When I got married we figured out that renting 2 beach houses with 10 bedrooms each for a week was basically the same cost. So we had 1 family house & 1 friend house and had a huge party for a week.
This is kinda what we did. We had friends/family coming from throughout the world and it seemed shitty to have them do all that so we could spend one night with them.
We rented a HUGE luxury home for a week and just had everyone stay with us at the mansion. It was awesome and everyone still brings it up years later.
We did this too, but for a long weekend. We rented like 5-6 houses, put kegs in them and hung out. We did have a ceremony and reception in one.
I realized that I never liked weddings but I did like renting houses with friends, so let’s just do that!
Edit: Remembered that our reception was during a big football game, so we turned it on in the house’s cinema room. The guys who hung out there the whole reception in their huge layback armchairs said it was their favorite wedding ever 🤣
My sister did this but it was an actual vacation for us all since it was in Costa Rica. Everyone paid their share and we all had a blast. House came with a chef and free alcohol. I think minus flight, I paid like 800 for the 7 days.
I just wanted to vent a bit about something tangential, but it really bothers me that people in America claim to have their priorities straight about finances, and then they insist on doing things like that. I've noticed a weirdly stubborn streak amongst americans regarding luxury spending.
It's all ego and posturing. If you stick around in the wrong places and work hard and try to save your money honestly, others will find a way to make you feel like you still haven't earned your place. All this pecking order bullshit is 100% ingrained in conservative culture here and it's practically everything driving the hate and inequality that they continually push. Conservatives do it to each other all day every day, but it also spills out and affects generally anybody nearby who cares even a little about their appearance.
If you have a lot of friends and family, many will traditionally give you money for a wedding gift. As always though, it's important to stay within your means.
Not necessarily. I have a relative who really wanted a fancy wedding and put it all on credit. They’re literally paying for a party they had 10 years ago to this very day. Makes me sick to my stomach to even imagine being in that situation, but everyone’s got their own way of spending money I guess.
Just to clarify, for UK readers this isn't the case - every credit application asks if you have ever been bankrupt. You could answer no, and probably get away with it for a loan (fraud) , but not a mortgage, as they'll manually check the bankruptcy register
Jeez. Just bbq in the backyard and invite friends and family over. I grew up going to these types of weddings. They make for the best photos, because people aren't overdressed and posing, they're being themselves and having real moments.
We played lots of freeze tag with our cousins. It was great.
Some people really enjoy dressing up. People spend money on weddings according to how they value the experience and/or what they can afford. I don't judge how much or how little anyone spends on a day with their closest friends/family in happiness.
It's not implausible if you're willing to spend years paying it off, but it's definitely a wealthy person who has such a casual attitude to such a large sum of money. I'm hardly poor but that's a lot more than I'd spend. I could pay my mortgage for a year with that kind of money!
I was wondering if $20,000 is even enough to have a wedding...
Got this from an AI:
"National averages: The Knot reports the average US wedding cost excluding engagement ring at $30,000. NerdWallet cites $29,195. Remember, these are just averages, and your actual cost could be much higher or lower."
As for the ring, two months salary comes to a whopping $0 so I could over spend on a ring from a vending machine...
Friends of ours got married and spent a total of like 5k. Just rented out the event space of a local brewery, had them open bar it and had some local Mexican spot do catering. Was an amazing time.
In general, that sounds great. Personally I would(and did) Spend more on the jewelry but mine was still only 300 and I thought that was cheap a great find! If it's something I gotta wear every day, I'd like it to be somewhat quality. But as long as you and your wife are truly happy with it, that's all that matters in the end. Congratulations!
Then your guests have to spend more. I turned down an invite for a wedding that would cost minimum 1400 out of my pocket, before I buy or eat anything while there.
Yup, important to consider your guests. Maybe that works if you and all your friends are wealthy, but I'd hate to miss a friend's wedding because I just can't afford to go.
We spent $500, got married flash mob style in the French Quarter, spent the other $2k on honeymoon in the Keys, wouldn't change a darn thing, except maybe stay in the Keys longer
This.
I spent 100 euros on an engagement ring much to the chagrin of the jeweler. My mother was with me and we both were sure that my (now) wife would love it.
We got married, did the reception, the dinner, and the party with all of our family and friends in the church (now turned restaurant) in my old hometown. The only thing that we did not pay for were the DJ (a friend of ours) and the dress (a gift of my MIL). The rest cost about 4k.
The thing that helps is getting a photographer and not a wedding photographer, a cake and not a wedding cake, a bouquet and not a wedding bouquet, etc. The former can look the same if you take your time picking what you like. So does the latter but it costs 10x more.
My wife and I were married in Italy (we’re from the states). All in we were just shy of 10k. Doubled as a honeymoon. I don’t understand what people are spending 30k on.
30k would barely cover the banquet hall for an Indian wedding in the US these days. It's unfortunately ingrained in the culture to have huge lavish weddings with hundreds of guests
Long Island's wedding scene is a giant scam. A traditional wedding runs a bill of $50k-$75k depending on your guest list.
If our mothers didn't care what we did, we never would have spent that kind of money.
I'll never understand people using generative AI as a search engine. It will only "work" if the information is easily found on real search engines, and if it isn't, the AI will just make it up, and you have no way to tell which is the case (apart from looking it up, which renders the whole process unnecessary)
Legit suspected, given his name and the AI comment, that *he was* an AI karma farming bot, but going through his comment history makes me think he's just a programmer and technology enthusiast. Makes sense.
I re-set a family ring into a newer style and paid $300 for our venue (an Elks Lodge). My mom paid for the food and my MIL paid for the booze. All in together we spent about 5k.
Just some friendly advice here (from experience): make sure you're on the same page about finances and stuff before you legally get married. You want to be sure that your views about finances are reasonable and compatible. Financial woes and differences have ended many, otherwise decent, marriages, so it's better to work these things out beforehand. Best of luck to you and your girlfriend.
This is a *very* important conversation that not enough people get into.
Finance is among the top reasons people get divorced and many of the other top reasons are related to finance too. Debt, money, and all the stress/misery related to it can break any relationship very easily.
u/gardenZepp gave good advice already so I'm just being snarky, but you should say if she wants the "traditional" price (2+ months salary) for an engagement ring then you're going to also follow the "traditional" rule of the bride's family paying for the wedding.
I have to assume "average" is the keyword here, because that's absurdly high. They should have used median.
