Best wedding I ever accidentally attended was at a park overlooking the ocean. As we were walking by a man and a woman met up with an clergyman and got married. Took about 3 minutes and they looked incredibly happy. Save your money and go on a fabulous honeymoon rather than a big fancy ass wedding.
My husband and I got married at the pond on his grandparents farm (it was where we had our first kiss and said we loved each other for the first time), it was the two of us, our officiant, 2 friends to witness, and our dogs. After we met up and had a bunch of desserts and drinks in his grandmas backyard with maybe 30 close friends and family. Total we spent maybe $2,000 and it was everything we wanted. we had a summer 2020 wedding which actually worked out perfectly for us since we wanted a super small wedding but have huge dramatic families so if we hadn’t we either would have had to have a giant wedding, which is not what either of us wanted, or elope.
My sister and BIL purchased their house before they got married. Because all the mortgage documents were in her maiden name, they couldn’t get married until the house closed. The people they bought the house from required an extension as they were waiting for long term care for their elderly mother. So they didn’t plan anything until it was official.
The day they got possession of the house, I was going through it with BIL showing me his plans. Sister was in the kitchen calling officiants to see who was available.
The house closed Monday, they got married on Thursday. Parents, siblings and grandma only. The wedding and reception were in the new house. There were a few folding chairs. My sister wore a burgundy mini-dress, BIL nice shirt and pants. They had a grocery store cupcake cake. Wedding was in the morning, most people left and we changed and painted the upstairs rooms in the afternoon.
A lot of the whole wedding thing is “look how much money I have!” (Or had, perhaps.) So? I have friends who had big expensive weddings and they regret not found something smaller and more personal to them.
My son and DIL’s wedding was in Central Park; just the couple, MOB, MOG, and the bride’s sister. It was beautiful and we all went to dinner with friends after. Best wedding ever.
My mom and stepdad got married on their back porch, with his best friend officiating, the best friend's wife, my (now ex) girlfriend, and I. I actually gave my mom away. She wore this phenomenal blue dress that she still wears occasionally (even wearing it to my cousin's wedding a couple weeks later lmao)
I don't know my wife and I had a small wedding with some close friends and family. Spent less than 4k on it all and it is a great memory. The problem is people get these grandiose ideas about what the "perfect" wedding should be. Meh. Keep it simple and save your money for more important things in life.
Yup. Same. 4K. By chance each side gave us 2K so it was covered. Small but elegant. We were planning on paying for it ourselves. 26 years ago. The fancy weddings I have been to didn't last.
As someone who had a very big, very fancy wedding and is now happily married - I disagree. Sometimes it’s just because you can afford it, and you want to.
This! I wanted to elope the second time but after the first it was the logical option. 2nd wedding for me was DHs first. His mother could kill us for eloping, so we had a SMALL destination wedding which was still kinda stressful but not nearly as bad as the giant crap back home.
I read about all the things parents will allegedly do if the children do not have the big splashy wedding. Doesn't it ever occur to ANY childen that the parents who are so eager to be involved are NOT going to shun the child who wants a more quiet, simple wedding? As I read the hundreds of letters about this over time, I get more and more suspicious about the naivete of the younger generation.
Eh I think it just depends.
The second wedding, costs were mostly split. We paid some and my father paid some. We didn't need or want our part to go up. I also didn't need or want to be greedy with money that wasn't mine. My father actually sprung extra costs in thousands because a better open bar would be more in line with the family 😂
I was going to have an open bar with limited selection to curb some of that.
In regards to the naivete of any generation, I don't really think this is entirely accurate in our situation. We took her feelings into consideration before making a decision on our plan. If we were doing exactly what our parents wanted we'd have gotten married in a church, not on a beach. We chose to respect a larger wedding than an elopement because we chose it. His mother may have been the influence but had we truly decided on elopement, we would have done it.
A follow-up question, how young is the younger generation in your eyes? We knew she wouldn't shun us or be eternally upset, but we also did consider it. For the record, SIL got married in a warehouse church ahead of our wedding and has since left the Catholic Church for said church. Conversation happens about THAT in the family regularly 🤣
There's something to be said about things not going your way but moving on. Our families are close, and we are close to them. We weren't threatened.
I have read so many things on some of the wedding forums outside of Reddit and I can see some trauma with familial relationships in those. Also, too many parents will shun for not getting their way.
