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Today, I have the not-so-joyful task of collecting my suit from the dry cleaners. This instrument of torture is, of course, for a wedding I’m attending in a few weeks. Suzie and I are close friends with the bride’s family, and for the past 18 months, we’ve been “in the loop” on all the drama and discussions surrounding the planning. It seems every visit to a bridal show adds a new “must-have” addition to what’s become quite the circus, leading to ever-escalating costs.
I have a particularly vested interest in all of this because my eldest daughter got engaged a couple of months ago. It’s likely she’ll be heading down this same rabbit hole in the next few years. However, observing my friend’s daughter’s wedding from afar has firmly cemented in my mind that some of the latest “must-have” items, both during the wedding and at the reception, are plainly ridiculous in both concept and cost. A few cases in point: silent discos, roving tarot card readers, free cocktail stations, and holographic art displays. Why? And who even thought of a silent disco in the first place?
As parents to a future bride-to-be, we’re contemplating our own Rubicon. It’s our little darling’s big day, and we want it to be special. But at what point do we draw a line in the sand and say “no more” if the wedding additions become simply silly?
I do “get it” to a degree. The bride and possibly the groom get caught up in a bubble of excitement about their shared grand adventure. I suspect aided and abetted by social media influencers etc….. but I think sometimes we need to bust their bubble and ground them to the financial reality of the big day. What do you think, readers? Am I being mean and tight, possibly a bit of a grumpy killjoy or just plain practical?
i have two names to keep things in perspective: Jeff bezos and Laura Sanchez. I’m glad I’m not related to either of them.
The easiest solution to this challenge — and so many others — is to remain childless.
Friends with a daughter told us that when their daughter got engaged, they spoke with the groom’s parents about financing. The groom’s parents said that hey believed in traditional weddings, meaning the bride’s parents paid for all of it.
We had 2 sons and when they wed we offered financial support, but left it up to the couple to decide how to spend it. Each had suitably impressive spreadsheets. Both weddings were grand occasions.
Oh Rick! Spreadsheet weddings? 😱. What did you do, raise a couple of engineers?
Nope. one is in Finance and the other in IT.
Close enough👍
Just stop for a minute, and think about all the things we wouldn’t have without engineers. Like bridges and roads, elevators and AC, phones and computers. Etc.
So true Kathy. Thanks.
One of our sons is a civil engineer although he has given up building bridges for systems design.
Here’s a tip. We attended a friend’s son’s wedding the London. When we got to the reception we found there were two tiers of guests A and B.
The A guests sat in the main room with the wedding party and a meal while the B guests were in another room with a modest buffet.
We were B guests.
More people, more gifts, less cost- brilliant.
The other shocker which was a tradition of the brides country was you pinned your cash gift on the brides wedding dress as she walked around for all to see. I admit that made me a bit nervous deciding where the cash should go.
Cultural differences, I guess, but Wow! regarding the A and B guests. I’m missing a family wedding this weekend for a reunion with the other side of my family. I’ll be interested to hear how this long-in-the-works wedding compares to those described here.
Hello Mark,
Congratulations on your daughter’s engagement!
I think the comments here make lots of sense so I won’t add to them except to say I’ve changed my mind about one aspect of the wedding industry (and it is an industry).
I like to visit homes (some historic mansions, some not). Many of the mansions receive a large portion of their income from weddings. I always preferred simple weddings to the princess for a day variety. However, those weddings preserve a lot of worthwhile sites which otherwise might be falling down. In the US, we don’t have the powerhouse equivalent of the U.K.’s National Trust. I thank the brides every time I visit a mansion.
Thank you very much 🙏
The National Trust is only the size it is because of the history of inheritance tax/death duties which put a lot of properties/art etc on display for the public. I was recently talking to a (I guess US equivalent is docent) at a place with a particularly fine collection of Turners who told me that they all belonged to the UK Treasury who’d taken them at some time in the past in lieu of death duties.
So maybe it’s a reason to thank taxes.
When my daughter got married set a budget that we could easily afford. We told my daughter she could spend it on anything she wanted (even all of it on the wedding gown if she wished), but we wouldn’t pay a penny more.
