Good christ, I hope you didn’t have to take gifts to every one of them!
Bloody hell. How the fuck do you arrange a wedding for less than $2000?
Anyhoo - it’s probably not a good idea to tell anybody how they should spend their money. If they want to spend $10,000 and they have $10,000 to spend, then that is their choice, no?
Ooh, get Mr Grouchy.
If you actually have the $10,000 just sitting around to spend on the wedding, fine. If you have to take out a loan (which I’ve known people to do) to have your wedding, then you’re an idiot.
Hubby and I spent about $4,000 on our entire wedding. We had a sit-down (chicken) dinner for just over 100 people at a hotel…that was the most expensive part. Everything else was cheap. Even if we’d had $10,000 just sitting there, we wouldn’t have spent it on our wedding. We’d have bought a house.
I have friends who spent $10,000-$15,000 (or more) on their weddings. They just had to have 15 bridesmaids, the $5,000 Vera Wang dress, the chic country club location, the foreign-grown Calla lilies Fed-Exed to them in the dead of winter, the prime rib dinner, etc., etc., etc.
Right after we got married, we went to the wedding of one of my husband’s friends. After planning my own wedding, I knew this was easily a $50,000 wedding. Everything was just so. The marriage lasted six months.
By way of contrast, my parents’ wedding couldn’t have cost more than, oh, $1000. And they’re still together after almost 25 years.
I feel a theory coming on…
Anyway, my dream wedding would be as follows:
- 30-50 friends, in a park
- Clothes from the local medieval boutique
- My best friend James as high priest
- A pagan ritual (I don’t care what my aunt thinks)
- A big home-made dinner that my mom and I and my hypothetical fiancé and anyone else nearby who can cook have spent eons preparing
- A drag show at L’Entre-Peau. Or maybe an orgy. (To which my parents and aunt are not invited.)
- The honeymoon: backpacking across Europe.
I did it both ways- first wedding:
Major production (not by my choice- groom’s insane mother). All the typical huge wedding stuff was there. MAJOR gifts were received (thousands and thousands of dollars in addition to countless more stuff).
It was all a production for his parent’s benefit. They had an “unspoken” contest with their friends about whos kids had the best weddings. I hated it. I refused to take pictures after the first 30 minutes of posing with everyone and their brother. (I was only 6 months post-op from spinal fusion surgery)
End result? Divorce. I never should have done it in the first place. The wedding itself was a pain in the ass- stressful planning, annoying details, and I cannot fathom the money they put into it. He couldn’t be a man and tell them no, and they would not listen to me. Their argument was “We’re paying for it, so why do you care?” ::shrug:: I guess I really didn’t care but I thought it was supremely stupid.
**Second wedding: ** (My real dream wedding) Sent out invitations to about 30 people (family included) to join us for a party at a local pub/restaurant to celebrate our union, which would take place that morning at an undisclosed location. We wanted NO GUESTS including family so we kept it a secret. We were wed by our local JP with three people present- my best friend, his best friend and his friend’s girlfriend. I held my breath when he said “I will” and put the ring on my finger. This time I cried because I thought it was beautiful.
(One funny thing was the JP. He wore a Bugs Bunny necktie. I love that guy.)
It took ten minutes, we snapped some pics and all went for breakfast. Had the party afterwards (I changed out of my very simple ivory dress about 30 minutes into the reception) and we had the best time ever.
Total Prep time for wedding #2
Invitations (printed them myself) 30 minutes
Calls to JP and restaurant: 20 minutes
Picking out dress: 1 hour
Getting ready in the morning: 45 minutes, including shower time
Fun had: Immeasurable
However, that is MY STYLE. Some women dream of a princess wedding and that is their perrogitive. If you aren’t paying for it, it’s none of your concern how much they spend or how they get the money. I personally think it’s foolish to take out a loan for a wedding, but some people think I’m foolish to spend my money they way I do. To each his own.
Zette
Is that $1000 in 1976 money or 2001 money?
Actually, I was amazed when I started to look at how expensive weddings are (no! not mine!) The event is like a money black hole. And they have special wedding versions of stuff that is exactly the same as normal staff but 5 times the price. Like flowers. Someone TELL me why wedding bouquets are so much more expensive than normal bouquets.
Bah.
pan
Heard of them, yeah. Didn’t have one. Don’t know anyone who did, actually.
This is the stupidest pile of crap I’ve read all day. When UDD and I got married, it was a great excuse to dress up and have a big party. It wasn’t hugely expensive, but it was lots of fun. Free food and drinks for all our friends and family, a chance to see relatives who lived far away, a chance for our families to meet each other (his are from colorado, mine from new england… it was probably the only opportunity for them to meet)
No one was being “sold” to anyone. No one walked me down the aisle, I walked myself. It was me and the man I loved pledging our lives to each other in front of the people who meant the most to us.
This summer will be the 10th anniversary of that day, and we still talk about what a fun day it was. We’re still as much in love as we were then. We still look at the pictures and the video and smile.
Maybe once upon a time weddings were as you describe. Maybe in some other cultures they still are. But mine sure wasn’t, and I’m offended that you would suggest that it was.
