to wish that Bridezillas wouldn't encourage other brides to spend shedloads of money?

[nickelbabe]

I'm just browsing the you and your wedding forums, and i noticed the following comment & response:

by Ms_Issock
"If you have agreed £1200 I can see why he is annoyed. £1200 is a huge amount of money to spend on a dress you will be wearing for a few hours. Can you not see that?

There are literally thousands of dresses out there and a lot of them are under your agreed amount.

The honeymoon sounds expensive too. Did you both agree you wanted to go to Hong Kong or is it simply somewhere you want to go? Is that the cheapest you can do it?
Maybe you should look at alternative destinations, afterall the importance of the honeymoon is to spend time together and that time can be spent anywhere. It doesn't have to cost so much."

then by Pippa a
"Hi Knot
I would ignore the post above - she has said some pretty harsh comments on other threads in the last couple of days. I had exactly the same issue with my h2b - if you look at my other topics you will see a post where I was crying over photography costs! My solution - I am now doing everything myself, making sure it stays in my budget (10k ex honeymoon) and just not telling him how things breakdown. He still thinks it is a bit of a waste of money, but knows how important it is to me, and is happier just having an amazing day for that amount rather than getting stressed about individual prices. Hope that makes sense!"

why isn't Ms Issock's comment being praised?
£1200 is a ridiculous amount to spend on a blimming weddingdress!!
ow!

please feel free to flame me, i've got my fire-retardant vest on.

[fernie3]

lol top comment seems better but then again I bought my dress of ebay, I think our WHOLE wedding probably cost about £1200! so maybe I just dont understand these things.

[nickelbabe]

exactly fernie!
i really wish i had £1200 to spend on a dress!
the thread really kicks off over there, though, there are some really nasty comments to Ms Issock!

[qwertpoiuy]

Totally totally ridiculous - I'd say there are huge regrets when the credit card and the loans need to be paid off afterwards. Would go a long way on a deposit towards a house. I guarantee that Pippa A will be brought back to earth with a crash when her "perfect" wedding is over.

And the ridiculous things that are done at weddings nowadays - I mean, look at this....

[Chulita]

Yep, I'm with you - my dress was gorgeous from an Ebay shop for £120 and the wedding itself cost about £1200. DH's army dress uniform cost more than mine to hire but he looked sooooo sexy!
We had a fab day and I'd happily do it all again. But then I baulk at paying £30 for a pair of trainers so I think I'm waaaay out of this league!

[ImSoNotTelling]

TBH apart from pippa's saying that the other poster is "harsh" her actual advice isn't bad ie stick to overall budget while getting the things that are important to you (like moster dress ).

When I got married though everyone I met had a suggestion about how I could spend even more money, and what was "essential". It was a PITA.

[LisaD1]

Sadly some people have more money than sense! There seems to be a huge amount of brides around (not aiming this at anyone in particular as I never darken the wedding forum!) that seem so focussed on the "dream day" they forget there is another person, of equal importance, involved in it all. I feel sorry for some of the guys that are marrying these bridezilla's!

We got married in 2006, and EVERY decision was a joint one, neither of us were forced to do anything we didn't want to, we paid for the whole thing ourselves, stuck to budget and even had kids there

[ILovePlayingDarts]

Weddings cost too much, and many people are focussing on this one day, instead of the marriage afterwards. My DP and I have been together for, ohhh, about 23 years, have 2 dcs and might get married when he turns 50 next year. If we do, I can be sure it'll be a small intimate, close family only, occasion, nothing flashy or expensive.

[emsyj]

Well it's not really up to you how people spend their money, so YABU.

quertpoiuy YABU also to assume that anyone who spends £££ on their wedding does it with credit cards and loans and should be spending their money on a house deposit. We spent £17k on our wedding which was mostly funded from a bonus I got from work - the rest was from savings. And we already had 2 houses (one rented out) so...

For what it's worth, I spent less than £400 on my dress, but if I'd wanted a £2k dress I would have had one and not felt bad about it. The main reason I didn't want to spend a fortune on my dress was that I didn't want to be gripped with fear for the whole day in case someone spilled something on it or it got ripped/ruined. It was much better for my own sanity to get a reasonably priced one and happily get on the floor to do Oops Upside Your Head (yes I did do that ) in the evening. Also I am quite tight fisted usually and wouldn't have got £2k's worth of value from a dress, but hey ho some people do, and that's up to them. Horses for courses and all that...

[cyteen]

I'm getting married this year and find the whole wedding industry quite sickening. It really encourages brides to make the day all about them, to the exclusion of all other considerations. I bought a copy of Brides magazine a while back and enjoyed, among other things, a photospread of engagement rings all costing upwards of £3k with a winking caption that said something like 'go for it girls, after all, he's paying for it!' As if the dress and the castle setting and the sparkly rock were your well-deserved prizes for letting a man tie you down.

