Category: Project Managment

The Wedding
Tony and Peggy Sue graduated from a university in Texas last May. She received
a degree in elementary education, and he graduated from the culinary school.
They both now work in the Dallas area. Peggy Sue is a teacher, and Tony is a
chef at a resort hotel restaurant.
It is Christmas Day and Tony asks Peggy Sue to marry him. She excitedly
accepts. They set a wedding date of June 30.
Tony is from New York City. He is the only son of “Big Tony” and Carmella.
He is known as “Little Tony” to his family. He has three younger sisters, none of
whom are yet married. The family owns a restaurant called Big Tony’s, and all
four children have worked in the restaurant since they were young. They have a
large extended family with many relatives, most of whom live in New York City.
They also have many friends in the neighborhood.
Peggy Sue is from Cornfield, Nebraska. She is the youngest of four sisters. She
and her sisters worked on the family farm when they were young. Her father
passed away several years ago. Her mother, Mildred, now lives alone in the fam-
ily farmhouse and leases the farmland to a neighboring farmer. Peggy Sue’s sis-
ters all married local men and all live in Cornfield. All of their weddings were
small (about 50 people), simple, and pretty much the same. Mildred has the wed-
ding plans down to almost a standard operating procedure—9:00 A.M. ceremony
at the small church, followed by a buffet brunch in the church hall, and that is
about it. They really could not afford much more elaborate weddings because the
income from the farm had been pretty meager. Peggy Sue’s sisters did not go to
college, and she had to take out loans to pay for her college expenses.
Tony and Peggy Sue decide to call home and announce the good news about
their engagement and the forthcoming wedding.
Tony calls home and tells his mom, Carmella, the news. She replies, “That’s
great, honey! I’ve been waiting for this day. I can’t believe my little baby is getting
married. I’m so excited. We’re going to have the biggest, best wedding ever. All our
friends and family will come to celebrate. We’ll probably have 300 people. And, of
course, we’ll have the reception at our restaurant; the banquet room should be big
enough. I’ll tell your cousin Vinnie that you want him to be best man. You grew
up together, although you haven’t seen much of each other since you went off to
college in Texas. I’ll call Aunt Lucy as soon as we’re done talking and tell her that
we want her little Maria and Teresa to be flower girls and little Nicky to be ring
bearer. And, oh, I almost forgot the most important thing— your sisters, they’ll
all be bridesmaids. I already know what color their gowns will be—a deep rose;
they’ll be gorgeous. And sweetie, I didn’t ask your papa yet, but I know he’ll
agree with me—on Monday, I’m going to call my friend Francine, the travel
agent, and get two tickets for you for a two-week honeymoon in Italy. You’ve
never been there, and you must go. It will be a gift from your papa and me. And
tell Peggy Lee or Peggy Susie or whatever congratulations. We are so happy for
both of you. It’s your wedding, and I don’t want to interfere. I’ll just be here to
help. You know what I’m saying. So, my little Tony, whatever you want me to
do, you just tell me. And one more thing, I’ll see Father Frank after Mass on Sun-
day and tell him to mark his calendar already for a two o’clock ceremony on June
30. Goodbye, my big boy. I’ll tell Papa you called. And I can’t wait to start telling
everybody to get ready to party on June 30.”  Peggy Sue also calls her mom to tell her the news about the upcoming wed-
ding. Mildred responds, “That’s wonderful, dear. I’m glad you’re finally getting
married. You waited so long with going off to college and everything. I’ll start
getting everything ready. I know how to do this in my sleep by now. I’ll mention
it to Reverend Johnson after Sunday service. I’ll tell your sisters to expect to be
bridesmaids again in keeping with the family tradition. I guess Holley will be the
matron of honor; it’s her turn. By the way, she’s expecting her third child proba-
bly right around the same time as your wedding, but I don’t think that will
matter. Well, I guess pretty soon you’ll be having babies of your own, like all
your sisters. I’m glad you are finally settling down. You should really be thinking
about moving back home, now that you are done with college. I saw Emma
Miller, your second-grade teacher, at the grocery store the other day. She told
me she is retiring. I told her you would be excited to hear that and probably
want to apply for her job.”
“She said she didn’t think they would have too many people applying so you
would have a good chance. You could move in with me. The house is so big and
lonely. There is plenty of room, and I can help you watch your babies. And your
boyfriend, Tony—isn’t he a cook or something? I’m sure he could probably get a
job at the diner in town. Oh dear, I’m so happy. I’ve been praying that you
would come back ever since you left. I’ll tell all your sisters the news when they
all come over for family dinner tonight. It won’t be long before we’re all together
again. Goodbye, my dear, and you be careful in that big city.”
Tony and Peggy Sue start discussing their wedding. They decide they want a
big wedding—with their families and friends, including a lot of their college
friends. They want an outdoor ceremony and outdoor reception, including
plenty of food, music, and dancing into the night. They are not sure how much
it will cost, though, and realize Peggy Sue’s mother cannot afford to pay for the
wedding, so they will have to pay for it themselves. Both Tony and Peggy Sue
have college loans to pay back, but they hope that the money gifts they get
from the wedding guests will be enough to pay for the wedding expenses and
maybe have some left over for a honeymoon.
It is now New Year’s Day, and Tony and Peggy Sue decide to sit down and
start laying out the detailed plan of all the things they need to do to get ready for
their wedding. 
CASE QUESTIONS 
– Make a list of assumptions that will be used as the basis for planning the
wedding. And no, it is not acceptable to assume that Tony and Peggy Sue
will just elope, no matter how tempting that may be!-Develop a work breakdown structure.
– Make a list of the specific activities that need to be done between now and the wedding day.
-For each activity, identify the person (Tony, Peggy Sue, and so forth) who will be responsible for seeing that the activity is accomplished.
– Create a network diagram that shows the sequence and dependent relationships of all the activities. 
Develop an estimated duration for each activity.
Using a project start time of 0 (or January 1) and a required project com-
pletion time of 180 days (or June 30), calculate the ES, EF, LS, and LF times
and TS for each activity. If your calculations result in a project schedule with
negative TS, revise the project scope, activity estimated durations, and/or
sequence or dependent relationships among activities to arrive at an accept-
able baseline schedule for completing the project within 180 days (or by June
30). Describe the revisions you made.
Determine the critical path, and identify the activities that make up the crit-
ical path.
Produce a bar chart (Gantt chart) based on the ES and EF times from the
schedule in item 2.
Using the responsibility assignments you made in Chapter 4 and the baseline
schedule you developed in Chapter 5, now develop a resource requirements
table (similar to Figure 6.3).
1. Using the schedule from Chapter 5, estimate the cost for each activity.
2. Determine the total budgeted cost for the project.
3. Prepare a budgeted cost by period table (similar to Figure 7.5) and a cumu-
lative budgeted cost (CBC) curve (similar to Figure 7.6) for the project.
1. Identify at least four risks that could jeopardize the wedding.
2. Create a risk assessment matrix including a response plan for each of the risks.