Wedding planning specialist The Knot (NASDAQ:KNOT) completed a private placement yesterday. It raised roughly $50 million before fees by selling 2.75 million shares at $18.25 a pop. That may seem like inconsequential news -- hot stock makes fat cat institutional investors happy to buy discounted shares -- but it's bigger than that.

Secondary offerings are often a primary concern around Fooldom. When a company dilutes its shareholders, it had better have a good reason for doing so. And The Knot has a good reason. It's looking to seal the deal in buying WeddingChannel.com. The private placement is being earmarked for "general corporate purposes," with a small public offering on the way to help finance the deal itself. All of the money goes into the same well, though. The combined company will be well-served with the extra greenbacks as it plots a more aggressive attack on budding brides and giddy grooms.

Other companies, like Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), seem more than content to dilute investors at will in the name of building up its war chest into the billions.

Bankrate.com (NASDAQ:RATE), a healthy-performing Rule Breakers recommendation, was even given the boot due, in part, to a dilutive secondary offering.

The Knot passed around the collection basket yesterday, but it wasn't for the sake of vanity. Acquiring its rival in a cash and stock deal valued at roughly $78 million is huge. The two companies were in a legal tussle over online bridal registries. Wedding Channel seemed to have the upper hand in the battle as a pioneer dating back to the late 1990s and its proposed pairing with Federation Department Stores (NYSE:FD), but such power struggles won't matter once the two tie the knot.

This is a good time for The Knot. The company is able to command some of the highest online ad rates in the industry -- between $30 to $50 per thousand views on average -- because it specializes in reaching a vulnerable audience at a moment when great sums of money will be spent.

The Knot has been a winning pick this year for the Rule Breakers newsletter service. The shares have soared 59% higher since being singled out less than six months ago.

Am I tickled over the private placement? Of course not. But that doesn't mean I'm worried, either. I look at it as just the price The Knot had to pay to make sure that it was financially stable enough to wed before it went down on bended knee before Wedding Channel.

Let's hope it's a white wedding, and a wide wedding, too.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz doesn't own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this article. He is a member of the Rule Breakers analytical team, seeking out the next great growth stock early in its stage of defiance. The Motley Fool is investors writing for investors .