<p>My wedding is costing us $5,000 at most, we are actually presently well under budget. We are both paying for our college educations ourselves, so we have learned the true meaning of frugal. Short of stubbornness there is no reason to spend 20k on a wedding. Maybe you need 20k to get your idea of a perfect wedding, but if your money is very important to you it’s really not necessary to spend that much. That 5k is very extravagant for us. About 60 guests-- close friends and family only, semi-formal, outdoor ceremony and indoor reception. I am actually quite proud of how well we’ve done.</p>
<p>H & I aren’t contributing to any weddings for our 4 children & we don’t buy them cars either. Putting 4 of them through college in 11 consecutive years has been and is still a big financial commitment. We have been very honest with them about this issue, so it won’t come as any type of a let down later on. H will be close to retirement age when our youngest child graduates from college.</p>
<p>We’ll pay for our daughter’s wedding and our son’s rehearsal dinner, unless there’s a financial issue with his in-laws. There will be no lavish-ness as its not our way and the kids already know that.</p>
<p>The term “lavish” is so subjective. I don’t consider my daughter’s wedding “lavish”, but there were a couple of priorities that I know others would NOT have chosen. One was live music at the reception- this is not cheap and might be considered “lavish” to some. On the other hand, we did relatively inexpensive invitations and had fabulous catered barbeque instead of a sit-down dinner. Country western theme etc. Dress wasn’t expensive, only 2 attendants on each side. Did a limo for the wedding party for logistics rather than lavishness (was worth it).</p>
<p>D and I love to watch the wedding shows, and whereas I ooh and aah over some things, D says it is ridiculous to spend that much money on something so trivial. According to her, she will buy herself a dress that she will be able to wear over and over, and I can bake the wedding cake, etc. She knows that after college there is no $ for a big wedding, but that really doesn’t enter into it at all. She has become extremely frugal the last few years (being on a budget in college will do that to you) and thinks it’s a waste of money. Friends did a wedding for oldest D with the wedding on the grounds of a very expensive restaurant that had peacocks roaming around, with cocktail hour, then the “celebration” (don’t call it a reception) at a high-end hotel. That was 15 years ago, D is divorced, remarried, has 2 children and they are still paying for it. H can’t retire due to all the debt. Not for me, thank you!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Jordansmom, I agree that is a smart move, just watch out for potential gift tax consequences.</p>
<p>What’s lavish is in the eye of the beholder. I believe each family should decide for itself what to spend on a wedding and what to spend on college–obviously lots of factors come into play. I don’t feel the need to put down a wedding host whose view of a wedding is different from mine. I see no point in being judgmental, i.e., “it’s stupid to spent X, Y, or Z.” My oldest D was married in June and it was a beautiful event. I’ve received numerous thank you notes from guests letting us know what a wonderful time they had. I didn’t go bankrupt, my D wasn’t bridezilla and everyone is happy.</p>
<p>I am once again struck by how different the opinions on CC are from my real life world. I think everyone is entitled to do what works for them. I don’t think someone should fund an event they can not afford. Just like they should not send tell their child to apply to any college they want when the money is not there. But I also think someone should not be judged by the choice to give their child a large or fancy wedding.
We had a 100 guest wedding that was nice. The location was not my first choice. My Mom vetoed the sawdust on the floor of my first choice. My husband and I planned the wedding. We paid for some parts, my parents and spouse’s parents split what was left. They offered since they could afford it.
I know we would expect to pay a portion of each of our kids weddings. I also know my husband hates to spend money on anything that doesn’t have lasting value so he would hate the idea of paying for a large wedding. He would offer them the money to help with a house. We would fund a nice wedding but not an over the top wedding. We would do as we did with the bar and bat mitzvah and have a nice event but nothing over the top. </p>
<p>Our philosophy has always been that we don’t give our kids everything they want even if we can afford it. We want them to think about their purchases and make good choices as to how they spend their money. For example we spent money to send our child on a month long NOLS backpacking trip where we would not have spent the same money to fund a teen Europe trip. We felt the things that he came out of the NOLS journey were worth the money spent. We expect our children to work in the summer to pay a portion of their spending money. We give our college age kids a small amount of spending money.
As long as our children are respectful and doing the next right thing we are willing to help them out. This would include letting them come home to live for a short time after graduating college.
