Wedding or travel

@jj, we were unexpectedly gifted about 10% to help with our wedding expenses n received about 20% the cost of our wedding in wedding gifts. In no way, would I expect anyone to make $ from a wedding.

Also -- you've got one day to have a wedding and a lifetime to travel. I wouldn't stress too much if it takes a year or two to build back up to big "trips" after the wedding. And, travel doesn't have to be expensive!

@ambrok: I expected to get my expenses covered by my guests because that is my experience with weddings. I never knew that people could loose money on a wedding before Wedding Wire.On the other Hand it was not our goal and also we invited guests who we knew would not give us anything , because for us the money is just a nice bonus and not what our wedding was about.

FH and I went on an incredible 10 country adventure for 6 months of this year, then we will be having a smallish wedding in just over a years time. It's not hard to do both

Yeesh, her boss just made a suggestion. He didn't say she had to travel or suggest that she's stupid for deciding otherwise. I understand where he's coming from. Wedding planning was very stressful for me, and I would've preferred eloping, but I compromised. Not everybody has the luxury of time and money to do both, nor does everybody care to. Prioritize what's more important to you and your DH, compromise as necessary, and budget what you can.

FH and I started our relationship by traveling together, so we wanted to make sure we had the money to have the honeymoon we wanted. So we are having a small wedding with just our immediate family and very best friends. This way we're saving money for the honeymoon but still can have a lovely wedding with our loved ones.

We wanted both, so we delayed our honeymoon a year. It was important to us to have the big wedding, but we also want to do a lot of traveling and maybe even live overseas

I agree with your boss 100%. If FH had not insisted on us having a wedding celebration, I would have had a very simple wedding in a knee length white dress and less than 15 guests followed by a tiny restaurant reception. We could then have taken a nice honeymoon in Europe. Planning a small wedding (74 confirmed guests) has been extremely stressful because even though our families did not contribute, they all had their own demands and unsolicited advice. I would say decide what you really want to do and stick to your decision.

You need to figure out what's important to you. Husband and I aren't huge travel people, but we did have the discussion about the expense (+$30k) of our wedding. It was a lot. In the end, we bet on the side of having this one night where all of our friends and family would be in the same room, treated to an incredible four course meal, unlimited bar, and the best entertainment. It was SO worth it, and we wouldn't have traded it for any vacation in the world.