Married SFers: How much did your wedding cost?

Originally Posted by Jodum5

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Plus 100. Crazy the debt people go into for weddings. I really hope I don't have to deal with a chick that wants a 2-500 person shitshow.
To quote Maggie Smith as Dora Charleston, "Oh, Dickie, that's tacky."

my plan is to have my wedding in some extremely remote locale where travel may be prohibitively expensive, perhaps Tangiers or Easter Island. it will also take place on Christmas Day or Thanksgiving or some other extremely inconvenient time. essentially eloping but hopefully with the benefit of "sorry we can't make it" presents.

We went to the home of a JP. Beautiful setting, two good friends as witnesses. The four of us went out to a very nice dinner. Wedding = $600.

The JP was completely soused though. After he signed the paperwork, we took it back from him and told him we'd mail it in.

Originally Posted by Piobaire

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We went to the home of a JP. Beautiful setting, two good friends as witnesses. The four of us went out to a very nice dinner. Wedding = $600. The JP was completely soused though. After he signed the paperwork, we took it back from him and told him we'd mail it in.

That's basically what we're doing, but about 20 times more witnesses and it's in a restaurant. Cocktails, quick legal "ceremony" then incredible dinner. After that we're getting drunk on a very big boat owned by a family friend, and they're refusing to even let us pay for liquor or crew/fuel. Biggest expense is the hotel room... probably the most I will ever, ever spend for a hotel room my entire life.

Front lawn of our house underneath a flowering dogwood.
Four friends as witnesses with the village president officiating.
Champagne, cake and lunch - about $750.

That or go to city hall and wait for these guys to show up:

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lefty

Weddings don't have to be costly: do your homework.

The most important things are:

Dress - just resign yourself to the fact this will cost more than you think is reasonable.

Photographer/Videographer - You are going to be so busy schmoozing,etc the only way you'll remember any of it is with good photo/video.

Food/Liquor- When you look at your pictures and think back on your wedding you want to see your friends and family having a good time.

Typically the father pays for most of the wedding, sounds like your situation is different. I'd say you need to sit down with your fiance and figure out what you can afford to spend.

The best advice to anyone getting married : Capitulate,Capitulate,Capitulate.

-rF

Originally Posted by RSS

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It's very important that one's wife/mate be a best friend ... soul mate as some say. If there are lots of disagreements before the marriage ... they are likely to grow in number after. Of course, this is not to say there won't be a disagreement from time to time ... perhaps even a few passionate disagreements.

But if you don't see eye to eye on the important things before marriage ... watch out after.

we had more stress in the 6 months before the wedding than we have had in the total 13 years since. a lot of women have a very specific idea of what they want for their wedding. the guy gets to pretty much run things for the next 50 years. chose your fights

i'm 20 so consider me a naive numbnuts but the idea of an incredibly expensive wedding that is beyond the couple's means is completely absurd imho. i've been to weddings that cost the couple $1000 with a handful of important people and weddings that cost $40k+ with 5th cousins in attendance. it's all bullshit because the couples with the cheap weddings have had great marriages and don't regret a thing about their wedding and some of those really expensive weddings ended up being a waste because the couples ended up divorced.

i don't mean to imply that the cost of the wedding has anything to do with the likelihood of a successful marriage. of course that's absurd. HOWEVER, since marriage is such a crapshoot i really can't see anyone paying so much out of pocket for something like this.

i read something on yahoo a long time ago where this marriage counselor went over several divorce couple's weddings and figured out that if they had a modest wedding they could've used the 10s of thousands of dollars saved for things like a babysitter on the weekend for a date night like every other weekend for several years, a down payment on a house, and all sorts of stuff that may have prevented the destruction of their marriage in the first place.

Originally Posted by gdl203

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Excellent. Make sure to bring this into the discussion with your fiancÃ

e as a good argument for saving on the wedding

Personally, I see it pointless to blow 20-30 grand on one day celebration. That money could be put to much better use...as the OP said...down payment on a house.

