I managed to persuade my wife and mother-in-law that could be fun to have a small celebratory reception for a close group of immediate family members, which we did three months later. Small and intimate, with 20 people, it was easy to pull off, and the official marriage details were already complete, so that was less pressure, and we could just focus on being present with our guests.
And three months after that, we had a small reception with friends, because I persuaded my wife that her close friends would enjoy a chance to celebrate and see her in "the dress". Which they did.
Splitting what would normally could be an overwhelming thing into three small parts removed a lot of stress, was cost effective, and also meant that the wedding gown got to be used three times, not once and then stored. Maybe not the best choice for everyone, but it can be a fun option.
Especially if you don't tell the venue that it's a special occasion...
For sure some women are ok with a court house and walking into a restaurant after without reservations.
But not so many that you'd hear about it happening often.
Regardless of one’s philosophies, playing along with the broader group’s traditions and spending something (time/money/effort) to do it is a signal to the others for how invested you are in a particular group of people.
Obviously, like anything else, it can be overdone. But it is not without value, and there is a reason wedding celebrations came into being in cultures around the world.
We looked for options to save by having a 20% "less nice" meal or a 40% "less good" photographer, but broadly speaking, those aren't really levers that we found. I guess you could try to lie to vendors and tell them that the music is for a retirement party and that they're going to be photographing a family reunion and hope they charge you less? I'm not sure the extra cost is as unreasonable as it sounds though. We were far from trying to "get every detail right", but we did want the stuff we paid for to show up. Just "showing up" with high probability is a substantially higher level of service than I get from most contractors/vendors/etc. that I've worked with more broadly in my life and I'm not surprised it would cost something.
you can have a party with roses, cake, dancing, food, photographer, and as long as it is introduced as a party (and not a wedding) there's research that suggests that on average, you will pay much less to all the contractors.
So start your bid with the word party, and see what happens!
Her wedding? Well, yeah, that's kind of the point, isn't it? It being a day all about her and her mate?
It's pretty common in fact for major family disputes to be resolved, or begin, at big weddings that only involve the bride incidentally.
We so far have postponed the big wedding, but when we do, the idea is to have a place big enough, food, drinks music. Fun place for the kids. Everyone invited. And then people can enjoy it, or not. I plan to be on the dance floor.
It's a neat way for people to meet each other who wouldn't otherwise and for them to find out what they have in common besides the happy couple.
While I'm a fan of your approach, and our wedding was also a small, close family + few friends dinner, I think your MiL's reaction may reflect a generational/cultural shift of expectations. Today, weddings are seen (by the young) and advertised as being focused on, and done for, the newlyweds - but traditionally, weddings were done for everyone else. It was celebrating the culmination of efforts of both family branches that brought up those two people and got them to the point of marrying.
Still, even as I sometimes wonder if some family member resents us for denying them the opportunity for a large traditional outing - of which there are so few once you're a working adult - I still don't think it's wise to hold an expensive wedding party, much less take a loan for it. After all, traditionally, weddings were oragnized and funded by the guests, not by the newlyweds.
Our idea is to do the whole celebration thing in a few years. We'll renew our vows for an anniversary and do all the planning then.
10/10, good memories, no regrets.
Still wasn't free though; creating an event even for just the two of us required money.
Our friends did a basic courthouse ceremony in town with a restaurant party afterwards, and they spent less than we did (if you count in the cost of of flight and hotel into it). Me and another friend did their wedding shots though.
My point is that even when you're not doing for others, weddings cost money for the same reasons that vacations do. Setting aside time and space for a group of people to have a good time together is very hard to do without running into expenses.
People in this thread saying they spent next to nothing on their wedding are like those who boast that their staycation cost $12 for the bottle of wine.
Saying that they decided not to celebrate getting married is a more straightforward way to say the same thing, which is fine.
But the "hurr durr you don't need all those expenses, my wedding cost $3.50 in court fees" signaling isn't any better than "We had to cut on everything and had a cheap wedding, in the $30,000-40,000 range". The latter isn't cheap, the former isn't what people would call having a wedding, and in both cases there's a surprise about other people not wanting the same thing as you do (whereas you, of course, did it the right way).
In the end of the day, if you want to spend a day in a certain way, and you spend your money to do it, then it's the right way for you to have a wedding and the right amount to spend on it.
The only important thing to not leave out is to have space, respect, and care for you and your own happiness in your own wedding, and have agency in how it all happens (you as in you AND your partner in all of the above).
And looks like that's exactly what you're doing with your plan. Congratulations on your marriage!
Yeah, we had to put 10x as much for a downpayment for a townhouse in the Bay Area two years ago.
Let's say, saving on wedding to buy a house ain't working no more in this economy.
We managed to keep our costs down to $5k before the pandemic but it was hard and stressful.
City. Hall. Dang it I’m calling it a night.