This guest post from Lars is part of a new feature here at Get Rich Slowly. Every Sunday will include a reader story (in the new “reader stories” category). Some will be general “how I did X” stories, and others will be examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success.
I got married last month. It was a bit of a whirlwind romance — at the beginning of 2009, we'd been talking about an engagement later in the year, with a wedding in 2010. Things being what they are, the engagement got moved up a couple of months, and we decided to plan a wedding for the end of the year.
The first question we had to ask ourselves was, “What size wedding do we want?” The next question was, “What can we afford?”
A Little Background
Let's talk about our personal situation for a moment before I answer the questions in detail. My wife is finishing school and doesn't work. I finished grad school 18 months ago, and had a bout of unemployment for the last four months of 2008.
As I'd just gotten out of school, I hadn't yet amassed much of an emergency fund. I mostly lived off of credit cards during that period. After moving, paying rent for two months on two apartments, and a small weekend trip to Europe earlier this year (before the wedding was in the works…if I knew we were getting married this year, we wouldn't have gone), I racked up over $10,000 in credit card debt. I set a goal in April to have my debt paid off by the end of January 2010 — a goal I'm quite pleased to say that I'll meet.
Basically, the take-away here is that we didn't have much money for a wedding.
For us, the most we could contribute was just a few thousand dollars. My fiancée checked with her family, and the best they could contribute was $1000. My parents paid for our honeymoon, so, we were looking at planning a wedding with a budget of $3000.
What Size Wedding?
I've moved around a bit over the last few years, so it's been hard for me to keep up with old friends. And since I recently moved, I didn't have friends that I was dying to invite to my wedding. My wife had a couple of people on the “it would be nice if they could come” list, but their attendance wasn't critical. So, we decided on a family wedding.
We figured that meant under 10-20 people including us. Some of my wife's immediate family is local; the others all live in the same town about eight hours away. My family isn't local, and would have to fly no matter where the wedding was held.
Here's the challenge: How do you plan a wedding for a dozen people on $3000? We explored some local options, and with facility charges and whatnot, the economics just didn't work. We would have paid too much for a big facility that would feel empty with so few people in it, or been too stuffed in a smaller facility. Because it was a December wedding, an outdoor event where we are wouldn't work either.
We both wanted a nice wedding that didn't feel cheap and that worked in our budget. (My wife told me later that she wasn't thrilled with the budget we'd set, but she also said that ten years from now, she'd be happy we weren't still paying for it.) Then there's the sticky issue of some friends of her local family that we socialize with from time to time… we were being “encouraged” to add them to the guest list. I wasn't happy about it — if they all came, it would almost double the size of our wedding.
What Can We Afford?
As luck would have it, we stumbled on some wedding packages in Las Vegas. When I started putting together cost estimates, I realized that this would be the best fit. We stumbled upon the Stratosphere's wedding packages, and they start at just a few hundred dollars. We chose a package that ran about $800 for a 30-minute ceremony way up in the tower, and it came with a dozen photos.
The ceremony was nice and short. We ate dinner at Fellini's restaurant in the hotel — we were able to get a private room for no additional charge — and best of all, we had a really nice three-course dinner for $32.95 per person. Wine was available for $18 a liter. The restaurant served us a really great cake for about $80. All said and done, dinner was about $800.
After dinner, we were given passes to the hotel lounge up in the tower, which provided us an excellent venue to enjoy a few drinks, some light dancing, and each other's company. The VIP concierge was kind enough to provide us a limo at the low rate of $42 an hour — six of us drove up and down the strip for two hours taking pictures all over the place.
Repercussions
Choosing to have our wedding in Las Vegas didn't go over so well with her side of the family at first. My family didn't care; as my dad put it, a plane ride is a plane ride. Her family, on the other hand, had to travel. If the wedding had been local, those that were eight hours away would have driven, and the locals could have just stayed put.
My wife and I talked about it for awhile. I asked her, “Who is this wedding for? Is it for us, or for your family?” It was for both, of course, but when push came to shove, the costs came out of our pockets. A local wedding would have cost more, although not by much. It would have been a bit cheaper for her family though.
What was the right answer?
The truly locals do quite well for themselves (and, truth be had, get caught holding the bag for others in their family on occasion) but they also know that we're just getting started in our married lives, and that every dollar counts.
I would have compromised. If I were in her family's shoes, I would have sat down and said, “Look, we know it's going to cost you more to have a local wedding. It's also going to cost us a lot in travel expenses. How about we figure out what it would cost us to travel out there, and write you a check for a fraction of that?That way neither of us is unfairly burdened with avoidable costs.”
Had they offered that, it's likely we would have had a local wedding.
Happily Ever After
In the end, we decided it was our wedding, and our budget. We also knew we weren't putting people at a terrible disadvantage cost-wise (flights were running $250 per person from both cities, and the Strat had regular rooms for $30/night during the week and $50/night on the weekends. Our suite ran $120/night.)
It turned out to be, in everybody's opinion, an awesome wedding. I loved it from a budget perspective — we were able to pay for exactly what we needed, no more, and no less. No minimum charges, no facility rental charges, no nothing. And after the wedding, we had the whole town of Las Vegas to provide our nightlife. I think we did the whole thing for right around $3,000 — if we went over, it was only by a few hundred.
Lars – Thanks for sharing your story. We got married in 2007 and live in the Caribbean at the moment.
Suprisingly, negotiation and planning were the two hugest things that kept my wedding budget at around 4,000. We had 75 people, open bar, and at a local resort on the Island. Thinking back I know it could of been a LOT more expensive.
Negotiating was really key for me such as finding a place that would do a “package deal” and then basically nip and tuck different areas (open bar, room rates, etc). Its always great to haggle.
– James
We too got married in Vegas at the end of 2000 ~ for mostly the same reasons. Getting married in Scotland with all family present ( and hubby has a LOT) would have been astronomical in price ~ and once we actually started a guest list we started to say things like ‘ well, if we invite so and so, then we have to invite their so and so’ ~ and it was getting out of hand.
So we started to think about what WE actually wanted. Turned out that that was a simple ceremony with a few close relatives in a place where we had both wanted to go for years ~ Viva Las Vegas!
We stayed in the Venetian (overwhelmed us all) ~ got married in the Little Chapel of the Flowers ( very romantic place) ~ visited the Grand Canyon (wow) ~ saw Tom Jones at the MGM (just as well I was married by then, lol) ~ ~ basically the BEST week of our lives ~ ~ and ~ ~ it cost less than one day here would have done, even including flights ~ no squabbling relatives either! :)
Thanks for a great story! We had a similar experience as well – we got married in 2006 with just family and a handful of close friends, about 25 people total. We had the ceremony in the lake house of an area park (cost: $60), found a wonderful non-denominational minister who specialized in simple, meaningful weddings, and ate dinner at a nearby restaurant (where I also happened to be consulting on event management at the time). Our dinner was held in their beautiful greenhouse out back, and the food was wonderful (and $17/plate – again, my connection helped there). The whole thing, including my dress, was about $2000, and it was EXACTLY what I wanted.
Good for you for sticking to your plans, and enjoying the wedding YOU wanted.
That’s a great story. I tell all friends, especially those over 30 getting married for the first time that it’s a party for you and your spouse, especially if you’re paying for it out of pocket. I’m not much of a traditionalist, but when you’re footing the bill to celebrate your love, I just don’t see any reason to bend over backwards for 2nd cousins on the other side of the country.
We threw a small wedding that was mostly friends with great food at a cool location and it didn’t break the bank (I think it ran about $4k in the end, with most of that being food as venues were cheap.
Good for you!! My husband and I weren’t able to stand up and say that this wedding is for us and our guest list went from 75 to 300 (this is of course, us shaving it down) and we were in more debt than we should have been.
I love wedding budget stories! Good job keeping the budget under control. When I was in the planning stages, I’d be on bridal/wedding forums and hear people whine and moan about having “only 10k” for their wedding, and wondering what those people thought was a lot of they thought 10k was a tiny budget! I’ve never understood the type of people willing to go into massive debt for the “best day of their lives”.
I’m of the opinion that if you go into marriage thinking your wedding day is the best day you’ll ever have in your whole life, you’re not giving enough credit to your partner or to actually being married. My wedding was an amazing day, but I’ve had some other fabulous days with my husband since then.
Our wedding cost just under $4k (including dress, tuxes, wedding consultant, everything), and we had 50 guests. I think we spent an extra $2-300 on a big free-for-all barbecue the next day for any additional family and friends (or anyone else who wanted to drop by), which is how we kept the wedding guests list as low as it was. Including cousins or aunts/uncles in the guest list would have shot it up over a hundred people. Ack.
Do you really want to tell your kids you got married in Vegas?? To each his own, I guess…
Sounds like a nice wedding, and one that didn’t break your budget in half. The money you saved is the greatest compliment you could receive.
Since my wife is Ukrainian, and since the wedding is essentially for the bride, we married in Ukraine back in 2002. We had a reception for 35 people. The whole shebang ran between two and three hundred bucks, including a wonderful three-layer wedding cake which cost all of $14!
The point–it doesn’t really matter whether you marry in a JP’s office or in an elaborate wedding–what really matters is the dedication and love you bring on a daily basis to your lives together.
By the way, I hear all these stories–but a very good and low-cost option for a “facility” is to marry in church, although I know that seems hardly fashionable these days.
We had a wedding for 30 people in 2006. We were married in my church and had a dinner at a restaurant afterwards. We still had a photographer for an hour or so and I had beautiful flowers. Total cost was around $2K. We wouldn’t have done it any other way.
Congratulations!
I think I’ve shared this a couple of times before, but it’s been a while. (Plus, I’ve never written a while blog entry about it.)
Kris and I got married on the cheap, too. Part of this was out of principle, but part of it was because we didn’t want to borrow from our parents. The route we chose didn’t go over well with my father, but we figured this wasn’t for him, but for us. Here’s what we did:
We got married on a weekday morning at the county courthouse. The only people we allowed to be present were her sister and one of my brothers. But the next day, we through a bash for everybody we knew.
To keep costs low, Kris and I arranged for everything ourselves. We used the connections we’d developed to make things easier, but we were our own caterers.
For example, while working at our college coffeehouse, Kris had been a buyer. She bought cakes, for example, from a local vendor. This knowledge came in handy for our wedding: We just ordered cakes from this vendor, who gave us wholesale pricing. As alumni, we were actually able to use the college coffeehouse for our reception.
We had a few friends help us set things up, but otherwise we arranged everything ourselves. We had a fun time, and we hope (and think) others did, as well.
We also had a budget honeymoon. We drove to Victoria, British Columbia, where we stayed in a dive hotel. (Seriously: It was a dive.) This gave us more money to spend on the fun stuff.
If I remember right (and this could be way off base), in 1993, we spent $1,000 for the wedding stuff and $1,000 for the honeymoon. We’re both happy with what we did.
But, as with so many things, a cheap wedding isn’t for everyone. I don’t think that what we did would have worked for Shannon (#7). If you want a big wedding, go for it, but just be conscious of the cost. And don’t go along with big plans out of some sense of social obligation. You’re going to have to learn to say “no” at some point — this is as good a time as any.
I am not a fan of destination weddings, because I don’t think it’s fair to make your guests pay for travel and lodging. But I seem to be in the minority on this.
To truly gauge the cost, I think one should look at the total cost. In other words, the people getting married may spend $xxx, but the guests may spend as much or more on travel/lodging.
By a curious coincidence, this question went up at Ask Metafilter this morning: Why do I feel guilty for not wanting a wedding? The asker is looking for feedback from folks who have minimalist weddings.
