Save. Spend. Splurge.

I totally get why guys are always so cheap for weddings

I’ve watched my fair share of “Rich Bride, Poor Bride” shows, and the overwhelming majority of guys are the cheap ones on the show, whereas the women tend to want to spend extravagantly for their special day.

Men, I totally understand why you’re so ‘cheap’ for a wedding!

If it makes any of you feel any better, as a woman, I have skipped this whole marriage + wedding thing and went straight to having a baby, which was what I really wanted and dreamed about in life, not some big day where I am stuffed into a big white poofy dress.

YOU HAVEN’T BEEN BRAINWASHED SINCE YOUNG

Disney movies targeted towards little girls tend to always center around romance, and there is no better film than Cinderella that embodies this, or basically any royal wedding that hits the papers.

kate-middleton-marriage-dress-wedding

Many a little girl has been swept up into this indoctrination from the time we first see a hint of pink, glitter, sparkles and designing our perfect wedding ring and dress.

I was not immune to this!

I remember drawing out a perfect white dress, designing rings.. bla bla bla.

I do not know what went wrong between the time I was 5, into big white dresses and unicorns to having skipped all of that and wanting to avoid all of it by the time I hit my mid-20s.

IT IS A LOT OF MONEY FOR A SINGLE DAY – around $30,000!

Average cost of a wedding in the U.S.: $28,082

…and it was $65,000 on average in New York.

Average cost of wedding in Canada: $23,330

Source / Source

Aside from buying a house, a car (where you actually get something tangible at the end), $30,000 for a memory is a lot of money.

WHERE DOES ALL THE MONEY GO FOR ONE DAY?

For me, I see that $30,000 as a hefty amount of money that could go to so many better things. I just can’t justify the cost of a wedding even to myself.

CATEGORY AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
Attire & Accessories $1,600 5.40%
Beauty & Spa $130 0.44%
Entertainment $1,300 4.38%
Flowers & Decorations $1,800 6.07%
Gifts & Favors $800 2.70%
Invitations $800 2.70%
Jewelry $4,500 15.18%
Photography & Video $2,800 9.44%
Planner Consultant $1,250 4.22%
Transportation $400 1.35%
Venue, Catering & Rentals $10,500 35.41%
Marriage License $70 0.24%
Honeymoon $3,700 12.48%
TOTAL $29,650

Source

And all that stuff above is considered necessary, by the way.

PARENTS ARE NO LONGER ON THE HOOK TO PAY

In the past, parents paid for all of this.

Then again, they may not have paid for a big bash or a party, they probably just went to the church, got married with whatever was available there as decoration and so on, and then had a simple dinner at a quiet venue, where your family members made the cake and provided the food.

If your parents were willing to pay for a wedding, of course you’d get married!! You’d get to keep all the money and gifts that come your way, but no cash went out from your pocket for the day.

When it’s you paying, it becomes a hard pill to swallow when you’re trying to start your life.

Maybe you want to buy a house, move to another city, buy a car, have kids.. it all costs money and then you have to also pay for the big day all on your own?

DOES ANYONE REALLY REMEMBER THEIR WEDDING DAY IN DETAIL, YEARS LATER?

If you ever listen to videos of people talking about what they spent on their wedding 10, 20, 30 years ago, many can’t even remember what cake they had, what the colours were, the invitations, the dress..

They honestly can’t remember a damn thing.

All they remember is what happened on the day — they got married — and any mishaps or things that were funny or awkward that happened.

Does anyone really remember anything else?

More to the point, does anyone really re-watch their $2000 wedding videos?

I can see looking at wedding photos once in a while, but for me it is akin to video taping the birth of children — who is going to watch that video again!?

(Yes, you can be 100% sure there will be no videotape that exists of any birthing going on in my world.)

HAVE THE BEST WEDDING EVER, BUT THINK ABOUT WHAT REALLY MATTERS IN THE END

All that said, it can be of great comfort to spend on a wedding because ultimately, it is an ‘experience’ akin to traveling where you spend a lot of money on a day that means a lot to you.

…. but all I am saying is to think hard about what you really want to get out of it in the end, and for me, that would be to be married at the end of the day and joining your life with someone else.

Anyway, it sounds odd but as a woman I am happy I skipped all of that.

I’m not against marriage or weddings, and I think it’s great that people are so happy when they do get married, engaged and have the best wedding in the world but I am just not one of those folks.

WHAT SAY YOU, MARRIED OR UNMARRIED FOLK!?

14 Comments

  • heidi patterson

    I had the big, floofy wedding. I did not want the big floofy wedding, but my parents were paying for it so I didn’t have much say. (I wanted to go to the courthouse and then call from my favorite restaurant and have people meet us there. My mother said “You can’t do that to me! You can’t take away MY wedding!) I was the last of my mom’s group of friends to get married (I was an ancient – ha! – 27) and she wanted “payback” for all the help she had put in to their daughters weddings. I tried to keep it as inexpensive as possible. My dress was under $400 (I still cringe at that), my bridesmaids dresses were $37.50 each, we had 12 cheesecakes instead of one wedding cake and it was under $250 for 350 people. (Yes, you read that right. Of that, abt 30 were our friends. The rest were my husband’s family or my mom’s friends). The day before the wedding, my mom said “I should have just given you the money! It would have been cheaper!” But we’re going on 16 years of marriage so I guess we did something right.

  • Krystina

    My first wedding had all the bells and whistles and my marriage lasted 3 years. My second wedding cost almost nothing and we are going on 30 years together. Go figure!

  • Elisa

    We eloped since I got freaked out about planning the details for the wedding. It’s so much work picking out venue, dress, and food and I just can’t and don’t want to deal with it. Haha, my ideal wedding would have been big and elegant but really, laziness won in the end. So it’s just a quick ceremony in the park with the two of us and our parents and bam, just like that, we are married.

  • The Luxe Strategist

    I questioned whether or not to have a wedding, too. At the end of the day, we decided to have a small wedding with the people we care the most about. SO and I are really private people (no selfies on social media), especially about our relationship, and a wedding seemed like a way to finally recognize and express how we feel about each other. We would have done a city hall thing, but I thought how sad I’d be if we didn’t get to do our vows in front of ppl. Plus, it’s the ONLY time you can get family and friends together in one room, which feels pretty special to me.

    TLDR – While weddings don’t make financial sense, we decided to do it, anyway. Also spending way less than 65k for a NYC weddings. There’s a huge spectrum of what a “nice” wedding looks like.

  • Kathy

    Forty years ago my husband and I got married by a judge at the courthouse. Actually the courtroom was set up similar to a church. Only closest family was present. The judge wore his robes and it didn’t cost us thing for that part. We went back to my husband’s apartment and had cake and drinks and opened gifts, then we all went to a buffet restaurant for lunch. My dress was $28 and hubby wore a suit he already had. The cost of the buffet was $100 and each set of parents contributed $50 toward the cost. I too, had a fairytale dream of my dress and even had a picture of the perfect one torn from a brides’ magazine. But ultimately we both wanted to buy a house instead of spend a lot of money on the wedding, so it worked out perfectly when we moved into our house 2 weeks later. No regrets ever.

  • raluca

    Actually, after 9 years, we both remember the cake :)!

    Mostly because we went for a cake tasting spree before the wedding :). You know, just to be absolutely sure that we will get the best one, not because it was an excellent excuse for cake eating.

    We do not regret spending money on our wedding but also we would also not be any less married if we had no party and no cake. Marriage is so much more than just the first day.

  • Robert

    We wont marry in the church, but we will celebrate the marriage in our garden, with our best friends. Its gonna be awesome and simple.

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