Why are weddings so expensive? And people crazy!?

My hubby and I went to the courthouse. My father-in-law witnessed and then took us to lunch after. We were poor as church mice and didn't have the money for a wedding, nor did I want to plan one. (I saw my mother's behavior at my sister's weddings. No. Thank. You.) For our honeymoon, we took an ill-fated backpacking trip that generated some memories for sure.

My only regret is that I didn't wear something fancier for the ceremony.

Oh this has been such a great thread. It's been fun reading about other people's weddings and brought back a lot of wonderful memories.

My partner and I met later in life and wanted our wedding to be an opportunity to bring our two communities of friends together. That was our entire focus---are our friends having a good time? We kept things as cheap as possible (I think we paid sixteen dollars in total for our rings, for example) but we spent money on what was really important for us...namely, throwing a great party for our friends. We had 175 people there. It was outdoors on a covered wooden platform in late May. The reception was further down a little dirt road on the same farm. We rented a tent just in case but really did not need it. What a gorgeous day it was. All you could see from the reception tent facing west was rolling hills of hay grass coming into green with pine forests on either side. On the other sides we just had acres of wildflowers.

I was raised Baptist and my partner is Jewish. While planning the day, we initially each chose music (for the service and reception) separately without discussing it with each other. Well it turns out my partner wanted some banjo-heavy Americana music for the service and I wanted a klezmer band for the reception. Musician friends of ours wrote a song just for our procession. Klezmer turned out to be a great decision for the reception. There are lots of people who feel self conscious about couple dancing but putting everyone in a great big circle is somehow liberating to a lot of folks. I thought I had rented a large enough wooden floor for the dancing but the crowd thought otherwise... so for a good amount of time almost everyone was running through the nearby wildflower-covered field, all holding hands, as the band played on and on and on. I am not so religious any more. (My kind of Baptists are not supposed to dance...ha!) But there was a moment during the running-through-the-fields dance that approached a kind of religious ecstasy, or at least I felt that way. Everyone seemed truly lost in the moment and very present right there right then.

Feeding 175 people was not cheap but that and the tent/dishes rental were about the only major expenses. (We paid three hundred dollars for the use of the entire farm for the day. I still do not know how we lucked into that.) There were no wedding dresses or rented tuxes. We both had 4 attendants (a mix of women and men for both) and told them to wear their dressiest casual clothes. We were (are) all close friends and trusted them to look great and they did. We did not want a cake but someone up and donated 200 vegan cupcakes, quite unexpectedly. We did not think we needed flowers since we were surrounded by acres and acres of wildflowers but someone still picked bunches of lovely flowers (mostly snapdragons) from their garden and brought enough mason jars for every table at the reception. Everything just worked out perfectly.

One important thing--neither our parents nor any wedding "planner" had anything to do with this at all. We gave our parents a date and said they could show up or not. They showed up. I'm not saying parents shouldn't be involved but I do think any couple getting married needs to think about what is truly valuable to them and not get sucked into a performance for other people. The weddings I have attended that have been more about projecting social status and bling, or caught up in the exact correct "protocol" per their planner... they always seem to be the saddest.

Oh, if you have made it this far, Gimlet Media had two interesting podcasts about weddings last fall. Here is the first, if you want to take a listen: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/22-wedding-planning/

ETA: Also we paid for everything ourselves. Our parents did not contribute a dime nor did we want them to do so. And we did not borrow any money (from another person, our 401K, a credit card or in any other manner) to pay for this. Anyone can have a meaningful wedding ceremony within a budget if they want to. Especially if you are young, starting out in debt for something like this seems nuts to me.

But there was a moment during the running-through-the-fields dance that approached a kind of religious ecstasy, or at least I felt that way. Everyone seemed truly lost in the moment and very present right there right then.

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I know EXACTLY what you mean! Our daughter, Sarah's wedding had a moment like that. The setting was a mountain cabin high up in the Rockies, in the Red Feather Lakes area near Ft. Collins CO. Awe inspiring views. It was a gorgeous day, sunshine and blue skies. There was an outcroping where the couple spoke their wedding vows. A friend who is a professional musician was stationed there. He provided the music for the ceremony and the reception after. The music rang out over a green valley below, surrounded by mountain peaks. When Sarah's favorite song started, with a wave of her hand, Sarah motioned us to follow her to the next outcropping over -- followed by ALL the women and we started dancing, and laughing and dancing and laughing. It was so joyful... love-ly in the literal sense. Then there was a moment when it felt we were transported beyond joy into blessing, for lack of a better word. I'll never forget it. I get tingles just thinking about it.

