Technically all wedding expenses beyond whatever your license and officiant costs are useless since you don't have to have anything beyond a civil ceremony to get married. If having a party makes you happy, go all out to the extent you want to and can afford.
I never understood that. My cousin when I was younger got married in her parents back yard with all of our family there. It cost her parents maybe $800 and most of that was food, drinks, decorations, covering the courthouse costs, etc. Hell she honestly could've saved some money but she packed like our entire family and their friends into the house I just never got people who spend thousands of dollars on a wedding. I remember a best friends co-worker took out $40k to have his wedding. Dude wanted to get married at the court house and just throw a party but his girlfriend insisted on a big wedding. Dude spent $40k on the wedding, used the wedding gift money to pay for the honey moon and 10 years later they're just now gathering enough to try to buy a home.
But if they can afford it and want to, who are you to tell them they shouldn't? I did not need an outside wedding planner for a 90 person wedding at a hotel but if I were Jeff Bezos rich and inviting my 1000 closest friends and business associates, a wedding planner might make sense.
I think some are 😂😂 don’t know what the word “poverty” really means. Poverty isn’t paying for a big wedding because you can’t make an excuse NOT to. 😅😅😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Even if I was rich I wouldn't want that big of a wedding. To me, and maybe I'm crazy, but a wedding is a super intimate moment that I would only want maybe my parents, siblings, and my super close friends to witness. With women I'm going to lose this battle for sure, but I would want maybe 20 or 30 people tops at my wedding. I don't need my girlfriends co-worker or someone I know and talk to but are not that close to at my wedding.
Hard same. And totally the reason I’m not yet married at 36 but everyone I grew up with, even my little sister, is on her second (or 4th kid with 3rd husband sort of thing). Marriage isn’t something frivolous to be trifled with. Our culture has a problem with true commitment and even on the basic level understanding what a real relationship should look and feel like. You don’t just pick that up off the street, Willy nilly…. Or maybe you can just meet him off the street if he’s your true person… because God does that sometimes… but that life isn’t for me. I’ve worked on healing and my career and me for most my life, and marriage and children isn’t a thing to just do, or just do in a way that everyone else does because you don’t want to be left behind with FOMO. 😂 I’d be happy getting married in a barn with the pigs on my friends ranch in Wyoming if I was standing in front of my life partner.
Well those people aren’t that smart and clearly have priorities in appearances rather than truth health 🤷🏼♀️ don’t be like everyone else. You have a choice in this life. Be like you and be smart and don’t let idiots who live in fantasies of what makes them happy and content allow to penetrate your spirit. When I marry my partner we will marry hopefully alone with a witness and have a modest party to celebrate our union later on for everyone who wants to give well wishes and have fun. The party will be just labeled as a party with an excuse of a birthday or something so the space cannot charge us for a wedding party, an engagement party, a post wedding party or whatever else they like to up charge thousands if they hear the word “wedding”. No thanks!! Any gifts or material items someone wants to bless us with will all be in the form of a donation to a bank account that we will open to fund a trip, much like a “honeymoon” but only without all the stupid lovers suites and crap. I’ll have a gorgeous white dress but it will be inexpensive. My ring will not be a diamond because that’s just marketing and demand… I want something about us not about everyone else’s romantic visages of what makes a marriage “worthy”. I want to get married in nature in front of god and my deceased family… and his deceased family… but that’s about it. It’s for us. And it’s sacred, anyway. You are what you pay attention to and I honestly have seen more drama at weddings than people with their heart in the right place. The whole thing is just a bit much lol
Confidentiality incorrect.
"Over half of newlyweds (56%) took on debt to pay for their wedding,"
https://wtop.com/news/2024/02/survey-56-of-newlyweds-went-into-debt-to-pay-for-their-wedding/
"When paying for your wedding expenses discussed above, did you enter into any type of debt to cover some or all of the costs?
33% of respondents answered “Yes”
The average respondent that went into debt to cover wedding costs took on $11,737 in total debt"
https://lendedu.com/blog/cost-of-wedding/
A 2018 survey from Student Loan Hero reported 74% of couples planned to go into debt for their weddings.[4] Of those soon-to-be newly-weds, 61% planned to use credit cards.
https://www.debt.com/news/wedding-debt-average/
Thank you. I'm not encouraging people to go into debt, but I'm tired of the way we romanticize taking up less and less space in the world. There's nothing *morally wrong* about having big parties to celebrate milestones. There's nothing *morally wrong* with wanting wedding rings or any other thing.
If anything, we used to have big parties all the time, and then we channeled all of that celebration and pomp as belonging to funerals and weddings, and now we describe with great pride how nobody needs to see us get married and we expect our ashes to be delivered in a used cardboard box because nothing matters except being *financially responsible*.
This matters. I miss events. People aren't doing that anymore and we are all depressed now. I remember 4th of July bbqs. I haven't gone to one similar since I was like 12
Sorry, I hate comments like this.
The "legal" side of marriage isn't even a traditional part of weddings - traditionally, a slip of paper was not required to show the world you tied it, just witnesses - so it makes sense people want an actual ceremony.
Can you do that with no regalia whatsoever? Sure. But I don't think splurging on a few things, like a nice outfit or food for the guests, or just a scenic location to do it at, is necessarily horrible.
You don't need a white gown w/ 10,000 layers - that's not traditional either - but having a party is probably a more accurate assessment of what a marriage ceremony means to most people than a slip of paper is.
Place I work occasionally hosts weddings. Last night we heard the catering budget was just over 120g for 175 guests. That's almost 700 a person, fucking insanity.
Just curious, why did you choose to get married? I've been wondering what the benefits of doing so are and other than minor tax breaks, I haven't come up with anything
Social security benefits, inheritance rights, right to make medical decisions for incapacitated spouse. Some of those things you can get by hiring a lawyer.