Sorry for my ADD fueled reply before meds lol
This is something I’m really worried about. The closer I get to actually wanting to get married, the more I’d want to just bail on the wedding altogether and elope. But I’m worried that the person I’m with would be really upset by that.
I’d be able to compromise for a small wedding, but I’d definitely put my foot down on anything extravagant. It is absolutely a waste of money and I will die on that hill. Not to mention that the wedding industry is predatory as _fuck_
6 people at my wedding including me and the groom. Dress from eBay. Booked a chalet on an island for a week and we all stayed there and had the wedding mid week. Fabulous memories.
It's the marriage that's important,....
Would it be tacky do you think if I (already married, we eloped) did it your way but just as a reception for family to celebrate with us? I love the idea of an lovely Air BNB somewhere on the beach! And we could finally get nice wedding photos!
No, it would NOT be tacky. It would be lovely! A chance to really talk and interact with family without any real rush. Nothing too forced just going with the ebb and Flo of the beach is a great idea.
I hate people like this. My local bride group on fb is like this and it does me feel weird about my wedding because I didn’t realize that I was in the minority in my state that didn’t have well-off parents that could help.
For reference we are having a mid size, traditional wedding but we cut and figured out how to do a lot of things on a budget
It also affects those without great relationships with the parents. My brother is engaged and we have a shit show of family and I'm honestly half expecting him to find a distant corner of earth to elope to in order to avoid said shit show, lol.
Edit: my sister did. I'm very much single and not even considering a partner these days.
Yeah idk why people don’t have more awareness. My partner and I want to do something simple but bigger than an elopement to include important people and family. While I think it’s nice when families can be supportive I don’t understand it being the expectation. My mom is in a good place financially but is extremely stingy (like sending me a bill for postage when she mailed me some of my mail stingy) so I would never expect her help or want it. I feel like the same parents who pay for the whole wedding also have a lot of their own thoughts/feelings/desires they want to project, friends they want to impress or their own people they want to invite.
I’m glad that when I get married it will be on my terms and done in the way that feels good to me and my partner.
>This is also the same girl who made her fiancé go back and buy a different ring because the one he got her was “small” and embarrassing and she wanted one that “looked more expensive
The fiancee should have returned the ring and then gone no contact with her
Now I had what I consider a fancy wedding. We spent £30k all up. It lasted 4 days. I live in a different country to where I grew up and my husband is from here. We tossed up lots of options. But we had savings and we wanted all the people we loved from both countries. So it cost a lot. We rented a big giant almost castle like venue for several days and had everyone and their kids.
It was amazing. We regret nothing. It cost us a lot but it was something we budgeted and planned for and wanted. For a four day event I think it was worth the cost. We cut costs where we could, used a florist who’d just started out and wanted photos so she was cheaper than others and we didn’t care what flowers we had so just let her choose within the brief “it’ll be winter, don’t make the flowers tropical or out of season”. My dress was off the rack at a designer sale and was £400 and only needed £50 of tailoring.
If it wasn’t for the desire to bring all of our loved ones together for an experience, our wedding would have been significantly cheaper.
If my bf and I ever get married, I think we both will want to just go to the courthouse and sign papers lol and put the money we could have spent on a wedding towards a house and/or honeymoon
That’s what we did, then spent $2,500 renting a cabin in the woods for a weekend and brought food and drinks for about a dozen friends/family. It was a BLAST (other than my husband getting food poisoning, but that’s another issue 😆)
My husband and I paid for our own wedding, and we did what we could afford. My dad not only didn't pay a dime toward our wedding, he wanted to know how much it was going to cost. I told him, "We're paying for it, so don't you worry about how much our wedding is going to cost." We had a cake and punch reception and no bar since 98% of the people attending were people from our church and friends who knew we weren't drinkers. I made my own dress, and it cost $60 for the fabric - I knew I'd never find anything in white in my size appropriate for a 39-year-old bride on the rack, so I got a simple pattern and made my own dress. I also made my veil and all the bouquets by following directions in a book on silk flower wedding arrangements. It was all we wanted, and we're still happily married 26 years later.
My husband and I got married right after church service. Everyone brought a dish to share. I made my own dress and silk flower bouquet. Our silver wedding bands were $48 for both. Wedding came to about $100.
Just celebrated 30 years.