Thank you SO much for sharing your special day, Scooter, and many blessings on you and yours. BIG hug.

I've been married 3 times, so have some experience with weddings. Plus planning my son's wedding to take place upon his & DIL's return to the US gives me hands-on experience with 4 weddings.

My first wedding was a very large, extravagant church wedding and reception paid for and mostly planned by my parents. I was too young to marry (but stubbornly did not see that at the time) and took everything for granted and didn't even choose my own music. I would never recommend such a thing to anyone. I barely remember anything about my first wedding other than hundreds of people attended in a church that is no longer there and the Tower of the Hotel where we had the reception no longer exists. The wedding itself was far too stress producing for my parents, IMO, and I cared little at the time, which makes the whole thing rather disappointing as a life experience. If you want lots of wedding gifts and lots of wedding showers, this is one way to go, but I am not that much of a material girl. (perhaps I was then, but I would hate to believe that about myself)

My second wedding was my first experience similar to your own, RalphTheMastiff, where we did all our own planning and preparation. we were both mature adults with 4 teen-aged sons between us, well-established in our respective professions and much more stable as human beings, very much in love, of course, but much more responsible and capable of choosing wisely. It was a much better way to go, doing our own planning and preparation. I appreciated the process much more by doing it myself as a mature adult than I ever did as that self-absorbed teen-ager of my past. Our venue was a Forested Park near where we lived, where we had the wedding and reception all in one location. I did all the flowers myself, but we did hire a caterer for the meal and a DJ to handle the music. We chose our music carefully and I do remember the songs, the dances, almost everything about the wedding and reception. It was also a largish wedding, although not quite as large as my first. But we had so many family, friends and co-workers that we chose to invite about 150 guests. So not too large. And my niece who was my flower girl is the niece I visit most often, although I do have to admit I only have 2 nieces.

After my second husband died, I did not think I would ever fall in love again, let alone marry or have a wedding and reception again. But several years later, I met my current husband and as two more mature (elderly, as my teen-aged self would have called us) adults both with previous huge weddings behind us, this time we chose for a very small wedding. We decided the easiest way to achieve that was to marry in the Tahoe area, which we both enjoyed in previous trips together. We invited only a few immediate family and a couple of close friends. All told, we probably had less than a dozen guests at our wedding and reception. We did all the reception planning and preparation ourselves, but had a bit of help from one of our good friends in the choosing of wedding dress, snacks, etc. The wedding itself was a 'package wedding' at one of the Tahoe locations, but we chose it in advance, so it was less like eloping, but the same kind of package one can choose from when a couple elopes to Tahoe (or Vegas, etc.)

My son and DIL asked us to plan their wedding for them to take place in Vegas when they returned from Mexico several years ago. So we did all the planning for that wedding, too. There was no reception because the only people present besides my husband and myself, my DIL, son and granddaughter, was one of my DIL's brothers. We chose the venue based on it's proximity to our timeshare in Vegas and it turned out to be a lovely setting with gorgeous pink flamingos as well as other tropical wildlife in and around the setting. The only thing my DIL had to do was choose a wedding dress when she arrived. For them the wedding was just what they wanted.

So what would I suggest to anyone getting married after these experiences of my own? If you put your own planning and effort into it, it will mean more to you than if you let someone else do all the work. If you don't really care that much to put the effort and planning into it, then hire someone else to do that part of it for you, but pay attention when they want to discuss it with you and assert your desires. If you don't really care who attends, let someone else decide on the guest list, but act interested at least and welcome and thank each and every guest who is there to celebrate your marriage. Send hand-written formal thank-you notes to each and every gift giver (I've been on the 'receiving' end of not receiving a thank you for wedding/shower gifts - It is beyond rude). Give gifts to your helpers (best-man; bride's maids, parents, flower-girl, ring-bearer, etc.) to show your appreciation for their marvelous service. Be patient and loving toward your spouse-to-be as this can be a very stressful event, before, during and after.