Why are weddings so expensive? And people crazy!?

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My husband and I went out of the country. Told close family and friends when we were getting married and if they wanted to join us they were welcome. We ended up with 19 of us and had a grand vacation. My husband and I stayed for two weeks. (Dominican Republic). It was the best time ever. We've been married 17 years now. My first marriage his 3rd. I would dot it again in a heartbeat. No stress or drama.
 
You are getting a lot of advice and suggestions - which reinforces the idea that you should do what you and your bride to be want. I would really think twice about having my own wedding at my own house though. There is enough to do and stress over with even a simple wedding. Make sure you are both on board 100%. You have a beautiful setting, but if it will cause a lot of stress for either of you, I'd find somewhere else. One thing with outdoor weddings, you can't control the weather.
 
I don't understand the expensive wedding thing either. Many people want that, which is fine, but if it's not your thing the you need to stand your ground.

I had my wedding in my backyard with only immediate family. It caused plenty of ruffled feathers with aunts, uncles, cousins etc but it seems they all got over it. We had our reception in a park shelter for which I was grateful because when we wrapped it up, a bunch of people weren't done having fun so they went to someone's house and carried on. We were wiped out. If it had been at our house, if would have been very difficult to shoo people out without looking offensive.

It's difficult to manage other people's expectations about YOUR wedding, but it is worth it in the end. It's your life after all!
 
Looks like you have the place. Now just invite those you want. It's your wedding.

We got married in Uncle Joe's back yard. We had just over $100 to spend and came in under budget. Including DW's ring and the rented tux. That was in 1972.
Crowfoot the hound did relieve himself on on someone in the front row during the ceremony though so do try and keep the dog tied up. On the other hand it is a priceless memory.
 
Save money and do lots of work at home or money up 40K and have it all taken care of.

Oh, that looks like a glorious place for a wedding. Have your friends help. It could even be their wedding gift to you. Think of what else you could do with 40K!!! You could have a wedding in a hall that would be just like everyone elses, or you could have memories of a wedding ending with the sunset over those fields. For me, it would be an easy choice. :)
 
You have to be really careful with destination weddings. It might be fairly cheap for 2 to get accommodation in a certain place if you buy your tickets at the right time but if others are buying closer to the date all that changes.

Friends kids got married in Hawaii and it cost $15,000 for an aunt to bring the family for 5 days. She wanted to not go and just give the money to the couple getting married but they were so upset at them missing it that that aunt had to go.

Another one had their wedding in Bali.

In both cases the couple had a relatively cheap wedding but the guests didn't.
 
Oh gosh! It's ALL about memories! We have 7 kids (combined family) and every wedding was different. Our usual gift was paying for the honeymoon. When the last of the 7 got married, the mother-of-the-groom insisted on paying for just about everything. I was asked to take a back seat, which I did. All I had to do was show up, have a couple of drinks, and enjoy the day. Which I did. I danced my legs off, laughed a lot, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Later, my darling daughter said, "Mom, everyone commented on how much fun you were having!" (...and no, I wasn't blotto... just free to be me. KWIM?)

Any way, the mother-of-the-groom also paid for the honeymoon. It wasn't until we picked them up from the airport on their return that we learned the mother-of-the-groom, and the groom's siblings, and nieces and nephews all went along!!! I laughed so hard when daughter complained about the little niece coming into their room and crawling into bed with them each morning!

We gave them money in lieu of the honeymoon -- for which they later were enormously greatful. They used it to pay for a road trip that took them to a place where they finally settled... a good distance away from us, and more importantly, away from the mother-of-the-groom.

Then there's #2 son... Mexican wedding where, at the reception, the bride's Grandma punched out Grandpa because he was feeling up a fairly buxom blond.

#1 daughter had a church reception after the ceremony in the rose garden, with cake, punch, coffee & tea, etc. for the "old folks". She and her bridesmaids made butter mints and other finger foods. Then the old folks went home and the rest of the party changed clothes and headed to the lake. This was in Texas. The groom had stayed up all night bar-b-quing a goat. YUM! His nephew and our 3 sons all "helped" by sitting in the back of his pick up and keeping him awake. This wonderful reception went a long way to bonding the whole family. They've been married 38 years. Every Anniversary they have a bar-b-que and invite all their family and friends to join them. It is SO cool.
 
You have to be really careful with destination weddings. It might be fairly cheap for 2 to get accommodation in a certain place if you buy your tickets at the right time but if others are buying closer to the date all that changes.

