I wonder how much cost plays in, I mean, my fiancée and I are adult middle class millennials and we’ve been saving for two years to have a wedding, and we’re planning a relatively cheap one.
What used to be private, family-only affairs has now morphed into a 'need' to invite 200 or so people you don't know and feed them so they give you gifts.
"we find evidence that marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony"
Don't have a relatively cheap wedding. Have a _cheap_ wedding.
(Do not waste two years of your life making money that you blow on 6 hours of rituals.)
Our wedding cost less than $1000 (near Philadelphia, so HCOL area), and is described by friends as "beautiful" and "one of my all-time favorites."
Everything not in the above list is optional. Grandma's backyard is free, or pay for something more if you want. You can invite just the 5, or 10,000 people. You can serve food or not. You can have rain plans or get wet. You can have live music, a dj, a friend with a ipod, or no music. You can have special fancy outfits or whatever you came out of the barn with. You can have photos or not. You can have a nice honeymoon or not.
I set my budget. I stayed within my budget. I didn't have some things most people do. I did some things that most people do not. I spent more on the honeymoon than the wedding and I'm glad I did. Your values and budget will be different, that is your choice.
BTW, for parents I suggest you give a set amount several months in advance and tell the couple "whatever is leftover is for the honeymoon - have you thought about eloping?"
- family and friends helped us with food prep and photography
- in-laws donated food and some drinks
- family friend made us a cake and other baked goods
- borrowed chairs from workplace
- in-laws provided a venue for the after party (their house!)
- #1 expense was the officiant
- rented a park pavilion on a hillside overlooking a lake ($125)
- alcohol and drinks
- flowers (low cost) and decorations (local party store)
- some homemade decorations
- custom table gifts
We didn't have alcohol at the park - we migrated to my in-laws for that.
Any downsides?
- I wouldn't have minded having someone with DJ experience there to keep things on schedule, and get people dancing
- Along with the above, I would've liked to move to the after-party a little sooner. Drinks help people loosen up ;)I'm absolutely amazed when people ask this question. Parties are very often held for much less than $1000. When I hold a party I usually spend around $300 and I provide plenty of food and booze that I have plenty of leftovers.
Ever been to a graduation party? retirement party? christening? baby shower? anniversary? birthday party? Those all likely cost ~$1,000 or less.
A wedding doesn't have to be fancy or expensive to be 1) a wedding or 2) enjoyable. It's merely a party! You can do anything! The wedding industrial complex wants you to believe that if you don't spring for the silk chair covers (or whatever) it doesn't "count," but that's just them trying to sell you something.
Venue: Plenty of free or non expensive cost ones. Backyards, friend's houses, park pavilions, VFW, masonic lodge, etc.
Food: Sky's the limit here! It can be costly but it doesn't have to be costly, plenty of low cost options. Plenty or restaurants have a catering menu, if you enjoy cooking you can "cater" it yourself, you can have a cookout, etc.
Music: iPod with good speakers is fine.
Photography: Is this really necessary in an age where everyone has a high-res camera in their pockets? I have friends who didn't even look at their wedding pictures.
When I got married the "ceremony" was signing some papers at city hall and we forgot to take a picture, oh well. After the ceremony we celebrated by ourselves at a local watering hole (would have invited friends to join us if everyone wasn't at work). The party we held to celebrate was the following weekend. It was just a normal party at our house, pretty much the same as any other party at our house. We had a big enough apartment at the time, but we could have used a friend's house if we didn't. We ordered four take home party pizzas, made some side salads, and made a box cake (I prefer box cake to homemade). Nobody, including us, dressed up. We didn't spend the whole day fussing about the color of flower arrangements or something equally entirely inconsequential. The focus was on us and our relationship rather than focusing on putting on a show.
We could afford to spend $10,000 or whatever on a wedding if we wanted to but the wedding we did have is one we could actually enjoy, I absolutely can't stand people gawking at me and my husband hates dressing up with a fiery passion. And it left us enough money to put 20% down on a house and then buy all new high quality furniture. And we enjoy those purchases every single day.
For an example of a wedding that was affordable (besides the wedding dress and musical guest), Mark Zuckerberg And Priscilla Chan: https://www.forbes.com/sites/helaineolen/2012/05/21/mark-zuc...
Take wedding dresses. They were not always white. Brides bought expensive dresses, but they would expect to use them for many years to come. Even Kings and Queens would use their wedding clothes many times. The recent switch to white made them single-use garments. That freed them to become very expensive and elaborate.
The one good thing is that when people get divorced and remarried the second wedding is almost always a much smaller and more intimate affair. Nothing breaks the spell like living through planning and executing a "dream wedding".
There is a special kind of (evil) genius in the advertising "Your wedding is your day, so let us tell you what you truly want, and don't let anyone else disagree." (It reminds me of the old "Distrust unsolicited advice. Except this time.")
I disagree that everyone needs these services, only that, as you say, many people expect to provide (or that their marrying friends will provide) these services. Weddings still can be private affairs, and associated gatherings can still be at family houses. (The bit about churches is outside an individual's control, I agree.) As yters commented (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18068728), some people's weddings are still quite affordable.
I've been to a couple of these. The costs are basically nil and you get some perks (honor guards with swords, flyovers etc) that trump any fancy destination wedding.
Of course, some people enjoy the ritual of the cake tasting and decoration decisions and etc.
https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/13/living/wedding-expenses-study...
The second part here is in conflict with the first part...
- You earn your living based on social connections to rich people, making the wedding a business expense.
- $250,000 was pocket change that you happened to have on hand.
If you had to save money in order to pay $250K for your wedding, that was a large and obvious mistake.
[edit] Also, I don't think you can still call a wedding "upper-middle class" if it's 6 digits. Holy moly. I'm shook
[1] https://www.pinterest.com/palacetheater/royal-weddings-at-th...
The point of a wedding is to publicly (and legally) commit yourselves to each other - to tell yourselves, and everybody else, that you are now off limits for everyone except each other. Everything else is fluff, and the fluff disappears.
I've been married for 28 years. Much of the fluff is gone. The wedding cake is long gone. The developer lost our honeymoon pictures (28 years ago was still in the era of film cameras). The building we got married in has been torn down. I lost my wedding ring. But our marriage is still here.