Married & Engaged Folks Survey!

In My Humble Opinion
61

[QUOTE]
Arnold Winkelried said:
Congratulations Mr. Obfusciatrist and Ms. Baglady!!

Thank you very much, Arnold! Too bad your fiancee didn’t want a nudist colony wedding – it would’ve kept her wedding dress cost way, WAY down!!

You said: “Here’s wishing you many years of happiness. Did you get a free steak dinner with the ceremony? (I saw a sign once in Las Vegas offering a free steak dinner with your wedding.) I think you won the jackpot in more ways than one that day! :D”

Awwww, thanks! No, no steak dinners for us (neither of us eat beef so the issue is moot, anyway). However our friends treated us to a sumptuous casino restaurant buffet, where the shrimp was already peeled! Oooo, the luxury!

You asked: “An indiscreet question: what’s the last name situation? My fiancee and I had several long discussions on that subject (I even started a thread on it once.) I thought she should keep her maiden name, she wanted to take my name, and there was no end of debate. The final decision was that she would change her name.”

Well, keep in mind this is my second time out the gate. I’ve had my own name for a while, with my own identity, so I wished to keep it. I did that hyphenated-name thing the last time, and all I can tell you is that it is a royal pain in the butt to get all of the legal paperwork changed. Every credit card, bank account, passport, ID, license, blah blah blah had to be changed. What a pain! At least to be fair my ex hyphenated his too (yeah, unusual, but I figured we’d be fair about it!).

You might want to find out why she wants to take your name. She may have weighed the pros and cons and decided it’s important to take on your name. The other option is that she can take on your name legally, but for everything else just keep using the name she was born with. That could get confusing, though.

She might not actually like her own surname, too, and really likes the way yours sounds with her first name.

I don’t know how old she is, but if she’s young (closer to 20 than 30), she might be very idealistic and want to change her name because it is what she has always wanted to do with her groom. If she wants all the traditional things for her wedding perhaps she wants to change her name and be your Mrs, too! Nothing wrong with that. :smiley:

62

I had the typical Queens Italian wedding thirteen years ago. It cost somewhere around $15,000 for about 210 people ( would have cost less, but I wanted the room that fit 500 people for the big dance floor}.My mother wanted me to have a “football wedding” (tables full of sandwiches and people yelling " Hey, Vinnie, throw me a ______"} but I wouldn’t go for it. Then, two weeks later, we had a traditional Chinese banquet for about two hundred {mostly different} people. How much that cost, I have no idea. My mother-in- law wanted it and she paid for it. Would I do it gain ? Yes.

    Someone said big weddings are all about money and show. I'm sure some of it is ( part of the reason I wouldn't have the football wedding was because my cousins all had much more extravagant weddings) but I think another factor is how distant a relationship you consider family,and how big your family is.Someone posted that they had about thirty people at their wedding. That wouldn't have even fit my first cousins. How distant are the relatives I actually invited? All of my mother's aunts and uncles (about fifteen plus spouses), all of her first cousins (somewhere between thirty and forty plus spouses) plus some of their children.(that's the Italian side) Did I know all of these people? Sure did, I saw them regularly when I was a kid,and even as an adult I see most of them at least a couple of times a year.Would I know them if the invitations for weddings,baptisms, communions, anniversary parties, picnics etc. didn't go out that far? Probably not.
63

my 2 cents …

I was married about three years ago in a college town where the cost of living is about half what it is where I’m living now (greater Seattle area). We had almost 200 people, rented the church, had fancy dresses, buffet dinner at nice hotel, DJ and dancing until late, etc etc etc. The bill was between $4K and $5K and my parents covered most of it. If we tried to put together the same thing here, we’d be looking at at least twice that, I suspect.

My husband and I both loved it. I would gladly do it all over again; he says it’s the best wedding he’s ever been to and not just because it was ours. In fact, everyone I talked to said they had had a great time (not like they were going to tell me to my face that my wedding sucked <g>) For some reason it seemed to be one of those things where everything just clicked.

One of the reasons our was pretty big was that we both have fairly big extended families. We had a lot of family friends there too. I guess one of the reasons we didn’t have a problem with the size of it was that we knew up front that with all the friends and family it couldn’t help but be a big wedding.

64

Well there are 65 peeps going. It is on the FREE beach and at my parents FREE house.

So the total cost of the wedding is around 3k.

but my parents are paying for our two week huuunnymoon in NYC.

so total= 6k not bad

65

About 2-3 thou. Hubby and I paid for most of it. My parents split the cost of my dress ($400) and I paid for hat with veil, shoes, jewelry, gloves, etc. I paid for all flowers (real pink roses) and Dad paid for the cake. Mom and I split most of the rest of it. (When I say I, I mean we, but he didn’t really get too involved in the planning…) His parents paid for the photography and his dad gave us money for the honeymoon (very sweet thing to do–we were not well off…) It was outdoors in a park and it was beautiful…just beautiful…wouldn’t change a thing except the photographer.

