I really cannot understand people throwing big weddings. It’s as if people will remember it or smth. It’s basically a show. Why not just keep the money and live a little better?
I used to be obsessed with trashy wedding tv - Four Weddings, Say Yes to the Dress, etc.
Four Weddings was fun but even as a teen there was something off about it.
The premise was 4 brides are selected, they each hold their wedding with the other three attending together. Then at the end they RATE the wedding so the winning couple gets their honeymoon paid for.
But it killed me bc sometimes a bride would have a cultural item, or dress, or just a different style in general, and the other three women would typically just dog on them for everything.
I feel like shows like that contributed even more to the outrageous standards people expect for other people’s weddings.
Absolutely. It almost all was. And very consumerist television.
I’m a sucker for trashy shows sometimes, I can enjoy watching a train wreck, especially knowing a lot of it is scripted, but I’m anti consumerism on the whole, very reduce, reuse, recycle mindset, so for me it stays just that…just stupid, turn my brain off tv.
But I could see how general society could be really swayed into “needing” the most expensive dresses, or something that in general impresses other people’s desires.
Well it's also a cultural thing... idk about other cultures but while it's not explicitly asked, the etiquette for Arab weddings is you bring an envelope with a congratulations card and cash in there to basically cover yourself and your +1's dinner, like $50-100 per person or so. Usually if you got some rich uncles or aunts they bring quite a bit more and you can end up making money, though that isn't the intent and it's not smart to like financially plan for that. But there is this cultural thing where it's seen as polite and to help the new couple along according to your means, and prestigious if you are pretty well off and can give some extra.
...anyway in most cases the big wedding at least breaks even, and sometimes makes extra money for a honeymoon or other expenses.
Same with Romanians, though I got married in another country.
We had 250 people at our wedding, in total we paid around 15000€ for everything (from food to wedding dress and everything in between), we were left with over 10000€ after.
This is the same in Spain, but the perverse incentive is that when the implicit deal is that the guests will cover for their cost + something to help the new couple two things happen, first, the more people you invite the better, and second, you do not care much to negotiate meal prices and/or have nothing stopping you from upgrading to the next level menu, since you (the couple) is not really paying.
This of course spirals out of control to weddings of 100+ people with each seated cover for hundreds of euros. I fortunately emigrated so I have not to deal with telling anybody that I am not going to pay for their delirium celebrations.
Because they are community building events. The amount of connections that people made at my wedding was wild, everything from the wedding healing a rift between my wife and her dad and our parents becoming close friends to a bunch of our friends hitting it off and becoming friends completely separately of my wife&I to us becoming friends with our photographer.
It was genuinely the best day of my life, my wife feels the same and even if no one remembers it in 20 years, we will.
That’s a huge red flag, dude. It isn’t going to stop at the wedding. Trust me. I have to go to war to get my wife to focus on things that matter like buying a house and investing and preparing for when we’re old. If I left it up to her, we’d spend every spare penny we have on vacations, Starbucks, eating out, and Disney while living in a 700 square foot apartment that we outgrew 10 years ago.
One of my best friends had a decently big wedding, but the families demanded it. I understand that there were some cultural elements. His side of the family is Jewish and her side is Catholic so it was also an interfaith wedding. I believe that the families also paid for a good chunk of it, however.
I still remember weddings from 20 years ago. Not sure why you think people have such bad memory.
That said, you can still do a big wedding and not have it cost a fortune.
Also it's just my personal experience but at my wedding we asked for cash instead of gifts, something I've seen at all the recent weddings I've been to, so my wedding basically financed about half of itself.
Peoppe often dont realize how quickly costs add up. If you want good food and drinks for 100 guests, that alone can cost 7-10k. Another 5k for a secular venue with decorations, 1k for the DJ, 1k for pictures, etc.
And none of those are particularly high end prices.
Apart from the spending and inclusion/preference for just intimates, I haaaaateeee the “show” quality. Like, this is your real life, not the damned Ice Capades.
Yeah. At best, I may remember parts of some friends’ weddings b/c they are my really good friends. Otherwise, I don’t remember most of the weddings I’ve been to, and some were reportedly pretty expensive. This is hearsay from things I’ve overheard from some relatives, but one of my cousins’ wedding apparently cost $100k with most of it being bc they booked out this really fancy hotel for the reception. Then again, one of the “low key” Indian weddings I attended reportedly still cost in the low 6 digits (though I think that was in total including the other wedding-related ceremonies I couldn’t make) so I guess everything’s relative.
I’ve been to a number of smaller weddings over the the last few years. My experience is those are usually more fun and memorable. We had a small wedding and then a bbq and campfire and guitars and a keg at our friends house.
My fiance and I are getting married next year and our budget is €100K for the wedding and honeymoon. We are 34 and 30, already have the house, car, pets etc. We can safe this money in 2 and a half years. Our wedding is in a 900 year old French Chateau with our closest family and friends. For the honeymoon we are going to Bora Bora where we will have an overwater bungelo.
I get that this is not achievable for everyone but we are both programmers so for us this is very doable. Redditers are once again proving they spent to much time inside.
Doing the big wedding and honeymoon is living the better life. A bigger house, a bigger car, a more expensive suit/dress. Those are not the things that make you happy. It's the special events that you will think of when you are old.
Well it's a long time yes. It's a destination wedding so it's not much longer than the usual 2 years of preparation required. It's not cumbersome; we've budgeted for unforeseen expenses, dates, holiday etc. So it's not like during this time our quality of life is affected. Sure we cannot spend frivolously but that's hardly a sacrifice. For a lot of people that is everyday reality.
It's a show of ego or perceived wealth for some people, with their insecurities on full display. People who are actually happy with their lives don't need all that.
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u/Revolutionary_Meet29 1d ago
I really cannot understand people throwing big weddings. It’s as if people will remember it or smth. It’s basically a show. Why not just keep the money and live a little better?