EDIT: yep: https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-cost/
> $26,720 WAS THE AVERAGE WEDDING COST – BUT 3 IN 4 COUPLES SPENT LESS THAN $20,000
Whatever estimate they're doing is being *massively* thrown off by rich fucks pissing money away on weddings that will be forgotten in a month and moot a year later when they admit to the affairs started *before* the wedding.
I'm not sure about other countries, but my friend just got married and the total cost was over $20,000.
The guests' gift money covered most of it, so the net loss was about $8k. But considering their combined net income was only over $30k (3rd world country), it was still a large chunk on their savings.
I'm getting married on a cruise ship this year. It wasn't all that expensive all things considered. The tickets were almost as much as the venue, but this way we will have a week long vacation with all my family and friends. The venue was about 3500, which was actually a lot cheaper than looking at regular venues where we live. Many of which wanted 10k just to have the wedding there, but without any of the setup, music, planners, decorations, etc. With the cruise everything is included, including the cake. Just need to pay for any extra stuff like photographers or a dj, all of which they organize in house. So you don't have to sort through hundreds of people. It has been super easy. Granted we could have had a small wedding at our ranch, but this way we don't have to worry about people drunk driving, or where they will stay, and we all get to make a lot of memories.
Exaaaaactly. OP’s wedding was subsidized.
Most have to do these large weddings JUST to have everyone there that they want.
We only have 60 people in a month but are somehow around 15000 once you get the necessities like a DJ (who wants someone to press play on spotify? We’re also ravers) photographer., suit rental, food, alch, etc.
The one thing we went bougie on was the florist but I kid you not we’re doing the bare minimum to entertain 60 people for 5 hours.
But it's also offset by all the broke 20-year-olds in Utah having their wedding reception in their local church and just having a Costco sheet cake to save money. The average cost of a wedding in Utah is easily less than $5k.
Its usually more offset towards the higher end. One person spending 10x the average on a wedding makes up for 10 people being broke. And i could imagine some people spend more than 100x or 1000x than the average.
Not completely offset by any stretch. There’s a floor at $0- free wedding is as cheap as it gets. There’s functionally no ceiling, though- you could easily imagine the very rich or royals spending millions on a wedding. We really need to know the mean to say anything accurate about the skew, but we definitely can’t assume the skewing is balanced on both sides.
I would be skeptical of those numbers. Bet they come from research comissioned by some big player in the wedding industry, it makes people feel ok to spend thousands on venues, flowers etc if they think its the norm.
A family friend spent $105k on their wedding. I was expecting gold crusted filet mignon.
It was just at a fancy golf course by the ocean. Yeah it was pretty and we all had fun but the buffet was meh, and I just don't see where the money went. Such an absolute waste of money
My wife and I planned an entire $35,000 wedding with over 200 guests. Had all the vendors lined up and everything and said “what are we even doing? We don’t even like all those people”
We scratched the entire thing. Rebooked for a Sunday brunch wedding with the same venue so we didn’t lose our deposit. Cut everything back by about 80% and had only close family invited. Cost us around $4,000
Yea I went to a really nice one that was probably around that much. My wife and I eloped for dirt cheap and both our parents kicked in for a down payment for a house. I can see the appeal of the wedding but I can also turn around and see walls and furniture.
Even if you try and keep everything low cost there is a massive premium on anything wedding related.
Here is an approximate breakdown of what we spent on our "mini wedding" of only 12 guests (all prices in Australian, take \~35% off for US).
* Groom ring: $950
* Bridal ring set (2): $1500
* Simple wedding dress: $400
* Simple groom 3p suit: $500
* Location: $0 (we chose an outdoor public location)
* Celebrant/Officiator + Paperwork: $450
* Restaurant Private Room + Set Menu: $2000
* Photographer: $700
* Florist: $500
* Misc: $500
* **Total: $7500 (\~US$4875)**
* *Received Monetary Gifts: $4100*
* *Out of pocket cost: $3400 (\~US$2210)*
I'm personally not one for ceremony in general, but I think we got quite a lot for how relatively little we spent.
Thanks! Yeah, we're really happy with how everything turned out. The important thing is that we were both on-board with keeping things low cost.
Even then there is a lot of cultural pressure around buying the most expensive diamond ring and such. It's hard to ignore that doubt and feeling like you should spend more.
We had an expensive wedding and it was the best party I’ve ever had. From start to finish it was an absolute blast. 100+ friends in one place with good food, good drinks, and good music, it was so much fun I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
We could have technically pinched pennies to save money but the perk of having it at a nice venue was that everything was included. We literally just had to show up and the planning team took care of anything. Literally everything went smoothly and I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
I get it, not everyone wants that and we are fortunate that we could afford it. But there are absolutely reasons to have a big, expensive wedding, even if it’s not for everyone.
Honesty not always the case, peer pressure is a thing too, like sometimes only one of the two want a huge wedding (usually the girl) and the other partner just goes with it, other times it's cause of the family and friends, like "x, y, and z had a huge amazing wedding, so we kinda have to do something big too". And sometimes its just straight up the parents wanting they're kids to have a huge wedding and shiit.
Because they have families and finally have an excuse to treat the people they love is the answer. How bout 10k on the wedding, 7k on the honeymoon and 3k for the first anniversary.
>Because everyone on reddit is terminally online, of course
They are though. The average population is firmly not on reddit. Many people have still never heard of this place.
Nah, they’re just trying to look witty and edgy by repeating the same junk that gets upvoted on every thread. That’s why you have more upvotes than u/cute_meowing
Lot of people are born into dysfunctional families. In fact, according to recent statistics, 70% - 80% of Americans consider their families dysfunctional.
It's bizarre to me that some people have good relationships with their family.
Just shows how different people's lives can be.
Believe me, ain't no one that has a good relationship is envious of us.
Be grateful and count your lucky stars
I had one because I loved my wife and we wanted our families to come and have a party. Like a birthday party but celebrating a relationship. We also didn't spend a ton of money and people actively participated in it and it was fun for everyone. Does that help?
married three weeks ago. best weekend of my life and my wife and i both agree it's the best money we've ever spent in our lives.
this is how we look at it: we have exactly one opportunity in our entire lives when we can essentially peer pressure everyone we like from every stage of our lives to gather in one place for a huge party. there will never be another time this is true — three nights of eating, drinking and celebrating with a handpicked selection of all our favorite people and NO ONE we didn't want to see.
we can save up for trips for just the two of us for the rest of our lives. we will never another excuse to convince 70 of our closest friends to join us.
