Here’s the alternative:
- Justice of the Peace ceremony: $43 (including license, supply your own witnesses)
- session at photography studio: $13-$500 (including prints and downloads)
- BYOB party at your place that evening: $0
Basically, finding out your partner wants a big wedding is a huge go/no-go moment. Save the money for when you really need it.
My wife and I were planning our wedding a year from then when I got a job offer to the US and we had to get married in a hurry to avoid some issues with the visas.
Best decision ever, we had a small party at my SIL patio, my parents got us tacos catering, a friend of my wife who has won some iPod battles was or “DJ” and we got some cheap wines at costco and told people to BYOB
We only had to rent some chairs and tables but it wasn’t very expensive
We were planning to celebrate our 1st anniversary doing a “wedding” party but we decided to use the money to travel 3 weeks to Japan instead
As my sister in law said, even for expensive weddings, if you do things properly you’ll end up making profit from the gifts you receive.
And yes, that’s fucking disgusting.
I mean you’re right, but I believe the converse is what she was getting at. Invite respectable guests and they will know the unwritten rule: bring a gift worth at least as much as your meal, drinks and party favors. It’s not necessarily bad to expect that much.
I personally think that yes it’s bad to expect that much. You’re the one who decided to organize a party for a day that’s all about you and your SO, it’s not my problem how much you decided to spend on it. Even for my best friend’s wedding I told him “You charge me something or expect me to give a gift worth X, I’m not going, it’s your decision to do something special that day, you assume it, the day I invite you to a party I won’t charge you or expect a gift.”
I hate big weddings as much as anyone but the idea of bringing a gift isn’t to “charge” you. It’s that you want to help set up the newlyweds in their life together. The party is all about them but most of what they’re spending is on things to make sure their guests have a great time. I’m sure it happens but I’ve never been to a wedding where anyone demanded a gift as the cost of entry.
My mama’s got a tiny little diamond in her engagement ring. Dad offered to get her a bigger one, but she said no, let’s save that money for something more important. I believe that money got put toward a renovation of the house.
Give me a girl like mama, whose got a tiny diamond and a solid home.
Get an “artificial diamond”, much cheaper but basically the same thing
Yeehaw! A thirteen dollar photoshoot!
Photoshoot’s free. The $13 is for the print you get.
You mock, but my grandparents only have a couple photos of the day they were married. But they did stick together all their lives, and they did raise their kids as best they could within their means.
There was a study a few years ago that showed that people who spend less on wedding have a lower chance of divorce.
On the other hand not going for a honeymoon increase divorce rate.
So better save money on the wedding and spend it on a honeymoon.
I didn’t realize you were referencing something from like 50-60 years ago. All in all, you make valid points… I have lived long enough to personally validate them. It was just the “thirteen to five hundred dollars” range that made me chuckle!
Never, ever, book a location for a “Wedding”. Always book it for a “Family Event”.
If you think getting married is expensive, try getting divorced.
Divorce water was free what are you talking about?
Until you realized the labor to bring it to the conference room is billed at $800/hr with minimum 15-minute increments.
Oh 😔
I got some free branded mints from my law firm.
Those were tears, dude.
Reminds me of a blog I followed about a guy having a castle built. He’d get contractors out for various bits and before they arrived they’d be like “oh its X for job Y” but when they got there and saw that it was for a castle, well magically the cost doubled. This might make sense in some parts but when the painter is trying to increase his price for square footage he quoted on the phone? Nah fam that ain’t it.
Water from the tap: basically free
Gotta pay 399 for the glass though.
If you live with your parents, yes.
Tap water in the US costs on average about $0.01 per gallon or less. People typically drink a gallon or less per day, so about $0.30 per month. Your water bill is pretty much not affected by the tap water you drink, just the water you use for everything else.
Bottled water is easily hundreds of times the cost.
I purchased a catering dinner package (which came with tea, coffee, and lemonade) and full open bar - apparently neither of these included water. That was an additional $200.00.
Now I imagine some guys thinking “Ah, I don’t want to fuck up ChexMaxs financial situation. I’ll just drink water the whole night to save him some money!”