Originally Posted by DerekS

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Personally, I see it pointless to blow 20-30 grand on one day celebration. That money could be put to much better use...as the OP said...down payment on a house.

Where I live, that's not even down payment on a dog house.

Again, there should be different budgets for people at different stages of their lives and with different means. I completely agree with those saying that it's silly to have a wedding one cannot afford or will put the couple into debt. 100% agree. We don't tell students to go get bespoke suits at Rubinacci ! (wait...). But for some people, a 200k wedding is something they can afford and want to spend money on - so it's pretty much impossible to give one answer to that question because there's a lot of different situations and therefore the number is vastly different for everyone.

Same with engagement ring discussions.

About $5,000 for 50 or so people, which is apparently very cheap but still seemed like a crazy amount of money to spend. We were (are) young, broke, and paying our own way.

Pick one or two things that are very important to you both and spend the money on that. For us that was good food/booze and nice outfits (MTM).

Get a venue that is nice in itself. Decorating large spaces gets expensive fast so get somewhere that looks nice without any extra decoration, supplies tables, etc. Check your community for spaces that offer steep resident discount. The place we went was a beautiful community building that rented for $20/h to residents and $120/h to non-residents.

Second the sentiments of the posters who have said that if you can't come to an agreement with your fiancee about the budget for the wedding it's not a good sign. If your fiancee isn't committed to the budget she grudgingly agrees to then she'll be swayed by the first asshole vendor who says something like "Of course, to make your day truly special, you just *have* to spend $3,000 on flowers or *what* will your friends think of you?"...

Originally Posted by gdl203

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Where I live, that's not even down payment on a dog house.

Again, there should be different budgets for people at different stages of their lives and with different means. I completely agree with those saying that it's silly to have a wedding one cannot afford or will put the couple into debt. 100% agree. We don't tell students to go get bespoke suits at Rubinacci ! (wait...). But for some people, a 200k wedding is something they can afford and want to spend money on - so it's pretty much impossible to give one answer to that question because there's a lot of different situations and therefore the number is vastly different for everyone.

Same with engagement ring discussions.

thats true. Im looking at this from my POV...(and wallet)...which as you said is very different...

I think I'm just gonna have take some of you gentlemen's advice and just bite the bullet on this one.

I think the friction is that I can afford it but am against the idea because of pragmatic reasons.

I asked why she's mad at me simply because I have a 15 year plan and she has a 1 year one.

Originally Posted by NewYorkRanger

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I have no idea, and I had a big one. My mother in law though is in competition to do things better than her sisters can...the fact that our families dropped almost $100,000 in two days baffles me (both families are middle class). The food was ok, catered, drinks were ok (how much alcohol can one really consume?), Band was great, my wife looked beautiful, I was a fat bastard. Everyone knew we were two teachers as well...no one was going to be making "baller $" in the future...it still pisses me off when we go see her family. Now we make ends meet, but things could have been so much easier if there wasn't so much ******* competition in the family. What particularly kills me, is that my folks got roped into it as well. My brother's getting married this summer...small, at a local restaurant...if it costs $5k it'll be a lot. But if you love the girl, and she ain't budging, you really only have two choices...do what she wants, or break it off, but whatever you do, make sure YOU are cool with it, and it sounds like you're not cool with paying $25k for a "party".

It's not even just about the money for me though because I i've accepted the fact that I can't be cheap on the ring. I just don't want to be around 100 people. I don't usually find big parties filled with people I barely know very enjoyable. I have 3 friends that actually mean anything to me plus a couple more from boarding school that i used to be best friends with but that I've lost touch with over the last 10 years. They and their guests combined with immediate family would put the number at 16-20 people from my side, but I'd still prefer to elope just the two of us + closest friends and their partners given a willing fiancee. It's amazing how quickly the number of people gets up to 50 or more so it's easy to see how costs can spiral out of control.

What gdl says about cost being relative is true for all things though.

The best wedding present you can give to your bride (if you can afford it) is the wedding she wants. Besides showing up at the altar of course