what did you spend on your wedding? and how long did it last?

[Blackdog Lin]

Another thread tonight got me thinking about the obscene amounts of money some people spend on weddings. I didn't understand it back then, and I sure don't understand it now, how people can correlate the size of a wedding celebration with the hope of a successful long-term union. (Maybe it was the Yahoo story on the Sultain of Whatever's daughter's $20-million wedding, that has this rolling around in my head).

So I'll post a little challenge, to anyone who's thinking about spending big or even moderately big-bucks on a wedding. Is it worth spending all that money/taking the chance on it being worth it? Shouldn't people be thinking simpler, smaller? Just in case?

We were young and very poor, and I got forced into getting married (nope, wasn't pregnant, just wanted to move-in-and-live-with future DH, and the family didn't take that very well). DH's parents gave us $50.00 for a wedding present, and that just covered our wedding and attendant expenses for the day. DH wore his best leisure suit (oh, the 70's!), and I happened to have a white "Sunday" dress which sufficed. The $50.00 covered all our fees for blood tests and license, with some left over for us to have a few beers at the local tavern while waiting for the blood test results. I wore my mother's wedding ring 'cause that's all that we had. We splurged on 2 polaroid wedding photos ($1.00 each! One has disapeared over the years, but I still cherish the one wedding photo that has survived.) Our "honeymoon" was a few beers with friends and back to our new apartment.

And it's now 36 years later. Our $50.00 wedding stood the course. We've been lucky.

I'm rambling here.....but y'all should chime in. Did you have a big wedding? Do you feel it was worth spending the money? Is smaller better? Or do you think that your "day of a lifetime" is/was worth that huge expense?

[bae]

We got married on Halloween, perhaps our favorite holiday, and a day on which we normally had a huge party anyways.

Our wedding, and reception, were a costume/Halloween party, and the scariest thing we could thing to come as was bride and groom.

We rented the Monterey Bay Aquarium for the evening (~$5000), had the food catered by the Aquarium's kitchen for $25/head (~$2500), brought our own wine and beer ($???, but it wasn't much), hired some friends of mine who had a great surf band for $200 + free beer, and invited about 100 friends and relatives. My wife and I's surf/instro band subbed in on alternate sets. A few dollars for a marriage license, and a friend who was a minister, and we had a great party for < $100/head, in a really great location. We got married right in front of the giant kelp tank, took about 10 minutes, then on to the party.

It was a huge luxury to have the whole Aquarium to ourselves, they normally rented it out for company meetings in the evenings, and didn't know about "wedding pricing", so all-in-all we got a great deal I thought. I viewed the event mostly as a nice gift to our friends, because my wife and I love that Aquarium.

[Tussiemussies]

We did have an expensive at that time wedding. The whole day was perfection, nothing went wrong, it all went right. I love to think back to that day so I am glad that it was a special occasion. We are married 27 years now so I think every penny was worth it. It was not like the huge splurges people do today though...

[catherine]

I can't remember exactly how much we spent in 1977 (I think it was $8,000), and if I had to do it over again, I would not have done it. It was really nice, and exactly what my husband and I wanted, but true to our form, we were ridiculously hands-on, which caused us so much stress.

We were both theatre people so our wedding wasn't a ceremony, it was a performance. We literally turned and faced our family and friends in the church and recited Shakespeare. He's Scottish, so I had my bridesmaids wear his tartan which I had a heck of a time finding relatively inexpensively (I even made one of the kilts myself--don't ever try it at home...). I had tartan bows made for the cake. We chose a really beautiful mansion, but they didn't do anything accept rent out the space, so we had to get the caterers, the table dressings, the liquor, and even the logs for the fireplaces ourselves. Then we decided our first dance was going to be a waltz.. We had no idea how to waltz, and so we practiced for the 5 minutes before our first dance.

Plus, we split the cost with our families and none of us could really afford it. My mother and my mother-in-law had a horrendous fight over what their escorts wore down the aisle. I was commuting 4 hours a day to a job in Manhattan and completely misjudged the time I had available to plan the wedding. I do have some nice memories of the wedding, but not sure the good memories outweighed the terrific anxiety I had over the whole ordeal.

[Float On]

Our wedding was a lot bigger and more involved than either of us wanted. He wanted us to get married on a ski slope (I didn't know how to ski at the time) and I wanted an outdoor wedding at one of the ponds on the farm (too cold in February for that).......my mom got a hold of it and it suddenly got very formal and very big including a sit down dinner for 300. I never asked how much it cost.

[flowerseverywhere]

less than $100

DH and I eloped. I came from a violent alcoholic family who did not want me to marry him because he was not the right religion. I don't know anyone who has a more respectful and happier marriage than us after 40 years. We followed our hearts and we have no regrets.

When it came time for my kids to marry I told them I did what was right for me and I would give them a set amount of money (enough for a modest wedding) regardless of what ceremony and party they wanted. They opted for weddings, but one DIL told me she wished she had taken the money after all was said and done as they went way above their budget.