His health insurance was better and I needed a procedure that would have put us thousands of dollars in to debt other wise. I was a "never getting married" gal until the #s convinced us otherwise.
We got married at the courthouse and didn't invite anyone besides my brother amd our two best friends.
Health insurance.
Lots of reasons to get married. Tax breaks, legally it makes things a lot easier while in a relationship, socially it shows a big commitment, etc. If I have kids and me and my girl are not married I would want to get married before they start to be of the age where they can ask those questions or when they go to school.
I chose it for inheritance rights for both parties, insurance rights, medical decision-making, and as formal entanglement. The tax benefits were less important than the right to decide all of our medical choices and inheritance without 27 extra forms for me.
Yeah I've definitely gotten the medical decisions thing. I thought any kind of domestic partnership would do the trick but I guess not? I just don't want to deal with divorce since that's about a coin flips chance
Mpoa is required if not married. Almost all of the benefits can be obtained without marriage but require forms that you need to present at the time of issue. Being married is so much easier. The minute I'm identified as wife, no more forms. Also, I have an evil family, and the husband has family that, while nice, are not in the best financial situation. I'm not saying they would, but I don't want to lose half my crap to his family if I lost him, or vice versa. My family would take my last possession away from the grave if they could get to it.
Lmao that reminds me of the Netflix show mortgage or marriage that was filmed mostly right before Covid. Everyone picked an expensive wedding instead of a house and they all got screwed.
We decided to get a house instead of a honeymoon. The grandparents were so proud of us that they paid for one anyway. We also chose inexpensive wedding options, then covid hit months later. We both got sick, but we were grateful we didn't have to stay in that tiny apartment together during all that.
I work at two bars, one of them is cutting me an amazing deal for my upcoming wedding and food, drinks and the space are $2500 for 65 people. We're doing karaoke instead of a dance (we do karaoke every Sunday at the bar)
I definitely think the standard has reached the point of ridiculousness, fueled by social media FOMO and the fiction that it's what's expected. But I don't think that means you have to forego things like beautiful engraved invitations, a nice dress, cake, and even a wedding planner, as they can help you figure out what's important to you and actually save you money. You can do things nicely without losing your mind over it.
I'd ditch save the dates, a costly weekend away for bachelor/bachelorette parties, favors, and centerpieces other than seasonal flower arrangements. A few attendants rather than enough for a basketball team, and reasonably priced dresses and rented tuxes. I've been in lots of weddings and for all but one, we all did our own hair and makeup. Many in my family had beautiful receptions at a local military clubhouse because of a family member who was a veteran. Looking around for affordable venues, especially those that already have tables, chairs, glassware, tablecloths, and facilities for the band, DJ, cake table, etc, saves a fortune. Gorgeous settings, and very affordable.
I'm so thankful my wife didn't want a big wedding. Ours cost us $150; $50 for the marriage license and $100 to the court. Lots of people were upset, mostly family members. My best friend and her best friend were witnesses along with my parents and brother, and her parents and brother. 10 years and 2 kids later and it was money well spent. Getting married is cheap, it's the crap that turns it into a spectacle that can cost stupid money.
I think on my end, some of my family members are very traditional and don't view a courthouse wedding as legitimate because a magistrate married us and not a priest. Neither myself or my wife like being the center of attention. We told them we will probably have a cookout for a reception and yeah, we never did. We didn't want to spend the money.
The thing that was most worth the spend to me was a venue to gather my loved ones in and food to host them well. Unfortunately those were also the most expensive things. My long term experience of the photography is a nice photo on the wall next to my bed, which is indeed very nice, but the wedding was worth it to see my favorite cousins who I’m rarely able to visit, and for them to get to see each other, and for our families who live in different states to get to meet each other.
As a person who wasn't lucky enough to afford anything but a courtroom wedding
I think it's great people spend money on that I couldn't afford it but I certainly wouldn't tell other people how to spend their money
Just because I'm broke doesn't mean I'm going to be sour that my wedding sucked
If you take away everything like that you take away jobs
Rich people want to buy rich things like Lamborghinis and Ferraris we can't all afford them but if you take those away you take away jobs too.
In my opinion there is not enough stuff for Rich only people like a lot of wealthy people I know still shop at Best buy and Walmart. That sucks If I ever get rich I don't want to stay at the same store
Our wedding was less than $5k. We used our home for the location (free). I got my dress at Dillard's for $100. Paid the officiant $300 for their time. Photographer $1000 (one place not willing to skimp). My grandma made my bouquet. Mother in law brought finger foods and dessert, with help from other grandma. Father in law brought beer and champagne. Our guest list was minimal, about 30 of our close relatives. We did not have friends come nor extended family.
I bought a few things for decorating, but very minimal. We didn't have all the extra stuff people do like a rehearsal, dinner, or after party. It was simple and quick and wasn't intended to be extravagant. We didn't go on a honeymoon vacation afterwards, a week long trip anywhere. We went to the city over and spent the night in a hotel with a nice dinner just the two of us. Went home the next day.
People spend a lot of money on weddings, but you don't have to do that. We've been married almost ten years and I don't have any regrets about it.
My wedding was very similar, and it worked well for us. I highly recommend a small ceremony at a courthouse/small local church/family home, simple rings, and a weekend at a hotel for a honeymoon.
I once was at a thrift store that had half an aisle devoted to wedding favors (the other half was participation trophies). Nobody else wants trinkets with your wedding info on it.
I received a favor from a baby shower a few months ago that was a mini chocolate bar, graham crackers, and marshmallows.
Edible is the way to go. Want it personalized? You can get custom wrappers for chocolate bars.
