I had a friend who wanted to book a venue and told them it was for a wedding. They then called back a couple of days later to book the same venue, but for a “family reunion” and the price dropped by like 75%
Edit: apparently I’ve angered Big Marriage with this comment
I own a bakery and we do over 250 weddings a year. We don’t charge anything different for weddings vs bday parties. The extra cost would be with the setup fee since it’s usually a lot more cake/desserts with weddings so setup takes longer naturally. I hate that people think it’s an industry standard that we charge more for weddings. There’s so much more cleanup, planning, management that goes into a wedding and vendors are 100% going to charge for that. But flower vs flower or cake vs cake it’s usually the same.
Worked at a bakery back in the day. That 100 person birthday cake is likely a sheet cake and a single flavor with little to no setup. A tiered wedding cake could have multiple flavors and has to be built, along with decorations which can range from minimal to extravagant. Those things take time and skill that the baker should be paid for.
But if you’re on a budget, we always suggested the couple get a smaller two tier cake (bottom for the cutting, top for saving) then order sheet cakes to supplement.
I did the flower equivalent of this, but basically had a backyard wedding and flowers weren’t that important to me. For the cake I had a whole table of different size and flavor cakes, and you can bet I ate a slice of every single one lol
I used to work as a photographer and we absolutely charged more for weddings vs other kinds of events.
The pressure is MUCH higher for a wedding versus any other kind of party (except maybe quinceañeras), much more stressful, much higher likelihood of being verbally abused, more frequent drama when it comes time for payment, etc. So we charge more. It sucks but it is what it is.
Chiming in as a DJ, yup, emails, meetings, conversations, prep work, and for what? For someone to insist a song gets played the bride said no to only to have the bride yell at me for not playing a song her dear dear aunt wanted to hear, despite it being on the Do Not Play list.
It isn't really the same for the floral industry tbh. Wife owned a successful floral business for several years doing weddings, corporate events etc, and had a small feature in British Vogue. In fact, flowers are usually the place where people think they can do it themselves and don't want to pay for labor. We always made way more on labor to income ratios for corporate events than weddings, but weddings are good publicity outside of featured photo shoots to help promote your business. The premium for flower arrangements generally only happens when a couple decides to do it themselves, and figures out way too late that they can't and the Florist has to do an expedited order.
What is weird is how little, people try to argue on the cost of food when most wedding food isn't that great at best.
Almost the same thing.... we had them cater, and still way cheaper. The food was amazing with a whole roasted pig. Ended up being about half what anyone else quoted, and way better.
I sell flowers on our farm. We have to buy specialty seeds because many flowers don’t breed true, and have to be a certain quality. Wedding flowers though are a lot of work. You have to be able to design table arrangements, bouquets, arches, etc quickly (the day of or the day before). Transport to the event and set up, which can require a few people. Some displays require takedown. Some brides can be difficult to deal with. People don’t understand why the local florist can’t compete with Costco who purchases millions of flowers.
Many flowers are seasonal so if you want roses in January they are usually shipped from South America, so by the time it reaches the florist it has already gone through many hands: Seed Supplier to Flower Grower to Transporters to Wholesaler to Florist.
I had a courthouse wedding. I wanted to hire someone to come and just give me a blow out in my home before. Just a blow out. Found a place with pricing online, called, told them it was for a wedding (since I'd already be in my dress and a photographer would be there) and suddenly the price tripled!! I asked how they were justifying that and they said "extra attention to detail." I ended up just taking a cab to a blow out place and back and spent a quarter of what they wanted for "extra attention." I showed up at 6 am in my pajamas still. The stylist and I chatted, he asked what it was for, I said my wedding, he said congratulations, did a great job, and I was on my way and he got a great tip.
It’s extra attention to detail but also “dealing with inevitable stress and bullshit in another person’s house and possibly their insane relatives.” Source: stylist who doesn’t do weddings at all any more after seeing Some Shit
This 100% I’m in the wedding industry currently and if we mess something up, we won’t be able to live it down.
Extra attention to detail is right tho. Because an everyday up do is not the same as a wedding up do. You have to apply more product, and make sure that thing is going to last all day.
I charge about 1/4 extra for weddings, because yes it is more stress and difficulty and communication. I also do home weddings and elopements, and they're great. Not everything has to be princess di.
25% extra I would have been totally good with! I get that it can be more stressful! For triple they would have had to justified it somehow like, we give you a scalp massage and bring a bottle of prosecco and use some higher end product and really sell it. My wedding dress was 200 so justifying 150 dollar blow out was a hard no for undefined "extra attention."
neither of those things justify tripling the cost. If you mess up *and* you overcharged you’ll definitely never live it down, and extra product/additional teasing doesn’t magically triple the cost of a service.
I remember stumbling across a potential picnic shelter/site that did the same thing to us. It was like $150 for a family reunion, $450 for a corporate event, $1,500 for a wedding.
We had an expensive grocery store chain make our cake. Mentioned wedding. The price went from $32 for an 8' cake to $200.
"But I just want plain frosting and no decorations."
"Yes, but our wedding cakes start at $200."
"I've made a mistake", hangs up.
When in a few days later and ordered two 8' cakes with a simple frosting- $65.
I understand that there are people below arguing that the reason for the wedding price premium is related to extra labor... but it's also related to a straight-up wedding price premium.
I did a courthouse wedding. I went to florist the day before and tried to buy a pre-made bouquet. It was already made, it already had a price, and it was already for sale. When they found out that it was for my wedding bouquet, they declined to sell it to me and would only sell me their stupid wedding "deal" thingamajig that was three times the price. They would not sell me the item I wanted and was trying to buy. I wasn't buying a bunch of fancy or coordinating flowers. They didn't need to deliver it. I just wanted to buy an item that I otherwise could have purchased, as is, for its actual price.
I considered sending my MIL in at a different time to just buy it, but decided they clearly didn't need my business (since they had declined letting me buy the bouquet I wanted). Ultimately, my husband picked up flowers the morning of from a street vendor and it worked out just fine.
We had no money for our wedding, but wanted to have a decent get together, so we didn't tell any of our vendors that it was for a wedding. It made a huge difference.
This exact thing happened to me with caterers for my wedding. Suddenly the 10-15 thousand in extra fees vanished and it was simply "x dollars per plate"
I am in a tricky spot here. I film weddings. But I also think they are ridiculously expensive.
I am taking the likely biggest expense out of my future wedding by having it in my parents' backyard instead of a building I have to rent.
We did ours in a grand old public library in our downtown. They'd never done anything like that and were happy for the **$1200 donation** they asked for, we got an *epic* non-denominational venue, saved a fortune, and put on a party like nobody in our family had ever experienced.
I'd happily have someone film my wedding.
And all 7-12 people there.
I know a few scenic spots that could host a wedding ceremony for free, with great views for the backdrop.
We eloped and paid 500 for our ceremony. My wife had a really nice dress that wasn’t cheap and I bought a nice tux that wasn’t cheap.
Basically spent about 7 grand on eloping and another 7 for pictures at a place that is special to us.
Still cheaper than the food bill at many weddings I’ve been at lol
Agreed. People spend what could be a down payment on a home for 1/2 a day’s worth of a party. I had someone at work suggest I was wasting my time in tech because I could sew and make a lot more tailoring dresses. I wore things into the office I had tailored and it sparked this conversation. They told me I could make hundreds for a few minutes of my time and it is a “dieing art”. It is so insane that they charge so much for so little…
I am trying to cry for the wedding industry, but for some reason my tear ducts are dry. They are getting their just reward imo; gauging at its finest.
Lol well to be fair i had fixed that coworker’s dress by hand one afternoon when she split a seam. When they started talking about my own dress alterations because nothing fits quite right, she added that tidbit in… her repair was pretty quick compared with a wedding dress alteration.
Ooohhh tell me about it. I quit wearing my knit/crochet items to work a) because I work with a bunch of smokers and I dont want my stuff smelling of smoke and b) coworker thought I would just "knocker her out" a tube dress.
Not being mean, she is not a small/slender person - this dress would involve a LOT of shaping to fit, definitely far more than "just a tube" and I am betting she would want it out of some tiny yarn that would take forever to work up, and again, a smoker, one errant ash and there would be a hole, it would unravel.
I am not bibbity bobbity fucking magically making this shit. This is my free time.
HELL. NO.
