9 ms·

Couples are taking out loans to pay for their weddings

43 points by koolba 7y ago

shishy 7y ago
Yes... recently met someone who took out a $150K loan on a wedding. Blew my mind that anyone would think that was a good idea (mind you, the partner who did that didn't tell the other partner it was a loan, so the latter assumed it was their money -- that was a fun conversation to have a few days after the wedding). I just can't fathom doing something like this (let alone spending anywhere near that kind of my own money on a wedding), but I just never grasped the need for an extravagant wedding so I might be out of the norm here.
- ianai 7y ago
  That seems like a good way to get divorced within a week or weeks of marriage.
  - vidanay 7y ago
    Annulment based on fraud possibly (that way you avoid assuming the debt post-marriage)
- a_shane 7y ago
  I feel the same way; weddings have always felt like an unnecessary extravagance. Some friends are getting married on the weekend and I was shocked to learn that they're spending close to $50,000 on the wedding, and that's after a raising over $5,000 at their social and getting financial support from both their families to pay for the event. That's like a downpayment on a house! Insanity.
  - g00s3_caLL_x2 7y ago
    That's not 'like a downpayment' that is a very healthy down payment!
  - ido 7y ago
    That kind of expense sounds outrageous to me. we married in the czech republic (we lived in austria at the time, now in germany - both border CZ) & I believe the bill ended up being around €5-6k which our parents on both sides wanted to split between them (we could have paid for it ourselves had they not). partially its because it's just plain cheaper there but a lot of it is just how freaking overboard some people go with weddings!
- brightball 7y ago
  Honestly, more than anything I want to know how you get approved for a loan for that amount without any real security behind it?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    Why would you assume they didn't have any real security behind it?
    - brightball 7y ago
      Because the poster said they took out a $150,000 loan for a wedding. If they borrowed it against an asset, fine...but no bank is going to approve a loan for that amount for “a wedding”. The main point I was getting at was that the scenario isn’t likely to be a pattern among people.
      - pwinnski 7y ago
        If I took out a home equity loan in order to do X, I would say that I borrowed money for X, not that I borrowed money for X using a home equity loan. Taking out a $150,000 loan for a wedding describes the purpose of the loan, not the collateral.
spacehome 7y ago
I know a couple who did this. The loan outlived the marriage.
- radcon 7y ago
  Any couple that decides to borrow money for a party probably isn't going to make it very far in life.
- phpnode 7y ago
  This is amazingly common unfortunately
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  I don't know anyone who took out a loan for a wedding. But I do know a woman, and there must be more of them out there, who took out a loan to pay a lawyer for a divorce. She said she thought it was a good idea, because the amount that she got in the settlement, was more than the amount of the loan. Even when the lawyers took their portion of the settlement too, she figured she was coming out ahead. It only occurred to her later that the settlement was a one time thing, but the loan she had to pay interest on. I'm pretty sure her ex had done the same thing, because they both talk to us about those payments. So essentially, these two completely destroyed their marital wealth just to get lawyers. I don't know man? I think it'd be worth just sitting down together and working something out, but I guess a lot of people don't think that way. But here's the kicker that occurred to me reading this article, just imagine the people that take out loans for the wedding, and the divorce. Ouch.
fopen64 7y ago
The acid test for my wife was: no wedding and no expensive ring.
radcon 7y ago
"Why don't we start our lives together by blowing obscene amounts of money on a party?" "Great idea!" Is that how the conversation goes? I'm genuinely curious...
- leetcrew 7y ago
  I imagine the conversation begins "well, my parents/friends expect ..."
  - tristanperry 7y ago
    Yep: and of course their own expectations (partially fueled by other people's weddings and movies). The priority in this case (for the subset the article is referring to, of course) is always expectations > practicalities like money. "After all, you only get married once"...
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      That's excellent grounds not to get married at all - at least not to them. It strongly suggests the other person is more interested in social status signalling through extravagant lifestyle display than in celebrating the partnership for its own sake.
- thomascgalvin 7y ago
  I don't think there is a conversation. A shocking number of people get married without discussing critical things like finances, or whether they want children, first.
  - mooreds 7y ago
    I had some difficult conversations with my future spouse. It's not fun to think about money or kids or religion or finances when you are in the honeymoon of your early love. But it is so important. We talk all the time about company and team alignment, but being aligned with your spouse matters so much more.
arayh 7y ago
https://outline.com/gTMv4p https://outline.com/gTMv4p
Frondo 7y ago
I'm planning a wedding and we're taking a decidedly non-traditional route. Because we both grew up on the internet, our friends are scattered across the seven continents. Having a wedding would mean most of them wouldn't be able to come. Our solution: courthouse wedding (cost of, whatever, the cost of a marriage license). Then, three or four parties in different parts of the world. Each one might set us back, oh, $500 or $1000 if we have to rent a cheap space or hire a DJ, but we'll supply some snacks and booze and let friends bring the rest. Total cost, including travel (because we can crash with friends once we're somewhere) will probably be $5,000 for several parties spaced out over several months, and everyone gets to celebrate with us. We also throw bangers, so this gives all our mates a night to remember, wherever they are.
mbrumlow 7y ago
