Imagine for a moment you are set for life.
You have a boat, car, house, education fund for your children, money for holidays, give generously to charity. Your needs are all met.
What are you gonna do with your money? Another boat, car, house, holiday?
A beautiful wedding for your daughter, suddenly doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing to spend your money on.
I’ve been involved with conferences, so even $90 a plate for a 4 course dinner at a high end place is hardly out of line, and $65K for 200 people ($50K less the dress) really isn’t that much.
My question is, what is this wedding really about? Is it 200 of their closest friends? Is it a business deal for her parents, establishing or maintaining their place in society?
We capped the size of our wedding at the number of people we could talk to during the reception. But we didn’t have any social or business obligations, so I’m not going to criticize anyone who feels they need to spend money to satisfy these.
If someone had offered me a $65K wedding, I’d have stared at them like they were nuts. But I suppose we all have our own values when it comes to spending money. My husband’s uncle offered his daughters a choice between a fancy wedding or a downpayment on a house. They took the weddings. As far as I know, they’re still married, but still…
As others have said, if they’re not going up to their eyeballs in hock to finance this extravaganza, then I hope they have a good time. They are, quite literally, spreading the wealth, and I suppose there’s something to be said for that.
Time to talk to my daughter again about her upcoming nuptuals.
Add me in to the people who say:
it’s their money.
it’s good for the economy.
why not?
If they can afford it, ok, whatever… it’s like what Mom says when she sees a Ferrari: “isn’t it nice that there’s people out there who can spend that kind of money in a car too small to carry a family? Keeps us middle-class people in housing, it does!”
Would I spend 6x what I paid for my car on my wedding? No. But that’s me. Her car probably didn’t cost €7500.
Congratulations on being able to fit into a Betsy Johnson! You are going to look so hot at the reception that you might be planning your own wedding sooner than you think.
(Yes, there’s considerable middle ground between $65,000 & catering by Domino’s.)
Thanks for appreciating the awesomeness of the dress!! 
For her 1st one or her 2nd? The 1st one was great…
(Not quite 65 but well north of 50… each. :rolleyes: )
I think it seems wasteful. We spent a lot on our wedding (by our measurements) and that was fine with us. Basically, we spent more on getting everyone food than anything else. I can’t imagine spending 65k on much of anything short of a house - of course since I work part-time my income is only 10k or so a year.
Yep, a bit ridiculous, but if they are willing to do it, I hope they enjoy it a lot…
Brendon
I think, converted into pounds (£33,000), it sounds worryingly plausible. Weddings do cost sh*tloads of money.
I further think, oh crap, I’ve just turned 30, I can’t put off popping the question for ever…
Sometimes the wedding is as much for the parents as it is for the spouses-to-be. You know the facts about these people, and I don’t, but I will note that sometimes it isn’t a matter of asking the parents to spend that kind of money; it is a matter of the parents insisting on it.
My wife and I had a moderately extravagant wedding (not $65,000 worth, but well into the five digits, I’m sure). Did we ask for it? Hell no! But in my father-in-law’s culture (Indian), an extravagant wedding for one’s daughter is highly symbolic, and anything less would have been humiliating (or, at least, unimpressive). At first, we thought about putting up a fight; we really did want a smaller, cheaper affair. You know, beach and friends and white linen, that sort of thing. But it quickly became apparent that nothing could look “cheap” to his guests (of whom there were many).
So we went with the flow and had a blast with him, the ice sculpture of Ganesh, and the dessert buffet that seemed to have no end.
I think it is a waste of money and a very nice wedding can be done for a lot less and the difference could be given to the new couple to spend on a house.
All that said, 10 years ago my Brother-in-Law was married in a wedding that cost $55,000. The bride’s father apparently went overboard to make up for the fact he left his wife and kids for a younger woman years before. He had the money and chose to go nuts. I still think it would have been better to spend $10,000 to $20,000 and give the rest to them to buy a house.
My wedding 15 years ago cost around $12,000 and was great. It was onboard a paddle-wheel boat, we took a 3 hours river cruise and had 100 guests. Everyone still talks about what a fun wedding it was. I am guessing this would now run $20,000 to maybe $25,000. We were originally planning to do a field wedding on Sandy Hook for $2,000 to $3,500 but of course the weddings are for the Mother of the Bride as many of us know.
Jim
Just makes me more sure I’d elope to Vegas if I ever got married. Give me an Elvis minister, and I’d be happy.
-Lil
I’d rather use the 65k for my nearest and dearest to go visit the ancestral homelands of my husband and I (England/Scotland/Ireland/Wales/Germany/Sweden) for a month. I’ve been to a wedding in that range and it was nice and everything, but good lord was I bored. Good thing there was an open bar or I might’ve died of ennui.
I paid ten bucks to get married. Why blow 65k on paperwork? My “marriage” was already done.
I really don’t see what the problem is unless the bride is demanding it and her folks are going way into debt to finance it. Catered weddings are costly. We paid well over $70/guest for our sinkid’s wedding 3 years ago. This did not include the photographer (who cost more than the reception), the church, limos, clothing, flowers, cake, DJ, etc. We kept costs down by not inviting random relatives we hadn’t seen in years (which made for some unhappy extended family members). We did include all of our friends and the happy couple’s friends.
Mrsin and I would have preferred to give the kiddies a check for a home down payment instead of a fancy wedding. They chose the wedding. It was their choice 
For what it’s worth, the Sinman and I were married in his parents backyard with a buffet of sandwiches and potato salad. My two favorite weddings so far have been mine and my daughter’s. Completely different, but both completely perfect.
If I were fabulously wealthy, I might toss a bash along the lines of the one Russell Crowe did. I probably wouldn’t build a chapel, but flying everyone to a resort for a three-day weekend of parties and events so that it would be a holiday for everyone - now that’s a wedding worth spending bucks on if you had bucks to burn IMHO. But for the regular one-day affair, that’s too much, I think - unless maybe you’ve scored (hee) the London Philharmonic to do the wedding music and Paul McCartney to sing at the reception.
We wanted to elope to Vegas, but when we told my dad, he insisted that we have a “real” wedding and was willing to pay for it. He had a long list of who he wanted invited, what kind of food was acceptable, etc. He has done so much for me that I felt like I should go along with what he wanted… on my terms. It’s going to cost about $10,000. Would I rather have the cash? Sure, but it’s more complicated than that.
Honest to God, this would be a deal breaker with me. If you want to spend that kind of money on this, you weren’t the person I thought I spent this time dating.
Why?
And hell, for me, perfection includes cheapness. e.g. This guitar is great, and it only cost $300. I think I would vomit just thinking of the quantity of people ripping me off. If somebody spends $5,000 on a dress they’re going to wear ONCE they ought to be taken in the back and shot. It’s like driving a new car into a lake.
For 65k we could play Will it Float? with two Hummers after racing them around a lake or record a totally badass quadruple album about how much we love each other and our marriage rocks. Cut that down to a single album and we could probably make a short movie to go along with it.
Call me a sentimental fool, but for 21 years I’ve been impressing on kiddoeaddi that absolutely nothing is more romantic than an old fashioned, get in the car, light out for the territories, whirlwind elopement. 