How I got married on the cheap — and loved it!
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.
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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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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”… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
We just got back from a lovely small Vegas wedding last week. Everybody would have had to travel if they’d had it where they were living and Vegas was actually more convenient for most of us. I was really impressed. They had everything down to a science, and everything was beautiful and went like clockwork. It was also much more classy than the destination wedding a relative had had at a resort in Mexico, and that was also much more of a hassle to get to. I’m all for Vegas weddings now! OTOH, when we got married 10 years ago,… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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.… Read more »
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!… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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.… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »