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We really need to challenge and change cultural norms.


Ray Frechette Jr

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My daughter and her boy friend are on the couch looking at a lap top looking at engagement rings.

He is swallowing hard looking at the prices...

I remember that feeling myself.

Now. If we could just get the whole culture to change... Instead of buying an intended an engagement ring, what if we got them sold on the idea of buying an engagement boat instead??? Sure would be a shot in the arm for the boat builders... And it would save lives too..

No more Blood diamonds..

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We did not have an engagement ring and bought our wedding rings on the installment plan. $35 each, if I remember correctly. The wedding cost practically nothing which is what we had to spend. My ring was cut off about 25 years ago after a bee stung me on the finger and it was never repaired. On the other hand, Liz and I are still together and love each other after over 54 years of marriage. Rings and weddings are only symbols, nothing more. Put the emphasis on the symbols and the reality gets shoved aside. If mutual respect and commitment are not there, the symbols don't mean crap. Might have said love but, in the early years, no one even knows what that word means. I hate to see young couple go into hock for a gala wedding and are still paying for it after the divorce is final. End of rant.

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My 1st marriage was an elopment. My wife, a single friend and another couple that were life long friends.

The minister was a part time preacher that I worked with at a department store.

I bought a ring for a couple $100, the wedding cost $25 to the minister.

The singe friend had a Porche that we borrowed for a 2 day weekend honeymoon.

Cheap motels and diners.

She died after nearly 30 years together and 3 sons.

Second marriage was to a widow with over 27 years and 2 children.

Kathy and I have been together almost 19 years.

We paid the priest $50 and being parish members no cost for the church.

No honeymoon we were consenting adults. Reception was family members and only a few friends in our basement.

No financing of anything in any of my marriages and so far all has been very positive.

tom d

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I'm with Ray - the whole wedding deal has gone way over the top. One friend adding 10K to the wedding pool for his stepdaughter and the celebration budget scheduled at 40K went about another 10K over budget, so my friend kicked in more. Crazy dollars for a wedding, and no where near the top ten spenders list, more like middle average. Marriage tanked in less than a year. A lawyer who was one of my clients blew more than 100K on his daughter's wedding - sit down dinner for 250 guests at a 5 star hotel on the Baltimore's Inner Harbor. It is silly insane what folks spend on weddings and an engagement ring rock so huge it renders the girl's left hand useless for anything other than flashing her rock.

Comparing prices from my modest wedding in 1966 would require a multiplier, but the dress cost $125 and the ring about $150. Course it was only a tad over 1/2 carat which would be considered a "chip" diamond by the modern conspicuous consumer chick. After passing $20 to the preacher of a small Baptist church in North Carolina for doing the officiating we embarked on a short honeymoon in a used `64 Valiant. The dress was passed on to a bride on a tight budget, the Valiant sold 4 years later, the ring is still worn when she isn't handling lines on the boat and issuing Captain's orders or surf fishing. The marriage - still going hot.

As an 18 year old girl if I gave her a choice of ring or boat she would have taken ring. Now a little older and wiser, no question = boat. In fact when we moved to NC in 2006 I told her we needed a bigger boat and she made her selection. That's right, folks, all I did was approve various mechanical items and cut the check. She made a good choice.

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" ...the Valiant sold 4 years later..."

Aw carp! I was getting ready to offer you good money for that Valiant.

Ha! Hey, Ken, it may still be out there. Smallest displacement silly six, 3 on a tree, 28 MPG and the car wouldn't die. Sold it to a preacher who gave it to his high school daughter. She liked the car so much when she got out of college and landed a real job she bought a Plymouth Duster. The Valiant was too long in the tooth for trade in, so her dad kept it at his church for parishioners in need. Car was always zipping around town with new drivers, and then one day it landed near the entrance to my neighborhood. I figured it had come home to die, but nooo . . . the temp driver had tried to run to far on a tank of gas. Preacher showed up with a gas can, poured it in and the old girl fired right up.

You might have liked some of my other Mopars - `58 Plymouth cont., `68 Dodge Coronet 500 conv., and a `67 Baracuda conv. Yeah, I liked ragtops.

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I think besides cheaper weddings (my daughter is 4), kids good do a lot better by living with parents and going to community college for basic classes, then consider an apartment in parents house, later on when married etc. Help parents save interest and pay off house, while keeping cheap rent, which sets up kids for saving money and maybe parents helping in getting house and paying less interest.

I can't say much about my wedding my father in law paid for it but cost under 6 grand, which is cheap from what I understand. He had friends who did DJ'ing, another for photos, and another for video. I've heard of other very expensive weddings just to see couple get divorced couple years later.

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