5 ms·

I wonder how much cost plays in, I mean, my fiancée and I are adult middle class millennials and we’ve been saving for two years to have a wedding, and we’re pl

I wonder how much cost plays in, I mean, my fiancée and I are adult middle class millennials and we’ve been saving for two years to have a wedding, and we’re planning a relatively cheap one.

thaumasiotes 8y ago
> we’ve been saving for two years to have a wedding, and we’re planning a relatively cheap one The second part here is in conflict with the first part...
- draw_down 8y ago
  No it isn't
- pastor_elm 8y ago
  An upper middle-class wedding on the coasts at any venue goes for a minimum of 30k. A really cheap wedding is just having in your back yard with a keg, but I don't think the OP is talking about that. A nice wedding with all your college buddies, looking at 100k.
  - icedchai 8y ago
    I had a cousin who had a wedding costing 250K+.
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      There are only two good reasons to do that: - You earn your living based on social connections to rich people, making the wedding a business expense. - $250,000 was pocket change that you happened to have on hand. If you had to save money in order to pay $250K for your wedding, that was a large and obvious mistake.
      - icedchai 8y ago
        Well, my uncle / her dad paid for it. Her dad is very wealthy (likely close to $10M USD net worth.) The sad thing: she got divorced 3 years later.
  - quirkot 8y ago
    I assume you people are all in the heart of San Francisco or something, but that is still legit insane. [edit] Also, I don't think you can still call a wedding "upper-middle class" if it's 6 digits. Holy moly. I'm shook
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      An Indian wedding in Southern California can easily cost $120k+ given the number of attendees, the sizes of the venues required, the food, the white horse...
  - monksy 8y ago
    That's a good idea. Kegs are about $160/170 if you get the good stuff.
  - anoonmoose 8y ago
    Yeah, I dunno about that. I'm in the middle of planning a wedding at a nice theater [1], catered, open bar, with a band, for 150 people, and even if we run 50% over our current expected costs we'll be under $30K. New England if that matters. [1] https://www.pinterest.com/palacetheater/royal-weddings-at-the-palace/ https://www.pinterest.com/palacetheater/royal-weddings-at-th...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
gascan 8y ago
Fights about finances are known to be one of the top causes of divorce.
jandrese 8y ago
The wedding industry is a giant racket. It's so hard not to get ripped off when trying to plan for a wedding.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  The real racket isn't in ripping people off for services, but that everyone needs these services. Weddings used to be relatively private affairs. Costs were far less. Churches provided services to parishioners and associated gatherings were at family houses. Today we are expected to purchase everything. Take wedding dresses. They were not always white. Brides bought expensive dresses, but they would expect to use them for many years to come. Even Kings and Queens would use their wedding clothes many times. The recent switch to white made them single-use garments. That freed them to become very expensive and elaborate.
  - jandrese 8y ago
    That and there is a huge marketing effort aimed at girls of all ages telling them what a "dream wedding" should look like, and it's not a bunch of lawn chairs in your back yard and a potluck. They're also constantly reminded that the wedding is their day, nobody else should be telling them what it should look like. The one good thing is that when people get divorced and remarried the second wedding is almost always a much smaller and more intimate affair. Nothing breaks the spell like living through planning and executing a "dream wedding".
    - JadeNB 8y ago
      > They're also constantly reminded that the wedding is their day, nobody else should be telling them what it should look like. There is a special kind of (evil) genius in the advertising "Your wedding is your day, so let us tell you what you truly want, and don't let anyone else disagree." (It reminds me of the old "Distrust unsolicited advice. Except this time.")
  - JadeNB 8y ago
    > The real racket isn't in ripping people off for services, but that everyone needs these services. Weddings used to be relatively private affairs. Costs were far less. Churches provided services to parishioners and associated gatherings were at family houses. Today we are expected to purchase everything. I disagree that everyone needs these services, only that, as you say, many people expect to provide (or that their marrying friends will provide) these services. Weddings still can be private affairs, and associated gatherings can still be at family houses. (The bit about churches is outside an individual's control, I agree.) As yters commented (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18068728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18068728), some people's weddings are still quite affordable.
pastor_elm 8y ago
what's cheap? 70k?
- justtopost 8y ago
