Speaking of weddings, Kate F. wrote the other day to share a tip:
I am just starting the wedding planning process and have been really disheartened by the wedding industry and the realization that what to me is a lot to spend ($5000) is literally laughable by most involved in the industry. I finally came across a blog that I feel fits with my vision of a simple, debt-free wedding: A Practical Wedding.
I’ve never been a big wedding type of guy (Kris and I were married by a justice of the peace in 1993, and then threw a $1000 party for our family and friends), and I love to see brides and grooms flex their frugality muscles and make their wedding unique. Meg at A Practical Wedding is all about “creative, thrifty, and sane” celebrations of love. Meg writes:
Why is every level of wedding planning fraught with so much judgment (perceived or real) and so much guilt? As a bride, there are days that I simultaneously feel guilty for not inviting more people to the wedding and not inviting less people to the wedding, for not spending more on my dress and for not spending less on my dress. The wedding world often leaves us between a rock and a hard place, feeling alone, and searching for options.
I started writing this blog to help myself feel less alone in the wedding planning process, and as it has grown, the best thing that has come out of it is watching a small community emerge of practical brides and grooms holding hands a bit for balance as they try to find their own way. So lets all keep holding hands, and remember, the grass is not actually greener at someone else’s wedding.
A Practical Wedding includes advice for budgeting, including “the best budget tip I know”. The site also features mediations on things like wedding sexism and how dumb it is to focus on details at the expense of the Big Picture. It even offers wedding-dress hacks!
My favorite section, however, is devoted to real weddings, examples of how real couples have thrown thrifty weddings. Some examples:
- Betty and Juan’s dance-filled NYC wedding (love it!)
- Emmy and Kirk’s laid-back wedding (love it!)
- Patty and Trent’s DIY picnic wedding (love it!)
- Christi and Trevor’s do-it-together wedding (really love it!)
It is unlikely that you will ever hear me utter these words again about a wedding-related site, but I could read A Practical Wedding for hours.
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Thanks for the link. Weddings are a real budget danger. Between the (sometimes pushy) wedding sales industry, the fact that your wedding is (hopefully) a once in a lifetime event, and all the marketing that tries to convince you that you need to spend a mint to make your wedding special, it can be very easy to spend money on things that really don’t matter to you. Knowing that you are not alone in trying to plan a financial responsible wedding can be a big help.
RDS
http://financialvalues.blogspot.com/
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“It is unlikely that you will ever hear me utter these words again about a wedding-related site, but I could read A Practical Wedding for hours.”
I can about imagine how I would feel writing those words…it must be good! I’ll be checking it out.
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My wife and I married for relatively cheap (under $3k, including a small honeymoon). We’ve been married over 10 years, so there is little correlation to marital bliss and a huge wedding budget!
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I will be a voice of dissent. I’m glad you enjoy reading it, but I would not recommend A Practical Wedding as an antidote to wedding excess.
I prefer http://www.offbeatbride.com — I sometimes browse A Practical Wedding but much of her blogroll and her sponsoring vendors are $$$$. And her blog reads as being very vendor-driven. That’s a problem for people who care more about the marriage than the wedding. Plus, the sponsored post blogmodel is really offputting to me, no matter what genre of blog.
I’ve found much more practical advice on Off Beat Bride about saving money and reevaluating what you really want. The real-life weddings on Off Beat Bride run the gammut from traditional to off-the-wall, whereas I always feel like the featured weddings on A Practical Wedding are little more than advertisements for an expensive wedding photographer.
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Hi. I too share your opinion on extravagant weddings, and the debt load they can saddle a newly married couple with.
In 2004, my wife and I got married, and had a beautiful wedding, and a lovely reception for less than $5500. We were married in a rose garden in a local botanical Garden, and had the reception in the manor house. We had 60 guests, full bar service with a hot meal, DJ, wedding photographer, limo service, and beautiful centerpieces, and decorations.
You CAN have a spectacular wedding for less than you think, and NO it will not look cheap.
Our method was to plan ahead, and shop around. Go see the companies in those slick bridal magazines, see what they offer, and then beat their overpriced quotes. Those ads cost a bundle, and any company using them has to pay for them somehow. The companies giving you the best bang for the buck will not be in there.
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http://www.2000dollarwedding.com/ has a ton of great tips.
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As a gay man…this whole wedding business is what made me staunchly against gay marriage. Just kidding…just against gay weddings I guess. I think I’m more frugal than I am gay. 14 years of wedded bliss..without the wedded part.
