Wedding Economics

This will be the last post for a couple of weeks. I’m sorry about the lack, but I’m getting married on Saturday and then we’ll be out of town until the second of May. So there’s a good reason behind it all. Posting will resume the week we get back.

I wanted to do a short post about wedding economics. The cost of weddings has gotten out of control in this country –as has the complications involved with getting married. All of this burden, naturally, falls on the bride and bridesmaids. Most grooms in this country have only one job between handing her the ring and showing up to say “I Do” –having the tux she picked out for him fitted. I’m marrying another woman, so the burden of this has fallen on both of us. And we’re both about to go out of our minds.

Ours is a simple wedding. It will be outdoors, with just our closest friends and family. We didn’t realize until after we made up the list that this still comes to about 75 people. We made our own invitations. The reception is potluck, not catered. Neither one of us is wearing the tradition white wedding dress. And yet, all of this, plus the rings, is costing about $900.

The site cost us $135. There’s a pavilion there for the reception and to serve as a rain site.
Clothing for both of us cost about $100 plus shoes and haircuts. Add in invitations, very simple decorations, flatware and the like for the reception, and it adds up in a hurry. My fiancé’s parents paid for about half of it, which helped tremendously.

Both of us are in a tizzy this week, trying to get everything done –finish the tablecloths, look at flowers, get the shoes for our little flower girl. We’re about to go mad. I don’t know how people with more complicated weddings do this. Or why. What matters is that you marry the person you love –not how big and fancy your wedding is, or how much it costs, or whether it meets your idea of a ‘fairy tale’ wedding. I went to a wedding a few years ago where the bride’s dress cost ten grand –and the couple went to Hawaii for their honeymoon. I would have opted for a simple courthouse wedding and bought a house for what they spent on one day.

If you’re getting married soon, stop the madness. Sit back and assess what you’re doing. Do you really need everything you’ve planned? Remember what matters most is who you’re going to marry, not how or when. Save yourself some stress –and some money. There are other uses for it.

And aside from all of that, you don’t want to be so worn out from stress that you fall asleep on your wedding night. ;)