A coin must be flipped to see who begins – bride or groom.

The coin toss winner gets to ask the first financial question. If the question is strictly a surface question – no points can be given.

How to begin the game:

If the question makes the person uncomfortable to ask because it is asking hard questions, the person who responds truthfully gets 3 points.

Next, the responder gets to ask his or her first financial question. If the question is avoided completely, then the person asking the question gets 7 points for asking and not changing the question. If the question is avoided, the person asking the question gets to ask a second question.

Ask the important questions about money and marriage

What are the questions:

Let me ask you this, what do you want to know about your future spouse’s finances that you have been afraid to ask. That can be a beginning place.

I recommend you and your bride-to-be get some refreshments and sit down, begin the Financial Football game, and let us know how it turns out.

How do you begin the game?  The bride and the groom are the captains of the team. Flip a coin and see who gets to start. What will be the first question you ask?

** Remember, any financial mistakes and decisions made before you say “I Do” you cannot hold against the person. You were not there and cannot place blame.

Did you know that women speak an average of 25,500 words a day and men speak an average of 12,500 words a day? I know what you’re thinking… “I knew she talks too much.” Irregardless of the 25,500 words or the 12,500 words, what I want to ask you is do these conversations include money and marriage?

GroomsAdvice.com: Helping newlyweds get rich since 2008.

When you are preparing for marriage, you are thinking about the wedding day, the excitement, and the friends and/or relatives that you might not have seen in years. It is a great day. Even more so is the marriage which can be even better than the wedding day. You can make it this way by planning in the area of finances. I know that men don’t like to talk a lot. Understandable. BUT when it comes to money and marriage, there are discussions that need to be had and decisions that should be made. Do not take money and marriage lightly, but rather seriously with a desired result.

The choice is yours. As the groom, maybe you see yourself as the provider for your future bride. If that is the case, then love her enough to ask those hard questions. Do not let money and marriage challenges be a downfall, but take the steps to prevent and/or be prepared to address them when they come. The idea is to be solution oriented and not operating from a victim mentality. Nor should you operate out of emotion because you did not know. The next time you and your bride-to-be are together, take the first step and say to your future bride, “I don’t want our marriage to become a statistic because we did not discuss money. Let’s begin the discussion. Money talk in marriage is an ongoing conversation. We can overcome anything together.”

Dr. Taffy Wagner is a Certified Educator in Personal Finances and founder of DebtAtTheAltar.com She is the Creator of Money Talk Before The Commitment Walk and Debt Stops At The Altar financial education program for engaged couples and newlyweds.

Dr. Taffy Wagner is back with financial advice for the newlyweds-to-be out there.

With this debt, I thee wed.

This is the exact statement you’re making to your future spouse if you CHOOSE not to discuss your individual finances prior to walking down the aisle. You love her enough to discuss planning for the wedding day and talking about the honeymoon. Maybe you’ve even talked about your careers and what your goals are. Let me commend you for talking about those situations that decisions needed to be made.

Money matters are a huge part of wedding planning.

However, I cannot turn around and give you two thumbs up if you have in essence said to your future mate “With this debt, I thee wed!” Saying this is just like saying “I do not love you enough to share my financial background because I saw some of the same characteristics in you that I saw in a previous relationship.” Or, it could be saying, “I loved myself enough to make sure that once you said I do, I would say I needed to manage the money and you would not ever be the wiser. If you truly knew you probably would want a divorce.”

Either of these statements spell TROUBLE. It might not happen right now but you better believe at one point or another when your future spouse finds out about your financial background, you are going to have discussions that you never thought you would have before. Whether the outcome will be positive or negative is going to depend on you and your willingness to open up. Understand this could have all been avoided if you had talked about money upfront and not hidden it.

Dr. Taffy Wagner is a Certified Educator in Personal Finances and founder of DebtAtTheAltar.com She is the Creator of Money Talk Before The Commitment Walk and Debt Stops At The Altar financial education program for engaged couples and newlyweds.

Dr. Taffy Wagner is back with financial advice for you newlyweds-to-be out there.

Do various money songs run through your mind when you’re with your bride-to-be? Do the songs “For The Love of Money”, “She Works Hard for the Money”, or “Take the Money and Run” play on repeat in your home?  When you are engaged and setting the wedding budget – there is a lot of money talk happening. I’m guessing your bride-to-be loves to share about money being spent on the caterers, the florists, and more.

Is money casting a shadow on your wedding planning?

As you sit and listen to her talk, you see money flying out of the window that will never return again. Are you wondering to yourself “will I ever going to get past this point?” Of course you will, but while you are on this path of planning the wedding pay  special attention to what is being said and acted upon.

We’ve all heard “Actions speak louder than Words.” I was following a financially-motivated divorce case where the CEO and Countess are Divorcing.