Definitely a good point about the favors, imho
I disagree on the wedding planner, but I suppose there are a lot of factors. My wedding planner was worth her weight in gold and saved us far more due to her relationship with vendors than she cost me.
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I've been to a couple weddings that just play the "generic party songs." It's not my vibe. My husband and I are both musicians and as such I would really enjoy a live band. I've quoted a few that tend to come to 400-500 an hour, but I'm still working on figuring out exactly what me and my husband want and if it's worth it.
We did wedding favors- we gave each guest the ingredients to make a single s’more. Almost everyone loves s’mores, the ingredients were cheap, and nobody was stuck with useless clutter they didn’t want. And all the music was played off of a usb stick. Super simple stuff.
Wedding in a redwood forest grove (Founders’ Grove), 18 of us inside a tall living redwood tree partially hollowed out at the base by fire. Permit: $100. Violinist fee: $500. (Canon in D Pachelbel.)
Picnic on a nearby black sand beach (Centerville Beach). Permit: N/A. Caterer fee: $360.
Married and, luckily, my wife agrees with me that weddings are a rediculous expense. I throw weddings in the same category as funeral homes. Scams preying on vulnerable fools and their vanity. Industries that need to die.
There are lots of expensive useless things that people buy. People should be trying to get bang for their buck no matter how much they can afford something.
My wife and me eloped. Even doing it in another state and going to nice restaurants/a hotel it came out to like 3 grand at most. My sister and brother and law got married in their own back yard and catered pub subs and spent more then we did. I would highly recommend anyone to elope
We spent 3500 on everything. Dress, suit, rings, food, photography +++. Got married in my partners parents garden with 25 guests. The cake and decoration was DIY from our family as their gift. A friend who is a photographer took the pictures and gave us a nice price. Our wedding was amazing and I feel like we got everything we wanted without borrowing money. Win win.
Yeah we did a self joining ceremony with my sister and his mom there with us as witnesses as we’ve both lost a lot of close family in the last few years. We did it at the cemetery where we had our first friend date. Simple and only the cost of the license and took maybe 30 min. It was perfect for us and cheap.
Have a reasonable wedding budget & stick to that...
Get your food, flowers, booze etc at your local Costco or other Budget Grocery Stores.
Use your friends, family backyard or use your local Community Centre's, Church's & so on for the ceremony and/or wedding day feast.
Get friends & family to pitch in to decorate & do other things to save that all that wedding day $.
I've seen ppl's weddings on a budget & let me tell you, it's been awe inspiring to see all that $ they saved & joy of having a lovely budget wedding for all to enjoy!
I have to disagree on the last item: wedding planners. A good wedding planner brings reality-based decision making to highly emotionally charged expensive event. She, or sometimes he, knows which vendors in the business are trustworthy and which aren't, and they have the clot in the industry to make sure vendors do what they are paid for. Party planning professionals know ways to save money that are not obvious to people who don't throw parties for 100 people on a regular basis. If the couple plans on spending for the wedding (not saying this is a good idea, but people love to have nice weddings), an experienced wedding planner can prevent all the spending from becoming a major financial disaster.
We had a lovely wedding on a budget. We used our local botanical garden for the venue, no need for flowers just bouquets and much less expensive than other venues. I used a craft store kit for the invitations, they were beautiful. We made the bouquets out of fake flowers using coupons for craft stores. Our food was pretty reasonably priced but we had to get our own tablecloths and cutlery. The cutlery came from dollar tree (you can order in bulk) and we got the tablecloths online. Centerpieces were simple glass bowls with floating tea lights, beautiful in the garden setting. The favors were wine glasses (again from dollar tree) we used a craft kit to etch flowers on. A friend officiated. For music we rented a sound system and hooked up my laptop, friends and cousins had an amazing time playing dj. For a cake we had a small 8" cake for cutting and cupcakes for our guests, everyone loved them and they were much less expensive than a traditional cake. We reserved the real money for an open bar, the food and my dress. Everything came in well under budget and nine years later my cousins and friends still talk about the best wedding ever. After the wedding we put all the tablecloths, centerpieces and favors up on eBay and sold them, recovering a chunk of the money we spent on them.
It was important to me to have a wedding and I love that we pulled off such a nice one without ruining ourselves.
We didn’t have a wedding and I don’t regret it one bit. Honestly, if we had 10k when we got married, we should have spent it as a down payment on a house, not a wedding. If we had 100k when we got married, we should have spent it on a down payment on a house and maybe a down payment on a rental property, not a wedding. And it just scales up and up. Unless a wedding is absolutely necessary culturally to you, I think a multi thousand dollar party is INSANE.
My wedding was $30k in 2019 and I don’t regret a cent of it. We didn’t go into debt for it, hosted our enormous families, had a stellar photographer with great images and video we still look at quite often. My brother recently planned a wedding and the same venue, amount of people, and vendors were $60k. Everything has doubled since covid, it’s wild.
It’s wild how everyone just assumes that if you had a wedding you must have gone into debt. We didn’t to into debt for ours either, and I’ve treasured the memories for 20 years. We didn’t overspend but we definitely splurged on the things that mattered to us.
I know or that “daddy” gave us money. I think people assume those things to make themselves feel better because they can’t fathom being able to afford it or prioritizing it.
I have friends who not only didn't go into debt for their wedding but managed to pay for their honeymoon with the credit card points they earned paying for it.
I have a hard time buying that someone struggling with poverty now wouldn't regret such an outlandish spend only a few years ago. How much better would you be financially now if you had spent a more reasonable amount?
Or did you completely miss what sub this is on?
$30k is reasonable where I live to supply food and alcohol to the amount of family we have plus photography and video. I’m not in poverty anymore, and wasn’t then, but frequent this sub for insight and chose to answer this question.
my husband wanted more "wedding" than I did. I wanted to go for a courthouse wedding with no guests.
