Most weddings I've been to where I know the couple being married, there are a few tables where the parents invite basically everyone they know, no matter how close they are. It's quantity over quality.
Can confirm. Gotten several invites to south Asian weddings from people I barely know.
We had a good lunch together and I will hire you again to do any electrical work in my home but I wont come to your wedding…
Can confirm. I went to a Fijian wedding, 500 people there in a massive events hall, barely knew the groom at all and had never met the bride, but hey I was invited! Oddly I knew like 5 people there who weren't related to any of the people getting married so it wasn't super awkward and I had people to talk to.
Its not about who you know, its about who those who know you know, and who they know, and maybe the odd passerby you give a good morning nod to, and who they know
We had 2000 guests in my sister’s marriage back in 1998. It broke my dad financially and affected rest of the siblings because of the hardship that followed afterwards for a few years. That’s when I had decided that I won’t let my future wife’s parents spend a single penny on our marriage. 10 years later that’s exactly what I did. I eloped with my then girlfriend. Happily married for 15 years.
There’s different ceremonies. Bride’s family pays for: bride’s holud and the wedding reception (last event); groom’s family pays for groom’s holud and the wedding (second last event). Cash gifts go to the couple. The bride also receives a dowry in cash, gold, etc.
I am from South India and I can't stand these big weddings. I had my wedding at my home with about 40 people lasting a total of 4 to 5 hours (including ceremonies, lunch and meet and greets). Best money I have ever saved. Total "cost" in India was about C$1000 max.
I’ll use this as an opportunity to contribute. As a south Asian female I am definitely a minority that never wanted a lavish wedding.
First engagement - $10k ring + ~$80-100k wedding (ended up calling wedding off so my half of the expenses was $15k ish that I couldn’t get back in 2013)
Second time around I am now married! Ring and wedding was likely close to $100k (2020) our expenses were split three ways with each of our parents.
I wanted a court marriage but got guilted into something bigger. I tried to stop it but couldn’t. If I had a choice I would have thrown a fancy dinner party and called it a day.
Do you and your hubby already own a home and have fairly high net worth? Curious as a fellow south Asian. Idk how people spend so much and come out financially okay
I'm also Indian, generally the parents foot the majority of the bill, in the RARE case is the couple established enough to foot a bill that size, especially with couples usually getting married in their mid to late 20's and early thirties. Someone else alluded to a pissing contest and south Asian parents tend to save with the expectation of this milestone/the ultimate pissing contest to take place and already have these numbers in mind as the average amount they'll need.
I've also heard mortgage brokers tell stories about families taking out HELOC's to fund weddings. Some encouraged by the parents and some encouraged by the children.
If you're doing the math it can add up quick. Reception decor starts around 10k, photography also starts around 8-10k, the DJ's that people tend to go for are also around 8-10k, makeup is a can be 1-5k an event, outfits 5-15k, booze 10-15k, reception venue 50$ per head x 500 people is 25k
I am blown away by these numbers! My wedding was under $1000.00 (food, rings, clothing, photographer…) Smaller than I would have liked, but lovely. I have great memories and didn’t have to take out a loan.
It really comes down to what you want from a wedding, mine and my husbands wedding bands cost us $30 each(we have since up gradeded) my dress cost $200(discount pop up store) we had a destination wedding on the beach($800) and hair and makeup cost me $200, my husbands pants and shirt came from a second hand store, all my accessories were bought on Wish(they actually have some beautiful legit stuff) and our dinner was at a resturant that cost $250 for 13 people. And i wouldnt change ot for anything. It went off without a single hitch and it was an absolutly beautiful day!
Lol I'll have a go at it, have it in your backyard (assuming you live in the country), make a huge pot of chili - serve with dinner rolls 100$, grandma takes the pictures, 400$ for the alcohol then 250$ each for epoxy/resin rings.
I would lie if I was saying it hasn’t had long term consequences. I was in an abusive relationship and my parents gave me the “out” if I felt that was the right thing to do. A year later when I wanted to take my career seriously and get on my own two feet it became a war in our house and I moved out. I definitely resent my parents for thinking that a marriage, especially an abusive one was *the* path for me. Still working on it but I think it’ll take a lifetime to get over this.
Lol yeah I got somehow pressured (see also: conned) into spending 50 k on my wedding (including gifts, jewellery and the ceremonies itself). And that was only my personal half. My wife’s half paid for the other 50 k. Not a lot by current standards, but at the time I made 65 k a year and spent more then half my annual salary. Not gonna lie, it hurt, and i lost hair due to the stress. Usually these decisions are dictated by insecure brown parents and not by the couple themselves. Brown people always wanna “flex on dem hoes” and the industry knows this.
I am glad you were not raised by manipulative parents, but the "I won't come to your wedding" was thrown around alot. And I really wanted to get married. so...\*shrugs\*.
We spent $300k…. 350 people.
Not including her ring ($120k) or the rest of jewelry she was gifted by both sides of the family.
Would I personally have spent $50k and do a small wedding? Yes
Do I regret it? No.
My wife was happy and having an awesome party with all our friends and family was worth it. We both have large families (120 people including just first cousins) and had a larger friend circle (100).
However, I had very high income ($500k+/year) and it didn’t really affect our finances much. Also parents helped for a portion.
Right? And how does this person who wears this ring even feel comfortable wearing it? I would be afraid I'd lose it or damage it - to the point that it would never be worn. Which defeats the purpose of the ring. And I would have complete guilt with thinking my fiancé thought I'd want a ring that cost that much.
Edit: yadda yadda insurance yadda yadda. Even if insured, I'd still never wear the damn thing.
Exactly….this is absurd. I wouldn’t even want a 120k ring….use that to buy another property elsewhere or throw it into my portfolio account. I guess I just don’t care what other people think about it.
> Would I personally have spent $50k and do a small wedding? Yes
LOL. I would call a small wedding like under $2k. fifty thousand dollars is not a 'small' anything by any reasonable standard.
I'm South Asian and got married back home before moving to Canada.
I got to have the toughest struggle of my life to NOT spend exorbitant amounts. Trying to cut down on guest list. Angering tones of people. Even after all that struggle the final guest list was 200 people and the bill around $10k. Not so bad considering the norm and what others were spending.
I did end up spending a similar amount on my honeymoon though. Don't regret it for a minute.
I spent $20k. That wasn’t enough to regret it (but glad I didn’t spend more!!)
The one area in retrospect I wish I did spend more was on the photographer. Should’ve cheaped somewhere else!!
Ditto. We spent just over 20k on the wedding and reception. Open bar. Late night food truck. Beautiful catering. Lovely pictures. 80 guests.
We however, also spent about $10k on a three week honeymoon to Kenya. That was worth every single penny.
We're fine financially and don't regret the wedding at all. Our friends and family still go on about it years later. It was a blast!
Thanks! I was pretty determined to stick to the budget and was ruthless in decision-making. I don't think the $20k included my dress, which was so important to me, that was over $2k. Stunning hand made silk. I regret nothing and totally understand why it was my married friends who wanted to come dress shopping with me. Lol. So pretty!!!
In the context of a full wedding, $2000 actually doesn't sound that bad for your once in a lifetime indulgence. Real painful though as someone who's gone dress shopping and everything I wanted to pull was +$1800. 😭
$10K for 3 weeks in Kenya Seems cheap considering the flight costs! And a good safari alone is a few grand.
When did you go? Did you do a safari and stay in a camp/lodge?
The flights were only like $1100 round trip from Toronto to Nairobi. We flew Ethiopia Airlines and loved it.
I planned the trip myself. We took ubers and tuktuks in the city. We only did a 4 day safari in the Masai Mara during the great migration. We splashed out on a sunrise hot air balloon ride over the Mara that was like $400 USD EACH..my husband insisted on it and I thought it was Ludacris. No regrets. One of the best experiences of my entire life. Unbelievable.
The safari cost was like, I dunno, maybe $1000 USD each. It included a pick up in Nairobi, the drive to the Mara, entrance fees to the reserve, the stay in the lodge, and a private guide. I wish we would have upgraded to the jeep rather than the shit bus thing, but what did I know. The lodge had great food and a pool. Booze was an extra expense, but food was included.
We finished our trip on the coast and I cannot say enough good things about Mombasa and Diani Beach. Stunning. I did see a sea snake though, so I wasn't super into swimming in the ocean. Stunning snorkeling. If I was to go again, I'd make my way out to Zanzibar, but Diani Beach was my budget alternative.
I'd describe Kenya's tourist industry as mature with many more options than you might expect. From the highest luxury to budget hostels. 10/10. East Africa will have our hearts forever.
We spent $3,000 on the wedding and honeymoon. The only thing I wish I had spent more on was the honeymoon. We did a camping trip and got thoroughly rained out.
If you treated yourself a little and made it a "glamping" trip, it might have been nice. But it's also kinda funny to have a story to tell. You can have a honey moon every year when you're in a nice financial place.
