what is the dumbest thing you've paid for

kimberlykh · May 2012

Just curious... what has been the biggest waste of money for you during the wedding?

Here's mine: I paid $500 last week to rent a partition to hide our reception band's equipment during the ceremony. Yes, $500 to rent a parition for an HOUR (actually probably less than an hour). I was so peeved. I thought it would be $200 tops. But, I felt like I had no choice, I was so stressed out that the band couldn't set up quickly enough during the "flip" and that they would delay our reception. And, because I waited until the last minute, I didn't have time to do much research or comparisons. I am positive I'm going to be kicking myself when that bill comes in. Luckily, FI was on board with my last minute decision to rent that stupid thing! Arggg.

Soon2BSand · May 2012

Mine would be wasting money on two venues I never used, a photographer I fired, and a bunch of DIY stuff I now have sitting in my closet. Everytime I think about that crap I get peeved thinking my wedding would have been paid for twice by now.

caitlinc09 · May 2012

The only thing I can really think of was the first dress I stupidly bought. That dress is zero percent my personality, I have no idea what I was thinking. $750 down the drain...

mookow86 · May 2012

I don't know that this is necessarily dumb, I just cringe at how much it costs- we're paying $200 to the chair/table rental company so that they will set up the chairs and tables at the reception. I felt bad guilting family into doing it so we decided the extra money was probably worth it.

geojam224 · May 2012

A few things:

FI *insisted* on a live band. I couldn't care less. I would have played an iPod if I had a choice. He's a music guy though, so it was really important to him. He chose the band and assured me we could afford it. $4000. REALLY?!

I made a few stupid mistakes where I bought something online, then ordered more in mulitple batches paying 2, sometimes 3x the shipping (i.e. props for the cake).

Letting my parents make last minute invites- we now officially have 20 extra confirmed guests... That's 20 extra plates, 20 extra chairs, 3 extra tables, and 3 extra centerpieces.

On the flip side, the best decision I made was buying my bridesmaids' dresses on Homecoming Dance Clearance at Kohl's. $40 a piece, and a family friend did the alterations (making them wedding appropriate) for $15 each. BAM!

jennamarie10 · May 2012

At the very beginning of my planning, I bought pint glasses for all of our wedding party that said Eat.Drink. Be Married. Zach and Jenna 5.5.2012. what are they going to do with those glasses, in all honesty? Bet they all get left behind at the venue.

Also, I spent $150 on printing my damn programs because I ran out of time and had to do a rush job. Should have only been like $60. Oh well.

gpapale1 · May 2012

I think the dumbest thing I did was spending so much on my DIY invites. I could have just printed them on plain white paper and mailed them in regular envelopes...I don't think it would have made a difference.

LOMLBOAT · May 2012

Stupiest money is over-purchasing almost everything. I was so worried that something would break or something would be smudged, so I ordered 25-50 extra of everything (save the dates, enclosures, evelopes, invitations, stickers, candy bags, return address labels, menus, RD invites) I bought wayyy too much candy, bought about 10 extra vases in case any broke.

I mean it's better safe than sorry, but I probably spent $1k + just on over-ordering.

leahstinson · May 2012

I'm actually pretty happy on my spending so far but of course there are a couple things I could have not *had*

- Chaivari chairs- these are running me nearly 1k

-double entree for guests. Yes, it's nice but it came at an extra $4 pp

-i'm a 3 dress bride so the first 2 i could have saved my money on for sure. thankfully i sold them but i took a small hit.