Here is the crazy thing about weddings. It is one day. You need to decide how much you want to spend, what is important to you and who you want to include. The bigger picture is the month and years after the wedding and how you will build your life together. It is not about what your parents or friends or a glossy wedding magazine thinks, but what you and your SO feel is important.

[redfox]

We spent about 6K for 100 or so people. Biggest expense was the venue, which was a fantastic park in Seattle, Camp Long, with cabins we rented for overnight guests, and a pony keg of root beer for the teens. My SIL catered it for just the cost of the food. We did our own invitations, rented tables, chairs, dishes & linens, & BBQ's. Next biggest expense was a local swing band, and they were hot!

We spent a very modest amount, about $150, on wedding clothes. We spent about $500 on rings & a special earring for each of our kids, that they designed, and was our gift to them as a family. DSS still has hers, DSD lost his at camp one summer. We got our vases at Goodwill, and re-donated them later that week. We sent my MIL to the Pike Place Market with $100 for flowers the morning of the wedding, and she did an beautiful job arranging them. We also spent about $100 on hand made floral crowns for each of us... They were spectacularly beautiful on both of us.

It was so much fun! Well worth the $$.

[BayouGirl]

I've never been one for lavish presentations and having a huge wedding would be a nightmare for me. My first wedding was a simple affair, about 100 people in a rented hall at a firehouse. Our relatives did all the food and flowers. I bought a gorgeous $1000 dress for only $99 because it was a sample and needed no alterations. My shoes where .99cents (also a sample).
My mother in law made wedding cakes and flowers for many people so I trusted hers with mine. She was so happy about our wedding and planning it. I told her what colors I liked (periwinkle and a soft purplish blue) and told her that I trusted her judgement and creativity for her to do everything however she like. I wasn't going to be a shrew demanding this and that. If they were going to do it for us then I had faith that they would do it wonderfully (and they did). My hubby and I were together 15 years and are still friends to this day.

That brings us to the upcoming wedding for BayouBoy and me. Again, I want an ultra simple occasion with no excessive expenses or stresses. I have no demands or expectations except that it be a relaxed and stressfree day. My dress will be simple and I am pretty sure BayouBoy will wear some camo. Camo is a smart choice rather than a suit because at least I know he will get some use out of the camo and wear it again (unlike a suit). As for me, my sis in law and I can both sew but likely I will just buy an off the rack dress for under a hundred dollars. The food will be whatever our loved ones want to cook. People will wear whatever they like.

I see so many over the top weddings in the news that are ridiculous. The debt and paying off the wedding lasts longer than the marriage. That's crazy. Weddings like those are a misery for all involved, an expensive misery! Give me a simple wedding any ole day.

Oh but the wedding at the aquarium sounds awesome! We went scuba diving on our honeymoon after my first wedding and we would have loved an aquarium wedding.

[catccc]

We are relatively newlywed... well, it'll be 5 years soon. I can't remember how much we spent, but I remember parts... The officiant was maybe $100, the park we were married in was free, DH's suit was around $100, he wore old shoes. My dress was $27 (j.crew clearance bridesmaid dress in ivory, but they didn't have a size 0, so spent $15 to get it taken in), shoes were $39. Did my own hair. Veil was $2 of tulle from the fabric store sewn on (in the car on the way to the ceremony) to kid sister's prom hairpiece. The biggest expense, dinner at a super nice restaurant afterward the ceremony, was maybe $2,000. And we didn't have a cake, but spent $40-$50 on cream puffs at a joint we found tasty in the week of vacationing with our respective families before the wedding. Sister took pics, a friend took video.

I was obligated to invite loads (and loads) of family members, but we did a destination wedding, so most of them didn't make it. DH and I made the invites, they were super creative and cute, IMO! Guest list of 175 or so, and I think we had 26 in attendance, 10 of which were us and our immediate families.

It was enough of an "event" for me to feel like our union was celebrated by family and friends, but definitely scaled back enough to not be a "crazy" wedding. Would do it again in a heartbeat. With the same wonderful guy, of course!

[iris lily]

We just went to the courthouse to get married, no regrets about that. Both sets of parents held receptions which were ok but I could have lived without them.

If I were getting married today (well, I've got some money now, but not back then) I would do this:

* Invite people to a party, catered, at a very pretty restored victorian greenhouse
* When they are standing or sitting with cocktails and appetizers in hand say "hey folks, we are going to get married right now"
* do the deed
* then have dinner

But honestly, at the time it wasn't necessarily the cost of a shindig that held me back, it was the idea of a wed-ding looming up there in the future, having to think about it coming my way, having to plan it and talk about things like the color of napkins. Ugh. It was a distraction from the important business of marriage which itself made me uneasy. I just wanted to concentrate on the idea of marriage without having wed-ding stuff get in the way. I had already had a bout of psoriasis from ring shopping, it was too anxious-making.