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Nothing in the rule book of life says you have to spend a ton of money on one night… then again, the important thing is that you do what makes you happy, rather than following the herd. Don’t be frugal if you don’t want to be, don’t be lavish if you don’t want to be, be you.
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When my wife and I got married, we did a small church wedding… followed by a BBQ. We told people to bring a change of clothes, and we just had fun. It was a good time, and nobody complained about a “non-traditional” wedding.
For the wedding itself, we kind of did our own thing too. We did a church wedding, with a reverend, but we did some of our own music, hired a local photographer (good friend, excellent photographer) and did much of our own decorations.
I think we spent about $3k total, including rings, dress and the BBQ.
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My husband always brags that we “made a profit” at our wedding – how horrifying! I quickly kick him under the table when he brings it up.
But we’re both proud that we had a 120-guest luncheon reception and a tastefully simple wedding for less than $2k. It was simple and very “us” and I couldn’t have asked for more.
Like JW said, there is no link between wedding costs and marital bliss! In hindsite, we’re probably happier than most because there are no wedding bills still on the credit card.
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I heard a couple say once that for a wedding they’re going to get married in someone’s large backyard and just have a gigantic BBQ party/wedding/reception. To me that sounds like paradise. I hope to do something similar if and when I get married. Just going through the motions of what’s typical for a wedding seems like a chore.
Why be stuffy on the big day?
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Feminist finance – I also like http://www.offbeatbride.com for the variety of weddings that it shows. I also love that they make a point to showcase civil ceremonies, gay marriages, handfastings, etc – just to show the variety in how people choose to make their ceremony unique and special.
Owen – I just spent a lot of time procrastinating reading http://www.2000dollarwedding.com. Thanks for the top on that one!
Since we’re just beginning the planning process, we’re still working out what it is we want. But we know it will all be at my parent’s house and we’ll be having a fall picnic with children welcome and croquet in the side yard. I am fortunate that my partner and I both want the same things out of the day: to pay for it all in cash, to have a real conversation with each guest, to feel relaxed and excited rather than nervous that the flowers aren’t just right.
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My advice is spend money on what means a lot to you and less on things that you don’t care about.
Things that meant a lot to us:
Photographer: We paid $2000 for the best photographer in that price range.
Location: We had a scenic outdoor ceremony on the mountains.
Food: We like quality food.
Music: Hired a string quartet for ceremony only. CD music at the reception.
Dress: Custom-made but only $450.
Drinks: The caterer offered a bartender for $150 and we bought the all the drinks ourselves, no corkage fee or anything. So the guests were very happy.
Things that we did not care to spend much but still important:
No DJ, just CD music. We brought a CD changer. The best man did the announcements.
Flowers – bought everything from Costco $200. Arranged by friends and family.
Honeymoon: 5 days in NYC (not that exciting but good enough for us as we were preparing for a 6-month trip)
Cake: From a lady that works out of her home (with professional equipment)
Video: We bought a brand new video camera and had a student shoot the video.
Favors/centerpieces: Glass candle holders with ribbon filled with dried petals that my husband gave me over the years. More meaningful.
Limo: No need, the ceremony and reception was in the same location.
The focus was on family and friends: priceless.
-Charlotte
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So many brides get wrapped up in the wedding part of things, they forget about what’s really important- the marriage!
I’ve done the big wedding, and I can tell you it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There’s so much going on, you’ll hear stories months (or years) later about things that happened at your wedding that you didn’t even know about!
The big wedding doesn’t make you any more “married” than a small wedding. It doesn’t make you more in love, or any less likely to have problems later on. If you’re not feeling special on your wedding day, regardless of the cost or size of the wedding, then the wedding isn’t the problem- the relationship could be.
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I thought the “wedding industry” was bad, but then we had a baby and found out about the “baby industry!” Everything is marketed to prey on your fears about safety and your desire for the “best” for your baby.
We have friends who shelled out almost $1000 for a stroller, while we paid $40. Cribs for THOUSANDS of dollars. Designer baby clothes costing a fortune, “educational” toys, etc.
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We did our wedding for about 3000 dollars total.
My top hints:
1) Find an affordable venue. We made a list of all the churches in the area and called a LOT of churches. Most said no due to insurance. The ones I attended cost too much. I finally found a great smaller one for 450 dollars. They were really nice too. Most wedding venues are really expensive and force you to use their catering.
