How much should you spend on a wedding?

[GoodSteward]

Weddings are unusual things to me when it comes to what we do to have them. Officially, to be married, you only need the equivalent of approx 2 min worth of words. However, we surround this moment with thousands, if not 10's of thousands of dollars, and include many activities to symbolize what's happening. I don't have much issue with the other activities (lighting a candle, etc), however, the money side baffles me. It is so much money, and most is spent on the look of it. Just seems like a waste to put so much into it when it's all over with, especially the dress she will only wear once.

Why are we spending so much on this event? How much did you spend?

[GoodSteward]

My mother in law made our bridesmaid dresses, and my wife found a $900 dress for $99 at Davids bridal. Her parents did most of the cooking for the reception, and we were married in her dad's church(He pastored and worked outside of that). I had no desire to spend thousands, and neither did her dad. Her dad made well over six figures as a VP of a steal company, but we all wanted to be modest. But not just from a modesty standpoint, from a financial one.

I recently went to a wedding for a friend of mine. He is 33, and she is 22. They were both getting married for the first time. Both families are not "well off," probably lower middle class. They spent at least around ten grand on the wedding between the location, decorations, and food. It was very nice. I have no idea what the dress cost, but it must have been worth flying from TN to UT to go to a place that makes custom "modest" dresses. Meaning dresses that cover you up fully. And they took a 2-week vacation to Hawaii for their honeymoon. Some things just don't compute with me. I bet this whole event ended up being around $20k if you include all the travel and food, too.

Why don't we just save the money, and give it to the couple to help start their life together?

I know it means a lot to the brides, it's "their day." That's ok with me, I just don't understand why it takes so much money to make "their day" special. Is it the actual marriage that makes it special, or all the stuff we have to spend money on?

[GoodSteward]

Also, I'm curious. Who pays for what?

In this expensive wedding I went to, the groomsmen and bridesmaids had to buy their own stuff. I thought the bride's father had to pay for that, or the grooms family.

I know the brother in law of this groom was included in the wedding, and he is in poor financial shape. He is a full-time minister and doesn't make much at all. However, I found out he ended up having to put out around $1k between a new suit, shoes, travel, hotel, etc. This bothered me. If they can put out over $10k to have this wedding, why not pay for the suits you require, especially for family? At least the guys can reuse it as suit, however, if the dress you have to buy as a bridesmaid is some special look or color you don't like, it's as useless to you as a wedding dress. You spend all that money to use it once.

I just think if you are going to ask someone to be in your wedding, your or your family should have to pay the bill if they need new items just to be in it.

[corn18]

In my experience (data point of one), the wedding is more about what the bride's mother wants than what the bride and groom want.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

The people in the wedding party typically are expected to pay for their participation plus they are expected to foot a part of the bachelor and bachelorette party. Being in weddings is expensive. And the most crazy it is, the more money you spend. I find it ridiculous personally.

I have nothing against affording a wedding that expensive. But i see so many people not affording it. I see so many people in debt from it. I also see PARENT who literally spent $60k on a wedding and couldn't afford their tax bill. She said her daughter wanted the bells and whistles thus they took out $50k from retirement IRA and then paid penalties and and owed taxes.

I get paying $60k for something you consider important even if others don't. But I think if you can afford it. NOT you raid retirement or put it on CC. That's living beyond your means.

[kork13]

Gratefully, neither my wife nor I buy into the big, gaudy wedding... She bought her dress online ($250), and I bought a suit on sale, and my wedding band was literally $25 off of Amazon. Ok fine, I spent $3k getting a VERY nice ring set custom made for DW using a design I created when I was a kid... But the ring cost as much as the rest of the entire wedding & 3 open house receptions & travel between 3 states... And besides, I'm proud of it, and she loves it.

In all, we spent around $3k for everything (again, except her ring)... We kept it small & simple, our church does weddings in our temples (at no cost), we did a buffet dinner in a local restaurant for the small group of 25-30 family/friends we had there with us (~$600), hosted open house receptions at our home in Oklahoma & her family's home in Utah (~$500 in Oklahoma, her parents set up/covered the one at their home), and we spent maybe $500 driving everywhere, staying in the B&B's while traveling, and so on. Oh, the wedding cake? My wife hates cake, so I made a 4-tiered rice krispie treat "cake" at home & drove it up with us to Illinois for the wedding. All that travel felt kinda extravagant to us, and it was fun. But even still, relatively cheap wedding in which we still did alot & had a great time. Our wedding was a week-long vacation, before we even started the week-long honeymoon cruise.