At what point are we going to stop treating people who take out loans and drive up debt as the victim? Poor life choices is what causes you to get in debt (with the exception of medical deb, unless well, your poor life choices caused your medical condition). In place of all these sob stories and begging for loan forgiveness maybe we should go back to the schools and educate all of our next generation about the badness of taking out debt with the same gusto as we did saying how badly you need a degree and to take out a bunch of debt to do so. Lets bring back "You can't afford it" followed with "It won't be the end of the world if you can't invite 200 people to a wedding you really can't afford". ELOPE PEOPLE!
- radcon 7y ago
  You must be partially shadow-banned or something, because your comment was instantly faded upon submission (as if it had already been significantly downvoted). Hooray for completely opaque moderation! Edit: Boy, you guys sure are committed to strengthening the echo chamber...
  - mbrumlow 7y ago
    I think you can only get 4 down votes... Is it still faded? It has over 20 votes now. I have bumped into dang a at least once, so I would not be surprised if you were not right. While I feel like I try to make my points clear on a topic and leave room for discussion, I do find that some topics HN is simply not ready to have open honest conversations about. While I don't want to enforce a echo chamber and often play the delves advocate, I do try to respect the decisions and rules this site has set.
- xcklo 7y ago
  I don't like debt, but I think it is hard to dismiss people's decisions when debt seems to be the basis for the modern economy. A significant part of those who promote "financial responsibility" seem to already enjoy some wealth or decent opportunities. While the rest of us get to choose between life-as-a-service or a limited quality of life. Actually, not going into debt have in many locations unfortunately been one of the most costly decisions someone could make in the last 10 years. Which doesn't mean that it will be in the future, but with that in mind it is hard to join you in your opinion.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lordleft 7y ago
I sincerely believe that my generation (millenials) are radically rethinking the necessity of big weddings. A lot of us would rather have a housing deposit than a swanky (and often gaudy) venue.
- helen___keller 7y ago
  Marriage is a highly cultural experience but I think those of us without a strong cultural attachment to American traditions are certainly rethinking it. My wife and I skipped the ring, the engagement period, and the wedding and put the money away to save for a down payment. We're still saving (Big city real estate lol) but we agreed that having a home for our future children trumps having a big party that neither of us were crazy about in the first place.
- dfxm12 7y ago
  as an orthogonal aside, I think we're also rethinking the necessity of marriage.
  - antisthenes 7y ago
    The men certainly are. Not sure if a marriage really provides any security for a typical guy, just more risk.
- ssully 7y ago
  I am in my mid-twenties and so far it's a split. My friend and I got married around the same time and had similar wedding styles (less then 10k total cost, no more then 50 guests, after gifts my wife and I basically broke even; I am assuming the same for my friend). I've had two friends do traditional weddings (200+ people, large venue, pretty flashy). No clue if they had to take out loans - I just assume their parents paid for it.
- pwinnski 7y ago
  I thought the same was true of my generation (X), but it turns out that on the whole, people I knew weren't representative.
mywittyname 7y ago
There's always been a segment of people who would blow way too much money on weddings. In the past, these people just put them on credit cards. On a broader level, specialized loans are where the money is at for lenders. When lenders know what people are aiming to buy, they can work with cottage industries that sell to that particular market and get kickbacks. I'm sure the next step for this is shit like wedding insurance policies, preferred vendor "discounts", etc. Wedding insurance is a thing, because, of course it is.
- ianai 7y ago
  What does wedding insurance insure?
  - vidanay 7y ago
    Outdoor weddings prevented due to weather, church or reception hall burns down the night before, father of the groom gets hit by a bus on the way to the wedding, etc, etc.
  - frankbreetz 7y ago
    If something causes the wedding to not happen(someone got sick, weather, flight got canceled...) they would pay all your deposits and refund the wedding so you could have it another day. not a bad idea if you spend 150,000 on a wedding.
tluyben2 7y ago
Is this not the same as all the 'living far above your means' things? People want to appear more successful than they really are to others? Buying a bigger house, bigger car, bigger wedding, bigger vacations and then showing those off at parties. And the wedding is the biggest showing off as you invite 1000 of your closest personal acquaintances to show how you made it in life.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  at least you get to keep the car or house. as an aside, I've been to a few very expensive weddings and one thing that always gets to me is the food. it's usually some very fancy looking steak or seafood dish that tastes totally bland. I can tell it cost a lot of money per plate just to buy the ingredients but it never tastes good. I'm sure if you did something like burgers or pizza, it could be delicious and possibly even cheaper, so why do they do this? is everyone else in on some big game of pretend high cuisine? is it for the pictures?
  - behringer 7y ago
    We all know it sucks. I've even heard people talk about going to McDonald after the wedding because they didn't get enough food.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    It's for the pictures. It's always for the pictures.
    - proofofwork 7y ago
      Maybe photoshop weddings could be a thing...
      - fetus8 7y ago
        That, or more of the instagram museum type approach where spaces are created specifically for taking photos that make it look like the wedding is a bigger party/deal than it truly is... It's kind of insane to me, as a millenial, that chasing the instagram aesthetic is such a thing that people are willing to take out loans to facilitate such events.
ddffre 7y ago
Idiots
Gatsky 7y ago