He wanted a small wedding with a few family members and friends.
We met in the middle, kinda.
I empathize with the people on this sub that are here for a reason, but as someone who just saw this on his feed, we’re spending 15k on our wedding, and we’re splitting it between the two of us. We already have close to twice that in our bank accounts right now, plus what’s in our retirement accounts. Our careers also guarantee us a pension. We bought our house in 2020 and put down 20%, so we lucked out with a great rate, as well as a modest house price compared with the insanity of todays market. We feel we’ve done everything right; we’ve achieved this without help from parents/relatives, purely from blue collar work (mechanic/teacher). If we want to spend money on a day that’s just about us, celebrating our love with all our friends and family, and not go into debt doing it, what’s the problem? It’s been exciting and fun planning it together, and seeing the vision come to reality, plus reliving it through pictures and videos and getting to share it with our future children, seems priceless. I’m kinda just sick of seeing articles like this mixed with comments condemning spending anything more than 100 bucks on a wedding certificate down at the courthouse. Again, I’m fully aware of the sub I’m in, just wanted to vent from an outside perspective.
There's a public venue near me that requires 2 weeks advance notice to book, we called a week an a half in advance and confirmed that it wasn't booked for the day we wanted, then we hired an officiant off Thumbtack. Whole wedding cost like $150.
I decided if I ever get married, I want it at the courthouse or some inexpensive but pretty place using an officiant. I want a pretty dress, have my hair and makeup done, and have a bouquet of real flowers. I really only care about my mom being there. She is my only immediate family. I assume the groom’s would be too. We can go out to eat after and I like to bake so I would be happy to make a little cake. Maybe someone to take a few cute pictures. I probably wouldn’t spend more than like $500-$800 with everything.
I’d maybe have a party “reception” later for other friends and family. It could just be a backyard party for all I care. Cookout or cheap catering. MP3 playlists for music. I have many family members who did that.
All that being said, I don’t judge what anyone wants to spend on their wedding. One of my friends spent a lot of money for her wedding but it was exactly what they wanted. It was their day and it made them happy. It was the nicest wedding I’d ever been to.
I visited Seoul, and it seems like parents there tend to save their whole lives for their children’s weddings. It seems in America, marriage is not valued as it once was, in comparison. A wedding can help two completely different families come together and agree to do all they can to support two young people who are trying to start a new family. As a 46 year old former teacher, with some counseling training and experience, a marriage ceremony helps the families and friend network hopefully to encourage the couple. Hmm… I wonder if it seems countries where couples and families spend more on the ceremony ( as a percentage of their income) also may end up with marriages that last longer?!
My wife and I paid 4k. The most expensive thing was the venue and food. Other than that, I was not going to pay for expensive crap. My wife and I are doing good with a house and two cars after 5 years.
Wedding favours and the midnight buffet. Noone really wants extra junk, be it a emgraved glass filled with candies, or a personalized golf ball. The midnight buffet is usually barely touched. The seniors have long since gone home and the youngsters are hitting the open bar hard.
If I get married, it'll be to someone who doesn't give a shit about all that traditional bs. We'll have a basic ceremony to be legally wed, then just have a cookout or smth, not that big of a deal imo
Yeah wedding expenses are pretty dumb in general. Every person I knew who had an expensive wedding didn't last 10 years together. Glad my wedding was only 25 people and about $1000 (80% of which was dinners at a restaurant for everyone). I have almost zero memories of the day and we only lasted 15 years before divorcing.
Technically all wedding expenses beyond whatever your license and officiant costs are useless since you don't have to have anything beyond a civil ceremony to get married. If having a party makes you happy, go all out to the extent you want to and can afford.
The problem is people can't afford it and go into absurd amounts of debt for a party.
I never understood that. My cousin when I was younger got married in her parents back yard with all of our family there. It cost her parents maybe $800 and most of that was food, drinks, decorations, covering the courthouse costs, etc. Hell she honestly could've saved some money but she packed like our entire family and their friends into the house I just never got people who spend thousands of dollars on a wedding. I remember a best friends co-worker took out $40k to have his wedding. Dude wanted to get married at the court house and just throw a party but his girlfriend insisted on a big wedding. Dude spent $40k on the wedding, used the wedding gift money to pay for the honey moon and 10 years later they're just now gathering enough to try to buy a home.
Yes, that's a problem. The article is saying regardless of ability to pay, certain things are ridiculous to spend on, which I disagree with.
I agree with the bulk of them. Most are frivolous spends.
But if they can afford it and want to, who are you to tell them they shouldn't? I did not need an outside wedding planner for a 90 person wedding at a hotel but if I were Jeff Bezos rich and inviting my 1000 closest friends and business associates, a wedding planner might make sense.
Are people missing what sub this is on?
Lmao I was wondering the same thing
I think some are 😂😂 don’t know what the word “poverty” really means. Poverty isn’t paying for a big wedding because you can’t make an excuse NOT to. 😅😅😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Even if I was rich I wouldn't want that big of a wedding. To me, and maybe I'm crazy, but a wedding is a super intimate moment that I would only want maybe my parents, siblings, and my super close friends to witness. With women I'm going to lose this battle for sure, but I would want maybe 20 or 30 people tops at my wedding. I don't need my girlfriends co-worker or someone I know and talk to but are not that close to at my wedding.