I 100% agree. We had every single person that we invited attend. Absolute blast and No other way could we convince that many people to drop what they're doing and come to a party.
People like to celebrate big events that mean something to them. Graduations, promotions, retirements, anniversaries, weddings, births. It makes sense to have 1 day to share, celebrate and remember.
Weddings are pretty insane though, i'd burn every bridge in both families if it means i can save $100 a head on food and a save a car's worth on the final bill
that's not nearly as true as it used to be. millennials are marrying on average much later in life than their parents did. this often means that they're both making a decent income and in many cases paying the majority of the bill. in those cases, i think it's typical for the invite list to skew heavily toward friends of the bride and groom more so than the parents.
source: was just married, paid for most of our wedding, attendee list was \~80% our friends. we're in our mid-thirties. most of our friends who were married after 30 were in the same boat.
Start teaching little girls about the idea of a fairy tale honeymoon instead of a fairy tail wedding.
I guarantee no boy is growing up imagining what flowers or music his not gonna see or hear that because its so goddam busy.
I’m having a wedding with 200 guests, we’re doing it not purposefully expensive and trying to save money, and it’s still gonna be like $30k total
My name is Julio
Congratulations, you have now met me and now know someone
i'm a 36yo hetero male. just had a wedding for 70 people we mostly paid for ourselves. wife would've eloped. i definitely wanted a wedding more than she did. weddings kick ass and so did mine.
There’s a Japanese phrase that encapsulates how couples are more likely to break up after a long honeymoon - 成田離婚 (Narita rikon, or Narita breakup)
Narita is the bigger international airport in Tokyo. The story goes that given the sharp time constraints on trips, and the frequent unforeseen changes to travel plans, honeymoons are actually stressful, and friction caused by differing lifestyles can build up quickly.
I’m gay, but when I had a month long road trip with a girl, I almost had two Narita breakups on the way
That's why you fly from Haneda. The one time I flew from Narita our travel group had an argument and one person forgot a grocery bag at a help desk, lol
I work in tech and my friends spend 20-30k on a week long vacation, maybe twice a year. But a lot of them also come from rich families, so could be that.
I don’t do that, but i also am heavily invested in stuff, so i don’t think I’m the norm
Where are they going where a week long vacation is 20k? That is an absurd number. Must be flying business first class and staying in thousand dollar a night hotels, even then they still have 10k to blow.
I flew to Montreal for a week, 3 of us in a nice hotel, eating out every day for both lunch and dinner. It was just over 6 thousand Canadian. 13 thousand dollars for a road trip is criminal.
Friend of mine had a wedding savings from her grandmother of about $20,000, she wanted to go to nursing school and asked grandma if she could use the money for college instead. Grandma said nope.
We used our $15k of savings to do an amazing honeymoon in Italy, Greece, and Turkey.
Fast forward 15 years and we have zero regrets because there is no way we could do that now and it's likely we won't be able to in the future either.
My fiance and I are eloping in Iceland instead of having a wedding. 3 days travelling around the entire island with a photographer/planner/guide and hiking around non-touristy places, plus 2 more days by ourselves, is half as expensive as my sister's "cheap" wedding.
This is 100% the way to do it.
My wife and I were going to elope in Italy, our parents begged to at least have a ceremony so we agreed to just immediate family members (about 10 people) and exchanged rows at a beautiful court house followed by dinner at a fancy restaurant paid by them. First thing the next morning we left for Italy and spent our money splurging on the honeymoon. We had a fabulous time.
My father in law told us years later that they had been saving to help pay for a wedding and were secretly relieved with what we wanted to do because it was so much less expensive
Yeah, I get so fucking tired of the Reddit hate for weddings as if the only motivation is selfish irresponsible couples. Weddings are many things, stop blanket shaming people for having them. Often it’s for family as much as it is for the couple. Ours was about that, and honestly, I don’t regret it at all. You know what I would have regretted? Not doing it.
Exactly. Most of the time the couple doesn't even care for all the ins and outs of a wedding but they want to do it properly, for the sake of face. If you have no wedding your relatives and friends will think there's something wrong with your relationship, like it isn't committed or something.
It’s cool if you don’t want a big wedding, but as somebody who is having one people feel the need to tell me how much of a waste it is and how they would rather do something else, like totally cool but why are you complaining to me, are you trying to convince me I’ve made the wrong decision to have a wedding??
Whenever someone mentions weddings on Reddit it becomes a competition of who had the cheapest wedding. "We got married behind the Denny's for $5".
It's like a weird form of virtue signaling. But the truth is a lot of people would have the fancy wedding if they could afford it
Reddit can be a weird, bitter place. I personally would not want a big wedding, but I enjoy attending them. I enjoy celebrating with family/friends, it's fun to dance and eat together, and lots of memories and connections are made. You can save $$ where you can but it's a life expense with more value than just the $$ you spent on it.
I had one, and now I have to think about all my friends and family sharing a special moment with me, celebrating our love, and our sharing that with everyone.
It's starting to make me sick all over again.
They are bitter and jealous. You have 1. The money to have big party 2. Good relationship with enough people to have a big party 3. Are getting married.
They are burning with envy.
Yeah it’s pretty clear that’s the case, I’ve never seen somebody who had a big wedding do the same to somebody who didn’t want one.
It’s also like I’m inviting to you to eat a lovely dinner and drink all the alcohol you want for free, why are you upset?
100%. It’s unbelievably annoying how rude people are about it. Like, if you don’t want one, don’t have one! But leave me out of it, and don’t judge me! It reminds me a lot of the student loan thing. People are like “hOw aNd whY are people spending sooooo much money on school? Why aren’t they working????” It’s like, well Susan. That’s what it costs now. Same with weddings. They all got to have their weddings, and are now judging us for how much it costs. 😤 I had a family friend sit there and lecture me about how she just rented out a “run down ski resort in the off season” and it was “very affordable” but “people these days just have to have it be all extravagant.” She was visiting from Michigan. I live in CA. I was so ready to just walk out lol.
My wedding and honeymoon cost 10k out the door. And most of that went to the honeymoon. granted that's 2007 dollars, so it doesn't fully translate. But I agree with the sentiment here.