Good thing too because the marriage only lasted about three years.
There is also a big difference in weddings by location. In the mid Atlantic area it’s a big expensive deal. But not so much in mid America. I don’t know about the West coast.
But the time and money it takes to travel from the Northeast, where we both live, to those non-drivable locations! My daughter spent a ton getting to a tiny town on Prince Edward Island for a friend’s wedding, and will do something similar for an upcoming wedding some hours drive south of Chicago. But it’s her money …
Bezos is providing an example of one extreme. I can provide the other. My first marriage, at age 28, comprised the bride and groom, the officiant and the two witnesses. Plus a good meal. No one had to travel to get there. My second was a bit more elaborate, but not much. There seem to be so many better things on which to spend money.
Same for us. Total out of pocket was $100 less than we had saved up.
Our wedding in ‘82 cost us a total of $1K. My wife’s parents were poor, and I was not going to ask my parents for money. The week after the wedding I was starting graduate school. I was going to earn $6K as an Athletic Trainer at a nearby high school, my wife got a job making minimum wage at a flower shop. We would take out $10 at a time from the ATM.
My three piece suit cost twice my wife’s (non)wedding gown. A fancy Boston hotel on our wedding night, then a few nights on the cape at my grandfather’s (real) cottage on Eastham for a few days, followed by a nice long drive back to the Midwest for school.
It’ll be 43 years this August. Maybe how long a marriage lasts is inversely proportional to the amount spent on the wedding.
Well, it didn’t work for me…
May 1, 1982 here. Our wedding budget would have been similar to yours. We were engaged for 3+ years and used our earnings to buy household goods and more from farm auctions, rummage sales and a Sears Surplus store near my place of work.
One night honeymoon at our apartment on Saturday/Sunday as both of us had to go to work on Monday. My wife, a lifelong country girl at heart, starting a new job in the city, was a big deal – especially for her parents (my only bad grade from them, I think).
Early days of investing from my youth (5-10 years old) paid off. Sold my baseball card collection to cover the first three months of rent and groceries. Finding loose change in the couch cushions was a windfall!
We still have the $50 full size maple bed frame, and the pine dresser we bought at a yard sale while in graduate school. Used them both for the first twenty years, are still functional, and now reside in the guest room. We have never bought new bedroom furniture. We think polyurethane makes new furniture look kind of artificial some how, whereas a little wear o used furniture makes them look more natural.
I think so. We spent about a thousand dollars on our wedding. It was in my in laws backyard and my mom made most of the food. Homemade cake, a friend was the “official “ photographer. We just celebrated our 42nd anniversary.
You’re on to something. Fun fact: “Spending between $2,000 and $4,000 on an engagement ring is associated with a 1.3 times greater hazard of divorce as compared to spending between $500 and $2,000,” according to a 2014 study by two Emory University researchers. The researchers found a similar relationship between spending on the wedding itself and the chances of divorce.
Fascinating, I’d love to see more research on this, freezing different variables etc
Must be all bling, no substance. In 1968 I spent $1500 on her ring. That’s about $13,800 in 2025 money. It appears I should have been divorced long ago. Perhaps the more frugal wedding saved us.
Good luck finding a $500 ring these days. The last diamond I bought was made in a laboratory and cost a lot less and there is virtually no visible difference.
In fact, they laser a code somewhere so it can be identified as man made, but it technically is a diamond.
Ah the wonderful De Beers – masters of monopolistic behaviours, marketing ( they invented the idea of a diamond being an engagement tradition and the “rules” on what should be spent) and manipulation. AIUI they launched their own lab grown brand ( recently killed) in order to tank the prices in jewellery and thus eliminate competition.
A couple of years ago I found the receipt for our wedding rings. I proposed without one. Later we went to a street crafts fair in Tempe Arizona. Found the rings we wanted for my wife and had a similar style custom made for me. I decided to try and find the craftsman that made the rings. He was still in business 40 years later. We paid a couple of hundred dollars. One reason my wife’s diamond is only a 1/4 carats.
In this it’s NOT the size that matters, it’s the symbolism/sentiment.