She says she needs more than $50,000 a week to maintain her lavish lifestyle. Gentleman, I cannot help but wonder if there were not warning signs when he was dating her or if family members attempted convince him not to marry her.  Apparently they even had a post nuptial agreement that she agreed to… but is now not enough.

In a time where a lot of people might not even make $50,000 in a year, she is not satisfied with having that amount per week. I am not saying by any means that this is the type of bride-to-be that you have. What I am saying is make sure both of you are marrying for love and not money. Meaning if you did not even have the money you have right now, she would stick by your side. The motto wouldn’t be “No Money, No Honey.” Know that your bride is marrying you because she loves you regardless of income level.

Dr. Taffy Wagner is a Certified Educator in Personal Finances and founder of DebtAtTheAltar.com She is the Creator of Money Talk Before The Commitment Walk and Debt Stops At The Altar financial education program for engaged couples and newlyweds.

When we’re children our lives seems so easy. As a girl, I was carefree Alice in Wonderland. As I got older and discovered the joy of disobeying my mother I was living a scene from Mommie Dearest.

No matter what we do in life, our personal stories play out like many of the classics from the silver screen. Never is this truer than during your engagement. Getting to know your future spouse and their own personal movie time line is very important. There will be surprises along the way (probably a few I Know What You Did Last Summer moments). But, the more you learn – the better.

My future spouse and I would spend hours talking about our past, present, and what we wanted in the future. Our confessions fell into many “genres,” but the most controversial area was definitely finances.

Enter: Jaws.

You may as well prepare to be eaten alive if you don’t talk about debts, budgets, and what savings before you walk down the aisle. Many couples fail to do this and end up as fish food. But, don’t worry – not every tale ends up with the financial shark chomping away at your relationship. If you’re not afraid to talk about money, you’ll end up swimming in money!

Think about what your financial “movie” would be like? I encourage you to devote a few hour per month during your engagement to talking finances with your fiancé. These conversations will help you avoid financial failure. Enter: Titanic.

Dr. Taffy Wagner is a Certified Educator in Personal Finances and founder of DebtAtTheAltar.com She is the Creator of Money Talk Before The Commitment Walk and Debt Stops At The Altar financial education program for engaged couples and newlyweds.

GroomsAdvice is proud to have Dr. Taffy Wagner of DebtAtTheAltar.com with us to lend some of her expertise on newlyweds’ finances.

Let’s be honest, grooms. You could probably do without all the wedding planning and stress and just head to the courthouse, get the marriage certificate and call it a day. But if you’ve been listening to your fiancée — even for a few fleeting instances — since you popped the question, you know that the wedding day is something your bride-to-be has dreamt about since she was a child playing dress up with her mom’s wedding veil. It’s become obvious that a quick trip to the courthouse just isn’t in the cards. Guys, if you understand this, you’ve passed the first hurdle. Congratulations!

Your wedding planning discussions will focus on many important decisions, from choosing the members of your wedding party to the size of the wedding cake (or groom’s cake) to what gifts you’ll register for. When these topics come up, it’s natural for the budget to come into play. You’ll be discussing whether the bride’s or groom’s parents are paying for certain aspects of the wedding or if you and your fiancée will be footing the bill. Because money will ultimately influence your wedding plans, it’s a good time to start looking at your future finances as a couple.

This wedding stuff ain't cheap

If you and your fiancée haven’t discussed finances yet, the wedding planning period is the time to start. This is likely your first joint decision about a monetary investment. Regardless of who’s paying, you should try to work together to make these decisions. Ask each other questions like these:

1). Is she willing to compromise and look beyond the most expensive floral arrangements?
2). Are you willing to commit to not overspending on groomsmen gifts?
3). Are both of your desires being taken into consideration and included?

It’s important to start making compromises now. Remember, you’ll soon be standing before a wedding officiant, saying: “For richer or poorer.” When you say “I do,” it’s for the entire package. Whether she has debt, pays bills late or has less-than-immaculate credit, she’ll be your wife.

It’s extremely important to have a financial plan as you prepare for your wedding day. Talk with your bride-to-be about both of your financials. Determine who’s best at managing money and who should be in charge of paying the bills each month. You should know what outstanding bills are being brought into the marriage from both sides.

Keep in mind that these questions are not the end of the conversation, but the beginning. Financial honesty, openness and communication are essential to determining whether you’ll have financial harmony or stress in your marriage.

Dr. Taffy Wagner is a certified educator in personal finances. She is the creator of Money Talk Before The Commitment: Walk and Debt Stops At The Altar financial education program for engaged couples and newlyweds. Visit DebtAtTheAltar.com.

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Grooms, visit TheManRegistry.com and create your wedding registry, get groomsmen gifts, and read wedding advice just for men.