There’s some great feedback in this thread, though not many details. Every one of the 30+ commenters is glad to have done a minimalist wedding. (There’s even at least one Vegas wedding commenter.)
We got married in 2008, and we saved money by getting a lot of help from family. My sister-in-law did the invitations, my dad was the DJ, one of my husband’s cousins was the photographer and another did the bridal party’s hair, a family friend was the officiant, and everyone helped with making decorations. We had the ceremony at a local park, and the reception at my husband’s parents’ house. We were lucky to have so many talented people in the family who could help with the wedding, and everyone commented that it was a wonderful day because it really brought our two families together.
As a preface to an earlier post:
Would you rather say we got married in Las Vegas and here’s your tuition for 4 years of college OR
We got married in a grand ceremony with 300 guests and good luck paying for college.
Nonetheless, we got married abroad (Italy) with just one mother present and had a celebration the following spring and it all turned out incredible. The non-pressure of just us getting married with no guests and the non-pressure of the wedding celebration since we had already been married made for an amazing time at both locations.
To each his own, it will be memorable regardless. What’s more memorable is having the marriage last 50+ years…
To elaborate on the comment from frugalscholar above, what’s really happened with the inexpensive wedding is that some of the costs were shifted from Lars to the guests. The primary reason that weddings in places like Las Vegas (this holds true for cruise and destination weddings as well) are so cheap is that they are counting on the added revenue for your guests to subsidize your stay. In many cases, if you have a large wedding, your wedding (and sometimes your hotel expenses) are offered free since they recoup the expenses from your guests.
Lars doesn’t say where his in-laws flew in from, but taking the average cost of airfare from Q3 of 2008 (the most recent year I could find figures for summer travel on) at $360/person, and assuming that his wife’s side of the family consisted of 6 people (half the 12-person wedding party), that’s an added $2,160 straight away. If we further assume that half of the 6 people were local and wouldn’t have had to rent a hotel, and assuming they stayed 2 nights and rented 2 rooms at the Circus Circus (Stratosphere didn’t have prices online), that’s an extra $385, for a total of $2,545. That almost doubles the cost of the wedding.
Hopefully the above won’t come across as being too negative; the intent wasn’t to bash on the article, just to point out that a destination wedding is more about shifting part of the cost of the wedding rather than an outright savings. If that’s something that you and your guests are comfortable with, it’s a perfectly legitimate way to cut your own personal costs.
I agree with Matt: Basically, it’s a party for you and your spouse. I lived in Vegas for about a year and it is a real wedding capital. My commute took me past the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign and the Little Wedding Chapel twice a day, and I got many a smile from wedding parties posing for pix, even though sometimes the spectacle stopped traffic!
Of course, one can do this for less (as several readers and JD have pointed out) but you all had a lot of fun and made some really special memories. Personally, I love giving parties and am currently planning a bash for my parents 50th wedding anniversary this fall. It’s gonna be on the cheap, too, so I’m glad for this post and all the comments as it gave me some good ideas.
Congrats!
Why don’t you have a big reception at home for the people who didn’t or couldn’t or weren’t invited to the Vegas wedding?
Pot luck + church hall + pictures or video from the wedding = celebration of you and your wife starting a new life together.
We had a simple, small wedding (35 people), that we planned in about 5 weeks. It was not all that cheap (my parents wanted to help) but definitely cheaper than a “traditional” wedding would have been. Since the guest list was small we splurged on activities and food for our guests and couldn’t have been happier.
I’m a huge fan of small, non-traditional weddings — so much more meaningful, fun, and so much less pressure for everything to be “perfect”!
I think having a frugal wedding is the way to go — chances are you will then have more in the future for amazing anniversary celebrations!!
OTOH, when we got married 10 years ago, we had a huge wedding for under 3K. We had an outdoor wedding in the rural midwest (there was a wooden shelter area in case of rain), didn’t buy a photographer, flowers, favors etc. The most expensive thing was food and drink, but getting a barbeque catered runs under 1K in the rural midwest and 1K buys quite a bit of champagne. JCPenny’s dresses, rented tuxes (MIL insisted on the tuxes). Friends flew and drove in from all over and we put them up on the floor of my parents’ place. We’ve been to a couple of similar weddings in Northern CA since then that were a bit more expensive but not terribly so.
Our wedding cost us under $200 at the JP’s office with four guests (mother/father/best man/maid of honor) with dinner at the olive garden. We found a nice dress at macy’s that needed repairs for about $13 which was insane. Our dinner afterward was the most expensive part, over $100 to pay for everybody that went. My wife’s maid of honor made an awesome cake, my brother got hammered on the entire bottle of wine. Even though we were not good with the rest of our finances at the time. We realized that spending thousands of dollars on a single day did not make any sense at all. Spending thousands of dollars on a car that will last 5-10 years is a tough enough decision.
Great story.
My wife and I got married last year for $1000 with about a dozen guests. We were married by a justice of the peace which cost $65. We rented a pavilion at a local park for $30 for our reception. My wife made a beautiful gown from a $50 thrift store dress. A $20 vest turned my suit into a tux. Food cost about $100 and my wife’s store donated a great wedding cake. By far the largest expense was flying my parents out to Colorado. Two round trip tickets for a weekend in July cost $500.
This summer we are planning on having an anniversary party back in NJ where most of our family lives. We have a budget of $2000 (including our travel out there) for an event with 100 people.
Great story. This is the first article that I’ve read all the way through on your site in 6 months.
I can appreciate that you wanted a wedding for cheap, but I can’t believe that your idea of your family “compromising” was that they write you a check for YOUR wedding!
It amazes me that adults feel completely comfortable comfortable approaching their parents to ask them for money to throw a party (you got at least $1k).
I’m not trying to be brutal with you, I absolutely agree that you should only have a wedding that you can afford- I would merely add that this includes not running to the “grownups” to ask them to pay for your party.
Good luck in your financial journey as you find your way to true financial independence.
I enjoyed this story. Las Vegas is a great place to get married and between the resorts and the wedding chapel district, there are tons of options and every style of wedding imaginable. I think it has its own tradition and romance in contemporary culture, like getting married in Niagra Falls in the 1950s. In fact My husband and I often talk about renewing or vows at one of the chapels. They’re so cute! It is more expensive for your hometown guests, but much cheaper than other destination weddings like Key West, Hawaii, etc. The airfare, hotels, etc. is designed for quick, inexpensive get-aways. And nearly everyone loves an excuse for a quick trip to Vegas.
I live in Pahrump, Nevada, which is about 65 miles from Vegas. For our wedding, I most definitely did not want to get into the mindset of “is my friendship with X person worth a $32.95 per plate chicken dinner?” mindset.
My husband and I got married in a park (free!) and had a potluck picnic reception where we provided punch, cake, and a wonderful Mexican meatball soup. Everyone else was free to bring something to share or not…I made it clear that it was their presence I wanted, not their food or gifts. I printed out nice invitations by buying some clearance invitations from Wal-Mart that had great software that really made them look as if they’d been professionally printed. I got my dress on sale at David’s Bridal and we got my wedding rings at a pawn shop in Vegas and my husband’s online after getting his ring size from the jewelry counter at Wal-Mart. A photographer friend of mine took pictures and I bartered with her a psychic reading in exchange! My bouquet was made for me by my mother…I’d bought flowers from Albertson’s and she supplied the ribbon, the floral tape and the artistic knowhow to make a beautiful arrangement. My tablecloths were white sheets I’d bought from the Salvation Army, which I then dyed lavender with a $2.00 package of RIT dye. A makeshift altar was made by two cement breezeblocks with a board on top, and then decorated with a beautiful cloth and some religiously significant objects supplied from my home and by family members.
Many people asked us if we were registered anywhere for gifts. I replied that while we weren’t asking for gifts at all, just their presence at the wedding, that if they REALLY felt they wanted to give us a gift, the most useful two things we would enjoy the most would be giftcards for Wal-Mart and Home Depot, as we could combine them to help carry out some small home improvement projects. I wrote everyone thank you notes and told them how their gift had help us do X, Y and Z in the house (new faucets, new cabinet hardware, etc.). The response was overwhelmingly positive and people always congratulated us on being smart about the whole thing. I also made sure to include flattering photos of them at the wedding, along with the thank you notes, which people seemed to appreciate.
At the time, we both worked at a boarding school, so I contracted with the school to prepare the food and hired some students to serve at the wedding, which they loved. My family is scattered all over the country, so it really wouldn’t have mattered where we planned it…pretty much everyone was going to have to travel at least a little. We ended up having a wedding for about 50 people, including dress, rings, new suit and shoes for my husband, food, invites, cake, favors, and honeymoon, all for about $3,000. It was great, nearly everyone attended in relaxed clothes (my cousin brought his dog to the wedding!), and I truly believe everyone had a good time.
Instead of having a rehearsal dinner, we took the family out to a champagne brunch at the Sahara hotel in Vegas the next day, which was affordable and enjoyable. It got people to Vegas on time for their flights or closer to the highway they needed to get on to drive home, and was nice and laid back, since there were no pre-wedding jitters or frantic running around anymore. For a honeymoon, we spent the night at my maid of honor’s timeshare in Vegas, and then many months later went on a cruise that had been given to us as a gift by my husband’s fammily.
I encourage everyone to be financially sensible and mindful about your choices for your wedding. Half the fun about the wedding now is telling our story about how we managed to have a terrific, beautiful and fun wedding on a shoestring!
Nice article and I totally agree that a wedding doesn’t have to be a break-the-bank affair.
The one point that struck me as actually offensive was when Lars considered that it could have been a rational option for his future wife’s extended family to contribute to the cost of a local wedding – “How about we figure out what it would cost us to travel out there, and write you a check for a fraction of that?”
Honestly, that would have been terribly poor manners. It’s YOUR wedding, YOUR budget and YOUR choice on where, when, who to invite, etc. You had that budget because of your parents and you and your partner’s life decisions, and that’s fine. Lars, you even mention that those extended family members “get caught holding the bag for others in their family on occasion” – would you want to contribute to that? You invite them to LV or wherever you’re having the event, then it’s their decision as to whether or not they can attend. If you wanted to have a local wedding where they could surely go, then it’s your responsibility to make that happen.
I understand you may have mentioned that as kind of a mutual-benefit scenario (they save $ and you can have the wedding locally within your personal budget), but I think it’s more than a bit presumptuous that they would provide the funds to give you your ideal day.
As I said, otherwise great article and I applaud your fiscally-responsible decisions.
This post made me think of our own wedding–done on the cheap–30 years ago this July. We were nuts–but didn’t have more than $300 to spend on everything. We used the exterior grounds of an old stone mansion in Wilmington Delaware, at one time the home of a wealthy local scion, taken over by the county and lying fallow. We catered it-lovely cheeses and breads and fruits and icy bottles of vino verde on that hot, hot day. We made our own wedding cake, replete with rolled fondant and handmade marzipan flowers–one that today would rival the Cake Boss’s cakes! We made do, and with a great deal of style and panache. We had to. Our 40 or so guests had a ton of fun and so did we. We left the mess for the guests to deal with, and drove to our honeymoon destination two hours away, a beach rental with 10–count ’em–TEN of our closest friends for two weeks! I watch women on TV shopping for wedding dresses that cost $5000 or more, and I am amazed.
Yeah, actually, your wedding was $3000 plus $250 airfare * 15 people = $3750 for a grand total of $6750. You could say that half of them would have had to travel anyway, then maybe a total of $4875. If the goal is to shift the costs from you to the family, you accomplished that. I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing- just that you can’t ignore the travel costs.