Does your wife agree with that sentiment? 😁
Absolutely! She didn’t even want an engagement ring, but I insisted.
You may have something there on cost versus marriage.
I don’t know what ours cost in 1968, but I know it wasn’t much. I was in the army and my wife had to do everything by herself. Her mother had no money, mine nothing to spare and we had no savings.
I got home two days before the wedding, we went on a week honeymoon and I went back to the army base and didn’t see Connie for three months.
The good news, after nearly 57 years we are still married. We renewed our vows a few years ago in Cana, Israel just for good measure.
A wedding is a day. A marriage is, hopefully, for a lifetime. Expense it accordingly. The fairy tale princess events are the dream works of the those that stand to profit from it and the social media pressures are not helping. If you want and can live with the costs of a Bezos/Sanchez-type extravaganza then, “party on, Wayne” and get yourself to Venice.
When I asked the two of our four children that are married (15 & 18 years) whether they found it to be more helpful in getting more significant financial gifts in recent years (versus their wedding costs) for assisting with large, typical life expenses, the latter won out. They still had help from Ma & Pa for the weddings but those checks had fewer digits written on them.
Mark, our daughter is a CPA and she made a detailed wedding budget, it was great. We gave input about what we thought we could contribute. She paid for some, we paid for more, and it all worked out. They are married 14 years tomorrow. Her wedding to son in law was one of the best days of our lives. Chris
Very good point. It’s hard to not give them what they want. Perhaps just say, I can spend X $ so use it any way you like.
The thing is nobody remembers much of the wedding or reception after it’s over. Some of the money spent could be used for a better purpose for the couple I bet.
We went to a wedding in Florida once, a three day drive. The wedding was outdoors and grand. The couple divorced within six months. It cost us money to get there and stay, but it cost someone a lot more.
I was in the Boca Raton resort in Florida for a meeting another time they were setting up for a wedding. It was amazing. I asked the manager what a wedding like that cost. It was two million dollars. They paid for the wedding, reception, rooms for guests and a breakfast the following morning and this was 25 years ago.
Two million……. I’d have to get 4 mortgages 😁
They were probably divorced long ago.
All this takes me back. When my fiancé and I got married in our early 30s at the home of some friends, we had a potluck dinner. Our cost was a turkey, fruit for a big fruit bowl, and $20 for a fancy blouse from a thrift store to wear with a long skirt I already had. For gifts we asked for favorite quotations from the writings of the attendees’ faiths. Simple and satisfying. Money saved helped pay for our first house.
I must say, your replies have validated my thinking. Offer a fixed amount and hope reason prevails. I agree with Andrew’s sentiment; great minds and all that!
Savor the important day with your children, pay up to what your family can truly afford, and move on. Humble Dollar like fiscal discussions have a high likelihood of falling on deaf ears with much of today’s younger folks thanks to all the social media pressures and hype.
You didn’t mention your daughter’s age or where she is in her life journey. Kids with tech degrees who are out on first jobs making a lot of money will have different expectations than two who are working retail. Those getting married the first time in their 30s will be more mature than those in their early 20s. There is also the question of what kind of lifestyle has your daughter been accustomed. If you have been a very generous father before the wedding it will be harder to jerk the reins now. If you have been frugal, she won’t be surprised. Hopefully, you have the kind of relationship with her that would allow you to discuss married life in her future, including the hard facts about how expensive things are and what she wants out of her life, and how she plans to reach her goals. Choosing between a $70k wedding and equivalent help to get into a home can be worth discussing.
Tough question, you give kinds a number and they’re sure to spend it even if they hadn’t planned on it. Don’t give em a number and it can get much worse.
I’d give a number, let them figure out what matters to them.
Not being female I have my own special scepticism employed for the wedding “industry”. Earlier in life I knew plenty of couples where the easygoing girlfriend turned into some sort of Bridezilla post engagement as the “industry” got a grip. Performative pressure and unrealistic expectations made them less of a couple’s decisions than events where the groom just had to nod along for an easy and sane life. And I know of a couple of fathers of the bride/groom who said – happy to pay the first time out but now you’re divorced the next time is on you.