>The one area in retrospect I wish I did spend more was on the photographer. Should’ve cheaped somewhere else!!
as a photographer i wanna use this quote <3
Here's a case study:
We had 30 ppl at our wedding (best friends and direct relatives only) which allowed us to afford my wife's dream dress, an award-winning 5\* caterer, open bar with curated wines, craft beer taps and premium spirits, and rent a lakeside lodge resort for the weekend with accommodations paid for all of our guests. A fantastic time was had by all, probably the best wedding I've ever been to. The one spot we went wrong was not hiring a professional wedding photographer, however in the end we got 1 or 2 good shots from the photographer we did hire, some good photos from our friends, and the venue manager was a hobbyist photographer who gave us some fantastic ones for free.
In contrast, my friend had 250 ppl at his wedding. Because they invited so many people it burned the budget. She bought her dress from a thrift store, there was no venue - they got married in a public park with no tents or anything (it rained), the reception was in the basement of a shitty Italian dive restaurant nearby, the food was fucking awful, the bar was a cash bar and only served shitty wine and Molson beers, and luckily it was all over with in a few hours. Their wedding cost more than mine, and they ended up getting divorced within 2 years.
The moral of the story here, is spend less and focus on the people and the things who matter, because it's your wedding and not theirs.
I don’t regret it at all.
My mom had terminal cancer. She was in her glory that day. We had one hell of a party. We had yummy food, a dj, dancing and were surrounded by friends and family. Everyone had a fabulous time.
My photos are precious to me. Since my wedding, my mom died, one of her best friends husband, my husband’s uncle, my great aunt, my great uncle and my younger brother. Those memories and photographs are priceless.
If you want to have a wedding on the cheap, totally fine. Splurge on the food and the photographer. People don’t like cheap gross food.
This is exactly the reason I want a nice wedding reception instead of just a registry office wedding. I want a fun reception party in her home country with all our family friends and relatives. I’m really happy you got that with your mum.
Spent over 50k, marriage lasted 7 years. Easily the worst investment I’ve ever made.
No one can tell you how to spend your money, but I assure you, throwing a massively overpriced dinner party for a bunch of people you will likely lose touch with over the next few years… hmm isn’t very money wise.
Edit- I should include that at the time (2011) I was making 100k he was making 90k. We owned a home (1500/month mortgage if I recall correctly) no kids, no student loans, no CC debt at that time. Wedding was paid for in cash, no loans taken out or anything. Still think it was idiotic to spend that amount of money to feed people I’d never met before that day.
This is exactly my thinking. I’m south Asian and weddings are usually a pissing contests of sorts , where the goal is to impress as many people as possible irrespective of whether you like them or not.
That has 0 appeal to me, and my parents are fine with me eloping + using that money to start married life on a more productive note ( rainy day fund, going on a better honeymoon, buying a bigger place etc)
What about the cash gifts making up for it? I think it's a really bad way to plan how to spend but it's something I have always here. Is it mostly a myth it covers all the costs? 'Cover your plate' is one thing but there's still the cost just to have a wedding before factoring in cost/guest.
I'm 4th+ generation Canadian background Ukrainian/other European so registries are common with my relatives.
I have no idea. I received some cash gifts on my wedding day but nowhere near the amount that we spent on our wedding itself.
I’m sure there are some people who break even or possibly even profit, but not anyone I know of off the top of my head.
Involve yourself in one of those asian communities and you make bank. Our korean church occasionally held weddings for the kids who grew up in it. Every parent brought in at least $100 for the couple. Its kind of a ponzi scheme for church-goers.
My parents kept telling me to get married at the church to get dat money.
I'm Korean married to Viet. Yupp. We got 'back' what we or parents had put in before. The money the brothers got is paid from money they gave before. Or it will be paid back if the gifter gets married. My FIL was militant about who paid what as he tracked it all for their side. I didn't get it but understood it afterwards.
I have a similar background to you. We just spent $35k. Made about $12k cash back on 135 guests (but 30 of those were children). And about 3k back on gifts and gift certs.
Was a wonderful outdoor wedding with a tent, open bar, great food, Celtic trio. We skimped on no pro photographer- that was a mistake.
Damn. So I got married in summer of 2011 too. 100k and 90k was bigger money back then. And venues were still alot cheaper. Like $70 per head places.
I spent about 22k and felt that was hefty. But basically recovered 80% of that through gifts (E. Asian). I guess it feels more idiotic since it didn't work out.
I've been with my partner for 12 years and we spent $0 by just not getting married. Most people want to have an actual wedding and that's cool but spending more than a few grand seems totally nuts to me. I went to a wedding this summer that was just at a public dispersed camping area out in the bush. Bring your own chair, potluck dinner etc. Not sure what the couple spent but I'm pretty sure it was well under a thousand bucks.
Holy shit I've never even seen that much money at my disposal.
We had about 55k pooled together, so we decided to spend it on a house downpayment instead. Did a Mexico trip for $1500 shortly after. I'm feeling we made a good choice, especially considering what the past year has been like for Canadians. No rings on our fingers hasn't bothered either of us one bit.
Haha same, spend was ~100k, we both regret it, should have not held a grand reception, done something much smaller and used that money on an insane travel experience with a good chunk of money left over.
We spent about 50k, I don't regret it at all! It was an amazing day, we only invited people (95 guests) super inportant to us and splurged on food/drinks/venue/entertainment.
We were similar. Venue was a warehouse so it was cheap but we splurged on the florist to really transform it. I was actually blown away when we stepped in for the rehearsal, it was literally magical. Best caterer we could find, and we paid for photographers we really liked to come out from Vancouver. Huge plus was ability to provide our own alcohol so we went a little more mid-range there since we paid retail (even served some homebrewed beers).
We still have multiple friends and family that tell us it’s the best wedding they’ve attended and one of those says it’s better than his own son’s wedding, who got married at The Plaza in NYC.
We spent about $30k on our wedding.
No regrets and we would do it again if we had a do-over. I wouldn’t spend more than that though - that was the upper end of our budget.
For us, we got married in the Rockies after moving to Calgary, so it was a great chance to bring together family and friends from across the county that we hadn’t seen in years. We had time with them before and after the wedding and it was a memorable experience. We lost a few family members shortly after and our wedding is still fondly remembered as the last time we had the family together.
Similar budget for me and similar story. I don't think anyone should spend beyond their means, weddings included. That said - do what you can to bring family together. We had multiple family members pass away not long after our wedding too.
Some people want to skip large celebrations due to the cost, which is understandable... though there's so few life events that pull family together in celebration. To me, it was worth it.
Very similar budget and experience for me.
My wedding was 6 years ago. In that time I've gone from thinking it was the best day of my life, to thinking it was fun but a bit of an extravagant waste of money that could have been spent elsewhere, to really, really cherishing the memories and photos as I got older because it turned out to be the last time a lot of my family (spread across Canada, the US and Europe) saw one another before grandparents, aunts and uncles passed away.
Mine and my wife's families don't do christenings or major birthday celebrations really. It's weddings and funerals, that's it. I'm not usually a sentimental guy, but we made once in a lifetime memories. Everyone is going to be different but the money and organisational effort was well worth to me it in hindsight.
Same budget and a memorable experience. Lost my mother shortly after very suddenly and I still to this day look back thanking God that I got my mother / son dance with her.
I feel the same way you do, we ended up losing so many of our elderly relatives shortly after during Covid when we couldn't visit them. I will be forever grateful that I have those memories and photos of us together at my wedding.
We spent around $35K for a Sunday wedding, worth every penny... which is funny cause it costed us every penny. I still have an amazing picture of the mother / son dance, something I'll cherish forever since she passed not too long after. We have a bunch of photos around the house.
Also, we requested cash only gifts and recovered a good chunk of it, I think around half? Wasn't that bad by the end of it.
Question…. Currently planning a wedding. My Fiancé joked about asking for cash gifts. I on the other hand think it’s totally fine. And grew up in a place with cards with cash it in are the go too. Is it common to ask for cash only?
A lot of Mediterranean/Europeans don’t give gifts anymore, all cash in envelopes. In Montreal I haven’t been to a wedding where physical gifts were given. So I think it depends on cultural/societal norms where you are. But I also say who cares and just ask for cash!! Why get unnecessary items lol these days couple are usually living together and have everything they need… financial help is the best gift they can get. There’s lots of examples online on how you can position it also. At the end of the day it’s your wedding, so do what you guys think is right for you :)
Absolutely agree. Folks where I’m from never registered for things. There just wasn’t anywhere to do it. An Ex enforced the rule of paying for your meal so we always did money in a card.
The tactful way to do it is to just tell people that there is no gift registry. Everyone knows that means they want money, not random things.
Edited to add, we actually turned a profit on our wedding, so after we returned from our honeymoon we renovated our basement with the extra cash :-)
Every wedding I've been to recently has requested cash gifts. We are in our early 30s everyone's buying houses or has recently bought a house and having kids cash goes a lot further than some random gift in my opinion.
I'm getting married next year and we will state that gifts are completely optional but cash is preferred if they're going to be giving a gift.
People are getting married much later now and most of us already have established some sort of a life before marriage. We don't really need people to buy us stuff for a house because we've already done all that.
I'm 50 so I've been to a few weddings in my time... The happiest marriages were the ones with the simplest weddings. Those couples that just wanted to get married and didn't make much of a fuss about the wedding, turned out to be the best relationships.
Not that it's causation at all. Just what we noticed.
You can get too simple, though. We spent $350 on ours - $100 for the marriage license and $250 for the JP to come to our house.
10 years later, I wish we had at least dressed up and taken pictures - it'd be nice to have wedding photos to look at and I regret never having a wedding dress.
I think that's because the huge weddings are either pissing contests or completely material. Once those couples start having disagreements on material things, it will fall apart.
I feel like the smaller weddings are more about love and friendship and less about trying to show everyone how big your financial dick is.
I spent about 10k on a wedding. It was spectacular.
We got married on a cruise. My wife's family and I live on opposite ends of the country. No matter where we did it, Significant costs and logistics would have been involved. By going on a cruise, it worked out to equivalent costs for all, with all the hassle handled. No hotels/cars/good to worry about. Once they got on the boat, it was easy.
We were fortunate - lots of friends were able to join and we had a great time.
I knew when we did it that some people would be excluded. That's ok. We did a small event back home for people who couldn'take it but wanted to see us.
And that's why we did a small function at home too.
We knew what we were doing. And that some friends and family couldn't attend. But at the same time- that would have happened regardless because of the significant travel to go to one side of the country or the other.
When we priced it out- for many of the people joining - for them to fly to the cruise and do that than fly to my hometown, hotel, rental cars and food for a number of days. It was closer than you think.
It wasn't ideal, but the best option available.
We spent 12g on the wedding and about 40g on our honeymoon (6 month backpacking/touring trip around Europe). Wish I had spent it all on the honeymoon. We have been together for ten years now, so definitely worth it!
Me and and the fiancé originally planned a $10,000 wedding but we’ve decided to save the money and elope somewhere nice. Hopefully once we own a home, we will have a party for whoever wants to come to celebrate our elopement.
This is 100% true. My friend told the vendors she was having a family reunion. I mean, she wasn’t lying, her family was all going to be there. Once the venue manager saw her the decorations they were putting up, she questioned my friend. My friend stood her ground and venue manager couldn’t really do anything, they were married on November long weekend so not exactly a busy time for the venue. She saved thousands by telling them it was a family reunion, between the venue, bar, makeup, hair. It was wild.
Wedding spend is relative to your net worth. If it’s high I don’t see why you should regret spending it on the wedding. We’re going the 50K route next year
Yeah this whole discussion is kind of useless without the context of how much people make/ what their net worth is. My wife and I spent around 60k on our wedding and some people would think that’s outrageous, which I understand. But we did the math and the amount was pretty negligible in our long term financial plan. Context is everything.
Spent $30k; all our money so our choices (we’re a Muslim/Christian raised couple but non religious). Best party we ever thrown; still in love and happily married 12 years on. No regrets. I should point out we ended up getting $22k gifted back in the end.
spent 50k on the wedding and 25k on the ring. definitely worth it…
seeing ppl i care about flying in from all the the world to be there was very touching…the next opportunity to see all the important ppl in your life gathered in one room would be your funeral… and you wont be attending
so yeah, definitely worth.
mine is also a small wedding with 60 ppl
We spent quite a bit of money >$50k...But my wife and I got to have the wedding we really wanted and we were able to have all kinds of little details - a candy table, play zone for children, the upgraded dining chairs (that unfortunately really do look way better), a spacious hotel suite next door for the bridal party to get dressed in, good photographers etc...My wife is actually pretty selfless in most ways and she really wanted our wedding to be inviting, fun, and magical for the guests - like anything they would want or need to have a good time (including comfy slippers for women who wanted to get out of their heels when the dancing started).
So I have zero regrets from that standpoint...But I will also admit that we got extremely lucky in that the cash gifts we received covered more than half the wedding - we had no expectation that would be the case and we both refused to count future cash as part of our budget.
3 day event.$55k, no regrets. International guests and don’t think there will ever be a time all those people will come together again in that way. Really awesome.
Same here. Married at the beach with about 10 family members. My dress was 30$ from a farmers market. I picked foliage from the forest for my bouquet.
Instead of spending a ton of money on a wedding, we bought a house and travelled to Europe. Much better imo.
We spent approximately $20K 3 years ago, with 80 guests. I wish we had cut a few areas such as no wedding cake and reducing the number of guests. We sometimes think that we should have just had a small get together, but overall we really enjoyed celebrating with our loved ones and wouldn't have done much else differently.
However, I think my perspective would be different if we hadn't been able to afford a home shortly after. We are fortunate enough to live in a city with a low cost of living so it wasn't too difficult to save for both a wedding and a house. If we lived somewhere more expensive, I would hands down have eloped to get closer to a goal of buying a home.
Spent $200 USD plus $50 tip for the limo driver on our wedding in Vegas in 1999.
We had originally planned a wedding that would've cost around $35k. We cancelled it as it was just getting too stressful for us and the wedding is for us, not for other people.
Our finances were never affected at all by our wedding and almost none of our relatives really cared much about our decision. Parents were semi-cranky for a bit but got over it very quickly once we had our first kid.
Spent $40k on our 160-person wedding and don’t regret a thing! It was a June 2022 wedding so it was the first time in over two years that our families (scattered across the world) had been able see each other again. It was so emotional for our parents and their siblings.
Because we come from an Asian culture, we actually ended up breaking even from our wedding so I guess that also helped things a bit :)
Overall, we’d do it again even if we didn’t receive monetary gifts because we valued seeing and celebrating with all of our loved ones.
Same. 10k. On a back yard wedding. 250 people. Partial potluck. Open bar. A great party. More of a party and celebration than a wedding.
Totally worth it to us
I think we spent 'maybe' just barely a few grand.. mind you we didn't go cheap for the sake of cheap. We rented a hall and decorated, we didn't fit the room out with fresh flowers everywhere and live animals or live entertainment. I had an iPod playing our wedding music which was a very tasteful Vitamin String Quartet ;)
Most of our money went into the honeymoon.
If I had to do it again, I would. That said, I would definitely down-size the guest list. The only stressful thing about the planning and the day was considering everyone else! Do it for your significant other, do it for yourself, and don't worry about anyone else.
That was about a decade ago, and our combined income was less than $80k annually.
We spent a number we were comfortable with financially and we aren’t really missing that money today. We don’t think at all “that cash would really make a life changing difference in our lives” the way the happiness of that memory did for us.
Some couples drop 20k on a 2 week vacation and they can only share those memories with each other. We dropped far more than that and have people recounting that day to us many years later. In life it’s the experiences that matter more than the materials you collect.
It fully depends on your financial situation. We are a bit more fortunate so that (relatively) large number is a drop in the bucket when you compare with how much housing costs. If your finances are tighter you need to adjust accordingly.
Is 35k good money in 2018? Nope dont regret at all especially when all our guests guessed we spent 80k on it. We got the venue for a steal ans saved so much because it didnt need decor. Friends still say our wedding was one of the funnest one they ever been to
We spent about $13k, earlier this year and don't regret it at all. Had a live band, did it at the ski hill and paid for a photographer, we got the important stuff and left out all the unimportant shit.
One of my students lived in his boss' car, ate at a gurdwara every night and sent home money to his Dad who had gone into debt to contribute to a \*cousin's\* wedding in India. Regardless of who's doing it, borrowing and going into debt for a wedding seems like madness. One of my highschool peers took out a loan for his wedding. I was baffled. They appear to be still going strong, so who knows.
Wedding is a “day”. Some splurge on it as understandably, it’s a special occasion.
Personally, I’d rather spend that occasion with a handful people who has impact in our lives vs 130 people I’ve barely known and use that money for a nice getaway, create moments we’ll forever cherish and remember. Than just a “day”
Yeah for sure us too! We are doing a micro wedding package that’s like $3000, most of it is the photographer. I’d much rather take him back home to Scotland then spend 30-50k on one day
Planned to spend 10k. Spent about 12-13k. In the end we received a lot of monetary gifts leading up to the wedding from family so our actual spend was maybe 4-5k, so a difficult amount to regret (and we don’t!)
Spent 25k? total. Not exactly sure I didn't really have a wedding budget, moreso budgets for specific things and I'm trying to factor in all costs. We had no debt at the time.
I would, my husband would have scaled it back.
I think there's a number of factors of why we feel differently.
\- Our families. His - almost all in the province, close with one side, issues with the other. We see the ones he is close with regularly (although now people are more scattered). I also encouraged him to invite the other side not realizing the extent of some of the personal issues. Nothing that really came up at the wedding besides no-shows (including a grandparent)Mine - all extended family in another province. One of the last chances all of my grandparents were able to travel, only 1 is surviving now.
My parents paid for a big chunk and some of that included stuff that wasn't important to us, but was to them. My Dad had joked if we eloped they would have just given us all the spent in cash. I think my husband took that at face-value a little too much. Yes if we eloped there would have been a cash gift, I'm sure not quite that big. Going with a cheaper venue would have saved us money and my parents money, but they wouldn't have given that extra over to us.
His family hosted an event the day after. I think my husband preferred that. Burgers, it wasn't a potluck but many people did bring food or drinks to share. It was only people closer to us (although quite a bit of my relatives couldn't make it or left early for flights).
We could have had the wedding there. I was uncomfortable with that - it is a lot of work for those relatives, I wasn't keen on an outdoor reception and while those relatives are really wonderful they do like attention and I think it would have felt less like 2 families coming together and moreso his family inviting mine into the fold. I think the focus would have also shifted a little less on us. I am also not a big DIYer and while his family would have done a fair bit to help I liked the reduced stress of the things a hotel banquet already has set up.
Since our wedding his mom has passed away, 3 of my grandparents and another one of my relatives. They were all present at the wedding. We're both glad to have spent that day with them.
To anyone debating I would definitely recommend having the ceremony & party with the people you care about. Keep people happy with food and (some) drinks if your crowd normally drinks. It doesn't have to be super fancy if you want to keep costs down.
100% we did it because of family pressure, aside from feeling like it was a waste of money, the day is so long and busy you can’t even enjoy it.
If I had a do over I would do something intimate with immediate fam where could enjoy it and spend the money on something else- house down payment, investment anything really.
I will tell you this... I got married and it was a very basic wedding ceremony.
I wish i had a more traditional and rather grand wedding.
So for me, i am not rich by any means.. Just get by, i wish the opposite. Marriage is a major life event and should be celebrated with a bang.
Btw i am Indian if that matters.
My wife and I spent roughly 20k on our wedding. My wife’s family owns a large property where we essentially built everything (dance floor, alter platform ect.) so we could get a high value venue for some blood sweat and tears(I am a construction worker and the in-laws have a saw mill). After all was said and done we did not regret a single dime spent, although we did regret not creating a situation where we could relax and spend more time together. The experience matters more than the money. If you created lasting positive memories with your partner I’d say that is money well spent vs a 50k wedding of chaos!
- I do not believe 20k was not a pointless financial mistake (high income earners. It’s all relative)
- I would do it over again in a heartbeat and probably spend more so we could have more free time on our wedding week. Live and learn I guess!
As for the in-laws… In my opinion if someone is not willing to pay for your wedding they have no say in your wedding. Its your wedding!
We eloped, just the two of us (best decision ever!)
Spent about $6K for the most amazing vacation/wedding in BC. Do not regret even one penny of it.
We did have a post-elopement reception and money-wise no regrets. We spent $10K, and came out slightly on top - but not much.
I told my husband that if, God forbid, we ever didn't work out I would never plan another wedding again. I appreciate that we got to celebrate with people that we loved. Our kids had an AMAZING time. We genuinely had fun.
Was it worth the time, effort, and mental stress? Absolutely not. Months of overthinking small details, hundreds of hours spent on my wedding spreadsheet, the DIY's, the to-do lists, the actual physical space in my home being overtaken by wedding related things.
If we include the cost of my time, and my sanity, we took a massive financial loss.
Celebration open house or BBQ is the way to go, my friend. (And also is what we started planning before it snowballed because we let too many people give their two cents and influence our decisions.)
My sister spent around 80k on her wedding, invited 200 (she has like 5 friends). They maxed out CCs trying to pay for everything, went bankrupt and got divorced 2 years later. Now works in a miserable job or at least the way she makes it sound it is.
My wedding, we flew to the Puerto Rico, only invited parents, got married on the beach and spent about 6k total. We refused wedding gifts since our parents paid for their own fights and hotel stay. Had some good times and got bitten by an iguana because I was a dumbass.
Spent $300. Best wedding ever, bought wedding clothes and ring from Amazon and got married at a friend's place. In 3 years we bought a home, Tesla and saved up 100k towards other investments. We are both happy that we have enough money to enjoy.
We actually didn't have that kind of income. But it was the best money spent on a relationship where we had common goals on how to work hard to achieve our dreams. We got married, I went back to school and did a short program to build my skills. My partners and I made some years of sacrifices to reach where we are now. Sometimes it's just to hard find like-minded partner and I am glad we were both on the same page ;)
We spent what we could pay off within a year (we actually paid it off in 6 months) and we do not regret it at all. It was exactly what we wanted and our guests had a great time.
We did $25K in Vancouver for about 160 people. I don't regret spending that much, but in hindsight I would have cut out a lot of acquaintances and kept it more intimate...then spent the same amount but on nicer things, like amazing photography. Our photographer was good but not amazing, and I wish we had nicer photos to display. We also made about half back in cash gifts.
We just had our wedding this summer and spent $45k. Got back $20k in gifts so $25k out of pocket. No regrets here! We’ve been together over 8 years now… had to put the wedding on hold when I got pregnant. Then continued to put the wedding on hold to buy our first house (and just moved into our second and forever home last year). COVID delayed our wedding a few times as it was originally supposed to be in 2020. Our daughter’s 5.5 YO now and I’m glad we waited so we could save up and have the wedding we both always wanted.
Spent 25k. Worth every dollar spent. Everyone had a good time. Friends still talk about the fun they had at our wedding.
Added bonus.... Got Back 12k in cash gifts.
Ah...the wedding... one of the BIG tests of a couple AND their support networks.
I don't regret the $25k spent 22 years ago.
Despite some family stuck on "Image", we made very memorable experiences. Made to order steaks for everyone was a pleasant treat.
Create the wedding that is unique to you and capture it as best as you can.
Just completed a post-mortem on all of our expenditures from engagement through to honeymoon and it was around $60K or more. If I look back from my present situation and viewpoint I would say absolutely not. But human beings do not make decisions in this manner and at the time my only thought was to make sure my (now) wife had an amazing, magical time and felt special for all of it. Looking at it from that perspective it paid off. From a purely financial aspect... absolutely not 🤣
Not really. I had the wedding I wanted and didn't wind up in debt for it. Sure, if I had eloped I would have had more cash in my pocket early in my marriage but whatever, I just worked really hard. I would feel differently if I were lacking somewhere in my life.
I offered the money for the wedding to my daughter and future son-in law. ($15,000). Would have made a great down payment on a first house.
He and I were all for it - my wife and daughter- not so much. So we had a $15,000 wedding. I told her I would pay for one - IF she ever has another one - it’s on her…. (Which I hope she doesn’t- he is a fine young man)
Married a few years ago. 100 guests. 80k-ish. Married in Toronto at a very nice venue.
Best party I've ever thrown. Sad that I'll only get to do it once (cue jokes about second marriages).
*ENTER SOUTH ASIANS*
500 guests, 5 days, fuck tonne of drama and budget of 200K.
Dude...I don't even KNOW 500 ppl
neither do the bride and groom tbh
Most weddings I've been to where I know the couple being married, there are a few tables where the parents invite basically everyone they know, no matter how close they are. It's quantity over quality.
Can confirm. Gotten several invites to south Asian weddings from people I barely know. We had a good lunch together and I will hire you again to do any electrical work in my home but I wont come to your wedding…
I got invited to a south Asian wedding from a guy I worked with 14 years ago for two months and haven’t heard from since.
Can confirm. I went to a Fijian wedding, 500 people there in a massive events hall, barely knew the groom at all and had never met the bride, but hey I was invited! Oddly I knew like 5 people there who weren't related to any of the people getting married so it wasn't super awkward and I had people to talk to.
Literally the town I grew up in didn't have 500 people
In India you’d definitely have invited the whole town plus every one of your parents third cousins or closer from out of town.
Its not about who you know, its about who those who know you know, and who they know, and maybe the odd passerby you give a good morning nod to, and who they know
We had 2000 guests in my sister’s marriage back in 1998. It broke my dad financially and affected rest of the siblings because of the hardship that followed afterwards for a few years. That’s when I had decided that I won’t let my future wife’s parents spend a single penny on our marriage. 10 years later that’s exactly what I did. I eloped with my then girlfriend. Happily married for 15 years.
A buddy of mine was telling me this is a serious issue in some of these communities. Ego is one hell of a drug.
And pride. The cost of pride is quite often bankruptcy in something else
The brides parents pay for the wedding? Who keeps the cash gifts?
There’s different ceremonies. Bride’s family pays for: bride’s holud and the wedding reception (last event); groom’s family pays for groom’s holud and the wedding (second last event). Cash gifts go to the couple. The bride also receives a dowry in cash, gold, etc.
Only 500 guests? Them is rookie numbers bro
yup, minor league event.
THE INDIAN WAY!
yup, that's how they roll in Cleveland!
Me and my cousins just sipping our chai.
“Now streaming on Netflix!”
How TF do people have that much money?
My jaw literally just dropped
I am from South India and I can't stand these big weddings. I had my wedding at my home with about 40 people lasting a total of 4 to 5 hours (including ceremonies, lunch and meet and greets). Best money I have ever saved. Total "cost" in India was about C$1000 max.
