Speaker 1: Wedding culture these days is trash.
Speaker 2: That's a fact.
Speaker 3: I'm just happy that we already marry baby because listen, hmmm,
Speaker 3: twenty seven year old Kadeen and thirty cent year old
Speaker 3: Kadeen's ideas.
Speaker 2: Are very very different.
Speaker 1: Dead ass, dead ass, y'all.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm Kadeen.
Speaker 1: And I'm Devout, and we're the Ellis's. You may know
Speaker 1: us from posting funny videos with our.
Speaker 2: Voys and reading each other publicly as a form of therpy.
Speaker 1: Wait, I make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Speaker 2: Oh, and one more important thing to mention, we're married.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, we are. We created this podcast to open
Speaker 1: dialogue about some of li's most taboo topics, things.
Speaker 2: Most folks don't want to talk about.
Speaker 1: Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass
Speaker 1: is a term that we say every day. So when
Speaker 1: we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts one hundred,
Speaker 1: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Speaker 1: We about to take philos off to our whole new level.
Speaker 2: Dead ass starts right now.
Speaker 1: You guys know our wedding story already, so I'm not
Speaker 1: even gonna bow y'all with our wedding store and everything
Speaker 1: we've gone through. But I'm going to tell you a
Speaker 1: combination of three particular wedding stories that all have the
Speaker 1: same outcome. Okay, okay. It's three young men who I
Speaker 1: even either went to college with, mentored or grew up
Speaker 1: with all different backgrounds. I mean, well, they're all black,
Speaker 1: but one became a professional athlete, one was in college,
Speaker 1: and one worked. You know, I'll say, mta, you know
Speaker 1: he's nine to five er right. They all meet beautiful women,
Speaker 1: love this woman. They date for years. Everything's going well.
Speaker 1: Women is very smart. All of the women that they
Speaker 1: were dating were smart, had their own things in their
Speaker 1: own right. They were all both parties doing well. The
Speaker 1: men decide, I think I want to make this woman
Speaker 1: my wife, so they propose. Women are excited. Boom, Now
Speaker 1: it's time to start planning the wedding. They start planning
Speaker 1: the wedding. All three women have very different ideas of
Speaker 1: what this wedding is going to look like than all
Speaker 1: three men. Through the process over a couple of months,
Speaker 1: and one couple in particular pushed their wedding back a
Speaker 1: year because they couldn't agree on terms and what the
Speaker 1: wedding looked like. Long story short, all three love stories
Speaker 1: dissolved because all three couples couldn't agree on what their
Speaker 1: wedding was going to look like and the fiscal responsibility
Speaker 1: behind who was going to pay for said.
Speaker 2: Wedding, so they canned the entire marriage.
Speaker 1: All three couples did not get married.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And it was all about the culture of weddings, who
Speaker 1: was gonna pay for what right, and what it was
Speaker 1: gonna look like and what it was gonna look like.
Speaker 1: And let's break this down. Baby, I have.
Speaker 2: Some thoughts say the same, same, same thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's so many songs when you think about
Speaker 3: just weddings, like first dances, things like Edda James, what's
Speaker 3: that song again?
Speaker 1: At last that was a wedding song.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's been like one of those. And
Speaker 3: there was also John Legends song.
Speaker 1: All Me let me talking about I think of John Legend.
Speaker 1: I be thinking we're just ordinary people. We don't know
Speaker 1: which way to go every time. It not matter what
Speaker 1: song he's singing. I'm thinking ordinary.
Speaker 3: And there's also baby It's you the.
Speaker 2: Way, the way same.
Speaker 3: So there's a ton of them. But what do you
Speaker 3: want to see today? I mean, I guess we're giving
Speaker 3: you all over to carry out samples.
Speaker 1: Once I say this beat, you're gonna know it. Boom
Speaker 1: boom boom.
Speaker 2: This is the remix. Mm hmmm, meet me at the altar.
Speaker 2: Yoo wie. We get no youngers, we might as well
Speaker 2: do this. We might as do it, do it or
Speaker 2: not do it? According to today.
Speaker 1: Yes, might as well do it and not do it.
Speaker 3: We're talking about the new standards for wedding planning and
Speaker 3: what that looks like. We have so many couples that
Speaker 3: you know, are younger and they're you know, looking to
Speaker 3: us for some sort of advice and tips and tricks
Speaker 3: and all that good stuff. And let me tell y'all, baby,
Speaker 3: I cannot envy the situation that y'all are in right
Speaker 3: now trying to plan these weddings Instagram. All right, so
Speaker 3: we're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna pay some bills, yes,
Speaker 3: because you gotta hold some money after the wedding to
Speaker 3: pay bails. And then we're gonna come back and we're
Speaker 3: gonna dive back into story time and talk more about
Speaker 3: these new standards of wedding planning.
Speaker 2: Stick around, y'all.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're back, all right, we're back.
Speaker 3: So you know what I got from your story time,
Speaker 3: which I think was the positive.
Speaker 2: In all of this.
Speaker 3: Each couple learned early on that they may not have
Speaker 3: been on the same page from a financial perspective if
Speaker 3: they wanted to start a wedding in some sort of
Speaker 3: financial deficit ever debt. So at least they got that
Speaker 3: out of the way early on in the relationship where
Speaker 3: they realize, you know what, we just may not be
Speaker 3: on the same accord in general with how we want
Speaker 3: to live our life starting. So let's just nip the
Speaker 3: shit in the bud now and get it over with
Speaker 3: because it's gonna save us a lot of heartache in
Speaker 3: the future, because who knows what other things, other ventures,
Speaker 3: other business ventures that would require them to be on
Speaker 3: the same page about finances and what's one of the
Speaker 3: number one causes for divorce financial issues in relationships is
Speaker 3: financial issues issues.
Speaker 1: But I am still kind of heartbroken because these three couples,
Speaker 1: you could tell they loved each other and they had
Speaker 1: love for each other, And what bothered me the most
Speaker 1: was that they didn't even really they didn't get a
Speaker 1: chance to get to the marriage and learn how to
Speaker 1: work through it because they just couldn't agree on the wedding.
Speaker 1: And what people don't realize is the wedding is just
Speaker 1: one day, you know what I'm saying, And it's just
Speaker 1: like you sacrifice, possibly you're happily ever after because you
Speaker 1: couldn't agree on the semantics of one day. And that's
Speaker 1: what I really want to talk about today. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the semantics of everything. For example, social
Speaker 1: media has made super luxurious weddings seem like the standard, right,
Speaker 1: but national averages may shock you into a more realistic
Speaker 1: budget for your wedding. And I think that that's important
Speaker 1: for people to realize because we often talk about how
Speaker 1: social media has skewed so many realities for people.
Speaker 2: That is a fact.
Speaker 3: When Triple told me the average, the national average for weddings,
Speaker 3: I was shocked, because you think about it, And in
Speaker 3: talking to the crew about this as we were prepping
Speaker 3: for the show, talking to Josh and Matt specifically, who
Speaker 3: have shot weddings for years, those weddings that cost around
Speaker 3: the national average don't even make it to social media
Speaker 3: because they're not necessarily deemed as that aspirational lifestyle, that
Speaker 3: aspirational wedding that people want to achieve, like, it's not
Speaker 3: going to be an instagrammable moment if you're within that
Speaker 3: national average.
Speaker 2: So numbers, so you.
Speaker 1: Bring the numbers. I want to also point out, of
Speaker 1: all three weddings I spoke about, I don't want it
Speaker 1: to I want people to think that I'm saying all
Speaker 1: of the women want to spend money. The one person
Speaker 1: I talk about who works for quote unquote MTA or
Speaker 1: school teacher. I don't want to give it out because
Speaker 1: some of you y'all know my family and friends, so
Speaker 1: I don't want to say things that people are two
Speaker 1: and two together. But he wanted to spend more money
Speaker 1: on the wedding and she was like, absolutely not. She
Speaker 1: was like, this is just not the responsible things to do.
Speaker 1: And in his mind he was just like, but this
Speaker 1: is what I want to put on for my people,
Speaker 1: and this is what I want to do, And in
Speaker 1: her mind she was just like, well, if that's how
Speaker 1: you want to live your life, I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is going to be good for us long term.
Speaker 1: So it's not always a man woman thing is sometimes
Speaker 1: it's just a personality thing. But in that situation, he
Speaker 1: ended up losing. And I'm not going to say he
Speaker 1: lost his part because they walked away amicably. They was like, listen,
Speaker 1: if we can't agree on this, then we're not moving forward.
Speaker 1: But oftentimes it's the stigma that women want to spend
Speaker 1: money for sure, And even I had to be honest
Speaker 1: with myself and say, when we were planning our wedding, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was upset and I projected on you that you
Speaker 1: wanted to have this big wedding, But it was also
Speaker 1: my ego because my friends were playing in the NFL
Speaker 1: and gave their wives platinum weddings that I wanted to
Speaker 1: be able to do the same thing. And I didn't
Speaker 1: lose my wife because I was able to put on
Speaker 1: a huge wedding for you. But then I was also
Speaker 1: very upset afterwards because I didn't put myself in a
Speaker 1: position to be able to provide afterwards. So I just
Speaker 1: wanted to put that out there that it's not always
Speaker 1: just the wife want to spend money and a husband's
Speaker 1: trying to be fiscally responsible. No. In that case, right there,
Speaker 1: dude was trying to stunt and Shorty was like, nah, bro, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that.
Speaker 2: In a wedding for me. And even before social media media,
Speaker 2: there was.
Speaker 3: A show called wedding, and that's what got wedding, is
Speaker 3: it anyway? And that's I think when the culture took
Speaker 3: a turn.
Speaker 1: It shifted after that.