This is part of a general trend of outrageous spending on luxury items and experiences, often by young adults. Luxury goods are ascendant. Living within your means seems to be an outdated ante-Millennial concept. Although there are other factors involved, I think it is a great and unprecedented triumph of modern advertising that they can convince people to go into debt for unnecessary crap. Pretty terrifying, frankly.
- 2000andlate 7y ago
  Can we please stop this canard? The youngest millennials are in their mid to late 20s, and the oldest are in their late 30s. Please stop generalizing an entire generation that for the first time in American history is expected to be worse off than their parents.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    There were many generations that were worse off than their parents in American history. I don't know about you but I'd rather have not fought in a war, so any generation prior to a major war was better off than the one that followed. I think what you mean to say is: it's harder to live up to late 20th century mass media defined standards for individualism and hedonism. It's not really that surprising that such a thing wasn't infinitely scaleable.
    - 2000andlate 7y ago
      Nope, I mean they actually have less spending power than their parents, and that’s new: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/30/672103209/why-arent-millennials-spending-more-they-re-poorer-than-their-parents-fed-says https://www.npr.org/2018/11/30/672103209/why-arent-millennia...
      - malvosenior 7y ago
        That report only looks at the 20th century generations, so I don't know that your original statement holds they're a generation "that for the first time in American history is expected to be worse off than their parents". It is also very dubious in its methodology. This is as close as that study gets to looking at raw, unmanipulated data: "To begin, we compare annual labor earnings of full-time workers who worked more than 30 hours per week (or 1,560 hours per year). As shown in the top row of the table, average real full-time labor earnings of male heads of all households declined between 1978 and 1998 and then rebounded over the next 16 years. On net, real average full-time labor earnings for males increased 10 percent between 1978 and 2014. However, younger male workers appear to have been left out of the labor earnings increase. Specifically, the real average full-time labor earnings of a millennial male household head in 2014 were about the same as those for a 11 comparable male Generation X household head in 1998 and over 10 percent lower than those for a comparable male baby boomer household head in 1978." "For female heads of all households, real average full-time labor earnings increased moderately between 1978 and 1998 and between 1998 and 2014, reflecting, in part, rising female educational attainment. However, the median labor earnings of female millennial household heads in 2014 were about 3 percent lower than those of comparable female Generation X household heads in 1998." "For families, the data show that real income of married couples grew, on net, from 1978 to 2014; this trend is seen in the sample of all households and in the sample of households headed by individuals younger than 33 years old and likely reflects the rise in the female labor force participation rate and the increase in the prevalence of dual income households. However, the net growth of real family income was smaller for young married couples than for married couples of all ages during this span of years." Aside from earnings and debt, for massive swaths of Americans there's been no better time to be alive than 2019. Violent crime, racism and sexism are at all time lows. Health care is expensive but much better than the past. Food is cheaper and there are healthier options. My original point is the strongest though. There are no wars. I'd rather be in debt than have my arms blown off in combat or have to kill people, all against my will because I got drafted.
saturdaysaint 7y ago
I wonder if anyone will try to disrupt the wedding space. As things stand, it's very, very difficult to have a 200 - 300 person wedding under 10K. We rented a VFW Hall in an unsexy corner of town, did our own flower arrangements, got a dirt cheap but good dj (her website was literally something like cheapdj.com), had a friend make a cupcake smorgasboard, etc etc and I think everything came to around 14K for 250 guests. We have high income careers and had an amazing time, so the expense wasn't any kind of burden, but it's a shame to me that something like even our humble (albeit somewhat big and on a Saturday during peak season) wedding seems maybe out of the reach of a lot of middle class young people.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  no offense, but the idea that a 200-300 person party could even be considered a "humble" wedding is part of the problem. if I invited my entire family, my closest friends, and their plus ones, that's forty people (and a quarter of them are underage, so no alcohol). double that (assuming my spouse's friends don't overlap with mine) and you have eighty, which is already a lot of people for a party where food and drink are both provided. how do you even come up with 300 people who are genuinely enthusiastic about attending?
- dagw 7y ago
  The obvious 'disruption' is to simply not invite 200-300 people. Maybe it's just me, but I'm pretty certain I can't even name 200 people that I've met.
  - nottorp 7y ago
    I've had 50 people total, mine and hers... And this in spite of living in a culture where guests are supposed to give gifts that at least cover their part of the bill ;)
- jerf 7y ago