I used to be a wedding planner at a large hotel and also as a smaller upscale restaurant and this article is PERFECT for how I used to explain to my brides the cost v. the actual memory. Often times, society says that a wedding needs to be big, over the top, with everyone you have ever met invited… that you should demand the best quality, brand names and be mindful that you should please everyone you invite… which is completely untrue. A wedding is for the bride and the groom, often the weddings that costs $10,000 or $50,000 or $100,000 are not memorable to anyone, especially the bride and the groom who are so caught up in the small details they forget to have fun. It seems that you had a good time, your family and friends will always remember it and it served as a vacation for all. Good article, better underlying moral.
Jd’s close: The money for our 1993 honeymoon was a wedding gift check from my parents for $1234.56. We came in under the $1000 budget for our reception, partly because we couldn’t serve alcohol at our venue.
We made the right choice for us, but as Jd said, his father was not happy that we didn’t choose a church. And members of my extended family were mad they got a wedding announcement instead of a wedding invitation. Unfortunate, but not sufficient to make us ignore our own best judgment.
Haha. I’d forgotten about that check for $1234.56. Kris’ mother thought she was pretty clever. :)
Btw, at least some of the Vegas chapels are set up for internet streaming of the wedding itself.
Lars,
It sounds like your wedding was perfect for you and your wife. I have been to many weddings, and my favorites have been the non-traditional ones that actually reflect the personalities of the bride and groom. The church weddings all mix together in my mind, but the unique ones stand out.
It always amazes me to go to weddings of creative and interesting people that are stiflingly dull and cookie cutter.
I had a somewhat traditional wedding 16 years ago, yet kept within a budget of $2000. We actually could have afforded a much more expensive wedding, but were not interested in spending too much money.
Here’s a link to a Non-Consumer Advocate post I wrote about it:
http://thenonconsumeradvocate.com/2009/03/the-non-consumer-advocate-wedding/
It’s also important to remember that a wedding is about the beginning of a marriage, and not about impressing people. How many over the top celebrity wedding end up in divorce anyway?
The best part of our wedding was the art car limo (free) and running into Johnny Cash at the hotel and having HIM come up to us to congratulate us. Wouldn’t you know that my husband and I were alone at this point and had no camera on us at the time. Can’t put a price on that!
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
Incredibly interested in knowing what else you investigated… the Stratosphere unfortunately looks a little space-needle-esque and I live in the Seattle area.
Were there other good deals like this? Any rooftop options?
Bravo! I am always amazed when I hear the price tag on many weddings these days. My wife and I were married about 8 years ago and, while we didn’t match your frugality, we did entertain around 300 people for approximately $7,000. To date, we STILL have people tell us how much fun they had at our reception!
My husband and I were married in 1998. We wanted to elope, and just have a reception later but caved to pressure from friends and relatives that “we would regret not having pictures of a ‘real’ wedding”. As it turned out, having no financial help from parents, we had a fabulous ‘budget’ wedding that our friends still talk about today. We were married (for free) at our local Kingdom Hall where we could invite as many people as we wanted. The reception was held in the backyard of a friend. She had just moved into her house and the spacious backyard was the perfect size. We spent a month of weekends doing hard labor, really a backyard make-over, for the privilege of having the reception there. It was a win-win for her and us. She set the number of guests at 100, so that’s what we had. Her house had one bathroom which meant that we would need to provide the dreaded “porta-potty”. We found a cute one(really!), with flushing toilet and running water sink, for $100 (which included the delivery and pick-up). I did my own flowers. Friends helped with food, which was amazing! Another friend took pictures for us, we only had to pay for developing. Someone took care of video-taping, etc. My dress was $250. Tux was about $80 (looking back, I wish we had just bought a nice black suit that we could have kept). We went cheap in certain areas (though you wouldn’t know it) and spent money on what was important to us. I really wanted china plates, and real, not plastic water goblets and wine glasses with cloth linens. That ended up being the things we spent most on, about $400. We even had a dear friend give us a diamond for my wedding ring. We took 4 days off work for our honeymoon, obviously we stayed local because that’s what we could do at the time. I think really what it boils down to is being REALISTIC, and be willing to put down the bridal magazines and ask what’s truly important to YOU.
What’s interesting to me is that my memories, and my favorite pictures to look at are from the night before, at my house putting together bouquets with my soon-to-be husband and close friends in the living room putting together napkins and silverware, stopping for some impromptu swing dancing. I have wonderful memories of installing a spinkler system in our friends backyard, and digging out some gnarly old bird of paradise bushes! The wedding was cool too ;-)
Your wedding sounds like it was a lot of fun. It’s funny how you mention that you and your husband were thinking about who the wedding was really for?
My brother got married recently and when I was discussing things with him, it seemed like he and his wife conceded to the fact that the wedding ceremony wasn’t for them but more for their families. It was interesting to hear your opinion on it.
That being said, I think what you did was great. Starting your marriage $30k in debt is nothing to brag about.
Congratulations on your recent marriage!!
We got married on the trail, locally, with 2 witnesses (who are good friends), a runner who is also a minister, and two of our kids. It cost us $500 for the rings, $20 for champaine, $70 for breakfast after, $70 for my new running skirt and top, and $60 for the flowers. Next day we went to the Sea World with the kids. It was absolutely beautful and fitting for how we met (at a trail 50M race) and what our passion is (trail ultrarunning). It was for us. We are happy with it:) Here is how it went:
http://runmoretalkless.blogspot.com/2009/09/guess-what.html
My husband and I got married in 2005 for $5000 with 70 guests. We saved money by having a 2:00pm ceremony with 2:30pm reception; because it was midafternoon, we served heavy hors d’oeuvres rather than a full dinner. I burned a CD of the processional, recessional, and reception music instead of having a DJ or live band. We made the invitations ourselves with my computer and an invitation kit we found at a craft store.
We also saved money through luck and connections. My dress fit like a glove off the rack so we didn’t have to pay for alterations. The JP was a friend so he didn’t charge us for officiating. My mother-in-law owned a flower shop, so she did the bouquets and boutonnieres for free; the ceremony/reception site was already decorated.
I love that you got the wedding you wanted and didn’t go into debt. My husband and I got married 30 yrs ago on a budget of $50. He came in from the Navy on the weekend and I bought a dress off the rack. No big reception…just a store bought cake and some immediate family. Fast forward to today. Both of our daughters are getting married this year…two months apart. I have ENCOURAGED them to elope, but they won’t bite. We’ve given them each a set amount of money and one is using only that amount while the other is in a positon to add to it (we started saving about 8 yrs ago knowing this day would come). My advice to couples…the marriage is more important than the wedding. My advice to parents…begin saving now!
Hate to say it, but I was a lot cheaper than that. ;) We paid for the marriage license and had the JotP do it for us… And that was that, we were married, on a Wednesday in March. We’re coming up on our three year anniversary, having outlasted many other military marriages and having a better marriage overall than many of our friends. (Sad, but true. We communicate fairly well, could always be better!)
No honeymoon, it was just about enough for us to be in a new place, together finally and nobody having to leave in a few weeks. We did buy wedding bands after we were married, which was something like $400 I think…. And that was that. While I sometimes regret not having the “big day,” I also know we were better off not having it and that huge weddings don’t mean anything. In the end, you’re married and you still have to work on it.
Oh, but we did do one thing…. Money that probably would have gone to a wedding instead paid off our first sports car. She was the best “wedding present” ever. ;)
We had 50-60 people and it cost us $6000 paid in cash. Not the cheapest but not extravagant either. Everything was the way we wanted except I would have invited more people but my husband is socially challenged so he wanted as few people as possible. We had a beautiful mountain wedding in Evergreen Colorado with the reception in the same place.
My advice is spend money on what is important to you. For us, photography was important. We spent a big chunk of the budget there. We did not hire a videographer, DJ, florist. All of these were do-it-yourself by friends. Invitations were handmade by us and friends. The intimate venue also allowed for a good interaction during the reception. Some weddings are so big, it becomes impersonal.
I would also like to add that I believe a wedding should be what the COUPLE can afford. We knew we would not be taking money from our parents. We were proud to have used our own resources. Our parents gave us money later as gifts but the wedding was all our money.
Honeymoon was in NYC. Not what people would expect but it was as different from Colorado as can be and we’ve never been there. We had a BLAST! This was in 2003 when they had the big power outage in the NE!
The best part – we received enough cash gifts to offset a big portion of the wedding costs or in this case money for the honeymoon.
I think it makes a lot of sense to plan a wedding that makes sense for your budget and needs and not worry about much else.
Our wedding was around $2000-3000 and a lot of people came but we had a very casual type reception. It worked fine for us. Would it have been more fun to do something fancy? Of course, just like it would be fun to live in a mansion or fly first class, but those things are out of our budget as well.
It’s funny, this summer we had to go to a few key out of town weddings and we realized that for one wedding we spent almost $2000 just to attend… the same amount that we spent for our entire wedding!
I kinda have to agree with people pointing out that making your guests pay more to get to your wedding isn’t exactly a way to have a cheaper wedding, just a way to make them pay for more of it. I guess whatever works though, works.
I don’t usually respond to posts, but I felt I needed to after reading this. First off, I would like to congratulate you on your new nuptials, and a successful wedding. I too, was a bit strapped with finances for my August ’09 wedding, and it came off without a hitch…however…
I am a female. I like nice things. I am sure that there is going to be some dumb guy out there who can afford WELL over $3k for a wedding, but is going to think that he can tell his bride to be that this is all he can afford. For women, the smaller the budget, the bigger the nightmare. Do you have any idea how much wedding gowns cost? I’m not talking about the ones you can get at David’s Bridal made out of polyestre “silk” fabric with no lining, I’ m talking about a dress that at the least does not feel like a Cinderella costume cira 1985. …about $1500, and it can EASILY go up from there. If you have ever heard of Vera Wang, don’t even THINK about getting a gown unless you are willing to spend $4k on it.
I realize, to each his own, and I think the guy who wrote this article did a great job…but even his wife confessed she wasn’t too thrilled with the budget. Its an unfortunate reality that most of the time the women do all the wedding planning themselves, with their men just giving them the figures.
Basically, guys, do the budgeting WITH your wife. Let her speak up, and please, let her go and get figures first! I know I seriously had sticker shock when I realized what it costs to have a nice wedding.
And lastly, to each his/her own. Maybe for some brides, they don’t care about the wedding or what gown they wear… they want to buy a house or take a trip to Bali. I say, that is fabulous, and all the more to you! However, just remember, if you are lucky, you will only get your wedding day once.. live it up a little. ;-)
We threw our daughter a beautiful wedding for under $5000 (which I thought was a huge amount of money!) We paid for hotel rooms for out of town family (everyone), invitations,the dress, pictures,flowers, honeymoon (in Las Vegas-lol)- everything. My family decorated the ballroom. I guess there are some advantages of living in a small town- even if my entire family comes from the big city!
It was small- but dream like! She got everything she asked for.
BTW- We got married in front of 350 people. Talk about pressure. We often cannot remember what day it occurred on since it was moved so many times. The cake was cut late. The first dance tore my dress… That was 27 years ago. The point being- the ceremony and party do not make you married- the commitment does.
For everyone saying they passed the cost of the wedding off on their family, it’s their guests’ choice whether to attend or not. Their guests decided based on their own budget constraints at the time whether the money was worth it to them. These people didn’t throw a huge bash and then demand checks at the end before everyone could go home. They made their decision on where to hold their wedding and the family made theirs to attend (or not). Geez, some of you make it seem like they fleeced their relatives.
I think it was a great story detailing an option some people don’t generally consider when they think low cost or frugal. My husband and I’s wedding for around 120 guests cost us about $6000. That included venue, rings, photographer, food, flowers, dresses and thank you gifts for wedding participants. We had a Sunday morning wedding – no alcohol, no DJ, officiant was a family member and it was a wonderful experience for everyone.
We had a pretty cheap wedding, partly because of good fortune and family generosity and partly because we didn’t need a huge thing. The good fortune was his parents’ beautiful home – perfect for weddings in any weather. We are also fortunate that we don’t have deeply religious parents or large extended families that would absolutely have to attend. Instead, hubby’s folks generously hosted the ceremony and reception for about 25 people, providing food, flowers, and cake. My parents and brother and hubby’s two best friends paid to fly themselves here. Most stayed with us and my sister but there were a few hotel costs. Hubby’s boss and business associates gave us two cases of wine and bubbly. My sister generously took amazing photos, and a friend performed the ceremony. Without them we could not have had the lovely wedding that we did.
For ourselves, we did not have expensive needs. My very non-traditional dress cost $35. Our wedding party outfitted themselves in clothes they already had or would have bought anyway. (my sister HAD to have that dress & my wedding was a good excuse! ;)) We really only wanted our closest family and friends to be there. Our largest expense was for a party bus to bring our guests from where we live in Portland down to Eugene for the wedding. This was to save the cost and chaos of a bunch of rental cars, and it turned out to be a genius move. People had a blast on the way down, and we joined them for the trip back up. It was awesome, the most memorable part of the wedding, and the best $500 I have ever spent. We also spent $100 or so on gifts for our wedding party and minister, and a few hundred throwing parties in Portland and LA for friends we could not invite to the wedding. Those were also great parties with everyone we could possibly have wanted to see there.
Overall no one’s expenses were huge. We probably spent about $1k ourselves. Hubby’s parents probably spent about that much. Friends and family probably spend $300-$500 on travel. No one took a huge hit and everyone had a wonderful time.
Thanks for this topic! It’s a favorite! :D
I’ve done this twice, the first time big, second time small. Here’s the story:
Wedding #1 1989- This was really more about my parents and extended family than it was about the bride and groom. We had about 125 people, many who traveled to be there as part of a family reunion/wedding event. We worked to contain costs, but still spent upwards of $10-12K. My parents paid for the vast majority of that, instead of paying for my college education. I would have picked the education if I’d have known better.
Wedding #2 1998- I did not want a big wedding, and actually wanted to go to Vegas. My husband insisted on a local wedding. I relented, and we had about 50 people on the Sternwheeler for an evening dinner cruise & dancing to a DJ. The whole thing, food, cake, clothes, limo, flowers, photos, came to right around $5K. A few years later we visited Vegas (my husband’s first trip there) and once he saw everything, he said that a Vegas wedding would have been fine by him.
This is the thing, folks: put your energy into making a great MARRIAGE, not just a great wedding. Having a giant party might be fun for a day, but if you can’t be bothered to invest in the marriage itself then you’re losing out on both ends of that equation. I firmly believe that spending absurd amounts of time, money and energy on big weddings is truly wasteful. There is an entire industry devoted to convincing women that the big, frothy wedding is a requirement (Platinum Weddings, Say Yes to the Dress, Rich Bride Poor Bride, anyone?), when it’s really not. The real requirement is that you’ve found someone you love more than life itself and that you truly know you’ll be committed to that person for the rest of your lives. That’s what it’s all about, not the size of your party, the cost of your dress, or the number of guests.
To those of you complaining about the people who had to travel to the Vegas wedding, accusing the OP of “shifting the costs to his guests”, just shut your traps. No one held a gun to the heads of the guests and said they HAD to go. They CHOSE to go. My best and oldest friend in the world had a destination wedding in Belize. There was no way I could afford the airfare to get there, and while I was sad not to be able to be there, I was able to participate in other parts of the wedding process (showers, parties, etc.). The bride and groom didn’t hold it against me that I couldn’t afford to go either. They understood. The OP also had exactly the wedding they wanted, and I for one am happy for them.
To poster Victoria, please don’t diss good old David’s Bridal. I got my dress for $400 bucks that had obviously been made for someone else who didn’t use it; it was really beautiful, had wonderful materials and design, and fit me perfectly. Deals ARE possible on wedding dresses…especially on ones where the original bride puts down a deposit but ultimately buys something else (or nothing…perhaps she changed her mind, or maybe the groom did, LOL!).
Since it was my second wedding, my husband originally suggested doing the JoP route. But since I’d eloped for my first marriage, my family was furious about my eloping, and I also regretted not having the “big day,” I put my foot down. This ended up being a great compromise and we were both very happy about it. (It also helped greatly that my husband just wasn’t interested in doing any of the planning…no arguments, then!)
Ironically, even though my frugal self told me I “should” sell my wedding dress right after the ceremony, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. A year later, I find myself taking conversion classes to convert to a religion that suggests that in the case of an interfaith couple with one spouse converting, that the couple remarry in a religious ceremony. Following my conversion, I’ll get to wear that dress again, bringing my “wear ratio” down to $200 a wearing, instead of $400!
To those who think the comment about local family pitching in for the wedding was tacky, I disagree. I didn’t get the impression that he ASKED them for money, he simply stated that if they had made the offer he would have made different choices. He also didn’t say what pressure was put on family to attend, it sounded like the couple was very understanding about the change of location being a hardship for some guests, acknowledged the cost transfer, then left it up to people if they wanted to attend. Many people attend weddings because they have to, and are just fine staying home while the couple goes off to Vegas and Ooh/Aah over pictures later.
Personally DH and I ‘eloped’. We lived in Reno so we went down to ‘The Heart of Reno’ chapel and had a civil service. That was for us: $70. Then we let our families do whatever they wanted for a ‘wedding’. I expressed my opinion where it was necessary, but my philosophy was: you pay for it, it’s your call. I got what I wanted: a husband and ultimately pictures. My mom got a ceremony, my sister got to be a bridesmaid, and my in laws got to pretend it was the end of my husband’s life. Everyone was satisfied! (I would say happy, but his family was more ‘happy’ being miserable)
We got married in my Dad’s living room. The only cost, the Unitarian minister. And my wife paid that.
Oh yeah, she bought her own ring too.
Maybe that’s why we’re now not married.
PS. Take my word for it, the ceremony was a blast. It was a debate whether to send the video to “World’s Funniest Videos” or not.
Come to think of it, she paid for my tux also.
Our daughter got married a year ago. We spent $4,000 on the wedding, including a professional photographer. About 250 people came, the ceremony was beautiful (the photographer told me it was the most beautiful wedding she’d ever seen) and we had finger foods and cake for the reception. Many friends and family members donated parts of the service as gifts (the wedding invitations from a friend who owns a printing company, the cake and food from my husband’s sister who loves to cater, the decorations from friends at church.) We timed the wedding at Christmas and were able to benefit from the Christmas decorations in our church.
It’s definitely possible to have a great day without breaking the bank.
Just wanted to say, if family members did not want to pay to travel, they could just decline the invititation. I think that if you love your family and can spend $ on a plane ticket just to see them get married, you should love them enough to spend the money, shut up, and move on!
I think this was a great idea. I had a friend who had a large “social circle” and when she finally met a guy everyone exepected to be at her wedding. It was overwhelming and they had no money so they set a date 2 months in advance at a place in Lake Tahoe (about 4 hours from where we all lived). They told everyone they were welcome but since it was “come at your own expense” only those people who REALLY wanted to see her get married made the trip. She rented a large suite for their honeymoon and it served as the reception area with finger food catered by the hotel. A fine idea if you ask me.
My wedding ended up costing just over $5000, and that was with friends and family donating their time to put it all together. We didn’t have “professional” anything and rented out the community center and used the garden for the ceremony and the attached rec room for the reception. Everyone loved it.
We got married in 2005 for a little over $10,000, but we had around 150 guests. I was pretty pleased that we were able to do it for that cost. This included live music at the ceremony (a choir and a pianist) and an appetizer/alcohol reception at a cool Art Deco bar downtown. The things that I saved on was the wedding gown and having only one bridesmaid and one groomsman. I also had recorded music at the reception (which was on two floors, so live music wouldn’t have worked that well anyway). We managed to find a caterer who would let us purchase our own beer and wine, which was so much cheaper.
I tend to agree with Victoria that the pretty, stylish dresses tend to be much more expensive – $1,500 and up. I lucked out and found a decent dress on clearance for $300 at my local bridal shop, but I wouldn’t say it was my dream dress by any means. I just wasn’t willing to spend thousands on a dress that I would only wear once. You really have to compromise if you want a dress that is cheaper (or perhaps have a the type of figure that looks good in any style or cut!).
I personally dislike the destination wedding as well, because it puts a lot of financial pressure on your close family and friends. Sure, no one is holding a gun to your head, and you can say no. But I find there often are hurt feelings involved. I’ve been lucky to not have to be a bridesmaid very often, but I have a few single friends who have been asked to be in loads of weddings, and it can become really expensive to buy all those dresses and travels to the weddings. That is also a financial drain on those closest to you that I wish could be avoided.
I have to say, I love this reader stories feature. Seriously. Every week, I look forward to reading the discussion that follows each post. For some reason, it’s different than having guest authors and staff writers. I feel it’s much more community-based.
Thanks, everyone, for participating…
I’ve read quite a few comments here about shifting the cost of the wedding to the guests by moving the venue to Vegas. I would agree with that if the entire family lived in the area, but his family lived outside of the area, and it sounds like they didn’t take the $1000 from her family, so all-in-all, this put everyone on pretty even footing, I think, and allowed the bride and groom to have a wonderful day without being in debt or leaving a portion of the family feeling shafted by having to foot the bill of the travel costs.
My husband and I went back and forth when deciding where to have our wedding. Our families live on the East coast in different towns, and we live on the West coast. At first we thought about having the wedding on the East coast, but then couldn’t decide where as it would seem preferential to one side or the other. So at the end of the day, we decided to have a wedding in the town we live in and love, which required that almost everyone travel to us. We ended up inviting everyone to the rehearsal dinner as well since they had all traveled so far to celebrate with us. Nothing about the affair was budget-friendly, but we had a great time, and we could afford it at the time without draining our savings or racking up the credit card bills. A lot of the guests made a vacation out of it, so I don’t feel like we inconvenienced them by having the wedding far away.
Saving money on your wedding is awesome.
More importantly, did you have any kind of discussion with your new bride about thoughts on money, whether your money “blueprints” are compatible, and things of that sort??
Coming from someone who knows, its probably a lot more important than you think.
Great post
I work at a Catholic Church and assist the priest with the marriage prep with the engaged couple. We always encourage them to remember that the wedding is a day, the marriage is for a lifetime. We also encourage them to use our parish hall for FREE for the reception- the only rule is that they can’t have alcohol unless they buy a special permit from our insurance provider ($100) They must marry in the Church anyways so there is no worries about a place and officiant. We’ve hosted many many potluck receptions with a local free band and everyone had a lot of fun! Very economical and a wonderful way to start a marriage.
My husband and I wanted to skip the lecture of “wait to get married until after we finished college”, so we eloped. We got our marriage license during my lunch break at work and then got married after I got off work, by the Magistrate. I was in my work clothes and he was in a t-shirt and shorts. I don’t regret a thing. My parents were only mildly upset (mainly my mom) since they wanted pictures, a wedding and to walk me down the aisle. My mom made us (and paid for us to) rent a dress, a suit and get pictures taken at a studeo. We then sent out announcements to our family and surprised everyone. Everyone sent us money and we used it to rent/furnish an apartment, get a car, and go back to college.
I still think we did the right thing by eloping since other than my parents, my family lived about two states over and had just flown/drove to my uncles wedding three states over, two months earlier. We figured no one would come other than my husbands mom and grandma and my parents. So why waste the money on a wedding? We were poor college students and didn’t have the money anyway. Almost 16 years later I know we made the right choice. Someday we would like to renew our vows in Vegas too.
