Are large weddings worth the money?

[Tweety]

Sure, it's a huge event in people's lives, but is it really worth spending this type of money out of your PA on any 1 night event? Well-off people spend hundreds of thousands, and people with middle-of-the-road wealth and incomes spend enough to really feel the pain on their bottom line for years.

Given that there's a 50% chance the marriage you're spending all this money on partying over will fail, is it really worth spending that large a percentage of your net worth on it? Even if it's easy for you to afford, couldn't that money be better spent elsewhere, such as investing for retirement, investing for your children and grandchildren, giving it to the needy, or buying yourself a great piece of art or something?

If weddings didn't carry the status factor that people are so concerned with, I think the amount of money spent on them nationally would drop like a stone.

So what do you do as an alternative? Small, destination weddings are my vote. You have close family (not extended relatives you haven't seen in a decade), close friends (people you have known for at least five years and see/speak to regularly), and you do it in a nice remote location, far away from where you live. You save tons of money, you don't offend non-invitees (people understand when you tell them you're doing a very small, getaway wedding), and you don't have to deal with all the stress and insane costs of a normal, big wedding.

Why more people don't go this way I don't understand. My wife and I did it and we have no regrets.

[LocustHorde]

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Given that there's a 50% chance the marriage you're spending all this money on partying over will fail, is it really worth spending that large a percentage of your net worth on it? Even if it's easy for you to afford, couldn't that money be better spent elsewhere, such as investing for retirement, investing for your children and grandchildren, giving it to the needy, or buying yourself a great piece of ass or something?



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[youtalkfunny]

I got married at that Las Vegas wedding chapel with the drive-up window. We were broke at the time, and didn't have a car, so we had to go inside.

There was my bride, me, and that was IT. Our "witness" was a video camera.

Here's the rundown:

Bus fare to the chapel and back: $5
Chapel fee: Waived (for active military)
"Would you like to buy her a bouquet?": $25
Tip for the "reverend" (the envelope suggested $50-100): $20
Donuts and lemonade at the Winchell's next door: $5

That was it, that was my entire wedding.

Any girl who thinks a big wedding (or an expensive ring) is important, is not a girl I want to marry.

[Tweety]

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Any girl who thinks a big wedding (or an expensive ring) is important, is not a girl I want to marry.

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Fine, but you just eliminated no less than 90% of American females right there.

Many girls have their weddings planned out in their mind (sometimes on paper even) before they finish high school.

[XXXNoahXXX]

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Given that there's a 50% chance the marriage you're spending all this money on partying over will fail,

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Just explain this to your fiancee.....


Don't worry, 50% of OTHER PEOPLE'S marriages fail but yours will always last, so its worth it.




As for getaway weddings, things get annoying with old relatives, new passport regulations, etc.

Personally I want to have a simple ceremony, a simple reception, then like a VIP reception later that night or the next day/night where its just like our best friends, and spend money making that a real blowout.

[Tweety]

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Given that there's a 50% chance the marriage you're spending all this money on partying over will fail,

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Just explain this to your fiancee.....


Don't worry, 50% of OTHER PEOPLE'S marriages fail but yours will always last, so its worth it.




As for getaway weddings, things get annoying with old relatives, new passport regulations, etc.

Personally I want to have a simple ceremony, a simple reception, then like a VIP reception later that night or the next day/night where its just like our best friends, and spend money making that a real blowout.

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You say this now but good luck when it comes time to actually planning it. Things sneak up on you that end up costing you big. Friends that aren't invited are sore about it.

Destination weddings are ideal because you're spending money on something you might spend a lot of money on anyway: a great vacation. Also, it is much easier to justify not inviting certain people if you get married in a remote place than if you do it near home.

We talked about doing a blowout party at home when we got back, but we ended up bagging that idea due to the cost. Renting out a bar or restaurant in NYC and inviting 150-200 people for an open bar with hors d'oeuvres isn't exactly a small cost.