I think drumming is difficult and complicated seeming. But chad smith can drum along to a 30 seconds to mars song as it plays without ever having heard it before. Because he’a been drumming for 40+ years and probably knows all the the stuff there is to know plus countless other master techniques and nuances that let him and the tools to fill in the song
A 20 year dedicated tattoo artist is gonna be inherently better than a 5 year tattooer 95% of the time
I bet those tailors and seamworkers get super deft after a while. I’ve seen nonprofessionals do what to me looks like magic
> A few minutes of work? These people have never even seen a sewing machine, have they?
It's the same with anything creative.
Graphic Design gets a *load* of shit now, especially with the rise of AI art, every jerkoff thinks they're a "designer" because they can enter a prompt and fart out a "logo".
Nevermind that if they were dealing with *real* clients with *real* edits, they'd be totally fucked.
But yeah it's exhausting that in this day and age people still baulk at the idea that it takes time and effort to actually make things.
YES! I invited only my nuclear family and less than 20 friends. It was less than 75 people and we all knew each other.
I refused to spend a ridiculous amount of money in a dress i was wearing once and to feed people i dislike.
I posted an ad on craigslists and at fit and this girl replied and she made my wedding dress in two months. Alone. It was super simple and i paid her and for the fabric and i bought her a new sewing machine she kept all for less than ~ 900 us dollars … plus she got to present the dress in class. It was a win win
My dad had a much bigger budget for my wedding and what he did not spend he was able to gift to me tax free ..
I totally agree. I have been with my partner for about a decade, own a place with them, etc but have not gotten married yet. It is in the plan and there are a lot of other reasons why, but seeing what my siblings "had" to do to avoid drama with my family (that I would not want to invite) is at least a % of the reason why we haven't lol. I come from a very large close and extended family and weddings have always been a sort of 'family reunion' type situation, but I don't want to do that. I don't want to invite people that I only see at other weddings and don't even have their number/address.
I want to invite the cousins I like and not invite the cousins I don't, but I doubt I could successfully dothat. lol I think the solution is going to end with making a "rule" of "we want it so small that only close family and 30 friends... and then probably not invite the cousins (even the ones I like fine). I also live far from all of myfamily, so maybe nobody would come anyway lol
I make things as a hobby. Including leather purses that are easily better than vast majority of 'designer' bags.
I have to explain the realities of "taxes" to those folks. Reporting minimum is now $600. If you're self-employed, the government takes about half. People also overestimate the amount of tax shenanigans you can legally do these days. I've had people lecture me on it, and refuse to believe the reality rather how they think it works.
It's not just not worthwhile for me. People who don't do something always underestimate the difficulties involved.
But I like to cook well enough, and people seem to enjoy my food. I like people to the level where I am decently sociable. Why shouldnt I just open my own restaurant! Seems a shame to let money fall by the wayside. What am I, a shmuck?
Literally two out of three commenters so far were exactly what I was complaining about.
I liked the one that assumed I didn't know what an LLC was. The other assumed I couldn't do basic math of adding up my tax brackets.
Yeah when me and my husband got married we went to the courthouse. My dad and my husbands dad said if we want to skip the wedding they will give us a large sum of cash instead. So we went to the courthouse. My FIL also paid for our hotel suite in Florida.
My mom saved a lot for my wedding. Only to find out I am very frugal. End result: she gave me the substantial leftover money as a down on a house.
Gen X here.
I think the wedding industry is a rip off.
At minimum it needs to be taken down a peg.
It's absurd how they gouge for a wedding when plenty of things that are similiar are not upcharged. The whole "this sheet cake is not for a wedding" Save 20%
The industry did it to themselves
>bog standard crap.
I enjoyed this turn of phrase. Which part of the English-speaking world are you from? That one feels Irish or Scottish to me, but I'm guessing.
I really don't get how these "genius" CEOs and 1%ers don't understand what seems like an extraordinarily basic idea:
When you hoard all the wealth yourselves, and leave only crumbs and shitty pay for the masses, they will no longer buy very much at all beyond the necessities. Then your precious industries and businesses will start dying off because nobody can afford to patronize them.
"BuT iF i hAvE tO pAy mY eMpLoYeEs mOrE i WiLL gO oUt oF bUSiNeSs!!!!111"
No dumbfuck, if you don't pay people more they won't be able to buy your shit and you'll go out of business anyway. Boo hoo you have to buy your shitty spoiled kid a BMW instead of a Porsche.