  It sounds like you approached the wedding from the perspective of "here's the checklist of amenities we need to provide our guests", which you modified by striving to ensure each line item was reasonably priced. Not a criticism - I did that to, and for both of us it seems to have been a financially responsible decision. However, for people for whom that isn't financially responsible, I'd suggest that that mentality isn't appropriate. The question shouldn't be "what do the guests absolutely require?", but "what can we afford? and what do we want?" In that order! The bare minimum for a wedding is a court wedding. There are some reasons why that may not be the best idea at scale (that is, it may be individually appropriate but there are social reasons why that's not ever going to be the only sort of wedding). From there, the next thing you need is somewhere to gather some people. Are you really obligated to feed them? Depends on the time you pick. Are you obligated to rent a hall rather than find somewhere you can go for free? I'd say not. Do you need flowers scaled to the number of guests? Not really need, no. etc. Given the ability of money issues to tear marriages apart, I'd say a new couple should strive quite hard to avoid debt for their wedding, and I'd say, get brutal with those costs. If social conventions are driving you into debt, screw social conventions. They were not, in the past, built for that purpose. To a non-trivial extent, they are built in the present for that purpose, and the answer to that is to not just decline to play, but to be angry at the people manipulating those conventions to put you in debt, just to ensure you stay in the right frame of mind. Plus if enough people do that, we can take them back. "If social conventions are driving you into debt, screw social conventions." has application well beyond this particular matter, too.
JansjoFromIkea 7y ago
"Couples are getting married later, so they are more willing to pay" Yet the example in the article is 26 I wonder if this increase is largely in people who in the past would've gotten married in their teens. By those people not getting married until they're in their mid 20s, they have access to the kind of debt that can blown on a fancy enough wedding. In lieu of feeling like you'll ever have access to the means to buy a house, you might not care too much about racking up 10-15k on a wedding.
- pureliquidhw 7y ago
  I think this has to do with ongoing costs and upfront costs. You can't get a home without SOME upfront cash, and it's known that you need money to pay the taxes, additional utilities, maintenance, etc after you purchase the home. The comparison between a $50k loan for a wedding vs a $50k downpayment on a home is that they never had that money to begin with, and the payments on the wedding are just another expense vs buying into a mortgage with all the extra costs alongside it. I'm not claiming a loan for a wedding is a good idea, in fact I think it is a terrible one. But building off what you've said, that they're older and can make bigger financial choices, I can see how a loan for the wedding can seem like a viable option to someone.
2000andlate 7y ago
Hey, at least it’s not a student loan. You can still discharge your $150,000 wedding in bankruptcy.
bitlax 7y ago
If it's important to you, and your family can't help out, and you don't have the cash on hand but will in the future, why not take out the loan? I don't see how this is different from financing a luxury car.
- neogodless 7y ago
  You have a lot of stipulations in your question, and I think those exact things should be closely examined when the decision is made. And it should be a decision (not an assumption.) Do I value having a huge, extravagant party for one day over starting out my marriage on a solid financial foundation, or other expensive items like childcare and housing? Will I have the cash in the future? Will my earnings dwarf this expense and the additional interest I accrue while I work hard to pay it off? Did I figure out for myself that this one-day event is "truly important to me" or do I just think it's something everyone does, and I have to do as well? Why is it important to me?
  - bitlax 7y ago
    Just as long as we agree.
Bakary 7y ago
Honest question: is it arrogant or pretentious for me to think those people are stupid? It just seems like such a woeful decision to make. The oily loan sharks are indeed partially responsible, but it's like blaming the sharpness of the knife after you stab yourself.
- bittercynic 7y ago
  It is at least ignorant and dismissive to think that. I've met a few people who face social pressures from their family, who number in the dozens, to do things that appear extremely financially irresponsible from my perspective. If you have to choose between being responsible and not infuriating the 40 most important people in your life, I don't think that would be an easy decision to make. Go against the grain too many times and you risk having the family turn their collective back on you, which might be the best thing financially, but is still a terrifying prospect.
  - balfirevic 7y ago
    I think this just illustrates how different social worlds are for different people. For me, having 40 family members (especially the ones whose opinion you'd care about) just sounds made up. And having family members pressure you into things you don't want sounds like a great opportunity to learn how to tell people to mind their own business. Please note, I'm not judging. I can't even mentally put myself in that situation, so how could I judge? But also, it's hard not to notice that if somebody's 40 family members turn their back on them then their life would just become similar to the lives of mostly everyone I know (i.e. having 0-5 family members that care about you and that you care about).
- malvosenior 7y ago
  No it's not arrogant or pretentious, you're actually helping the situation. People who are easily swayed (aka stupid) might as well encounter some negative societal pressure to not make horrible financial decisions. If more people felt like you, the people who feel peer and media pressured into living beyond their means might think twice about making decisions like this.
cookieswumchorr 7y ago
apart from marriage itself being the legal equivalent of shooting yourself in the leg, why not make it worse by taking a loan, genius!
Balgair 7y ago
One very important caveat is the culture of which these weddings are styled. By this I mean, are the couple getting married in a traditional Chinese or South Asian (India, Pakistan, Bangledesh) wedding? If so, taking out loans and having very extravagant weddings would not be abnormal nor an unwise financial decision. Typically, weddings in these cultures will pay for themselves and have a fair bit left over as a gift to the couple from the invited guests. The 'aunties' are tasked with making sure that invited family and friends are paying up!
g8oz 7y ago
Couples could really cut down on costs if they apply this criteria to choosing people for the guest list: would this person be genuinely saddened if they heard I was getting divorced?