How on earth do you people do “family only” wedding for ~30 people? My side alone will be roughly 75.
I suppose the main thing is “to each their own.” We have decided to put off getting married until we can afford the wedding we want. Since we live together, actually getting married isn’t a priority for us. If we have to wait four years so that I can hire a wedding planner to handle the details, get a dress I love, and treat all my family to delicious food, well, so be it!
Great post! My wife and I got married this past October in Nashville on a budget of 5000. We were gifted our honeymoon in Aruba, which was amazing. It turned out so wonderful. When we got engaged in February 2009 we both had somewhat “secure” jobs but were not on the best financial path…..within I month I was unemployed, and within 3 more so was my wife, so our situation felt dire. thankfully due to my new financial wisdom attained by GRS and Dave Ramsey, we are doing well, knocking out our debt, and we had an amazing wedding on a small budget. thanks for the post….
We got married in 1995, had a small wedding (for our culture) of 175, and spent less than $1,200.
I love hearing about inexpensive small weddings and I recently had a blast at a friend’s Vegas wedding. It’s a crazy-fun city that works so well as an all-night reception venue. And, surprisingly, I found the Little White Chapel to be an incredibly reverent place for getting married, kitsch aside. It’s really all about the people getting married and the emotions they share and state publicly that make me cry at weddings. I found Vegas no less meaningful as a wedding locale and a whole lot of convenient fun.
It’s hard, because that’s simply not in the cards for us. He has a huge tight-knit family, we live in an expensive city, and a destination wedding doesn’t feel right for us (or family members with mobility challenges.) So we’re resigned to a wedding that meets our values/desires but costs more than we initially wanted (it turns out to be expensive to feed 150 people, even when you’re cutting all expenses and wedding froufery to the bone). Oh well, we’re frugal every day so we can pay for the things that matter to us. Having a wedding with our large family matters to us, so we’re saving up to get there.
I think the main thing to take away from this is that it’s a one-time event. Yes, a wedding is special and something that both husband and wife will remember for the rest of their lives, but when it comes time to buy a house to raise a family in, it’s quite a bit more difficult to do if that wedding day is still being paid for.
Love it!! My husband and I married in Vegas in 2004 on Feb 29th at the little white wedding chapel. We started to plan this huge pricey wedding for Nov. of that year. Every day it was more stress and money! My mother wanted this, these people can’s sit together, down paymenys for the venue, bridal fittings. In mid Feb. my husband said “lets just go to Vegas” At first my family was upset but we told them it was our day. We looked at the calendar and saw it was a leap year, so booked feb 29th. We where in vegas for 5 days then got married, so we had our honeymoon first. It was wonderful! Almost 6 years later we would do it again!
Forgot to add…once home the following weekend we had a big reception with pizza, wings, drinks for 50 poeple at our house (and most of our yard).
#7 – I will be proud to tell my kids I married in Vegas. Have no debt from our wedding, and can pay for their college…
Great story.
To Shannon (#9): I WOULD like to tell my children that we got married according to our own tastes, in a way that was meaningful for us, under our own control, and expressive of our own values, including frugality.
Our wedding is on March 17th this year. With a three course meal for 10 guests we will be doing this for under $500 including the license and person administering the ceremony which is being held at spectacular five star Old South manor turned bed & breakfast. I was looking for inexpensive and found a gem!
i’ve been married for almost three years, and our ceremony still brings a smile to my face. it was incredibly elegant, intimate (40 guests) and tasteful. we spent $8K, all cash, no credit card debt was incurred. it was more than we planned, but i could have not been more pleased, a solo violinist, breathtaking floral arrangements, a absolutely goregous off-the-rack dress – scrumptious plated meal with all the trimmings at a local french restaurant, the owner/chef was actually trained at the cordon bleu in paris. it was exquisite – and so intimate that i actually got to interact with my guests. i still get compliments years later. sometimes if you cannot compromise your tastes, you can always invite less people. whatever route the couple chooses its so important to remember that this is your day and your financial future at stake if you overpsend.
best wishes to the new couple
Some of these stories are amazing. I’ve always thought the $28k average was just silly, it is just a party. I’m throughly impressed with the creativity some couples have been able to come up with.
Lots of inspiration here, I’ve definitely bookmarked this and will pass it to friends as it becomes appropriate.
Great story Lars, and good writing too!
I had a small wedding with less than 10 guests. Though my husband and I originally planned on just going to the courthouse with a few family members for witnesses, that unfortunately fell through. We ended up planning a wedding with about three weeks notice. Of course, we had several talks about what our budget for the wedding should be now that it couldn’t be us eloping.
The ‘trick’ to getting the numbers down was to invite only siblings and parents (no aunts, uncles, cousins, friends…), and the grandparents understood not being invited to the worlds smallest wedding on short notice. They also understood that if it got any bigger, someone else would feel left out.
The ceremony was held in a gorgeous meeting room of a historic hotel (with white linens and candles provided as the decor). After the ceremony, we went downstairs to the hotel restaurants private dining room where everyone got to have the meal of their choice.
There were no flowers, limo, photographer, videographer, invitations, DJ, gift registry, guest favors….because we didn’t want any of those things. I didn’t want to get married in a white gown, so I didn’t. My husband did not rent a tux. Everyone had a good time, and no one was stressing about the centerpieces or a speech.
Total cost was under 3K, with about $800 going to the reception/JP/license, and the rest going to our rings. (After all, we plan on having those forever). If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.
One of the most interesting things I found out afterward: everyone who wasn’t invited wasn’t feeling left out or angry. They were happy that we were happy. They understood the concept of ‘immediate family only’. We were congratulated on having a simple wedding that didn’t bust our budget. Everyone(!) said that if they had it to do over again, they would have had a small wedding.
We married 24 years ago at the beach (on the beach); then held a reception at the local Women’s Club for about 60 people. The best thing I did, was to ask the best man’s wife to be the “coordinator” – she “managed” the guests, the timetable, and the reception as a whole, and I didn’t have to think of a thing as the afternoon unfolded. Father-in-law insisted on Champagne, so we asked him to pay for it. Otherwise, we took care of the costs. I found a wonderful silk and lace blouse, and added a ready-made skirt for my outfit; husband-to-be chose a coordinating jacket and slacks. We wanted out-of-town siblings to attend, so we scheduled the wedding for the week after Christmas when they would be here anyway. The ceremony and reception were lovely, but the true testament, is that 24 years later (and two kids) we are still a couple, and plan to be for many more years together.
When I read the title of the post, I was very excited, but after reading the whole article + comments, I must admit I am a little disappointed. Vegas? 20 people? Its just a party? Our wedding will be one of the biggest rites of passages/ celebrations in our lives.
We’re getting married in September of this year, and have been saving money for the last few months. (We are debt-free and have an emergency fund set up.) We are certainly not making all our friends fly to Vegas, yet we are also not putting anything on a credit card or throwing money around. We’ve haggled with every vendor, and cut costs when it made sense. (No favors, no limo)
I really don’t appreciate it when people assume that a large wedding = debt, or no college for your poor future kids, or what have you. We are proof that you can have a wedding that includes all 137 of the closest people in your life, and come out the other side debt-free. I just wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s great you had a wedding that met your goals and stayed within your budget. Thanks for posting your story.
Our approach was different and more expensive, but mostly because we included more people. We stayed local and I paid $80 for my dress, including alterations, having bought it from a consignment store (it wasn’t a traditional wedding dress, but a nice white suit in a brocade … much more “me.”). DH did splurge on a $500 suit. The service at our church cost nothing. We hosted a dinner at our home the night before … grilled the food ourselves and served about 40 — not sure of cost. The flowers I bought at the Farmer’s market. The reception was catered by a bbq place at a cost of about $10/person and we held the reception at a friend’s farm and rented tents, tables, and chairs, plus paid for quite a nice cake — all of which drove the total cost up to about $10K for 120 people, but obviously for a smaller group we could have rented a picnic shelter in a park ($100; I did this recently for another event) and had bbq (or whatever) served much cheaper. All of which is a long way of saying that there are many ways to keep costs down, particularly if the numbers are small.
I think a couple should get married anywhere they want. However, I don’t think there should be any hard feelings if someone invited decides not to travel for the wedding.
I had a friend that got married last year – a destination wedding, and many of the invited guests could not make it because several had lots their jobs, or had some health issues – just life popping up. It caused quite a rift.
I am not saying don’t ever do a destination wedding. I just don’t think it it is reasonable to get upset if your guests don’t want to travel.
Vegas is wonderful – and I am glad it worked out for you. I would love to renew vows there or in the carribean.
I liked your post! I think too many people get caught up in either pleasing their family or “keeping up wiht the Jones'”
My attitude has always been – pay for your own wedding, that way it is your wedding. If you can’t afford it then you need to wait and save or change your idea of what you want.
My only caveat to that is: your family. If your parents expect you to invite all of their frieds (dear Sally invited me to her daughter’s wedding) then they should pay the cost of those additional guests. If they demand that you have a reception at a certain location or at a certain time of year or whatever, then they should bear the cost.
For the main post – the more affordable wedding was going away. And – most of the family had to travel regardless.
I am a big believer in – have your day. At the end of it, I usually remember the look on the bride and groom’s face as they said their vows and if we had a good time. Most other things are not nearly as critical as bridal magazines make them out to be.
Congrats on having the wedding you wanted…best of luck for the future.
My husband and I were married in 1972 at my family home in front of the fireplace which my sisters decorated. I made my simple wedding dress which I’ve kept through the years along with the pattern. A family friend made the cake. My husband gave me his grandmother’s wedding rings which she first wore in 1918. Our only costs were the license, the minister, the cost of the material for my dress, $35 for his ring, and my bouquet of yellow roses. Flowers for the house were brought in from our garden. Several family members took photos which are still cherished for their unique perspective. My parents provided punch and finger foods. We camped at a state park for our honeymoon with borrowed equipment before flying off to the midwest to start our life together. Total spent was probably $200. My advice to newlyweds is to invest their time in each other, not money in an expensive one-day event.
Wow. We got married in 2004, had about 100 people, and only paid $1000. Of course, it helps that my husband was (and is) very involved in the church, so we had plenty of people helping out and donating their services. I wore my sister’s wedding dress, and we had vespers between the ceremony and the reception. It was a chance to focus on our marriage, rather than just the wedding.
I have to agree with Samantha #76, that a wedding is an important rite of passage and a sacred event. It doesn’t have to be a slave to the Wedding industry extreme, but I believe it is a lot more than just a party. Planning one’s wedding can be really creative and fun.
I have to agree with another reader’s comment that if my husband had been super stingy with our “budget” (I put that in quotes because we didn’t set one; hey, we didn’t have access to blogs like this and we can be very idealistic and impractical.) than I would have definitely been insulted.
We got married 13 years ago, the day after our anniversary of being together for 10 years. Now, I tend to be more frugal, and my husband can be a big spender. He wanted to get married at the Hotel Bel-Air which is a five-star hotel in Los Angeles; it has a very beautiful wooded area with a gazebo and swans where you can get married — and they take care of everything and work with you. And it was close to where we lived. I would have never, repeat never, have chosen this location simply because the cost alone (I was a performer – okay, waitress- and didn’t have a lot of funds; although come to think of it I did get a lot of commercial work during that time and I was able to contribute $2,000 in the end.)
Marrying at that location was very important to my husband. And having a big formal celebration was important to us. During the 7 years prior we had endured the deaths of my father, his mother, his father and many other relatives (all at different times). Creating a positive, life affirming event was vital to us in starting our new married life and we wanted to share that wonderful feeling with our families and closest friends.