Friends kids got married in Hawaii and it cost $15,000 for an aunt to bring the family for 5 days. She wanted to not go and just give the money to the couple getting married but they were so upset at them missing it that that aunt had to go.

Another one had their wedding in Bali.

In both cases the couple had a relatively cheap wedding but the guests didn't.

We're doing it through a wedding planner so thankfully it'll be pretty straight forward for us. We basically pick the resort and she handles the rest, including booking travel for everyone. They just email or call her to set it up, so we don't even need to field questions from family!

We're looking at Mexico because we love it there. As long as we don't go for a crazy expensive resort, it'll be about 5k for me and my fiancé all said and done, travel, ceremony and resort. For our guests it'll be about 1.5-2k per person. Most people we know can afford it and it's a pretty good price for a week in a Mexican resort. We'll probably have a backyard BBQ when we return for anyone who can't make it.
 
We're doing it through a wedding planner so thankfully it'll be pretty straight forward for us. We basically pick the resort and she handles the rest, including booking travel for everyone. They just email or call her to set it up, so we don't even need to field questions from family!

We're looking at Mexico because we love it there. As long as we don't go for a crazy expensive resort, it'll be about 5k for me and my fiancé all said and done, travel, ceremony and resort. For our guests it'll be about 1.5-2k per person. Most people we know can afford it and it's a pretty good price for a week in a Mexican resort. We'll probably have a backyard BBQ when we return for anyone who can't make it.

Yes that's about the price. So for a family of 6 it's $12,000 plus car hire plus food plus clothes etc etc. it sure adds up for guests. Lots of guests are starting to decline. My sons at the age of going to 3-4 weddings a year and it's getting ridiculous.
 
Oh, that looks like a glorious place for a wedding. Have your friends help. It could even be their wedding gift to you. Think of what else you could do with 40K!!! You could have a wedding in a hall that would be just like everyone elses, or you could have memories of a wedding ending with the sunset over those fields. For me, it would be an easy choice. :)


Ditto 100%^^^^. Easy choice for me, too.

It's yours and your bride's day. One of the best wedding gifts you can give to each other is for each of you to put a foot down and don't let others take over and ruin it for you.

Hubby and I took control of our wedding from the get-go and went the budget route. We spent a total of $300 tops, which included hubby making my wedding dress (yes- the man sews!).

We had a small church wedding with only our closest friends and family in attendance (about 50 total people in all) on the 3rd anniversary of our very first date- a cold Thursday evening in December, which actually turned out to be the coldest night of that year in our town. I make mention of that because when hubby and I were dating, he was always fond of saying that it would be a cold day in hell before he ever got married. Yeah- we joke about that a lot. :lol:

To save money on the reception, we planned the ceremony to take place at night after folks had already eaten dinner in their own homes, so that the reception (which was held in my mom and step-dad's living room) would be like folks just gathering for dessert (our cake), although my mom laid out some finger-foods, too (cold cuts and cheese).

And our 'photographer' was just a good friend who had good 35mm camera and whose hobby was taking photos (she volunteered for the job at no cost).

All in all, it was a really nice, simple, homey, intimate, stress-free wedding- nothing super-fancy or fussy or mussy, and everyone had a pleasant time.

Good memories.


IrishLass :)
 
My mom at 91 still regrets she could not have a small wedding. Both times she was married in Vegas. Memories are great to have. My cousin gave her daughter a huge blowout wedding which was not cheap so her daughter could have memories for the short time she was going to live. There are many reasons for weddings and many ways to have a wedding, but the memories are forever. Final line is, it is your wedding so do what will make you happy. Wedding certainly do not make the marriage last or not. I knew a couple who's family was still paying off the wedding bills after the kids divorced in less than a year. It was a huge outrageously expensive Armenian wedding.
 
My s.o. and I aren't married altough we have a house and children and have been together for the past ten years. We are simple folks and we do not need or want huge fanfare.

We both know that our families wouldn't understand our want for a small wedding so we chose not to get married at all, so I get where you're coming from. Maybe we'll get married once we are old enough to tell people to stuff it if they're not happy :mrgreen:
 
This thread has turned into a fun collection of wedding stories.

RalphTheMastiff, your place is so beautiful that I'm thinking you should start renting it out for weddings. That way you would raise money and get all the kinks out for your own wedding. A two-fer!