43 points by koolba 7y ago

Yes... recently met someone who took out a $150K loan on a wedding. Blew my mind that anyone would think that was a good idea (mind you, the partner who did that didn't tell the other partner it was a loan, so the latter assumed it was their money -- that was a fun conversation to have a few days after the wedding). I just can't fathom doing something like this (let alone spending anywhere near that kind of my own money on a wedding), but I just never grasped the need for an extravagant wedding so I might be out of the norm here.

ianai 7y ago
That seems like a good way to get divorced within a week or weeks of marriage.
- vidanay 7y ago
  Annulment based on fraud possibly (that way you avoid assuming the debt post-marriage)
a_shane 7y ago
I feel the same way; weddings have always felt like an unnecessary extravagance. Some friends are getting married on the weekend and I was shocked to learn that they're spending close to $50,000 on the wedding, and that's after a raising over $5,000 at their social and getting financial support from both their families to pay for the event. That's like a downpayment on a house! Insanity.
- g00s3_caLL_x2 7y ago
  That's not 'like a downpayment' that is a very healthy down payment!
- ido 7y ago
  That kind of expense sounds outrageous to me. we married in the czech republic (we lived in austria at the time, now in germany - both border CZ) & I believe the bill ended up being around €5-6k which our parents on both sides wanted to split between them (we could have paid for it ourselves had they not). partially its because it's just plain cheaper there but a lot of it is just how freaking overboard some people go with weddings!
brightball 7y ago
Honestly, more than anything I want to know how you get approved for a loan for that amount without any real security behind it?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Why would you assume they didn't have any real security behind it?
  - brightball 7y ago
    Because the poster said they took out a $150,000 loan for a wedding. If they borrowed it against an asset, fine...but no bank is going to approve a loan for that amount for “a wedding”. The main point I was getting at was that the scenario isn’t likely to be a pattern among people.
    - pwinnski 7y ago
      If I took out a home equity loan in order to do X, I would say that I borrowed money for X, not that I borrowed money for X using a home equity loan. Taking out a $150,000 loan for a wedding describes the purpose of the loan, not the collateral.

spacehome 7y ago

I know a couple who did this. The loan outlived the marriage.

radcon 7y ago
Any couple that decides to borrow money for a party probably isn't going to make it very far in life.
phpnode 7y ago
This is amazingly common unfortunately
bilbo0s 7y ago
I don't know anyone who took out a loan for a wedding. But I do know a woman, and there must be more of them out there, who took out a loan to pay a lawyer for a divorce. She said she thought it was a good idea, because the amount that she got in the settlement, was more than the amount of the loan. Even when the lawyers took their portion of the settlement too, she figured she was coming out ahead. It only occurred to her later that the settlement was a one time thing, but the loan she had to pay interest on. I'm pretty sure her ex had done the same thing, because they both talk to us about those payments. So essentially, these two completely destroyed their marital wealth just to get lawyers. I don't know man? I think it'd be worth just sitting down together and working something out, but I guess a lot of people don't think that way. But here's the kicker that occurred to me reading this article, just imagine the people that take out loans for the wedding, and the divorce. Ouch.

fopen64 7y ago

The acid test for my wife was: no wedding and no expensive ring.

radcon 7y ago

"Why don't we start our lives together by blowing obscene amounts of money on a party?" "Great idea!" Is that how the conversation goes? I'm genuinely curious...

leetcrew 7y ago
I imagine the conversation begins "well, my parents/friends expect ..."
- tristanperry 7y ago
  Yep: and of course their own expectations (partially fueled by other people's weddings and movies). The priority in this case (for the subset the article is referring to, of course) is always expectations > practicalities like money. "After all, you only get married once"...
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    That's excellent grounds not to get married at all - at least not to them. It strongly suggests the other person is more interested in social status signalling through extravagant lifestyle display than in celebrating the partnership for its own sake.
thomascgalvin 7y ago
I don't think there is a conversation. A shocking number of people get married without discussing critical things like finances, or whether they want children, first.
- mooreds 7y ago
  I had some difficult conversations with my future spouse. It's not fun to think about money or kids or religion or finances when you are in the honeymoon of your early love. But it is so important. We talk all the time about company and team alignment, but being aligned with your spouse matters so much more.

arayh 7y ago

https://outline.com/gTMv4p https://outline.com/gTMv4p

Frondo 7y ago

I'm planning a wedding and we're taking a decidedly non-traditional route. Because we both grew up on the internet, our friends are scattered across the seven continents. Having a wedding would mean most of them wouldn't be able to come. Our solution: courthouse wedding (cost of, whatever, the cost of a marriage license). Then, three or four parties in different parts of the world. Each one might set us back, oh, $500 or $1000 if we have to rent a cheap space or hire a DJ, but we'll supply some snacks and booze and let friends bring the rest. Total cost, including travel (because we can crash with friends once we're somewhere) will probably be $5,000 for several parties spaced out over several months, and everyone gets to celebrate with us. We also throw bangers, so this gives all our mates a night to remember, wherever they are.

