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what you don't plan on working?? the 30 grand is it forever??
I agree with you. My SIL did this, they are now divorced. All of her kids who got married recently in the last 5 years threw at least a wedding. Planning a wedding is the trial time for pre-marriage, if you don’t see eye to eye with your potential spouse, there’s time to cool off. Better than a divorce much later on, much more expensive. $30k is peanuts comparatively.
Double foolish when you consider most of those weddings end in divorce
Triple foolish when the opportunity cost of that day could be hundreds of thousands and you can do a lot of nice stuff for 5 or 7k or even 10k.
People get caught in the here and now. Most people don't save much of anything for retirement. Big part of that problem is frivolous spending throughout their lives and pissing away 30k of life savings on a wedding is ****ing beyond stupid.
I personally don't want a traditional wedding. I'll be just as happy going down to the courthouse & getting married. I'd much rather save & have more money for my married life.
Doing anything for less than $10-$15k nowadays at any venue is pretty unheard of unless it’s really small. We rented a place for a day that only cost $750 and they let us do whatever we wanted. My father-in-law cooked all the food and bought all the booze, but when you start throwing in a tux, a wedding dress, shoes, invitations, flowers, etc. add in food and drinks for 125-150 people and $10k is extremely easy to hit even if it’s from Costco.
I told her that assuming a stock market investment doubled every seven years, if they took that $30K and put it in the stock market instead, that nice wedding may be worth $500,000 in thirty years. That would allow them to retire at age 55 and live a life of leisure for the next 30 years.
She only sees it as HER " big day", just like "its all about the dress"....
We got married on our friends 3 acres farmette, under his pergola in the "north 40", and our friend also a minister performed the ceremony for free for us, and his OH put out a sandwich spread for the 5 of us who were there.
Simple and to the point.
I have never been one to keep up with the Jones's, or to try to impress friends.
Yes, OP, i would rather invest it and have it for retirement than a one time shebang, but each to their own.
It IS the one day, dress and all that a young woman can feel like a princess or like Cinderella at the ball. That is what many of them want and have been "trained" since real young that it should be that way. The only missing thing in this fairy tale is the knight in shining armor to carry her off. But her man and the obligatory limo or Rolls Royce will just have to do.
Not for me, but it may be for her.
Just hope that she doesn't end up being a statistic and divorced 10 years later.
Seems a ridiculous expense for a day but I'm unmarried and never plan to marry. But I've learned a long time ago to bite my tongue when it comes to finances. I never try to offer any advice to anyone because they don't want it. So I'll reiterate what another poster said, none of your business.
At work some of my coworkers make jokes at me about my toy phone (iPhone SE) and how I even use it. Same guys have new iPhones each year with $50 monthly payments and $700 car loans. They vent to me about how they can't afford to live on one job when it gets slow and overtime isn't abundant; and need another. These same two are single no kids. Five years ago I'd tell them to buy a car they need and not want, and don't upgrade their phone every year but no one wants to hear that. I just sit back and let people do their thing.
The only person I've coached over the last couple years was a coworker that didn't know traditional banking was an option and I got him out of recurring 180% personal loans that he used to get himself in. He had good credit but he was taken advantage of because he's a first generation Mexican American. He now has a small line of credit at his CU at 8% if he needs it and has a credit card.
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