Speaker 3: Sure, it's like, okay, we're going to have to make
Speaker 3: these over the top elaborate wedding days a thing and
Speaker 3: people trying to keep up with that. Weddings in the
Speaker 3: United States and Canada are were once based out of
Speaker 3: commodity rather than desire or love. The word wedding implied
Speaker 3: the security of the groom's family provided, or the security
Speaker 3: rather that the groom families provided to the family of
Speaker 3: the bride when the couple got married. And originally, if
Speaker 3: the bride's family was poor or her father didn't approve
Speaker 3: of the marriage, bridal showers were thrown to provide the
Speaker 3: bride with gifts when she was unable to provide dowry
Speaker 3: for her marriage.
Speaker 1: And that that's wedding history in the United States or Canada, right.
Speaker 1: And the reason why we're just saying United States or
Speaker 1: Canada because we live in the United States and that's
Speaker 1: the culture I'm speaking of. Of course, there's so many
Speaker 1: other cultures and ideas of what weddings were.
Speaker 3: Culture's religions that had their own set traditions.
Speaker 1: Right, but weddings were financial commodity, Like people got married
Speaker 1: for specific reasons at that time. It wasn't just based
Speaker 1: on love. And also it's clear, to make it very
Speaker 1: let's make it very clear, it was never on the
Speaker 1: bride and groom to provide an experience for everyone else
Speaker 1: to share their love. That's that's the new thing. That's
Speaker 1: the new thing. And I knew. I mean the last
Speaker 1: twenty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, I mean twenty years absolutely.
Speaker 3: I mean I'm in the thick of starting the wedding
Speaker 3: planning process with my sister, being of support to her,
Speaker 3: and you know, I get it because I'm conflicted in
Speaker 3: that I understand who Kadeen was at twenty seven, you know,
Speaker 3: desiring certain things that I've seen, you know, the culture
Speaker 3: of weddings and what it looked like for me at
Speaker 3: that time. So I understand that portion of it and
Speaker 3: wanting to have that. But then Kadeen trying to be
Speaker 3: wise sister, you know, ten years her senior, is like
Speaker 3: girl like, there's so many other ways to do it,
Speaker 3: to make it a romantic, memorable situation that's centered around
Speaker 3: you and your fiance. And not necessarily around the crowds
Speaker 3: of people who just want to come and party for
Speaker 3: a day with open bar, you know so.
Speaker 1: But also we did things our way. We didn't do
Speaker 1: the most financially.
Speaker 2: That's a fact.
Speaker 1: Responsible thing, that's a fact, and we're doing fine now.
Speaker 1: But a lot of this conversation is to just give you, guys,
Speaker 1: insight of what we went through. I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: a disclaimer right now. If you and your significant other
Speaker 1: one to be fiscally irresponsible and throw a huge party
Speaker 1: for one day, do it the same way we did it,
Speaker 1: and be invested in.
Speaker 2: The spation after the sufferation.
Speaker 1: Be invested in the sufferation, but also the time is
Speaker 1: going to take to build back Sadeena and I were
Speaker 1: invested in that. Even though at times we didn't like it,
Speaker 1: we still loved on each other and that adversity that
Speaker 1: it created built the foundation for us that's extremely strong
Speaker 1: and solid now. So we're not at all saying if
Speaker 1: you do this, you're stupid and you'll never survive. No,
Speaker 1: Kandina and I did it.
Speaker 3: We wanted a big gas party. It was fabulous, it
Speaker 3: was amazing. We had a great time. Did we talk
Speaker 3: to of those people still no, and in a large
Speaker 3: portion of them we didn't even speak to at that time.
Speaker 2: But again, it's trying to, you know, include everyone.
Speaker 3: We were the first pretty much in our families to
Speaker 3: get married, so it's like, oh, mom, dad, grandma, we
Speaker 3: want to please everyone. And then we learned quickly that
Speaker 3: that was not necessarily the wisest thing. Let's jump into
Speaker 3: some facts and stats. Baby, you want to tell them
Speaker 3: about these numbers. What is this national average looking like
Speaker 3: for wedding saturdays? Because I was shocked by this number.
Speaker 3: I thought the standard was definitely way higher than it is.
Speaker 1: This is going to shock some people. But if you're engaged,
Speaker 1: or you're looking to get engaged, or you're thinking about
Speaker 1: planning a wedding right now, just listen to these things. Brides.
Speaker 1: American wedding studies showed that the average couple spends three
Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty six dollars on an engagement ring
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. The average cost of a wedding in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three is expected to be twenty nine thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: up from twenty eight and twenty twenty two, according to
Speaker 1: wedding planning platform Zola A survey of vendors found seventy
Speaker 1: seven percent are raising their prices this year because of inflation.
Speaker 1: The average budget for a destination wedding is around thirty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars. According to Brides Wedding guests spend around
Speaker 1: seven hundred and seventy six dollars for a wedding day.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: The statistic also includes I wonder who they who? They
Speaker 1: surveyed for this. The statistic also includes the guests who traveled.
Speaker 1: The average cost of a wedding dress in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: was one thousand, six hundred dollars. Brides who tie the
Speaker 1: knot will spend between five hundred to four thousand dollars
Speaker 1: on a wedding dress. Now, I will say this, these
Speaker 1: are national averages, but these are not the weddings you
Speaker 1: see on Instagram. No, And that is why when people
Speaker 1: get married, they always end up shooting for the stars,
Speaker 1: because the only weddings we see are the highlight weddings
Speaker 1: from these magazines that cost one hundred to one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars minimum, minimum minimum, y'all.
Speaker 2: And it also depends on the number of guests you have.
Speaker 3: Now, I didn't even think about what wedding guests spend
Speaker 3: to attend a wedding. So of course with destination weddings,
Speaker 3: you're going to be planning to your airfare, your hotel
Speaker 3: and all of that. So in traveling to someone's destination
Speaker 3: for their wedding, a lot of people are like, baby,
Speaker 3: my presence is a present. So what you're not about
Speaker 3: to get is a card with no money in it,
Speaker 3: because just for me to get here to celebrate you
Speaker 3: is costing me. Some people want to wrap it up
Speaker 3: in a vacation and okay, I'll just take my vacation
Speaker 3: and make it two in one thing. But you can't
Speaker 3: count on necessarily recouping some of that money from people
Speaker 3: bringing gifts to a wedding. And then you think about
Speaker 3: being a guest. If you're not traveling, for example, destination,
Speaker 3: just attending a wedding, you want to get addressed, you
Speaker 3: got to get a suit, you want to give a
Speaker 3: gift traveling to the wedding, maybe doing here in makeup,
Speaker 3: Like who knows what that looks like for people just
Speaker 3: coming to attend a wedding. So that's also putting other
Speaker 3: people into some sort of financial situation just to be
Speaker 3: in attendance, and I know me, I'm like, listen, if
Speaker 3: I'm not within the parameters financially to attend a wedding
Speaker 3: and give a nice gift to.
Speaker 2: Cover at least my plate, my husband's plate.
Speaker 3: If we're coming as a couple, then I'm usually willing
Speaker 3: to buy out of situations that I know I cannot
Speaker 3: be in a position to, you know, absolutely give my share.
Speaker 2: But not everybody thinks that way. They're just like, well,
Speaker 2: you invited me.
Speaker 3: I don't got it like that, but I'm gonna come
Speaker 3: because I'm a wanting to support because they genuinely may
Speaker 3: love the couple but just don't have the resources to
Speaker 3: be able to gift them anything, or just saying, man,
Speaker 3: i'm coming to look for a good time, I'm going
Speaker 3: to go party. So I feel like that's the mindset
Speaker 3: with a lot of people attending weddings nowadays too.
Speaker 1: So let me ask a question. And I'm looking this
Speaker 1: up right now. Okay, remember your sister sent me what
Speaker 1: your mom sent her about the average for weddings, and
Speaker 1: it was about one hundred and fifty thousand. Did Sokari
Speaker 1: send THATX, I'm going I'm not sure she sent it
Speaker 1: to or did she show us on the phone. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: ultimately it was a breakdown of how much it would
Speaker 1: cost to have one hundred and seventy five people get
Speaker 1: married in New York and what.
Speaker 2: One hundred and seventy five people attending a wedding.
Speaker 1: Attending a wedding like you if you didn't have a
Speaker 1: wedding and have at least one hundred and seventy five people. Yes,
Speaker 1: the breakdown was about one hundred and fifty k. And
Speaker 1: they broke down how much photography caused entertainment per plate.
Speaker 3: Then you chairs and everything, and a lot of these
Speaker 3: things weren't astronomical. These were vendors getting their due, yes,
Speaker 3: market value for the service that they offer. So this
Speaker 3: wasn't even like astronomical things. These are basics. Yes, And
Speaker 3: by the time everything was talent, it was about one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousands.
Speaker 1: It was about a hundred ff thousands. But I also
Speaker 1: want I also want to be clear that when you
Speaker 1: look at what the standard quote unquote is based on
Speaker 1: what you look at through social media, that's what you're
Speaker 1: going to get, even though that's not quote unquote the standard,
Speaker 1: because you don't have to spend one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. And I want to make a statement here
Speaker 1: because there was a young lady when we were in Houston.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure some of you listened to the live show,
Speaker 1: and she asked, if you have Patreon, you could have
Speaker 1: watched it the whole thing. But if you watch the
Speaker 1: live show or listen to it, the young lady asked
Speaker 1: about she was twenty five. She said she had been
Speaker 1: with her boyfriend since she was fifteen. They have a
Speaker 1: son together, and she wanted to get engaged. And she said,
Speaker 1: you know, asking us if he doesn't propose this year,
Speaker 1: should I give him ultimatum like, yo, you have to
Speaker 1: propose this year or I'm leaving.
Speaker 2: And he was in the audience.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, that was the second one. The first
Speaker 1: one was in Houston. He wasn't there. He wasn't You're right,
Speaker 1: And my biggest thing was I don't think a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and I'm going to say people, not just brides,
Speaker 1: because even even men do this at times. Consider what
Speaker 1: life is going to be like after the wedding. Right,
Speaker 1: So here it is you like, I can put together
Speaker 1: all this money, I can find a way to give
Speaker 1: myself this huge party and do this for my girl,
Speaker 1: or I can do this for my husband and we
Speaker 1: can do all this stuff together. You spend all that money,
Speaker 1: but after the wedding is done, you are now responsible
Speaker 1: to be married. Right, And I want to be very clear.