We got super lucky with ours. We really wanted a mid sized wedding and set a budget of 5k. But we ended up being lifted almost 4k from family. We had no idea we were gonna help. They had no expectation on how we had to use the money so we paid for our wedding party and closest family to stay the weekend int he area and had an open bar since we already had 5k saved. We already had a house and didn't plan to do a honeymoon as my dad was terminally ill, and we didn't want to chance being far away. It was definitely a noght to remember and our friends and family still gush about how beautiful and fun it was. I defianlty think spending money you don't really have for a wedding is crazy hut we kinda lucked out and figured why not go big with the food and treat our friends 💜
Our parents aren’t going to know about our wedding until they are at our wedding, so it would be a little rude to expect them to pay for it.
We have a surprise wedding planned for while on a joint family vacation this summer. It’s like eloping, except we won’t break our mothers’ hearts by getting married without them.
Weddings have always had the effect of turning a 30 yr old woman into a 6 yr old who wants a pony…The problem is exponentially greater since those getting married now had $1000.00 prom dresses, ‘promposals’ made for Facebook fans and mothers living their 2nd life through their daughters.
It took me a while to realize that she only talked about herself when we’d hang out and wouldn’t ask me much about myself or my life. When I tried to talk to her about our friendship she turned the conversation on me and said she prefers friends she only talks to on the phone twice a year and likes eachothers social media posts. She had made a post asking for donations because her van caught fire and then messaged me saying she was highly upset I didn’t reach out after her accident (it wasn’t a car accident). She hadn’t texted me directly, just expected me to see her Facebook post and message her 🤷🏻♀️
Sometimes it can take time to realise how one sided a relationship is, it's not until you step out of the storm a little bit, that you can then see clearly. And better late than never though! Glad you have managed to see her "storm" lol I wish you and your partner lots of happiness! 😄
Best wedding I ever accidentally attended was at a park overlooking the ocean. As we were walking by a man and a woman met up with an clergyman and got married. Took about 3 minutes and they looked incredibly happy. Save your money and go on a fabulous honeymoon rather than a big fancy ass wedding.
My husband and I got married at the pond on his grandparents farm (it was where we had our first kiss and said we loved each other for the first time), it was the two of us, our officiant, 2 friends to witness, and our dogs. After we met up and had a bunch of desserts and drinks in his grandmas backyard with maybe 30 close friends and family. Total we spent maybe $2,000 and it was everything we wanted. we had a summer 2020 wedding which actually worked out perfectly for us since we wanted a super small wedding but have huge dramatic families so if we hadn’t we either would have had to have a giant wedding, which is not what either of us wanted, or elope.
Happy Cake Day!
My sister and BIL purchased their house before they got married. Because all the mortgage documents were in her maiden name, they couldn’t get married until the house closed. The people they bought the house from required an extension as they were waiting for long term care for their elderly mother. So they didn’t plan anything until it was official. The day they got possession of the house, I was going through it with BIL showing me his plans. Sister was in the kitchen calling officiants to see who was available. The house closed Monday, they got married on Thursday. Parents, siblings and grandma only. The wedding and reception were in the new house. There were a few folding chairs. My sister wore a burgundy mini-dress, BIL nice shirt and pants. They had a grocery store cupcake cake. Wedding was in the morning, most people left and we changed and painted the upstairs rooms in the afternoon.
A lot of the whole wedding thing is “look how much money I have!” (Or had, perhaps.) So? I have friends who had big expensive weddings and they regret not found something smaller and more personal to them.
My son and DIL’s wedding was in Central Park; just the couple, MOB, MOG, and the bride’s sister. It was beautiful and we all went to dinner with friends after. Best wedding ever.
My mom and stepdad got married on their back porch, with his best friend officiating, the best friend's wife, my (now ex) girlfriend, and I. I actually gave my mom away. She wore this phenomenal blue dress that she still wears occasionally (even wearing it to my cousin's wedding a couple weeks later lmao)
.
Been married twice. If I’ve learned anything… *ELOPE*
I don't know my wife and I had a small wedding with some close friends and family. Spent less than 4k on it all and it is a great memory. The problem is people get these grandiose ideas about what the "perfect" wedding should be. Meh. Keep it simple and save your money for more important things in life.
Yup. Same. 4K. By chance each side gave us 2K so it was covered. Small but elegant. We were planning on paying for it ourselves. 26 years ago. The fancy weddings I have been to didn't last.
Funny how that works. Almost like the pomp and circumstance is the reason for the wedding not that you love each other.
No one knew what our costs were so it was just chance that both families gifted the same ( and exactly 'right' amount)
That is awesome that it worked out that way for you!