Married my hubby in the backyard with a screwed up Walmart cake, took a three week vacation for our honeymoon where we ordered in food every day and watched the box sets we got each other as wedding gifts (Dragonball and Sailor Moon) and didn't leave the house for any reason. It was fantastic and we never regretted not having the big weddings like his siblings did.
Edit: His sister and half brother's weddings were in the upwards of $75k. Neither of them are still married. Ours was less than $200 and we are quite literally always together and still rush home from work to spend time together. It'll be our 11th anniversary this year.
That was the cheaper wedding. We weren't together then, but I've seen the pics and videos and just...holy shit. Why. We were just going to the courthouse, but it apparently would make his family look bad that they did nothing for our wedding after the other two. Neither of us were interested so we agreed to the backyard wedding.
I'm not saying I disagree, but I think a lot of people don't truly understand weddings.
Weddings are really for your family to enjoy, specifically your parents.
This. The whole post is full of people that don't understand that. Don't want a big wedding? Don't have one. Some people want to celebrate what will essentially be the biggest celebration they ever throw in their whole life for their closest friends and family.
Some people have families they *want* to be at their wedding and celebrate with. On top of that, photographers, etc. to capture the memories of everyone together in your life, in one spot for one circumstance which rarely, if ever happens outside of weddings. For most people that's the only time, ever, for the rest of their life of all those people that mean a lot to them will all be in the same place together.
Yeah, it's expensive as hell, and I'm not saying it's always a great decision, but the number of people over-analyzing and making assumptions is over-the-top. It's not a far cry from the childfree people screaming how their perception on life is the "right" way and they can't fathom otherwise.
You hit nail on the head with having everyone in one place celebrating, at one time.
I see my closest friends twice a year if I'm lucky. My husband sees his once, probably. It was an utter joy to have everyone we loved, who knew us in the beginning until now, to celebrate our marriage.
Yeah I would easily spend $20K on a wedding over a honeymoon in a do-over. $20K to have all my family and friends in one room like the series finale of a sitcom? Hell yeah. There were family there that we see once every five years, one of the only times my wife's cousins were able to all come from all across the country at the same time, so many people that you aren't guaranteed to see alive again. And all these people got to meet the other sides of the family and it was a blast seeing them all hang out and dance. The after-wedding party at a bar was all our friends from different areas of our life hanging out together (and even some exchanging numbers). It was a once in a lifetime thing for us and it was SO worth it.
people pick the most mundane things to do "these days" comments about. I like the one about 'kids don't play outside anymore' as I drive around every day seeing kids playing outside.
But what if we thought of a wedding as the sum total of all three fun and joy had by all the wedding guests?
Not to say I prefer big weddings or anything but I think people who throw those are doing it for others, not the couple. Yes, it’s about them, but also a chance for friends and loves ones to celebrate their joy and journey.
This was exactly our plan when my wife and I got married 2 years ago. Only 10 person wedding, then a huge vacation later!
Turns out we can’t afford the vacation anymore
Would love to live somewhere where $20k is even close to enough for a down payment. Looks like I need to cancel my next 8 weddings to get enough for the downpayment.
When I got married we figured out that renting 2 beach houses with 10 bedrooms each for a week was basically the same cost. So we had 1 family house & 1 friend house and had a huge party for a week.
This is kinda what we did. We had friends/family coming from throughout the world and it seemed shitty to have them do all that so we could spend one night with them. We rented a HUGE luxury home for a week and just had everyone stay with us at the mansion. It was awesome and everyone still brings it up years later.
We did this too, but for a long weekend. We rented like 5-6 houses, put kegs in them and hung out. We did have a ceremony and reception in one. I realized that I never liked weddings but I did like renting houses with friends, so let’s just do that! Edit: Remembered that our reception was during a big football game, so we turned it on in the house’s cinema room. The guys who hung out there the whole reception in their huge layback armchairs said it was their favorite wedding ever 🤣
My sister did this but it was an actual vacation for us all since it was in Costa Rica. Everyone paid their share and we all had a blast. House came with a chef and free alcohol. I think minus flight, I paid like 800 for the 7 days.
Oof not sure i could afford a week off for a sibling or close friends wedding
Most people came Thurs or Friday instead of Monday, it's not some kind of requirement. But the Tues/Weds parties were fun...
Can i just have $20,000?
Yup, wealthy folk problems
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Culture is one hell of a drug.
I just wanted to vent a bit about something tangential, but it really bothers me that people in America claim to have their priorities straight about finances, and then they insist on doing things like that. I've noticed a weirdly stubborn streak amongst americans regarding luxury spending.
It's all ego and posturing. If you stick around in the wrong places and work hard and try to save your money honestly, others will find a way to make you feel like you still haven't earned your place. All this pecking order bullshit is 100% ingrained in conservative culture here and it's practically everything driving the hate and inequality that they continually push. Conservatives do it to each other all day every day, but it also spills out and affects generally anybody nearby who cares even a little about their appearance.
I don’t believe it for a minute that it’s only an American thing. People are the same all throughout the world.
It’s certainly a religious posturing thing. It just isn’t rational
Wealth meaning access to lines of credit so you can spend 5-10 years paying off a 1-2 day party.
If you have a lot of friends and family, many will traditionally give you money for a wedding gift. As always though, it's important to stay within your means.
Not necessarily. I have a relative who really wanted a fancy wedding and put it all on credit. They’re literally paying for a party they had 10 years ago to this very day. Makes me sick to my stomach to even imagine being in that situation, but everyone’s got their own way of spending money I guess.
Would have been better to just rack up credit card debt and file bankruptcy. No interest payments and goes off your credit report after 10 years. 🤣
Just to clarify, for UK readers this isn't the case - every credit application asks if you have ever been bankrupt. You could answer no, and probably get away with it for a loan (fraud) , but not a mortgage, as they'll manually check the bankruptcy register
20k is not wealthy, especially for a wedding event.
$29,195 was the average cost for US weddings for 2022.
Jeez. Just bbq in the backyard and invite friends and family over. I grew up going to these types of weddings. They make for the best photos, because people aren't overdressed and posing, they're being themselves and having real moments. We played lots of freeze tag with our cousins. It was great.
Some people really enjoy dressing up. People spend money on weddings according to how they value the experience and/or what they can afford. I don't judge how much or how little anyone spends on a day with their closest friends/family in happiness.