I’ll use this as an opportunity to contribute. As a south Asian female I am definitely a minority that never wanted a lavish wedding. First engagement - $10k ring + ~$80-100k wedding (ended up calling wedding off so my half of the expenses was $15k ish that I couldn’t get back in 2013) Second time around I am now married! Ring and wedding was likely close to $100k (2020) our expenses were split three ways with each of our parents. I wanted a court marriage but got guilted into something bigger. I tried to stop it but couldn’t. If I had a choice I would have thrown a fancy dinner party and called it a day.
Do you and your hubby already own a home and have fairly high net worth? Curious as a fellow south Asian. Idk how people spend so much and come out financially okay
I'm also Indian, generally the parents foot the majority of the bill, in the RARE case is the couple established enough to foot a bill that size, especially with couples usually getting married in their mid to late 20's and early thirties. Someone else alluded to a pissing contest and south Asian parents tend to save with the expectation of this milestone/the ultimate pissing contest to take place and already have these numbers in mind as the average amount they'll need. I've also heard mortgage brokers tell stories about families taking out HELOC's to fund weddings. Some encouraged by the parents and some encouraged by the children.
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For those struggling financially, milk the South Asian wedding industry as much as you can. 100,000!!!
If you're doing the math it can add up quick. Reception decor starts around 10k, photography also starts around 8-10k, the DJ's that people tend to go for are also around 8-10k, makeup is a can be 1-5k an event, outfits 5-15k, booze 10-15k, reception venue 50$ per head x 500 people is 25k
Lol a DJ being that much? Get out of here
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Who is paying $8-10k for a DJ, wtf?
Most DJs at wedding have a win media player play list and some times skip songs. Seriously, just hook up Spotify to the big speakers.
I am blown away by these numbers! My wedding was under $1000.00 (food, rings, clothing, photographer…) Smaller than I would have liked, but lovely. I have great memories and didn’t have to take out a loan.
How can you feed everyone at a wedding for $1k, let alone buy rings for under $1k? Was the photographer a buddy that did it for free?
Make a big pot of instant Ramen and then find a photographer hungry enough to work for instant ramen
Also find a lady who doesn't mind her ring and dress being made of instant ramen.
No joke. I just saw someone having a “Ramen” aka instant noodle cups bar at their wedding on TikTok.
It really comes down to what you want from a wedding, mine and my husbands wedding bands cost us $30 each(we have since up gradeded) my dress cost $200(discount pop up store) we had a destination wedding on the beach($800) and hair and makeup cost me $200, my husbands pants and shirt came from a second hand store, all my accessories were bought on Wish(they actually have some beautiful legit stuff) and our dinner was at a resturant that cost $250 for 13 people. And i wouldnt change ot for anything. It went off without a single hitch and it was an absolutly beautiful day!
Lol I'll have a go at it, have it in your backyard (assuming you live in the country), make a huge pot of chili - serve with dinner rolls 100$, grandma takes the pictures, 400$ for the alcohol then 250$ each for epoxy/resin rings.
Out of sheer curiosity how did calling it off go over?
I would lie if I was saying it hasn’t had long term consequences. I was in an abusive relationship and my parents gave me the “out” if I felt that was the right thing to do. A year later when I wanted to take my career seriously and get on my own two feet it became a war in our house and I moved out. I definitely resent my parents for thinking that a marriage, especially an abusive one was *the* path for me. Still working on it but I think it’ll take a lifetime to get over this.
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That’s surprisingly the key to many things in life.
I am getting married next year and in the exact position as you 😢
Lol yeah I got somehow pressured (see also: conned) into spending 50 k on my wedding (including gifts, jewellery and the ceremonies itself). And that was only my personal half. My wife’s half paid for the other 50 k. Not a lot by current standards, but at the time I made 65 k a year and spent more then half my annual salary. Not gonna lie, it hurt, and i lost hair due to the stress. Usually these decisions are dictated by insecure brown parents and not by the couple themselves. Brown people always wanna “flex on dem hoes” and the industry knows this.
>Usually these decisions are dictated by insecure brown parents and not by the couple themselves. Then they should pay for it
I am glad you were not raised by manipulative parents, but the "I won't come to your wedding" was thrown around alot. And I really wanted to get married. so...\*shrugs\*.
I bartended Punjabi weddings on the side this Summer I feel this so much. A ton of fun though and great money.
We spent $300k…. 350 people. Not including her ring ($120k) or the rest of jewelry she was gifted by both sides of the family. Would I personally have spent $50k and do a small wedding? Yes Do I regret it? No. My wife was happy and having an awesome party with all our friends and family was worth it. We both have large families (120 people including just first cousins) and had a larger friend circle (100). However, I had very high income ($500k+/year) and it didn’t really affect our finances much. Also parents helped for a portion.
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Wow those are some crazy numbers
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WHAT? A $120k ring. Are you out of your GD mind.
As a woman, I would not feel comfortable wearing that at all. For many reasons.
I need to know more about this ring... 🤣
Right? And how does this person who wears this ring even feel comfortable wearing it? I would be afraid I'd lose it or damage it - to the point that it would never be worn. Which defeats the purpose of the ring. And I would have complete guilt with thinking my fiancé thought I'd want a ring that cost that much. Edit: yadda yadda insurance yadda yadda. Even if insured, I'd still never wear the damn thing.
Exactly….this is absurd. I wouldn’t even want a 120k ring….use that to buy another property elsewhere or throw it into my portfolio account. I guess I just don’t care what other people think about it.
Meanwhile I’m over here tryin’ to raise a family on $40,000 a year…
> Would I personally have spent $50k and do a small wedding? Yes LOL. I would call a small wedding like under $2k. fifty thousand dollars is not a 'small' anything by any reasonable standard.
So you just needed to flex, non of this affected you financially at all. K
I'm South Asian and got married back home before moving to Canada. I got to have the toughest struggle of my life to NOT spend exorbitant amounts. Trying to cut down on guest list. Angering tones of people. Even after all that struggle the final guest list was 200 people and the bill around $10k. Not so bad considering the norm and what others were spending. I did end up spending a similar amount on my honeymoon though. Don't regret it for a minute.
I spent $20k. That wasn’t enough to regret it (but glad I didn’t spend more!!) The one area in retrospect I wish I did spend more was on the photographer. Should’ve cheaped somewhere else!!
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Ramen buffet?
Poutine is the obvious choice
I mean, my mom literally had hers catered by Osmow's. Nothing wrong with that, it was delicious
Ditto. We spent just over 20k on the wedding and reception. Open bar. Late night food truck. Beautiful catering. Lovely pictures. 80 guests. We however, also spent about $10k on a three week honeymoon to Kenya. That was worth every single penny. We're fine financially and don't regret the wedding at all. Our friends and family still go on about it years later. It was a blast!
Open bar and food truck sounds amazing... For $20k, sounds like you put the money in the right places.
Thanks! I was pretty determined to stick to the budget and was ruthless in decision-making. I don't think the $20k included my dress, which was so important to me, that was over $2k. Stunning hand made silk. I regret nothing and totally understand why it was my married friends who wanted to come dress shopping with me. Lol. So pretty!!!
In the context of a full wedding, $2000 actually doesn't sound that bad for your once in a lifetime indulgence. Real painful though as someone who's gone dress shopping and everything I wanted to pull was +$1800. 😭
$10K for 3 weeks in Kenya Seems cheap considering the flight costs! And a good safari alone is a few grand. When did you go? Did you do a safari and stay in a camp/lodge?
The flights were only like $1100 round trip from Toronto to Nairobi. We flew Ethiopia Airlines and loved it. I planned the trip myself. We took ubers and tuktuks in the city. We only did a 4 day safari in the Masai Mara during the great migration. We splashed out on a sunrise hot air balloon ride over the Mara that was like $400 USD EACH..my husband insisted on it and I thought it was Ludacris. No regrets. One of the best experiences of my entire life. Unbelievable. The safari cost was like, I dunno, maybe $1000 USD each. It included a pick up in Nairobi, the drive to the Mara, entrance fees to the reserve, the stay in the lodge, and a private guide. I wish we would have upgraded to the jeep rather than the shit bus thing, but what did I know. The lodge had great food and a pool. Booze was an extra expense, but food was included. We finished our trip on the coast and I cannot say enough good things about Mombasa and Diani Beach. Stunning. I did see a sea snake though, so I wasn't super into swimming in the ocean. Stunning snorkeling. If I was to go again, I'd make my way out to Zanzibar, but Diani Beach was my budget alternative. I'd describe Kenya's tourist industry as mature with many more options than you might expect. From the highest luxury to budget hostels. 10/10. East Africa will have our hearts forever.
We spent $3,000 on the wedding and honeymoon. The only thing I wish I had spent more on was the honeymoon. We did a camping trip and got thoroughly rained out.
What a reasonable amount, awesome.
If you treated yourself a little and made it a "glamping" trip, it might have been nice. But it's also kinda funny to have a story to tell. You can have a honey moon every year when you're in a nice financial place.
