Author Topic: The wedding hasn't been paid for but they've booked the honeymoon to Ireland!!  (Read 5935 times)

BTDretire

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   My daughter has been sending me updates about a friend of her's that is getting married.
 Lots, of talk about what she can't afford, but she keeps buying more and more for the wedding.
 This morning my daughter sent me an email with the subject line;
"The wedding hasn't been paid for but they've booked the honeymoon to Ireland!!"
  Then she went on to say,
"After meeting with the wedding planner the final tally for the wedding is under 40k so they decided with all the money they saved they're going to use it for the trip."
  She suggest she had an eye roll when she heard that, I said on MMM terms that would be a facepunch!
 I told my daughter if they had invested that $40k at just 7% for 30 years would be $324,660.
If they added just $6,500 each year it would be a cool $1,000,000 in 30 years.

 I told my daughter when she was young, to just elope and I would give her a down payment on a house.
 She did! It only lasted about 3 years, but all turned out well for her. I'm still pissed I put $3,500 in to his
IRA at the same time he was seeing another women. They had been going to counseling, but when she learned this through a friend of a friend, she was outa there!

gardeningandgreen

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Good lord my wedding and honeymoon(to Munich, Prague, and Amsterdam) cost around $7000! WHY DO PEOPLE SPEND SO MUCH ON WEDDINGS!

I'm a red panda

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Good lord my wedding and honeymoon(to Munich, Prague, and Amsterdam) cost around $7000! WHY DO PEOPLE SPEND SO MUCH ON WEDDINGS!

My wedding was about $22,000.  My answer: because my parents planned the reception and set the budget. It was a truly phenomenal New Year Eve party. I don't actually know what we spent on the honeymoon, but DH and I paid for all of it except the week in the condo which was a gift from my Aunt.  We wanted to go to Hawaii but went to Colorado because flights seemed too expensive. (Well we wanted to to go British Columbia, but you had to be 25 to check into the room...)

If it was my money, it would have been much more low key.

vivophoenix

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   My daughter has been sending me updates about a friend of her's that is getting married.
 Lots, of talk about what she can't afford, but she keeps buying more and more for the wedding.
 This morning my daughter sent me an email with the subject line;
"The wedding hasn't been paid for but they've booked the honeymoon to Ireland!!"
  Then she went on to say,
"After meeting with the wedding planner the final tally for the wedding is under 40k so they decided with all the money they saved they're going to use it for the trip."
  She suggest she had an eye roll when she heard that, I said on MMM terms that would be a facepunch!
 I told my daughter if they had invested that $40k at just 7% for 30 years would be $324,660.
If they added just $6,500 each year it would be a cool $1,000,000 in 30 years.

 I told my daughter when she was young, to just elope and I would give her a down payment on a house.
 She did! It only lasted about 3 years, but all turned out well for her. I'm still pissed I put $3,500 in to his
IRA at the same time he was seeing another women. They had been going to counseling, but when she learned this through a friend of a friend, she was outa there!

sorry, but as much as I love money;  judging people who haven't really done anything wrong, and who didn't ask for my input seems petty.

am I to understand they have saved all of the money already for the wedding?  and thus are not going into debt?


gimp

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Am I too late for the circlejerk about how much people spend on weddings, and for the stories of how some of you got engaged and married for $175 and a slab of beer?

BTDretire

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   My daughter has been sending me updates about a friend of her's that is getting married.
 Lots, of talk about what she can't afford, but she keeps buying more and more for the wedding.
 This morning my daughter sent me an email with the subject line;
"The wedding hasn't been paid for but they've booked the honeymoon to Ireland!!"
  Then she went on to say,
"After meeting with the wedding planner the final tally for the wedding is under 40k so they decided with all the money they saved they're going to use it for the trip."
  She suggest she had an eye roll when she heard that, I said on MMM terms that would be a facepunch!
 I told my daughter if they had invested that $40k at just 7% for 30 years would be $324,660.
If they added just $6,500 each year it would be a cool $1,000,000 in 30 years.

 I told my daughter when she was young, to just elope and I would give her a down payment on a house.
 She did! It only lasted about 3 years, but all turned out well for her. I'm still pissed I put $3,500 in to his
IRA at the same time he was seeing another women. They had been going to counseling, but when she learned this through a friend of a friend, she was outa there!

sorry, but as much as I love money;  judging people who haven't really done anything wrong, and who didn't ask for my input seems petty.

am I to understand they have saved all of the money already for the wedding?  and thus are not going into debt?
That would be nice, (but stupid to spend it after saving it) but no, isn't that what credit cards are for?

