Marriage and the Power of Divorce

I didn't care what we paid, everything we got back was just a bonus because we paid for it all in cash ($20k wedding, $12k return). The best one at my wedding was this guy from work who "forgot the card" at home. Several months later he always tells me he keeps forgetting it at home. It's kind of like.. Dude it's ok, we don't need it. Don't kill yourself over it and keep bs'ing me. I don't tell him that because I find it a little funny

Noodleface_sl said:

$20k wedding

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Wow. I certainly don't begrudge you having such a big wedding, especially if you paid cash, but that is so far removed from my financial reality...

I'll send you titty pics for Vicodin, x-boxes, or cash.

We didn't pay for 90% of our wedding so I don't care that we didn't "recoup" costs.

Because you foisted the costs off on both your parents?

I really hope I end up with a woman who doesn't care about a traditional extravagant wedding. I'd much rather furnish my house with that 30 grand, or by a boat.

OneofOne_sl said:

Because you foisted the costs off on both your parents?

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My wife and I were the last ones to get married in each of our families. When we got engaged, her mom and my parents both said, "We gave your brothers/sisters $X so that's what you get" so we budgeted based on that.

I'm sure some people here would have invited 20 people and spent $1000 and pocketed the rest but we didn't want to do that.

Gravy_sl said:

Wow. I certainly don't begrudge you having such a big wedding, especially if you paid cash, but that is so far removed from my financial reality...

I'll send you titty pics for Vicodin, x-boxes, or cash.

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We are generally pretty poor people. We both worked two jobs, lived in a shitty apartment, I was in school full time, and all that. We were engaged for 3 years but really spent the last year saving HARD. I don't think $20k is really out of the ordinary for most people, I would say it's probably an average. You start adding stuff up like $3k for DJ, $5k for photographer, $5k for food, $2k for venue.. you can see where I'm going. We worked hard and had the wedding we (she) wanted. I would've been happy getting married at the town hall and getting burger king afterwards, but you know.. women. We basically went into it expecting to get very little back, and we were surprised at some very generous people (and some not generous). I didn't really care what people gave in the end, we were hosting them at our event and we were just glad most of them came.

On the topic of women and them wanting small weddings. My wife wanted a very small wedding, actually an elopement, in the beginning and just a party afterwards. Over the course of 3 years, female friends and family members and also tv shows and magazines really change how a woman can think. It is what it is I suppose and in the end we paid cash so it's done. We have about $15k saved up for a down payment on a house, so while we could possibly buy a house now I think it was still worth it. Plus, my wife looked sexy and I slammed that shit like 10 times that night. We didn't sleep.

See, a smarter man would have just eloped. It's not that she wanted the bigger wedding. It's that she was making you pay for making her wait.

Women are devious, dude.

Some good Samaritan turned her wedding ring into the police station that she reported it missing to. Unbelievable. Going to give the person a reward if the police can contact them

Noodleface_sl said:

You start adding stuff up like $3k for DJ, $5k for photographer, $5k for food, $2k for venue.. you can see where I'm going. We worked hard and had the wedding we (she) wanted.

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I don't understand how wedding DJs still have jobs. Photographers I can understand, although the price of a wedding photographer is wildly out of sync with production costs. DJs though... you can do their entire job with a smart playlist and an iPod, never mind something like Spotify. There's just no need for it.

While not technically engaged yet (still trying to get my bike sold for a ring), we've started discussing some of the logistics. A family friend's restaurant is going to cater us, a co-worker who does photo work on the side is handling pictures, and our DJ is going to be a laptop. We might actually just have the ceremony on my mom's property, and rent a reception hall for afterwards. Not everything will be done as cheaply as possible, but our priorities aren't in line with the typical "costs through the roof" wedding.

Unless it's one of the 3-4 "well known" wedding photographers in your city, prices are pretty cheap for photographers. Every out of work person with an SLR is suddenly a photographer, which drives down the average cost. To be fair, the time that is spent editing photos and the cost of those expensive ass books isn't small.

Eh, our photographer had a ton of equipment, did an engagement shoot, brought a photobooth (HUGE HIT AT THE WEDDING IF YOU CAN GET ONE), brought a second photographer of equal skill, created a free (we paid, but you know what I mean) wedding album with bound leather and all the trimmings, and was generally a fly on the wall and out of sight the entire wedding with the exception of the photo hour after the ceremony. The guy was legit, and I can't imagine having some noob with a SLR camera doing it. We had some family members that were professional photographers, but we wanted them to come as guests and not work. The dude was worth it. Besides, part of our cost was owning the rights to all wedding pictures, photo booth pictures, and engagement shoot pictures.