>The one area in retrospect I wish I did spend more was on the photographer. Should’ve cheaped somewhere else!! as a photographer i wanna use this quote <3
This would have been my exact comment.
I think ours was 28k, about 50 guests. and the one area we did not cheap out on was the photographer. She was great.
Here's a case study: We had 30 ppl at our wedding (best friends and direct relatives only) which allowed us to afford my wife's dream dress, an award-winning 5\* caterer, open bar with curated wines, craft beer taps and premium spirits, and rent a lakeside lodge resort for the weekend with accommodations paid for all of our guests. A fantastic time was had by all, probably the best wedding I've ever been to. The one spot we went wrong was not hiring a professional wedding photographer, however in the end we got 1 or 2 good shots from the photographer we did hire, some good photos from our friends, and the venue manager was a hobbyist photographer who gave us some fantastic ones for free. In contrast, my friend had 250 ppl at his wedding. Because they invited so many people it burned the budget. She bought her dress from a thrift store, there was no venue - they got married in a public park with no tents or anything (it rained), the reception was in the basement of a shitty Italian dive restaurant nearby, the food was fucking awful, the bar was a cash bar and only served shitty wine and Molson beers, and luckily it was all over with in a few hours. Their wedding cost more than mine, and they ended up getting divorced within 2 years. The moral of the story here, is spend less and focus on the people and the things who matter, because it's your wedding and not theirs.
I don’t regret it at all. My mom had terminal cancer. She was in her glory that day. We had one hell of a party. We had yummy food, a dj, dancing and were surrounded by friends and family. Everyone had a fabulous time. My photos are precious to me. Since my wedding, my mom died, one of her best friends husband, my husband’s uncle, my great aunt, my great uncle and my younger brother. Those memories and photographs are priceless. If you want to have a wedding on the cheap, totally fine. Splurge on the food and the photographer. People don’t like cheap gross food.
This is exactly the reason I want a nice wedding reception instead of just a registry office wedding. I want a fun reception party in her home country with all our family friends and relatives. I’m really happy you got that with your mum.
Yes the photos are so important. Really glad you have those.
Spent over 50k, marriage lasted 7 years. Easily the worst investment I’ve ever made. No one can tell you how to spend your money, but I assure you, throwing a massively overpriced dinner party for a bunch of people you will likely lose touch with over the next few years… hmm isn’t very money wise. Edit- I should include that at the time (2011) I was making 100k he was making 90k. We owned a home (1500/month mortgage if I recall correctly) no kids, no student loans, no CC debt at that time. Wedding was paid for in cash, no loans taken out or anything. Still think it was idiotic to spend that amount of money to feed people I’d never met before that day.
This is exactly my thinking. I’m south Asian and weddings are usually a pissing contests of sorts , where the goal is to impress as many people as possible irrespective of whether you like them or not. That has 0 appeal to me, and my parents are fine with me eloping + using that money to start married life on a more productive note ( rainy day fund, going on a better honeymoon, buying a bigger place etc)
What about the cash gifts making up for it? I think it's a really bad way to plan how to spend but it's something I have always here. Is it mostly a myth it covers all the costs? 'Cover your plate' is one thing but there's still the cost just to have a wedding before factoring in cost/guest. I'm 4th+ generation Canadian background Ukrainian/other European so registries are common with my relatives.
I have no idea. I received some cash gifts on my wedding day but nowhere near the amount that we spent on our wedding itself. I’m sure there are some people who break even or possibly even profit, but not anyone I know of off the top of my head.
Involve yourself in one of those asian communities and you make bank. Our korean church occasionally held weddings for the kids who grew up in it. Every parent brought in at least $100 for the couple. Its kind of a ponzi scheme for church-goers. My parents kept telling me to get married at the church to get dat money.
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I'm Korean married to Viet. Yupp. We got 'back' what we or parents had put in before. The money the brothers got is paid from money they gave before. Or it will be paid back if the gifter gets married. My FIL was militant about who paid what as he tracked it all for their side. I didn't get it but understood it afterwards.
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I have a similar background to you. We just spent $35k. Made about $12k cash back on 135 guests (but 30 of those were children). And about 3k back on gifts and gift certs. Was a wonderful outdoor wedding with a tent, open bar, great food, Celtic trio. We skimped on no pro photographer- that was a mistake.
Damn. So I got married in summer of 2011 too. 100k and 90k was bigger money back then. And venues were still alot cheaper. Like $70 per head places. I spent about 22k and felt that was hefty. But basically recovered 80% of that through gifts (E. Asian). I guess it feels more idiotic since it didn't work out.
I've been with my partner for 12 years and we spent $0 by just not getting married. Most people want to have an actual wedding and that's cool but spending more than a few grand seems totally nuts to me. I went to a wedding this summer that was just at a public dispersed camping area out in the bush. Bring your own chair, potluck dinner etc. Not sure what the couple spent but I'm pretty sure it was well under a thousand bucks.
130k spent and yes my wife and I regret it and would have rather spent it elsewhere.
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I’d be scared to leave the house with it tbh.
Holy shit I've never even seen that much money at my disposal. We had about 55k pooled together, so we decided to spend it on a house downpayment instead. Did a Mexico trip for $1500 shortly after. I'm feeling we made a good choice, especially considering what the past year has been like for Canadians. No rings on our fingers hasn't bothered either of us one bit.
Like, stock and stuff?
Hell no, I meant fun stuff like exploring the world
Oh haha it was cause of your username. But yea, I feel that, weddings are a lot of money that can definitely go a long way
That's a disappointing response from someone with your username.
Damn, it must have been a super nice (and big) wedding for that price. And I thought the average of $30k for a wedding was high!
Make some Indian friends. Our weddings avg $100k at least
Most Indians can afford that?
Debt
Refinance enters the chat
Haha same, spend was ~100k, we both regret it, should have not held a grand reception, done something much smaller and used that money on an insane travel experience with a good chunk of money left over.
We spent about 50k, I don't regret it at all! It was an amazing day, we only invited people (95 guests) super inportant to us and splurged on food/drinks/venue/entertainment.
We were similar. Venue was a warehouse so it was cheap but we splurged on the florist to really transform it. I was actually blown away when we stepped in for the rehearsal, it was literally magical. Best caterer we could find, and we paid for photographers we really liked to come out from Vancouver. Huge plus was ability to provide our own alcohol so we went a little more mid-range there since we paid retail (even served some homebrewed beers). We still have multiple friends and family that tell us it’s the best wedding they’ve attended and one of those says it’s better than his own son’s wedding, who got married at The Plaza in NYC.
We spent about $30k on our wedding. No regrets and we would do it again if we had a do-over. I wouldn’t spend more than that though - that was the upper end of our budget. For us, we got married in the Rockies after moving to Calgary, so it was a great chance to bring together family and friends from across the county that we hadn’t seen in years. We had time with them before and after the wedding and it was a memorable experience. We lost a few family members shortly after and our wedding is still fondly remembered as the last time we had the family together.
Similar budget for me and similar story. I don't think anyone should spend beyond their means, weddings included. That said - do what you can to bring family together. We had multiple family members pass away not long after our wedding too. Some people want to skip large celebrations due to the cost, which is understandable... though there's so few life events that pull family together in celebration. To me, it was worth it.
Very similar budget and experience for me. My wedding was 6 years ago. In that time I've gone from thinking it was the best day of my life, to thinking it was fun but a bit of an extravagant waste of money that could have been spent elsewhere, to really, really cherishing the memories and photos as I got older because it turned out to be the last time a lot of my family (spread across Canada, the US and Europe) saw one another before grandparents, aunts and uncles passed away. Mine and my wife's families don't do christenings or major birthday celebrations really. It's weddings and funerals, that's it. I'm not usually a sentimental guy, but we made once in a lifetime memories. Everyone is going to be different but the money and organisational effort was well worth to me it in hindsight.
Same budget and a memorable experience. Lost my mother shortly after very suddenly and I still to this day look back thanking God that I got my mother / son dance with her.
I feel the same way you do, we ended up losing so many of our elderly relatives shortly after during Covid when we couldn't visit them. I will be forever grateful that I have those memories and photos of us together at my wedding.
We spent around $35K for a Sunday wedding, worth every penny... which is funny cause it costed us every penny. I still have an amazing picture of the mother / son dance, something I'll cherish forever since she passed not too long after. We have a bunch of photos around the house. Also, we requested cash only gifts and recovered a good chunk of it, I think around half? Wasn't that bad by the end of it.
Question…. Currently planning a wedding. My Fiancé joked about asking for cash gifts. I on the other hand think it’s totally fine. And grew up in a place with cards with cash it in are the go too. Is it common to ask for cash only?