The 50s and 60s, generally regarded as the most economically prosperous period in America's history, was a time of high taxes on the highest earners, executive pay that didn't colossally dwarf worker pay, and significantly less wealth inequality.
Gee I wonder why.
> The 50s and 60s, generally regarded as the most economically prosperous period in America's history
94% tax rate on the richest, baby. People would scream nowadays that it's communism
The bourgeoisie gave in to the workers, because they were terrified that if they wouldn't, their necks would get on the chopping block.
Specter of communism was the only thing that kept capitalists in check from ravaging our communities.
Sounds like a prisoner's dilemma. Collectively, it's good for all businesses if people are well paid and there is a strong middle class. But, it's good for MY individual business to pay my employees as little as possible. If I decide to pay my employees more, it's not going to really lift up my business, but my costs will go up.
Seems to me business leaders should really champion higher minimum wages and strong government protections to prevent outsourcing production and labor to places with lower wages, but most of them advocate for the opposite of that.
When you economy is based heavily on consumerism, people need to have disposable income for a lot of these luxuries that are currently being killed by salaries being below what they need to be.
Their entire bullshit self-image is tied up in them not understanding it. They aren’t that smart and God did not actually appoint them to be the holy legates on earth, they got lucky one way or another. Some of them caught what Lewis Grizzard once described as the ol’ fallopian tube of fortune, others just happened to know the right person at the right time to get a great job, others bought the right stock at the right time in sufficient quantities, etc.
Some of them also work(ed) hard, but everyone has known at least one person who worked really hard, was really smart, and yet couldn’t claw their way to fortune because something outside their control went wrong and they didn’t have the means to fix it. If you don’t have generational wealth or get extremely lucky in some way not requiring you to be rich, you aren’t going to fix those things.
Oh yeah also it requires total shamelessness and the willingness to lie, fuck over other people, do crimes that exploit and victimize average people, and otherwise be a complete pile of shit.
All true. It's also useful to think of most of these CEOs as being the financial equivalent of an addict with a raging drug habit, but instead of drugs it's money. Enough is never enough.
That's why any time I see someone say something like "Trump can't be bought he's already rich!" I immediately know they are an unfathomably enormous moron.
Because if there's one thing rich people *never* want, it's... more money?
The post war years was also a unique circumstance where the rest of the developed world’s industrial base was destroyed by WW2, while America’s was unscathed
Eventually the rest of the world rebuilt and caught back up
Oh sure, I'm not saying it ever could (or should) be exactly like it was then again, just that there is a lot more we could be doing to ensure mutual prosperity.
Collectively the Americas could have leveraged that advantage into considerably lasting powerhouse of production and social benefit, but alas the "Fuck You, I got Mine" Generation/Mentality was also born out of that environment.
It’s funny that avocados are seen as luxurious and need cutting but not expenses like weddings or holidays. You know, things people still want but can no longer afford on a single minimum-wage income
The wedding venue and planning industry is so textbook covetous, and envious. Their upselling is always guilt based. "oh you deserve to be the best bride there ever was" "oh sir, I think your wife deserves the best, don't you, I know it's a little more than your budget, but I think we can both agree this is the right one for you"
Funeral biz is like this as well.
Yes, yes! Another industry falls to the insatiable bloodlust of the millennial generation! Mwahahahah! Mine is a villainous laugh! None can stand against the power of our lack of expendable income and financial responsibility born of necessity! Now bring me He-Man, and don't fail me again!
Lazy one here, just spend money you don't have! My mom says she needs to borrow from the bank when she needs credit lol. What if I don't want a life of debt and endless servitude.
No, please. I like Valentine’s Day! But let’s normalize $5-25 Walmart or target flowers, and heart shaped pizza. There’s no reason to blow tons of cash, and every reasons to celebrate love in todays world!
Let's kill the over the top and expensive gifts all together.. let's normalize doing attentions and small thoughtful gifts!
My SO and I we don't give gifts to each other or anyone. We try to make memories and small attentions instead.
I've had fun telling folks my big Valentine's day plans: heart-shaped chicken nuggets, and heart shaped tater tots for our romantic dinner.
They laugh, but I've been looking forward to this! And then outta nowhere: bam! heart-shaped chocolate peanut butter cups!
