Is having a wedding worth it? Would you do it again if you had to or would you pass?

I got married in a registry office in England and had a brunch we cooked for 22 people after at my husband’s grandmother’s. It couldn’t have been nicer.

@janbb That sounds lovely!

‘Twas! And aside from my family’s travel costs, it probably cost us under $1,000 with my dress included.

I had a small wedding at the Women’s Club. My friends and I made finger food and punch. I had a pretty dress, but not a wedding dress. He wore a suit. My friend who is very talented made all of the flowers. I think about 50 people attended. The total cost was under 1,000. I don’t see any reason to spend thousands on a wedding. It’s ridiculous. My co-workers girlfriend is wanting a 3 karat ring that costs around 50 thousand dollars. Why? Who gives a flip about the ring on your finger? It’s all for show.

I’d do it again. I had about 100 people, great band, people danced all night.

Mine was semi formal, at a really nice hotel on Miami Beach. We had the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception all at the hotel. If I did it again I wouldn’t do a cocktail hour.

Oh, we had a “rehearsal dinner” the night before. It was about 16 people I think.

My wedding cost about $17k start to finish. Including the dress, photographer, videographer, and everything. My dress was about $550 with the alterations, I really shipped for a reasonably priced dress. It was the whole Cinderella bit. A friend made my veil as my wedding gift. I paid for all the drinks, but I didn’t do it all you can drink, they counted drinks and wine bottles and I paid by consumption. I know I don’t have a very big drinking crowd. Alcohol is a huge place you can save if you can bring in your own or work a good deal.

I received almost my entire gift registry, I didn’t have anything very extravagant on it, and about $5k-$6k in money, so most of the cash I spent came back to me. My parents had put in $10k. Plus, the full registry. I don’t know how much that was worth? Two sets of dishes a set of flatware (not silver) serving dishes, pasta bowls, drinking glasses, towels, and then we also received some other miscellaneous gifts.

If I hadn’t had a wedding I would have received fewer gifts I think, less cash too, but some of it would still have been given to us. Not that I was counting dollars so to speak. I would not have cared if I didn’t receive all of the gifts and money, but the Q is about the money so I’m telling where it all wound up. If I had done no wedding my parents still would have given me the same $10k for the marriage, so no wedding I probably still would have been ahead in money than having the wedding.

If I had to do it more modestly I would have a DJ instead I think, and a venue that was less expensive, but it wasn’t that expensive considering.

One of my favorite weddings was at a friend’s farm, we were dressed casually for the reception, and she served BBQ chicken and the dance floor was the driveway. It was awesome and not very expensive to do.

I think people should never put themselves in debt for a wedding or a ring for that matter. Always stay within your means. There can always be a party in the future if the couple wants.

I’ve never been married so I can’t speak from personal experience, but I know there’s a trend for people to go “all out” with spending on everything from custom dress, flowers, photographer, videographer, photo booth, beautiful venue, you name it.

Around here, easy 50k which could be a down payment on a house. People might get big monetary gifts but not enough to make back what they put out.

I guess a prospective bride needs to think about priorities and whether or not she thinks it’s worth it. What’s worth it to some might not be worth it to others.

@jca Aren’t those very expensive weddings usually paid for by the parents? I think usually those expensive weddings don’t change how much money the bride and groom would receive from the parents, and it doesn’t affect the lifestyle of the parents either. They have the money.

Among my friends, the parents may chip in but not pay the entire thing.

@jca Interesting. Are they usually older? Meaning getting married when they have been working for several years?

The very expensive wedding I’ve been to I think the parents paid for everything. I’m not 100% sure though.

Also I put “no gifts please” on the invites. I had everything I needed already.

@JLeslie: People I know and friends of my family’s are getting married in their late 20’s and early 30’s.

Personally, I attend these things all the time, and still can’t dream up a more frivolous waste of a big pile of money.

My wedding was my wife’s second. Her family was 2000 miles away, so we knew they wouldn’t be attending. The big wedding was an unnecessary expense, but we did a moderately sized one (80 people).
Was it worth it? Probably not. We spent $5,000, which wasn’t expensive 33 years ago. We could have used that money for a down payment on a house, but I do remember it without regret.

My first wedding was more traditional than my second, but it didn’t cost much. I had my sisters as my best people. I had two of my friends, and he had two of his friends in attendance. It was held in the living room of my Dad’s condo. We hired a guy who worked with us at Boeing who was also an ordained preacher to perform the ceremony. The reception was held at the club thingy at my dad’s condo.
Dad gave us $500 cash, which we used to go to another town, about 45 minutes away and stayed in a motel. The highlight was going to the Cosmosphere. I’d say the whole thing cost…$1000, including the $500 my dad gave us, and my dad paid for almost all of it. I paid for my own dress. It was $90 at JC Penny’s. That was in 1981. I only regret not getting a more better dress. I really wanted to be a princess.

My second wedding was thrown together in 2 weeks. It was at the lake. I wore a dress I’d picked up at a garage sale for $.50. We provided all the food (I cooked it.) Our honeymoon was a pop up we’d set up on the far side of the lake from where the ceremony and reception was held. We had a lot more people there than I did at my first.
It cost us around $600, total.
It was wonderful.

I agree. Huge weddings are a total waste of good money.

@JLeslie not everyone has the money for that huge wedding they had. It was that important though, so they’d beg, borrow and steal to get up enough to waste on it all.

My wedding in 1990 was a full scale 300 person event, five attendants on each side, sit down lunch reception at a country club.

It was what my ex and her mom wanted and her dad was willing to spend the money.

It was fun but not overly so and it was exhausting.

Would I do it again? No.I would rather have 75 or so good friends and relatives at a big barbecue picnic in a park/out door setting.

Weddings of any kind are exhausting. That part sucks too.

@Dutchess_III Obviously, everyone doesn’t have the money. I said I don’t think anyone should go into debt for a wedding or a ring. My engagement ring was zirconia when I got engaged, I would have been fine with nothing, it was my husband who insisted on something. My wedding bad was simple gold (two golds) no stones. I didn’t want stones in it. I’m all for being conservative with money.

Rick surprised me with my wedding set while we still owned the shop. Then he surprised me again by saying we still owed $600 on it. I, of course, was responsible for paying the bills.
I was pleasantly surprise about how subdued it was, given his biggger-is-better personality. I love it.

@Dutchess_III Well, I was admittedly more of a JAP, and at the same time frugile. I didn’t want him to spend money on a very small diamond. I wanted nothing, or to wait until I could afford a diamond ring that I really liked. Not so much a big diamond, the ring I wear most often now has a lot of little diamonds. I don’t consider it my engagement ring or a wedding band.

I think I have a pic of mine on Photobucket. I’ll go look.

No, no, a thousand times, no.

It was the worst day of my life. I didn’t want a wedding, and I especially didn’t want to pay for one. But my future in-laws were 100% adamant that I have one and invite all their friends and family members. I was trying so hard to be to get along with them, be flexible, and meet them “halfway,” I let myself be bullied. Everything about that wedding was painful, and it left me broke and debt-ridden.

Nearly 26 years later, I’m still bitter and angry. And, of course, none of my efforts to form healthy relationships with my new “family” were effective; I can’t stand my in-laws, and they’ve never missed a chance to be rude or mean to me.

Sux. I’m sorry @Love_my_doggie. ;(

@Love_my_doggie Sorry to hear that. You’re not the first person I’ve heard that from. Too many people get bullied into doing something that doesn’t feel right or isn’t financially feasible because it’s what people think they “should” do.

Let me start by saying I would marry Mrs Squeeky again and again, but as for the wedding part NO, and we had a small wedding only about thirty, her Mother that wanted every thing done her way and yet wouldn’t pay for any thing become a real bag since we were paying it was going to be done our way, the date was very important to us and it didn’t land on a weekend which made a lot of people mad as well.
So no save your money, put it towards a house or something, go to a justice, and have a BBQ in the back yard.
We got off lucky even for about thirty it was still close to five grand.

And then they leave the person holding the bag for all the extravagances they insisted on.