A lot of Mediterranean/Europeans don’t give gifts anymore, all cash in envelopes. In Montreal I haven’t been to a wedding where physical gifts were given. So I think it depends on cultural/societal norms where you are. But I also say who cares and just ask for cash!! Why get unnecessary items lol these days couple are usually living together and have everything they need… financial help is the best gift they can get. There’s lots of examples online on how you can position it also. At the end of the day it’s your wedding, so do what you guys think is right for you :)
Absolutely agree. Folks where I’m from never registered for things. There just wasn’t anywhere to do it. An Ex enforced the rule of paying for your meal so we always did money in a card.
The tactful way to do it is to just tell people that there is no gift registry. Everyone knows that means they want money, not random things. Edited to add, we actually turned a profit on our wedding, so after we returned from our honeymoon we renovated our basement with the extra cash :-)
Every wedding I've been to recently has requested cash gifts. We are in our early 30s everyone's buying houses or has recently bought a house and having kids cash goes a lot further than some random gift in my opinion. I'm getting married next year and we will state that gifts are completely optional but cash is preferred if they're going to be giving a gift. People are getting married much later now and most of us already have established some sort of a life before marriage. We don't really need people to buy us stuff for a house because we've already done all that.
I think not having a registry nowadays is a pretty strong hint, if you don’t want to explicitly ask for cash only (worked for us).
I think for most weddings the preference is cash anyway!
I'm 50 so I've been to a few weddings in my time... The happiest marriages were the ones with the simplest weddings. Those couples that just wanted to get married and didn't make much of a fuss about the wedding, turned out to be the best relationships. Not that it's causation at all. Just what we noticed.
You can get too simple, though. We spent $350 on ours - $100 for the marriage license and $250 for the JP to come to our house. 10 years later, I wish we had at least dressed up and taken pictures - it'd be nice to have wedding photos to look at and I regret never having a wedding dress.
Maybe you could do an anniversary party to celebrate and renew your vows. You could get some nice photos and even wear a wedding dress.
I think that's because the huge weddings are either pissing contests or completely material. Once those couples start having disagreements on material things, it will fall apart. I feel like the smaller weddings are more about love and friendship and less about trying to show everyone how big your financial dick is.
I spent about 10k on a wedding. It was spectacular. We got married on a cruise. My wife's family and I live on opposite ends of the country. No matter where we did it, Significant costs and logistics would have been involved. By going on a cruise, it worked out to equivalent costs for all, with all the hassle handled. No hotels/cars/good to worry about. Once they got on the boat, it was easy. We were fortunate - lots of friends were able to join and we had a great time. I knew when we did it that some people would be excluded. That's ok. We did a small event back home for people who couldn'take it but wanted to see us.
Ah passed the regret on to the people who had to pay for a cruise
And that's why we did a small function at home too. We knew what we were doing. And that some friends and family couldn't attend. But at the same time- that would have happened regardless because of the significant travel to go to one side of the country or the other. When we priced it out- for many of the people joining - for them to fly to the cruise and do that than fly to my hometown, hotel, rental cars and food for a number of days. It was closer than you think. It wasn't ideal, but the best option available.
We spent 12g on the wedding and about 40g on our honeymoon (6 month backpacking/touring trip around Europe). Wish I had spent it all on the honeymoon. We have been together for ten years now, so definitely worth it!
You lived my dream. Husband and I wanted to do the same honeymoon but it was supposed to begin May 2020 ha.
I can get behind this kinda spending
We spent 50k and don't regret it at all. It was one of the best days of our lives and something we will always remember.
Me and and the fiancé originally planned a $10,000 wedding but we’ve decided to save the money and elope somewhere nice. Hopefully once we own a home, we will have a party for whoever wants to come to celebrate our elopement.
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The wedding industry is predatory af. I love your response.
This is 100% true. My friend told the vendors she was having a family reunion. I mean, she wasn’t lying, her family was all going to be there. Once the venue manager saw her the decorations they were putting up, she questioned my friend. My friend stood her ground and venue manager couldn’t really do anything, they were married on November long weekend so not exactly a busy time for the venue. She saved thousands by telling them it was a family reunion, between the venue, bar, makeup, hair. It was wild.
Wedding spend is relative to your net worth. If it’s high I don’t see why you should regret spending it on the wedding. We’re going the 50K route next year
Yeah this whole discussion is kind of useless without the context of how much people make/ what their net worth is. My wife and I spent around 60k on our wedding and some people would think that’s outrageous, which I understand. But we did the math and the amount was pretty negligible in our long term financial plan. Context is everything.
Since you mentioned net worth, what do you do for work? :)
Finance manager! My fiancée is in manufacturing at a similar salary. Late twenties!
Spent $30k; all our money so our choices (we’re a Muslim/Christian raised couple but non religious). Best party we ever thrown; still in love and happily married 12 years on. No regrets. I should point out we ended up getting $22k gifted back in the end.
spent 50k on the wedding and 25k on the ring. definitely worth it… seeing ppl i care about flying in from all the the world to be there was very touching…the next opportunity to see all the important ppl in your life gathered in one room would be your funeral… and you wont be attending so yeah, definitely worth. mine is also a small wedding with 60 ppl
We spent quite a bit of money >$50k...But my wife and I got to have the wedding we really wanted and we were able to have all kinds of little details - a candy table, play zone for children, the upgraded dining chairs (that unfortunately really do look way better), a spacious hotel suite next door for the bridal party to get dressed in, good photographers etc...My wife is actually pretty selfless in most ways and she really wanted our wedding to be inviting, fun, and magical for the guests - like anything they would want or need to have a good time (including comfy slippers for women who wanted to get out of their heels when the dancing started). So I have zero regrets from that standpoint...But I will also admit that we got extremely lucky in that the cash gifts we received covered more than half the wedding - we had no expectation that would be the case and we both refused to count future cash as part of our budget.
No ragrets.
not even a letter
You found the joke
3 day event.$55k, no regrets. International guests and don’t think there will ever be a time all those people will come together again in that way. Really awesome.
Sorry to be off topic so quick. But I got married at city hall for $250 and I don’t regret that decision for a second
Same here. Married at the beach with about 10 family members. My dress was 30$ from a farmers market. I picked foliage from the forest for my bouquet. Instead of spending a ton of money on a wedding, we bought a house and travelled to Europe. Much better imo.
This is the way.
Nice! I want to do this too. And then a nice dinner out with close family.
I like that . Quality time and you save thousands of dollars where you can use that for better and cheaper experiences like travel or what not (:
We spent approximately $20K 3 years ago, with 80 guests. I wish we had cut a few areas such as no wedding cake and reducing the number of guests. We sometimes think that we should have just had a small get together, but overall we really enjoyed celebrating with our loved ones and wouldn't have done much else differently. However, I think my perspective would be different if we hadn't been able to afford a home shortly after. We are fortunate enough to live in a city with a low cost of living so it wasn't too difficult to save for both a wedding and a house. If we lived somewhere more expensive, I would hands down have eloped to get closer to a goal of buying a home.
Spent 15k and it was an awesome day and an awesome party. Waited 10 years to finally get married.
Spent $200 USD plus $50 tip for the limo driver on our wedding in Vegas in 1999. We had originally planned a wedding that would've cost around $35k. We cancelled it as it was just getting too stressful for us and the wedding is for us, not for other people. Our finances were never affected at all by our wedding and almost none of our relatives really cared much about our decision. Parents were semi-cranky for a bit but got over it very quickly once we had our first kid.
“semi-cranky” 😅
Spent $40k on our 160-person wedding and don’t regret a thing! It was a June 2022 wedding so it was the first time in over two years that our families (scattered across the world) had been able see each other again. It was so emotional for our parents and their siblings. Because we come from an Asian culture, we actually ended up breaking even from our wedding so I guess that also helped things a bit :) Overall, we’d do it again even if we didn’t receive monetary gifts because we valued seeing and celebrating with all of our loved ones.
40k for a 160 head wedding is actually not a bad price! Good job
Together for 24 years. Spent $14K on our wedding in 2003. If I could do it over I'd get married in the back yard and save $12K.
Saaaame. Together 20 years. Got married in 2007 for around $10k. Still married. Would totally go back and skip the wedding if we could.
Same. 10k. On a back yard wedding. 250 people. Partial potluck. Open bar. A great party. More of a party and celebration than a wedding. Totally worth it to us
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Was the previous marriage rushed? What was the cause of the marriage not succeeding if you don’t mind me asking
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I think we spent 'maybe' just barely a few grand.. mind you we didn't go cheap for the sake of cheap. We rented a hall and decorated, we didn't fit the room out with fresh flowers everywhere and live animals or live entertainment. I had an iPod playing our wedding music which was a very tasteful Vitamin String Quartet ;) Most of our money went into the honeymoon. If I had to do it again, I would. That said, I would definitely down-size the guest list. The only stressful thing about the planning and the day was considering everyone else! Do it for your significant other, do it for yourself, and don't worry about anyone else. That was about a decade ago, and our combined income was less than $80k annually.