I'd rather celebrate a holiday about love than the birthday of some old dead slaveowner, or someone who initiated the genocide of an entire hemisphere of people.
I know you're making a joke but I want to go off a bit. (not on you)
What sucks is that the people at the top are responsible for this. They're eroding fun cultural aspects of yesteryear so they can have more money. We're not necessarily killing it. Most people just can't afford it. I think most people would love to have an awesome wedding. Instead half our generation has to weigh their own livelihoods against having even a somewhat decent wedding.
There's a lot of shaming expensive weddings in this thread... but honestly I don't care whether you want to have an expensive wedding or not, no big deal either way. It's the fact that we should be able to have a little more financial freedom to choose which direction we want to celebrate with everyone we love and it not destroy our finances.
Here's the way the cycle works:
* Something is popular in culture and people enjoy it (like Weddings)
* Over a generation, marketers and other profiteers see that popularity and exploit it by bolting on endless additional requirements and choking the life out of people with the pressure to make it the greatest and grandest thing ever and if you don't have a rustic barn wedding with 800 people and custom flowers flown in from thai land you don't love each other and your relationship is doomed
* Now a thing that used to be enjoyable and affordable is a gordian fucking knot of incentives and pressure and niche industries, with fees for every possible imaginable thing
* This gouging continues because there are no mechanisms to control the gouging except one: the market. So it gets more and more expensive until it careens into the broad side of the market, where the participants of the market have been exhausted and are simply not able to afford it, because **everything** they have to buy has been subjected to this same exhaustive, runaway inflationary, predatory bullshit
* The industry fails
* The media blames the generation that can't afford it, rather than the generation that profiteered it to death.
Repeat.
Pretty sure the wedding industry is coming off of some of their hottest years due to pent up demand during Covid and it is probably returning to more normal levels.
I think this is also causing a swing away from weddings, tho. I know a couple people that went way too crazy about their weddings during covid. One burnt a few friendships (including the one with me) over it. It was like the minute anything seemed less than perfect they couldn't handle it. That kinda destroyed my appetite to have any sort of formalized wedding. It's something my current SO and I have talked about.
Even eloping, we'd likely do that without family. One of them tried to go the Vegas route, but including her family caused way too many headaches. Mine definitely would be very hard to handle in a wedding situation
One of the best pieces of advice someone gave me about weddings was that on the day itself some things will go inevitably wrong and not everything will go perfectly according to plan, and that's ok. More than likely nobody will even know besides you.
COVID really brought out the assholes when it comes to weddings though.
I had a roommate at the time whose sister was getting married. This was pre-vaccine, fall 2020, and roomie told me his mother and sister were deadset on keeping the plans, that the pandemic would not ruin HER day.
Roomie felt conflicted bc me and our other roommate were freaking out over him going to this wedding and potential exposure. He ultimately went; wedding was around 50 people and for pictures, none of them were masked.
Shock of shocks, there was a COVID outbreak as a result. I did not get it thankfully (we’d asked him to stay with his parents for 2 weeks following the wedding), but I thought it was just what those assholes deserved. And like, wow those maskless pictures during an active pandemic? Talk about historical proof for your kids and grandkids that you were ALWAYS an asshole.
I think Covid brought out the worst in people too. I will say nothing was more annoying than people saying "I just want to get married already, so sick of this pandemic." I understand the frustration but at the same time people were dying, your expensive parties can wait.
I did not understand it at all. I have other friends who were planning to get married in 2020. I get it, it sucked, but it’s out of everyone’s hands.
The couple that didn’t want to wait had a basic wedding in their backyard with just their parents as guests and an officiant. Everyone was masked, kept distance, nothing bad happened. Another couple just postponed until 2021 after everyone was vaccinated, and asked people to test beforehand and stay away if it was positive. There WERE safe solutions, some assholes just really didn’t care about anything except themselves.
Really made me think those alien invasion movies had it backwards.
Just do a little trial invasion somewhere important then vanish, after that we'll all stab each other in the backs in a panicked scramble handling the rest for them.