Just Joe

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$40K and a honeymoon. sounds wonderful except I'd rather be $40K ahead on our mortgage and go vacation in Ireland a bit later using cash.

TheGrimSqueaker

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[cynic_mode]

I can think of at least one argument in favor of the expensive honeymoon.

If you front-end load the expenses associated with a vacation at the start of the marriage, together with any other wedding expenses, then when the marriage flames out in a few years at least you got the nice vacation without a lot of worry or drama because the bills haven't come due yet.

However if you save up and pay cash for a vacation later, you have to both survive that long and not be divorced or wiped out financially for other reasons. People rightly recognize that it's a gamble especially if one or both halves of the happy couple  happens to be immature, financially inept, abusive, addicted, a spendthrift, mentally ill but unwilling to manage the illness, or a cheater. A surprising number of people are, and it only takes one to destroy a marriage.

So that's why so many people would rather go for the bird in the hand.

[/cynic_mode]

vivophoenix

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Am I too late for the circlejerk about how much people spend on weddings, and for the stories of how some of you got engaged and married for $175 and a slab of beer?

it looks like we smothered it

these types of threads are humble brag catnip

Chris22

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Am I too late for the circlejerk about how much people spend on weddings, and for the stories of how some of you got engaged and married for $175 and a slab of beer?

it looks like we smothered it

these types of threads are humble brag catnip

My wedding cost me about $600. 

'Course it got my FIL for about $75k, but that money wasn't going to come to me if we didn't have a wedding, and my wife and her mom planned it the way they wanted to.  Not my problem, not my concern. 

NoVa

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We spent about $300 on a "formal elopement." Married in a church, with priest, best man and bridesmaid but no guests. Had a party/reception at our house, thrown by our roommates (5 of us in the house.) And we spent all the money on the honeymoon, two days in New York, then 3 days in Athens, Greece, then a week cruise around the Greek islands, (Rhodes, Santorini, etc.) with stops in Istanbul and Ephesus in Turkey.

Goldielocks

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Am I too late for the circlejerk about how much people spend on weddings, and for the stories of how some of you got engaged and married for $175 and a slab of beer?

it looks like we smothered it

these types of threads are humble brag catnip

My wedding cost me about $600. 

'Course it got my FIL for about $75k, but that money wasn't going to come to me if we didn't have a wedding, and my wife and her mom planned it the way they wanted to.  Not my problem, not my concern.
Yeah, but now you are married to someone who thinks that a $75k wedding was extravagant but worth it.  Check out some of the "my spouse is not on board" threads...

Metric Mouse

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Am I too late for the circlejerk about how much people spend on weddings, and for the stories of how some of you got engaged and married for $175 and a slab of beer?

it looks like we smothered it

these types of threads are humble brag catnip
I was just thinking that a honeymoon to Ireland might lead to even more expenses - in childcare, if the subjects act the way I do in Ireland.

Friar

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Am I too late for the circlejerk about how much people spend on weddings, and for the stories of how some of you got engaged and married for $175 and a slab of beer?

it looks like we smothered it

these types of threads are humble brag catnip
I was just thinking that a honeymoon to Ireland might lead to even more expenses - in childcare, if the subjects act the way I do in Ireland.

Or a massive headache and loads of regret, if the subjects act the way I do in Ireland ;)

Hargrove

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It's nice to know there are people who find this insane, because before these forums, I only knew one guy who thought spending over 15k on a wedding was not just extravagant, but a potentially life-ruining waste.

That said, I am also glad we're laughing about the tendency of people here to run away with the condescension over it. High fives.

I would kiss the Blarney Stone in Ireland. Free. Suckas.

Metric Mouse

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Am I too late for the circlejerk about how much people spend on weddings, and for the stories of how some of you got engaged and married for $175 and a slab of beer?

it looks like we smothered it

these types of threads are humble brag catnip
I was just thinking that a honeymoon to Ireland might lead to even more expenses - in childcare, if the subjects act the way I do in Ireland.

Or a massive headache and loads of regret, if the subjects act the way I do in Ireland ;)
Sounds like we act similarly...

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!