Love may makes the world go round, but budget dictates much of a wedding's details. If the bride and groom have realistic expectations, the wedding will be successful.

From David Craig's perspective as a caterer, the only difficult client is one who makes grandiose demands without providing the resources for the caterer to fulfill those wishes. So Craig does everything to forestall a difficult situation by making sure people understand their options. Love may make the world go round, but budget dictates much of a wedding's details.

And location, says Russell Sanders, executive vice president at RSVP Catering in Fairfax, Va. "A tent is a blank slate," he says, but halls have different constraints. If you want a buffet, for example, the room has to have enough space for the serving tables and lines of people.

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People under pressure often don't ask many questions, says Craig, who runs Catering by Craig, a Kingston, Ontario, Canada, catering firm, for 14 years.

"It's like the used-car scenario," Craig says. "They go onto a lot, knowing nothing about cars. The car salesman yaks away and they end up signing before they know what they're buying."