Put a white dress on and grab your ankles...

Doesn't matter if you are the bride or the groom, you are going to get... well you know. Consumation on the wedding night won't be the first time for anyone. Might be the first time you are the alpha but that's about it. Get ready for some serious BUT fucking. And by BUT fucking, remember the only thing relevant to your life is what is said after the BUT not before it.

The wedding industry is the biggest freaking scam in the world. Want to make a lot of money, offer your service/business for a wedding. Go ahead and mark it up 500% and offer less options, because the poor effers getting married have to pay it. Let's say, you are a limo service. You might rent a mini bus for $400 for six hours with unlimited stops. BUT... If somebody is getting married, they get the wedding package, that same limo bus, suddenly is rented in two hour periods, you say it's cheaper because it's $350 (for four less hours) but go ahead and make it $100 for each additional half hour (those lunchboxes are bleeding money afterall they are getting married and they are too dumb to notice the huge deviation in prices or even look at your standard price schedule). Then, stipulate that the bus can only make two trips, one to the church and one away from it. If you want to shuttle people, that will be an additional charge for each stop.

That's typical. Now, do the same thing as a DJ, a printer, a convention center, hair and makeup etc., etc., etc., etc. Always, mark-up because it's your wedding package, reduce services (what normally were part of the standard package make an additonal cost), and smile generously while doing it.

Now, let's pretend you are a grizzled wedding industry insider. You've made a career of throwing parties, and like any grizzled veteran, you are grizzled... you've been through the wars, but more importantly most of the grizzled vets are also bitter vets and as a consequence you now look at your customer/clients with borderline contempt. Like a career manager of a McDonalds, answering for the billionth time what's in a value meal (SEE THAT HUGE F'ING SIGN BEHIND ME THAT NOT ONLY HAS IT IN WRITING IT'S GOT A PICTURE FOR YOU IGNORANT DONKEYS TO GRASP IT), these folks have seen it all. They can't believe anybody still gets a conventional wedding cake. Afterall, as a wedding planner you've eaten standard wedding cake, twice a weekend for the last five years. Please advise them to not make this mistake and try something like coffee cake (mmm, when slugging a Venti Mocha Frappocino with whipped cream, caramel syrup, and 10 extra bags of sugar you like coffee cake)These dumb couples always want to do it in the same dumb way, make the same dumb mistakes and these couples always f it up.

Along, the way, like a high school teacher in the second week of their job, a wedding vet forgot why they got into the business. Once upon a time it was an idealistic journey escorting couples into the rest of their lives. Then somewhere, after working on too many other people's weddings it became a job, it became a grind, and everybody that walked through their door were no longer a future happy couple, they were just new headaches disguised in stupid bridal requests.

Dumbasses come in every day, and tell you what they want, how it's going to work, and they all have these stupid ideas. You know full well that there is an easier and BETTER way to do it. You've done thousands of these things. You try and steer these foolish rubes in the correct direction. You give out false plattitudes and smile patiently, "Yes, it's whatever you want, and that's what we are going to do.. BUT." And the "but," pretty much implies to disregard the part of "we are going to do what you want to do." In reality, we are going to do whatever is cheaper for me, easiest for me, and keeps the assembly line moving as fast as possible. Please, these stupid brides need to be saved from themselves.

The bait and switch is a popular tactic. Sign a contract, put down a hefty deposit, and that BUT starts reering it's ugly red-eye. "Oh yeah, you can get this on the menu, we'll switch that around, whatever you want" becomes, no, we can't do that, well we can BUT you have to pay through the nose. We'll take the groom's right nut as collateral for those oyster shooters. "Wait, you want a seat for everybody you've invited, well, you never said that, that's going to be extra, that's our Golden Seat Package, where you get all the seats in the first package and the rest to accommodate the party but each seat is exponentially more, and that doesn't include seats for the wedding party or the immediate family or the parents of the bride and groom--that's the diamond seat package, and if the officant of the wedding wants a seat, well, that'll be a grand more, we take major credit cards."

As I am currently, going with my bride on these grabbing ankles sessions with our favorite vendors around town, I'm amazed at how commonplace this bait and switch tactic is. They know, the girl is under the most stress of her life, amplified by the dude who is like, I can't believe I could make a years worth of car payments... or get invitations with Vellum (whatever the fuck Vellum is), so when the happy couple walks through the door they immediately reassure you everything is going to be alright, BUT with a couple of alterations, and by alterations they mean wholesale changes... that cost a little more, which means ridiculously more, and they know you are going to pay it.

They let you plan as ambigiously as possibly one year out, 6 months out, and then really get down to brass tacks at 3 months out. Why? Because you can't back out of your wedding now. You'll never find another vendor, you are on the hook for the nonrefundable deposit, and you have to do it their way, and pay their fees, because of those little BUTs they mumbled under their breath (or more accurately implied and never said, or thought they said, or didn't even thought they said and merely imagined you would assume there'd be a BUT there because everybody gets BUT fucked when planning a wedding). That's right. Three months out it's time to do everything and get ready for an AVALANCHE of buts that budget busts better than the Pentagon's pencil-pushers revisions. Suddenly, when you do the actual planning that's when all the surprise costs are dropped on you, when everything you want to do, is now just impossible, but it's alright because they've done thousands of these things, and you are in their capable hands.

Anyway, don't bother with getting married. If you want to get But-fucked, just go to prison, because at least there you don't have to pay for the privilege of getting violated.

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