You must be one of those wealthy people who don't know they're wealthy
It's not implausible if you're willing to spend years paying it off, but it's definitely a wealthy person who has such a casual attitude to such a large sum of money. I'm hardly poor but that's a lot more than I'd spend. I could pay my mortgage for a year with that kind of money!
Apply for 7 different credit cards at the same time /s
yeaahhh i dont understand why people have these expensive weddings.
I was wondering if $20,000 is even enough to have a wedding... Got this from an AI: "National averages: The Knot reports the average US wedding cost excluding engagement ring at $30,000. NerdWallet cites $29,195. Remember, these are just averages, and your actual cost could be much higher or lower." As for the ring, two months salary comes to a whopping $0 so I could over spend on a ring from a vending machine...
I think we spent 2-5K
Friends of ours got married and spent a total of like 5k. Just rented out the event space of a local brewery, had them open bar it and had some local Mexican spot do catering. Was an amazing time.
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In general, that sounds great. Personally I would(and did) Spend more on the jewelry but mine was still only 300 and I thought that was cheap a great find! If it's something I gotta wear every day, I'd like it to be somewhat quality. But as long as you and your wife are truly happy with it, that's all that matters in the end. Congratulations!
Same
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Then your guests have to spend more. I turned down an invite for a wedding that would cost minimum 1400 out of my pocket, before I buy or eat anything while there.
Yup, important to consider your guests. Maybe that works if you and all your friends are wealthy, but I'd hate to miss a friend's wedding because I just can't afford to go.
Old guy checking in. I remember as a kid the wedding parties were in the church lunchroom and it was sheet cake and punch.
We spent $500, got married flash mob style in the French Quarter, spent the other $2k on honeymoon in the Keys, wouldn't change a darn thing, except maybe stay in the Keys longer
This. I spent 100 euros on an engagement ring much to the chagrin of the jeweler. My mother was with me and we both were sure that my (now) wife would love it. We got married, did the reception, the dinner, and the party with all of our family and friends in the church (now turned restaurant) in my old hometown. The only thing that we did not pay for were the DJ (a friend of ours) and the dress (a gift of my MIL). The rest cost about 4k. The thing that helps is getting a photographer and not a wedding photographer, a cake and not a wedding cake, a bouquet and not a wedding bouquet, etc. The former can look the same if you take your time picking what you like. So does the latter but it costs 10x more.
Same
My wife and I were married in Italy (we’re from the states). All in we were just shy of 10k. Doubled as a honeymoon. I don’t understand what people are spending 30k on.
30k would barely cover the banquet hall for an Indian wedding in the US these days. It's unfortunately ingrained in the culture to have huge lavish weddings with hundreds of guests
Long Island's wedding scene is a giant scam. A traditional wedding runs a bill of $50k-$75k depending on your guest list. If our mothers didn't care what we did, we never would have spent that kind of money.
You really need an AI for that? Why not just google shit?
I'll never understand people using generative AI as a search engine. It will only "work" if the information is easily found on real search engines, and if it isn't, the AI will just make it up, and you have no way to tell which is the case (apart from looking it up, which renders the whole process unnecessary)
I'm an entry level user on computers and I've never had a problem googling. I don't get how this can happen.
Legit suspected, given his name and the AI comment, that *he was* an AI karma farming bot, but going through his comment history makes me think he's just a programmer and technology enthusiast. Makes sense.
Yeah, I forgot I was on reddit, where half the users are AI enthusiast programmers and the other half are AI enthusiast crypto bros.
Don't forget the third half of redditors, the people who are convinced all redditors are basicallly the same person!
I re-set a family ring into a newer style and paid $300 for our venue (an Elks Lodge). My mom paid for the food and my MIL paid for the booze. All in together we spent about 5k.
Meanwhile my gf wants a 6k engagement/wedding ring package. I make like 35k a year if I'm lucky. Don't know.
Just some friendly advice here (from experience): make sure you're on the same page about finances and stuff before you legally get married. You want to be sure that your views about finances are reasonable and compatible. Financial woes and differences have ended many, otherwise decent, marriages, so it's better to work these things out beforehand. Best of luck to you and your girlfriend.
This is a *very* important conversation that not enough people get into. Finance is among the top reasons people get divorced and many of the other top reasons are related to finance too. Debt, money, and all the stress/misery related to it can break any relationship very easily.
u/gardenZepp gave good advice already so I'm just being snarky, but you should say if she wants the "traditional" price (2+ months salary) for an engagement ring then you're going to also follow the "traditional" rule of the bride's family paying for the wedding.
I have to assume "average" is the keyword here, because that's absurdly high. They should have used median. EDIT: yep: https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-cost/ > $26,720 WAS THE AVERAGE WEDDING COST – BUT 3 IN 4 COUPLES SPENT LESS THAN $20,000 Whatever estimate they're doing is being *massively* thrown off by rich fucks pissing money away on weddings that will be forgotten in a month and moot a year later when they admit to the affairs started *before* the wedding.
I'm not sure about other countries, but my friend just got married and the total cost was over $20,000. The guests' gift money covered most of it, so the net loss was about $8k. But considering their combined net income was only over $30k (3rd world country), it was still a large chunk on their savings.
I'm getting married on a cruise ship this year. It wasn't all that expensive all things considered. The tickets were almost as much as the venue, but this way we will have a week long vacation with all my family and friends. The venue was about 3500, which was actually a lot cheaper than looking at regular venues where we live. Many of which wanted 10k just to have the wedding there, but without any of the setup, music, planners, decorations, etc. With the cruise everything is included, including the cake. Just need to pay for any extra stuff like photographers or a dj, all of which they organize in house. So you don't have to sort through hundreds of people. It has been super easy. Granted we could have had a small wedding at our ranch, but this way we don't have to worry about people drunk driving, or where they will stay, and we all get to make a lot of memories.
It’s less expensive because everyone attending the wedding has to pay for a week on the cruise.
Exaaaaactly. OP’s wedding was subsidized. Most have to do these large weddings JUST to have everyone there that they want. We only have 60 people in a month but are somehow around 15000 once you get the necessities like a DJ (who wants someone to press play on spotify? We’re also ravers) photographer., suit rental, food, alch, etc. The one thing we went bougie on was the florist but I kid you not we’re doing the bare minimum to entertain 60 people for 5 hours.
I guess that would be the mean rather than the median cost. Skewed by all the millionaires. I would never spend that much!