Speaker 1: You listen to the histories of weddings. Weddings were a commodity.
Speaker 1: Weddings were a way to build something financial for the
Speaker 1: bride and groom so that they can walk into marriage
Speaker 1: with something with a neestdai right. Traditionally, it was the
Speaker 1: bride's family paid for the wedding, the dad's family gave
Speaker 1: a down payment for the home, whatever money they made
Speaker 1: from the wedding. If you had three hundred people at
Speaker 1: your wedding and everybody gave let's say two hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: you walk away with sixty k. Right. So now your parents,
Speaker 1: through your party, the other parents, the father's parents, I
Speaker 1: mean the husband's parents gave your down payment for a home,
Speaker 1: and now you're walking in with sixty thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: your bank account. Because if you want to have children,
Speaker 1: now you have a nest stake to start this with.
Speaker 1: That's what weddings were supposed to be for this is
Speaker 1: why I say wedding culture is trash. Now wedding culture,
Speaker 1: I mean, weddings now are it's expected that the bride
Speaker 1: and the groom, especially in American culture, are supposed to
Speaker 1: pay for everyone else to enjoy their love story. Make
Speaker 1: that make sense? When did the shift happen where everyone
Speaker 1: else who was invested in our love story came with
Speaker 1: gifts and provided us with a party, so everyone else
Speaker 1: celebrated the bride and groom and gave them something. Now
Speaker 1: it's the bride and groom has to give you something.
Speaker 1: And the reason why I say that is because when
Speaker 1: we listen to our friends, the biggest thing they say
Speaker 1: is I'm afraid if I don't invite these people, or
Speaker 1: if I don't spend this amount of if I don't
Speaker 1: have this, they will be disappointed. I'm like, it's your
Speaker 1: why do you care if they disappoint it?
Speaker 3: But also too, you can't go into a wedding nowadays,
Speaker 3: at least, like you're saying to your point with the
Speaker 3: culture expecting to recoup anything, because people are going to think, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm attending this wedding for X y Z. They got
Speaker 3: it or did they have to do this elaborate wedding.
Speaker 3: They clearly got it because they did it not expecting
Speaker 3: anything in return or expecting to have to give a value,
Speaker 3: whereas with us, for example, I'll look up a venue
Speaker 3: that I'm going to for a wedding and be like, oh, this,
Speaker 3: this venue is a beautiful venue. They're probably going to
Speaker 3: average two hundred per person. So we're going as a couple,
Speaker 3: we're going to at least cover our head.
Speaker 2: And so I'm a cover the head. I'm going to.
Speaker 3: Research the venue. I'm going to see how much it
Speaker 3: is per head, estimate cover at the very bare minimum
Speaker 3: each head. So that's too valini, and then giving an
Speaker 3: addition to that extra And.
Speaker 1: When I tell you my wife is good at giving head,
Speaker 1: I mean covering her head. You knew I wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: let that, you know I wasn't, But no, she literally
Speaker 1: does this. She's like, who's getting married? Where we're going?
Speaker 2: I'll tell her.
Speaker 1: She'll look at us. She's like, oh, okay, so this
Speaker 1: and then we're going to give a gift, right for sure.
Speaker 1: And I think that that part of wedding culture is lost, right,
Speaker 1: Like no one thinks about oh if I'm a guest
Speaker 1: at a wedding, I should give a gift if I'm
Speaker 1: going to invest.
Speaker 2: It's not protocol or etiquette for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: They don't realize it.
Speaker 3: When we got married, there was a lot of family members,
Speaker 3: and I mean like close family members that literally had
Speaker 3: no idea that that's how it worked. They were like, Oh,
Speaker 3: we're going to a wedding. Cool, I'm gonna go to
Speaker 3: the bridle shower. I'm gonna give to some lingerie. That's
Speaker 3: what I've heard people do. And I'm gonna show up
Speaker 3: at the wedding because my presence is the present, y'all.
Speaker 1: I came to a wedding. I supported you.
Speaker 2: I supported you or I grew you up to be
Speaker 2: who you are today. So that was my gift.
Speaker 1: Like, hey, let me tell you something right now. If
Speaker 1: I got married again, you know what I would do.
Speaker 1: I would sell tickets to my wedding on everything, on everything.
Speaker 2: I tried, God put it on evite.
Speaker 1: You put on Evite and be like listen or event bright?
Speaker 1: Is that what it is?
Speaker 2: Bright?
Speaker 1: If you plan to attend the nuptials between Daval and Kadeen,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm going to put in the cost
Speaker 1: per ticket is and I'm gonna give a breakdown of
Speaker 1: what you're getting. You're getting a five course meal, you're
Speaker 1: getting cocktail. I this the course per ticket is at
Speaker 1: least four hundred dollars. You know why I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: that because now you see who's really invested in your
Speaker 1: love story. If people know they got to pay to
Speaker 1: come and they don't really rock with you, they're not
Speaker 1: gonna come. But now you don't got to pay for
Speaker 1: their food.
Speaker 3: So Javal and I did something very non traditional for
Speaker 3: one of our baby showers. Yes, yes, when we were
Speaker 3: pregnant with Cairo, right, we were throwing a gender reveal party,
Speaker 3: and we felt like, you know, gender reveal party, baby shower,
Speaker 3: Let's do one big celebration in one. Because at this
Speaker 3: point I was already like seven months pregnant, we were
Speaker 3: waiting to find out what the baby was. We said,
Speaker 3: instead of doing a baby shower that was specific to
Speaker 3: an agender, let's just make it one big reveal.
Speaker 2: So we ended up doing just that. It was like
Speaker 2: seventy five dollars a pop. Come to the gender reveal,
Speaker 2: don't bring a gift, don't bring a gift. Don't bring
Speaker 2: a gift. If anything that will be your contribution towards the.
Speaker 3: Baby and towards We had open bar for two hours
Speaker 3: open bar, we had food, DJ, entertainment, all that decor.
Speaker 3: Everything was done. And we got some backlash from a
Speaker 3: couple people, you know, through the grape viound we heard
Speaker 3: about people like, oh, people selling tickets the baby showers. Now,
Speaker 3: oh that's tacky, that's tacky. First of all, you didn't
Speaker 3: have to come right that part. You didn't have to come.
Speaker 3: It was an option to come. But we did have
Speaker 3: an outpour of love from people. We had people that
Speaker 3: were like, yo, this was a great idea. Yes, because
Speaker 3: first of all they were going to probably give us money.
Speaker 2: Anyway, we got.
Speaker 1: To tell them how it happened. Remember with Jackson, we
Speaker 1: had a baby shower first with Jackson at Aviator.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, this is where the mindset.
Speaker 1: This was the mindset came from. And we had about
Speaker 1: three hundred people and it was amazing.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It was a shoe rate outpour.
Speaker 1: And once again we got a bunch of gifts from people.
Speaker 1: And these gifts were not cheap gifts. People bought bought
Speaker 1: gifts upwards of one hundred.
Speaker 2: Dollars, I mean, playpens, boxes, of Pam.
Speaker 1: But remember what happened.
Speaker 3: We had to end up renting a U haul at
Speaker 3: the end of the party to get every game everything
Speaker 3: back home to our apartment.
Speaker 2: And then stuff was stacked up in our small apartment
Speaker 2: and we had duplicates forever, and there was a ton
Speaker 2: of duplicates.
Speaker 1: There was a ton of stuff, and it just took
Speaker 1: a lot of It took a lot, I remember, and
Speaker 1: once we said, well, we already have a child, we
Speaker 1: don't necessarily need more baby stuff, but we could put
Speaker 1: this money away in a five to twenty nine plan.
Speaker 1: So what we took was that seventy five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: We took that money that we got from I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you how much money we made. But we had
Speaker 1: enough people there we were able to make a couple
Speaker 1: of bands, and we started Cairo's five twenty nine plans
Speaker 1: the point that day with the money that he got
Speaker 1: from the gifts from the people, because we didn't need
Speaker 1: any more playpins.
Speaker 3: We already had that right and it's true, and it
Speaker 3: just made so much sense of was at the time.
Speaker 3: So of course, there were mixed reviews on it, because
Speaker 3: when you do something that's not traditional or undimensional. You're
Speaker 3: going to have the naysayers and people say, well, why
Speaker 3: would they do that, that's tacky. How you're going to
Speaker 3: ask me to pay to come to your baby shower.
Speaker 3: Well that was the mindset behind the entire thing, and
Speaker 3: it was easy because there was no transporting of gifts.
Speaker 3: After everyone came, had a good time, we found out
Speaker 3: it was a boy. It was a memorable moment, and
Speaker 3: then you know, started Cairo's five twenty nine plan for
Speaker 3: college that way.
Speaker 1: Also, when we sold the tickets for the baby shower,
Speaker 1: we were able to get a lump sum of money
Speaker 1: which was able to put the money up front for
Speaker 1: because of course I was going to put the money
Speaker 1: up front anyway, but now you're not spending money when
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be saving money because you're having a child.