Because the cost of the location/event was so expensive we kept costs down by limiting our guest list to 60 (we didn’t pick that number, we just pared down to relatives and closest of friends.) I also got the photographer and flowers from a different vendor to cut costs. I also found myself unable to spend thousands of dollars on a dress — yet, I did want a beautiful dress. At one of the boutiques I went to I tried on a dress that I thought I would never want to wear (it had a huge tulle skirt) to get an I idea how an off-the shoulder collar line would look; I fell in love with this dress, but not the $2400 price tag. One idea I got from a wedding budget book was to look at a wedding dress consignment shop; so I did, and that exact same dress was there for $500 ( I should have negotiated a lower price, but I didn’t know at the time that one could do that — go ahead and point and laugh.) That was my dress and I felt so happy.
We spent a lot of money on our wedding; but because it was mostly from my husband’s inheritance, we did not go into debt. If we had been practical people we would have set a budget and maybe had a more practical wedding. At the time we were very impractical and we created a magical wedding that our family and friends still talk about today. In fact, one of my bridesmaids chose the same location because our wedding was so memorable.
My daughters were just recently flower girls at our cousin’s wedding in Florida — I am sure glad she and my aunt and uncle weren’t practical. It was a beautiful, grand and wonderful affair. Everyone had the best time. Our families hadn’t been together since my wedding. And she fulfilled a dream my daughters had of being a flower girls.
While I don’t think any one should go into debt for such an affair, its a great thing to save for. Or if you have the funds, it’s okay to create a magical time that everyone will remember — giving pleasure to others is a good thing. I am so glad my cousin was not practical or frugal.
Caitlin Says: “When I was in the planning stages, I’d be on bridal/wedding forums and hear people whine and moan about having “only 10k” for their wedding, and wondering what those people thought was a lot of they thought 10k was a tiny budget!”
It’s funny… I’ve been thinking the same thing about people who say they got married for “only $3,000”. It makes me think “wow, that’s a lot”.
When I got married, I had no idea some people paid thousands of dollars for their wedding.
We organised our wedding to be as perfect as can be for us, and it turned out it was also cheap. 25 people, us included, for the ceremony (free ceremony, since it’s a civil contract they can’t make you pay for it in France, it’s against the freedom of everyone to get married). About 15 people stayed for the meal in a restaurant, nice meal, everyone could order what they wanted (when we were organising everything, people all had different food requirements, it was a nightmare).
People offered to pay for their own food but we wouldn’t have it, I mean who invites people and then makes them pay? It just seemed wrong.
Only cost about 300 euros for the meal, then we spent all afternoon in a center where we played bowling, arcade games and pool.
It was wonderful, and all together it cost us maybe 400 euros at most. And at the time it seemed like a lot to spend in only one day, I would never had thought people spent fortunes on their weddings like that.
I realise we were lucky – free ceremony is apparently not the standard everywhere in the world, and since we’re not religious we didn’t have a second ceremony at church like some people do. On top of that, a friend of mine who is a photographer offered to take pictures of the wedding as her wedding gift, which “saved” us money. (I use quotation marks because if she hadn’t, we wouldn’t have hired someone, so we wouldn’t have spent more. But the pictures we would have had would have been from the guests, and they wouldn’t have looked as good, so we got more value.)
We didn’t cause too much trouble for the guests – for one thing, we told them all not to bother with gifts, since to us the gift was having them here. A few still brought gifts (and my photographer friend still offered to take pictures for us) but since we had told them not to bother, we didn’t feel bad that they spent money on us.
Altogether, we spent around 500 euros if you include our clothes, that we bought especially for the occasion (and wear again every anniversary, which is wonderful).
But everyone is different. For my husband and me, a wedding was no big deal. We would have been fine with just signing a paper without inviting anyone, and be officially married. To us, it was really paperwork, we were already living together, we were already planning on spending all of our lives together, and it wasn’t going to change much.
But it was an opportunity to see all the people we love and have a day of fun together, and it was a wonderful day. It went perfectly – for us.
On the other hand, we spent more on our honeymoon. we went all the way to New York for two weeks and probably spent as much as 2,000 euros on it (flight and hotel included of course).
I can imagine that some people would have preferred putting that money into the wedding and having a honeymoon in a closer, cheaper place instead (or even no honeymoon at all).
Our wedding was also around $3000 for 17 people (closest family, parents, siblings, and a few aunts and uncles … we did not want to deal with the logistic nightmare of managing a lot of people we never see anyway in the days before and since most of our friends were in school at the time we did not want to ask them to fork over hundreds of dollars for plane tickets and hotels), divided as follows: Engagement+wedding rings: 1600. Dress: 600. Canopy-thingy: 500 (turned out we did not need that). Food: 500 or so (big BBQ). We held it in SIL’s big back yard—this was how DW always wanted her wedding to be—and changed to shorts and hawaiian shirts right after the ceremony. What can I say, we’re doctor engineer and doctor scientist, function over form. (I defended my phd in a pair of hiking boots :-D)
We got married in 2008, and it cost us almost nothing.
There were 10 of us, just friends. The party was at our place. One friends gift was helping clean the house, another one made my wedding bouquet and the tablepieces, and two friends brought the wine.
We already had nice silver rings we didn’t wear often. We had them cleaned and put a nice text inside. That cost us 80€. The Italian cold buffet was about 330€. My husband wore his best clothes, I bought a white linen blouse and trousers I still wear, so I don’t count that as a wedding expense. I knitted a silver tunique to wear with it.
We went to a notary for a marriage contract and a testament, wich cost us about 300€.
And I got a 700€ marriage bonus at work!
It was a wonderful day the two of us think of as one of the most beautiful days of our lives.
I gotta say, I HATE destination weddings.
It is just rude to make me pay to see you get married.
My wife’s side of the family has done this, we went to the first few and were bored silly. OK, I saw them get married, now what?
The Honeymoon is for you to go where ever you want…
Besides, 3k for 20 people, should not be that hard to have a decent ceremony/dinner for that.
Wedding these day are crazy. Why is it that everyone else seem to get a say in what we want? I am currently planning my wedding for about 200 to 250 people. I know this seems like a lot but my finace and I have 58 immediate family memebers.
When we were looking for places to get married people felt they could tell us where we should and shouldn’t get married. For example my finace grandparents told us they wanted it close to their house. The also told us if we picked the place they wanted they would pay the rental fee.
Sometimes going into a little debt to make sure everyone can share in the special day doesn’t seem that bad to me. I am not talking about a platium wedding, my dress only cost $500. But does having a special day/great party to celebrate your new lives together really something people aren’t willing to afford?
Just thought I would throw in the fact that to have an inexpensive wedding, it doesn’t mean you have to only invite 20-50 guests. I got married in 2007 with a budget of a little over $5000 and we had roughly 300 guests. We had the service and reception at my church (free), no dinner (just fruit and dessert buffet), no alcohol, friends did flowers, the cake, photography, video, set up, take down. We never wanted to not invite people just because of budget….so we didn’t. I think we actually made more money in gifts than we paid for the entire event (literally)!
A good thing about a destination wedding: Many guests use it as an excuse for a vacation for themselves. My sister was married in Las Vegas (that’s where she lives) the year I got married, and a number of extended family members attended her wedding that didn’t attend mine because they were able to make it a whole weekend, rather than traveling across the country for *just* a wedding.
One thing I’ve noticed with wedding priorities is people who are less religious are often willing to put more time and money into a wedding because they are willing to live together first. I don’t mean this as a moral judgement, but I got married at 20 as a poor college student marrying a poor college student. I did NOT want to spend three years engaged and living apart. But some people want that big wedding and they live together and save up for it.
It’s an interesting quandary to me. I know a lot of people disagree, but I don’t understand how living together to give you time to save and have a big wedding makes it more special, when the only thing missing is the license. To me that would cheapen the day and at that point make it ‘just a party’. Versus having the wedding on the cheap as a ceremony to signify blending your lives together as it happens.
To each his/her own, but that doesn’t mean I will ever understand.
Re: 63, Kaitlyn: “How on earth do you people do “family only” wedding for ~30 people? My side alone will be roughly 75.”
My husband and I got married this past December with 25 people at my parents’ house. He also has a huge family and we made the cut at inviting only siblings and their spouses. Our priorities were making it intimate and about us, and putting our savings into a house rather than a wedding. Of course, some friends and family were disappointed to not be there, but when we get the house we are planning a huge housewarming party for everyone. I am so glad we did everything as we did – and I can’t imagine having had too many more people there. We also celebrated by running a 5k road race together the morning after the wedding, that race being an annual event for his family.
My wife and I just got married earlier this month, 1/2/2010, and we did it on a $3000 budget. The trick for us was that we would have the wedding were her family is from, which would lower their travel costs (they are also mostly eldery) and lower our venue costs dramatically (she’s from a quiet little mountain town in northern Pennsylvania).
The wedding was at her church where she’s been a long time member and our minister was a close friend of ours that agreed provide us his services as a gift. The church was still decorated from Christmas, so no need to spend money on flowers. I have very little family, but I had my younger brother be my best man and my wife choose her best friend to be her maid of honor. Music was also provided by childhood friends (professional musicians now) of my wife, so was photography/videography (this did cost us about $100, but it was well worth it).
The reception was at a local hotel where my out of town family could stay, we had about 30 guests plus the wedding party, a professional DJ ($250, my wife felt this was important, and I definitely agree more in retrospect). We our favorite wines served, in an open bar style format, however, other liquor would have been cash only (nobody seemed to care for anything else though, which was good).
In all, the reception cost about $700, including wine.
We had cupcakes made at Acme and my wife had another special surprise cake made for me, in all, this cost about $50 (I must say, we had tried for a “real” baker really really hard… we had three cancel on us, this was a bit disappointing to us).
We stayed at the hotel for the night ($110) and then had breakfast the next morning (my family paid for this).
My wife spent about $200 on her gown with alterations and probably another $500 on odds and ends (cake stand, ring pollow, centerpieces, craft flowers (she made all of the flower arrangements herself, and they where amazing).
I am sure I am forgetting something here… but all in all, I think we did very well, and everyone had a good time from what we heard.
If we had tried to do the same thing where we live (smaller metropolitan area), $10k would have not been enough.
We had looked at Vegas options way back, but I just couldn’t get myself to do that, it just always seems tacky.
We got married in 2005 for about the same budget – and invited about 125 people to the reception. People still tell us how much fun they had at the wedding and how great the reception was. They’d probably be shocked how little we spent.
Cost breakdown (as best I can remember):
Engagement rings – $600 (I bought my wife’s grandmothers’ diamond necklace from her aunts and had the stone moved to an antique ring we picked out for about $125)
Wedding location (a historic 1800s chapel) – $200 http://www.lindenwood.edu/boone/chapel.asp
Photographer – $250 (a friend of my father-in-law that does it as a side business)
Reception site – $75 (a community center backing to a lake anyone in my wife’s town can rent since they pay annual dues)
Reception food/drink – the biggest expense at around $1500, but most people tell us it was the best reception food they’ve ever had – my Mom’s cousin catered it
Reception entertainment – $500, a terrific rock band that is friends with my wife and even learned Elton John’s “Your Song” that my wife and I danced too.
My husband and I got married 5 years ago. We had a wedding for 200 guests and spent forty thousand dollars. Yes, that’s right, forty thousand.
We both worked in jobs that had good salaries, had no debt and spent the engagement year saving up. No help from our parents. Just a vision of exactly what we wanted, and the determination and work ethic to make it happen.
Our wedding was exactly what we wanted with no compromises. No one needed to be cut from the list. Six courses of gourmet food, open bar, the best photographer in town, etc. Our guests were not put to work on our wedding day – they were pampered.
