For those that haven’t been following, I’m getting married next year. Today we are heading out to Macy’s to set up our wedding registry. There’s only one small problem. We have no clue what to register for. When we met, we each owned our own condos and getting to a point where we could get our stuff into one was still is a great task.

A lot of people register for silverware or fine china. I had got some nice silver on a Friday sale at Amazon though, and we both deem fine china as a waste of money. We’ll end up breaking it or never using it. There are other things we could “upgrade”, but most of what we have now suits or surpasses or needs. Most of the things that couples typically register just don’t seem to work for us. We rent now (our investment properties are back east), so most of the home improvement stuff that we were originally thinking of getting doesn’t make as much sense.
Over the past 6 months we’ve come up with some sundry items that we could use, but I’m not sure it’s enough. So we could use a little help. Any ideas?

Hopefully you’ll have read Part 1 – The Ring before now. If you haven’t and are a little lazy to click, here’s the executive summary: I’m getting married. I saved some money along the way. I explained how one can save 50% or more in buying the ring and what to look for in buying a diamond.

In part two, we’ll cover what can be the largest cost of any wedding, the reception. This is especially true for me. The odds were stacked against me having a cheap wedding from the beginning. I’ve got 200 mouths to feed. My friends have had 30-60K weddings with the help of their wealthy parents. By passing expectations on the ring, it put us in a place where we really need to step up and have something great.

The solution for me was Uncle Sam. I know it won’t help many people, but my fiancé has military connections. That means we have access to tax-free weddings on nearly any (I think) military base. For those that don’t know, state taxes can add another 5% onto everything. I know it doesn’t seem like a big savings, but it adds up quickly on such a big outlay of cash. I also found that the prices on the military base are a little better than a typical hotel. I know some of you are wondering about the quality of the venue. We were able to get the Navy base in scenic Newport, Rhode Island. This is home to numerous mansions that belonged to generations of some of the most wealthy people in the US (think Vandervilts and Rockefellers here). The Officer’s Club at the Navy base has arguably the best view of all of Newport with the Pell Bridge in the background.

So with a little looking and the right connections, you can get a lot more for less money.

After reading about 2 Million’s engagement, I was taken back to my own engagement a year ago. From a money point of view that typically means finding the right ring. For the average man this is an extremely difficult chore. Not only do we know little about such things, but there’s a ton of pressure to get this right.

For many people, step one would be to go to a few of the higher end jewelers and do some investigating of what you can get for your money. Depending on your income this could mean Tiffany’s or, if you are in Boston as I am, a slightly less brand like Long’s. I skipped a lot of this and went straight to the Jewelry Exchange. This is a national chain, but, at least in Boston, it’s where everyone says to go because they “guarentee your diamond will appraise for double.” That sounds good, but it doesn’t apply to rings over $2,000 or some low number. Still the marketing works.

The key part of this step though is to get a lot of hands on experience. You want to get an idea of what a carat looks like, the difference between a shade or two of color, the irregularities present in the various clarities. You may want to look at a couple of different stores until you feel comfortable with the range you are looking for. I found that I was willing to go as far as I color, and S1 clarity to get something with significant carat weight to it. My girlfriend confirmed that I did well on this as she couldn’t tell the difference in color or clarity unless she had a second diamond to put it next to. And the fact that it was a half carat bigger than she dreamed it would be had her questioning if it was real.

So how did I get such a diamond and stay on budget? Well the Jewelry Exchange wanted almost 10K for one that was of lesser color and slightly smaller than the one I finally bought for just over 6K. To do what I did, get yourself to Price Scope. Price Scope has three unique features that will help you. 1) It’s got a great message board. Register and ask questions. 2) It’s got a great cut search. Learn your diamond cuts. Most everyone agrees that cut is up there with size in importance. It will give the diamond it’s glow. 3) It’s got a search engine of lots of discount Internet retailers. Most of them are very reputable, but it’s worth using the message boards just to make sure.

I ended up going with Abazias for mine and when I had it appraised (a must) the appraiser guessed all the grades dead on and showed me how great the cut is. He then predicted that I paid at least 7.5K on the Internet. I showed him that I didn’t and he went straight to his feed of wholesale diamonds on the NY diamond exchange. He said that no one was selling a diamond near what I paid.

The last step was to get the setting and get it set. For that, I went back to the Jewelry Exchange. It was worth it to me to pay a little extra on the setting to get it set, have it cleaned, and build the relationship with the local jeweler.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

I was best man at a wedding recently, so that’s why you haven’t been reading much about me the last few days. Public speaking is not exactly my thing and giving a toast is doesn’t get more public than that.

The wedding itself was less than 25 people and kept to a budget of $1500 if I had to guess. It was actually the perfect day (except for yet another day of the rain in Boston.) I was quite jealous that my fiancee and I are going to have 175-200 people at a cost of 12-15 times that. We are getting some help from our parents, but we will still foot most of it by ourselves by the time we are done.