All My Friends Keep Getting Married & It’s Just Costing Me Money | brokeGIRLrich
So I don’t mean to sound all cynical and jaded but I’m laying my cards out on the table here – weddings are freaking stupid.
There was a cool study done recently that points to a correlation between amount of money spent on a wedding and likeliness it will actually last. It came out at the same time George Clooney married that rich lawyer chick or whatever. It used them as an example but pointed out that their insanely extravagant wedding sort of wasn’t because of the state of their finances.
The study, done at Emory University in Atlanta, found that couples with weddings that cost more than $20,000 on the average America salary got divorced 60% more often than those who had cheaper weddings.
Those Pinterest DIY shindigs in a barn are looking a little more appealing now, aren’t they?
Although I’m not even advocating those, since as a perpetual bridesmaid, I know it means a lot more free slave labor from me.
Two good friends from college got married this summer. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to attend to the wedding. It was beautiful and the post wedding shindig was pretty hopping with a lot of old friends from college too.
Total cost to attend the wedding:
Gas to and from South Jersey: $35
Lunch Driving Down There: $10
1 Night in a Hotel: Accidentally Free – but I really owe that friend a lot of beer or $35 in cash next time I see him.
Wedding Gift: $75
Bar After the Reception: $15
Dress: $110
So, could I have spent less? Definitely. In pretty much every category other than gas, I could’ve spent less.
I sure didn’t have to buy a new dress. I lamented that a little going over my finances in August (ugh, but it’s such a great dress – I will wear it to everyone’s weddings forever).
I could’ve not drank. That would’ve cut out the bar after the reception and the need to stay in the hotel.
I could’ve given them less as a wedding gift, although that would’ve felt to cheap to me. I have wedding gift tiers in my mind and that was where they fell. Michelle over at Fit is the New Poor actually had a great discussion about how to decide what to give not too long ago.
Fact of the matter is that without even being in a wedding, they’re still likely to cost over $100.
Let’s not even get into the cost if you’re a bridesmaid. Good gracious. That’s a post for another day.
Truth
Am I the only one who thinks it’s sort of weird that chaining your life to another human being has become such an expensive and stressful to plan event? Shouldn’t it just be an easy, happy hoedown?
On the flip side, I think I would feel bad expecting people to show up and bring me gifts. Everything about that seems so awkward.
Also, think about it this way? Would you rather have a big wedding, with the fluffy white dress and everyone staring at you or would you rather set yourself up with a heck of a nest egg?
I think I would rather have a small wedding. But that’s years from now! I need to keep getting more awesome, first.
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LOL – heck yeah!
I think about this a lot and the older I get the more I see big weddings as a business affair rather than a happy event. Are we as women conditioned to want big weddings? I have watched “Say yes to the dress” and I love it only to for the chance to see the dresses, would I pay that much for one? Heck no, I am leaning more towards renting, I think this may be a sign that I am becoming more financially responsible because when I first heard about renting I was immediately repulsed. I view weddings as more of a chore than fun. I guess it has been my experience that weddings equal poor catering food, painful heels, dresses I never want to wear again. I don’t think I am cynical, they are just not fun for me, plus they are ridiculously expensive for all involved, the ones getting married and the guests. I could go on ranting but I really don’t have a point, I just think this post struck a chord.
I agree about weddings sounding like a chore. It really doesn’t look fun to me to deal with all those details. I feel like I do something pretty similar for a living and have no desire to do it in my free time too.
Yup, weddings are darn expensive. That said, when else do you have a giant party with all of your out of town friends and family?
When you’re hosting a wedding, they get stupid expensive, stupid quickly. We’ve had a few out of province the past few years and they are very pricey to attend. Thank goodness we’re in a place to be able to go.
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I guess I’m lucky that my extended family actually does get together pretty often. I’m not 100% against a party idea, I’d just rather it was like an informal BBQ in my parents backyard.
We are attending a wedding in December. The reception is going to be a backyard BBQ. Sounds so much better then being stuck in a reception hall for hours. I did however attend one last year for a family member and it was amazing, food, drinks, great party etc, and very cheap because it was a Sunday night wedding in November. So if planned right it can be done within reason, but agree I’d take the nest egg over the 1 day experience.