We emerged from the wedding with zero debt.
Just wanted to let you know that not all expensive weddings end in disaster. If the couple can afford to do it and that’s what they want, it can be done without any financial harm to their future or their kid’s college funds ;-).
For people who say that it was the guests’ choice to attend – it wasn’t, not really. In many families, wedding invitations are like subpoenas – you kind of have to show up.
If I had been invited to Lars’ wedding, then had to hear him crow about “cheap” it was (after I had to spend $$$ on airfare, hotel stay, etc.), I wouldn’t be too happy. It’s no better than asking people to contribute to a potluck wedding reception.
And I’m with Alexandra – we had a nice wedding, too, for about $25,000, including a 10-day honeymoon to England, without incurring any debt. It was a fun way to kick off our marriage, and we had a lot of wonderful memories.
A wedding should be about what YOU want – not what your family wants – or is convenient for them. It’s your wedding, do it your way.
My husband and I were married in 1999 – in Vegas. We chose to semi-elope and have a big party afterwards at home. His brother is a minister and was living in Vegas at the time, so he married us and his wife was our witness. We drove out to Valley of Fire State Park (really gorgeous), a huge stone was our altar and the sun was setting. We wore jeans and hiking boots. I carried flowers from Albertson’s. It was beautiful and stress-less. Afterwards we all went to dinner. Total cost: $200.
Now for the really cheap part. We knew in advance we would be in Vegas on business, so planned the wedding for the end of the trip. Airfare and hotel accommodations were written off as a business expense. Hey, I’m a bookkeeper, what can I say! Of course this was a second marriage and we were more interested in being married than getting married.
We had a wonderful time exploring the natural beauty of Nevada – Lake Mead, Red Rock (the park, not the casino!), Mt. Charleston. And of course, the desert in the spring is fairly alive with color. Nobodies feeling got hurt because NOBODY was there and we had a great party when we got home.
My daughter liked the idea so much, she’s doing the same thing in Hawaii this March – just the two of them. With a party later this summer when the weather’s better.
I would like to add: I would have preferred the JoP treatment with a couple of witnesses and no fuss – just a party later. DH would have really preferred a grandiose event with everyone we know in attendance and no expense spared. Financial reality reined in his dream, and mine took a backseat to honoring our parents. My grandmother and his mother would have been sad not to see us married. In the end, DH used his creative genius to make our tiny wedding special, unique and memorable. My grandmother was thrilled. For his mother, who has dementia, the wedding was a focal point which kept her present for months. It was the last time she was really present, and the last event she was able to attend, and she has never completely forgotten it.
In the end, the best of all possible worlds. :)
Interesting story. That’s a key question y’all ask: “who was the wedding for?”. Plus, y’all were paying for it. I think the best advice for weddings is to ensure that you don’t end up in debt after it, or at least a lot of debt.
Brava to you! I always have to laugh at what a big deal wedding productions and Bridezillas have become. Granted my wedding was 25 years ago, but we had 50+ guests, tux rentals, wedding gown, church, location and food for around $600 out-of-pocket. Family members and friends helped cook, decorate, made bouquets, bought the booze, took photos and generally had a great time. The marriage didn’t stick, but neither did any debt.
I never like “Cheap Wedding” posts like this, because it always feels like a race to the bottom.
“You spent $15,000 on your wedding? Outrageous! We got married for $8,000 and had 125 guests!”
“$8,000? What decadence! We got married for $3,000 and only had 20 guests!”
“$3,000? What a waste! We got married for $18, and we didn’t even have rings!”
I tend to agree with the posters who pointed out that having a Vegas wedding isn’t really saving money – it’s just shifting the (increased) costs onto your guests. And for those who say, “no one’s forcing them to go,” that’s not really fair. There’s an expectation that guests will come. If the couple really didn’t care about having guests, then they’d just get married on the courthouse steps and be done with it. The very fact that they’re organizing an official ceremony, with reception and everything, reflects their true desire to have friends and family be present. That creates pressure on invitees. They feel that if they decline, they’ll be disappointing their friend/sister/whatever, not to mention their own feelings of regret between being forced to choose between saving money, or attending a close friend/relative’s wedding. I think Vegas weddings like the one described in the post are a selfish decision. If you can’t afford a real wedding that your friends and family can actually attend, then put it off. What’s the hurry? Save up until you can do it properly.
Weddings can either be about YOU, or about your guests. If it’s really just about you, then go ahead and do the Justice of the Peace thing and get it over with. No one will blame you. But if you’re organizing a big wedding, then clearly you want to share it with friends and family. That’s fine too, but you have to accept that there’s a cost associated with that. Doing the Vegas thing just seems like a cop-out. It’s saying, “We want a fancy wedding with all our friends and family, but we don’t want to pay for it, and we don’t mind inconveniencing our guests and having them foot the majority of the bill for OUR wedding.” It’s selfish, in my opinion.
One last thing. I’m a wedding photographer. It breaks my heart to hear these stories of couples who put so much work into having a memorable, romantic ceremony, handcrafting the decorations and having a really personal, meaningful reception, and then skimping on the photography. At the end of the day, after the food is eaten and the flowers have wilted, what do you have to remember your day? The photos vividly take you back to let you relive every moment of your once-in-a-lifetime day. You’re saving so much money in other areas, why not spend the cash to ensure you have a top-quality record of your day? 25 years from now, when you’re going out to dinner for your quarter-century anniversary, do you really think your wife will say, “It’s too bad we don’t have any photos to remember what we looked like on our wedding day, but I’m sure glad we saved that $800!”
Kevin (#99), I agree with you, especially regarding the photography. Couples don’t need to hire the most expensive photographer out there, but they should hire SOMEONE (a college starting out who wants to build their portfolio might be a good find). Don’t rely on your friend/family member to take pictures – it’s unfair of them, and that’s really a task for which you have a professional contract, not just “but he said he’d do it!”
We got a mid-range photographer, and I’m so glad we did. We got great pictures of family members who have since passed away. I have some great pictures and vides of me dancing with my dad.
Alexandra,
Good for you! I’m sure you’ll get a lot of flack for spending so much on your wedding, but the point is it’s YOUR money and YOUR wedding. Congrats on making it happen and not having debt hanging over your head for years to come.
You also made a great point about putting your guests to work. I wonder whether a lot of these people who put their friends/families to work at their weddings realize that they’re robbing them of the experience of being a guest. You cannot relax and enjoy in the celebration of your brother’s wedding if you’re worried about nailing the photograph of the first kiss, or getting into position to photograph the recessional. You can’t really enjoy the best man’s speech if you’re busy wheeling the cake out of the kitchen and setting it up. You can’t dance with your new sister-in-law if you’re DJ-ing. Etc.
It’s important not to generalize about other people’s choices based on your own assumptions.
A friend DJ’d our wedding for us. He had the gear, we supplied the (premixed) music, and he was in a walking cast so he couldn’t dance anyway.
My sister and her partner did our photography. This was my sister’s choice as otherwise she would have been drafted as one of my attendants, the very idea of which gave her hives.
My husband’s good friend (not a clergyman) did our ceremony. He would have been a member of the wedding party anyway, but was a gifted writer and speaker, and was pleased and proud to officiate for us. In fact, he later officiated another wedding.
Our wedding was a “destination” wedding in our city of residence; nearly all our family had to travel in. This was their choice. We paid for airfare for one of my attendants, traveling from across the country. The other (I only had two) was local as were both of my husband’s.
We shopped for flowers and vases at a wholesaler; the hotel’s staff assembled the centerpieces the morning of the ceremony for no extra charge.
I bought my dress on eBay for $150 and did the alterations myself. My husband spent 15 times that much for a custom-made dance tuxedo (we are ballroom dancers).
We had one hour of open bar, wine service with dinner, and a champagne toast. Our guests did not have to buy their own drinks but some of them managed to get drunk anyway.
Our wedding, for about 80 people, cost just under $10K. This amounted to about $100 per person for the seated dinner, room rental, setup, bar services, extra-large dance floor, ceremony setup and decorating assistance from the Marina del Rey Hotel. The extra $2000 went to a string quartet for our ceremony, gifts for our wedding party, flowers, and the cake.
I would have been happy with Vegas, but out of five kids between our two sets of parents, we were the only ones in a position to have a big family wedding. At 35 and 41 respectively, we didn’t have any fairy-tale ideas about “the biggest day of our lives;” we just decided to accommodate some of the FAMILY’s fairy-tale ideas.
Our most successful “rule” was no kids (no one under 18 invited). The extended family griped a little, but it was a formal evening wedding with drinking and serious dancing, not an afternoon in a park, and neither of us wanted our party to be about other people’s kids. Speaking just for myself, I would have a hard time relaxing and enjoying myself with kids running round, diving under tables, climbing the railing by the marina, etc.
Our least successful idea was having disposable cameras on the tables. Most of those shots were a waste of processing fees. When we have our 10th-anniversary party, I’m going to get a couple of cheap digital cameras and hand those to people who a) I can trust to take meaningful pictures and who b) wouldn’t mind taking that on.
To this day, the thing most people remember about our wedding is the dance lesson that kicked off the reception, which was donated by our teacher (in whose class we met).
We planned for this party by deciding first what kind of wedding we wanted (formal, with dinner and dancing). Then we had to research how much that would cost in our city ($80 to $150 per person). Then we had to figure out how many people we had to invite. And then we set a wedding date far enough out to let us save the money.
Weddings are all about choices. The bride and groom choose to get married. In theory, they choose where and when and how much. Guests choose whether or not to attend. And if there are expectations or pressure or hurt feelings or rifts, then sometimes you just have to make your choice, deal with it and move on. We got married in Jamaica in 2001, had exactly 6 guests (4 parents, two friends). It was fantastic, beyond expectations! Our families are scattered all over the country, so no matter where we decided to get married, someone would have to travel, so we decided to make it equally inconvenient for everyone, have the wedding/honeymoon we wanted and call it a day. We knew from the start that most of our favorite people would not be able to attend and if there were any hard feelings, they have yet to surface 8+ years later. A dear friend from college got married at a B&B in a resort town and they invited only 2 people (me and my husband). No hard feelings from any other friends or family members. At the end of the day, the couple should have the wedding THEY want and what THEY can afford (be it frugal or extravagent) and nobody else should judge. Anybody who has a problem with that can make the choice not to attend. A successful marriage is infinitely more important than a splashy wedding.
For us, the most important part of a wedding is the shared joining of two people together in front of their friends and family– those who mean the most to them. It is a shared day but it doesn’t have to be an expensive day.
As a guest, what most people seem to notice are if the bride is beautiful (she always is), if the couple is happy, if the venue is nice and if the food is good, timely, and there’s enough of it. It’s also nice to be able to catch up with or meet new people at the reception. That can all come at $40,000 or it can come at $500. People don’t remember the flowers or the favors or a million other details that can drive the planners crazy at the last minute. They’re not important.
I have noticed an inverse relationship between the amount of money spent on a wedding and the fun had by guests. Usually that’s because fussy formal weddings are no fun and stressed out brides are no fun. Often the DJ has the music too loud, the photographer is constantly in the way recording an event that didn’t really happen (is the photographer really supposed to come down the aisle backwards before the bride?), and there’s a huge wait between wedding and reception which are in two different venues. Sometimes people are blessed with a wedding planner who takes care of things and everything runs beautifully, but more often than not, the fancy wedding is a much more unpleasant experience than it needs to be. Less expensive weddings just tend to be more relaxed.
The best weddings we’ve been to were simple ones full of love and shared commitment. The ones we’ve left early obviously cost a fortune.