Here is what irked me when we planned our wedding: the minute you uttered the "W" word, a whole new price schematic would emerge from a vendor. For instance, we did a tremendous amount of due diligence when it came to dessert. It is, after all, the single most important part of a wedding, right? As such, we just had to go to dozens of bakeries in search of the perfect cake/frosting combination. The first bakery we walked into we sidled up to the counter and started flipping through an album of decorated cake photos. Eventually an employee came over to ask if we needed help, and we explained we were looking at wedding cake options. She said, ohhhhh, well then, this is not the right book (closing and taking away the cake album we'd been looking at), this is the book you need to look at. And inside were pictures of almost identically decorated cakes... with prices that were all 20-30% higher.

At any rate, like others here, our wedding was a small affair. Our parents accompanied us to the Daley Center in Chicago where we lived for many years (the city, not the Daley Center), we were married in a judge's chambers upstairs, then we had a 4-course dinner for 19 people in a private upstairs dining room at a wonderful restaurant. Our wedding invites were hand-painted by us, flowers were a few simple Gerbera daisies, my dress was just an off-the-rack white-ish cocktail/party dress, and we asked our guests to bring a camera if they had one and take lots of photos. Oh, and we ended up getting mini-cupcakes in lieu of a bigger cake.

RTM, I hope you and your fiancee are able to suss out a celebration that is befitting of you both. People may whisper behind your back about your choices, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter what they think. You will soon learn, if you haven't already, it only matters what your soon-to-be-wife thinks. :) Oh, and whatever you do, do not mention the word wedding when getting a price quote on anything. Be vague, and say, oh, we're thinking of having a little party...
 
For instance, we did a tremendous amount of due diligence when it came to dessert. It is, after all, the single most important part of a wedding, right?

Aside from the Mother of the Bride of course (I teased my daughter - and pretty much anyone else who would listed - with that when she was planning her wedding).

Your wedding sounds lovely.
 
My wedding was small, in my parents backyard. We also did not spend a lot. You can have a beautiful wedding without going crazy. I'd rather put the money towards a honeymoon!

But yeah, pretty much people go absolutely crazy, I do not get it either. I am an older gal now, but it seems to me that today is like a competition thing for girls, not about the wedding.
 
I was integral in getting my best friends in Kansas City to 'elope'. They had saved for over a year to have a wedding. BUt Tori was doing it all herself - finding a place, looking at catering and all that. Neither her or Jimi's parents were going to make it (the 2 of them were in their 40's at this time). So I told her to stop worrying herself sick and stressing out about it and use the money they saved and go to Vegas. Me and another friend went with them as witnesses and I took pictures.

About a year later I threw them a party at the condo I lived in and we invited all of our friends. Everyone really just goes for the free booze at the reception afterwards anyway!
 
This thread has turned into a fun collection of wedding stories.

RalphTheMastiff, your place is so beautiful that I'm thinking you should start renting it out for weddings. That way you would raise money and get all the kinks out for your own wedding. A two-fer!

Here is what irked me when we planned our wedding: the minute you uttered the "W" word, a whole new price schematic would emerge from a vendor. For instance, we did a tremendous amount of due diligence when it came to dessert. It is, after all, the single most important part of a wedding, right? As such, we just had to go to dozens of bakeries in search of the perfect cake/frosting combination. The first bakery we walked into we sidled up to the counter and started flipping through an album of decorated cake photos. Eventually an employee came over to ask if we needed help, and we explained we were looking at wedding cake options. She said, ohhhhh, well then, this is not the right book (closing and taking away the cake album we'd been looking at), this is the book you need to look at. And inside were pictures of almost identically decorated cakes... with prices that were all 20-30% higher.

At any rate, like others here, our wedding was a small affair. Our parents accompanied us to the Daley Center in Chicago where we lived for many years (the city, not the Daley Center), we were married in a judge's chambers upstairs, then we had a 4-course dinner for 19 people in a private upstairs dining room at a wonderful restaurant. Our wedding invites were hand-painted by us, flowers were a few simple Gerbera daisies, my dress was just an off-the-rack white-ish cocktail/party dress, and we asked our guests to bring a camera if they had one and take lots of photos. Oh, and we ended up getting mini-cupcakes in lieu of a bigger cake.

RTM, I hope you and your fiancee are able to suss out a celebration that is befitting of you both. People may whisper behind your back about your choices, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter what they think. You will soon learn, if you haven't already, it only matters what your soon-to-be-wife thinks. :) Oh, and whatever you do, do not mention the word wedding when getting a price quote on anything. Be vague, and say, oh, we're thinking of having a little party...
HAHAHA I tell everyone I'm looking for stuff for a family reunion!
 