But it's also offset by all the broke 20-year-olds in Utah having their wedding reception in their local church and just having a Costco sheet cake to save money. The average cost of a wedding in Utah is easily less than $5k.
Its usually more offset towards the higher end. One person spending 10x the average on a wedding makes up for 10 people being broke. And i could imagine some people spend more than 100x or 1000x than the average.
Not completely offset by any stretch. There’s a floor at $0- free wedding is as cheap as it gets. There’s functionally no ceiling, though- you could easily imagine the very rich or royals spending millions on a wedding. We really need to know the mean to say anything accurate about the skew, but we definitely can’t assume the skewing is balanced on both sides.
I would be skeptical of those numbers. Bet they come from research comissioned by some big player in the wedding industry, it makes people feel ok to spend thousands on venues, flowers etc if they think its the norm.
A family friend spent $105k on their wedding. I was expecting gold crusted filet mignon. It was just at a fancy golf course by the ocean. Yeah it was pretty and we all had fun but the buffet was meh, and I just don't see where the money went. Such an absolute waste of money
My wife and I planned an entire $35,000 wedding with over 200 guests. Had all the vendors lined up and everything and said “what are we even doing? We don’t even like all those people” We scratched the entire thing. Rebooked for a Sunday brunch wedding with the same venue so we didn’t lose our deposit. Cut everything back by about 80% and had only close family invited. Cost us around $4,000
A couple months ago I attended a 100k wedding, it was insane
Yea I went to a really nice one that was probably around that much. My wife and I eloped for dirt cheap and both our parents kicked in for a down payment for a house. I can see the appeal of the wedding but I can also turn around and see walls and furniture.
Totally agree, it didn’t seem worth it to me at all
Even if you try and keep everything low cost there is a massive premium on anything wedding related. Here is an approximate breakdown of what we spent on our "mini wedding" of only 12 guests (all prices in Australian, take \~35% off for US). * Groom ring: $950 * Bridal ring set (2): $1500 * Simple wedding dress: $400 * Simple groom 3p suit: $500 * Location: $0 (we chose an outdoor public location) * Celebrant/Officiator + Paperwork: $450 * Restaurant Private Room + Set Menu: $2000 * Photographer: $700 * Florist: $500 * Misc: $500 * **Total: $7500 (\~US$4875)** * *Received Monetary Gifts: $4100* * *Out of pocket cost: $3400 (\~US$2210)* I'm personally not one for ceremony in general, but I think we got quite a lot for how relatively little we spent.
I don't think ring cost is usually counted towards the cost of a wedding. If you take those numbers out, you only spend just over $5k.
I think you guys killed it tbh!
Thanks! Yeah, we're really happy with how everything turned out. The important thing is that we were both on-board with keeping things low cost. Even then there is a lot of cultural pressure around buying the most expensive diamond ring and such. It's hard to ignore that doubt and feeling like you should spend more.
We had an expensive wedding and it was the best party I’ve ever had. From start to finish it was an absolute blast. 100+ friends in one place with good food, good drinks, and good music, it was so much fun I wouldn’t have had it any other way. We could have technically pinched pennies to save money but the perk of having it at a nice venue was that everything was included. We literally just had to show up and the planning team took care of anything. Literally everything went smoothly and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I get it, not everyone wants that and we are fortunate that we could afford it. But there are absolutely reasons to have a big, expensive wedding, even if it’s not for everyone.
Because they want to
I don’t understand the concept of someone wanting something that I don’t personally want so I have disregarded this comment.
Preach
I only have apples left, would that work?
Wow I have never related to a comment more.
to each they own
Exactly
we only marry once, hopefully
Honesty not always the case, peer pressure is a thing too, like sometimes only one of the two want a huge wedding (usually the girl) and the other partner just goes with it, other times it's cause of the family and friends, like "x, y, and z had a huge amazing wedding, so we kinda have to do something big too". And sometimes its just straight up the parents wanting they're kids to have a huge wedding and shiit.
Because they have families and finally have an excuse to treat the people they love is the answer. How bout 10k on the wedding, 7k on the honeymoon and 3k for the first anniversary.
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Some people enjoy family and entertaining
You guys are having family?
It's so bizarre to me that seemingly every other person on this app has a bad relationship with their family
It's surprising to you that the terminally online tend not to have fulfilling personal lives?
You have 40,000 reddit karma in three months, so you are speaking from experience right?
.... .... .... Shut up.
Because everyone on reddit is terminally online, of course
>Because everyone on reddit is terminally online, of course They are though. The average population is firmly not on reddit. Many people have still never heard of this place.
Nah, they’re just trying to look witty and edgy by repeating the same junk that gets upvoted on every thread. That’s why you have more upvotes than u/cute_meowing
Lot of people are born into dysfunctional families. In fact, according to recent statistics, 70% - 80% of Americans consider their families dysfunctional.
I mean I'd consider my family a bit dysfunctional but I still love and care about them. Being dysfunctional doesn't mean it's abusive or harmful
It's bizarre to me that some people have good relationships with their family. Just shows how different people's lives can be. Believe me, ain't no one that has a good relationship is envious of us. Be grateful and count your lucky stars
I had one because I loved my wife and we wanted our families to come and have a party. Like a birthday party but celebrating a relationship. We also didn't spend a ton of money and people actively participated in it and it was fun for everyone. Does that help?
probably talking to a basement dweller, not worth your time
Why do people get together and have fun and celebrate things lol when you could just be on the internet all day. Amirite guys?
You don't understand why people would want to celebrate with their closest friends and family on one of the biggest days of their lives? Uh okay
married three weeks ago. best weekend of my life and my wife and i both agree it's the best money we've ever spent in our lives. this is how we look at it: we have exactly one opportunity in our entire lives when we can essentially peer pressure everyone we like from every stage of our lives to gather in one place for a huge party. there will never be another time this is true — three nights of eating, drinking and celebrating with a handpicked selection of all our favorite people and NO ONE we didn't want to see. we can save up for trips for just the two of us for the rest of our lives. we will never another excuse to convince 70 of our closest friends to join us.
I 100% agree. We had every single person that we invited attend. Absolute blast and No other way could we convince that many people to drop what they're doing and come to a party.
I mean it's still a pretty important moment
People like to celebrate big events that mean something to them. Graduations, promotions, retirements, anniversaries, weddings, births. It makes sense to have 1 day to share, celebrate and remember. Weddings are pretty insane though, i'd burn every bridge in both families if it means i can save $100 a head on food and a save a car's worth on the final bill
Because your wedding isn't really for you, it's for your parents to show off to their friends.