2) Avoid catering companies. Try out certain restaurants. Souper Salad is a good choice. We went with Jonny Carinos. They did full service for 130 people, 2 entrees, salad, drinks, and nice plastic silverware for 1500ish for a baseline.
3) Dont go crazy on the cake. Skip grooms cake possibly. I would avoid the icing that is real shiny and smooth. It looks great, but costs 2x as much and doesnt taste very good. I attended a wedding that had a small brides cake, and then several different sheet-cakes at each table! You could mingle and get what you wanted. Great idea!
4) Dress. Keep perspective. You will only wear it ONCE. Will you really look THAT much better in a 1000 dollar dress than a 400 dollar one?
5) Avoid an open bar. Cmon…SURELY your friends and family can wait a few hours for drinking. I just dont see this as a necessity and it is EXPENSIVE.
6) Get a family member or friend to do photography. This is VERY debatable, but my family had a pseudo-pro that did a fantastic job. In most cases, you pay thousands for a “top guy” to do it, then they send out their 16 year old assistants to actually do the work. Bah.
As said, the focus is on the couple. The other stuff is just fluff. Its nice, but not THAT necessary.
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I got married in the early-90′s, before the blogosphere.
My bible was “Bridal Bargains” by Alan and Denise Fields: http://www.windsorpeak.com/bridalbargains
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My favorite blogworlds all just collided. A Practical Wedding featured on Get Rich Slowly (with the also very worthwhile shout outs to 2000 Dollar Wedding and Offbeat Bride)?!!!
As feminist finance mentioned, not all of A Practical Wedding’s featured weddings are necessarily “budget.” However, Meg freely admits that the term “budget” means different things to different folks (based on income, geography, religious tradition, family size, etc). That variety is part of what makes it so accessible – it’s doesn’t prescribe a one-size-fits-all approach to wedding planning but approaches her myriad real wedding examples with joy. Many of these are budget affairs, some are not, but all are personal and thoughtful and provide great antidote to The Knot-like thoughtless consumption in the rest of the wedding world. In these posts Meg also recognizes of her own DIY triumphs, limitations and personal preferences, which may not allow for least expensive wedding, but were planned with care and with an eye towards her budget.
And her advertisers are very recent additions that I don’t feel detract from her overall message: practical weddings are about making choices, budgeting, and focusing on the important aspects of partnership, ceremony and fun. You can choose to support her linked vendors or not, but she probably needs a way to support her growing traffic and I’ve never seen a vendor who doesn’t fit within the “practical” guidelines she outlines.
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How timely! My boyfriend and I got engaged last week and I have been in the same predicament! There is actually a free wedding chapel here, it’s absolutely gorgeous, but reception places are out-of-this-world expensive. So we were thinking about having a catered party/reception at our house afterwards. We’d rather spend the money on fixing up the house and backyard than on a honkin’ big wedding. But even with that ‘small’ of a wedding, there are countless costs and things to think about. I was getting severe anxiety just thinking about it all. So I told my boyfriend, erm, fiance, that we should go on a cruise and get married onboard. We’d be spending money on a vacation, at some point, anyway. We think it is the perfect solution! A 7-day cruise that leaves Galveston/Houston (3-4 hours away from us) would be $800 per person (fees and taxes included, as well as all meals), in a decent oceanview room, and the ‘wedding package’ is $750 and includes the ceremony, cake, champagne, flutes, and a couple pictures. We’ll send postcards from our destinations (Jamaica & Grand Cayman) to announce our marriage to family and friends. Although, I’ve got to admit we’ve both been married before (My wedding probably cost about $1500 max, but his was $15k) and so it’s not a huge deal to us to have the traditional wedding.
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I don’t think big weddings are bad per se. If you have large families and people are spread out all over the country, a big wedding is one of the few times in your life when you’ll get to see everyone together at the same time. That has a lot of emotional value. If you spend more (by having a lot of guests) for the right reasons, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s an event that brings the family together.
That said, the only reason we had a “big” wedding (~120 people) was because my parents wanted to have all the family there. If they hadn’t insisted on that and offered to pay for it, we would have just eloped. (We were fresh out of school and had no money.) Looking back, I really appreciate having the families together, so we were lucky that it worked out the way it did. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to go into debt for it, though.
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I have been to many, many weddings. Without exception, the ones I remember the most fondly are the ones that were quirky and –more importantly–reflected the couple. Every expensive wedding I have been to just melds into this big ball of generic “wedding memories.”