66

Baglady, I’ve been talking to you in other threads, and it never occured to me to congratulate you! I’m so sorry! :frowning: A very big congratulations to you and the Mister! Congratulations to you too, Obfusciatrist!

67

Baglady: my fiancée was thinking about keeping her name, but the stumbling block for us was: what last name to give the children? I won’t go over the whole debate here (as I said I already posted this on the board once), but my idea was that one kid would have her last name and one kid my last name. But very few people seem to agree with that idea. :frowning:

68

The couples I’ve known who have kept their pre-marital surnames have given their children hyphenated names. This is of course not a rule, but something I’ve seen done before.

To be honest, I would want to name the kids after the father, if only to ensure that people know the children were borne from a married couple. No offense to single moms, but there are people and places who still frown upon illegitimate births.

69

My wedding, planned for late December this year, has a budget of around $5-6K. It will be in Maryland, at some colonial manor that my fiancee found. The price will (God willing) cover the food, decorations, entertainment, and photos for the 50-guest wedding. My beloved future parents-in-law will be covering this special occasion.

And then, two days later in Salt Lake City, my dad will be plonking down TEN GRAND on a reception, to which he is inviting 400 or so guests. I’m aghast, but there’s not much I can do. (And besides, the gift registry for the Utah reception will be MUCH more fun than for the Maryland wedding!) I oughta shut up and count my blessings, I guess. And to think that my girl and I just wanted to elope…

Congrats to all married and soon-to-be-married folks!

Akash

P.S. We’re trying to pick a honeymoon destination and are having a heck of a time. Please head over to my new thread on the issue and post if you have any advice on a nice, cheap honeymoon. :slight_smile: Thanks kindly.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=31991

70

We’re budgeting around $8,000-10,000 for our wedding, although I’d really like to try to spend less and save up for a Tahitian honeymoon. :slight_smile:

And I don’t know where these budget planners get their figures–various wedding online resources and books suggest budgeting about $100-$200 for the site rental for the ceremony, and maybe another $100 for the officiant. I don’t know where they got married, but it certainly wasn’t southern California. Even the most rinky-dink church costs $500 to use–the one we reserved is $865 (although at least it includes the officiant fee).

Our reception will be a buffet and dancing–although the future Mr. Ruff has half-jokingly talked about getting a bouncy castle. Whoo hoo!

71

I personally don’t like that idea. What if my son Smith-Jones marries a girl named Nakasone-Mifune? Would there children then be Smith-Jones-Nakasone-Mifune? That quickly becomes unwieldy.

My fiancée didn’t like the idea that everyone in the family would have the same last name except her. She said that she would feel like an outsider.

Ruffian: You mean my comments about how planning a wedding is a PITA didn’t scare off Mr. Ruffian? :wink:

72

Mrs. Stranger and I had our wedding planned at just under 10grand, U.S.Dollars.

However, it seems Saddam Hussein had plans to invade Kuwait.
at the time I was an active duty Marine Sniper. You guessed it, I got ten days notice to ship out to Southwest Asia.

I flew The future Mrs. out to Southern California on a Thursday; Married in a courthouse on Friday; Had two wonderful days alone. Sent her back to college (SMU) on Monday, and shipped off to Desert Storm on Wednesday.

Had to make sure she got the death benefits if I got zapped over there…
Stranger OUT

73

We eloped to Vegas (20 yers ago) and it cost about 400 for airfare and hotel. The JP was 50 bucks and my wife's ring was 300. We bought a house a week after we got home with the money we didn’t spend on our wedding. I think it’s sad the way people blow thousands on a big-ass wedding and then have to scrimp for years to buy a home. Weddings and funerals are the 2 biggest wastes of money in my opinion, especially since most people will end up divorced in a few years. I talked to somebody last week that was getting married by a notary public for ten dollars.

74

I figure we paid about $750 Canadian.

We had 15 guests, went to a restaurant for dinner afterwards, where my father picked up the tab. That $750 includes clothes, pictures, the hotel room that night - not the honeymoon, though.

If we were to do it all over again, it would be done exactly the same way. Except I would not show up ten minutes late, thereby almost giving my SO a heart attack.

75

Oh, that doesn’t include the rings, now that I think about it.

76

$1,100 - Airfare from Chgo to Vegas (last minute)
600 - Ring purchased at Bally’s in Vegas
80 - 2 nites at the Super 8
200 - Gambling
100 - Incidentals
100 - Meals
300 - Backyard party 6 mos. later

We wouldn’t change a thing…except maybe advance purchase of the airline tickets. That just killed me. I’m not much for pomp and circumstance. The guy at the chapel hummed the Wedding March – a real wedding memory!