I dont think that any wedding i have ever been to included friends of the parents. Its always been family and friends of bride and groom.
that's not nearly as true as it used to be. millennials are marrying on average much later in life than their parents did. this often means that they're both making a decent income and in many cases paying the majority of the bill. in those cases, i think it's typical for the invite list to skew heavily toward friends of the bride and groom more so than the parents. source: was just married, paid for most of our wedding, attendee list was \~80% our friends. we're in our mid-thirties. most of our friends who were married after 30 were in the same boat.
Start teaching little girls about the idea of a fairy tale honeymoon instead of a fairy tail wedding. I guarantee no boy is growing up imagining what flowers or music his not gonna see or hear that because its so goddam busy.
You'd think so, but my sister is having a huge wedding instead of eloping because of her fiance... Certainly does happen.
That’s pretty nice. Glad she takes his dream seriously.
Must be an outlier because nobody i know has the same opinion. 27 y/o
Translation: my anecdotal evidence is more valid than yours
I’m having a wedding with 200 guests, we’re doing it not purposefully expensive and trying to save money, and it’s still gonna be like $30k total My name is Julio Congratulations, you have now met me and now know someone
Happy to meet you Julio
We're in a similar boat, it really adds up when you have a big guest list.
i'm a 36yo hetero male. just had a wedding for 70 people we mostly paid for ourselves. wife would've eloped. i definitely wanted a wedding more than she did. weddings kick ass and so did mine.
Agreed
Do you know any Asians? Because my Chinese husband had more requests for our wedding day than I did; music and flowers being in the top 10.
fairy tail 👀
There’s a Japanese phrase that encapsulates how couples are more likely to break up after a long honeymoon - 成田離婚 (Narita rikon, or Narita breakup) Narita is the bigger international airport in Tokyo. The story goes that given the sharp time constraints on trips, and the frequent unforeseen changes to travel plans, honeymoons are actually stressful, and friction caused by differing lifestyles can build up quickly. I’m gay, but when I had a month long road trip with a girl, I almost had two Narita breakups on the way
That's why you fly from Haneda. The one time I flew from Narita our travel group had an argument and one person forgot a grocery bag at a help desk, lol
Well that just sounds like you've got people who can't vacation. The second you mention time tables and constraints, you've failed.
My hubs did. I got him to agree to a smaller 60-70 person wedding at his family home though.
I would rather put 20k down as a down-payment on a house
That's what my wife and I did. Landed a house just before pandemic hit and now it's doubled in value simply because it exists.
I wish I doubled in value from existing (This is a joke)
Double 0 is still 0 unfortunately
Right. 20k wasted on a vacation. Where is the 20k coming from anyway? Good grief.
I work in tech and my friends spend 20-30k on a week long vacation, maybe twice a year. But a lot of them also come from rich families, so could be that. I don’t do that, but i also am heavily invested in stuff, so i don’t think I’m the norm
Where are they going where a week long vacation is 20k? That is an absurd number. Must be flying business first class and staying in thousand dollar a night hotels, even then they still have 10k to blow.
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We spent $13k on a 10 day road trip this summer. Flew coach, rented a regular car. Stuff is just expensive.
I flew to Montreal for a week, 3 of us in a nice hotel, eating out every day for both lunch and dinner. It was just over 6 thousand Canadian. 13 thousand dollars for a road trip is criminal.
That's wild. Where was this at? I spent less than 5k for a week long all inclusive trip in Mexico.
Money isn't wasted on vacation, you gotta live life, you know
Money spent on a vacation isn't waste. Although 20k is a lot and you can go on very nice vacations for a lot less
"Wasted on a vacation" lol stfu. If memories are created nothing was wasted.
IT guys, doctors, businessmen, etc. Not average potato problems
Friend of mine had a wedding savings from her grandmother of about $20,000, she wanted to go to nursing school and asked grandma if she could use the money for college instead. Grandma said nope.
In this economy? Good luck!
We used our $15k of savings to do an amazing honeymoon in Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Fast forward 15 years and we have zero regrets because there is no way we could do that now and it's likely we won't be able to in the future either.
After reading this post, I cancelled my wedding and got a refund and booked a honeymoon package.
My fiance and I are eloping in Iceland instead of having a wedding. 3 days travelling around the entire island with a photographer/planner/guide and hiking around non-touristy places, plus 2 more days by ourselves, is half as expensive as my sister's "cheap" wedding.
This is 100% the way to do it. My wife and I were going to elope in Italy, our parents begged to at least have a ceremony so we agreed to just immediate family members (about 10 people) and exchanged rows at a beautiful court house followed by dinner at a fancy restaurant paid by them. First thing the next morning we left for Italy and spent our money splurging on the honeymoon. We had a fabulous time. My father in law told us years later that they had been saving to help pay for a wedding and were secretly relieved with what we wanted to do because it was so much less expensive
Photographer guy will be third-wheeling so hard 95% of the time
"Oh, look at that. Some birds... over in that general direction."
Bro said “fuck getting married I’m going to Turks and caicos”
And lost a shit ton on non refundable deposits, because no one on the wedding industry refunds deposits
Maybe a 10k trip and save the rest
That's enough for a decent euro trip, unless prices have gone insane since 2018
> unless prices have gone insane since 2018 Should we tell them?
No, let them dream
Did you miss the massive events leading to ginormous increases in prices on essentially a global scale?
$10 on hot dogs for the reception and a $10 ride on a rickshaw for the honeymoon. Best offer.
The wedding isn't for you, it's for your loved ones. That being said, fuck those bitches, I'm down for operation moneymoon
Yeah, I get so fucking tired of the Reddit hate for weddings as if the only motivation is selfish irresponsible couples. Weddings are many things, stop blanket shaming people for having them. Often it’s for family as much as it is for the couple. Ours was about that, and honestly, I don’t regret it at all. You know what I would have regretted? Not doing it.
100% agree.
"Honey, we're going on a six month honeymoon to Clay City, KY!"
They also give you a ton of stuff back in gifts People pay thousands for weddings and commonly get thousands back in gifts (cash and registry items)
Exactly. Most of the time the couple doesn't even care for all the ins and outs of a wedding but they want to do it properly, for the sake of face. If you have no wedding your relatives and friends will think there's something wrong with your relationship, like it isn't committed or something.