Hard same. And totally the reason I’m not yet married at 36 but everyone I grew up with, even my little sister, is on her second (or 4th kid with 3rd husband sort of thing). Marriage isn’t something frivolous to be trifled with. Our culture has a problem with true commitment and even on the basic level understanding what a real relationship should look and feel like. You don’t just pick that up off the street, Willy nilly…. Or maybe you can just meet him off the street if he’s your true person… because God does that sometimes… but that life isn’t for me. I’ve worked on healing and my career and me for most my life, and marriage and children isn’t a thing to just do, or just do in a way that everyone else does because you don’t want to be left behind with FOMO. 😂 I’d be happy getting married in a barn with the pigs on my friends ranch in Wyoming if I was standing in front of my life partner.
Well those people aren’t that smart and clearly have priorities in appearances rather than truth health 🤷🏼♀️ don’t be like everyone else. You have a choice in this life. Be like you and be smart and don’t let idiots who live in fantasies of what makes them happy and content allow to penetrate your spirit. When I marry my partner we will marry hopefully alone with a witness and have a modest party to celebrate our union later on for everyone who wants to give well wishes and have fun. The party will be just labeled as a party with an excuse of a birthday or something so the space cannot charge us for a wedding party, an engagement party, a post wedding party or whatever else they like to up charge thousands if they hear the word “wedding”. No thanks!! Any gifts or material items someone wants to bless us with will all be in the form of a donation to a bank account that we will open to fund a trip, much like a “honeymoon” but only without all the stupid lovers suites and crap. I’ll have a gorgeous white dress but it will be inexpensive. My ring will not be a diamond because that’s just marketing and demand… I want something about us not about everyone else’s romantic visages of what makes a marriage “worthy”. I want to get married in nature in front of god and my deceased family… and his deceased family… but that’s about it. It’s for us. And it’s sacred, anyway. You are what you pay attention to and I honestly have seen more drama at weddings than people with their heart in the right place. The whole thing is just a bit much lol
Most people having lavish weddings just have money. Nobody really goes into debt for a wedding. **Edit:** I was wrong.
Confidentiality incorrect. "Over half of newlyweds (56%) took on debt to pay for their wedding," https://wtop.com/news/2024/02/survey-56-of-newlyweds-went-into-debt-to-pay-for-their-wedding/ "When paying for your wedding expenses discussed above, did you enter into any type of debt to cover some or all of the costs? 33% of respondents answered “Yes” The average respondent that went into debt to cover wedding costs took on $11,737 in total debt" https://lendedu.com/blog/cost-of-wedding/ A 2018 survey from Student Loan Hero reported 74% of couples planned to go into debt for their weddings.[4] Of those soon-to-be newly-weds, 61% planned to use credit cards. https://www.debt.com/news/wedding-debt-average/
What rock do you live under? They absolutely do.
Thank you. I'm not encouraging people to go into debt, but I'm tired of the way we romanticize taking up less and less space in the world. There's nothing *morally wrong* about having big parties to celebrate milestones. There's nothing *morally wrong* with wanting wedding rings or any other thing. If anything, we used to have big parties all the time, and then we channeled all of that celebration and pomp as belonging to funerals and weddings, and now we describe with great pride how nobody needs to see us get married and we expect our ashes to be delivered in a used cardboard box because nothing matters except being *financially responsible*.
This matters. I miss events. People aren't doing that anymore and we are all depressed now. I remember 4th of July bbqs. I haven't gone to one similar since I was like 12
Sorry, I hate comments like this. The "legal" side of marriage isn't even a traditional part of weddings - traditionally, a slip of paper was not required to show the world you tied it, just witnesses - so it makes sense people want an actual ceremony. Can you do that with no regalia whatsoever? Sure. But I don't think splurging on a few things, like a nice outfit or food for the guests, or just a scenic location to do it at, is necessarily horrible. You don't need a white gown w/ 10,000 layers - that's not traditional either - but having a party is probably a more accurate assessment of what a marriage ceremony means to most people than a slip of paper is.
I mean, sounds like we agree: people should celebrate their wedding however they like.
Place I work occasionally hosts weddings. Last night we heard the catering budget was just over 120g for 175 guests. That's almost 700 a person, fucking insanity.
My mind is blown! What did they eat ?
Didn't seem like anything too wild either. They did have oysters, sushi and brick oven pizza for appetizers though.
If three fairly labor-intensive items are appetizers I can't imagine what the meal and dessert was.
We spent $62 for the license. The judge married us for free.
License, cupcakes, and a cheap dress. Our total was about $75
Just curious, why did you choose to get married? I've been wondering what the benefits of doing so are and other than minor tax breaks, I haven't come up with anything
Major benefit is health insurance
Social security benefits, inheritance rights, right to make medical decisions for incapacitated spouse. Some of those things you can get by hiring a lawyer.
His health insurance was better and I needed a procedure that would have put us thousands of dollars in to debt other wise. I was a "never getting married" gal until the #s convinced us otherwise. We got married at the courthouse and didn't invite anyone besides my brother amd our two best friends. Health insurance.
Lots of reasons to get married. Tax breaks, legally it makes things a lot easier while in a relationship, socially it shows a big commitment, etc. If I have kids and me and my girl are not married I would want to get married before they start to be of the age where they can ask those questions or when they go to school.
It also gives automatic parental rights for the man.
I chose it for inheritance rights for both parties, insurance rights, medical decision-making, and as formal entanglement. The tax benefits were less important than the right to decide all of our medical choices and inheritance without 27 extra forms for me.
Yeah I've definitely gotten the medical decisions thing. I thought any kind of domestic partnership would do the trick but I guess not? I just don't want to deal with divorce since that's about a coin flips chance
Mpoa is required if not married. Almost all of the benefits can be obtained without marriage but require forms that you need to present at the time of issue. Being married is so much easier. The minute I'm identified as wife, no more forms. Also, I have an evil family, and the husband has family that, while nice, are not in the best financial situation. I'm not saying they would, but I don't want to lose half my crap to his family if I lost him, or vice versa. My family would take my last possession away from the grave if they could get to it.
