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Originally posted by tatortodd:

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Originally posted by irreverent:

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Originally posted by P229 357SIG Man:
This will be a low budget wedding. The father of the bride paid $30,000 for the bride's sister's wedding and told the bride that she can spend up to $30,000 on hers...if she comes in under, he'll will write her a check for the balance. She opted for a low budget wedding ($5000 or so) and pocket $25,000. So low budget that the groom is limited to 10 guest, including his parents.

Hold up- $5000.00 only covers 20 ppl? Am I doing my math right? Something is costing money here, if you only have 10 guests per spouse..

He didn't say the bride was limited to 10 guests, he said the groom's side was limited to 10 guests. 10 and 10 would be fair, but if fair & balanced was the normal for a wedding then the ridiculous expression "it's her day" wouldn't exist.

Hold up Hold up.

You guys suck at math. There are some basic costs that get spread across 4 or 400 guests. A dress. A dowry. You know......

Love my daughter and we struck a reasonable balance. Biggest personal party we'd thrown as a family - yes. Everybody had to donate a kidney - no.

Suggestion:
Elope to Vegas.
Use funds allotted for wedding to drink, gamble and hump.
If wedding funds are sufficient, invite friends to come along and drink, gamble and hump.
When funds are exhausted, go home.
Live happily ever after. Bask in the memories of all the drinking, gambling and humping.

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Originally posted by Gustofer:
Why people drop tens of thousands of dollars on some of this stuff just baffles me.

We went to a JP and were in and out in about 10 minutes. Done.

Living in the Chicago area at the time (1979), my wife and I each knocked off work at noon on a Friday afternoon. Went to City Hall, got the deed done with a couple of friends as witnesses, went to their (the witness friends) house, had a few drinks -- I seem to recall a bottle of champagne -- and went to dinner at L'Escargot, a favorite restaurant of ours which burned down two days later. Unfortunately the restaurant had processed my American Express payment for the dinner, before the fire.

Not unreasonable at all.
Rehearsal dinners are also a time for the two families to get further acquainted.

Weddings tend to separate at times.

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Originally posted by zipriderson:Bride still gets choice if she wants. It's her day.

Bullshit. Silly notions like that are perpetuated by the stupid wedding shows and bride magazines. Engagement rings that cost $20k, followed by weddings that cost $50-100k. Most people have been married at some point in their lives, half get divorced. "Her day" is not that special. Any woman that is more concerned with the wedding than the marriage needs to be approached with extreme caution.

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Originally posted by MNSIG:

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Originally posted by zipriderson:Bride still gets choice if she wants. It's her day.

Bullshit. Silly notions like that are perpetuated by the stupid wedding shows and bride magazines. Engagement rings that cost $20k, followed by weddings that cost $50-100k. Most people have been married at some point in their lives, half get divorced. "Her day" is not that special. Any woman that is more concerned with the wedding than the marriage needs to be approached with extreme caution.

That certainly described my first wife!!

The Disney Princess Wedding-Industrial Complex holds great sway over many young women.

our wedding was not cheap by any means, my wifes parents footed the entire bill (at their request) except for flowers and videographer (which were also not cheap). My parents covered the rehersal dinner at a restaurant they chose, for 50ish people (people in the wedding, and close friends and family)

I'd be tempted to take everybody to Costco for a hotdog and drink. Nourishing and filling.

I do not think it unreasonable.

When our daughter got married we paid for everything except the rehearsal dinner.

When our sons got married we paid half of everything except the bar bill of my youngest sons wedding, which I refused to do. The other son did not serve alcohol at their reception.

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Originally posted by arfmel:
I'd be tempted to take everybody to Costco for a hotdog and drink. Nourishing and filling.

You could take them to the McD's in Walmart. Dinner and a show!

I think wedding costs get out of hand when young people expect to spend their parents money.

We paid for our wedding ourselves. It wasn't cheap, but we definitely fought tooth and nail for every conceivable savings we could find, going as far as importing wedding favors from china, selling the wedding dress after, making much of our decor, and back charging vendors for not fulfilling their contracts, etc.

I can see where using someone else's money to pay for your wedding would let people get lazy and just accept the costs as what they are.

It's also really sad to see people stealing from their parents retirement to fund a party.

Irreverent, the bride and groom are hosting a local get together sometime this Fall for those that they didn’t invite to the wedding which will add to the expense. Bottom line is she’s trying to keep everything under $5000 so she pocket $25,000.

Aeteocies, I’m not upset, just throwing it out there to get some feedback from the brain trust.

Arfmel, sounds delicious.

We hosted a rehearsal dinner for one of our sons 10 years ago and I’ll be damned if we could please the bride with anything we suggested. I finally said fuck it, told her to organize the event and I’ll write the check…the dinner came to $1500. She hasn’t spoken to us since…likely never will.

My daughter (oldest) just got married. We set a budget for them that was 15% below what the max we wanted to spend would be, knowing they'd run over on a few things. We were both surprised when they managed to keep it all under the original budget amount, and the wedding turned out to be beautiful. Believe it or not, the meal was Gus' Famous Fried Chicken catered. Sounds a little trailer-parky, but I can assure you we were inundated with guests who came by on the way out to tell us it was the best wedding, with the best food, that they'd ever attended.

As to the rehearsal dinner, somehow the groom's parents found an old house (read: Nathan Bedford Forrest had been a guest. Old. House.) and threw a small rehearsal there, probably cost under 2K, so not unreasonable, but they helped by cooking the meal and setting up/taking down some of the chairs, etc. It was a spectacular event, and turned out better than we could have imagined. You don't have to break the bank to have a good time, just have to be creative to do it well.