My wedding should not be the highlight of my life, i want the little moments to be, the feeling we had our first night in our home, our first date, the day i flash boiled bees wax and am still cleaning it up, watching my lovely bride to be use our bran new $20,000 tractor and smash into our shed and the look on her face, canning apples from our trees for the first time and eating them late in the winter with pride. This is what i want my relationship to be about, I don't want to think back 10 years from now about my wedding day on our anniversary but all the moments that we shared good and bad over the years.

Am I crazy? Am i thinking about this all wrong?

No, you are not. However, the memories formed during a wedding usually do last a lifetime and typically make the "highlights" reel. Plus, the photographs are a tangible totem that you can drag out to re-connect to your goo-ier emotions when you are frustrated with the other person. The nostalgia about the "[smashed tractor]" usually only happens later. At that instant, the one driving is mortified, the one watching is terrified, and no one has found the humor in it yet.

My favorite corollary is a story about my friend's parents. I drove onto their property just after her father had broken out of the outdoor shower that his wife inadvertently locked him in. The door was hanging off the hinges; he was naked and p***ed. He has since passed away and her mother loves for me to re-tell the story about the ranting and raving I was privy to. She was not so thrilled with the Machiavellian intentions that he attributed her with in the heat of the moment.

Thank you every one for your kind words and encouragement. I'm going to have my better half look all this over and hopefully it will make her feel a lot better with doing what she wants!

I realize that you kind of closed out the thread with your last post, but had a differing perspective. The thematic thread in all the replies is that the importance of the wedding is the memory that you have made.

I hazard to guess that asking a soap making forum for opinions skews the cinematographic imagery of what that looks like. People that opt to make a product that can be so easily acquired (high availability/low relative cost) are inclined to appreciate simplicity, frugality, and a hand-crafted/DIY venture. I am definitely one of those people. However, I have friends that formed their visions of what they wanted their wedding to be before they ever had a frame of reference for what they wanted in their partner or themselves (I have been to a couple of 6-figure affairs and paid out-of-pocket for the best friend when they were just going to do the JP/courthouse route.)

My perspective on this has more to do, not what the wedding is, but how you will both remember it. I can understand the allure of fairy lights on a midsummer night...but that is no good if you are both too stressed out from handling all the details to appreciate the ceremony. It's lovely to have all the grunt-work shouldered by someone else, but cost is an issue relative to your income, lifestyle, and future plans.

I have no idea if your impending spouse (or you) needs the reassurance that she gave her mother her dying wish, the financial freedom to take a year off to write the great American novel, or an intimate memory of just the two of you in a glass chapel on a tropical bluff. My point (albeit long-winded), is that I might take a breath to think about what you both want and what the memories are that you want to build. I do not mean the specifics (dress, venue, food, guest list, etc). Rather, that you are both empathetic to each others' feelings, supportive of their ideas, and protective of their vulnerabilities.

I do not mean to sound patronizing and do not pretend to be an authority on...well much of anything. However, I have had my share of experience with misinterpretation and miscommunication. I am just not sure that I would appreciate my significant other spit-balling with a bunch of relative strangers and then sitting me down to read their responses (not necessarily what you meant...but underscores my misinterpretation point.)

It is important that she perceive your actions as supportive, rather than being pulled or pressured in yet another direction. I think it would be more beneficial to simply have a conversation that started with the eloquent description you offered about what YOU want your marriage to be and have her articulate HER priorities. The you can both work on trying to give the each other the wedding, marriage, and partnership that fulfills you. That looks different for everyone.
 
Ahh Ha! Just had to chime in on this one.

I am 72. My husband and I eloped when eloping wasn't considered much of an option. Our parents were different religions and that was
a problem (for our parents).
I have never regretted it. I watched so many of my friends and their moms totally stressed dealing with all the planning and expenses that it
didn't seem that I had missed much.
When it came time for our daughters to marry, my husband and I told them that they would each get a certain amount of money. They could use
it for a wedding, put it to a down payment on a house,etc. If they chose an expensive wedding and the cost went over what we had given them, they had
to anti up. If they chose a less expensive wedding, they kept what was left over.
One daughter and now son-in-law elected to "elope" to Austria and had a little left over.
The other daughter opted for a small wedding and spent the rest to get started in a new house.
We had no hassles or tears (except for me who just cries at all weddings). Worked fine for us.
Seems weddings and proms have become second only to the Academy Awards....big productions.

Now, we're looking at the cost of funerals!!!! What a total rip off.
 

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