Brian @ Debt Discipline recently posted…The Cost to Attend
The nest egg sounds way better to me. I’m surprised there isn’t more of a trend to move away from traditional Saturday afternoon/evening weddings to cheaper days of the week.
I have the distinct experience of being married twice. First time around it was 150+ people and ridiculously expensive. Result? Divorce less than five years later. Second time around, DH and I went the beautiful, low key intimate route although we still spent about $8K and we had the best day ever! Our bank accounts were very happy. Win all around!
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Nest egg! Nest egg! Nest egg!
I don’t like weddings, and therefore my wedding won’t be very wedding-y. (I’d elope if my fiance agreed to it!) Ideally, we were hoping to buy a house with some land and host our own wedding there, but I don’t know if that’s doable in the timeline we’re looking at. So, we’re considering making it more like a family reunion than anything – BBQ, picnic, casual – that kinda vibe for the reception. But we can still do a nice ceremony for under $500.
I know it’ll cost our guests money to travel here (most of my family lives on the other side of the province from me) but we’re hoping that they don’t have to pay much more than that.
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Ugh, I feel like a terrible person because I have gone to 1 out of 5 friend’s weddings… 4 of those weddings were out of state. 3 I didn’t even try to go to because I simply didn’t have the money (I sent good gifts though!) and 1 I tried to go to (I was the freaking bridesmaid!!) but my flight was canceled and… long story short United is THE WORST AIRLINE EVER.
Anyway, it’s expensive. That’s my point 😉 But I feel guilty not going, and now I feel like when I get married, they won’t come because I didn’t go to theirs (but should I not invite them? Is that rude? Aren’t you supposed to invite people who invited you to theirs?)
I’m getting a headache thinking about it!
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I think you were able to do pull off being a bridesmaid very cheaply! The last two weddings I was a bridesmaid, I easily spent $1K 😛 One was my best friend and I was the maid of honor, so it did include bridal shower, bachelorette party, and wedding. The other was my sister’s and it was out of state. I tried to be so money conscious for everyone involved in my wedding but they probably still spent a couple hundred dollars. Weddings are expensive! Ours was small (~100 guests) which was just family (our parents are one of seven children) and close friends but still was ~$8K. I should (hopefully) only have 2 more weddings to attend/possible bridesmaid and hopefully neither happen in the next year and half. The airfare alone from England would kill my budget! Luckily neither have a current boyfriend. LOL.
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Oh these are totally not bridesmaid numbers! These are just being a guest numbers. The last time I was a bridesmaid was astronomic, especially since it was in another state I had to fly to.
I literally counsel my clients to not attend weddings and even to turn down bridesmaids offers. I am 14 years past wedding season time for my friends and I don’t speak to most of those people now. Plus a number of them are not even still married to that person. I really wish I saved the few hundred dollars, especially now that we don’t even talk. Unless the person is family or like family, I think you should say no and not feel bad about it. If you are still friends and they are still married 10 years later, then you can buy them a gift or something.
LOL. I love that – a sorry I blew off your wedding, but look, we really are friends gift.
They need a Hallmark card for that. Untapped industry right there.
I always wanted the big white wedding and started planning it when I was about 4. But that’s more because I like to plan parties than anything else. I agree that too many people place too much of an emphasis on the day rather than on the lifetime that follows it. By the time I finally found Mr. Right, reality and logic had finally set in, and although I did have a pretty big (about 100 guests…75% of which was just my enormous immediate family) white wedding, I did it on a budget, cut out a lot of the ridiculous stuff no one cares about anyway and focused on making it all about sharing my joy with my favorite people than about me. I made sure the bridesmaids got to each pick out their own dress that they loved and definitely could wear again, for example, rather than making them fit into a cookie cutter frock they felt miserable in and couldn’t wait to consign (or burn) afterwards. I don’t think everyone gave me a gift and that was perfectly fine…that wasn’t why I invited them. One friend felt so guilty about not giving me a gift that he sent me a check two years later inside a 50th Wedding Anniversary card saying that although he was so late in giving me a wedding gift he bet he was the first to wish me a happy golden anniversary! Aside from being majorly impressed by his creativity, I felt AWFUL that this had been eating away at him for two whole years when I hadn’t even given it a single thought. Bottom line is that contrary to what you may think, most people who are getting married really just want you to share in their joy in whatever way works for you. And if participating in a way that you can afford isn’t good enough for them, then they aren’t real friends.
