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Wedding on a cliff overlooking the ocean in a private botanic garden in Maui
Photographer
Insanely good food (several courses)
Wedding cake
Booze
Limo
Celebrity uke player
Officiator
for 30 people = $7000
Better than any $30k+ wedding I have ever been to.
This is pretty much my dream wedding. Cliff overlooking the ocean at sunset in Hawaii with the officiant, required number of witnesses, photographer and uke player is exactly what I want. It would be an added bonus if there was a gazebo.
I planned the big fancy wedding the first time around and hated wedding planning. (Dress shopping was fun though). I should have just gone with my gut and eloped to Las Vegas-where, by the way, you can have a nice, inexpensive wedding at pretty much any of the casinos and not be married by Elvis (yes, I looked).
Our wedding costs, including rings, came in at under $4000. It was nothing fancy, but it wasn't cheap either. It was just enough. We also had no financial help, none, from our parents, it was all us. We opted instead to spend a lot of money on the honeymoon, and that is something we don't regret.
But hey, if you think weddings are expensive OP, just wait til you see what the divorce costs you!
...My question, how do people afford it? Especially considering that marriage often means starting a new family which leads to even more very high expenses - buying a home, family cars, kids etc.
How many people can blow this kind of money and then continue into making expensive choices like buying homes and having kids?
Because their parents pay for all or most of it.
However, a friend of mine told me that her father had solved the expensive wedding problem for his children. He announced to each one of them, male and female, that his contribution to their wedding would be to split a congratualtory meal with the happy couple with the other parents after the wedding.
And that is all her parents did. She said her wedding and her brother's were totally simple, bare bones events with friends and family staging a picnic lunch afterwards. She seemed not the slightest bit perturbed that that's what it had been, rather the opposite...though evidently some friends and relatives were "horrified that he could do that."
I think she and her brother got started off on married life with a good foundational lesson.
My parents fully expect something like that, which is kind of nice for me. They've always joked around, because I've never been much of a 'dater', that I would just show up one day and introduce a guy as my 'new husband'.
That's what my cousin did. She went down to NC one weekend to visit her "friend" who was stationed there and announced they got married when she got home. They've been married for at least 13 years now.
Are you talking about yourself? Sounds like there would be more discussion in order.
I've been married for a long time. Others can do what they want, but the idea of getting married at the courthouse didn't appeal to me. Simply getting married somewhere other than the courthouse doesn't mean you are spending thousands of dollars.
In general, receptions can be very expensive especially if you have a sit down dinner. The guest list also drives the costs way up.
I know a couple very nice facilities that can be rented for a couple hundred dollars but then you provide your own food/catering. There are ways to cut costs and have a nice wedding.
When I was married, in part because of the size of my husband's family I knew our guest list would be at least 100 people. I would have been fine with a smaller guest list, but for many people the family aspect is very important.
Many people don't realize there are many facilities one can rent cheap. For example if I marry my man we will likely have the reception in the American Legion, which we we will get either very cheap or free. We will have the food catered, and very possible people will actually bring food since this seems to happen often there. My mom's best friend makes cakes and another friend takes wedding photos and have said they would do these as gifts. My dad does business with a florist and gets good deals on flowers from them. All of this will save a lot.
well, what if the person you are marrying has a very large family and wants all of them present so as to not cause a rift within their family? That would result in a large wedding with proportionately large costs.
No wedding has to be "expensive", regardless of how many people are there. I wouldn't marry a guy who insisted on a huge, fancy expensive wedding, because that would indicate we do not have shared values, especially in a financial sense.
I have about 40 first cousins, plus about 20 aunts and uncles, not including their spouses. So, I have the potential to have a lot of people at my wedding, even if it is *just* family. But that doesn't mean it has to be pricey. I'm already thinking barbecue....
Tex, usually the bride's father pays, if he's still alive and in her life.
Not in London or Toronto. You get some Italian Canadians and Greek Brits that do that, but that's an outdated idea. Parents save for college. College is so much more important to help pay for than weddings.
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Cliff overlooking the ocean at sunset in Hawaii with the officiant, required number of witnesses, photographer and uke player is exactly what I want. It would be an added bonus if there was a gazebo.
