Took a friend’s eight-year-old with me on my first personal wedding dress shopping trip earlier this spring. Not a fun experience under the best of conditions; this is, after all, only one part of an $86 billion dollar-a-year industry whose sole purpose is to part hopeless romantics from an average of $27,800 for what is essentially a one-night party. Going with a “post-princess phase” little girl is the perfect remedy to the usual gleeful squeals and tears. The best part of the day was when I showed her the price tag from the dress that she liked most of all. Now, if any of you have or know younger children, you know that most of them have a skewed sense of finances. $10 is a chunk of change. $100? Holy moley. Ask them to guess your annual salary and you’ll get a response of either a confident “TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS” or a shy “maybe a million?” Watching E’s eyes grow wide as she wrapped her head around $2,000 for a dress was like watching a parent look at their college student’s first semester tuition bill. Inconceivable! “That’s CRAZY,” she said. “Who would spend that much money on something they’ll only wear once? Stupid people.” (Ed. note: Wedding industry, good luck with this one.) “I mean, you could do SO MANY THINGS with that money, like buy a house!” (See “skewed sense of finances” above.) So I asked her to write a list of what a smart person would do with $2,000; here are the top five: 1) Save it 2) Buy food 3) Tack a vaction [sic] 4) Buy some plants 5) Buy a pet and pet food. Save it. Seriously, America, pay attention. Forget being smarter than a 5th grader. You just got trumped by an EIGHT-year-old. (Yes, she wrote it on my parking ticket. Whatever. I was trumped eons ago.)

Took a friend’s eight-year-old with me on my first personal wedding dress shopping trip earlier this spring. Not a fun experience under the best of conditions; this is, after all, only one part of an $86 billion dollar-a-year industry whose sole purpose is to part hopeless romantics from an average of $27,800 for what is essentially a one-night party.

Going with a “post-princess phase” little girl is the perfect remedy to the usual gleeful squeals and tears. The best part of the day was when I showed her the price tag from the dress that she liked most of all. Now, if any of you have or know younger children, you know that most of them have a skewed sense of finances. $10 is a chunk of change. $100? Holy moley. Ask them to guess your annual salary and you’ll get a response of either a confident “TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS” or a shy “maybe a million?” Watching E’s eyes grow wide as she wrapped her head around $2,000 for a dress was like watching a parent look at their college student’s first semester tuition bill. Inconceivable!

“That’s CRAZY,” she said. “Who would spend that much money on something they’ll only wear once? Stupid people.” (Ed. note: Wedding industry, good luck with this one.) “I mean, you could do SO MANY THINGS with that money, like buy a house!” (See “skewed sense of finances” above.) So I asked her to write a list of what a smart person would do with $2,000; here are the top five:

1) Save it

2) Buy food

3) Tack a vaction [sic]

4) Buy some plants

5) Buy a pet and pet food.

Save it. Seriously, America, pay attention. Forget being smarter than a 5th grader. You just got trumped by an EIGHT-year-old.

(Yes, she wrote it on my parking ticket. Whatever. I was trumped eons ago.)