Rich Bride, Poor Bride

"When it comes to weddings, everyone wants a perfect day. But unless you have unlimited funds, it's 'I DO' but at what cost?"

I've been watching Rich Bride, Poor Bride on Slice, formerly Life Network, a Canadian cable television specialty channel with programs directed towards women with programming including talk shows and reality TV. It is a series that explores the human drama of what it takes to pull off the "perfect" wedding. Each episode follows the journey of one couple, their wedding planner and their goal to stay within their set budget (which is usually $18,000 to $30,000). Every time I watch this show, I am simply amazed at how brides sacrifice the more important things for the less important things such as a $450 tiara that will only be worn for 6 hours. Another bride wanted a real peacock at the reception. When she found out that during the season her wedding takes place, the peacock looses all its feathers, she wanted kissing lamas! Yet another bride wanted (and did) arrive at the reception hall by a helicopter.

All these brides (...and grooms, but the grooms are always the ones who are budget conscious in this show) end up spending $30,000 to 60,000+ for 150 guests at their wedding. Gosh, if we go with the average budgets of these weddings and if I can pull off my 450 adults, 40 children wedding with MY budget, it would be a miracle! FYI, an average Canadian wedding with 150 guests costs $20,000.

Watching this show really makes me wonder... whatever happened to being able to marry the man you love? All these brides emphasize on how big and grand and memorable their wedding is rather than on the meaning of marriage. I can imagine how some couples probably end up being in debt on the first day they get married. I don't want to be in debt on the day I begin my new life. Blowing all that money on one day... what about the rest of your life together? You CAN for sure still have a big, grand and memorable wedding without having a big budget and being in debt for years to come. I guess you just have to weigh it all out, what is more important to you.

One of the wedding planners featured in a couple of the Rich Bride, Poor Bride episodes is part of The Wedding Planners Institute of Canada (including myself, a total of 511 wedding planners across Canada were certified through this institute, but I can imagine that some aren't active wedding planners anymore). I guess this wedding planner featured on the show did enjoy it at first, but apparently the producers always wanted her to talk bad about the couples and she was always being watched hoping to catch her do something wrong. Because of these experiences she had, she already turned down three of their shows and will never agree to another one again. This is totally wrong, but hey, I totally think it's entertaining! Hopefully there are better wedding reality tv shows out there, I've really only seen this series.

If you're at all interested in this show, you can watch the full episodes of Season 2 on Slice.ca. Enjoy shaking your head at the brides!