mbrumlow 7y ago

At what point are we going to stop treating people who take out loans and drive up debt as the victim? Poor life choices is what causes you to get in debt (with the exception of medical deb, unless well, your poor life choices caused your medical condition). In place of all these sob stories and begging for loan forgiveness maybe we should go back to the schools and educate all of our next generation about the badness of taking out debt with the same gusto as we did saying how badly you need a degree and to take out a bunch of debt to do so. Lets bring back "You can't afford it" followed with "It won't be the end of the world if you can't invite 200 people to a wedding you really can't afford". ELOPE PEOPLE!

radcon 7y ago
You must be partially shadow-banned or something, because your comment was instantly faded upon submission (as if it had already been significantly downvoted). Hooray for completely opaque moderation! Edit: Boy, you guys sure are committed to strengthening the echo chamber...
- mbrumlow 7y ago
  I think you can only get 4 down votes... Is it still faded? It has over 20 votes now. I have bumped into dang a at least once, so I would not be surprised if you were not right. While I feel like I try to make my points clear on a topic and leave room for discussion, I do find that some topics HN is simply not ready to have open honest conversations about. While I don't want to enforce a echo chamber and often play the delves advocate, I do try to respect the decisions and rules this site has set.
xcklo 7y ago
I don't like debt, but I think it is hard to dismiss people's decisions when debt seems to be the basis for the modern economy. A significant part of those who promote "financial responsibility" seem to already enjoy some wealth or decent opportunities. While the rest of us get to choose between life-as-a-service or a limited quality of life. Actually, not going into debt have in many locations unfortunately been one of the most costly decisions someone could make in the last 10 years. Which doesn't mean that it will be in the future, but with that in mind it is hard to join you in your opinion.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lordleft 7y ago

I sincerely believe that my generation (millenials) are radically rethinking the necessity of big weddings. A lot of us would rather have a housing deposit than a swanky (and often gaudy) venue.

helen___keller 7y ago
Marriage is a highly cultural experience but I think those of us without a strong cultural attachment to American traditions are certainly rethinking it. My wife and I skipped the ring, the engagement period, and the wedding and put the money away to save for a down payment. We're still saving (Big city real estate lol) but we agreed that having a home for our future children trumps having a big party that neither of us were crazy about in the first place.
dfxm12 7y ago
as an orthogonal aside, I think we're also rethinking the necessity of marriage.
- antisthenes 7y ago
  The men certainly are. Not sure if a marriage really provides any security for a typical guy, just more risk.
ssully 7y ago
I am in my mid-twenties and so far it's a split. My friend and I got married around the same time and had similar wedding styles (less then 10k total cost, no more then 50 guests, after gifts my wife and I basically broke even; I am assuming the same for my friend). I've had two friends do traditional weddings (200+ people, large venue, pretty flashy). No clue if they had to take out loans - I just assume their parents paid for it.
pwinnski 7y ago
I thought the same was true of my generation (X), but it turns out that on the whole, people I knew weren't representative.

mywittyname 7y ago

There's always been a segment of people who would blow way too much money on weddings. In the past, these people just put them on credit cards. On a broader level, specialized loans are where the money is at for lenders. When lenders know what people are aiming to buy, they can work with cottage industries that sell to that particular market and get kickbacks. I'm sure the next step for this is shit like wedding insurance policies, preferred vendor "discounts", etc. Wedding insurance is a thing, because, of course it is.

ianai 7y ago
What does wedding insurance insure?
- vidanay 7y ago
  Outdoor weddings prevented due to weather, church or reception hall burns down the night before, father of the groom gets hit by a bus on the way to the wedding, etc, etc.
- frankbreetz 7y ago
  If something causes the wedding to not happen(someone got sick, weather, flight got canceled...) they would pay all your deposits and refund the wedding so you could have it another day. not a bad idea if you spend 150,000 on a wedding.

tluyben2 7y ago

Is this not the same as all the 'living far above your means' things? People want to appear more successful than they really are to others? Buying a bigger house, bigger car, bigger wedding, bigger vacations and then showing those off at parties. And the wedding is the biggest showing off as you invite 1000 of your closest personal acquaintances to show how you made it in life.

leetcrew 7y ago
at least you get to keep the car or house. as an aside, I've been to a few very expensive weddings and one thing that always gets to me is the food. it's usually some very fancy looking steak or seafood dish that tastes totally bland. I can tell it cost a lot of money per plate just to buy the ingredients but it never tastes good. I'm sure if you did something like burgers or pizza, it could be delicious and possibly even cheaper, so why do they do this? is everyone else in on some big game of pretend high cuisine? is it for the pictures?
- behringer 7y ago
  We all know it sucks. I've even heard people talk about going to McDonald after the wedding because they didn't get enough food.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  It's for the pictures. It's always for the pictures.
  - proofofwork 7y ago
    Maybe photoshop weddings could be a thing...
    - fetus8 7y ago
      That, or more of the instagram museum type approach where spaces are created specifically for taking photos that make it look like the wedding is a bigger party/deal than it truly is... It's kind of insane to me, as a millenial, that chasing the instagram aesthetic is such a thing that people are willing to take out loans to facilitate such events.

ddffre 7y ago

Idiots

Gatsky 7y ago

This is part of a general trend of outrageous spending on luxury items and experiences, often by young adults. Luxury goods are ascendant. Living within your means seems to be an outdated ante-Millennial concept. Although there are other factors involved, I think it is a great and unprecedented triumph of modern advertising that they can convince people to go into debt for unnecessary crap. Pretty terrifying, frankly.