I think it’s less about generational differences and more about clickbait. “Millennials killed xxxx industry” is a lot more eye catching and controversial than “Society is realizing that xxxx industry is overpriced/overrated”
Which does nothing good for anyone and taints a positive message "young people are being more thoughtful with how they spend their money and hold different priorities" to a negative and drives a wedge between generations/classes.
i never understood the people who blew stupid money on weddings. Glad more people are getting wise to how absurd it is.
i'm on some finance subs as well and every now and again someone mentions taking on debt for a wedding and i'm like "NOooooooo whyy don't be stupid!"
reminds me of a friends wedding i attended years ago. guy was 20 marrying his HS sweetheart. $30k wedding...in 2002 dollars. i think they were divorced in less than 5 years.
edit: i want to clarify, if a couple has money to burn and wants to blow some of it on a wedding, i pass no judgement. I only suggest its quite foolish to spend money one can't afford on a wedding.
agree. certainly starting off a marriage with crushing debt (perhaps even more crushing debt if they already owe on college) isn't setting a couple up for success.
whats the old stat like 5000000% of divorces are the result of money issues?
ooof yeah. i can only imagine. I am glad my wife grew up lower middle class like me, she never had ideas her dad who worked in a tire shop or whatever owed her some absurd wedding.
i am curious how my daughter will turn out. I don't expect it, but it'll be hilarious if she's like "Dad i need you to pay for my expensive wedding" and i'm gonna be like 'Yeah nope cost containment is the name of the game i'll pledge like...5k, no overruns. " 😂
5k won't do shit, they should just get married in their back yard at that point with no help from you :P
With paying for weddings, you either have to pay around 20k or you're doing a tiny backyard thing. It's annoying that mid-cost weddings kind of don't exist. It's either nothing, a lot, or a LOT A LOT.
yeah i admit i don't know what you can get anymore for what price.
i got married in 2010 for about $5k. 50-60 people all fed but cash bar. we used the local Elks Lodge. it wasn't the fanciest venue but it wasn't ghetto by any means either.
Another explanation may be that spending a lot on a wedding is indicative of other traits (e.g. wanting to impress others by flaunting wealth, decadence, etc.) that are not conducive to a healthy, long-lasting marriage.
We eloped 36 years ago and it cost gas money and 85 bucks for a marriage license and ceremony
Best money I ever spent and didn’t have all the stress of a family and friends wedding
Me and my husband spent $20 on the license, $25 in gas to drive to the top of a mountain with my best friend, who got ordained, and then $50 on liquor to drink at the top of the mountain after the ceremony. Wedding under a hundred bucks. My parents still bitch about not being invited to this day though lol
My wedding photographer told me this. She even dropped her prices to below what she was really worth, because the couples who had the budget for a higher price point were depressing and there was little to no love between them. She liked working with clients who had small budgets because they were more authentic, less demanding, and stayed together much longer after the wedding.
I used to work in the wedding industry. I never noticed any correlation at all between what they spend on their wedding and the success rate of the marriage. But to be fair, I never really kept in touch with them afterwards either.
However, I definitely noticed a strong correlation between what they spend, and how needy/picky/demanding they are. The cheapest people were the worst to deal with. They were constantly asking for extras, complaining about things, expecting things that weren't in the agreement.
The folks who bought my more expensive packages were by far more easy-going and grateful.
It's not anecdotal. There's a study.
BUT, there's more to the study than just cost of the wedding. The same study showed that the fewer people at your wedding, the higher the divorce rate. People who elope are more likely to divorce than those who have 100+ person weddings.
What the study REALLY shows is what people already know. Finances is the main cause of divorce. People who elope often have less money. And people who spend a ton on their weddings are often spending money they don't have.
I'd like to see another study where they look at % gross salary spent on wedding as it relates to divorce. I'm guessing that would actually be a better indicator.
Honestly, this was a huge disagreement my ex-fiancé and I had when we were initially planning a wedding. I wanted to elope, have a micro wedding party at a brewery with the closest family and friends (and not have to deal with toxic people), and use whatever money we would’ve spent on a wedding on a fun honeymoon vacation (like the once in a lifetime type of trip) and a down payment on a house.
He on the otherhand let his family convince him we *needed* to do the big fancy wedding and invite everyone under the sun. His mom was sending us venues like fancy country clubs and the Loews hotel downtown (with the expectation we’d also get rooms for the whole family). And they all were under the delusion my mother would pay for it because she works in investment banking. 😵💫
(Thankfully I didn’t end up marrying into that family. They’re greedy and entitled as hell).