[ImSoNotTelling]

Weddings don't cost too much, I think they can be done for a little over £100.

People who spend more than that do so because they want to, not because they have to.

[emsyj]

Why is it that so many people on here seem to think that if you spend more than £50 on your wedding that it's because you're a bridezilla/too focussed on the day and not the marriage/flashy/an idiot?

We spent the amount we did for a variety of reasons, most of which were to do with making it a fun day for the guests - e.g. free bar, transport for the guests, ceilidh band (they are super expensive) etc... And yes, we invited kids too! We did spend quite a lot on the photographer (which ate up quite a bit of the budget) but the day itself was pretty relaxed really, with 'pub grub' style food (sausage & chips, curry etc) and plenty of drink and dancing. We could afford it, we had a blast (and so did the guests, thank goodness) and it hasn't affected us financially in the long term, so where is the harm?

[fernie3]

cyteen I am really glad I did not have one of these rings because I whispers lost my engagement ring

[fernie3]

how did that end up bold - odd

[lulabellarama]

Where does it kick off? The YAYW forums get really bizarre sometimes. I am a regular reader, but through morbid fascination rather than for advice.
They all buy identical frou-frou dresses that cost a fortune and look ridiculous. They panic over colour schemes and centre-pieces and they have the most obvious and unimaginative trolls I have EVER witnessed. Some of them clearly having dual personalities.
It's great.

[ImSoNotTelling]

emsyj there is no harm in it at all.

A big fun party to celebrate a wedding is a lovely thing, your wedding sounds fab

[emsyj]

Thanks, it was!

Nothing better than watching all your friends and family in various states of inebriation dancing together and laughing. Worth every penny. And not a colour scheme, frou frou dress or centrepiece in sight, thank the lord.

[Sassybeast]

20K for a wedding budget For 'one' day ?

OMG - how do people afford it ? Scurries back to read more crazy wedding stuff

[ImSoNotTelling]

Oh I had the works

It made my mum very very happy, and was a fab day.

[JaneS]

YouandYourWedding is absolutely bonkers! I read it just to remind me not to be such a bridezilla. They're all mad and (whisper it quietly) they do come across as a bit ... chavvy? Just a wee bit?

[nickelbabe]

sorry, lulu, i did jump the gun on that: it was starting to kick off when i put that, then i went back and it hadn't at all.

i felt a bit disappointed.

at the end of the thread there's a comment from a very sensible man.

emsyj: your wedding does sound great, and i'm glad that you were able to spend money on what you wanted, but unfortunately, a lot of weddings will be funded by credit.
it's sad, but it's the way of the world.

[OrmRenewed]

"you will see a post where I was crying over photography costs"

WTF ?

[VivClicquot]

I'm with Emsyj. We spent what many would consider to be a lot of money on our wedding - including £1600 on my dress - but we didn't get into any debt whatsoever to do so.

Our main considerations were that we wanted an amazing venue, good food and wine and a live funk / motown band for the evening entertainment. Yes, it cost a lot, but every decision was taken jointly and we had the most perfect (and relaxed) day ever. (A lot of people also think that big budget weddings are pompous and stuffy and OTT - not if you do it right, they aren't... )

We're not in debt, and in hindsight, we wouldn't change a single thing.

Their wedding. Their choice. So yes, YABU.

[OrmRenewed]

emsyj - Oh I agree but surely if your 'special day' causes you so much angst you are lying to your 'H2b' and weeping over the cost of photos, you need to calm it down a bit?

[emsyj]

"OMG - how do people afford it ?"

Sassybeast, I had a stupid-money paying job when we got engaged and as mentioned above I got a big bonus that paid for most of our wedding - the rest was from savings (of which we managed to amass quite a lot as we are both naturally quite penny-pinching and we saved and saved whilst I was working there) BUT have no idea how others afford it to be honest, aside from those lucky blighters whose parents fork out for it!!! Being from working class homes, neither my nor DH's parents could have afforded to give us wedding funds, not that we would have expected or allowed them to, but some people do have rich parents - lucky sods

I suppose there must be people who take out big loans etc to pay for their weddings - which I would never do in a million years, but there's nowt so queer as folk. Coming from a poor family and now being married to a DH whose family were of equally modest means, we have a 'thing' about debt. Many people these days are very relaxed about it and figure that if they can meet the repayments, they're happy.

[KERALA1]

Oh for goodness sake if it makes people happy let them spend what they want why does it upset you? People waste much larger sums on more ridiculous items dont see why wedding dresses should come in for such flak.

My view was that although you only wear the dress once it will be seen by everyone you care about and will be the most focussed on dress you will ever wear so why not spend a large sum on it if you can afford to?

What would you prefer - people getting married wearing dressing gowns and going to Weston super mare for their honeymoon? You having the say on the maximum amount people are allowed to spend on wedding dress. What a strange OP