2000andlate 7y ago
Can we please stop this canard? The youngest millennials are in their mid to late 20s, and the oldest are in their late 30s. Please stop generalizing an entire generation that for the first time in American history is expected to be worse off than their parents.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  There were many generations that were worse off than their parents in American history. I don't know about you but I'd rather have not fought in a war, so any generation prior to a major war was better off than the one that followed. I think what you mean to say is: it's harder to live up to late 20th century mass media defined standards for individualism and hedonism. It's not really that surprising that such a thing wasn't infinitely scaleable.
  - 2000andlate 7y ago
    Nope, I mean they actually have less spending power than their parents, and that’s new: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/30/672103209/why-arent-millennials-spending-more-they-re-poorer-than-their-parents-fed-says https://www.npr.org/2018/11/30/672103209/why-arent-millennia...
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      That report only looks at the 20th century generations, so I don't know that your original statement holds they're a generation "that for the first time in American history is expected to be worse off than their parents". It is also very dubious in its methodology. This is as close as that study gets to looking at raw, unmanipulated data: "To begin, we compare annual labor earnings of full-time workers who worked more than 30 hours per week (or 1,560 hours per year). As shown in the top row of the table, average real full-time labor earnings of male heads of all households declined between 1978 and 1998 and then rebounded over the next 16 years. On net, real average full-time labor earnings for males increased 10 percent between 1978 and 2014. However, younger male workers appear to have been left out of the labor earnings increase. Specifically, the real average full-time labor earnings of a millennial male household head in 2014 were about the same as those for a 11 comparable male Generation X household head in 1998 and over 10 percent lower than those for a comparable male baby boomer household head in 1978." "For female heads of all households, real average full-time labor earnings increased moderately between 1978 and 1998 and between 1998 and 2014, reflecting, in part, rising female educational attainment. However, the median labor earnings of female millennial household heads in 2014 were about 3 percent lower than those of comparable female Generation X household heads in 1998." "For families, the data show that real income of married couples grew, on net, from 1978 to 2014; this trend is seen in the sample of all households and in the sample of households headed by individuals younger than 33 years old and likely reflects the rise in the female labor force participation rate and the increase in the prevalence of dual income households. However, the net growth of real family income was smaller for young married couples than for married couples of all ages during this span of years." Aside from earnings and debt, for massive swaths of Americans there's been no better time to be alive than 2019. Violent crime, racism and sexism are at all time lows. Health care is expensive but much better than the past. Food is cheaper and there are healthier options. My original point is the strongest though. There are no wars. I'd rather be in debt than have my arms blown off in combat or have to kill people, all against my will because I got drafted.

saturdaysaint 7y ago

I wonder if anyone will try to disrupt the wedding space. As things stand, it's very, very difficult to have a 200 - 300 person wedding under 10K. We rented a VFW Hall in an unsexy corner of town, did our own flower arrangements, got a dirt cheap but good dj (her website was literally something like cheapdj.com), had a friend make a cupcake smorgasboard, etc etc and I think everything came to around 14K for 250 guests. We have high income careers and had an amazing time, so the expense wasn't any kind of burden, but it's a shame to me that something like even our humble (albeit somewhat big and on a Saturday during peak season) wedding seems maybe out of the reach of a lot of middle class young people.

leetcrew 7y ago
no offense, but the idea that a 200-300 person party could even be considered a "humble" wedding is part of the problem. if I invited my entire family, my closest friends, and their plus ones, that's forty people (and a quarter of them are underage, so no alcohol). double that (assuming my spouse's friends don't overlap with mine) and you have eighty, which is already a lot of people for a party where food and drink are both provided. how do you even come up with 300 people who are genuinely enthusiastic about attending?
dagw 7y ago
The obvious 'disruption' is to simply not invite 200-300 people. Maybe it's just me, but I'm pretty certain I can't even name 200 people that I've met.
- nottorp 7y ago
  I've had 50 people total, mine and hers... And this in spite of living in a culture where guests are supposed to give gifts that at least cover their part of the bill ;)
jerf 7y ago
It sounds like you approached the wedding from the perspective of "here's the checklist of amenities we need to provide our guests", which you modified by striving to ensure each line item was reasonably priced. Not a criticism - I did that to, and for both of us it seems to have been a financially responsible decision. However, for people for whom that isn't financially responsible, I'd suggest that that mentality isn't appropriate. The question shouldn't be "what do the guests absolutely require?", but "what can we afford? and what do we want?" In that order! The bare minimum for a wedding is a court wedding. There are some reasons why that may not be the best idea at scale (that is, it may be individually appropriate but there are social reasons why that's not ever going to be the only sort of wedding). From there, the next thing you need is somewhere to gather some people. Are you really obligated to feed them? Depends on the time you pick. Are you obligated to rent a hall rather than find somewhere you can go for free? I'd say not. Do you need flowers scaled to the number of guests? Not really need, no. etc. Given the ability of money issues to tear marriages apart, I'd say a new couple should strive quite hard to avoid debt for their wedding, and I'd say, get brutal with those costs. If social conventions are driving you into debt, screw social conventions. They were not, in the past, built for that purpose. To a non-trivial extent, they are built in the present for that purpose, and the answer to that is to not just decline to play, but to be angry at the people manipulating those conventions to put you in debt, just to ensure you stay in the right frame of mind. Plus if enough people do that, we can take them back. "If social conventions are driving you into debt, screw social conventions." has application well beyond this particular matter, too.