Speaker 1: To put on a party so that people can bring
Speaker 1: you gifts. We were able to use the sales from
Speaker 1: the tickets to put money down on the alcohol, put
Speaker 1: empty for the open bar, for the venue space, and
Speaker 1: we were able to really put on a good party
Speaker 1: for everyone. So it was just like listen, you guys
Speaker 1: pay astronomical prices for tickets during this time. Anyway to
Speaker 1: go to FETs. Why not fat in a place where
Speaker 1: people that you're going to celebrate having a child, And
Speaker 1: they were like, you know what, this makes sense. Plus,
Speaker 1: the seventy five dollars was less than what they were
Speaker 1: going to pay on gifts, because most of the gifts
Speaker 1: we got from people were upwards of one hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: They even bought a whole bunch of clothes. They either
Speaker 1: gave us money for pampers or they were just buying
Speaker 1: random baby stuff that we already had. So for us,
Speaker 1: we took on that mindset of being fiscally responsible but
Speaker 1: also using that commodity to put towards our child. I
Speaker 1: feel like, and I know saying it now sounds funny
Speaker 1: that you would sell tickets to your wedding. No one's
Speaker 1: really going to sell tickets. I was joking about selling tickets,
Speaker 1: but I was saying, is the idea of people understanding
Speaker 1: when they attend a wedding. And this goes back to
Speaker 1: wedding culture being trash, knowing that when you are attending
Speaker 1: a wedding, you're attending an event in the show, and
Speaker 1: you should at least cover your plate, your date's plate,
Speaker 1: and give a gift because that's what you're there to
Speaker 1: do is to celebrate. You're not there to just be entertained.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you this idea that brides and grooms
Speaker 1: are supposed to go deep in their pockets to entertain
Speaker 1: you on their wedding day is trash to me. And
Speaker 1: I hope people start. I hope we change that culture,
Speaker 1: like it has to change.
Speaker 3: It really has to change for the sake of like
Speaker 3: everyone coming up, because we're also going to have an
Speaker 3: episode this season with talking Finances with our CPA financial advisor,
Speaker 3: Sean Sean Freeman of Morgan Stanley, and he's also going
Speaker 3: to give some tips about just getting that nest eggs started,
Speaker 3: which is super important, and starting out in debt is
Speaker 3: never a good way to start a marriage. Some other
Speaker 3: fun facts about wedding traditions and ancient times. The ring
Speaker 3: finger was thought to contain a vein that is connected
Speaker 3: directly to the heart. I heard that one too that
Speaker 3: I wonder if it really is a case bring And
Speaker 3: the bridal party was originally for security, Oh wow. The
Speaker 3: bridal party was seen as a decoy to protect the
Speaker 3: briting room from possible evil spirits. The wedding party was
Speaker 3: originally directed to dress just like the couple to confuse
Speaker 3: evil spirits who might wish to harm the couple or
Speaker 3: attempt to target them on their wedding day.
Speaker 2: Interesting never do that.
Speaker 1: So I think it's important for people to understand the
Speaker 1: history and the culture behind weddings so that not only
Speaker 1: when you plan a wedding, but also when you attend
Speaker 1: a wedding or if you're in a bridal party, you
Speaker 1: understand what's to go along with that, right, Because here's
Speaker 1: another thing with weddings. People, bridal parties be fucked up.
Speaker 1: People be feeling feeling slighted if they're not invited to
Speaker 1: be a part of the bridal party. But then when
Speaker 1: they're giving the bridal party responsibilities, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: is so much. This is so much. If you rock
Speaker 1: with me, if you're invested in my love story, right
Speaker 1: and you accept to be part of my bridal party,
Speaker 1: don't tell me every step of the way that I'm
Speaker 1: asking you to do too much. You could easily say.
Speaker 3: No with a couple of weddings that I was in recently,
Speaker 3: and it's just like this person's your friend. Facts or
Speaker 3: working as a makeup artist for years in the wedding industry,
Speaker 3: let me tell you as a makeup artist or people
Speaker 3: working behind the scenes in the wedding, So I mean
Speaker 3: like the glam squad, hearing makeup, the photographer, Like we
Speaker 3: see sometimes the things that the bride may not be
Speaker 3: picking up on on that day because of course she's
Speaker 3: trying to live and exist in that moment with no care,
Speaker 3: no worries. But then you'd be like, that's supposed to
Speaker 3: be the maid of honor and her good friend that's
Speaker 3: acting like that, you know, the who's wedding? Is it?
Speaker 2: Anyway? Lyne comes up because it's like, girl, you're making
Speaker 2: it more about you.
Speaker 3: You then absolutely friend quote unquote, So yeah, you tend
Speaker 3: to see a lot of that shadiness going on and
Speaker 3: people who have big falling.
Speaker 2: Outs and are no longer friends after weddings.
Speaker 1: It happens on the groom side too, you know. You
Speaker 1: you start the marriage process and dude's jockey to see
Speaker 1: who's going to be the best man with the best
Speaker 1: man becomes becomes.
Speaker 2: Responsibilities, financial response, financial.
Speaker 1: Responsibilities, right, and then with everything that goes on before
Speaker 1: the wedding, and also it's important to let people know
Speaker 1: like you're not supposed to throw all of the financial
Speaker 1: responsibility on your wedding party either.
Speaker 3: Either exactly, that's not cool because you can't have these
Speaker 3: high hopes and dreams and expectations for the things that
Speaker 3: you want that are super lavish and over the top,
Speaker 3: knowing good and well that your bridal party cannot afford
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 2: That's just completely selfish too.
Speaker 1: But once again it goes back to the wedding culture
Speaker 1: being trash bro like all of the ideas behind weddings
Speaker 1: now is all about show all of the traditions and
Speaker 1: the love and the responsibility is no longer there. It's
Speaker 1: just all about I have to get this moment, and
Speaker 1: I have to capture this moment in order to be
Speaker 1: on this bridal magazine or to have this many viral
Speaker 1: viral moment, you know what I'm saying. And I feel
Speaker 1: like people are losing sight of what a wedding is
Speaker 1: supposed to be. And I want to implore a lot
Speaker 1: of young people who are choosing to get married, or
Speaker 1: even older people choosing to get married, don't get married
Speaker 1: to please other people, but you get married to begin
Speaker 1: a life with someone who you want to be of
Speaker 1: service to for the rest of your life. And if
Speaker 1: you're thinking that, if that's your mindset, you have to
Speaker 1: go into that process looking to also be of service,
Speaker 1: but also choose people and surround yourself with people to
Speaker 1: be of service to you so that you don't have
Speaker 1: to feel like you're being too much or being too
Speaker 1: much of a burden. Right, And that's really what a
Speaker 1: wedding party is designed to create. It's designed to create
Speaker 1: a community around the bride and the groom that's going
Speaker 1: to support them and push them into marriage with a
Speaker 1: nest egg and some comfort that everything is going to
Speaker 1: be okay, not stress and debt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'll speak to on the converse side of things,
Speaker 3: that young girl who is now a woman who is
Speaker 3: dreamt of her wedding day her entire life because I
Speaker 3: was that girl. I talk talk about it in our
Speaker 3: book We Over Me, you know, attending weddings as a
Speaker 3: kid and just like being so enamored by the entire
Speaker 3: process of it, right by the gown and the day
Speaker 3: and the love. Like that's something that early on I
Speaker 3: was like, Wow, I want something like this. You can
Speaker 3: have your basis, you can splurge, you can go into debt.
Speaker 3: No one's going to tell you otherwise if that's what
Speaker 3: you have your mind set on, because I know again
Speaker 3: twenty seven to twenty eight Rocadina, what that looked like.
Speaker 3: Just be prepared for the struggle after. Be prepared for
Speaker 3: what it's going to look like to pull yourself out
Speaker 3: of that hole. Be prepared to have to possibly move
Speaker 3: back into someone's parents' house to build money up again.
Speaker 3: Be prepared to have to go into the old apartment
Speaker 3: that your husband's grandmother had for forty plus years, knowing
Speaker 3: that that's where you're going to have to be for
Speaker 3: a couple of years to rebuild, or a decade or
Speaker 3: a decade, right or a decade.
Speaker 1: Even then we got married twenty ten, we moved out twenty.
Speaker 3: Nineteen years nine years of working and hustling to rebuild.
Speaker 3: And I won't say it was all the wedding that
Speaker 3: put us in that hole, because it's also to us
Speaker 3: trying to build a next day having children, you know,
Speaker 3: saying I'm not having any kids in this apartment, and
Speaker 3: then having three in the apartment, you know, because life
Speaker 3: is going life, yes, but just be prepared for whatever
Speaker 3: you're walking into, knowing that okay, and not being placed
Speaker 3: in blame at that point now on your spouse or
Speaker 3: anyone else. You have to accept responsibility for the situation
Speaker 3: that you put yourself in. And again, like I said,
Speaker 3: this is Maturecaden talking to Ya Nakadin ten years ago.
Speaker 1: But sure, and I appreciate you saying that, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't all just you neither, you know, thirty eight year
Speaker 1: old Devo speaking to twenty seven year old Devo. Well,
Speaker 1: definitely say, dude, you don't have to live up to
Speaker 1: anyone else's expectations of what being a groom is. I
Speaker 1: did that. I definitely watched those platinum weddings. I definitely
Speaker 1: compared myself to my friends. I definitely felt like my
Speaker 1: manhood was tied to what I could provide for my
Speaker 1: wife on that day, right, And I put that day
Speaker 1: in front of eternity, right because I'm still trying to
Speaker 1: think about what I'm going to provide for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life. But I was really focused on that day,
Speaker 1: which to me was so shortsighted. You know. But also,
Speaker 1: young man, once you make that decision, if you decide
Speaker 1: to spend that money, it is now on you to
Speaker 1: not project your own insecurities and your anger for your
Speaker 1: own decisions you make on your bride when your life
Speaker 1: now isn't the way you expected it because you chose
Speaker 1: to flaunt on that one day like it's this is me,
Speaker 1: thirty eight year old Devou speaking to twenty seven year
Speaker 1: old DeVoe At the time, I was all for it,
Speaker 1: that's it.
Speaker 3: And we did have advice from other people that said, man,
Speaker 3: wasting all that money on the wedding day like we
Speaker 3: did have, you know, elders telling us yes, but you know,
Speaker 3: but they.
Speaker 1: Also were they also weren't as articulate and deliberate about
Speaker 1: why true. They just said, you don't want to spend
Speaker 1: all that money on one day and never explained why.
Speaker 1: You know, I want these young couples or older couples
Speaker 1: if you get married later, to understand why. Right. Part
Speaker 1: of a wedding plan, too, is to find out how
Speaker 1: you and your spouse communicate, Oh for sure, because this
Speaker 1: is another thing. Kadeen and I got married and then
Speaker 1: afterwards had so many differences of financial acumen, Like there
Speaker 1: were certain things Kadeen didn't know that I knew, and
Speaker 1: so many ways of life that I'm like, man, if
Speaker 1: we would have had these discussions before the wedding, we
Speaker 1: could have put ourselves in a better place.