My husband and I married in 2000. My parents gave us $3500 and we kicked in about $500. I wore my mom’s dress (very simple, very “me,” fortunately), we did everything on site at a bed and breakfast, had a photographer friend do photography for dirt cheap, another friend played CDs as our DJ (as his gift to us). There was no church fee because we got married at the B&B. No transportation costs because it was a 50 foot walk from ceremony to reception. No cost for ‘favors’ because –this certainly seemed like a no-brainer–we didn’t have any. Please. Whenever I sit down at a wedding to one of these things, I’m just confused about why they went to the trouble and cost. If you’re giving everyone the same gift, does it really mean anything? A friend made a beautiful cake and charged us $85 because it was her first and she wanted the practice. We got a woman from the Farmer’s Market to do our flowers and it was $300 because everything came from her yard. A friend played guitar during the ceremony as his gift to us.
Eight years later, we still regularly get compliments on our wedding. People remember it because the ceremony was ‘different,’ because the setting of the B&B was (and is) gorgeous, and because there was some awesome dancing. Also, as I’ve described, many of our friends were very actively involved in the ceremony, which people really enjoyed. It was so much more fun to have our friends playing music and everything else, rather than a stranger. An expensive stranger, at that. We did do dinner for everyone, but it was all vegetarian (even though we aren’t), which cut costs considerably.
We did take an eleven-day honeymoon in France (the exchange rate, still in francs, was SO much better than it would be today. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to take such a trip again, for the foreseeable future, anyway). (This was NOT included in the $3500. It was pricey, but I don’t regret it at all. It was amazingly fun.)
I wish more of my friends would break free of the expectations (expectations of whom, I’m not sure) and would craft the wedding that reflects who they are. Their weddings sure would be a lot more fun.
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I have never been one to plan a party and go into debt, Practical Wedding is a great name for the book. “Steps to avoid starting your married life fighting about money” could be another title.
-Tabs
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I always say, skimp on the wedding, but not on the honeymoon. We enjoyed our wedding but it was a quick, afternoon affair that didn’t exhaust us and we remember our honeymoon (25 years ago) fondly. Our friends always remember our wedding and some followed our example and had theirs at the same place.
We spent $600 of our own money in 1983, frugal even then, for the wedding. We got married at a cultural center that was a beautiful Italian style mansion–the price for renting one of their galleries for four hours on a Wed. afternoon wedding was very reasonable (and still is, we went back there to visit for our anniversary).
We got married by a friend who was a notary public, had friends play guitar during the ceremony and afterwards, had another two friends taking pictures. We spent money on a modest cake (used a coupon), minimum flowers (discount coupon) and rental of ferns/potted palms, rental of a punch bowl, finger foods, and a case of white wine. Oh, and the tux rental.
Best of all, I avoided all expense on a dress because my plans to rent a dress fell through so I ended up wearing my sister’s wedding dress with some alterations to the length made by my mom. (It pays to be the same body type as your sisters! It was sort of nice wearing the same dress–like wearing your mother’s.)
I made my own hair decorations and did my own hair and make-up. (When you’re 20, do you really need the heavy make-up and stiff hair to look good?) We bought most of the decorations and plates, glasses etc at a wholesale party rental place. The napkins we got free with our invitation order–also modest–those things get thrown away, you know!)
We are still happily married after 25 years, so the cheap wedding didn’t affect anything except to set us on a good course of spending modestly and within our means.
So don’t let the wedding industry or anyone else tell you that you have to have a lavish wedding to have good memories!
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I think T (comment 21) has a good point, and that the geographic and family considerations matter. My wedding next summer will include family and friends from all over the country who rarely get to see each other, and we’re really excited to spend time with them. However, that’s leading to a more expensive wedding. We chose a location that’s as central as possible for our guests, but that means travel costs for us since we don’t live near the wedding location. Also, it’s harder for family and friends to help out when they don’t all live nearby (anyone ever tried baking a cake in a hotel room?), and there aren’t any convenient family members with big yards or local churches who waive fees for members. Plus, I feel like we’re asking people to give up a lot of their time (and money) to attend, so we don’t want to do something too low key.
We did set a budget and are working to stick to it, though, and we’re only doing something more elaborate because our parents are able to contribute (one advantage of having two brides). If most of our family and friends were within easy driving distance, I’d be all over the backyard bbq idea!