I’m guessing this isn’t the UK, cause anywhere that sells alcohol is required by law to be able to supply free tap water
It’s shocking how many restaurants try to get around this rule by refusing to designate a tap as being safe for drinking. A place near me got shut down a while ago for trying to pull this shit, because it revoked their license to serve alcohol on premises, and in turn caused a lot of shit with their lease, food safety ratings, etc.
Getting married in about 6 weeks. Compared to my first one 10 years ago, it’s nuts. One metric I read said that wedding costs were up 40% post COVID. My first wedding was maybe $5,000 and that was super strict budget. This one is closer to $25k.
My fiancée was quoted between $300-650 for makeup only. Seriously?? DJ is minimum $900 for 5 hours of work, I got a lot of quotes in the $1300 range, or $2200 for better lighting ($440/hour??) Look I know you had to buy your own equipment but holy hell.
Thanks for reaffirming my desire to never get married
There are a lot of people who just have weddings with only the closest parts of their friend/family circle rather than making it auper extravagant.
I did a private wedding with just my wife, photographer, beautiful venue for $600
My uncle just sent an email to everyone after the fact
And you know what? I highly respect that
Having a wedding at the local all-you-can-eat sounds very enticing.
You can buy a good quality speaker that comes with free Amazon music at best buy for less than that. If you have a friend that doesn’t mind talking on a mic infrastructure of a crowd you are probably better off without a real dj, your friend would also likely get the names right for your wedding party being announced.
We paid over 1k for dj+wedding video, and it really wasn’t worth it.
I didn’t have a DJ the first time around, just a laptop and Spotify playlist (was at a church that has a speaker system, so we got to hook into that). It was fine, but we booked an actual venue for this wedding.
No idea if I’ll feel like it was really worth it when it’s all said and done, but so far I actually like all the vendors picked.
Hey, we just got married for around your price point back in May. It was pricey for sure, but that budget allowed us to do what we wanted, which was throwing a balls-out party for 50 of our closest family and friends. It was incredible and we absolutely do not regret it.
People always tell you that it’s supposed to be the best day of your life, but I always checked my expectations on that—something can always go wrong, right? But it went off perfectly and felt as incredible as we had always dreamed. A big part of that was the team of amazing vendors our planner put together. None of it would have been possible without them.
Wishing you both incredible happiness and a smooth wedding day full of bliss that you can look back on for years to come :)
I just paid out $400k to settle my divorce, so they get you coming and going.
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If you end up doing a big wedding I would recommend telling as many of the vendors and suppliers that it’s for a birthday party instead. It’ll still be expensive but should be more manageable
“Yes, I’d like the traditional tiered birthday cake with the bride and groom on top. Thanks.”
“How much are your birthday rose petal cannons?”
You would be surprised. Family friends of ours are Greek and rich, and they do not do anything small. I hate to perpetuate stereotypes but if you’ve seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, it’s like that with them but for everything. Birthdays, the christian holidays, just a summer BBQ, all huge. The bride and groom on top yeah that’ll tip the baker off but that’s not hard to quickly put on yourself.
As a Greek myself, I can confirm that My Big Fat Greek Wedding was basically a documentary.
People tend to demand perfection when it comes to weddings. I’m pretty sure that’s why it’s more expensive. In general, prices rise alongside expectations.
With how much self-centered egotistical annoyances wedding planners and other suppliers have to deal with sometimes, I might actually be inclined to understand that pricing
Exactly. It’s the bridezilla tax
You see this in aviation and heavy rail transport as well for a similar reason. The critical items like the engines, control systems and emergency equipment being expensive is obvious, they’ve been heavily tested and made super resilient with very strict certification criteria, but it even extends down to things that has pretty much zero impact on safety. That flimsy seat back table that can barely hold your laptop and that hard as a rock cushion cost the airline far more than you can imagine, costs which are inevetably passed onto you.
I believe there is a Ferangi rule of acquisition for this
I think, it goes something like, Peace us good for business, and war is also good for business.
those are two separate but adjacent rules :)
34 & 35 I seem to recall.
Also water (in a movie theater)
I thought it was Airport Pricing, but I guess Wedding checks out too
waterplasticYou guys pay that much for bottled water?
+ table service fee