Speaker 3: Like me not even knowing the details and the ins
Speaker 3: and outs about a credit card, like if you've listened
Speaker 3: to the Sherry Shepherd Show, or if you were at
Speaker 3: the live show in La the whole Beyonce story about
Speaker 3: the tickets, Like it's me saying like, oh, a credit card,
Speaker 3: there's available money there. I'm paid off when I get
Speaker 3: a chance to not realizing that I wasn't even operating
Speaker 3: in a space with the business acumen or the financial
Speaker 3: acumen to know like, girl, you cannot do this. And
Speaker 3: that caused so many rifts and arguments with us, you know,
Speaker 3: and those the things that forced us to have the
Speaker 3: conversation while being married, which is why we say those
Speaker 3: first five years of our marriage was trash, Yes, but.
Speaker 2: I guess I can't even really say it was trash.
Speaker 3: Those were like teachable learning moments for us, so we
Speaker 3: can't really, you know, regard that as a trash moment
Speaker 3: in our marriage. It really was just a time that
Speaker 3: we had to learn the hard way, and you know,
Speaker 3: we came out on top, thankfully. So we're just trying
Speaker 3: to give y'all, you know, our little two so that
Speaker 3: you can, well, I'll do at least have that perspective.
Speaker 1: I do want to give them like an alternative, right, Say,
Speaker 1: say you're your two people who both make six figures,
Speaker 1: so collectively you make about a quarter million dollars. And
Speaker 1: the reason why I music is because we grew up
Speaker 1: in New York. You know, most people in New York
Speaker 1: can't even survive if you make less than six figures.
Speaker 1: It's that difficult, Like everything is so expensive living in
Speaker 1: a metropolis, and the city is difficult. So and let's
Speaker 1: be clear, most people in America don't make six figures.
Speaker 1: But just for the sake of it, let's say they're
Speaker 1: both making about one to twenty five. That puts you
Speaker 1: at two hundred and fifty k for the year. This
Speaker 1: is how I would get married because when we got married,
Speaker 1: I was in the NFL and I was making the
Speaker 1: league minimum and going into my thirty I had made
Speaker 1: First year, I made two to seventy five. Second year
Speaker 1: I made three to fifty thirty, I was making four
Speaker 1: twenty five lost most of it, most of it in
Speaker 1: the stock market. But say you're making a quarter million dollars,
Speaker 1: because people thinks is a lot of money. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: quarter million. That's a lot of money, is not because
Speaker 1: if you make a quarter million dollars, that means it
Speaker 1: going to tax you high, which means you're only really
Speaker 1: going to walk.
Speaker 3: Away with.
Speaker 1: One sixty five one sixty five. And if you break
Speaker 1: down one hundred and sixty five k over twelve months,
Speaker 1: that's a little over ten thousand dollars a month. And
Speaker 1: if you live in New York, rent is going to
Speaker 1: be at least on a low end. If you live
Speaker 1: in live in New York, long win three thousand dollars. Right,
Speaker 1: So now you're working with seven thousand dollars. If you
Speaker 1: have a carn Right insurance and insurance that's another no,
Speaker 1: that's another fifteen hundred. So now you're working with fifty
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars a month. You still got to eat,
Speaker 1: still want to you know what I'm saying. So right
Speaker 1: now you're realizing than that quarter million dollars went away
Speaker 1: very very fast.
Speaker 2: You have kids, forget it, childcare, this miscellaneous.
Speaker 1: So say you don't want to spend one hundred k
Speaker 1: on a wedding for one day, this is what I
Speaker 1: would do. I would plan the grandest honeymoon, the grandest
Speaker 1: honeymoon for me and my wife. If this is me
Speaker 1: and Kadeen right now, taking two hundred and fifty k,
Speaker 1: I plan probably a twenty thousand dollars honeymoon, and on
Speaker 1: that honeymoon, we will have our nuptials and we will
Speaker 1: get married. And I will tell all of the people
Speaker 1: who rock with us, just the people rock with us,
Speaker 1: we're going to stay here. For example, say we're going
Speaker 1: to go on to French Riviera and we're going to
Speaker 1: spend ten days just traveling Europe. Or say we're gonna
Speaker 1: go We're gonna know what, We're gonna go to South Africa.
Speaker 1: We're gonna spend ten days just traveling South Africa. Right
Speaker 1: now we're here, we're telling all of our friends. We're
Speaker 1: not putting the pressure on our friends to join us.
Speaker 1: It's just, hey, this is what we're doing. If you
Speaker 1: want to be a part of it, you can't. We're
Speaker 1: gonna do our nuptials there. If you want to be
Speaker 1: a part of it, we'll give them a year in advance.
Speaker 1: Tell them this is where we're staying. If you want
Speaker 1: to be a part of it, lets us know. We'll
Speaker 1: get a room block and y'all can join, but they'll
Speaker 1: be responsible to pay to join that part of it.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna pay for everybody to come. We're just
Speaker 1: letting you know where we're going. Then I will take
Speaker 1: an additional thirty thousand dollars and I will plan, so
Speaker 1: now we're at fifty k, I will plan something at
Speaker 1: home in New York that's going to be cocktail our type,
Speaker 1: not sit down, not going to cost one hundred to
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty dollars per plate. But people can
Speaker 1: come get some finger fools, dope, DJ videographer, photographer, invite
Speaker 1: my friends and family, about two hundred people, and that
Speaker 1: will be it. And I will say, listen, for all
Speaker 1: of you who want to celebrate with us when we
Speaker 1: come back, you can celebrate with us here. It's going
Speaker 1: to be a nice spot. It's a thirty thousand dollars party.
Speaker 1: Then I'm still throwing for everyone. If you want to
Speaker 1: bring a.
Speaker 2: Gift, it'll just be like a reception pretty much. Absolutely
Speaker 2: so it's like you have the ceremony.
Speaker 3: You know abroad with whoever immediately decides to be when
Speaker 3: I say meeting immediate families, for closest friends, and then
Speaker 3: coming back to having reception, So literally, y'all's entrance into
Speaker 3: the reception would be as if people were at the
Speaker 3: ceremony forehand exactly.
Speaker 2: Then yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: And the reason Mary thousand, do you won't be married again?
Speaker 1: I got you marry you always want to get married.
Speaker 1: The way I came up with the fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to spend for a wedding at two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: K was based on if we get engaged and we
Speaker 1: spend two years planning, because most people planning and saving, right,
Speaker 1: So now you got two years planning and saving. Two
Speaker 1: years is twenty four months. If you two collectively can
Speaker 1: save two thousand dollars a month over twenty four months,
Speaker 1: that's forty eight thousand dollars. And I think that that's modest.
Speaker 1: I save a thousand a month. You save one thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a month, and we put that aside, and every
Speaker 1: month once you gain, if you have a little extra,
Speaker 1: you throw a little extra in there. But you can
Speaker 1: save fifty thousand dollars over the course of two years,
Speaker 1: and you.
Speaker 3: Might even use all of that because you think about
Speaker 3: for a cocktail party, was saying Tom bar not having
Speaker 3: to do a sit down per person for head perplate
Speaker 3: serving type situation.
Speaker 2: That could totally be a vibe too.
Speaker 1: And the party doesn't have to be extremely long. The
Speaker 1: reception only has to be say receptions for weddingxibltly last what.
Speaker 2: Maney three three hours, three hours, four hours.
Speaker 1: Three or four hours? So if it's four hours. So
Speaker 1: if you get a venue space for four hours and
Speaker 1: you get it on an off time and it's not
Speaker 1: a wedding, you just want to throw a party for
Speaker 1: a venue space, throw a party, it's not going to
Speaker 1: be the same. Once you go to these spaces, say
Speaker 1: you're having a wedding, all the price is shoot up.
Speaker 1: So you don't tell them you're having a wedding. You
Speaker 1: tell me having a cocktail party, you know. And then
Speaker 1: from there, within that budget, you can decide what's more important.
Speaker 1: Is it the roses or the type of food? Is
Speaker 1: it going to be the lighting or is it going
Speaker 1: to be the dejit. You see what I'm saying, And
Speaker 1: that's how I would do it, because then you don't
Speaker 1: have to put yourself in a deficit, and you can
Speaker 1: invite people and if they don't bring a gift, you're
Speaker 1: fine because I budgeted this money anyway, and we can
Speaker 1: still live our life afterwards. But if you spend thirty
Speaker 1: thousand and you invited two hundred people, and two hundred people,
Speaker 1: now bring in one hundred dollars. Now you get twenty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars back. You see what I'm saying. And now
Speaker 1: that twenty thousand dollars can go towards paying the venue,
Speaker 1: or since that was money you saved anywhere, you can
Speaker 1: put that twenty thousand dollars into a plan for a
Speaker 1: retirement for you and your wife, or you can put
Speaker 1: it in for your first child. This is going to
Speaker 1: start their five to twenty nine plan. But that's how
Speaker 1: I would do my wedding. Now, Like I said, this
Speaker 1: is mature, thirty year old de Vo. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that if you don't do this, you're an imbecile. This
Speaker 1: twenty seven year old Devo spent seventy five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for a one day party. And Kadeen and I went
Speaker 1: back to the apartment, sat at the edge of the
Speaker 1: bed and Case said, I hate it here.
Speaker 3: Literally, you're right after the honeymoon. But we couldn't even
Speaker 3: afford a honeymoon. My grandmother sent us to your grandmother
Speaker 3: sent us to to grandma. She was applying because yes,
Speaker 3: Grandma brothers two and came home as three.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 3: Maybe all right, y'all, We hope that this helps some
Speaker 3: of y'all out there, just to give perspective. Again, we're
Speaker 3: not preaching or professing to know the right way to
Speaker 3: do anything.