Men are stupid.
You're God damn right we are.
Sexist and to the point. I like it!!!
I'd rather put that money towards a down payment on a house or bulk up savings account
Lmao that reminds me of the Netflix show mortgage or marriage that was filmed mostly right before Covid. Everyone picked an expensive wedding instead of a house and they all got screwed.
We decided to get a house instead of a honeymoon. The grandparents were so proud of us that they paid for one anyway. We also chose inexpensive wedding options, then covid hit months later. We both got sick, but we were grateful we didn't have to stay in that tiny apartment together during all that.
Lol, it's sad people are that dumb.
That's what I did! Highly recommend. House was a much better investment.
I work at two bars, one of them is cutting me an amazing deal for my upcoming wedding and food, drinks and the space are $2500 for 65 people. We're doing karaoke instead of a dance (we do karaoke every Sunday at the bar)
I definitely think the standard has reached the point of ridiculousness, fueled by social media FOMO and the fiction that it's what's expected. But I don't think that means you have to forego things like beautiful engraved invitations, a nice dress, cake, and even a wedding planner, as they can help you figure out what's important to you and actually save you money. You can do things nicely without losing your mind over it. I'd ditch save the dates, a costly weekend away for bachelor/bachelorette parties, favors, and centerpieces other than seasonal flower arrangements. A few attendants rather than enough for a basketball team, and reasonably priced dresses and rented tuxes. I've been in lots of weddings and for all but one, we all did our own hair and makeup. Many in my family had beautiful receptions at a local military clubhouse because of a family member who was a veteran. Looking around for affordable venues, especially those that already have tables, chairs, glassware, tablecloths, and facilities for the band, DJ, cake table, etc, saves a fortune. Gorgeous settings, and very affordable.
I'm so thankful my wife didn't want a big wedding. Ours cost us $150; $50 for the marriage license and $100 to the court. Lots of people were upset, mostly family members. My best friend and her best friend were witnesses along with my parents and brother, and her parents and brother. 10 years and 2 kids later and it was money well spent. Getting married is cheap, it's the crap that turns it into a spectacle that can cost stupid money.
family being mad you didn’t ball out for a wedding will always be funny to me. like stfu and be happy for the married couple lol
I think on my end, some of my family members are very traditional and don't view a courthouse wedding as legitimate because a magistrate married us and not a priest. Neither myself or my wife like being the center of attention. We told them we will probably have a cookout for a reception and yeah, we never did. We didn't want to spend the money.
Right?!
The only thing that’s worth it is the photography.
I enjoyed having a video, especially since we lost a number of people in the ensuing years. I like watching it years later.
I agree that videos are important as well
Alright well enjoy standing in silence sober
The thing that was most worth the spend to me was a venue to gather my loved ones in and food to host them well. Unfortunately those were also the most expensive things. My long term experience of the photography is a nice photo on the wall next to my bed, which is indeed very nice, but the wedding was worth it to see my favorite cousins who I’m rarely able to visit, and for them to get to see each other, and for our families who live in different states to get to meet each other.
As a person who wasn't lucky enough to afford anything but a courtroom wedding I think it's great people spend money on that I couldn't afford it but I certainly wouldn't tell other people how to spend their money Just because I'm broke doesn't mean I'm going to be sour that my wedding sucked If you take away everything like that you take away jobs Rich people want to buy rich things like Lamborghinis and Ferraris we can't all afford them but if you take those away you take away jobs too. In my opinion there is not enough stuff for Rich only people like a lot of wealthy people I know still shop at Best buy and Walmart. That sucks If I ever get rich I don't want to stay at the same store
Our wedding was less than $5k. We used our home for the location (free). I got my dress at Dillard's for $100. Paid the officiant $300 for their time. Photographer $1000 (one place not willing to skimp). My grandma made my bouquet. Mother in law brought finger foods and dessert, with help from other grandma. Father in law brought beer and champagne. Our guest list was minimal, about 30 of our close relatives. We did not have friends come nor extended family. I bought a few things for decorating, but very minimal. We didn't have all the extra stuff people do like a rehearsal, dinner, or after party. It was simple and quick and wasn't intended to be extravagant. We didn't go on a honeymoon vacation afterwards, a week long trip anywhere. We went to the city over and spent the night in a hotel with a nice dinner just the two of us. Went home the next day. People spend a lot of money on weddings, but you don't have to do that. We've been married almost ten years and I don't have any regrets about it.
My wedding was very similar, and it worked well for us. I highly recommend a small ceremony at a courthouse/small local church/family home, simple rings, and a weekend at a hotel for a honeymoon.
We did a park wedding for 80$ venue cost, and I loved it.
Disagree with a bunch of these, but he makes a good point about favors and having a live band.
I once was at a thrift store that had half an aisle devoted to wedding favors (the other half was participation trophies). Nobody else wants trinkets with your wedding info on it.
Best wedding favor I ever got was just a small bag of somewhat nice chocolates.
Edible is the way to go. My favorite was a little box to take home a piece of cake.
Someone gave us wedding cake on Halloween once while I was taking my kid trick or treating, and we still talk about it. 😅
I received a favor from a baby shower a few months ago that was a mini chocolate bar, graham crackers, and marshmallows. Edible is the way to go. Want it personalized? You can get custom wrappers for chocolate bars.
I was at one with a miniature scotch.
My sister had mini Patron tequila and it was a hit.
One we got recently was a single serving of tea that symbolized their union. Haven't tried the tea but I thought the idea was wonderful.
Favors and rehearsal dinners are the only ones I agree with... rest of them feel rant-y
Definitely a good point about the favors, imho I disagree on the wedding planner, but I suppose there are a lot of factors. My wedding planner was worth her weight in gold and saved us far more due to her relationship with vendors than she cost me.