  Idk, most of the more memorable I have attended were maybe a few grand. Mostly for the venue and bar, with friends and family helping out. The impersonal 100k affairs are embarrasing to attend pesrsonally. I have friends still eatig ramen, living in debt, and fighting bitterly over finances thanks to a 'dream wedding' that a majority of their actual friends couldn't even afford to attend. To call it depressing is to undersell the effect in my eyes.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  NO, 70k is not cheap! 2k is cheap. The point of a wedding is to publicly (and legally) commit yourselves to each other - to tell yourselves, and everybody else, that you are now off limits for everyone except each other. Everything else is fluff, and the fluff disappears. I've been married for 28 years. Much of the fluff is gone. The wedding cake is long gone. The developer lost our honeymoon pictures (28 years ago was still in the era of film cameras). The building we got married in has been torn down. I lost my wedding ring. But our marriage is still here.
- sidstling 8y ago
  $3900 is our max target, but we could buy a second car for that.
yters 8y ago
My parents got married in a friend's house and they had the reception in the backyard with friends playing music. I think the wedding cost like $100 or something. Unclear why modern weddings have to be so expensive. Mine definitely was overpriced.
- Zimahl 8y ago
  Weddings became a market to manipulate just like any other. From the rings to the honeymoon, everything has been commoditized, including an entire industry that perpetuates the 'ideal' (magazines, pinterest, etc.). What used to be private, family-only affairs has now morphed into a 'need' to invite 200 or so people you don't know and feed them so they give you gifts.
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    From https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480 "we find evidence that marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony"
    - yters 8y ago
      My theory is large expense is a sign of lack of family and social network involvement. Without a strong support network, marriages will run into problems.
malyk 8y ago
My wife and I had an amazing wedding for $5000. Certainly that isn’t necessarily an easy amount to save for everyone, but a wedding is one (or so) day(s) in a lifetime. Don’t spend much on it. Use your savings for longer term and more impactful things (down payment on a house or car, college education, retirement, etc)
txsoftwaredev 8y ago
"Controlling for a number of demographic and relationship characteristics, we find evidence that marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony." https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/13/living/wedding-expenses-study/ https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/13/living/wedding-expenses-study... https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480
neogodless 8y ago
My advice? Don't have a relatively cheap wedding. Have a _cheap_ wedding. (Do not waste two years of your life making money that you blow on 6 hours of rituals.) Our wedding cost less than $1000 (near Philadelphia, so HCOL area), and is described by friends as "beautiful" and "one of my all-time favorites."
- magic_beans 8y ago
  How did you pull that off?
  - bluGill 8y ago
    The court house needed $70 for the license. A friend did the ceremony (One benefit of Freedom of religion in the US is there are religions with one belief: people should be married. They will ordain anyone who shared that belief to be a priest to perform marriages for $20, and then help you get certified to perform a marriage in whatever state you want to perform a marriage in). You need two witnesses, and they are traditionally not paid. In short, you need 5 people and $70, and 1 of those 5 needs to do something special that might cost money (but he can do for more friends) Everything not in the above list is optional. Grandma's backyard is free, or pay for something more if you want. You can invite just the 5, or 10,000 people. You can serve food or not. You can have rain plans or get wet. You can have live music, a dj, a friend with a ipod, or no music. You can have special fancy outfits or whatever you came out of the barn with. You can have photos or not. You can have a nice honeymoon or not. I set my budget. I stayed within my budget. I didn't have some things most people do. I did some things that most people do not. I spent more on the honeymoon than the wedding and I'm glad I did. Your values and budget will be different, that is your choice. BTW, for parents I suggest you give a set amount several months in advance and tell the couple "whatever is leftover is for the honeymoon - have you thought about eloping?"
  - neogodless 8y ago
    First, the "cheating!" - family and friends helped us with food prep and photography - in-laws donated food and some drinks - family friend made us a cake and other baked goods - borrowed chairs from workplace - in-laws provided a venue for the after party (their house!) Now, the expenses - #1 expense was the officiant - rented a park pavilion on a hillside overlooking a lake ($125) - alcohol and drinks - flowers (low cost) and decorations (local party store) - some homemade decorations - custom table gifts We got lucky on the weather (that's my superpower) - a perfect, dry 80F day. The wedding ceremony was under a tree with chairs for the immediate family, and only lasted about 5 minutes. The reception was in a nearby pavilion with additional tables and chairs added. We didn't have alcohol at the park - we migrated to my in-laws for that. Any downsides? - I wouldn't have minded having someone with DJ experience there to keep things on schedule, and get people dancing - Along with the above, I would've liked to move to the after-party a little sooner. Drinks help people loosen up ;)

