Hey Everyone. I want to introduce myself. My name is Reed Parker- The Husband of the Wedding Planner-the toughest woman I know, Kelsey Parker. Last week, Kelsey gave birth to our first child, Payton Jayna Parker, and we are thrilled that she is finally here. We are as physically prepared as we can be for this journey, although currently, Kelsey is recovering from carrying life inside of her the last 9 months.

For that reason, she is giving me the opportunity to spend the next eight weeks giving you a my perspective, and a few of my secrets, from watching her plan all of the events she has since we started dating almost seven years ago.

So, I want to tell you all a secret. Do not kill me. My wife will do that when I tell you all this. When my wonderful wife and I got married, we did it for half the price of the average wedding, staying just under 20K. What’s more? We threw it together in 8 weeks(a task I don’t recommend to anyone, it was only possible because Kelsey wasn’t working at the time and had experience doing this in the past).

So by now, some of you are angry, some of you shocked. But the full story is far more complicated. We were preparing to move to Washington State, and instead of working on putting together our perfect day from halfway across the country,(something you definitely need a planner to help with), we sacrificed.

We found a venue that had a cancellation and got the venue for cheaper, we skimped on the food, we only had beer and wine, Kelsey bought her dress off the rack, I used a suit I had owned for a few years and had my groomsmen buy their slacks to match. It required a great deal of flexibility and the ability to accept when mistakes were made(like my best man showing up in the wrong slacks). If it wasn’t for some sacrifices, we wouldn’t have been able to make this happen, and we wouldn’t have succeeded in saving money for the big move.

The money area has always been my department. Kelsey knows how type-A I am. I love crunching numbers. I’ve built countless tools for the sales people at my company to utilize for tracking their pay. I  can tell you with precision when every bill we have (from the mortgage, to Spotify) will go through and from who’s bank account.

So with that in mind, I felt like getting Kelsey’s permission to talk about the big elephants in the room when it comes to weddings. Budgeting, making memories, deciding what will be worth it, Is It Worth It, and so many more questions are going to get answered over the next few weeks, and I hope you will stay tuned so I can share with you my perspective on one of the most special days of your life.