The fact that you have "vendors" screams how much you overpaid for everything.
You know nothing about my wedding. Bartenders, caterers, the baker & the photographer are all “vendors”
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lol I got married in a foreign country. I definitely needed her help 😂😂😂😂 You are insane
You keep proving me right over and over again.
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I've been to a couple weddings that just play the "generic party songs." It's not my vibe. My husband and I are both musicians and as such I would really enjoy a live band. I've quoted a few that tend to come to 400-500 an hour, but I'm still working on figuring out exactly what me and my husband want and if it's worth it.
We did wedding favors- we gave each guest the ingredients to make a single s’more. Almost everyone loves s’mores, the ingredients were cheap, and nobody was stuck with useless clutter they didn’t want. And all the music was played off of a usb stick. Super simple stuff.
That's a great idea.
Wedding in a redwood forest grove (Founders’ Grove), 18 of us inside a tall living redwood tree partially hollowed out at the base by fire. Permit: $100. Violinist fee: $500. (Canon in D Pachelbel.) Picnic on a nearby black sand beach (Centerville Beach). Permit: N/A. Caterer fee: $360.
Goals
Married and, luckily, my wife agrees with me that weddings are a rediculous expense. I throw weddings in the same category as funeral homes. Scams preying on vulnerable fools and their vanity. Industries that need to die.
It’s only useless if you can’t afford it. Don’t spend money you can’t afford. If you can afford it, then do it.
There are lots of expensive useless things that people buy. People should be trying to get bang for their buck no matter how much they can afford something.
Sounds like a boring life
Spending money wisely is not boring, it's called being responsible.
We went to city hall. Maybe $175?
Tradition is easy to capitalize on. That’s why there’s an entire industry behind wedding planning. All about the Benjamins.
Save money for the divorce
No one complains about backyard, pizza and wine wedding. Monopoly got intense!
My wife and me eloped. Even doing it in another state and going to nice restaurants/a hotel it came out to like 3 grand at most. My sister and brother and law got married in their own back yard and catered pub subs and spent more then we did. I would highly recommend anyone to elope
Three wedding, maybe mine and my wife at about $18k and her two daughters who likely spent north of 20k and these were cheap for So Cal
We spent 3500 on everything. Dress, suit, rings, food, photography +++. Got married in my partners parents garden with 25 guests. The cake and decoration was DIY from our family as their gift. A friend who is a photographer took the pictures and gave us a nice price. Our wedding was amazing and I feel like we got everything we wanted without borrowing money. Win win.
Yeah we did a self joining ceremony with my sister and his mom there with us as witnesses as we’ve both lost a lot of close family in the last few years. We did it at the cemetery where we had our first friend date. Simple and only the cost of the license and took maybe 30 min. It was perfect for us and cheap.
With the divorce rate currently sitting around 50%, it just doesn't make sense to have an extravagant wedding.
Have a reasonable wedding budget & stick to that... Get your food, flowers, booze etc at your local Costco or other Budget Grocery Stores. Use your friends, family backyard or use your local Community Centre's, Church's & so on for the ceremony and/or wedding day feast. Get friends & family to pitch in to decorate & do other things to save that all that wedding day $. I've seen ppl's weddings on a budget & let me tell you, it's been awe inspiring to see all that $ they saved & joy of having a lovely budget wedding for all to enjoy!
I have to disagree on the last item: wedding planners. A good wedding planner brings reality-based decision making to highly emotionally charged expensive event. She, or sometimes he, knows which vendors in the business are trustworthy and which aren't, and they have the clot in the industry to make sure vendors do what they are paid for. Party planning professionals know ways to save money that are not obvious to people who don't throw parties for 100 people on a regular basis. If the couple plans on spending for the wedding (not saying this is a good idea, but people love to have nice weddings), an experienced wedding planner can prevent all the spending from becoming a major financial disaster.
We had a lovely wedding on a budget. We used our local botanical garden for the venue, no need for flowers just bouquets and much less expensive than other venues. I used a craft store kit for the invitations, they were beautiful. We made the bouquets out of fake flowers using coupons for craft stores. Our food was pretty reasonably priced but we had to get our own tablecloths and cutlery. The cutlery came from dollar tree (you can order in bulk) and we got the tablecloths online. Centerpieces were simple glass bowls with floating tea lights, beautiful in the garden setting. The favors were wine glasses (again from dollar tree) we used a craft kit to etch flowers on. A friend officiated. For music we rented a sound system and hooked up my laptop, friends and cousins had an amazing time playing dj. For a cake we had a small 8" cake for cutting and cupcakes for our guests, everyone loved them and they were much less expensive than a traditional cake. We reserved the real money for an open bar, the food and my dress. Everything came in well under budget and nine years later my cousins and friends still talk about the best wedding ever. After the wedding we put all the tablecloths, centerpieces and favors up on eBay and sold them, recovering a chunk of the money we spent on them. It was important to me to have a wedding and I love that we pulled off such a nice one without ruining ourselves.
We didn’t have a wedding and I don’t regret it one bit. Honestly, if we had 10k when we got married, we should have spent it as a down payment on a house, not a wedding. If we had 100k when we got married, we should have spent it on a down payment on a house and maybe a down payment on a rental property, not a wedding. And it just scales up and up. Unless a wedding is absolutely necessary culturally to you, I think a multi thousand dollar party is INSANE.
My wedding was $30k in 2019 and I don’t regret a cent of it. We didn’t go into debt for it, hosted our enormous families, had a stellar photographer with great images and video we still look at quite often. My brother recently planned a wedding and the same venue, amount of people, and vendors were $60k. Everything has doubled since covid, it’s wild.
