Below is a note we received from one of our readers.

So I’m getting married very soon and I did not realize how much goes into a South Asian wedding. There is so much to cover. I’m not too much of a procrastinator, but I’m finding myself with more to do with less time! Everything is manageable, but to me (26 year old male), a lot of these things that need to be done are very much overkill… I understand that it’s important to my fiancé and our parents, but is it worth breaking the bank over?
Outside of everything else, why do we (our community) feel the need to invite the entire world to our weddings? My parents and my fiancés parents both want to invite old friends that we probably haven’t seen in ages! I understand the idea that our parents came here with nothing and they relied on each other to survive in America, but after their children get married, it looks like they’ll be back to nothing again! I hope they can rally together and start from scratch again!
For the people that recently got married or soon to be married or even if you’ve been married for years, any comments or advice that you’d like to share?

Sincerely,
Engaged and Confused

Dear Engaged and Confused,
Let me assure you that you are not the only one to have had this problem. In fact, I don’t know of anyone that has not had this problem. Wedding planning is always a stressful experience, but remember the greater picture at hand. The wedding will come and go, but the marriage will last forever. You should be spending more time planning your marriage than your actual wedding. With that in mind, try not to forget where your parents are coming from. In the South Asian culture, weddings are the highlight of many parents’ lives. They want everyone to take part in their happiness. But, there needs to be a balance. You and your fiancé need to make a compromise with the parents and come to an agreement that will make both of you happy. Both sides will probably not be 100% happy, but that is better than one party being more than the other. We wish your families the best of luck and hopefully any insights provided here will be helpful.

I don’t know about you, but I am ready for Texas to redesign their license plates.  The current ‘NASA’ look is not really that appealing.  In January of 2009, Texas will introduce new license plates, and it is up to us which design they use.  You can vote for your favorite plate design at the TxDot website.  There are five designs you can choose from in total: 4 new ones and the current one.  Voting ends at noon on Monday, Feb. 11, so vote early and vote often!

Click here to vote!

Super Bowl 42 turned out to be one the most exciting championship games of recent times. The New York Giants came up with a major upset and defeated the New England Patriots 17 – 14. The game itself was unexpectedly close and low scoring; a very old school defensive battle. The Giants defense did a fantastic job disrupting Tom Brady and the Patriots offense.

I am sure the 1972 Miami Dolphins are sleeping more peacefully now knowing that they are still the last undefeated team. It is hard to believe that the Pats went 18-0, and lost the very last one that counted the most. It shows that going undefeated in the NFL is not such an easy task.

Best play of the game: Less than a minute to go in the fourth quarter, Eli Manning miraculously breaks free from what looks like a definite sack, and connects a 32 yard pass to David Tyree, who also makes an incredible play and catches the ball over his head and between two defenders. Giants score the winning touchdown a few plays later.

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What would the world do if there was no Internet for a day?  I know that is a very scary thought, but became a reality for millions of people.  We are not talking about the local DSL/Cable lines having problems; we are talking about lines that affect not only cities or countries, but continents!  There was an Internet failure in much of Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa on Thursday.  Two undersea cables were inadvertently damaged by a ship’s anchor.  What are the odds of that?

India, Pakistan, and many parts of the Middle East were affected by the failure.  This event reminded me of the days before the World Wide Web.  Even though the Internet has only been a common place within the past 10 - 15 years, it is hard to remember how anything was done before that.  Work, school, and social life were totally different.

So I pose this question to you:  What did you do before the Internet?

One answer:  Doing research was totally different.  I still remember reading through different volumes of the encyclopedia Britannica just to find the information I needed.  We did not have our own set, so we always went to a friend’s house or library.  Now I can get everything I need without ever leaving the house.  Thank goodness for Google.