Expensive Weddings

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I guess the consensus on this board is because they can afford it and it makes them happy. Couples who live outside their means or who cannot work together will have a more strained marriage.

And on jewelry . . . unlike a home which may be owned by the bank, jewelry is owned by you-- yours to wear, to store, to sell, to pass onto generations. Jewelry will exist after you're gone. I like when I choose and pay myself. But, there's nothing wrong with gifted jewelry. In my heteronormative experience, men who gift jewelry have more prideful intentions than the receiver. It's a way to display their wealth to others w/o flashing cash. They also act differently when you wear their gifts.

I've always thought i would end up having a smaller ish medium wedding like 100 people max or less. in the end i ended up with like 250 guests.

in my culture it is really common to let your parents invite their own guests because they view it as sharing in your accomplishment/sharing the memories but that does consequently balloon the guest list up

i had moments i regretted it because a big wedding can feel overwhelming but in the end i was happy i did it because it is also nice seeing so many people come to celebrate you

You definitely bring up some valid points and unfortunately there are many people that go all out on huge weddings just to impress others or "keep up with the Joneses" to to speak which is definitely not the mindset to plan a wedding around. As for me and my SO, we are both a little past middle-aged and while he has been married before, this is my first and only wedding. Everything that we are planning us for US, to build the memories we want to have later down the road. My thoughts are this, if the guests attending our wedding are truly happy for us (which they wouldn't have been invited if they weren't) then they will enjoy our wedding regardless of what is or isn't included or how mediocre or extravagant it is. Most guests will only remember and think about your wedding for a very short time whereas it's something the bride and groom will remember and think about forever so the wedding should be just as they want it to be!!

View Quoted Comment Yes I couldn’t have agreed with you more !! 💯💯

We want to have as much family and friends at the ceremony to celebrate with us as possible. Our families and friends are spread out, and to accommodate the major mobility issues for my FMIL, we are getting married somewhere we don’t live. This means needing to hire people where we might have had friends pitch in, and not being able to do as much DIY. But for each expense, we are trying to be as reasonable as possible about expenses, making sure we aren’t making decisions that will result in higher costs where we can avoid it. But we’re also a bit older and established, both with decent full time jobs and some family willing to pitch in, so we don’t anticipate going into debt for the wedding. If we need to cut back, we will, including potentially canceling our honeymoon abroad and making it much less extravagant. Basically we are trying to be judicious in our expenditures, but we also want to have a celebratory party with friends and family to mark the momentous occasion of finding our once in a lifetime and making it permanent. We don’t have anything to prove, just something amazing to celebrate, and we think with as many awful things happening in the world, it’s important to celebrate.

At first, I wanted a big wedding to celebrate with my family, but then I found out how much they cost. The idea of spending over 10k for only 5 hours is crazy, but I guess to some people 10K is nothing. We are going to elope and eat at a restaurant with a few people.

View Quoted Comment That sounds great 😊