Married SFers: How much did your wedding cost?

The number of men that advocate being a complete ***** on entrance to the matrimonial club is surprising.

Originally Posted by BlackShoes

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The number of men that advocate being a complete ***** on entrance to the matrimonial club is surprising.

I would say that rather than being a "*****" men are just aware the Women tend to plan the event for their entire lives, and thus not delivering a wedding that meets expectations is a much greater blow to the relationship than just sucking it up and doing what you gotta do for the woman you love.

I would call ceding your own wishes, not to mention taking a financially deleterious decision, all to keep your partner's expectations from being dented, being a *****.

I hope y'all realize that 20 years only the very rich spent this type of money on weddings. This is just a fad.

Originally Posted by BlackShoes

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I would call ceding your own wishes, not to mention taking a financially deleterious decision, all to keep your partner's expectations from being dented, being a *****.

1. its pretty simple - for 50 years the man gets to run the show. for one evening the woman does. pick your fights.
2. nobody is talking about a "financially deleterious decision" - the issue is about spending an additional 10K to make your wife happy. in the overall picture of your life, 10K is nothing. everyone talks about the high divorce rate - marrying the woman who is the one you want, and making her happy, is worth a lot more than 10K. and what were you going to do with that 10K? buy a nicer car? take a nicer vacation? buy a house a year earlier? none are as important as making your wife happy
3. most of us here simply don't "get" how important the wedding is to women. do it right, keep them happy.

Interesting topic as I am going throught the same thing right now. Fiance and I are modest people in general. We decide to get married, she tells me right off that her family doenst have much money. I being mister BSD was like, oh if we keep it modest, I will pay for it. I figured on 15K, 5 from me, 5 from her parents 5 from mine. Well, now we are sitting closer to 20+K and her parents are giving us, maybe 1500. and my parents, I decided shouldnt have to foot the bill either, so they are doing the rehersal, paying for the booze and a the few 'extra' guests they wanted. So now its all my bonus, her bonus, tax return, commissions, and I still have to dip into my pocket.

Its all we fight about, as I feel terribly disrespected by her parents (1. Did you not think your daughter was ever going to get married 2. is it really necessary to buy all new kitchen appliacnes while telling us you have no money for the wedding? Even if you financed them, couldnt you wait till after the wedding 3. Wait, did you just buy a new motorcycle? 4. how much did you just spend on xmas gift?) I really like her parents, they are great people, but this money thing is not my fight, yet I feel the pain from it.

So, all that said, we had a bit of a come to jesus about the wedding (not getting married) last week as we had to give another deposit. We decided that we were dammed if we do and dammed if we didnt. We were too far down the rabbit hole (already sent out save the dates, etc..) to cancel, and if we did cancel we would always regret not going through with something we really wanted, but if we do have the wedding we would always be upset at the amount of money we spent on it.

In conclusion (forgive me I have been off for a couple of days), if given the chance to do this again, I would forgo the wedding and just do something small and intimate with the bridal party, and first round of family. ALWAYS REMEMBER ITS ABOUT THE MARRIAGE AND NOT THE WEDDING!!! people lose sight of that pretty quick on both sides and thats what gets a lot of people in trouble. A lot of good relationships get strained during this process and I know a friend of mine who actually called the wedding off about a month out and ended the relatioship because the wedding planning basically broke them apart.

And dont get me started on registering!

Originally Posted by SField

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That's one thing Im really dreading.. being the center of attention. I don't mind being the center of attention if I'm telling a story or working a crowd, but an intimate moment where I'm getting married is not one of them. That's why that part is being done as quickly as humanly possible.

+1. I will be giving explicit instructions that read "do not bang on the glassware ... we will not reward you with PDA"

oh, and to whoever said printing your own invitations - good money saver in theory, but the effort to cut all of those is a pain, and usually printers aren't very good with the small lines. For us, she designed them herself (since design is pretty much what she does for a living) and we'll have them printed and cut at a copy place. Will save substantial money yet still look awesome.

Originally Posted by texas_jack

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I hope y'all realize that 20 years only the very rich spent this type of money on weddings. This is just a fad.
That's pretty much totally false unless you are talking dollar numbers and not cost relative to wealth or income.