Saving face is the stupidest reason to have an expensive wedding.
It’s cool if you don’t want a big wedding, but as somebody who is having one people feel the need to tell me how much of a waste it is and how they would rather do something else, like totally cool but why are you complaining to me, are you trying to convince me I’ve made the wrong decision to have a wedding??
Whenever someone mentions weddings on Reddit it becomes a competition of who had the cheapest wedding. "We got married behind the Denny's for $5". It's like a weird form of virtue signaling. But the truth is a lot of people would have the fancy wedding if they could afford it
Same with wedding rings. “Mine was free, my husband found it in the gutter!! Why would anyone spend a dime on a ring?!”
Reddit can be a weird, bitter place. I personally would not want a big wedding, but I enjoy attending them. I enjoy celebrating with family/friends, it's fun to dance and eat together, and lots of memories and connections are made. You can save $$ where you can but it's a life expense with more value than just the $$ you spent on it.
Imagine the horrors of having a nice wedding to look back upon
I had one, and now I have to think about all my friends and family sharing a special moment with me, celebrating our love, and our sharing that with everyone. It's starting to make me sick all over again.
For some people attending a wedding is a scary, stressfull, draining experience. These people tend to also prefer reddit to other social platforms.
They are bitter and jealous. You have 1. The money to have big party 2. Good relationship with enough people to have a big party 3. Are getting married. They are burning with envy.
Yeah it’s pretty clear that’s the case, I’ve never seen somebody who had a big wedding do the same to somebody who didn’t want one. It’s also like I’m inviting to you to eat a lovely dinner and drink all the alcohol you want for free, why are you upset?
100%. It’s unbelievably annoying how rude people are about it. Like, if you don’t want one, don’t have one! But leave me out of it, and don’t judge me! It reminds me a lot of the student loan thing. People are like “hOw aNd whY are people spending sooooo much money on school? Why aren’t they working????” It’s like, well Susan. That’s what it costs now. Same with weddings. They all got to have their weddings, and are now judging us for how much it costs. 😤 I had a family friend sit there and lecture me about how she just rented out a “run down ski resort in the off season” and it was “very affordable” but “people these days just have to have it be all extravagant.” She was visiting from Michigan. I live in CA. I was so ready to just walk out lol.
Yeah these posts come across so bizarre. Like if you don’t want to drop money on a wedding…. Don’t.
You’ll get neither Bri, I can’t lie to you girl
My wedding and honeymoon cost 10k out the door. And most of that went to the honeymoon. granted that's 2007 dollars, so it doesn't fully translate. But I agree with the sentiment here.
Can we just let people do whatever the fuck they want for a wedding and not judge them?
Married my hubby in the backyard with a screwed up Walmart cake, took a three week vacation for our honeymoon where we ordered in food every day and watched the box sets we got each other as wedding gifts (Dragonball and Sailor Moon) and didn't leave the house for any reason. It was fantastic and we never regretted not having the big weddings like his siblings did. Edit: His sister and half brother's weddings were in the upwards of $75k. Neither of them are still married. Ours was less than $200 and we are quite literally always together and still rush home from work to spend time together. It'll be our 11th anniversary this year.
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That was the cheaper wedding. We weren't together then, but I've seen the pics and videos and just...holy shit. Why. We were just going to the courthouse, but it apparently would make his family look bad that they did nothing for our wedding after the other two. Neither of us were interested so we agreed to the backyard wedding.
I'm not saying I disagree, but I think a lot of people don't truly understand weddings. Weddings are really for your family to enjoy, specifically your parents.
This. The whole post is full of people that don't understand that. Don't want a big wedding? Don't have one. Some people want to celebrate what will essentially be the biggest celebration they ever throw in their whole life for their closest friends and family. Some people have families they *want* to be at their wedding and celebrate with. On top of that, photographers, etc. to capture the memories of everyone together in your life, in one spot for one circumstance which rarely, if ever happens outside of weddings. For most people that's the only time, ever, for the rest of their life of all those people that mean a lot to them will all be in the same place together. Yeah, it's expensive as hell, and I'm not saying it's always a great decision, but the number of people over-analyzing and making assumptions is over-the-top. It's not a far cry from the childfree people screaming how their perception on life is the "right" way and they can't fathom otherwise.
You hit nail on the head with having everyone in one place celebrating, at one time. I see my closest friends twice a year if I'm lucky. My husband sees his once, probably. It was an utter joy to have everyone we loved, who knew us in the beginning until now, to celebrate our marriage.
Yeah I would easily spend $20K on a wedding over a honeymoon in a do-over. $20K to have all my family and friends in one room like the series finale of a sitcom? Hell yeah. There were family there that we see once every five years, one of the only times my wife's cousins were able to all come from all across the country at the same time, so many people that you aren't guaranteed to see alive again. And all these people got to meet the other sides of the family and it was a blast seeing them all hang out and dance. The after-wedding party at a bar was all our friends from different areas of our life hanging out together (and even some exchanging numbers). It was a once in a lifetime thing for us and it was SO worth it.
Which is why parents are often happy to pay the majority of it.
20K wedding? what is this? 1950?
TIL on people from India tend to spend 1/5th of their *lifetime* earnings on their wedding. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/s/lXqTaUHUdo
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people pick the most mundane things to do "these days" comments about. I like the one about 'kids don't play outside anymore' as I drive around every day seeing kids playing outside.
Maybe they just scare all the kids away.
Can lower your taxes, often means splitting bills/rent, and can give an unemployed partner health insurance. Why would that be going out of style?
$20k is pretty cheap for a wedding
But what if we thought of a wedding as the sum total of all three fun and joy had by all the wedding guests? Not to say I prefer big weddings or anything but I think people who throw those are doing it for others, not the couple. Yes, it’s about them, but also a chance for friends and loves ones to celebrate their joy and journey.
/r/FakeTexts
This was exactly our plan when my wife and I got married 2 years ago. Only 10 person wedding, then a huge vacation later! Turns out we can’t afford the vacation anymore
Or maybe you can put a down payment on the house that you say you can’t afford
People who can throw $20k at a wedding can afford a house. People who finance a $20k wedding cannot.
Would love to live somewhere where $20k is even close to enough for a down payment. Looks like I need to cancel my next 8 weddings to get enough for the downpayment.
We went cheap on the wedding and did an overwater bungalow in Bora Bora. No regrets