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The best thing we did with our wedding was skip the sit-down dinner. We had an evening of passed hors dourves (more than enough for a meal) and informal seating (couches, chairs with small tables). We even did desert that way (no cake in the face for me thanks). Not only did it save us money but it made for a much more social event. People circulated instead of sitting in one seat all night. Many have told me that it was the best wedding they had been to (I know it was for us).
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I had a good-sized wedding & honeymoon for less than $5000. It can be done, and it can be fun!
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My husband and I spent less than $300 to get married and have a simple weekend honeymoon. We have been married for 20 years now! We didn’t have much money when we got married but that was no measure as how much we love each other!
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oo, oo! a chance to brag about my wedding! we had a 3 months to plan it (before my visa expired and i was kicked out of the country, no less), thank goodness we were really active in our local quaker church– the only pressure we had was to keep it simple. (even then, at the end of my wedding day, i thought that if i had planned it for 12 months i would have killed someone.) it also helped that all of our friends were poor college students, so no one expected champagne and caviar. we had an “everyone is invited” ceremony (part of the quaker ethos is you don’t keep anyone out. even if it’s your wedding) and then a potluck reception afterwards. (hardly any leftovers!) a friend made the cake(s). (one american style, one sugar free, and one made from the leftovers of the first two. mil brought a british-style one. we had plenty of leftover cake!) i think there were flowers, supplied by the church. a friend played folk music during the reception in the church hall. i made my own dress (unfortunately, i’m not as handy as i’d like to be. in the end, i used a few well-hidden safetypins. nothing like not having your dress done yet, an hour before the ceremony, to spark those creative juices!) and carried a stuffed badger. (the closest i got to having a bridezilla moment was when the little old lady in charge of our paperwork insisted, for the 100th time, that i needed to carry a posey. i practically screamed “what kind of flower is a posey?”… no one had told me it was just a small bouquet of whatever kind of flower you want. gah.) wedding favors, bought the morning before, were Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs (very us). the one thing we splurged on was the wedding certificate. we paid $300 for a friend to hand calligraph it. it’s gorgeous: it has our vows and everyone who was there signed it. we framed it and it hangs in our bedroom, our first “grownup” piece of furniture.
… all our other friends went together to a pub for dinner and crashed on local floors. it was perfect, and started a rash of cheap and cheerful weddings in our circle of friends.
in-laws paid for a fancy schmancy dinner afterwards– family, and anyone who traveled more than 100 miles to be there was invited.
(8 years and two kids later, we still sneak kinder surprise eggs into each others’ lunchboxes and xmas stockings.)
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These weddings make me wish we had done something like this 10 years ago. We didn’t have the guts to do exactly what we wanted because my parents wanted to pay. I really wanted small and cool, but surprisingly, my dad wanted big. It was an amazing day, but our marriage isn’t any the better for it. I always tell people that if I could do it all again, I’d elope…however, after seeing a few of the frugal, very cool weddings shown at Practical Wedding, I’d rethink the elope into a genuine yet simple expression of our true selves.
Heck, maybe we will renew our vows so we can do this.
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I’ve read that the average wedding in America costs $25,000 — that is just INSANE! I’d so much rather spend that money on a down payment on a house. When I get married I’d like to just have a small wedding in the beach with a handful of family and good friends. Why spend such a crazy amount of money for just one day when it can be used so well for the future!?
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Donna Jean had a $2000+ wedding.
I asked her about some of the details and I know she just called up a local farm with the highest point in the county and got them to rent the space to her for cheap. She has some photos of her homemade wedding dress, which is beautiful looking. I know she’ll be happy to answer any questions about it too!
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Gosh. As if it weren’t hard enough to get a man to marry you…
I find this discussion profoundly disturbing. It ties in, IMHO, with the highly profitable strategy of exploiting people’s feelings and sentimentality to fleece them of money. Wedding industry, baby industry, pet industry: they all have that exploitation in common. They all generate obscene profits, and they all persuade people to part with stupid amounts of money to buy stuff they don’t need or things they could get far more reasonably.
Elope, young pups! Use the zillion bucks you would’ve spent on the wedding to go on a dream trip to New Zealand!
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Just to clarify: I am not anti-recommending A Practical Wedding. I think I came off as too harsh above, which probably came from writing too quickly. I don’t think it’s the best resource out there for cost-cutting, and I don’t love the ad model, it’s true. But I do think Meg is a very thoughtful blogger and although I skip over the advertorial content she’s got a refreshingly sane and balanced take on How To Plan A Wedding While Remaining A Happy Person.