I wonder how much cost plays in, I mean, my fiancée and I are adult middle class millennials and we’ve been saving for two years to have a wedding, and we’re planning a relatively cheap one.

thaumasiotes 8y ago

> we’ve been saving for two years to have a wedding, and we’re planning a relatively cheap one The second part here is in conflict with the first part...

draw_down 8y ago
No it isn't
pastor_elm 8y ago
An upper middle-class wedding on the coasts at any venue goes for a minimum of 30k. A really cheap wedding is just having in your back yard with a keg, but I don't think the OP is talking about that. A nice wedding with all your college buddies, looking at 100k.
- icedchai 8y ago
  I had a cousin who had a wedding costing 250K+.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    There are only two good reasons to do that: - You earn your living based on social connections to rich people, making the wedding a business expense. - $250,000 was pocket change that you happened to have on hand. If you had to save money in order to pay $250K for your wedding, that was a large and obvious mistake.
    - icedchai 8y ago
      Well, my uncle / her dad paid for it. Her dad is very wealthy (likely close to $10M USD net worth.) The sad thing: she got divorced 3 years later.
- quirkot 8y ago
  I assume you people are all in the heart of San Francisco or something, but that is still legit insane. [edit] Also, I don't think you can still call a wedding "upper-middle class" if it's 6 digits. Holy moly. I'm shook
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    An Indian wedding in Southern California can easily cost $120k+ given the number of attendees, the sizes of the venues required, the food, the white horse...
- monksy 8y ago
  That's a good idea. Kegs are about $160/170 if you get the good stuff.
- anoonmoose 8y ago
  Yeah, I dunno about that. I'm in the middle of planning a wedding at a nice theater [1], catered, open bar, with a band, for 150 people, and even if we run 50% over our current expected costs we'll be under $30K. New England if that matters. [1] https://www.pinterest.com/palacetheater/royal-weddings-at-the-palace/ https://www.pinterest.com/palacetheater/royal-weddings-at-th...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

gascan 8y ago

Fights about finances are known to be one of the top causes of divorce.

jandrese 8y ago

The wedding industry is a giant racket. It's so hard not to get ripped off when trying to plan for a wedding.

sandworm101 8y ago
The real racket isn't in ripping people off for services, but that everyone needs these services. Weddings used to be relatively private affairs. Costs were far less. Churches provided services to parishioners and associated gatherings were at family houses. Today we are expected to purchase everything. Take wedding dresses. They were not always white. Brides bought expensive dresses, but they would expect to use them for many years to come. Even Kings and Queens would use their wedding clothes many times. The recent switch to white made them single-use garments. That freed them to become very expensive and elaborate.
- jandrese 8y ago
  That and there is a huge marketing effort aimed at girls of all ages telling them what a "dream wedding" should look like, and it's not a bunch of lawn chairs in your back yard and a potluck. They're also constantly reminded that the wedding is their day, nobody else should be telling them what it should look like. The one good thing is that when people get divorced and remarried the second wedding is almost always a much smaller and more intimate affair. Nothing breaks the spell like living through planning and executing a "dream wedding".
  - JadeNB 8y ago
    > They're also constantly reminded that the wedding is their day, nobody else should be telling them what it should look like. There is a special kind of (evil) genius in the advertising "Your wedding is your day, so let us tell you what you truly want, and don't let anyone else disagree." (It reminds me of the old "Distrust unsolicited advice. Except this time.")
- JadeNB 8y ago
  > The real racket isn't in ripping people off for services, but that everyone needs these services. Weddings used to be relatively private affairs. Costs were far less. Churches provided services to parishioners and associated gatherings were at family houses. Today we are expected to purchase everything. I disagree that everyone needs these services, only that, as you say, many people expect to provide (or that their marrying friends will provide) these services. Weddings still can be private affairs, and associated gatherings can still be at family houses. (The bit about churches is outside an individual's control, I agree.) As yters commented (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18068728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18068728), some people's weddings are still quite affordable.

pastor_elm 8y ago

what's cheap? 70k?