We got married at a 5 star hotel in Italy with about 30 of our closest friends and relatives. We then spent 5 days on our own in Capri as a honeymoon, also at a 5 star property. We picked up the travel and hotel costs for certain relatives who couldn't afford the hotel or airfare.

Total cost of everything, including the honeymoon, the dinners we picked up for everyone, the hotel costs for ourselves and the others we paid for, general spending money throughout the trip, flowers, string quartet, the dinner (at this top notch hotel), and everything else: about $30,000. We were gone for a total of two weeks. People who go to Europe for two weeks and stay in nice places spend no less than 10k, and sometimes more like 20k if they're really pimping it up.

Take a look at what $30,000 gets you back home if you want to invite over 150 people. The last few weddings I have been to have been 200-plus.

Nothing is worse than a big wedding that is painfully cheap and adhering to a strict budget. Cash bars, a lack of food at the cocktail hour, chintsing out on tents, no bands, etc., is just lame. If you can't afford it don't do it at all. Nobody is going to care 2 years later. People are way too obsessed with appearances.

It cracks me up that people flip out when gas prices go up by 30 cents, but then they go and spend everything they have in their savings account on a single party to celebrate an institution that fails as often as it succeeds.

[prohornblower]

Spending a lot of money on a wedding is extremely selfish, pointless, and shallow, IMO.

Reminds me of an artile I read in Money magazine. The back page had a couple who spent $38K on their wedding, then spent the next two years selling things and working extra jobs to try to remove the debt. They said "A big wedding is supposed to be romantic, but I can't think of anything less romantic than putting your family in a giant hole right out the gate."

I totally agree. Spend the money elsewhere.

[XXXNoahXXX]

Sooo you talk about not liking big weddings but spent 30k?


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Renting out a bar or restaurant in NYC and inviting 150-200 people for an open bar with hors d'oeuvres isn't exactly a small cost.

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I think your idea of small get together and mine are a bit different.

[VoraciousReader]

For some people, they are.

Some people want to have a big party and invite all of their near-friends and co-workers and Great Aunt Ethel's nutritionist and 3rd cousins 12 times removed. They want a big reunion of everyone they've ever met. Good for them. This can actually be a lot of fun for all the remote connections that don't get to see each other very often.

If it were up to me, I wouldn't spend 30K on your "desitination wedding" either. What I'd really like is to decorate my house in white and silver and blue at Christmastime, invite a few close friends and family over for a holiday party, and at about 10:30 after we've had food and wine have the officiant come out, announce that we are getting married, have vows and rings (and a veil...my one absolute requirement is a floor-length veil...and they are NOT cheap).

No deluge of wedding gifts, no showers, no hair appointments for 6, no hours spent haggling with caterers and florists, no $20,000+ bill. Just we get married, and then everyone hugs us and leaves.

The point is, you had the wedding you wanted. As long as they can afford it, everyone should have exactly the wedding they want.

And personally, I find this paragraph hilarious:

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Nothing is worse than a big wedding that is painfully cheap and adhering to a strict budget. Cash bars, a lack of food at the cocktail hour, chintsing out on tents, no bands, etc., is just lame. If you can't afford it don't do it at all. Nobody is going to care 2 years later. People are way too obsessed with appearances.

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Hypocritical much?

[gumpzilla]

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Nothing is worse than a big wedding that is painfully cheap and adhering to a strict budget. Cash bars, a lack of food at the cocktail hour, chintsing out on tents, no bands, etc., is just lame. If you can't afford it don't do it at all. Nobody is going to care 2 years later. People are way too obsessed with appearances.

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Hypocritical much?

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I don't think he's concerned with the appearance of a lame party, he's concerned about attending a lame party and having less fun than he might otherwise.

I'd be pretty content spending minimally on a wedding. My fiancee wouldn't be averse to such a thing either, but her mother's side of the family has tended to have fairly involved weddings, and so that's how it looks like we're going. EDIT: Which brings up the other point I forgot to make, which is that a lot of the time I think the wedding is as much about the family as it is about the couple. That puts a different spin on things, I think.