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Hey J.D., thanks for the post!
It seems that the economy is changing weddings in many ways, but its insane to consider how much stress one can get from planning a wedding, with much of that stress deriving from cultural practices in our society. This article does a good job of showing an alternative and still enjoying your wedding.
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@33 — the crux of this discussion is how to avoid the consumerist ties of the wedding industry and to be frugal and practical while still celebrating appropriately. Why does that disturb you?
Personally, I’m thrilled that my boyfriend said yes when I popped the question. I’m also happy to be contributing to the DIY movement by purchasing my $150 custom made engagement rings on etsy!
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We’re going on fifteen years this month and we eloped, it was just the two of us and that mostly came from neither of us wanting to be the center of attention for the day. We just wouldn’t have had fun…
That said though, I love going to weddings and checking them out. I love seeing the dresses and flowers and decorations and even seeing what kind of invitation they picked out. Maybe that comes from me not having my own wedding or from my love of people watching. But I’ll go to a wedding anytime…
But paying for it??? I’d rather have the money to put down on a house or just to save…I guess that assumes you have it in the first place. But if not that, then just not going into debt (or great debt) for it takes second place.
I don’t remember at all what we spent, but I do know my wedding ring cost about 175 (or was it 75???) and my husband’s maybe 7 dollars….yup, 7 dollars.
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Good post, J.D!
When I got married we were just looking forward towards the wedding. Now I realise I should have looked beyond that. After your wedding when you start having a family of your own is when the challenge begins…
I would have saved a fortune if I had realised this earlier!
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My husband and I got married last May for less than $2500. It was perfect, though I realize not for everyone.
We knew from early on that we didnt want a big wedding, but we didnt want to get married in a courthouse. We had immediate family only at our wedding (total of 9 guests due to a split family; 3 sets of parents, one brother & his wife, and my only surving grandmother).
Not only was our wedding for us, but it was a time for family to come together. After all, they are the most important people to us.
We love B&B’s and amish country. We ended up renting a whole B&B so that everyone had their own room, and a kitchen for the dinner & breakfast the next morning.
We made our own dinner. It included: Lasagna, Salad, Chicken Cordon Bleu (from Gordon’s Food Service), rolls, fancy green beans with mushrooms & bacon, red potatoes and parsley and a Reisling we had bought earlier in the year while on a vacation.
Breakfast was included with the B&B rental. The owners of the B&B lived next door, so it was perfect not to have them around with our party.
Photographer: we found a guy starting his own business. We were also looking at photography majors in college as an option.
Pastor: A patient of my step-father
Wedding cake: Made by the pastor (I know, weird, but he did it all)
Wedding dress: Because I didnt want a huge wedding, I didnt want a $1,000 wedding dress. I ended up getting a bridesmaide’s dress in white that looked like a wedding dress but alot less expensive.
Bouquet: We found some calalillies (sp?) that were silk online. They are absolutely beautiful, and every time I see them, it reminds me of our wonderful day.
Groom: Black suit that he can wear again and again.
The costs were as follows:
Rental of the entire B&B for the night including breakfast: $450
Wedding Dress: $175
Shoes/Undergarmets (all bought on sale):$50
Suit:$150
Silk Flowers (Bouqet) $35
Silk Flowers for everyone else: $15
Wedding Cake: $100 (absolutely beautiful; 2 tiered)
Dinner: less than $100
Wine: $35
Photographer: $300
Cake topper/knife/serving equipment: $75
Engagement Ring: Diamond bought online at a huge discount from jewelryfactory.com. Diamond ring with setting & wedding band: $500
Groom’s wedding band: Titanium bought at a jewelry store liquidation for $200
Total: ~ $2200
Our honeymoon cost more than our wedding did…but that was our choice. We went on an Alaskan cruise. The cruise itself cost $1500 for the two of us. Total with airfare, alcohol, excursions: $3,000. It was a trip of a lifetime.
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I am not sure if it would be true to all culture, but in a culture like ours. A wedding is a very troublesome one. You will be facing some suggestions or demands as you call it from both sides and from parents to relatives and brothers and sisters on where it be held, who’s doing the ceremony, which church or which religion, where’s the reception, who’s invited and not, who’s gonna be on the entourage what’s the color and what the designs and particularly every aspect of the wedding. I hope weddings will just be simple and determined by those to be wed.
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