We spent about $4k on our wedding, too. I designed my own dress and had it made by a local tailor. Sounds expensive, but it was only $250 (that includes both fabric and labor.) We were in Tucson, AZ at the time, and both of us hating the desert we wanted to find a location that was at least sort of not deserty, so we had our wedding at the Westin La Paloma, in front of a waterfall, surrounded by grass and trees. It was gorgeous. The food was the most expensive part (all vegetarian, but the resort didn’t allow outside catering so we had to pay their prices. Sigh.) We spent around $300 on photography that SUCKED though… my one big regret was the photographer we hired. He chopped off people’s heads, for cryin out loud!!
Because you walked into a flower shop and said the “W” word…wedding.
“I need flowers for my WEDDING” makes the price automatically quadruple.
And all for stuff that will be dead the next day.
I got my wedding flowers (fake) at MJ Designs (now Michael’s, a craft store) for just under $100. That was my bridal bouquet, 2 flower girl baskets, 7 corsages for women (moms and sisters), 4 boutonnieres for men (groom, best man and 2 fathers) and a headpiece for me.
And I still have them.
And of course you need the guest book for everyone to sign (why?) and you must have the ridiculous ostrich feather pen for them to sign with (I can’t use a Bic?) and it must match your color scheme or you are a total loser whose marriage will fail.
:rolleyes:
Hey, I LIKE the ostrich feather pen! It’s cool, and when else do you get an excuse to use one!?
Hey! Let’s all go live exciting, outrageous and wonderful PRACTICAL lives!!!
I don’t think so!!!
Loosen up. Some of you people sound so tight, I doubt if anyone could squeeze a greased BB up your ass.
Um, mine cost $50, not including the marriage license and the dress I picked up on sale, mainly because I can’t remember how much those cost.
If I do get married again, it will cost more, because I’ll be buying plane tickets to Vegas, and finding an Elvis impersonator to perform the nuptials.
Oh, there’s nothing wrong with the ostrich feather pen itself; it’s that whole wedding mindset that you MUST have it OR ELSE.
Yes, I’m practical. Sue me.
I just have a pet peeve with people trying to outdo each other with weddings. I know it happens among sisters, cousins and friends…“Let’s see, Mary had 4 bridesmaids, and Kathy had 6, so I’ll have 10!”
And there’s that whole “wedding” way of thinking thats says you MUST have this and you MUST have that.
“You didn’t have matchbooks with your names and the date and the intertwined rings? Oh my God, how could you?!?”
Just my opinion of course, but I think it’s ridiculous to spend an obscene amount of money (esp. if you take out a loan) on a wedding.
Experience: One wedding, 17 years ago.
Cost? I don’t remember, but I’m guessing around $1000. We had no money and our parents were pretty cheap, but we gritted our teeth and up-held family traditions. Open bar, family style meal with multiple meats. I made my dress and bought fabric and patterns for the bridesmaids and helped the non-sewers. No shoes were dyed, or special accessories bought. Flowers were silk and arranged by a friend of my mother’s. A band and dance following the dinner.
All in all, we went out of our way to make sure that the guests had a better time than we did. It was a party for the guests, not for us. I was amazed when people gave us gifts and cash, since that hadn’t been what I was focusing on (not to bright, was I?)
It pisses me off to hear brides talking about “their special day!” If the wedding is the highlight of your life, then shoot yourself at the reception to avoid disappointment later.
My only regret? The cheap flowers. I swear to God, her cat must have pissed in the box, because the things reeked of something and it wasn’t cheap perfume. If I had it to do over, I’d have arranged fresh flowers myself. Actually, I wouldn’t do it over. My family’s not getting another blow-out, blind-drunk bash out of me until my silver anniversary.
kinda makes me wish I was engaged…
(uh, that was sarcasm…)
In what?
(that was a joke)
IIRC we spent about $400.00, including the license, and food and drink for the BBQ afterwards. WE had the ceremony in the yard of our new house in front of a JP. For our honeymoon I took my Dad and new FIL salmon fishing, while the ladies went shopping, etc.
Whatever we might have spent on a ceremony we spent to buy our house instead.
It’ll be 12 years in July.
Oh, to address the OP, you say he was “my on again, off again boyfriend. We’ve never been serious, but we hook up every now and then. .”
That doesn’t sound like he was violating any kind of serious commitment there, or am I missing something?
Well, ours was in September. If memory serves it was total between 3-4K (Canadian) … and I think on the low end.
Food for 35 or so guests - Approx $900 - included banquet room and corkage.
Pictures - Approx $400 (Go cheap here if you can folks, no need for a $5000 platinum package. See a couple samples here http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=48050&a=329103&p=37352819&Sequence=0&res=high and my wife http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=48050&a=329103&p=37352812&Sequence=0&res=high I think they turned out quite well!)
Flowers - Approx $400
Wedding Dress - $600 on sale (regularly $3000 or something. Figure that one out!)
Tux Rentals - $240 (mine and best man)
Wine - Gift from Parents. They made it.
Programs - Made them ourselves. Paper cost about $10
Invites - Made them ourselves. Cost around $150 tops including postage and materials. Once again, consider making them yourselves if you have the ability.
Donation to Church - $200
Cake - $110
Add another $400 for items I left out.
And we had a damn nice wedding. We were extremely happy, and the guests had a great time. To keep costs down though we did not invite every guest to the dinner. That sure helped.
Hmm, I recall seeing a movie a few years ago which stated that weddings were exclusively for the mothers–something to the effect that ‘weddings are like crack’ to them. Can’t remember the name of the damn thing (I’m thinking Mr. Selleck [sp?] was in it), but that line is hilarious and has stayed with me all these years. I wonder if anyone’s every OD’ed… 