XP: the Economy and the Wedding

sessionswedding

Has the state of the economy affected any of your decisions about your wedding?  Have you cut back on things or decided not to have things you always thought you'd have?  Have you considered eloping or JOPing at the courthouse to save money?  Or considered not getting married period?

hckaczyn

Never considered not getting married, definitely considered courthouse. If my parents weren't paying for this wedding we wouldn't be having one, and we'd be fine with it. The wedding is as much for our families as it is for us; I never had any dreams about my wedding day. So it was easy for me to say no to things that weren't in our budget. In the long run, there are more important things to me - like buying our house, going to Europe, having money in the bank - than a wedding. Luckily we're able to get a wedding I love without spending very much.

Thea519

Not really. My parents have had money saved for my wedding for a while now, so the budget would have been the same, no matter what. It did affect our honeymoon decision, though, because we're paying for that. Originally, we planned to go to Hawaii, but we thought it'd be better to go save some money and just go to Disney World

adrinkard

I never considered not getting married, but I tried to talk FI into eloping.  I know our families would be upset, but I've never really wanted a wedding.  They're so expensive and too much of a competition, plus I hate being the center of attention.  He didn't go for it, unfortunately, so I have planned a very laidback event.  I've done most everything myself to save money because I refused to spend a ton of money on this thing.  It's more important to me for us to maintain our financial stability than to have a blowout.

sessionswedding

FI and I are accepting help from his mom, who does floral and catering for weddings, and she's doing ours for free.  If it weren't for that, we'd be having 100 people instead of over 200, no paid entertainment instead of a DJ and lighting service, silk flowers instead of real ones, finger foods instead of a buffet, I wouldn't be having bridal portraits done, etc.  We are definitely paying cash for everything, and we are right on budget so far.

I think it is kind of important for me personally to have a wedding with a sit-down dinner and dancing (even though we're skipping the alcohol), but we are not breaking the bank to get it and if anything happened to our finances I could certainly do without it.