My DIL assigned herself my wedding coordinator. I did not want a wedding coordinator. She insisted an going out and buy all this foo foo stuff that I did not want, then drop hints that I needed to reimburse her. I kept telling her over and over that we had to watch costs. Guess she’d one of those who thinks you have to have a particular kind of wedding and damn the costs.
She’s a great baker. She made our cake. It was beautiful.. I assumed it was her wedding present to us. Until about 2 weeks later when she started dropping hints about how much the damn thing cost her…..SIXTY DOLLARS!! I wasn’t even in on it! I didn’t get to pick it, or the colors, or even the topper! Shit. I would have gotten a sheet cake from Dillions or made my own.
In so many ways her participation was a disaster for me, financially and emotionally.

I have never bought into the whole wedding industry thing. They will tell you what you HAVE to have and then charge you a bundle for it. My suggestion is to make the wedding small and simple and then throw a party to celebrate. A lot cheaper and more memorable. In the end, the couple is married, they aren’t broke starting out, and will start their lives together without the extra stress.

Get married by a Justice of the Peace then go out and PARTAY!!

Mine was easy, it was at the stratosphere in Vegas but it was still a classy wedding. Had about 20 guests, no work on our part except to show up. Food at the included reception was top notch. Probably cost about 5 grand. I’d totally do it that way again. We were all there several days and the guests all said it was the funnest wedding they had been too.

No bad for not having to do anything @ARE_you_kidding_me! I’d be willing to pay for that luxury.

I was in the Navy. Family was far away for both of us.
We went to city hall. A naval Commander stood with us, in full dress whites, made for nice pics.
$20.
I wish we could have had some family and friends, but probably would still have been city hall, with a fat bbq after. Annapolis is pretty in late May.

Just my opinion but, no, it is not worth the cost both in terms of money and emotional stress. Weddings have become not a ceremony of joining but a showcase of decadence and extravagance where the show has become more important than the purpose.

No, not worth it. My first wedding was the traditional Catholic church wedding and we had over two hundred and fifty guests invited but not really sure how many actually came. Most of those people were from my late husband and his parents’ side.
If I could do it again, I’d have limited decorations, an extremely small indoor or barefoot beach wedding with just immediate family present and wear a simple cocktail dress.

I am married and I don’t regret getting married. To me it is the ultimate commitment. I’m not religious. I’m an atheist. Our wedding was a sort of public celebration of our love and a declaration of our commitment to each other.

We got married on Norfolk Island and there were less than 20 people at the wedding (including us). I think all up – including everything – we spent less than AU$10,000. We paid for the accommodation for our guests for a few days, they paid for their airfares. We booked a big table at a restaurant. There were no surcharges because it was a wedding. A lady on the island took photos. The setting was stunning. We got married on a clifftop overlooking the Pacific ocean and it really was a breathtaking view. We basically had a three-day party! We all had fun and it was incredibly special and memorable.

It’s up to individual couples whether they do or don’t get married and whether they want a big affair or to go down to the registry office or to have something in the middle. Whatever works for you is right.

Next year is 25 years for me, and I hope to have a “big” party. Not thousands of dollars big wedding style (although if I had plenty of money with absolutely no worries financially I would be willing to blow a good $5k on it) but it is something I want to celebrate with friends and family, and I live in a state that people like to visit when it’s cold up north. I’m thinking do a long weekend and plan activities that people can join in or not.

Yes, I feel like getting married should be a small affair, focused on the couple. When milestones are reached, that is when things could get bigger.
People should get anniversay parties gifted to them, by the people who love them.

@Patty_Melt That’s interesting. But, by the time anniversaries roll around usually the couple has their own money to plan their own party. The wedding is traditionally paid for by the parents, and the gifts are too fill the new new home the couple with have together. I realize it doesn’t always work that way.

I guess maybe you are thinking that children maybe put together a party for their parents’ 50th anniversary?

Of course it’s worth it. Don’t confuse a wedding with a tacky hollywood-style production. A wedding doesn’t have to cost much of anything. Gather in a park or chapel and invite your friends to come and share the moment with you. We had a simple and not formal Church wedding and it is a great memory. I did wear my husband’s mother’s dress. I would have never been able to afford something so beautiful. It’s wondering memories for me. After our wedding we had a simple reception with cake and punch there at the Church. No alcohol.

^^^^ My kind of wedding!