Off to Budapest

I wanted to thank everyone who wrote encouraging emails to me yesterday. From my old mentee to my old mentor at Target there were a lot of people that were A) Surprised I had a blog B) Excited for my trip and C) Wanted to see pictures and hear updates on the trip. I am very excited for the trip and as long as I get Internet access in Eastern Europe I will be posting thoughts and pictures along the way.

I have my passport, 3 books (Moneyball, A Season on The Brink, Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe), plenty of magazines, shirts, socks, shoes, a jacket, a sweatshirt, sweaters, a tux, and more than what I thought could fit in my largest piece of luggage. It is definitely a lot more difficult packing for a vacation in the winter than in the summer. Also, for those of you that don't know I am taking the tux because I will be a bridseman in the wedding party. I am excited to be in my first (and possibly only) wedding party.

Now, for some people when I mention that it is a mixed wedding party are a little bit confused. Traditional wedding culture has it that the groom can only have males on his side and the bride can only have females. I can't find the article that I read in the New York Times about 2 years ago, but I think it stated that 10% of all wedding parties now are mixed. If anyone can find that or another statistic on the % of mixed wedding parties then that would be appreciated. Anyway, some people are very traditional especially when it comes to weddings and do not like the idea of the mixed wedding party. I am not as traditional and think it is great that Nicholas and Nancy have agreed on the mixed wedding party.

Speaking of statistics I did find the below website on wedding statistics that I thought was very interesting:

http://www.aweddingministers.com/wedding/statistics.htm

Some things I thought were interesting:

• The Wedding Industry is a$50 billion dollar industry or basically the size of Target.
• $22K is the average cost of wedding and $4K is the average cost of honeymoon. If you take into account the average wedding couple is only making a combined $60K a year before taxes then one could see wedding couples that don't come from affluent families being forced to a diet of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a year or two to pay for the wedding/honeymoon.
• 60% of brides will change their surname. (Props to my sister)
• More money is spent on the flowers or music then on the rehearsal dinner. Personally I think the rehearsal dinner is one of the best parts of the wedding weekend.
• Under most popular activities 10% said Golf/Sports vacations. I could definitely see a baseball roadtrip as a great honeymoon possibility.

Anyway, check out the site if you have time and/or interested. I am off to work before leaving Minneapolis at 7:30pm on a flight that goes through Chicago and London before touching down in Budapest at 5:30pm on Saturday.