Wedding Costs....

[Bird]

My wife and I had a pretty frugal wedding ... married in our Church, a small reception at the hotel we were staying overnight before leaving for a week to a golf/tennis resort in Northern Illinois.

And you call that "frugal"?:laughing: Of course you're right . . . by most standards. Before we got married, we arranged to be assistant managers of an apartment complex, and we moved most of our stuff into the apartment a day or two before the wedding. Then the night we got married, we went directly to the new apartment after the wedding. And early the next morning, we were awakened by tenants with complaints knocking on the door.

The assistant manager had told the owner he was moving out, after a tenant had hit him in the mouth. But then the manager decided to leave and that assistant manager said he'd stay since there was going to be a police officer living there. So the owner asked us to be the managers instead of assistant managers. But we quickly learned that the apartments were in bad shape, the owner refused to do any maintenance, hoping the tenants would move out. When one moved out, then he completely refurbished that apartment and wanted to rent it at a much higher rent. Fortunately, we were only there a couple of weeks when the owner of a much larger and nicer apartment complex contacted me to see if we'd take the job of assistant managers at his apartments, and we did.

But our first "honeymoon" trip was more than 2 years after we got married and a year after our first daughter was born.:laughing:

 

[MoKelly]

But our first "honeymoon" trip was more than 2 years after we got married and a year after our first daughter was born.:laughing:

Hey, that reminds me. Does the daughter's parents still pay for the wedding, or is that a bygone tradition? In my case, we paid for our own wedding.

How many daughters do you have?:laughing:

I have 2 sons!

MoKelly

 

[Teachu2]

My second (current, and last!!!) wife and I put on our Sunday best, invited friends and family (including her three young sons) to a friend's ranch, and stood under the oldest known example of a particular oak tree in California. The County Clerk was a friend, and he performed the ceremony. Family provided some snacks, and it was a done deal. Total cost with the inexpensive rings was under a thousand bucks. Twenty-seven years ago next week. Instead of a big wedding, we bought our first house. Got all the kids raised, and now live on 5 acres of our own oak trees. About our fifteenth anniversary, I upgraded her wedding ring considerably....

Fairy-tale weddings establish expectations of luxurious lifestyles. Not our style, nor our tax bracket.

 

[DT86]

My fiancé wanted one of those cliché barn weddings. The rental was going to be north of $5k. That is a ridiculous amount of money to give away. I decided $5k worth of improvements to my farm would make it nice enough to have the wedding here.


Best part is, when the tables are folded up and everyone is gone, I will still get to benefit from those improvements. Some gravel for the farm roads, weed eating fence rows, pruning some trees, spraying weeds, 1000' of new fence, ect. All things I need to get done anyway, gladly paid for out of our wedding fund.

 

[DT86]

My fiancé wanted one of those cliché barn weddings. The rental was going to be north of $5k. That is a ridiculous amount of money to give away. I decided $5k worth of improvements to my farm would make it nice enough to have the wedding here.


Best part is, when the tables are folded up and everyone is gone, I will still get to benefit from those improvements. Some gravel for the farm roads, weed eating fence rows, pruning some trees, spraying weeds, 1000' of new fence, ect. All things I need to get done anyway, gladly paid for out of our wedding fund.

 

[Dftodd]

Wife and I spent around $1000 total on our wedding. Had it in front of the fire place in our house. Had BBQ brought in and had everyone there. Wife and I did the honeymoon around a month later.

Now our daughter was a different story. $1000 dollars just for the photographer We did the catering and food ourselves. Wife rented a rec hall, which the front looked liked something out of the movie deliverance, or psycho :ashamed: total out of pocket for us was north of 5k. We made them do counseling before we would spend the money and there were a few threats involving a certain shotgun if things went south and one of them didn't show. That wedding was last summer. Sons getting married this summer and we're gonna be out a couple of grand for this one. Sending the final payment to the $1000 photographer next week since my wife and future daughter in law want the photographer again :confused2: Wife did tell our other son he needs to wait a couple years to let us recuperate before getting married. We need a break!! :thumbsup:

 

[ultrarunner]

Weddings do seem to be extravagant affairs more than not among those I know...

Quite different from the weddings I attended in Austria which were very large and continued well into the night.

The big difference there is the Bride and Groom pay for the church, Bridle Table and parents, grandparents and godparents and music...

All the rest of the attendees which could number 500 or more pay their own way... namely food and drink...

Still remember when another co-worker from California visited and attended a wedding with me... he was ordering shots and drink like a sailor on leave... was in for quite a shock when he got the bill for his libations at the end of the evening...

The conventional thinking is if the young couple can't afford to pay their own way... then what business do they have getting married...

My parents paid for their own wedding as did just about all of their friends...

Here is another kicker... my first Austrian wedding I asked about the rehearsal dinner... the old priest put me in my place quick... he said marriage is a sacred sacrament not a Hollywood production...

Since then I have walked my cousin down the Isle... not having kids, it is something I never thought I would have the chance to do... and have been best man more times than I can count...

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Women are different --- they never forget. They are good at forgiving --- but they do not forget.

MoKelly

:thumbsup:

 

[aczlan]

We had our wedding on one weekend, then our honeymoon, then a small reception at church the next weekend. There we had a "Dairy Bar" (small cartons of various flavors of milk on ice in a John Deere wagon) and a build your own sunday (lots of ice cream and toppings).
Then we left the reception in a John Deere tractor . Simple, but we both liked it as did most of the guests.

Aaron Z

 

[MossRoad]

David, are you some sort of fifth column subversive? You keep on with this crazy talk and the entire US economy will crumble. :laughing:

That's phase two of my evil plan.... :cool2: