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The deeper I get into maximizing my financial efficiency, the more I begin to understand the courthouse wedding.
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Sep 17, 2014 17:11
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Tomfoolery posted:I'd expect it's either toothpicks with a little monogrammed flag on them, or regular toothpicks in a monogrammed box. Olive Garden is terrible from soup to nuts, adding salt to the water isn't going to change much. The problem with restaurants like Red Lobster and OG is that they exist.
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Sep 17, 2014 20:02
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The flowers at our wedding ended up being about $1000. It was Christmas, and we got married at the Alamo Drafthouse (this was before it blew up in Austin and spread around the nation, so it was suprisingly cheap) and so the flowers were out on the bars and then were moved out of the way to the front of the theater during the movie/meal. We asked people to take them as favors, because they were white poinsettias. Only a few people did. It's about the only expense I feel sad about since the whole thing over all was fairly cheap at $10k. Though I still have one or two friends that have a bunch of them planted in their yard, so that's cool.
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Sep 17, 2014 20:16
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I would not marry a person who insisted on a 5-figure wedding. Y'all have mental problems.
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Sep 17, 2014 23:57
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MrKatharsis posted:I would not marry a person who insisted on a 5-figure wedding. Y'all have mental problems. If you want something that's more than a BBQ in a backyard (don't get me wrong, I have no problem with that), you'll be struggling to do it under $10k.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:05
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Rudager posted:If you want something that's more than a BBQ in a backyard (don't get me wrong, I have no problem with that), you'll be struggling to do it under $10k. Only if you insist on inviting everybody you know.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:08
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Florida Betty posted:Only if you insist on inviting everybody you know. My sister's second wedding had a fair bit of money spent. It wasn't over the top but there was a lot of money spent catering for her entire church. I remember looking around wondering who the gently caress all these people were, most seemed detached and only there for the free food. Of course the money was borrowed, a family to look after, large mortgage to pay and keeping up with the church donations. It's a lot of money to cater for so many people that you'll probably never see again.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:29
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Florida Betty posted:Only if you insist on inviting everybody you know. Or you have a large family that you're close to, that right there will do the trick.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:51
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Florida Betty posted:Only if you insist on inviting everybody you know. I dunno we had 80 pretty easily. There were about of our 10 friends and the rest was all family. Parents, siblings, aunts uncles and first cousins, add in a +1 for the majority of them and it adds up quicker than you'd think.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:52
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I would totally spend 5 figures on drinks for my friends. But, uh, only if I had it lying around.
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Sep 18, 2014 01:40
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Thesaurus posted:I hope you people with courthouse weddings biked, walked, or at most used a zip car. Don't forget to pack a pb&j sandwich for afterwords (have you seen how expensive the lunch places are around those municipal buildings?) Depending on the city hall, it's possibly waaaay nicer than any other typical wedding venue. Here's San Francisco's:  $76!
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Sep 18, 2014 02:32
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Thesaurus posted:I hope you people with courthouse weddings biked, walked, or at most used a zip car. Don't forget to pack a pb&j sandwich for afterwords (have you seen how expensive the lunch places are around those municipal buildings?) I didn't get courthouse married because it was cheap. I got courthouse married because I didn't want all the hassle. The cheap part was just a bonus.
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Sep 18, 2014 03:06
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:I didn't get courthouse married because it was cheap. I got courthouse married because I didn't want all the hassle. The cheap part was just a bonus. Rick Rickshaw posted:The deeper I get into maximizing my financial efficiency, the more I begin to understand the courthouse wedding. I don't really give a tin poo poo about having an ostentatious wedding, but as my GF says (whose dream wedding would otherwise be a quickie in Vegas), the wedding's not so much for the bride and groom, it's for family and friends to come together and celebrate. My family is quite small (I have my parents, one surviving grandparent as of last month, a sister, a handful of aunts and uncles, and literally one cousin), but they'd still be really hurt if I did a courthouse wedding, and I think a lot of my good friends would be really disappointed too. None of them are the kind who'd demand a big spectacle and all that, but not having some kind of ceremony and reception is just unthinkable, much as both of us would kinda rather not*. Yes, it's our wedding, but we're also both people who have lots of other people who care about us, and that comes with some obligations. * Not that either of us is super opposed to it, but I assume that she and I are going to have to pay for our whole thing out of pocket, and both of us would much rather spend that money to travel somewhere together (we'll probably both be grad students, so that money could really be used elsewhere).
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Sep 18, 2014 03:52
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Dr. Eldarion posted:Depending on the city hall, it's possibly waaaay nicer than any other typical wedding venue. Here's San Francisco's: My friend had his wedding here (he's still having a wedding ceremony, but in another country). It is definitely nice, but don't plan on it being empty like that. You can definitely find places upstairs to take pictures in private...
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Sep 18, 2014 03:53
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Strong Sauce posted:My friend had his wedding here (he's still having a wedding ceremony, but in another country). It is definitely nice, but don't plan on it being empty like that. You can definitely find places upstairs to take pictures in private... For my friends' wedding this summer, about 15 of us all met in the rotunda of the Texas state capitol building. We went upstairs and found an empty room/hall just off the rotunda mezzanine, and I performed the ceremony in about 5 minutes tops. About 20 minutes of various group photos inside and some of the couple outside followed, then we all went back to their apartment for beer, BBQ, and cake all bought at Whole Foods instead of catered. Totally the way to go. I hope the girl I meet in the future doesn't want too much more than this (though I admit I wouldn't mind using my cousin's mega mansion in San Antonio and its amazing rear courtyard as our venue if the opportunity presents itself).
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Sep 18, 2014 05:34
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Dr. Eldarion posted:Depending on the city hall, it's possibly waaaay nicer than any other typical wedding venue. Here's San Francisco's: You know its going to be full of people the entire time though right? They don't serve the same purpose at all.
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Sep 18, 2014 06:12
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For those decrying the cost of big weddings, there's also the issue of wedding gifts that offset the final result. With my friends and family, it's a social norm for us to give monetary gifts instead of physical gifts at weddings. We didn't need money given to us to afford our wedding, but we ended up receiving around 70% of the cost of our wedding back in cash. We also give monetary gifts whenever possible for weddings, and account for the money spent as part of our entertainment budget. We'll adjust the amount given based on perceived wedding cost, and how close of friends or family we are. I don't think it's fair to consider all big expensive weddings as people being bad with money. Sure we could have had simple wedding that didn't cost a bunch of money, but to us it seemed everyone enjoyed themselves in a big social and cultural event and it seemed like everyone was willing to pay a premium for it. The picture for us didn't turn out as simple as "we paid this much money, had a party and got a certificate at the end".
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Sep 18, 2014 06:23
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Even planned, its bad with money. If I was saving and could afford it and had it all planned out that I was going to take a bath in $3500 a can Caviar, and blow $60k, its still bad with money. Its money that could have went towards other things like..feeding people.
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Sep 18, 2014 07:13
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Jastiger posted:Even planned, its bad with money. If I was saving and could afford it and had it all planned out that I was going to take a bath in $3500 a can Caviar, and blow $60k, its still bad with money. Its money that could have went towards other things like..feeding people. Hahahaha holy poo poo
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Sep 18, 2014 07:19
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Magic Underwear posted:You know its going to be full of people the entire time though right? They don't serve the same purpose at all. You'd be surprised. I've been there a few times and it's always been completely empty. The actual businessy going-ons happen to various rooms off to the sides and back, so nobody really has a reason to congregate in the big beautiful room. While wedding gifts are on topic, there's always room to talk about pressuring other people to be bad with money. It's ridiculously annoying browsing someone's registry and seeing things for 3x the price that they sell for at places that aren't deliberately trying to rip you off. You know that these people would never normally pay $20 for a single dinner plate or buy a $150 cheese board, but somehow when it's other people buying them for you that makes it okay. I don't know why everyone doesn't just register at Amazon so they can get twice the amount of stuff with a far wider variety and still save their friends and family money. I just hate everything about weddings in general I guess, but the THIS IS OUR SPECIAL DAY WHO CARES IF WE SPEND $75,000 IT'S WORTH IT attitude drives me nuts. Go barebones and have a backyard BBQ that everyone will enjoy much more because they won't have to sit still and silent in uncomfortable clothing for an hour, and then afterwards have way better food than receptions ever have and put the money you would have spent on the wedding towards going on a breathtakingly amazing honeymoon. Dr. Eldarion fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 07:23
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HystericFactor posted:For those decrying the cost of big weddings, there's also the issue of wedding gifts that offset the final result. And sometimes you don't get that 70% back. Sometimes your guests get you that cheap-o toaster that was on sale at Walmart. or that really tacky, single-use kitchen tool from Williams Sonoma. And I'm not shaming them for doing that, because it's not like they told you to splurge on a wedding. Now, don't get me wrong- if you're loaded and have a lot of money sitting around, sure. Go ahead. Go crazy on your wedding day. But if you're not part of that crowd (and who're we kidding- most of us aren't) an extravagant wedding is a very silly thing to spend money on. At the end of the day, it's usually families just trying to show off and one-up each other. I've done credit applications for people who wanted to take out $20,000 credit lines for weddings. I've even had clients cash out their retirement savings early (with hefty penalties) to help cover the cost of their lovely daughter's wedding at the local winery. That's bananas. melon cat fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 07:42
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Magic Underwear posted:You know its going to be full of people the entire time though right? They don't serve the same purpose at all. We had a reception for 40 people on the relative cheap and it still cost a few grand. But our rehearsal dinner was hot dogs at a Giants game, so whatever. Worth it. No regrets. Unlike all the DVDs (and widescreen VHS before that) I bought in the late 90s. Ugh, talk about bad with money.
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Sep 18, 2014 08:33
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Jastiger posted:Even planned, its bad with money. If I was saving and could afford it and had it all planned out that I was going to take a bath in $3500 a can Caviar, and blow $60k, its still bad with money. Its money that could have went towards other things like..feeding people. I hope you live on rice and steamed beans only, anything more is a waste of money. And what are you doing on the internet? That's a frivolous expense if there ever was one!
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Sep 18, 2014 08:52
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Luckily I'm the third of three in my family, so it's a case of been there done that. Oldest sister had the big wedding locally. I don't think they went into debt for it, but they definitely didn't have any money left over afterwards and have struggled to get ahead financially ever since. Threw a huge wedding, plus a $10k+ engagement ring while still having student loans to pay off. Next sister did a Vegas wedding, so definitely cheaper. Not as many people, for starters. Now hopefully the girl I meet won't have any grand wedding plans.
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Sep 18, 2014 11:16
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Pompous Rhombus posted:the wedding's not so much for the bride and groom, it's for family and friends to come together and celebrate. I did the courthouse for my first marriage. Our reasoning was that while her family was local, mine were 2000 miles away and that it would be expensive for them to fly out, find lodging, etc. And that the wedding planning itself would be expensive and stressful. Her family was fine with it but mine apparently wasn't as my mother (with our permission) organized a wedding celebration get-together when we came to visit for the holidays. It clearly meant more to my family than I knew. So for my second, our families were closer and we paid for a wedding. However, we did it on our own terms, renting out a state park pavilion, had a JOP officiate, catered a meal of sandwiches and salads, cake, and bought out own booze and flowers. We enlisted our families to help setup and tear down. Planning and organizing it ourselves was a little stressful, but it came out great, everybody had a great time and was happy to celebrate. For 50 people we spent around $5000 which was well within our means.
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Sep 18, 2014 13:31
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Rudager posted:I hope you live on rice and steamed beans only, anything more is a waste of money. I'm actually a Tibetan monk and am posting this from the annual WiFi merchant. I just agree with other posters thay it may not be bad with money in that it's ruining your finances (though often it is), I'm just saying that it's still a bad woth money in that the money is often just an ostentatious show of wealth, and those are often by their nature bad with money.
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Sep 18, 2014 13:55
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melon cat posted:And sometimes you don't get that 70% back. Sometimes your guests get you that cheap-o toaster that was on sale at Walmart. or that really tacky, single-use kitchen tool from Williams Sonoma. And I'm not shaming them for doing that, because it's not like they told you to splurge on a wedding. In a lot of cultures, money is basically the thing you give at a wedding.
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Sep 18, 2014 14:09
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Pompous Rhombus posted:In a lot of cultures, money is basically the thing you give at a wedding. This is what we do where I live, I think because of the immigrants coming here in the early part of the 20th century. Anyway, it loving rules. I don't have to look at a gift registry full of stupid poo poo that nobody really wants, I just cut a cheque. Ground floor on that is about a hundred bucks, goes up based on how well I know the couple and can edge downward if they don't have an open bar. We also crowd-source our weddings with a fundraising party ahead of time. The couple rents a legion hall, charges ten bucks to get in and everyone drink for cheap all night long. The couple raises a few grand for the wedding, or more if their friends drink heavily. Lot of people from other places see this all as really tacky, we don't care if it is. It's great in smaller rural places because it gives the entire community a reason to get drunk together down at the legion instead of getting drunk alone in their house. Bigger centres don't have as much a need of that, but these parties offer liquor much cheaper than at a bar. I'm not sure where the tradition arose, but it wouldn't surprise me if they have roots in circumventing some puritanical liquor laws in the last century.
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Sep 18, 2014 14:54
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I worked with an Indian dude who was from the upper caste of their society. He was by no means ostentatious (didn't wear gold jewelry or designer clothes and was generally a pretty humble guy. However, boy do they go crazy for weddings. He told me it's common and expected for upper-class Indians to spend 7 figures (yes, over a million US dollars) on weddings with 2,000+ guests where festivities last for a week or longer. Although I guess people who drop a mil+ on weddings probably aren't putting it on a credit card. It kind of puts it in perspective 
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Sep 18, 2014 15:37
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Old Fart posted:Anybody who's been married can tell you that you're not paying attention to ANYTHING during the actual ceremony except for HOLY poo poo I'M GETTING MARRIED. There could be a parade going by and you wouldn't notice. Maybe the wedding party noticed people going by, but I sure as hell didn't. Pretty much this. We paid the magistrate $20, took a few close friends out for drinks, then had a semi-fancy dinner (just the two of us). Then we walked around downtown at night talking until the parking garage attendant left.  I imagine I could've spent $30k and all I still would have been thinking during the ceremony is HOLY poo poo I'M GETTING MARRIED. Considering people are still sending us gifts (even though we said it wasn't remotely necessary), our wedding is actually going to be quite profitable. I think honestly for many people, getting married this way would be Bad With Money because it would have been disappointing and upsetting. I think for us, though, it would have been Bad With Money to spend more, because it wouldn't have made us happier. On the other hand, I have a friend who recently got married. I "helped" her pick out her dress, which cost IIRC about $2000. I don't know the total cost of her wedding, but I know she spend another $1500 on flowers, and had three receptions: one near where they live with their friends, one near his family, one near hers. I know they rented venues for each one and had to borrow money to cover the cost, and then they went on a multiple week honeymoon to some tropical island. She works retail at a big box store, and probably makes like $10/hour, and she's paying off student loans from her degree. He's enlisted military. Their families aren't remotely wealthy. WHYYYYYY I can't even pretend to get it 
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Sep 18, 2014 15:47
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Dr. Eldarion posted:While wedding gifts are on topic, there's always room to talk about pressuring other people to be bad with money. It's ridiculously annoying browsing someone's registry and seeing things for 3x the price that they sell for at places that aren't deliberately trying to rip you off. You know that these people would never normally pay $20 for a single dinner plate or buy a $150 cheese board, but somehow when it's other people buying them for you that makes it okay. I don't know why everyone doesn't just register at Amazon so they can get twice the amount of stuff with a far wider variety and still save their friends and family money. Funnily enough I was telling my wife to do her gift registry at Amazon for her baby shower, and when my mother-in-law heard me say it she started to fight me on it saying that doesn't matter yada yada. She just wants to go shopping. Our parents on both sides are awful with money and we're hosed when they get old. 
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Sep 18, 2014 16:41
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My Ex's brother got married a few years ago. He'd just finished teachers' college and had started working as a teacher, she was on her way into an MBA program. Both of them were astoundingly in student debt: he had 150k, her, 100k. Solution: $50,000 wedding, preceded by their honeymoon, which involved travelling around South East Asia for 6 weeks, which I think ran them $10,000 in flights, etc. So she defers the MBA program so they can live together as husband and wife for a while. A year later she goes off to MBA school, meets a guy first week of school and falls for him, telling her husband this a few weeks later: their divorce was finalized exactly two years to the day of the wedding. The girlfriend and I have agreed that when we do get married it'll be a super cheap ceremony (city hall, preferably), and taking any funds we'd have spent on the wedding towards a downpayment for our first house together. My ex's brother's experience is a major contributory factor behind this.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:42
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If only there were an option, some sort of middle ground, between $100 and $50,000 weddings  Eternal debt or exclude my extended family... Screwed either way!