The DJ. Well, I guess you could have someone use a laptop and do it. We had a nice venue and our DJ provided his own sound system, his own lighting, was the MC for the entire evening, provided music for the ceremony along with the additional required equipment and was basically out of our hair the entire night and just led the party. He also played every song we asked for and didn't play anything from my do not play list (Pitbull, Rihanna). For having a dude take care of everything and basically control the flow of the evening for us so we could just enjoy it, it was $3k well spent.

I think he was $2500 or something. We paid the deposits like a year in advance and just paid off people as we went so my memory was fuzzy. He was one of the top DJs in MA so I think that's part of it. Like I said, he did a fantastic job and we liked him. After all, I requested Starship's "We Built This City" and he actually played it, he gained my respect.

Heylel_sl said:

I don't understand how wedding DJs still have jobs. Photographers I can understand, although the price of a wedding photographer is wildly out of sync with production costs. DJs though... you can do their entire job with a smart playlist and an iPod, never mind something like Spotify. There's just no need for it.

While not technically engaged yet (still trying to get my bike sold for a ring), we've started discussing some of the logistics. A family friend's restaurant is going to cater us, a co-worker who does photo work on the side is handling pictures, and our DJ is going to be a laptop. We might actually just have the ceremony on my mom's property, and rent a reception hall for afterwards. Not everything will be done as cheaply as possible, but our priorities aren't in line with the typical "costs through the roof" wedding.

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The DJ we used was around $600, and I thought he was great, kept the reception moving, got people on the dance floor. Pretty much kept us informed the entire night, ran by us the odd ball requests that people made before playing them. Well worth the money.

We paid $5500 for the wedding photographer, but we got engagement session out it, 2 photographers for 10 hours on our wedding day. Since our wedding was at 4:30, we did pictures with the wedding party before hand at a couple of locations around St Louis and she put together a slide show of those pictures during our reception and our wedding album is going to have a metal cover, with a photo we select etched on the cover. Probably a little excessive cost wise but I felt that she really captured the day for us, at least from the photos I have seen so far.

I definitely wasn't busting on you about the big wedding, and it sounded like you worked your ass off for it. It's just when you add all those numbers together, 20k for a day, it tightens my sphincter a bit. That's on me, not on you.

Part of this is brought about by a recent wedding my nephew had. They've both got shit jobs, no education, and his bride wanted a $10k wedding. They FINALLY realised this was outside their reality AFTER they dropped $1500 on a deposit for a wedding reception site. They borrowed that money from Mom and Pops. So Aunt and Uncle Gravy talk them off the ledge, and we get a plan in place. We paid for their wedding shower (one of them, they had THREE, wtf?) and put tons of labor into fixing up a semi-crap location for their reception so it looked presentable. Meanwhile, the kids paid nothing, the soon-to-be wife did very little, bordering on jackshit. She insisted on having a photobooth, which they didn't pay for either. Meh.

So, to sum up, Noodleface, you did it right.

The whole multiple wedding shower thing really chaps my ass. I'm at an age where a lot of my friends either have been married in the last couple years or have impending nuptials. It's very annoying how the entire lead up to the event seems to be built around how much you can soak your friends for gifts. A good friend was recently a maid of honor and ended up spending close to $900 on the wedding just by herself after all the bullshit girls have to buy, plus showers and bachelorette party etc. It's insane. Another girl I knew had *five* wedding showers ahead of the event, with specific themes. They had a kitchen-only shower, a lingerie shower etc. I mean come the fuck on.

My girl and I aren't really out of range for your average wedding these days (I'm 31, she's 26), but we're pretty much established. I own a home, we have two cars with no payments, we've both got jobs with health coverage and pension plans. We don't *need* that much. Gifts would be lovely, but I am not about to make some insane registry full of shit I wouldn't buy for myself. The demands people have these days are just ludicrous.

The moral of the story here is, I need to be a goddamn DJ if they can get 3 grand for 4-5 hours of work. Holy shit is that ridiculous.

Yeah, no doubt. I can buy some speakers off NewEgg and a disco ball from Spencer's as easily as the next guy.