Speaker 2: We're just hoping to.
Speaker 3: Give perspective like we always do to y'all, especially those
Speaker 3: who are looking and aspire to marriage, because you know,
Speaker 3: we are proponents of marriage.
Speaker 2: If that's keep getting.
Speaker 1: Married, keep getting married. I hope people know the black
Speaker 1: dollar the fastest through inheritance and for people whn't understand
Speaker 1: what that means is that you build generational wealth by
Speaker 1: being married, having your children have the same name, and
Speaker 1: passing down all the wealth that you accrue to your children,
Speaker 1: and then they do the same thing and they pass
Speaker 1: it down to their children.
Speaker 2: That just giving a moment of truth.
Speaker 1: That's how most families pass down wealth through marriage. So
Speaker 1: that's why marriage is so important. So we employ our
Speaker 1: to keep getting married. If that suits you, sure don't
Speaker 1: run away from it because the wedding may be scary.
Speaker 2: That's it, all right, y'all.
Speaker 3: We are going to take a quick break and get
Speaker 3: back into listening letters after we pay some bills stick
Speaker 3: around already we are back to listener letters. Who this
Speaker 3: one looks like a loan when I do ze. Okay,
Speaker 3: Dear de Valencadeen, longtime listener, first time writer, Hello, welcome
Speaker 3: First I'd like to say that I really enjoy your
Speaker 3: podcast and can admit I look up to your marriage
Speaker 3: in the way that you guys perceived openness and bonding
Speaker 3: with each other are things I mirror in my marriage.
Speaker 3: For that all right to the point of my letter.
Speaker 3: I've been married to my wife for nine years this May,
Speaker 3: and we've been together for ten years now. We've always
Speaker 3: had open conversations and at the same time, I've probably
Speaker 3: been too open with some of my thoughts. We've both
Speaker 3: grown a lot together and the relationship is working great
Speaker 3: because we both do the work. My issue is dealing
Speaker 3: with us having differences of opinion on the topic of
Speaker 3: social media friends and real life friends. My wife is
Speaker 3: super friendly and can meet someone today and treat them
Speaker 3: like she's known them for years. My issue is that
Speaker 3: I am the complete opposite, and friendship for me is
Speaker 3: a privilege that's earned because I do a lot for
Speaker 3: a friend, so it takes a lot for me to
Speaker 3: get it. Takes a lot for them to get that
Speaker 3: from me.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 3: My problem with her is that I take her nature
Speaker 3: to be friendly mainly to men, which can be innocent naivety,
Speaker 3: as seeking attention or leading, because at times she makes
Speaker 3: herself too available. One example is from an argument we
Speaker 3: had recently where I had questioned her about adding someone
Speaker 3: on Instagram who we both knew through his brother and
Speaker 3: would react and would react to each other's reels or stories.
Speaker 3: I didn't see any conversations, just quick emojis or messages. No,
Speaker 3: I didn't go through her phone. She just showed me
Speaker 3: something he said, and that's where the discussion started. My
Speaker 3: opinion is that with opening up access to her DMS
Speaker 3: to a person that while yes we know of oh
Speaker 3: someone I don't know like that, to be comfortable with
Speaker 3: you having private availability to not that she couldn't have
Speaker 3: male friends from the past that she could have innocent
Speaker 3: interactions with on social media from time to time.
Speaker 2: But I do not support the notion that she's starts
Speaker 2: reforming me. Okay, I know men, and I know how
Speaker 2: some of us can be but I wanted to know that.
Speaker 2: I just want to know that you all thought the
Speaker 2: Oh God, I just want I can't read today, y'all.
Speaker 2: I just want to know what you guys thought of
Speaker 2: the topic.
Speaker 3: Or situation and give me other perspectives and my friends
Speaker 3: who mostly agree with me. I don't know if I
Speaker 3: explained it clear enough.
Speaker 1: You did, You did.
Speaker 3: I just can't read, but hopefully you get it. Not
Speaker 3: trying to completely control my woman's life, but I do
Speaker 3: think that as a married man, we should have a
Speaker 3: level of sway or influence in our wives think and
Speaker 3: how we think our wives.
Speaker 1: No, we shouldn't.
Speaker 3: Okay, we should have a level of swey or influence
Speaker 3: in how our wives think and operate. No, we should
Speaker 3: not always willing to learn. At least he's always willing
Speaker 3: to learn.
Speaker 1: And I and here's the biggest thing, right, I understand
Speaker 1: his perspective, I honestly do. But here's the truth. The
Speaker 1: freedom in being married to someone is knowing that they're
Speaker 1: choosing you because they're choosing it every day, not because
Speaker 1: you're controlling who's in their DMS. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So for me, it's like you can't really control the woman.
Speaker 1: You can tell the woman don't have many in your DMS.
Speaker 1: You know what you'll do, She'll get what's app then
Speaker 1: she'll talk to men do what's app. Like, if someone
Speaker 1: wants to have access to other people, they're gonna find
Speaker 1: ways to have access to other people, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: lose your mind trying to control how they get access
Speaker 1: to other people. For me, and maybe this just be
Speaker 1: me or maybe my own arrogance, I feel like my
Speaker 1: wife chooses me because she wants to be in love
Speaker 1: with Devoal and be with de vou.
Speaker 3: So regardless of like side conversations, it doesn't matter, it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: You could you could be in a giving exam. It
Speaker 1: could be, well, he's married to I don't want to
Speaker 1: use him. But who's a single guy that everyone is
Speaker 1: loving right now? Michael Jordan, Michael B. Jordan, I honestly
Speaker 1: feel like I don't have to tell you I don't
Speaker 1: want you talking to Michael B. Jordan and your and
Speaker 1: your DMS because if you're gonna want to do that,
Speaker 1: you're gonna find a way to do that anyway. And
Speaker 1: me just saying Michael B. Jordan can't talk to you
Speaker 1: in your DMS doesn't mean that he's not gonna find
Speaker 1: a way. Right. We may be out of an event
Speaker 1: and you may run into someone. I can't control any
Speaker 1: of that, So why am I going to put that
Speaker 1: in my mind that I can if I limit you,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, But that also shows your
Speaker 1: insecurity because I also don't want to be limited either.
Speaker 1: Because here's the real deal. There are women who are
Speaker 1: in powerful positions who may be able to help me
Speaker 1: further something for my family, one of my sons, my
Speaker 1: own career. But now I have to limit how I
Speaker 1: interact with this person because my wife may find issue
Speaker 1: with how we interacted. For example, we went on the
Speaker 1: Sherry shepperd show. Sherry don't have my cell phone number? Right?
Speaker 1: You know what she did through DMS. Hey, Deval, I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if you and Kadeen are interested in blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. What if you were the type to
Speaker 1: be like, Oh, Sherry Shepherd hit you in your DMS?
Speaker 1: Or is that you better not answer? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Now, we've limited an opportunity for us to
Speaker 1: grow a relationship with someone who has nothing but good
Speaker 1: intentions because I'm so concerned with you or my wife
Speaker 1: may not like the fact that Sherry hit my DMS.
Speaker 1: You know what if I ignore that DM because I
Speaker 1: don't want my wife to see it, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I feel like to anology is always evolving.
Speaker 1: At one point, it was don't get people your phone number.
Speaker 1: Then when emails became big, I don't want nobody having
Speaker 1: my wife email. Now DMS is big. I don't want
Speaker 1: nobody having my wife emails. Don't text my wife. People
Speaker 1: communicate different ways. Once you start putting barriers on how
Speaker 1: people communicate, you're limiting your opportunities. If that's your wife,
Speaker 1: you have to use discernment to know that I can
Speaker 1: trust this woman regardless of who's reaching out to her.
Speaker 1: And that's how I feel about it.
Speaker 3: And the way your wife treats friends does not have
Speaker 3: to be synonymous with the way you treat your friends.
Speaker 2: You said she's super friendly.
Speaker 3: She may act like she knows somebody for years, that's
Speaker 3: just meeting someone because that's just her spirit and that's
Speaker 3: her energy. You've married this woman for a reason, so
Speaker 3: I would hope that you trust her judgment, you trust
Speaker 3: her discernment, and like you said, you understand how men
Speaker 3: can be and people gonna be people the same way
Speaker 3: women will be women. You have to then put the
Speaker 3: onus on your wife to then make the decision and
Speaker 3: no better. And that's something that you can't control either way.
Speaker 3: So you can't control your wife.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 3: I mean it seems like you want to, but you
Speaker 3: can't control your wife and you can't control who's in
Speaker 3: her DMS either. What you can then rely on and
Speaker 3: like you said, you haven't checked her phone, so you
Speaker 3: may not know, but you have to rely on what
Speaker 3: her interaction is looking like, you know, because she could
Speaker 3: very well be like curving. People can pay you compliments
Speaker 3: all day, but if you're not feeding into that, or
Speaker 3: you're not replying, or you're not engaging in that kind
Speaker 3: of conversation, then what exactly is a problem? You know?
Speaker 1: No, you're absolutely right. I think his biggest issue is
Speaker 1: not even really the DMS. It's him not understanding how
Speaker 1: far things can go with his wife if she makes
Speaker 1: herself too vulnerable. And my thing is that's a bigger
Speaker 1: problem than the DMS. If you don't trust, if you
Speaker 1: don't trust your wife to go to work or have
Speaker 1: a DM or have a conversation or build a friendship.
Speaker 1: Then that's a conversation you need to have, not limit
Speaker 1: who she talks to in her DMS or on social
Speaker 1: media period. And here's the truth, bro, you sound like
Speaker 1: a dude who's willing to do the work to figure
Speaker 1: out how to live in this space. And you're asking
Speaker 1: the right questions.
Speaker 3: Right because as I was looking at you, you say
Speaker 3: he's willing to learn, but he also says that he
Speaker 3: feels like, as a married man, he should have a
Speaker 3: level of swear influence in how she thinks and operates.
Speaker 2: You can't do that, sir, No, you can't do that.