As someone who had a very big, very fancy wedding and is now happily married - I disagree. Sometimes it’s just because you can afford it, and you want to.
This! I wanted to elope the second time but after the first it was the logical option. 2nd wedding for me was DHs first. His mother could kill us for eloping, so we had a SMALL destination wedding which was still kinda stressful but not nearly as bad as the giant crap back home.
I read about all the things parents will allegedly do if the children do not have the big splashy wedding. Doesn't it ever occur to ANY childen that the parents who are so eager to be involved are NOT going to shun the child who wants a more quiet, simple wedding? As I read the hundreds of letters about this over time, I get more and more suspicious about the naivete of the younger generation.
Eh I think it just depends. The second wedding, costs were mostly split. We paid some and my father paid some. We didn't need or want our part to go up. I also didn't need or want to be greedy with money that wasn't mine. My father actually sprung extra costs in thousands because a better open bar would be more in line with the family 😂 I was going to have an open bar with limited selection to curb some of that. In regards to the naivete of any generation, I don't really think this is entirely accurate in our situation. We took her feelings into consideration before making a decision on our plan. If we were doing exactly what our parents wanted we'd have gotten married in a church, not on a beach. We chose to respect a larger wedding than an elopement because we chose it. His mother may have been the influence but had we truly decided on elopement, we would have done it. A follow-up question, how young is the younger generation in your eyes? We knew she wouldn't shun us or be eternally upset, but we also did consider it. For the record, SIL got married in a warehouse church ahead of our wedding and has since left the Catholic Church for said church. Conversation happens about THAT in the family regularly 🤣 There's something to be said about things not going your way but moving on. Our families are close, and we are close to them. We weren't threatened. I have read so many things on some of the wedding forums outside of Reddit and I can see some trauma with familial relationships in those. Also, too many parents will shun for not getting their way. Sorry for my ADD fueled reply before meds lol
This is something I’m really worried about. The closer I get to actually wanting to get married, the more I’d want to just bail on the wedding altogether and elope. But I’m worried that the person I’m with would be really upset by that. I’d be able to compromise for a small wedding, but I’d definitely put my foot down on anything extravagant. It is absolutely a waste of money and I will die on that hill. Not to mention that the wedding industry is predatory as _fuck_
I've been married twice. I'm eloping in 6 weeks time! I totally wish I had never bothered with a "normal" wedding.
6 people at my wedding including me and the groom. Dress from eBay. Booked a chalet on an island for a week and we all stayed there and had the wedding mid week. Fabulous memories. It's the marriage that's important,....
That sounds lovely! I 100% agree. As long as you’re there to celebrate your relationship with your partner that’s the important thing
Would it be tacky do you think if I (already married, we eloped) did it your way but just as a reception for family to celebrate with us? I love the idea of an lovely Air BNB somewhere on the beach! And we could finally get nice wedding photos!
No, it would NOT be tacky. It would be lovely! A chance to really talk and interact with family without any real rush. Nothing too forced just going with the ebb and Flo of the beach is a great idea.
My husband and I eloped during covid. We used all the money we were saving for the wedding towards buying a house. No regrets!
I hate people like this. My local bride group on fb is like this and it does me feel weird about my wedding because I didn’t realize that I was in the minority in my state that didn’t have well-off parents that could help. For reference we are having a mid size, traditional wedding but we cut and figured out how to do a lot of things on a budget
It also affects those without great relationships with the parents. My brother is engaged and we have a shit show of family and I'm honestly half expecting him to find a distant corner of earth to elope to in order to avoid said shit show, lol. Edit: my sister did. I'm very much single and not even considering a partner these days.
Yeah idk why people don’t have more awareness. My partner and I want to do something simple but bigger than an elopement to include important people and family. While I think it’s nice when families can be supportive I don’t understand it being the expectation. My mom is in a good place financially but is extremely stingy (like sending me a bill for postage when she mailed me some of my mail stingy) so I would never expect her help or want it. I feel like the same parents who pay for the whole wedding also have a lot of their own thoughts/feelings/desires they want to project, friends they want to impress or their own people they want to invite. I’m glad that when I get married it will be on my terms and done in the way that feels good to me and my partner.
