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First wedding was an elopement at a commercial wedding chapel, then lunch afterwards with our friends who acted as witnesses. Cost: about $250, including licenses, chapel fee, and lunch. No honeymoon, no bridal gown, and I spent about $6 on a single rose as a "bouquet." DH at the time didn't have any money, so I charged both our wedding rings on my credit card. Doh! With those not-very-auspicious beginnings, the marriage collapsed and ended eight years later.
Second wedding was my "true" wedding, but we spent about $2,500 in total, including two rings, a gorgeous wedding dress I got on sale for $400, invitations, postage, and the reception. The wedding and the reception was held for free in a local park, and it was a combination of guest-provided potluck and food catered and served by the cooking staff and students of the school DH and I were working at, at the time.
Music was a boom box run off an extension cord from someone's car battery. Flowers were from Albertson's, put together by my mother. Tablecloths were old white sheets I'd found at the Salvation Army and dyed lavender with Rit Dye. Invitations and wedding favors were bought at clearance from Wal-Mart, as were my veil and tiara. I glued fake pearls onto my veil and it looked GREAT. I couldn't find any white shoes, either, so I painted some black shoes white and stuck more fake pearls on them. Gorgeous! A photographer friend gifted us with taking photos at the wedding, and then putting together a CD photo album. I used Flickr to print out the best prints, and created tangible photo albums to send to members of the wedding party, and to certain family members who were unable to attend. Another friend also took digital pictures as his gift to us--we just provided him with the memory card for his camera, and we processed the shots ourself.
Honeymoon was two nights in Vegas, gifted to us by my maid of honor, who had a timeshare there. Since we lived only 60 miles away, we had our own car and didn't have to fly there. I would not have changed one single thing about that beautiful day, and every penny spent, and not spent, was entirely worth it. I LOVE looking at our wedding photos, and it was truly one of the happiest days of our lives.
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About $500 in 1972 in Alaska. Most was for the sit down dinner for 20 friends and family at a Japanese restaurant. Married at the Army chapel by Army chaplain with one attendant. I had a simple suit made and made my own blouse. Friend wore a dress she had. Three flower things (bouquet, cake topper and attendants bouquet) an nothing else custom. Still married almost 40 years later.
In those days, the Army would not allow their guys to live off base and pay for it unless married. Husband hated being in charge of a bunch of guys living together. Plus it really saved on car insurance to be married if under 20. So those were our basic reasons to get married.
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I don't remember how the numbers broke down exactly, but we spent under $5k for our wedding and our honeymoon in Alaska. Wedding was at a lovely bed and breakfast in the town where most of DH's relatives live, fairly central U.S. location. My family is scattered around the country, and our friends came from all over as well. We had about 60 guests I think, for a sit-down midday lunch (basically dinner served at lunch time, saved us a lot of money). Photographs ran about $1000 of that total cost, and the reception was most of the rest of it. Total above includes our air travel to the wedding city and 2 nights in a suite of the B&B. Clothing for both of us was around $800 including shoes (DH wore a suit, which is still the suit he uses when needed for work). Married 12 years now and have never regretted what we spent on the wedding. It served not only as a big party for our happy day but as a family reunion.
Entertaining story from our wedding: we were married by a UU minister and we worked with her to create the ceremony. Apparently a few days later, DH's very evangelical aunt asked DH's mom if she was sure that we were married, because there was no mention of God in the ceremony. Obviously she forgot that people can be married in the courthouse, no church needed...
Our trip to Alaska was fabulous and we have many fond memories of that. We used vouchers for free air travel and just had to pay for lodging and rental car.
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I’ve never thought of a wedding in terms of a money/success ratio*. 30 years ago our wedding cost $8,000. I wanted a church wedding and a country club reception, tradition everything. My measure of tradition was that I wanted the wedding attire to look good back then and in the future as well. I am still quite satisfied with how we did it my only regret being that we left the reception too soon. I don’t plan a do over so I guess the only thing I could do is have another reception but as anniversary celebration this time and stay until the very end. I like weddings, anybodies wedding, any style, anywhere.
*My parents eloped. The wedding license was $2.00 and they were married nearly 60 years before my father died.
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Wedding and honeymoon was under 5k, and we've been married for 27 years. Bought the dress on my lunch hour with a co worker tagging along, and spent a little to have it altered (hemmed up and train hacked off). No cake, just my sister and his brother as attendants. Sister made the flower arrangements (silk). Used a local music school for musicians.
I was young, and allowed myself to be influenced by my mother, even though I paid for it all myself. What I had really wanted was a cocktail reception, with a strolling violinist and waiters walking around with champagne on trays, and me in a tea length dress, in the rose garden at my college. But I allowed myself to be talked out of that, between my mother insisting there had to be a sit down meal, and hubby's family who would have been very intimidated by what I had in mind. So it was held at a country club. All kinds of things went wrong that day, meaning that the marriage could only get better after such a disaster. :laff:
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Got married 4 years ago. I wanted to get married alone (well, with DH of course) on a hill, but there's this silly thing about witnesses and someone to perform the ceremony, so ended up doing it in DMIL's backyard with about 10 guests-parents and siblings only.
Under $2500 or so and only that much because 2 rings was $1000 and we paid for my sister's flights as she didn't have much money at the time and I really wanted her there. She did my hair. BIL did photos. DH's stepfather is a pastor and was nice enough to marry us, even though I'm not Christian. Each of our clothes were around $100. Then we had lunch that my DMIL had made. No drinking as the hosts are teetotalers, and I could care less about drinking. No music or dancing. After lunch, I got stung by a wasp and we went home after taking my sister to the airport. Back to our new joint apartment that was a total disaster as we'd moved in in the days prior since we didn't want to live together before marriage.
No honeymoon. DH went back to work a day later I think.
It was a really nice simple wedding, we're happily married and the only thing I would change was the getting stung by a wasp part.
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Our wedding was less than $500.00 and we invited about 30 people very close to us. It was in a big log house beside the lake near our neighborhood, and the geese and ducks were the only attendants. We homebrewed a wedding beer and everyone had a mug before the ceremony, which made it quite festive. A friend who likes lavish things set up an afterparty that cost much more, but it wasn't something we would've done on our own.
A good number of those big fairytale weddings seem to be demanded by people who think they're also going to have a fairy tale marriage. If that's what they want, fine, but for us, the real celebration was finally finding each other, and the real joy was -- and is -- crafting an amazing life together through mutual respect, sometimes hard work, compromise, laughter, and patience. Throwing some big show-offy event just isn't our style. It's been about 10 years, and I'm hoping for 50 more.
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Ours was just slightly over $3500 (1989).
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We had lived together for seven years prior and after much pressure from dh's family finally were wed. They made all the church arrangements and had the reception in their backyard so in essence, no cost to us for anything. Yes it was nuts to have his parents plan our wedding in retrospect - I guess it was the easiest route at the time. Didn't cost us anything and made them happy.
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We skipped getting married and bought a house instead. We figured having a mortgage together made us more married than a wedding would. :devil:
Several years later my partner's younger sister got married. The happy couple spent more than $80k on the wedding and honeymoon.
To each their own, I guess.