Speaker 3: But a healthy conversation can be had about the way
Speaker 3: you feel, because I think it's valid for you to
Speaker 3: feel the way you feel, but also to getting her
Speaker 3: perspective and seeing you know, why does she feel the
Speaker 3: need to or want to have these conversations with people
Speaker 3: on social media? Because right now it's a thing in
Speaker 3: this culture where people aren't necessarily calling someone directly on
Speaker 3: the phone, texting them directly. A lot of times, it's
Speaker 3: like via social media you acknowledge certain things. For example,
Speaker 3: Crystal hayslet shout out to Crystal from Davalos Co star
Speaker 3: and Satima sends both of us in the Floral arrangement
Speaker 3: to say congratulations on the tour and everything. And then
Speaker 3: I immediately, just because it came and I had my
Speaker 3: phone in my hand, I did a quick Instagram story
Speaker 3: and then thanked Crystal on it, and then I was
Speaker 3: just like, that was so impersonal, Like I need to
Speaker 3: call her directly. So I facetimed her after we finished
Speaker 3: recording the podcast, and I was like, hey, Sis, I
Speaker 3: know I'll posted on social media to say thank you,
Speaker 3: but the culture now is to put it on social
Speaker 3: media before we actually call someone directly. So I was like, hey,
Speaker 3: I was going to call you to say thank you
Speaker 3: to you face to face in a FaceTime versus just
Speaker 3: assuming that social media is the way to connect.
Speaker 2: That can be very impersonal too.
Speaker 3: Absolutely so to your wife, she may think like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's impersonal because it's just a DM on social media,
Speaker 3: Like nobody really, you know, has access to me like that.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's access that I seek if I check
Speaker 3: my DMS. If you don't check your DMS, you don't
Speaker 3: have access to that. Whereas if someone has direct contact
Speaker 3: to your phone number, then that's a little bit more personal.
Speaker 3: So I think it's worth having the conversation with your
Speaker 3: wife if it makes you that uncomfortable. But please don't
Speaker 3: be out here trying to control her either.
Speaker 1: Yeah I was, I was gonna touch on that, And
Speaker 1: I don't think he's doing this purposely. I don't. I
Speaker 1: think when he says we should have a level of
Speaker 1: sway or influence in how our wives think and operate,
Speaker 1: that's very misogynistic, as if she can't operate or think
Speaker 1: on her own, and you deserve the right to have that.
Speaker 1: This is this is how it should sound. I would
Speaker 1: hope that my wife values my opinion enough to make
Speaker 1: her own have a conversation, and when we have this conversation,
Speaker 1: she'll make a decision that will not only include what
Speaker 1: she wants and desires, but also what I want and desire,
Speaker 1: because that's the same way I want my wife. My
Speaker 1: wife Kadeen will never in her life be able to
Speaker 1: just tell me you can't do this because I said so.
Speaker 1: And I will never be able to tell her that.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be able to tell her that.
Speaker 1: The most freeing thing for me as a man, like
Speaker 1: what makes me feel like a man. Is not the
Speaker 1: fact that I tell my wife what to do. What
Speaker 1: makes me feel like a man is that my wife
Speaker 1: chooses to listen to what I say when I offer
Speaker 1: my opinion, exactly the same way I choose to listen
Speaker 1: to my wife when she offers her opinion. Hey, we're
Speaker 1: not the type of couple that K be like, my
Speaker 1: man ain't doing this because I told him he ain't. No,
Speaker 1: KY will be like, I'm gonna talk to the vout
Speaker 1: if he's interested in this. And if Kay express to
Speaker 1: me that she don't like something or she don't feel comfortable,
Speaker 1: then it's up to me to be like, well, is
Speaker 1: this really important to me that I want to put
Speaker 1: my wife in a place of displeasure? And if it's
Speaker 1: not that important to me, I'm not doing that in it.
Speaker 1: But if it's important, it's like, Babe, this is why
Speaker 1: it's important, and I want to rock with it. And
Speaker 1: most of the time, kble Hey, if it's that important
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 3: Go with it.
Speaker 1: But we're never gonna do anything that disrespects each other.
Speaker 1: But we also don't control each other. Because I feel
Speaker 1: my manliest when I wake up and she's there because
Speaker 1: she wants to be not because I'm making her be here.
Speaker 2: That's a fact.
Speaker 1: I hope that helps my God. But also this is
Speaker 1: a great question and it also shows his vulnerability to
Speaker 1: say this is how I think. Let me know what
Speaker 1: you think because I'm willing to learn.
Speaker 2: So shout out to you a b Thank you for that.
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Number two, Hello Kadeen and Duva. I would like to
Speaker 1: remain anonymous. No problem. Me and my wife have been
Speaker 1: those two guys.
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 1: Me and my wife have been together for six years,
Speaker 1: married for two years. When we first started dating, we
Speaker 1: had sex two times a week, sometimes three, but the
Speaker 1: past year that has greatly declined to maybe once a
Speaker 1: week or once every two weeks, to sometimes once every
Speaker 1: three weeks. She does not initiate sex. I always do.
Speaker 1: I would love for her to do. I would love
Speaker 1: for her too, but she never. We will spend time
Speaker 1: together watching TV, and she will perfectly find not saying
Speaker 1: she's tired or not feeling well. The moment we hit
Speaker 1: the bedroom door, all of a sudden, she's too tired
Speaker 1: or not feeling well. We don't have any kids, and
Speaker 1: I'm up and at work before she is, and I
Speaker 1: work longer hours than she does, and yet she's always
Speaker 1: Then we have the same issue, always the one tired
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden does not feel good. I
Speaker 1: do pretty much everything from the cooking to cleaning clothes,
Speaker 1: but yet I still find time for her, but it
Speaker 1: feels like it's not being paid back. Is there a
Speaker 1: way to handle this situation or do I need to
Speaker 1: just let things be?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: This is the first thing, man, this is the first
Speaker 1: thing I will say. I don't know if they're on
Speaker 1: birth control, because the first thing I'm thinking of is
Speaker 1: they don't have kids. If she's on birth control, there's
Speaker 1: a good possibility that her libido has been affected by
Speaker 1: whatever birth control she takes. If it's the pill, if
Speaker 1: it's the ring, if it's the patch, iud We've spoken
Speaker 1: to so many women over the past three years since
Speaker 1: we've opened up about our sex journey that they all said, yo,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that the contraceptive was going to also
Speaker 1: make me not want to have sex, killing us. So
Speaker 1: I would investigate, absolutely, I would investigate if that's what
Speaker 1: the problem is. First.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that literally came to mind first, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: this was me And I mean, granted they don't have children,
Speaker 3: we do. So that adds like another layer of just
Speaker 3: tired in perpetuity that moms have that the minute you
Speaker 3: become a mom, you just can never catch up with sleep.
Speaker 3: But the fact that she doesn't initiate sex, maybe there's
Speaker 3: also something else underlying.
Speaker 2: Is there something going on physically with him? For example?
Speaker 3: Is he not creating a space where you know, she
Speaker 3: feels comfortable or feels sexy?
Speaker 2: There can be so many different things here.
Speaker 1: Did he let himself go because we put so much
Speaker 1: on this? Women? Women, are you still going to the gym?
Speaker 2: Going to the gym? Are you making yourself enticing for
Speaker 2: her as well too?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And is it just sitting in front of the TV
Speaker 3: and y'all just have a comfort zone where that's just
Speaker 3: where you sit and you're not doing other things to
Speaker 3: initiate that, you know. Deval and I had to run
Speaker 3: where we were in where it was like that. Deva
Speaker 3: was like shit, Like we go to sit and watch
Speaker 3: a show, you're falling asleep on the couch. Then we
Speaker 3: get up to go on the back and then it's
Speaker 3: just like this monotonous routine of like, okay, let's get
Speaker 3: in the bed and have sex now, because that's what
Speaker 3: we do when we get into the bedroom, and that
Speaker 3: wasn't working for us either, so we had to take
Speaker 3: it back to some basics, like make a different I'm like, devlle,
Speaker 3: tell me what you want. He's like, yo, word, I'm
Speaker 3: sure it's in that cropsop that I like, and come
Speaker 3: drop it front of me in front of the TV. Like,
Speaker 3: doing little things to spark that interest again is sometimes necessary,
Speaker 3: especially if you've been together for a while.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be a little bit vulnerable here and I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about how our sex rut was so
Speaker 1: bad at one point, with us just going to watch
Speaker 1: TV and then going to bed. And this was when
Speaker 1: this was during the time when Kadeen and I were
Speaker 1: trying to save a lot of money, so we weren't
Speaker 1: traveling that much. So we would literally go to the
Speaker 1: gym because that's where I worked at the time. I
Speaker 1: would do my commercials or the film whatever. Kadeen was
Speaker 1: doing makeup, doing weddings, and we would come home and
Speaker 1: be late at night and we would watch TV and
Speaker 1: it be nighttime and be ready to go to bed,
Speaker 1: and then we would get in the bed and she
Speaker 1: would roll over and she would be like okay, and
Speaker 1: she would start kissing me, and then she'd be like,
Speaker 1: what the matter, Like you don't feel how you normally feel,
Speaker 1: And I was like, what you mean? She's just like
Speaker 1: you don't even feel like you're like really fully hard.
Speaker 1: And I'd be like, well, this isn't turning me on,
Speaker 1: and and me not being turned on, she wasn't turned on,
Speaker 1: And that's where the rut starts. Like when it's boring
Speaker 1: for a woman and it's boring for the man, and
Speaker 1: then you're not feeling each other. There has to be
Speaker 1: something that has to get done, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times men don't want to talk about it. Men don't
Speaker 1: want to say, well, babe, can you do this or
Speaker 1: do that? Or war this or can we travel here?
Speaker 1: They just want to feel like, yo, it's your responsibility
Speaker 1: as a woman to make sure that I'm taken care of.