We’ve had the opposite experience of another poster… as we’re getting older the weddings we go to tend to be simpler rather than fancy, even among those who have cohabited for years. The couples are paying for them rather than the parents, and our friends in their 30s are more focused on what their wedding means to them (and learning from previous weddings they’ve attended) rather than some external dream of a fairytale wedding.
Side note: If you’re having an outdoor reception… don’t choose shrimp as an appetizer. Wasps like it too much.
In my opinion, there’s only one thing worse than destination weddings…it’s destinations at all-inclusive resorts.
This is a practice that’s becomming more prevalent, and in my opinion it’s really inappropriate.
So not only are the guests shelling out for plane tickets and their hotel, but they are now also paying for their own meal, drinks and entertainment.
I have been invited to two of these weddings in the last year, and I really feel negative about it. On top of that, both parties made it a point to let their invited guests know where they had registered. If you are going to ask your guests to pay for your wedding, the least you can do is make sure they know that their presence is the only gift required.
It just stuck me as selfish and greedy.
Truly, if you cannot afford to have a wedding, just don’t have one. Maybe you aren’t ready for it.
“So not only are the guests shelling out for plane tickets and their hotel, but they are now also paying for their own meal, drinks and entertainment. ”
Not only that, but many of these destination weddings are in places that might require a week off from work – time to get there, the actual wedding and reception, then flying home. I have a coworker who went to a friend’s destination wedding (I think it was the Bahamas) and tried to only go for as little time as possible. She still missed about three days of work, and that was with flying out after work and flying home the night before she was due back at work.
Actually, destination weddings themselves don’t really bother me. It’s when the couple guilts guests that makes it rude – “Why can’t you spend $3,000 and a week’s vacation on OUR wedding?!”
@Kevin in #99 (not talking to myself, don’t worry)
I don’t see these types of comments as a “race to the bottom” as you said. I think it’s good for someone thinking about getting married to read this kind of information. Otherwise the only exposure they’ll get might be watching Bridezillas on TV or hearing from wedding planners and other people depending on the event for their livelihood how much they “should” spend.
Agreed that destination weddings should come with NO expectations, NO guilt and NO mention of registries or anything else relating to gifts. Our invites read “the gift of your presence is the best of all presents.” Basically we told our loved ones – we’d love it if you can make it, but we understand if you can’t and we’ll take lots of pictures either way.
OTOH, destination weddings that specifically exclude one or both partner’s young child(ren) are just wrong.
We did almost the same thing. My wife and I got married in Costa Rica on the beach. It was a wedding for us. Then we spent our honeymoon right there. When we came back home, we had a reception for close friends and family at our house – about 35 people with whom we had a great party/celebration.
@ David N. – We are getting married in a church, and initially I thought it would also cut down on expense. But, just the opposite has turned out to be true. Most reception venues will include the ceremony in their price quote, but I’ve been unable to find a quote for a church in the city where we’re getting married for under $2,500, and costs have gone all the way up to $6,000 for a 30 minute ceremony!
Congrats on the nuptials! My husband and I absolutely loved our wedding day and kept it cheap too.
My only regret was not having a wedding video. Neither one of us can remember exactly what our vows were since we wrote them ourselves and have lost our “notes”…plus I cried all the way through mine so nobody could understand me anyway (happy tears…I’m an emotional girl).
Our expenses were as follows:
Apparel: $300 ($125 gorgeous David’s bridal special, a $150 tux with tails and accessories rental, and my mom spent $25 on all the materials to make my 5 foot long veil…it was amazing and decorated with shinies and fake pearls…the patterns were awesome against the back of my dress and went great with the train)
Rings: $250 ($250 for hubby’s band, my two wedding bands are from his mother and my engagement ring is from his grandmother)
Music: $0 (my mother set up a sound system and we played CD’s)
Miscellaneous: $500 (reception decorations and the fake flowers used for bouquets and decorations)
Ceremony Site and Officiant: $250 ($150 for chapel and organist and $100 for the preacher)
Flowers: $50 (the roses that my youngest sister handed out as the flower girl came from Sam’s Club)
Cake: $125 (3 tier decorated in our light blue wedding color from Kroger’s…it was really yummy)
Reception/Catering: $500-$800 (reception hall for 60 guests and linens were $125, my mother bought trays from Sam’s Club of shrimp, vegetables, meat, and fruit, my MIL baked and decorated an awesome groom’s cake, and my aunt-in-law and my MIL decorated the tables with glitter and little reception souvenirs)
Photography: $500
Videography: $0 (But we wish we had one)
Invitations: $100
Limo: $0 (our reception hall was in walking distance and we lived nearby so we used our car)
So our whole wedding was less than $3000 and was absolutely fantastic!
I totally agree that the marriage is the important part. My husband and I were 21 and 22 respectively and it was nice to start our married life with no wedding debt. It’s been about 5 years and we still remember our wedding day as absolutely perfect. :-)
Here’s a couple of other things that my wife and I did for our wedding that made it extremely inexpensive. We had a big wedding (over 300 people at the reception) with great food, live music and dancing. We’ve been married 14 years now, and people still remind us of what a great time the wedding was. So, while it was extremely affordable (probably $1500 in 1996) it was a great time for all! So, here’s some of the things we did.
1. Had a potluck reception. Many might think this is tacky, but it in keeping with older traditions (think 1800’s) and believe me, you get much better food, a wider variety, and folks are happy to make their “signature dish” for such a special occasion.
2. Borrowed a wedding dress and tux. I borrowed the tux from my brother and my wife actually borrowed two dresses, one for the ceremony and one for the reception.
3. Asked friends to do the pictures in lieu of a gift. We weren’t expecting professional quality photos from this, just fun pictures of people at the wedding and reception. They had fun taking pictures and did a fine job.
4. Friends volunteered to play music and call contra dances (which are like square dances).
5. My boss volunteered to make our wedding cake.
6. We didn’t serve alcohol for the reception. The hall didn’t allow it and we didn’t really think we needed it, since we had great food and entertainment already.
So, the things we DID spend money on were
1. Invitations
2. The church
3. The hall
4. Pop and some sparkling cider for the toast.
I’m sure there’s a couple of things we are forgetting. The point is that, if the shared experience with your guests is what matters, a potluck reception is fine. And think about the talents that your friends have–cake baking, cooking, photography, entertainment. We had people who volunteered to do all of these things as their gift to us.
BTW, we got married in Alaska, but since that is where we live we didn’t count it as a “destination” wedding. However, for many of our guests, it was a destination. Since we were married in our hometown, we put the word out that we would be having guests, and many friends offered housing for free. Again, having a good network of friends made our wedding memorable and far, far richer than a more expensive one.
Author here…
Sorry for the late response to most of the comments. I don’t read blogs much on weekends, and this was a long one to boot.
Our wedding was too small to get any “bennies” from the hotel. So no, we didn’t get any freebies or discounts at the expense of our guests. I did outline the travel costs in the main story, and they weren’t terrible.
My side of the family would have had to travel by plane no matter what. It was actually cheaper for my family, all things considered, for them to go to Vegas. Truth be told, my family preferred Vegas over where my wife and I live. So it’s not like the destination and cost issue was merely “us vs. the world.” And I had more family present than she did.
But then some people say, the wedding isn’t for the groom, it’s for the bride. And if that’s the case, shouldn’t the bride’s family be paying for it, as tradition has held?
For those that say, “don’t have a wedding you can’t afford…” well, one thing that did come across our minds was to simply have a JOP wedding. But then we would be leaving out people who wanted to see us get married!
So yea, the thought crossed my mind that if the bride’s side wanted to help us out with a local wedding so they could keep their travel costs down, we would have obliged. What is true is that you can’t keep everybody happy. If you can’t, then what do you do?
The guest list was CLOSE family… brothers and sisters, moms and dads, and spouses. (And a close aunt and uncle.) These are people who are going to attend your wedding no matter what.
To the poster who asked if my wife and I had the money talk prior to getting married… oh yeah. She tells me I talk about finances more than anybody she knows. We’re reasonably compatible when it comes to finances, but it doesn’t always mean it’s easy.
Nonetheless, what really matters is everybody had the time of their lives, and nobody feels put out about the fact that they had to travel to our wedding. I brought up the issue because I wanted to hear how others may handle a situation like that.
This was a great article. For not being a professional writer I was impressed! Thanks for taking the time to write it up and share.
In some cultures the wedding is a very public event. The parents host the wedding reception, the guests come to fete the bride and groom. Weddings for 30 won’t work, nor will cost-shifting to guests so couple can be in Belize or Vegas already for their honeymoon.
Great post! My husband and I spent less than $5000 (2 1/2 years ago) for our wedding. We decided we did not want to start our marriage in debt. The location made a huge difference in price for us. We got married in his hometown in Northeast Nebraska where the wedding hall rent was only $100. Our family made all the food (kind of a pot luck thing). No one cared about where the reception was held and what kind of food there was, all they remembered was that it was a good time celebrating two people in love!
I am so glad that there are people saying that they are happy with their JP wedding. My fiance and I are getting married that way in March (with 5 guests and a restaurant lunch afterward) and I am getting flak about it from my family. My parents have been married multiple times so they have had their shot at their dream wedding many times over (they like to renew their vows about every 5 years or so) but they still want to have an EVENT wedding for me. I just want a low key wedding with as little financial pressure as possible and it is the option that I want to take. I just wish that there were bridal planning guides suited to this kind of wedding, they all seem to be pushing the extravagant kind of weddings. I just need a guide of how to get a JP appointment, do I need blood tests, how do I change my name, etc. So if anyone wants an to write a simple manual for JP weddings, please do.
Also, it would be nice to see wedding announcement cards for sale somewhere on the net. I can’t find any.
We did the same thing by marrying in Mexico. The wedding cost was $1500. We did it at an all-inclusive resort, so our guests that were staying there effectively paid for their own dinner (since meals are included in the room rate). Of course, we were prepared to pay for any guest that stayed elsewhere. The other nice part of this is that we didn’t have to limit our guests list, extra people did not cost us extra so we were able to invite anyone who wanted to make the trip. The rate at the hotel was competitive with US hotels that did not cover meals with the rooms, so we did not consider this a hardship for guests. People complain about destination weddings as passing the cost to your guests. But my family is all out of town and spread across the country, so travel was going to be required no matter what, and I gaurantee you they preferred flying to Mexico than Houston for a wedding. Actually, I spent far more being a maid of honor in my best friend’s traditional wedding, between the travel, the dress, the hotel, the gifts, than my family did coming to my wedding, and they got a trip to a Mexican resort out of the deal!
Good for you! Sounds like the wedding was just right, and you started your married life on a good financial footing… which almost guarantees less fighting down the road.
Congratulations on your marriage!
We got married in 2007 and spent 2.5k and had 50 guests. We had it in a backyard with a big tent and a deck that lent itself well as a “stage”. We called in some favors and the only “pros” we hired was the harpist and the guys who sent up the tent. Everyone who attended said it was one of the best weddings they had been to mainly because it reflected our personality and it was low key and *gasp* fun.
In retrospect, the only thing I would change is I would have hired someone to come out and do pictures rather than rely on friends with a photography hobby.
f you are trying to save some money on a wedding than don’t have a “free bar”
People are more than willing to pay for their own drinks. You can have wine on the tables if you want but anything else is unnecessary. It’s your wedding! People should be buying you drinks!
This may have been mentioned before re: Vegas destination weddings, but for those of us with friends and families all over the country “a plane ticket is a plane ticket,” as Lars’ dad so aptly put it. (Unless it’s an international destination wedding and then yea, IMHO you’re asking a lot of your guests and their budgets).
I appreciate the story about a reasonably-priced wedding though! Too often I hear about the other end of the spectrum, so this was a really refreshing post to stumble upon.