We also would help with purchasing a home or starting a business. We would not be where we are today if we had not had the monetary support in our early marriage from our families. We would hope to be able to do the same.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s the truth. We will celebrate our 20th anniversary next week and we spent $10,000 on our extremely non-lavish (reception in in-laws’ back yard) wedding. Of course, we paid for lots of things many couples don’t pay for - plane tickets and clothes for my sister’s impoverished family, hotel for my whole side of the family since the wedding was on my husband’s turf, etc.</p>
<p>We attend a church at which a lot of “society” weddings are held. There’s no way to ever “compete” with some of the lavish events that have been held there and I hope my daughters won’t want to. Even if money was no object I’d hate for them to be involved in a super-lavish wedding because I think some brides are more in love with the wedding than they are with the groom.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Can I hear an AMEN?</p>
<p>And, of course, every couple that marries at City Hall with nobody present or better yet drives/flies off to Vegas is much more in love with one another than the couple who throws a “lavish” wedding. “Lavish” is indeed in the eye of the beholder–in this case it seems to be defined as “more than I would be willing to spend.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s not what I’m saying. I’ve just seen young (and not so young) ladies get so into planning the I’m the Bride Show that the groom is almost an after thought. On a lesser level, the planning can consume 90% of the couple’s attention when they should be getting to know each other better.</p>
<p>I would hope they would have gotten to know one another better before getting engaged! I don’t see what the big deal is over the lavish weddings. It seems no better or no worse than any of a number of ways people could spend their money. I have a friend who is a florist in the Hamptons, and she greatly appreciates lavishness in the pursuit of flowers :-)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I admit that I love it when I come to church on Sunday mornings and see the “money is absolutely no object” floral arrangements left over from the Saturday night weddings.</p>
<p>But as for lavish wedding spending: It is a type of spending that puts one particular young woman at what she can come to believe is the center of the universe. Most brides are not the reality show type of bridezillas, but many do inhabit an extremely self-centered world. It is fairly common for brides to say, “This is my wedding so I deserve to have exactly what I want.” I would hate to hear a child of mine say that about anything (that someone else was paying for.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I hear your point, but I submit that it’s not any particular monetary threshold that leads to that attitude. I think a bride planning a $10,000 wedding can feel “entitled” and obnoxious and a bride planning a $100,000 wedding can be as sweet as can be.</p>
<p>It’s sort of like spoiling a kid – the kid can be spoiled regardless of whether his parents shop at WalMart or Neiman’s for toys, kwim?</p>
<p>missypie, do you really know brides who say that? Who do inhabit that “extremely self-centered world”? I’ve never met one and as the mom of 5 Ds, who has attended dozens of weddings in the past five years alone!, I sure know a lot of young females, and I can honestly say that I have yet to meet even one girl who feels or acts that way. </p>
<p>This is the kind of topic that whenever discussed, there exists an aura of, the cheaper you can do it, the better, and that there is some feeling of superiority if you somehow do not want to spend what someone else might on a wedding. That it is not only more noble but there’s an insinuation that the marriage is somehow not as likely to last, etc. I have to agree with someone else who asked why people care so much how other people spend their money.</p>
<p>And by the way the bride is right, it is her wedding. I hated my wedding. I told my Mother I wanted a small wedding, well the group of friends I invited was small, she however invited 50 of her closest friends. (“But 50 is small” she told me). I don’t know what she spent on it and I don’t really care, it was her wedding, not mine. If I had it to do all over again I’d go to city hall.</p>
<p>I really liked paying3tuitions and aibarr’s posts above (as well as a few others). I can’t help but chime in, don’t spend it if you can’t afford it. The expense of the reception will not predict the happiness of the marriage. If you have the money and want to give your children a party that costs $$$ or $$$$ that’s your own business. No one should ever feel compelled to keep up with other people’s level of spending. I really don’t think the kids should expect a lot from the parents, and should be grateful if they are generous.</p>
<p>I think it is nice if you can welcome the prospective spouse into your life (the inlaws that is) with some nice gestures. These don’t have to be costly to mean something - coffee and cake with the family, and if extended family is important some way to get to know them too. I never felt welcomed by my H’s extended family, and it has lead to tense times in the ensuing years. Of course you can’t pick your relatives, and maybe no amount of coffee and cake would have made for a better relationship, but I won’t ever know.</p>
<p>I think I used the phrase “it’s your wedding, so you get to have what you want…” more than my daughter did! I also used it to make it clear to the groom’s bickering, divorced parents that the “kids” made choices that the rest of us were going to honor! We used our daughter’s wedding to welcome our friends and family (with the blessing of the bride and groom) to our new community and to the celebration of our daughter’s marriage. The church service was a top priority for this young couple, and part of that is being surrounded by family and friends. The young couple were also very new to the community, so most of the guest went to considerable expense and trouble to come to Nashville, so we felt honored to provide a lovely, fun and meaningful event for everyone.</p>
<p>My parents wanted a small wedding. Maybe 75 people, max (in my community, this is a <em>tiny</em> wedding). They told this to my grandfather (my dad’s dad), who said sure, and then invited literally 400 people. My parents were paying.</p>
<p>I don’t have the luxury of having a small wedding since I have a big extended family and even if I just invited my first cousins/aunts/uncles (there is no option not to invite them, we grew up together, and I wouldn’t want to exclude them anyway), assuming at least a couple will be married by the time I get married, that’s ~50 people. That’s not counting my friends, his friends, his family.</p>
<p>So yes. I expect a big wedding. I expect it’ll cost some money. I won’t want to go deep into debt to finance it, and I think my parents will help a little, but I just want to point out that it’s no “better” to have a small wedding over a big one.</p>
<p>ETA: Two weeks ago I went to an 850 person wedding. Now <em>THAT</em> was a big wedding!</p>