Speaker 1: But we're not helping them. And I say that to
Speaker 1: say this, we also have a responsibility as people to
Speaker 1: work for each other.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: This whole idea of you love me, take me as
Speaker 1: I am. I ain't putting in no work. This is
Speaker 1: just that's fucking corny. I'm sorry that that has become
Speaker 1: one of the biggest cop outs. I'm sorry, And it's
Speaker 1: not just a woman thing. It is also a man thing.
Speaker 1: Me and my boys have a group accountability group chat, like, bro,
Speaker 1: when is the last time you've been in the gym?
Speaker 1: Like your wife met you and you were an elite athlete,
Speaker 1: you were the Vision one athlete, you had a six pack.
Speaker 2: You know, like, when's the last time you was in
Speaker 2: the gym? Syst nobody this come on?
Speaker 1: But it's the truth, though, Guys like y'all gotta work
Speaker 1: for each other because because here's the truth. When they
Speaker 1: were single, I bet they was both out here making
Speaker 1: sure they were top not because they were trying to
Speaker 1: find somebody. But then when you find somebody, it's just like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: they gonna accept me as I am. And now they
Speaker 1: watch you go through this downwall spiral of comfortness that
Speaker 1: it's like, Yo, that shit's not enticing to me. I
Speaker 1: want the single version of you that was working out
Speaker 1: every day, and I'm talking to you as a man.
Speaker 1: They want the single version of you that was working
Speaker 1: out every day, your testosterone was on high, your eyes
Speaker 1: was everywhere because you was looking for That's what they
Speaker 1: fell in love with and now you come and you
Speaker 1: just sit on the couch, And I'm saying that to
Speaker 1: you because that's where I was. Now. I worked in
Speaker 1: the gym, so I didn't lose I didn't lose my physique,
Speaker 1: but I was super lazy when I came home, Like
Speaker 1: I came home sitting on the couch, and you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, You make the sandwich, You're gonna wash
Speaker 1: this thing, and then I'm sitting there on the couch
Speaker 1: like you don't never initiate sex, but I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: on the couch eating the sandwich.
Speaker 2: You know, And it's like that you gotta change all
Speaker 2: you have to and don't really have to.
Speaker 1: Don't let people who are miserable tell you that you
Speaker 1: don't have to work for your partner. They just need
Speaker 1: to accept you and all your deficiencies. We all as
Speaker 1: people have to continue to work to be better. Number One,
Speaker 1: for yourself. You should put yourself in the best physical
Speaker 1: and health shape is possible for you. But that will
Speaker 1: also indirectly affect your spouse.
Speaker 3: Your spouse, it affects your mood, Like, there's so many
Speaker 3: things that are positively affected by just taking care of
Speaker 3: yourself and.
Speaker 4: You'll be surprised when you come in here after doing
Speaker 4: a couple of rounds of Birbies and you you have
Speaker 4: to stop Sarona's on high and how that woman will
Speaker 4: be like, oh, hey, them shoulders is back a little
Speaker 4: hot today.
Speaker 2: Or maybe don't even wait till y'all hit the bedroom.
Speaker 2: How about you, like, oh, in the middle of the show.
Speaker 3: You know how many times we've been watching the show
Speaker 3: and de Val would just turn that shit off or
Speaker 3: pause it and we just get it in on the
Speaker 3: couch because that's just what it is. You know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's just the monotony of saying, we're gonna watch
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 3: Then we're gonna turn off TV, the we're gonna turn
Speaker 3: off the lights, and we're gonna walk to the bedroom.
Speaker 2: It's like this walk of doom.
Speaker 1: It's like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, full and just like you know, missionary till we'll
Speaker 3: fall asleep. Like no, like make it fun, make it interesting,
Speaker 3: make it different, like just put the work in. You
Speaker 3: have to put the work in and have the conversation
Speaker 3: with her about it too.
Speaker 1: Also, remember something you told me you was just like Daval,
Speaker 1: I never initiated it because I knew you were going
Speaker 1: to initiate it.
Speaker 2: I was like, why because you stay on me all
Speaker 2: the time. So it's like, here we are.
Speaker 1: It's fun now my boy, Uh Sharonas. Shout out to Sharonas.
Speaker 1: He just asked me to send him a video of
Speaker 1: when I said I was resetting your freak level. Renumber
Speaker 1: the skit we did. So he had sent that, so
Speaker 1: I guess the girl he's dating, right, shout out to Sharonas.
Speaker 1: But I said, why do you need this for? He's
Speaker 1: just like, now, I'm just trying to prove a point
Speaker 1: to her, like sometimes I gotta pull away to make
Speaker 1: you want me to reset your freak level. And I
Speaker 1: was making a joke, but seriously that that does be
Speaker 1: a thing. Now. I will say this too, though, Getting
Speaker 1: sex once every three weeks for a man would hide
Speaker 1: to stopsteroone bruh, no sis, Come on now, come like,
Speaker 1: come on, like, come on, like if we really think.
Speaker 2: About it, not even an option over here.
Speaker 1: Sex once every three weeks, that means there's fifty two
Speaker 1: weeks in the year. If you divide that by three,
Speaker 1: that means y'all having sex what sixteen times a year?
Speaker 1: Come on, bro, there's no way, there's no way. In here,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be honest too. It's unfair for anyone
Speaker 1: to ask someone else to be monogamous and while you
Speaker 1: being monogamous, deprive them of sex. That's unfair, that all woman,
Speaker 1: that's a fact. You can't ask someone to only be
Speaker 1: invested in you and don't share your sexual experts for
Speaker 1: anybody else. But then I'm only giving you sex sixteen
Speaker 1: times a year. There's three hundred and sixty five miles
Speaker 1: fucking days and year. All right, I just almost that.
Speaker 3: But listen, y'all, this iud free deval is vezecting me
Speaker 3: up having the time of our life we have. So
Speaker 3: I will implore you to investigate whatever it is that
Speaker 3: you're putting into your body and also putting out, meaning
Speaker 3: like working out, investing in yourself, doing the things to
Speaker 3: make sure that you are your best self, because trust me,
Speaker 3: a lot of this shit is killing us slowly. And
Speaker 3: when I say that, I mean these birth control methods
Speaker 3: that we're putting in our body, not taking care of ourselves.
Speaker 2: You're talking about mood.
Speaker 3: Being affected and being tired, because why we just be
Speaker 3: sitting around not doing shit and not taking care of ourselves.
Speaker 3: And I say we as in the American culture. Like,
Speaker 3: there's so many other cultures that are doing way more
Speaker 3: for themselves physically and health wise than we are.
Speaker 2: So so about investigating that movement helps you libido. It does.
Speaker 1: So if y'all moved together, yeah, your sexual your sex
Speaker 1: drive will be higher. And when I mean moves together,
Speaker 1: I don't mean just go to the gym. Try hiking together.
Speaker 1: If you live where you can hike together, you'll see
Speaker 1: different sites. Kadina and I have some of our best
Speaker 1: sexual exploits when we were in different countries just seeing
Speaker 1: Remember when we went to Saint Lucia and we walked
Speaker 1: up the mountain. Yeah, man, we walked up that mountain.
Speaker 1: K fucked the ship out of me and I was.
Speaker 3: Like, what what happens to come to the mountains up?
Speaker 3: I was locome to see the glory. Glory, y'all.
Speaker 2: Good luck to y'all over there.
Speaker 3: Because listening, we're always advocates for people trying to continue
Speaker 3: to make things work right all right. If you want
Speaker 3: to be featured as a listener letter, please short to email.
Speaker 3: Oh god, y'all, I can't talk to day. I'm tired, y'all.
Speaker 2: Y'all see look at me today, I have one no makeup.
Speaker 1: If you're watching on a patreoon, what you here listen to?
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like we're family at this point.
Speaker 3: Y'all are in our homes like this is just what
Speaker 3: it is. Sometimes you're gonna get me like tired, you know.
Speaker 3: But if you want to be featured as a listener letter,
Speaker 3: we're never tired of those. Email us at deadass Advice
Speaker 3: at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's D E A D A S S A D
Speaker 1: V I C E at gmail dot All.
Speaker 3: Right, so we're talking new standards for wedding planning, wedding culture,
Speaker 3: being trash.
Speaker 2: What is your moment of truth? You got for that.
Speaker 1: Simple moment of truth? Tell them, don't fuck up the
Speaker 1: rest of your life trying to please everybody in your
Speaker 1: life for one day period period. That's it. Think about
Speaker 1: what I just said, don't fuck up the rest of
Speaker 1: your life trying to please everybody in your life for
Speaker 1: one day.
Speaker 3: And my moment of truth is kind of a continuation
Speaker 3: of that. The wedding day, the marriage, everything is centered
Speaker 3: around you two. You two, So if you too are
Speaker 3: not able to go to bed at night next to
Speaker 3: each other amicably and in a good space with good
Speaker 3: positive energy, knowing that you're on the same page about
Speaker 3: whatever that wedding will look like, whatever that marriage will
Speaker 3: look like. If you can't do that, then you really
Speaker 3: have to reassess the why facts. Because the one day
Speaker 3: for social media or for the viral moment, or for
Speaker 3: the memories.
Speaker 2: Take it from me, y'all, it's just not worth it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's not.
Speaker 3: But if you do think it's worth it, just be
Speaker 3: prepared to rebuild after the splurge facts.
Speaker 1: And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna help you out.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read this outro because you've been struggling today.
Speaker 2: I have been.
Speaker 1: Be sure to find us on Patreon to see exclusive
Speaker 1: dead Ass podcast video content, and find us on social
Speaker 1: media at dead Ass the podcast. She's Kadeen. I am
Speaker 1: i Amdavao, and if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be
Speaker 1: sure to rate, review and subscribe.
Speaker 2: Now I'm going to take a nap. I love y'all.
Speaker 3: Actually I can't take a nap. You had stuff to
Speaker 3: do with the kids. Back to being parents, huh.
Speaker 1: Dead Ass is a production of iHeartMedia podcast Network and
Speaker 1: is produced by Donor Pinya and Triple follow the podcast
Speaker 1: on social media at dead Ass the Podcast, and never
Speaker 1: miss a thing