JansjoFromIkea 7y ago

"Couples are getting married later, so they are more willing to pay" Yet the example in the article is 26 I wonder if this increase is largely in people who in the past would've gotten married in their teens. By those people not getting married until they're in their mid 20s, they have access to the kind of debt that can blown on a fancy enough wedding. In lieu of feeling like you'll ever have access to the means to buy a house, you might not care too much about racking up 10-15k on a wedding.

pureliquidhw 7y ago
I think this has to do with ongoing costs and upfront costs. You can't get a home without SOME upfront cash, and it's known that you need money to pay the taxes, additional utilities, maintenance, etc after you purchase the home. The comparison between a $50k loan for a wedding vs a $50k downpayment on a home is that they never had that money to begin with, and the payments on the wedding are just another expense vs buying into a mortgage with all the extra costs alongside it. I'm not claiming a loan for a wedding is a good idea, in fact I think it is a terrible one. But building off what you've said, that they're older and can make bigger financial choices, I can see how a loan for the wedding can seem like a viable option to someone.

2000andlate 7y ago

Hey, at least it’s not a student loan. You can still discharge your $150,000 wedding in bankruptcy.

bitlax 7y ago

If it's important to you, and your family can't help out, and you don't have the cash on hand but will in the future, why not take out the loan? I don't see how this is different from financing a luxury car.

neogodless 7y ago
You have a lot of stipulations in your question, and I think those exact things should be closely examined when the decision is made. And it should be a decision (not an assumption.) Do I value having a huge, extravagant party for one day over starting out my marriage on a solid financial foundation, or other expensive items like childcare and housing? Will I have the cash in the future? Will my earnings dwarf this expense and the additional interest I accrue while I work hard to pay it off? Did I figure out for myself that this one-day event is "truly important to me" or do I just think it's something everyone does, and I have to do as well? Why is it important to me?
- bitlax 7y ago
  Just as long as we agree.

Bakary 7y ago

Honest question: is it arrogant or pretentious for me to think those people are stupid? It just seems like such a woeful decision to make. The oily loan sharks are indeed partially responsible, but it's like blaming the sharpness of the knife after you stab yourself.

bittercynic 7y ago
It is at least ignorant and dismissive to think that. I've met a few people who face social pressures from their family, who number in the dozens, to do things that appear extremely financially irresponsible from my perspective. If you have to choose between being responsible and not infuriating the 40 most important people in your life, I don't think that would be an easy decision to make. Go against the grain too many times and you risk having the family turn their collective back on you, which might be the best thing financially, but is still a terrifying prospect.
- balfirevic 7y ago
  I think this just illustrates how different social worlds are for different people. For me, having 40 family members (especially the ones whose opinion you'd care about) just sounds made up. And having family members pressure you into things you don't want sounds like a great opportunity to learn how to tell people to mind their own business. Please note, I'm not judging. I can't even mentally put myself in that situation, so how could I judge? But also, it's hard not to notice that if somebody's 40 family members turn their back on them then their life would just become similar to the lives of mostly everyone I know (i.e. having 0-5 family members that care about you and that you care about).
malvosenior 7y ago
No it's not arrogant or pretentious, you're actually helping the situation. People who are easily swayed (aka stupid) might as well encounter some negative societal pressure to not make horrible financial decisions. If more people felt like you, the people who feel peer and media pressured into living beyond their means might think twice about making decisions like this.

cookieswumchorr 7y ago

apart from marriage itself being the legal equivalent of shooting yourself in the leg, why not make it worse by taking a loan, genius!

Balgair 7y ago

One very important caveat is the culture of which these weddings are styled. By this I mean, are the couple getting married in a traditional Chinese or South Asian (India, Pakistan, Bangledesh) wedding? If so, taking out loans and having very extravagant weddings would not be abnormal nor an unwise financial decision. Typically, weddings in these cultures will pay for themselves and have a fair bit left over as a gift to the couple from the invited guests. The 'aunties' are tasked with making sure that invited family and friends are paying up!

g8oz 7y ago

Couples could really cut down on costs if they apply this criteria to choosing people for the guest list: would this person be genuinely saddened if they heard I was getting divorced?