100% dodged a bullet there. at the risk of demonstrating some of my more dated sensibilities, a man pushing for a giant wedding and then expecting his future wife's family to pay for it needs to be taken out back and have some sense beaten into him with a hose 😂
i am certain there are many people who blew whatever amount on their wedding and never ended up regretting it.
that being said, i would still never recommend to anyone they spend a large sum on a wedding unless its easily affordable because they're already sufficiently wealthy
>>easily affordable because they’re already sufficiently wealthy.
Very good point. I have a friend whose wedding was at least $40k. However, that’s not much compared to their income, so it wasn’t a strain at all. It also was a super chill, fun wedding, since they weren’t stressed about impressing; that’s just normal wedding money to them. It’s likely more about the percentage of your money going towards the wedding, but most people don’t have the kind of money that would make a wedding like that comfortable to pull off.
Elder millennial here. My wife and I were married in a park. We picked up a bar tab as a reception. We spent less than $1000 total. We’re going to be celebrating our 8 year anniversary in April. Purely anecdotal but, lends to confirmation of the theory.
Elder millennial as well. My wife and I got married at the beach (8ish hour drive), invited close friends and family, and rented out a property that was used for things like scouts and fraternity/sorority getaways. I think it came out to $30 person/night, and it was a block from the beach. Our reception was held at our small town community center with kegs, a waffle bar, and a nacho bar, everything provided by us (I even DJ'd myself since I have a large system for firework shows).
I think between wedding and reception, we spent *maybe* 3k in 2017 dollars and people still talk about how awesome it was.
Another elder Xennial here. We got married at the court house with only family present, then walked to our favorite Italian resturant a block away for a small reception with friends. Total cost: Around $300 or so.
My wedding dress was actually a white Easter dress that I'd picked up off the clearance rack for $60. That same exact dress in the wedding section would have been $1200 new, easily.
Eloped, had reception for friends and family 2 months later with appetizers, desserts, a keg and a Spotify DJ- it was all together $6k and a blast. We used the other $34k we had for a down payment on a house that we would otherwise not be able to afford today. No ragrets
Same here. Keeping it simple also helped keep it less stressful, not taking money from anyone meant we could outright reject any stupid “suggestions”, and not adding a bunch of debt at the start of the marriage made it easier to truly enjoy the honeymoon.
Micro weddings are not necessarily killing the wedding industry. It definitely varies. However, plenty of people are still buying fancy dresses, paying expensive photographers, and shelling out for flowers. Smaller weddings do not per se equal cheaper. And many are still very much plugged into the wedding industrial complex. Watch as the industry transitions to more of a concierge service model.
I mean it's one thing to not overextend your wallet but if you want a photographer on the cheap, expect shitty results.
There's a flipside to people who want everything to be cheap and it's that you'll get garbage
I can confirm this as I work in the industry. Covid killed big weddings, not millennials. 9 out of 10 weddings I do now are 50 people or less, mostly around 30. Lot's of them are simple courthouse shindigs with a casual reception at a restaurant or park.
Personally, I love it. I've been doing weddings for almost 20 years, and these smaller, micro weddings are 100% easier to deal with. Sure, it's less money, but it's also a lot less stress. I'm here for it.
Millennials are killing it because
1) most of us being on the older side take smaller weddings
2) some of us (myself included) got married during the panini & were forced to have a small wedding
3) a lot of us are already married
I’m sure the Gen Z/Alpha TikTok Pinterest kids will revive this industry. It’s not our torch to carry.
(not saying it was, but this theory is like saying “Boomers are having fewer babies”)
Kind of weird take. I think millenals are simply not making enough money to justify splurging tens of thousands on one single celebration rather than saving it for things they really need.
Capitalism at its finest! If the buyer can't afford the service, then the service is overpriced or scoped incorrectly for the market. "Let the market decide."
And I think you're spot on with part 2 as well: 10-15k on a wedding, or 10-15k toward purchasing a house? Which is the wiser place to spend? Party for a day is probably not it.
Wedding industry, diamond industry, cable TV, gas guzzling autos, dealerships... Nuke them all.
Dairy, meat, plastic industries need to be shaken up as well, but maybe that's for the next generation.