I could never justify tens of thousands of dollars for a single day's celebration. It's just not that big a deal! If I can go get hitched during my lunch break (I had a pair of professors in college who did just that), there's no reason to break the bank just to throw a party & get married. Starting your married life saddled with a ton of debt from your wedding day seems like A REALLY bad idea IMO..... But hey, ymmv....

[corn18]

These types of threads come up a lot on other savings fora. Always the same. I would never spend that much on a wedding, car, house, fill in the blank. This often leads to judging those that do and then generalizing the people that do spend that much into the all hat no cattle crowd.

Why is that?

[TexasHusker]

This is going to be a really enjoyable thread.

[disneysteve]

In my experience (data point of one), the wedding is more about what the bride's mother wants than what the bride and groom want.

This was definitely true in our case. There were literally a few dozen people at our wedding who neither of us had ever met. They were current or past (some rather distant past) coworkers of her mother or father and they wanted to impress them. So we were stuck with 40 or so guests who we never would have invited had it been up to us.

How much should you spend? There's no right dollar amount. But you should spend an amount that you can afford and that creates an event that you're happy with and reflects who you are and what your values are.

[msomnipotent]

If it is such a waste, why bother with funerals and coffins? And why assume it is just for the bride? I was perfectly fine just going to Vegas. My husband was the one that insisted on a traditional wedding. My BIL was a total Bridezilla. He wasn't the only one. Some guys get really involved in their weddings.

In my area, the guests usually try to gift an amount equal to the cost of their meal, or more. Obviously, some people can't afford it, but most do. Those that are going broke are probably right back in the black after the reception.

[moneybags]

And why assume it is just for the bride? I was perfectly fine just going to Vegas. My husband was the one that insisted on a traditional wedding.

My dream wedding was eloping in Vegas. DH wanted the big wedding, which we had.

my experience (data point of one), the wedding is more about what the bride's mother wants than what the bride and groom want.

My mother could've care less about my wedding. She gave me a small amount of money and told to keep it or spend it on my wedding. She didn't even go dress shopping with me.

[disneysteve]

If it is such a waste, why bother with funerals and coffins?

I agree. Funerals are another area that has gotten outrageously out of hand. People spend 5-figure amounts for a fancy box that people will look at for maybe an hour and then it will be buried in the ground forever. It's nuts.

I've already shown my wife where to get my casket online. It's about $900 for a plain pine box, because you need something. No way do I want her spending thousands to bury me.

The "best"funerals I've been to are the ones where they just did a nice graveside service.

[MonkeyMama]

My dream wedding was eloping in Vegas. DH wanted the big wedding, which we had.

Too funny. We were the same way. My preference was just to elope. We had the big wedding that my husband wanted. I thought we were the only ones.

[MonkeyMama]

I think there can be recognition that something is a complete waste of money, but doesn't mean that is a judgement. It just is what it is. I certainly don't care if someone can afford to waste a lot of money and does so. The point is how most people end up in debt and suffering because they don't think these things through. I participate in these discussions because if it makes one person look at things in a different light and make a different decision... I mean let's get real. Does anyone ever say, "I am so glad I went $50,000 in debt just to get married?"

I would say my own wedding was a complete waste of money. We probably spent around $7,000. Like I said in my last comment, I would have rather eloped. BUT, no one went into debt over it, and we didn't make any financial sacrifices for the wedding. So I feel pretty *shrugs* about it. If we had spent $7,000 instead of putting that money into our retirement funds or a down payment on our house? I'd probably have called off the wedding. Like, this is STUPID. But, for something we could easily afford, whatever. I don't care. I just recognize that it's a complete waste of money and it didn't do anything for me personally. But it was literally of no financial consequence to our families, so is why I agreed. I never gave it a second thought after writing the checks to pay for everything.

I did not ask anyone else to spend one dime on my wedding, because I think that's ridiculous.

[disneysteve]

I think there can be recognition that something is a complete waste of money, but doesn't mean that is a judgement. It just is what it is. I certainly don't care if someone can afford to waste a lot of money and does so.

But calling it a waste of money is a judgement. Just because it's a waste to you or me doesn't mean the person who did it thinks it was a waste.

I don't recall exactly but I think our wedding ran about 20K. Her parents paid for most of it and my parents contributed too. Was it a waste? There were certainly things DW and I would have done differently but it wasn't our party. It was her parents' party. They were paying for it so they got to do what they wanted. In the end, it was a wonderful affair. We have great memories of that day. Some of our friends still talk about it to this day and we've been married just over 25 years. So I don't think it was a waste at all.