Shari 86 · May 2012

My first wedding dress. I have no idea why I bought it. Super oogly and NMS. $1300 down the drain

FutureMrsW9 · May 2012

A lot of little stuff that I'm not using or found something better after it was too late to return. It didn't seem like much at the time, but I'm sure if I added it all up it would be at least a few hundred dollars. Also, I should have just bought expensive shoes from the start. I ended up buying 6 pairs of shoes! Yes, 6 - one I decided I didn't like, another was the wrong color, another was right but when I had them dyed they came out the wrong color, one I thought I'd try to dye again, one FI bought for me because he was like enough is enough with these shoes, and another that I'd had my eye on for my entire engagement and they were no where to be found in my size until literally 2 weeks ago when I got a notice from Zappos that they had ONE pair available in my size - I HAD to have them! In the end I have two pairs of Kate Spades that I'm actually going to wear. LOVE LOVE LOVE them. They're the same shoe, just in different colors. I'm going to dye the white ones black after the wedding - SEXY! Anyway....yeah, def spent WAY too much money one shoes lol.

http://couture.zappos.com/kate-spade-new-york-clarice

I'm wearing these in both colors they have shown - the pink for the reception and the ivory w/the gold heel for the ceremony. Totally gonna be taller than FI (I'm 5'10 without shoes) but who cares lol.

MelisMC · May 2012

A lot of little things that add up and really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. Take today for example - I just paid $40 so my escort cards could be printed in navy ink instead of black ink. I also paid extra money for two different sets of RSVP cards to be printed. One with a child meal option and one without since we invited kids from our immediate family only and didn't want everyone to think they could bring their kids.

RivieraBound · May 2012

2 things come to my mind:

We were originally going to do a DW in Key West. I fell in love with a photographer so I booked her. We then scrapped the DW plans so there went my $750 deposit.

I spent around $300 on milk glass bud vases on Ebay for centerpieces. I scrapped that idea and am having my florist make half the centerpieces and half will be hurricane candles.

OH, and then there is the Limo. $185 for a ride to the hotel. Luckily this company doesn't charge by the hour and require 4 hours or something like other companies.

bpphoto785 · May 2012

Stuff I had to buy online because I couldn't find anything I liked locally and paid a crazy amounts in shipping!

Also a set of cotton bags I thought we'd use for OOT bags but they were WAY too small and I can't return them. I've slowly been wrapping gifts in them to get rid of them!

And we put a deposit down on a cake baker who went MIA and we've since had to book someone else. I don't regret booking her because we couldn't have known she'd flake on us but I regret putting down more than the minimum deposit. I'm just hoping we'll get it all back when we take her to court!

ronik77 · May 2012

I'm the same as a lot of the PP's. Over bought a lot of things. Invitations, flowers, we'll have enough address labels to last us to our 30th Anniversary. We hardly ever mail anything. LOL

Darn Liv Social special for Vistaprint, Ordered extra address labels to get free ship. If i have to spend money, I'd rather get something for it, other than just shipping. LOL

AurorasEnvy · May 2012

I like this thread...makes me feel better =] I can't think of anything dumb I've paid for, but there are certainly things I probably paid more money than I needed to for. Veil, for sure!

cssme13 · May 2012

Chair covers. I originally planned not to get them I could care less if the chairs are covered and the reception is not super formal at all. My grandma would not let go that we needed chairs covers so I finally broke down and just got them ugh.

cantwait12 · May 2012

It wasn't something stupid that we spent the money on but it was stupid what we did to get the items. Early on in the planning I decided I wanted to do a "love bird" them so I decided to have birdcages as centerpieces. After months of not being able to find ones that weren't the right size, color, or they were just too expensive I was about to give up on birdcages. I decided to take my mother and maid of honor for a last effort trip to Michaels (I don't have on in my city, we had to drive 30-40 minutes). I didn't find birdcages but I did find hurricane vases with tealight holders in the form of birdnests inside! I bought the two they had in store but when I asked if I could order more in they said no because they are a seasonal item! Each store also only had two because they were seasonal! So two days later my fiance and I drove to three other cites to pick up the two vases each store carried! It took us four hours! I have also spent way to much on shipping overall! As an example, I had to pay $6 in shipping for a $3 cardboard box card holder!!

what is the dumbest thing you've paid for

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