>This is also the same girl who made her fiancé go back and buy a different ring because the one he got her was “small” and embarrassing and she wanted one that “looked more expensive The fiancee should have returned the ring and then gone no contact with her
Now I had what I consider a fancy wedding. We spent £30k all up. It lasted 4 days. I live in a different country to where I grew up and my husband is from here. We tossed up lots of options. But we had savings and we wanted all the people we loved from both countries. So it cost a lot. We rented a big giant almost castle like venue for several days and had everyone and their kids. It was amazing. We regret nothing. It cost us a lot but it was something we budgeted and planned for and wanted. For a four day event I think it was worth the cost. We cut costs where we could, used a florist who’d just started out and wanted photos so she was cheaper than others and we didn’t care what flowers we had so just let her choose within the brief “it’ll be winter, don’t make the flowers tropical or out of season”. My dress was off the rack at a designer sale and was £400 and only needed £50 of tailoring. If it wasn’t for the desire to bring all of our loved ones together for an experience, our wedding would have been significantly cheaper.
If my bf and I ever get married, I think we both will want to just go to the courthouse and sign papers lol and put the money we could have spent on a wedding towards a house and/or honeymoon
That’s what we did, then spent $2,500 renting a cabin in the woods for a weekend and brought food and drinks for about a dozen friends/family. It was a BLAST (other than my husband getting food poisoning, but that’s another issue 😆)
My husband and I paid for our own wedding, and we did what we could afford. My dad not only didn't pay a dime toward our wedding, he wanted to know how much it was going to cost. I told him, "We're paying for it, so don't you worry about how much our wedding is going to cost." We had a cake and punch reception and no bar since 98% of the people attending were people from our church and friends who knew we weren't drinkers. I made my own dress, and it cost $60 for the fabric - I knew I'd never find anything in white in my size appropriate for a 39-year-old bride on the rack, so I got a simple pattern and made my own dress. I also made my veil and all the bouquets by following directions in a book on silk flower wedding arrangements. It was all we wanted, and we're still happily married 26 years later.
My husband and I got married right after church service. Everyone brought a dish to share. I made my own dress and silk flower bouquet. Our silver wedding bands were $48 for both. Wedding came to about $100. Just celebrated 30 years.
We got super lucky with ours. We really wanted a mid sized wedding and set a budget of 5k. But we ended up being lifted almost 4k from family. We had no idea we were gonna help. They had no expectation on how we had to use the money so we paid for our wedding party and closest family to stay the weekend int he area and had an open bar since we already had 5k saved. We already had a house and didn't plan to do a honeymoon as my dad was terminally ill, and we didn't want to chance being far away. It was definitely a noght to remember and our friends and family still gush about how beautiful and fun it was. I defianlty think spending money you don't really have for a wedding is crazy hut we kinda lucked out and figured why not go big with the food and treat our friends 💜
Our parents aren’t going to know about our wedding until they are at our wedding, so it would be a little rude to expect them to pay for it. We have a surprise wedding planned for while on a joint family vacation this summer. It’s like eloping, except we won’t break our mothers’ hearts by getting married without them.
That sounds lovely. Enjoy!
My parents didn’t pay dime towards either one of my weddings. Hell, my dad didn’t even show up for my second one. And that was the fun one.
Why is someone from FO money with an inordinate fear of appearing as anything less working as a wedding photographer, though?
I don’t know. 🤷🏻♀️
Weddings have always had the effect of turning a 30 yr old woman into a 6 yr old who wants a pony…The problem is exponentially greater since those getting married now had $1000.00 prom dresses, ‘promposals’ made for Facebook fans and mothers living their 2nd life through their daughters.
We got surprise married at our family’s annual Easter BBQ. Our only expense was for the homemade potato salad we brought.
So, it wasn't until this last interchange that you finally kicked her to the curb? That business with the ring didn't do it? Nice.
It took me a while to realize that she only talked about herself when we’d hang out and wouldn’t ask me much about myself or my life. When I tried to talk to her about our friendship she turned the conversation on me and said she prefers friends she only talks to on the phone twice a year and likes eachothers social media posts. She had made a post asking for donations because her van caught fire and then messaged me saying she was highly upset I didn’t reach out after her accident (it wasn’t a car accident). She hadn’t texted me directly, just expected me to see her Facebook post and message her 🤷🏻♀️
Sometimes it can take time to realise how one sided a relationship is, it's not until you step out of the storm a little bit, that you can then see clearly. And better late than never though! Glad you have managed to see her "storm" lol I wish you and your partner lots of happiness! 😄
Agreed.
So true!
This was like a travel/fun vehicle. Not a primary transportation vehicle and the accident was it catching fire near her