in not wanting to spend ££££s on a wedding, even though I could afford to?

[minimilks]

So many of my friends have spent thousands on their weddings. Even the "average" weddings I have been to probably cost £10k - £20K and some a lot more.

For £20k DP and I could go on 10 pretty good holidays, or take a break from work and go travelling, or we could use the money for more boring but practical things like an extension on our house.....or many other things.

DP and I are pretty well off (in that we both have good jobs, we are hardly landed gentry with trust funds or anything) so we could afford to spend £20k on a wedding without having to eat beans on toast for two years to save up, I just don't think I could justify spending £20k on one day (the ten holidays appeal a lot more..........).

I would rather spend say £5k on a wedding, then the other £15K on other things. I am also someone who believes that what makes a good wedding is not how much money is spent on it, but the people there, the music, the dancing etc etc. I have been to some amazing budget weddings. DP agrees.

I also know a couple of people who have spent a lot on their weddings, only to get divorced shortly afterwards (in one case he cheated on her within a year.....)

However some of my friends think my attitude is 'tight' and that it's disrespectful to your family and friends not to 'put on a proper show' when you can afford to.

AIBU?

These threads about not spending money on a wedding make me laugh... It always ends up with loads of replies along the same lines:

My marriage is better because my wedding didn't cost a lot.
People who spend a lot are wasteful.
Examples of lavish weddings where the couple have split up

It sounds slightly like reverse snobbery and stealth boasting about superior morals to me...

And yes, my wedding cost a lot, I'm very happily married and it was a wonderful day!

I don't think its stealth boasting at all. If anything, the frugal-wedding types are resisting the overwhelming societal pressure to be 'princess for a day' and 'spare no expense' bla bla.

I don't think the other posters are saying their marriages are any better for having had small/inexpensive weddings, just that they aren't any worse off for doing things differently.

The pressure to do weddings a certain way (10-20K minimum) is pretty pervasive.

All I found was that the only way of spending a lot of money was by hiring a "wedding venue" which cost 10k and every wedding looks exactly the same. Wedding by numbers.

My hall costs £6 ph, we can do whatever we want and are planning something very fun and different.

A good friend of mine once said that the important things are that you both turn up, make the committment and it gets witnessed. The rest is fluff - can be nice fluff but that's all it is. So do what you want. One of the classiest weddings i've been to I know came in at under £6k. Another friend had the 'ebay/tkmaxx' wedding - you really couldn't tell. People get far too invested in the 'perfect day'. you're getting married, it's a beginning not an ending. Good luck

Yadnbu. I don't really get big weddings, they all seem a bit samey to me. And all that standing around for interminable photos! I'd far rather go to a registry office followed by the pub, or a hog roast, or pretty much anything that isn't a church do followed by beef or salmon. FWIW I had a small do followed by hiring a posh restaurant for the meal, then we went dancing in our local pub. It cost a couple of grand I think, we are married 16 years next week.

Inclined to agree with EMS to an extent, in that those lines are frequently trotted out on MN. Not sure anyone's ever admitted to going to an expensive wedding and enjoying it, especially if said wedding was also "child free' (the horror).

It's along the same lines as the Christmas threads "I'll be giving the DC a lump of coal each, and they'll be happy as they're so bright and imaginative", and the central heating threads "Nonsense, it's only minus 40. Just get a hot water bottle and put a jumper on"

I think ours cost around 6k for 70 people all day and night, registrars fees were almost a grand altogether so probably 5k on the actual event.

A fun atmosphere was important to us as we have 2dc's and lots of family have kids so we accommodated them with a bouncy castle, space hoppers, garden games and all sorts. We also hired wedding nannies for the photo's to the end of the wedding breakfast, and they ate in the bar so were free to run around without the adults having their meal disturbed. It worked brilliantly and we also hired a nanny to look after our youngest dc from 7pm to 1am in my dm's room so we could get pissed relax without worrying and my eldest dc got taken up when ready.

It genuinely was a great day, if I had more money I would have bought more things instead of making endless things myself, because after a while the novelty of crafting wore off. Our band was amazing and cheap (as opposed to the £1500 we were quoted for wedding bands) and I think made the whole evening reception.

I have been told it was the most relaxed, fun wedding that people had been to - my family welcomed everybody and I think that helped enormously. It was great seeing my nan dancing with Dh's 30yr old jack the lad friend.

YANBU, it's your money to spend as you like, and if a big wedding isn't important to you, then why spend thousands?

Ours cost under £2k. For us the key was limiting the number of guests. We had less than 20 people (including us!) -- parents, siblings and best friends (with partners). Everyone who was most important to us was there, and I don't see what we would have gained by inviting extended family we never speak to, casual acquaintances, work colleagues etc.

I didn't see it as about 'putting on a show', but I think it was a perfectly 'proper' occasion. We had a simple civil ceremony, followed by a five course sit-down meal in a comfortable intimate venue (the food was fabulous), there was plenty of champagne and cake, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and have a lovely afternoon. Nothing about it seemed cheap or skimpy or 'tight' to me, and I hope none of our guests felt that way.

YANBU - I've been married twice and in both cases, although very different weddings, we spent less than £5K on them. It wasn't particularly a financial decision - that was just how much the wedding we wanted cost. For the second one we spent more than average of food and wine but had a low number of guests and I had a relatively inexpensive outfit, no bridesmaids, no cake, no cars etc. - just didn't want them. We had no parental help in both cases but pretty healthy incomes.

The parts of our wedding that I enjoyed the most were getting to to top of the aisle (I was sooooo nervous about walking up the aisle!) and kissing dh before the ceremony started and when he and went off for half an hour during the reception to have some photos taken on our own! Random bits that you don't directly spend loads of money on! The hardest part of planning a wedding for me was trying to keep everyone (read my mum) vaguely happy with the day without spending a fortune and compromising on the things that were most important to us. Fwiw we spent 12k including honeymoon (18 months ago) which is way more than I wanted to spend but dh has a huge immediate family and we wanted to have all our friends there.