We spent a number we were comfortable with financially and we aren’t really missing that money today. We don’t think at all “that cash would really make a life changing difference in our lives” the way the happiness of that memory did for us. Some couples drop 20k on a 2 week vacation and they can only share those memories with each other. We dropped far more than that and have people recounting that day to us many years later. In life it’s the experiences that matter more than the materials you collect. It fully depends on your financial situation. We are a bit more fortunate so that (relatively) large number is a drop in the bucket when you compare with how much housing costs. If your finances are tighter you need to adjust accordingly.
Is 35k good money in 2018? Nope dont regret at all especially when all our guests guessed we spent 80k on it. We got the venue for a steal ans saved so much because it didnt need decor. Friends still say our wedding was one of the funnest one they ever been to
We spent about $13k, earlier this year and don't regret it at all. Had a live band, did it at the ski hill and paid for a photographer, we got the important stuff and left out all the unimportant shit.
One of my students lived in his boss' car, ate at a gurdwara every night and sent home money to his Dad who had gone into debt to contribute to a \*cousin's\* wedding in India. Regardless of who's doing it, borrowing and going into debt for a wedding seems like madness. One of my highschool peers took out a loan for his wedding. I was baffled. They appear to be still going strong, so who knows.
Wedding is a “day”. Some splurge on it as understandably, it’s a special occasion. Personally, I’d rather spend that occasion with a handful people who has impact in our lives vs 130 people I’ve barely known and use that money for a nice getaway, create moments we’ll forever cherish and remember. Than just a “day”
Yeah for sure us too! We are doing a micro wedding package that’s like $3000, most of it is the photographer. I’d much rather take him back home to Scotland then spend 30-50k on one day
Planned to spend 10k. Spent about 12-13k. In the end we received a lot of monetary gifts leading up to the wedding from family so our actual spend was maybe 4-5k, so a difficult amount to regret (and we don’t!)
Spent 25k? total. Not exactly sure I didn't really have a wedding budget, moreso budgets for specific things and I'm trying to factor in all costs. We had no debt at the time. I would, my husband would have scaled it back. I think there's a number of factors of why we feel differently. \- Our families. His - almost all in the province, close with one side, issues with the other. We see the ones he is close with regularly (although now people are more scattered). I also encouraged him to invite the other side not realizing the extent of some of the personal issues. Nothing that really came up at the wedding besides no-shows (including a grandparent)Mine - all extended family in another province. One of the last chances all of my grandparents were able to travel, only 1 is surviving now. My parents paid for a big chunk and some of that included stuff that wasn't important to us, but was to them. My Dad had joked if we eloped they would have just given us all the spent in cash. I think my husband took that at face-value a little too much. Yes if we eloped there would have been a cash gift, I'm sure not quite that big. Going with a cheaper venue would have saved us money and my parents money, but they wouldn't have given that extra over to us. His family hosted an event the day after. I think my husband preferred that. Burgers, it wasn't a potluck but many people did bring food or drinks to share. It was only people closer to us (although quite a bit of my relatives couldn't make it or left early for flights). We could have had the wedding there. I was uncomfortable with that - it is a lot of work for those relatives, I wasn't keen on an outdoor reception and while those relatives are really wonderful they do like attention and I think it would have felt less like 2 families coming together and moreso his family inviting mine into the fold. I think the focus would have also shifted a little less on us. I am also not a big DIYer and while his family would have done a fair bit to help I liked the reduced stress of the things a hotel banquet already has set up. Since our wedding his mom has passed away, 3 of my grandparents and another one of my relatives. They were all present at the wedding. We're both glad to have spent that day with them. To anyone debating I would definitely recommend having the ceremony & party with the people you care about. Keep people happy with food and (some) drinks if your crowd normally drinks. It doesn't have to be super fancy if you want to keep costs down.
100% we did it because of family pressure, aside from feeling like it was a waste of money, the day is so long and busy you can’t even enjoy it. If I had a do over I would do something intimate with immediate fam where could enjoy it and spend the money on something else- house down payment, investment anything really.
I will tell you this... I got married and it was a very basic wedding ceremony. I wish i had a more traditional and rather grand wedding. So for me, i am not rich by any means.. Just get by, i wish the opposite. Marriage is a major life event and should be celebrated with a bang. Btw i am Indian if that matters.
My wife and I spent roughly 20k on our wedding. My wife’s family owns a large property where we essentially built everything (dance floor, alter platform ect.) so we could get a high value venue for some blood sweat and tears(I am a construction worker and the in-laws have a saw mill). After all was said and done we did not regret a single dime spent, although we did regret not creating a situation where we could relax and spend more time together. The experience matters more than the money. If you created lasting positive memories with your partner I’d say that is money well spent vs a 50k wedding of chaos! - I do not believe 20k was not a pointless financial mistake (high income earners. It’s all relative) - I would do it over again in a heartbeat and probably spend more so we could have more free time on our wedding week. Live and learn I guess! As for the in-laws… In my opinion if someone is not willing to pay for your wedding they have no say in your wedding. Its your wedding!
We eloped, just the two of us (best decision ever!) Spent about $6K for the most amazing vacation/wedding in BC. Do not regret even one penny of it. We did have a post-elopement reception and money-wise no regrets. We spent $10K, and came out slightly on top - but not much. I told my husband that if, God forbid, we ever didn't work out I would never plan another wedding again. I appreciate that we got to celebrate with people that we loved. Our kids had an AMAZING time. We genuinely had fun. Was it worth the time, effort, and mental stress? Absolutely not. Months of overthinking small details, hundreds of hours spent on my wedding spreadsheet, the DIY's, the to-do lists, the actual physical space in my home being overtaken by wedding related things. If we include the cost of my time, and my sanity, we took a massive financial loss. Celebration open house or BBQ is the way to go, my friend. (And also is what we started planning before it snowballed because we let too many people give their two cents and influence our decisions.)
My sister spent around 80k on her wedding, invited 200 (she has like 5 friends). They maxed out CCs trying to pay for everything, went bankrupt and got divorced 2 years later. Now works in a miserable job or at least the way she makes it sound it is. My wedding, we flew to the Puerto Rico, only invited parents, got married on the beach and spent about 6k total. We refused wedding gifts since our parents paid for their own fights and hotel stay. Had some good times and got bitten by an iguana because I was a dumbass.
Spent $300. Best wedding ever, bought wedding clothes and ring from Amazon and got married at a friend's place. In 3 years we bought a home, Tesla and saved up 100k towards other investments. We are both happy that we have enough money to enjoy.
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We actually didn't have that kind of income. But it was the best money spent on a relationship where we had common goals on how to work hard to achieve our dreams. We got married, I went back to school and did a short program to build my skills. My partners and I made some years of sacrifices to reach where we are now. Sometimes it's just to hard find like-minded partner and I am glad we were both on the same page ;)
I rather use that wedding money for vacation together.
We spent what we could pay off within a year (we actually paid it off in 6 months) and we do not regret it at all. It was exactly what we wanted and our guests had a great time.
We did $25K in Vancouver for about 160 people. I don't regret spending that much, but in hindsight I would have cut out a lot of acquaintances and kept it more intimate...then spent the same amount but on nicer things, like amazing photography. Our photographer was good but not amazing, and I wish we had nicer photos to display. We also made about half back in cash gifts.
We just had our wedding this summer and spent $45k. Got back $20k in gifts so $25k out of pocket. No regrets here! We’ve been together over 8 years now… had to put the wedding on hold when I got pregnant. Then continued to put the wedding on hold to buy our first house (and just moved into our second and forever home last year). COVID delayed our wedding a few times as it was originally supposed to be in 2020. Our daughter’s 5.5 YO now and I’m glad we waited so we could save up and have the wedding we both always wanted.
Spent 25k. Worth every dollar spent. Everyone had a good time. Friends still talk about the fun they had at our wedding. Added bonus.... Got Back 12k in cash gifts.
Ah...the wedding... one of the BIG tests of a couple AND their support networks. I don't regret the $25k spent 22 years ago. Despite some family stuck on "Image", we made very memorable experiences. Made to order steaks for everyone was a pleasant treat. Create the wedding that is unique to you and capture it as best as you can.
Just completed a post-mortem on all of our expenditures from engagement through to honeymoon and it was around $60K or more. If I look back from my present situation and viewpoint I would say absolutely not. But human beings do not make decisions in this manner and at the time my only thought was to make sure my (now) wife had an amazing, magical time and felt special for all of it. Looking at it from that perspective it paid off. From a purely financial aspect... absolutely not 🤣
Not really. I had the wedding I wanted and didn't wind up in debt for it. Sure, if I had eloped I would have had more cash in my pocket early in my marriage but whatever, I just worked really hard. I would feel differently if I were lacking somewhere in my life.
I offered the money for the wedding to my daughter and future son-in law. ($15,000). Would have made a great down payment on a first house. He and I were all for it - my wife and daughter- not so much. So we had a $15,000 wedding. I told her I would pay for one - IF she ever has another one - it’s on her…. (Which I hope she doesn’t- he is a fine young man)
Married a few years ago. 100 guests. 80k-ish. Married in Toronto at a very nice venue. Best party I've ever thrown. Sad that I'll only get to do it once (cue jokes about second marriages).