Originally Posted by jgold47

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Interesting topic as I am going throught the same thing right now. Fiance and I are modest people in general. We decide to get married, she tells me right off that her family doenst have much money. I being mister BSD was like, oh if we keep it modest, I will pay for it. I figured on 15K, 5 from me, 5 from her parents 5 from mine. Well, now we are sitting closer to 20+K and her parents are giving us, maybe 1500. and my parents, I decided shouldnt have to foot the bill either, so they are doing the rehersal, paying for the booze and a the few 'extra' guests they wanted. So now its all my bonus, her bonus, tax return, commissions, and I still have to dip into my pocket. Its all we fight about, as I feel terribly disrespected by her parents (1. Did you not think your daughter was ever going to get married 2. is it really necessary to buy all new kitchen appliacnes while telling us you have no money for the wedding? Even if you financed them, couldnt you wait till after the wedding 3. Wait, did you just buy a new motorcycle? 4. how much did you just spend on xmas gift?) I really like her parents, they are great people, but this money thing is not my fight, yet I feel the pain from it. So, all that said, we had a bit of a come to jesus about the wedding (not getting married) last week as we had to give another deposit. We decided that we were dammed if we do and dammed if we didnt. We were too far down the rabbit hole (already sent out save the dates, etc..) to cancel, and if we did cancel we would always regret not going through with something we really wanted, but if we do have the wedding we would always be upset at the amount of money we spent on it. In conclusion (forgive me I have been off for a couple of days), if given the chance to do this again, I would forgo the wedding and just do something small and intimate with the bridal party, and first round of family. ALWAYS REMEMBER ITS ABOUT THE MARRIAGE AND NOT THE WEDDING!!! people lose sight of that pretty quick on both sides and thats what gets a lot of people in trouble. A lot of good relationships get strained during this process and I know a friend of mine who actually called the wedding off about a month out and ended the relatioship because the wedding planning basically broke them apart. And dont get me started on registering!
You have got to be kidding... You think everyone believes they should help pay for a wedding just because they've had a daughter? Some people would rather take their money and pay for things that will last them longer than one day. It isn't their responsibility to make your wedding day less expensive. I wonder how much they spent on their wedding. Perhaps it's a clear message from them to spend the money on other things because from your statement about using all the bonuses, tax return (What? This is telling), commissions would support my theory that you cannot really afford a $20k wedding. My thinking: People shouldn't spend more than 10% of their total savings on a wedding. Not including investments. Cash savings. Anything more is ridiculous and you shouldn't let your "life partner" talk you into spending more money than you feel comfortable with. All this talk about just doing it because it will make her happy seems crazy. When does it end? Someone who can't adjust their expectations to the reality they're facing are people who will surely be divorced. Just my $0.02

There are certain cultural expectations that come with weddings. In traditional Chinese society, for example, wedding are generally very elaborate all day affairs, and pretty much everyone you know (and more importantly, who your parents know) need to be invited. My parents apparently had a wedding of over 600 people, and this was some 37 years ago. Of course, things have a way of balancing out, because cash in red envelopes is the traditional gift, and its pretty bad form to not give enough to pay for what you expect your head cost to be, which is easily a few hundred dollars. Also, the man's family traditionally pays.

I know of other communities where the cultural expectations are very different, and potluck or punch and cookies receptions are considered the norm.

It's stupid to say that a woman is "high maintenance" just because she wishes to conform to the cultural norms she's probably internalized.

Originally Posted by GQgeek

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For 30k, I'd rather be the center of attention at Rubinacci. Just sayin'

It wasn't my money, so I don't think I could have convinced them to spend it all on suits.

I agree with others who said that if you are paying for it yourself, do it as affordably as possible.

My wife's parents covered our wedding costs entirely and I don't know what the final tally was, but based on the costs of the things that I did know the cost of and the receipts that I did see, I imagine it was just about $30k. We are lucky that her parents are members of a country club so we were able to get a much better deal at a relatively nice place than if they were not members there. We were also fortunate that the wedding wasn't really in Detroit or the burbs, but a bit further out where the prices for things like photographers, flowers and other vendors are a lot cheaper.

The biggest chunk of our costs was for our honeymoon. We went to two different resorts in the Caribbean for a total of 18 days. A bit longer than most honeymoons but we both had the vacation time available and hadn't gone away for a while so we said, "Why not?"

Originally Posted by LA Guy

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Of course, things have a way of balancing out, because cash in red envelopes is the traditional gift, and its pretty bad form to not give enough to pay for what you expect your head cost to be, which is easily a few hundred dollars. Also, the man's family traditionally pays. .
I'm Vietnamese, and our tradition is like that as well. Vietnamese wedding tends to be real huge. So let said 500 guests, and normally the man of the house present the cash gift. So you looking to get back close to $12,500+. That should cover half the reception cost. I remember asking my dad how much his wedding was. He said around 20k+. That was in the late 80s and my dad was in his early 20s. You're right, it's an all day affair. If you're close to the bride side, you will generally be at her house first. Then you wait for the groom to come over and present various food gifts like cook hog, and some Asian pastry. Then the bride father would give a small speech, and then we all head out to the church. not my pic, just some examples

Originally Posted by Warren G.

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poor white guy


Is there a way for you to skip these crazy weddings if your parents are vietnamese?