Here’s the alternative:
- Justice of the Peace ceremony: $43 (including license, supply your own witnesses)
- session at photography studio: $13-$500 (including prints and downloads)
- BYOB party at your place that evening: $0
Basically, finding out your partner wants a big wedding is a huge go/no-go moment. Save the money for when you really need it.
As my sister in law said, even for expensive weddings, if you do things properly you’ll end up making profit from the gifts you receive.
And yes, that’s fucking disgusting.
I mean you’re right, but I believe the converse is what she was getting at. Invite respectable guests and they will know the unwritten rule: bring a gift worth at least as much as your meal, drinks and party favors. It’s not necessarily bad to expect that much.
I personally think that yes it’s bad to expect that much. You’re the one who decided to organize a party for a day that’s all about you and your SO, it’s not my problem how much you decided to spend on it. Even for my best friend’s wedding I told him “You charge me something or expect me to give a gift worth X, I’m not going, it’s your decision to do something special that day, you assume it, the day I invite you to a party I won’t charge you or expect a gift.”
My mama’s got a tiny little diamond in her engagement ring. Dad offered to get her a bigger one, but she said no, let’s save that money for something more important. I believe that money got put toward a renovation of the house.
Give me a girl like mama, whose got a tiny diamond and a solid home.
Yeehaw! A thirteen dollar photoshoot!
Photoshoot’s free. The $13 is for the print you get.
You mock, but my grandparents only have a couple photos of the day they were married. But they did stick together all their lives, and they did raise their kids as best they could within their means.
I didn’t realize you were referencing something from like 50-60 years ago. All in all, you make valid points… I have lived long enough to personally validate them. It was just the “thirteen to five hundred dollars” range that made me chuckle!
If you think getting married is expensive, try getting divorced.
Reminds me of a blog I followed about a guy having a castle built. He’d get contractors out for various bits and before they arrived they’d be like “oh its X for job Y” but when they got there and saw that it was for a castle, well magically the cost doubled. This might make sense in some parts but when the painter is trying to increase his price for square footage he quoted on the phone? Nah fam that ain’t it.
Weddings are a racket
General Butler is that you?
Never, ever, book a location for a “Wedding”. Always book it for a “Family Event”.
I purchased a catering dinner package (which came with tea, coffee, and lemonade) and full open bar - apparently neither of these included water. That was an additional $200.00.
Now I imagine some guys thinking “Ah, I don’t want to fuck up ChexMaxs financial situation. I’ll just drink water the whole night to save him some money!”
I’m guessing this isn’t the UK, cause anywhere that sells alcohol is required by law to be able to supply free tap water
It’s shocking how many restaurants try to get around this rule by refusing to designate a tap as being safe for drinking. A place near me got shut down a while ago for trying to pull this shit, because it revoked their license to serve alcohol on premises, and in turn caused a lot of shit with their lease, food safety ratings, etc.
If you end up doing a big wedding I would recommend telling as many of the vendors and suppliers that it’s for a birthday party instead. It’ll still be expensive but should be more manageable
“Yes, I’d like the traditional tiered birthday cake with the bride and groom on top. Thanks.”
“How much are your birthday rose petal cannons?”
You would be surprised. Family friends of ours are Greek and rich, and they do not do anything small. I hate to perpetuate stereotypes but if you’ve seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, it’s like that with them but for everything. Birthdays, the christian holidays, just a summer BBQ, all huge. The bride and groom on top yeah that’ll tip the baker off but that’s not hard to quickly put on yourself.
As a Greek myself, I can confirm that My Big Fat Greek Wedding was basically a documentary.
You guys pay that much for bottled water?
Only for our wedding.
You guys pay 0.99 for a water at weddings?
Not as a guest, but the organizer or whomever is paying for the wedding will have to pay for the water bottles
Getting married in about 6 weeks. Compared to my first one 10 years ago, it’s nuts. One metric I read said that wedding costs were up 40% post COVID. My first wedding was maybe $5,000 and that was super strict budget. This one is closer to $25k.
My fiancée was quoted between $300-650 for makeup only. Seriously?? DJ is minimum $900 for 5 hours of work, I got a lot of quotes in the $1300 range, or $2200 for better lighting ($440/hour??) Look I know you had to buy your own equipment but holy hell.
You can buy a good quality speaker that comes with free Amazon music at best buy for less than that. If you have a friend that doesn’t mind talking on a mic infrastructure of a crowd you are probably better off without a real dj, your friend would also likely get the names right for your wedding party being announced.
We paid over 1k for dj+wedding video, and it really wasn’t worth it.
I didn’t have a DJ the first time around, just a laptop and Spotify playlist (was at a church that has a speaker system, so we got to hook into that). It was fine, but we booked an actual venue for this wedding.
No idea if I’ll feel like it was really worth it when it’s all said and done, but so far I actually like all the vendors picked.
Hey, we just got married for around your price point back in May. It was pricey for sure, but that budget allowed us to do what we wanted, which was throwing a balls-out party for 50 of our closest family and friends. It was incredible and we absolutely do not regret it.
People always tell you that it’s supposed to be the best day of your life, but I always checked my expectations on that—something can always go wrong, right? But it went off perfectly and felt as incredible as we had always dreamed. A big part of that was the team of amazing vendors our planner put together. None of it would have been possible without them.
Wishing you both incredible happiness and a smooth wedding day full of bliss that you can look back on for years to come :)
Also water (in a movie theater)
I believe there is a Ferangi rule of acquisition for this
I think, it goes something like, Peace us good for business, and war is also good for business.
those are two separate but adjacent rules :)
34 & 35 I seem to recall.
Where tf do you find bottled water for 0.99c? It’s $2.50 everywhere.
I think it’s still like .25 or .50 at Costco.
TIL. Don’t shop at Costco too much.
It’s great if you’ve got the space to store large amounts of stuff. When I got my first house I went out and bought a couple big dog food containers, and filled them with 50lb bags of flour and sugar from Costco for less than $20 for both bags. Now I can bake all I want and never worry about running out of the essentials.
How old is your flour?
I go through a bag in about 3 months. 6 for the sugar.
Alright, that is good. I was afraid that you are still using the same package back from whenever you moved in, which would have likely been bad.
Yeah we used to shop there a while back, but kind of just stopped because we’ve gotten busier and have relied on grocery delivery more often + are shopping at local stores for fresher meat + produce.
waterplasticor for people that live in the town where they steal the water from to resell to them.