justtopost 8y ago
Idk, most of the more memorable I have attended were maybe a few grand. Mostly for the venue and bar, with friends and family helping out. The impersonal 100k affairs are embarrasing to attend pesrsonally. I have friends still eatig ramen, living in debt, and fighting bitterly over finances thanks to a 'dream wedding' that a majority of their actual friends couldn't even afford to attend. To call it depressing is to undersell the effect in my eyes.
AnimalMuppet 8y ago
NO, 70k is not cheap! 2k is cheap. The point of a wedding is to publicly (and legally) commit yourselves to each other - to tell yourselves, and everybody else, that you are now off limits for everyone except each other. Everything else is fluff, and the fluff disappears. I've been married for 28 years. Much of the fluff is gone. The wedding cake is long gone. The developer lost our honeymoon pictures (28 years ago was still in the era of film cameras). The building we got married in has been torn down. I lost my wedding ring. But our marriage is still here.
sidstling 8y ago
$3900 is our max target, but we could buy a second car for that.

yters 8y ago

My parents got married in a friend's house and they had the reception in the backyard with friends playing music. I think the wedding cost like $100 or something. Unclear why modern weddings have to be so expensive. Mine definitely was overpriced.

Zimahl 8y ago
Weddings became a market to manipulate just like any other. From the rings to the honeymoon, everything has been commoditized, including an entire industry that perpetuates the 'ideal' (magazines, pinterest, etc.). What used to be private, family-only affairs has now morphed into a 'need' to invite 200 or so people you don't know and feed them so they give you gifts.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  From https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480 "we find evidence that marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony"
  - yters 8y ago
    My theory is large expense is a sign of lack of family and social network involvement. Without a strong support network, marriages will run into problems.

malyk 8y ago

My wife and I had an amazing wedding for $5000. Certainly that isn’t necessarily an easy amount to save for everyone, but a wedding is one (or so) day(s) in a lifetime. Don’t spend much on it. Use your savings for longer term and more impactful things (down payment on a house or car, college education, retirement, etc)

txsoftwaredev 8y ago

"Controlling for a number of demographic and relationship characteristics, we find evidence that marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony." https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/13/living/wedding-expenses-study/ https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/13/living/wedding-expenses-study... https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480

neogodless 8y ago

My advice? Don't have a relatively cheap wedding. Have a _cheap_ wedding. (Do not waste two years of your life making money that you blow on 6 hours of rituals.) Our wedding cost less than $1000 (near Philadelphia, so HCOL area), and is described by friends as "beautiful" and "one of my all-time favorites."

magic_beans 8y ago
How did you pull that off?
- bluGill 8y ago
  The court house needed $70 for the license. A friend did the ceremony (One benefit of Freedom of religion in the US is there are religions with one belief: people should be married. They will ordain anyone who shared that belief to be a priest to perform marriages for $20, and then help you get certified to perform a marriage in whatever state you want to perform a marriage in). You need two witnesses, and they are traditionally not paid. In short, you need 5 people and $70, and 1 of those 5 needs to do something special that might cost money (but he can do for more friends) Everything not in the above list is optional. Grandma's backyard is free, or pay for something more if you want. You can invite just the 5, or 10,000 people. You can serve food or not. You can have rain plans or get wet. You can have live music, a dj, a friend with a ipod, or no music. You can have special fancy outfits or whatever you came out of the barn with. You can have photos or not. You can have a nice honeymoon or not. I set my budget. I stayed within my budget. I didn't have some things most people do. I did some things that most people do not. I spent more on the honeymoon than the wedding and I'm glad I did. Your values and budget will be different, that is your choice. BTW, for parents I suggest you give a set amount several months in advance and tell the couple "whatever is leftover is for the honeymoon - have you thought about eloping?"
- neogodless 8y ago
  First, the "cheating!" - family and friends helped us with food prep and photography - in-laws donated food and some drinks - family friend made us a cake and other baked goods - borrowed chairs from workplace - in-laws provided a venue for the after party (their house!) Now, the expenses - #1 expense was the officiant - rented a park pavilion on a hillside overlooking a lake ($125) - alcohol and drinks - flowers (low cost) and decorations (local party store) - some homemade decorations - custom table gifts We got lucky on the weather (that's my superpower) - a perfect, dry 80F day. The wedding ceremony was under a tree with chairs for the immediate family, and only lasted about 5 minutes. The reception was in a nearby pavilion with additional tables and chairs added. We didn't have alcohol at the park - we migrated to my in-laws for that. Any downsides? - I wouldn't have minded having someone with DJ experience there to keep things on schedule, and get people dancing - Along with the above, I would've liked to move to the after-party a little sooner. Drinks help people loosen up ;)