I can see how the big white wedding is a big deal to some folks. I was a bridesmaid in a MASSIVE wedding a few years ago but it was such a huge deal to the bride to do it that way that while it was absolutely NOT a way I would ever spend my money, I could see how happy the whole process made her and they saved for their wedding for two years so… whatever floats your boat. Big weddings just don’t float mine.
Wedding planning right now is pretty overwhelming. Everything is 10x more expensive because the word “wedding” is attached to it – wedding food, wedding dress, wedding cake, etc. I sort of wish we can just elope, haha.
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I don’t ever want to be a bitter wedding guest because that is someone’s special day. If money is tight, and you’d rather not spend your money on a wedding, then just don’t spend your money on the wedding. I think people forget they can write “no” on the RSVP card. If someone ever holds it against you that you didn’t attend their wedding or buy them a gift, then you probably made the right choice in not attending 😉 I would feel horrible if guests at my wedding were annoyed about being there. In a funny twist, Sam just posted about how to save money while planning a wedding on our blog, so I DARE all you wedding haters to click on the link below 😉
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Hahaha, nice challenge! Accepted.
I’ll admit that I love a good wedding, but the cost STRESSES ME OUT! Seriously, I don’t know how I’m going to make it through five to ten more years of this!
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I feel like they come in waves too. 3 or 4 people will get married in a row and wipe me out. At least then I have two or so years to recuperate. I’m expecting the next wave next year. Sigh.
Bucking the trend here a bit… I love going to weddings. Our friends from college are so spread out that we rarely get to see each other these days. So the chance to be all together again is a huge victory for all of us. We have had the luxury of being able to drive to each, despite Texas being so large. I’m actually a bit sad that the group is basically all married by now. We did miss one in Vegas, but that’s the only one.
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I’m glad at least someone is enjoying them – and to be honest, I do generally enjoy them. Even the wedding for the costs I outlined there was a pretty good shindig with a lot of old college friends, on the flip side, we meet up a few times a year as it is, so it wasn’t notable for that alone.
My husband and I had a small, family only, destination wedding in Las Vegas. It was expensive for family to attend, since none of us live in Vegas. However, my husband and I live in Arizona, his family in Mass, and mine in Michigan, so we made everyone who wanted to attend, come to us so that there was no fighting between our families about “who got preference.”
We paid for our wedding out of our own pockets and the ceremony itself (along with photography, DVD, bouquets, etc.) the total cost was likes $500 (that doesn’t count hotel and our honeymoon while we were there, which was a week). My bridesmaids were my sisters and my sister-in-law and I told them that they could wear whatever they wanted as long as it was black. They LOVED that and it actually looked awesome in photos.
Everyone had a fantastic time and I’m glad I went with a small wedding that we could pay for up front. I hate seeing people go into debt over their weddings. It’s disturbing.
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That sounds pretty good to me! Glad it was a fantastic time.
If I EVER get married I have no interest in a 20k wedding. I’d just rather elope to Hawaii and then spend my honeymoon there. I hate being the center of attention anyway so that works for me.
Oh weddings. Ours was kind of like a family reunion/wedding/friend reunion all rolled into one big party and we had a good time. I’ve been a bridesmaid a lot recently, which is fun but oh so expensive. I think we’re just about aging out of the epic wedding circuit, which is fine with me!
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I cannot wait to age out of the epic wedding circuit. 😛
Don’t forget helping your best friend make the seating chart hours before the bachlorette party. 😉
Ha! That belongs in the post I haven’t written yet about how much it costs to be a bridesmaid.
I totally feel you on the costs of attending weddings! It’s crazy how quickly expenses add up. Your breakdown is super relatable, and it’s nice to know I’m not alone in feeling the financial pinch. Thanks for sharing!