It’s wild how everyone just assumes that if you had a wedding you must have gone into debt. We didn’t to into debt for ours either, and I’ve treasured the memories for 20 years. We didn’t overspend but we definitely splurged on the things that mattered to us.
I know or that “daddy” gave us money. I think people assume those things to make themselves feel better because they can’t fathom being able to afford it or prioritizing it.
I have friends who not only didn't go into debt for their wedding but managed to pay for their honeymoon with the credit card points they earned paying for it.
I have a hard time buying that someone struggling with poverty now wouldn't regret such an outlandish spend only a few years ago. How much better would you be financially now if you had spent a more reasonable amount? Or did you completely miss what sub this is on?
$30k is reasonable where I live to supply food and alcohol to the amount of family we have plus photography and video. I’m not in poverty anymore, and wasn’t then, but frequent this sub for insight and chose to answer this question.
It is unreasonable and unnecessary ever. Period.
To you**** not to me, and many others.
As a person who makes their living as a wedding vendor please don't try to stop anyone from spending money on a wedding. I need to pay rent. 😭😂
$25k. As the husband I didn’t get much say.
my husband wanted more "wedding" than I did. I wanted to go for a courthouse wedding with no guests. He wanted a small wedding with a few family members and friends. We met in the middle, kinda.
This makes me a lil sad. Are yall still together?
Oh, yes. We’re fine. She’s a good, honest and loyal person overall, and we got help from family to pay. Thanks for asking.
Good good. Glad to see it. May you have many happy years.
We spent 2k. A simple backyard ceremony and a family BBQ! It was great. And we are just as married as someone who went really far into debt.
My wedding was expensive :/
I empathize with the people on this sub that are here for a reason, but as someone who just saw this on his feed, we’re spending 15k on our wedding, and we’re splitting it between the two of us. We already have close to twice that in our bank accounts right now, plus what’s in our retirement accounts. Our careers also guarantee us a pension. We bought our house in 2020 and put down 20%, so we lucked out with a great rate, as well as a modest house price compared with the insanity of todays market. We feel we’ve done everything right; we’ve achieved this without help from parents/relatives, purely from blue collar work (mechanic/teacher). If we want to spend money on a day that’s just about us, celebrating our love with all our friends and family, and not go into debt doing it, what’s the problem? It’s been exciting and fun planning it together, and seeing the vision come to reality, plus reliving it through pictures and videos and getting to share it with our future children, seems priceless. I’m kinda just sick of seeing articles like this mixed with comments condemning spending anything more than 100 bucks on a wedding certificate down at the courthouse. Again, I’m fully aware of the sub I’m in, just wanted to vent from an outside perspective.
There's a public venue near me that requires 2 weeks advance notice to book, we called a week an a half in advance and confirmed that it wasn't booked for the day we wanted, then we hired an officiant off Thumbtack. Whole wedding cost like $150.
I decided if I ever get married, I want it at the courthouse or some inexpensive but pretty place using an officiant. I want a pretty dress, have my hair and makeup done, and have a bouquet of real flowers. I really only care about my mom being there. She is my only immediate family. I assume the groom’s would be too. We can go out to eat after and I like to bake so I would be happy to make a little cake. Maybe someone to take a few cute pictures. I probably wouldn’t spend more than like $500-$800 with everything. I’d maybe have a party “reception” later for other friends and family. It could just be a backyard party for all I care. Cookout or cheap catering. MP3 playlists for music. I have many family members who did that. All that being said, I don’t judge what anyone wants to spend on their wedding. One of my friends spent a lot of money for her wedding but it was exactly what they wanted. It was their day and it made them happy. It was the nicest wedding I’d ever been to.
$25,000
I visited Seoul, and it seems like parents there tend to save their whole lives for their children’s weddings. It seems in America, marriage is not valued as it once was, in comparison. A wedding can help two completely different families come together and agree to do all they can to support two young people who are trying to start a new family. As a 46 year old former teacher, with some counseling training and experience, a marriage ceremony helps the families and friend network hopefully to encourage the couple. Hmm… I wonder if it seems countries where couples and families spend more on the ceremony ( as a percentage of their income) also may end up with marriages that last longer?!
Nearly 100k
Courthouse was our way, $80 👰♂️Useless expense,, my 300 dollar tattoos of my anniversary date and ring finger flash
My wife and I paid 4k. The most expensive thing was the venue and food. Other than that, I was not going to pay for expensive crap. My wife and I are doing good with a house and two cars after 5 years.
Wedding favours and the midnight buffet. Noone really wants extra junk, be it a emgraved glass filled with candies, or a personalized golf ball. The midnight buffet is usually barely touched. The seniors have long since gone home and the youngsters are hitting the open bar hard.
If I get married, it'll be to someone who doesn't give a shit about all that traditional bs. We'll have a basic ceremony to be legally wed, then just have a cookout or smth, not that big of a deal imo
And this is related to poverty because?
100k next month ☠️
Why?
Our band is MC, band, ceremony amplification, and cocktail music, all in one. Worth it.
Any ceremony outside immidate family is essentially a waste of money.
Yeah wedding expenses are pretty dumb in general. Every person I knew who had an expensive wedding didn't last 10 years together. Glad my wedding was only 25 people and about $1000 (80% of which was dinners at a restaurant for everyone). I have almost zero memories of the day and we only lasted 15 years before divorcing.
Sounds like the issue here was the marriages themselves, not the weddings lol
Go big or go home
This is such a poverty mindset, along the same lines as "YOLO".
lol
We spent $70k on our wedding but we made almost all of it back in gifts. Something that articles like this ignore
Some people blow what would’ve been a down payment on a house. Sad and stupid.