In terms of financial wisdom I do wonder about the value. Surely a couple that says “we’ll manage costs ourselves, if you want to contribute then we’d prefer it goes to our IRAs or mortgage” sets off married life on a far better footing then those who leave it all on the dancefloor?
One of the best weddings I ever went to was essentially a DIY affair in a bit of private woodland. All the guests took tents, BBQ’d and raved deep into the night.
Talking to my mother and my grandmother before her their weddings weren’t large elaborate affairs – what changed? Was it a product of the 80s excess?
Silent disco is easy and cheap – everyone take their own phones, playlists and earbuds and have at it. That way more than just the ABBA enthusiasts can have fun…..
Mark, as the father of 3 daughters, all grown, married, and wedding behind them (as well as one son), I get it.
Before the first married, we realized there would be similar dilemmas for us in the coming years and so we came up with a plan. It’s very simple, it relieved us of the vast majority of the stress, and it has worked well.
We did a little research on the then cost of various types of weddings and came up with a more or less average price tag—one which would cover a nice traditional wedding and reception without going to the silly extremes.
We then told our first engaged daughter, “We’re going to give you $____ amount of money. You can spend all or most of it on your wedding. If you want to spend more, you’ll have to come up with it. Or you can get married before a justice of the peace and spend the money on the down payment on a house, or anything else you’d like. Your choice.”
When our next daughter became engaged, we did a quick calculation of inflation since the first daugher married and increased the designated sum accordingly. Likewise with the third daughter.
All those tough decisions we were dreading, and you are now, along with the very real problem of “wedding creep”, vanished. Our girls got to decide what was important to them and what wasn’t, as they were the ones holding the purse strings.
Maybe this doesn’t fit your thinking or plans, but it worked like a charm for us.
Good luck!
Andrew
Update: When I was writing my post, the other comments below hadn’t yet appeared. Now that I see them, all I can say is: “Great minds (or maybe just HD readers) think alike!”
Mark, like jan Ohara, my wife and I set aside money years ago for our 19-year-old daughter’s use. We call it the “Wedding Fund”, but it could be used for any important purpose. I can’t recall if she is aware of it, but when the time comes we’ll let her have a voice in choosing how to spend it. The weddings she’s experienced in recent years have been mostly low-key. but it’s hard to say which direction the emotions will sway her. I’ll admit to planting seeds for the kind I think would serve her best.
I have two daughters but haven’t gotten to this point, but I’ve always thought the way we would handle it is to decide on an amount of money we were comfortable contributing to the wedding and convey that upfront to our daughter and her intended. They can spend it as they choose so that we don’t have to micromanage things, and we don’t have ongoing tension over new ideas. If they want something more than we are willing to give, they can pay for it themselves or hit up the other set of parents.
I’d also be willing to say that if they want to take our sum of money and use it for a house or other goal (while doing a city hall or otherwise inexpensive wedding), I’d be great with that, too. I think the amount of money spent on weddings is ridiculous. We were married in 1983 (in fact, our anniversary is tomorrow), and we had 200 guests but saved money everywhere we could. I didn’t even buy a dress—I wore a borrowed one. I have no sympathy for the “it’s my special day/princess” syndrome.
Mark, I don’t like financial surprises or unknowns. As a mother of two daughters, I put aside money for their weddings years before their engagements and told them how much that would be for their big event. I also told them that how they spent that money was up to them. They could put it all toward an expensive wedding or plan something more casual and use some of it toward a house down payment or honeymoon or whatever they chose. They both chose an elaborate wedding, which was a little disappointing to me from a financial aspect but which were amazing and joyful events. And because I had set that money aside earlier, I felt I could also pay for a few surprise “extras” along the way, which was fun for both of us.
This was also how I approached their college costs. I paid the net cost of their tuition and board (after scholarships were subtracted), but their “lifestyle” expenses were up to them. As I put it to them, “I will keep you alive and without a loan to repay, but I won’t pay for your Uggs.” Consequently, they both had (very) part-time jobs throughout high school and college. And they bought those Uggs.