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Sep 18, 2014 17:04
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olylifter posted:My Ex's brother got married a few years ago. He'd just finished teachers' college and had started working as a teacher, she was on her way into an MBA program. Both of them were astoundingly in student debt: he had 150k, her, 100k. Solution: $50,000 wedding, preceded by their honeymoon, which involved travelling around South East Asia for 6 weeks, which I think ran them $10,000 in flights, etc. Now that is some apex-level bad life decisions. 
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Sep 18, 2014 17:17
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Thesaurus posted:If only there were an option, some sort of middle ground, between $100 and $50,000 weddings The middle ground is a $25k wedding! 
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Sep 18, 2014 18:14
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Now that is some apex-level bad life decisions. Nah, 2 years is enough time to have kids as well. Fortunately they seem to have missed that boat.
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Sep 18, 2014 18:41
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Still on my honeymoon but I wanted to pop in for wedding chat We had small families so it ended up being like 40 people total. Morning ceremony was on the beach, then we spent all day beachside eating BBQ and flying kites and having fun with family and friends. Cocktail party at my house for coworkers and other friends who couldn't make it. Total cost so far is under $5000 and that includes rings, honeymoon in Maui, a $1k photographer(!). We were at dinner last night trying to think of how we would spend $30k on a wedding and we decided we would buy everybody an hour of jet fighter pilot lessons.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:13
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I don't really give a tin poo poo about having an ostentatious wedding, but as my GF says (whose dream wedding would otherwise be a quickie in Vegas), the wedding's not so much for the bride and groom, it's for family and friends to come together and celebrate. Eh, this is getting into cultural values territory, but I think the one day you should get to do what you want regardless of if there is a few hurt feelings, it's your wedding. It's literally impossible to plan a group event of that size that pleases everyone, you're going to have some people feeling awkward or unhappy with something anyway - might as well do what YOU would like rather than what they want. If they have their own plans for how the day should go, they can use them at their own wedding. If your friends really get upset and want to celebrate your union, tell them you're really excited for that BBQ they are planning. I don't get why 'my friends would want to celebrate it' translates to 'so I must pay for a party for all of them'. Right now I am in the midst of prepping for my best friend's wedding and I am bending over backwards to make it what she wants it to be, in part because it is shockingly sad how many people are barreling in with their dumb opinions on how HER wedding should go. gently caress off assholes! You're not the ones payin' for all the food and booze! Watching her go through all of it has convinced me to elope. It's my 5th wedding this year and the 2nd one I am in the bridal party for, and I am starting to think weddings are some sort of cultural group torture we all inflinct upon one another. I have already told her that I am just going to show up one day with a ring and that's that, I'll be married. She is sad, but she understands that if I am willing to get loving whiplash from a rollercoaster on her bachlorette party (this actually happened), she can do me the service of letting my wedding be mine and mine alone. I'm sure your friends would understand as well. The poiny of this derail is to say it's me, I am bad with money because I helped plan her bachlorette party in Atlantic City and it turned out to be on the same weekend of the Miss America pageant. $400 hotel room for a single goddamned night. gently caress. StrangersInTheNight fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 19:53
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I think my wife and I had the right mindset for our wedding. We said all along that we were throwing a kickass party that we just happened to get married at the beginning. It helped us keep the focus on our guests having a good time, and not making people suffer through traditions that suck (bouquet toss, chicken dance, etc.). I had many of our guests tell me that ours was the most fun they've had at a wedding. Free booze, good food, an awesome DJ, and no downtime will do that.
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Sep 18, 2014 20:11
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Nocheez posted:I think my wife and I had the right mindset for our wedding. We said all along that we were throwing a kickass party that we just happened to get married at the beginning. It helped us keep the focus on our guests having a good time, and not making people suffer through traditions that suck (bouquet toss, chicken dance, etc.). As a guest, these are the best weddings, and thankfully most of my friends that have recently gotten married have followed this approach. A nice but brief (less than 1 hour) ceremony at the beginning, then reception/drinks, dinner, then open party/dancing/etc for the rest of the evening. None of the stupid scripted events, no terrible emcee dictating the what everyone should be doing, just a nice fun party with all the friends and family. I would ballpark most of them in the 5-15k range, and they've all been way way better weddings than the couple of 20k+ ridiculous weddings I've been to.
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