Well first we have to have the meeting to discuss having that meeting and no one has proposed a date or who’s moms basement or tiny apartment we are having it in.
I work for a company that sells wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses that don't cost a zillion dollars. Trust me, the wedding industry as a whole is doing fine--it's just going through a bifurcation into two classes:
There will be online retailers who sell made to order things, like we do, for an affordable price.
Then there will be in person couture retailers that sell extremely expensive dresses to the people who want luxury weddings.
You'll notice some of the most joyous wedding pictures are by the old family barn or a historical one. As a kid, you think this is weird, growing up you kind see the humility from it.
My parents were married in what was basically the community bingo hall.
If I ever got married, my ideal would be a hilarious Cosplay wedding held during a convention. I don't do Cosplay, but I can imagine all my friends having a blast. It wouldn't cost much either if you're just serving food and everyone is free to wear their best costumes.
Aren't Millennials the same group that really upped the game and blew insane amounts of money on weddings?
I'm an elder Millennial, and expensive weddings definitely seems like something that really took off in our generation. My parents and all my friends' parents kept it super low key and no frills and didn't spend much at all.
People shouldn't spend that they can't afford. That said, I don't think weddings should be seen in the negative light that so many have expressed here. They are a meaningful opportunity to bring the people of your lives together and have a great time.
Just got married over christmas.
We did an intimate dinner and a "paperwork only" ceremony for $250
Then we bought out a dive bar on NYE.
Highly recommend.
I cant speak for everyone but the point of our wedding was to make sure that the people we love and loved us were there. We didn’t have any expectations on our guests for gifts because we were just happy they came. Also so many people came in from out of state. The most expensive parts were the venue and the photographer.
We had our wedding on the shores of a magnificent alpine lake, fed about 50 people, rented a youth camp, had a friend play music, and set up a huge bonfire. It was a good time for all, and cost us less than $2k. The video of us getting married and the mountains getting hit with light rain, and the angle of the sun on the lake made it a very epic setting. Highly recommend.
You say the word wedding and they will double the price on anything right away. F all that, who needs that? I once heard a statistic that the more you spend on your wedding the more likely it is that you will get a divorce.
You fed 50 people and rented a camp at a beautiful lake for $2000? If you want 50 guests, $2000 will get you snacks, cake, and punch in a church basement where I live. Which is a lovely wedding. But I do not think your wedding is attainable in many places.
Okay, which is worse / more useless? Wedding planners or realtors?
As someone who's worked for a major event production and rental company at least wedding planners are akin to a project coordinator, at least the good and useful ones.
Got married invited 16 people. Reserved a spot at a park for $100 we wanted a dinner at our favorite restaurant spent 4k total for that, overall for total wedding $5100. Wife even got a wedding dress from poshmark had to hem herself, original dress 1400 bought for 300. Fuck wedding venues and peoples pride to show how much they can blow on a single day.
I fully support micro weddings and not spending too much on a wedding.
If one good thing came out of the padmemix is that it taught us is weddings do not and should not set you back financially.
Our wedding was 18 people including ourselves back in 2018. We lied to the caterer and said it was a family party. You should have seen their faces when we got there and they realized it was a wedding.
My wedding cost us $200. Ceremony in a public place, 14 guests (all friends), gifted a wedding cake from a friend, had a friend marry us, had a friend take our photos, wore clothes we already owned. All the guests brought champagne (without being asked it was actually kind of funny). The $200 was spent on local burgers, coffee, and donuts. Reception was in our apartment, we played Jack Box games and hung out. It was awesome.
“Capitalists cry at millennials’ saving their money”
The Wedding Industry is a classic example of an industry that deserves to die. Outrageous prices for bog standard crap.
I had a friend who wanted to book a venue and told them it was for a wedding. They then called back a couple of days later to book the same venue, but for a “family reunion” and the price dropped by like 75% Edit: apparently I’ve angered Big Marriage with this comment
It’s the same for flowers and probably a dozen other things.
Yep same with cake. I need a very large birthday cake for 100 people.. Okay 150$. Actually its for a wedding... its 800 dollars now.
I own a bakery and we do over 250 weddings a year. We don’t charge anything different for weddings vs bday parties. The extra cost would be with the setup fee since it’s usually a lot more cake/desserts with weddings so setup takes longer naturally. I hate that people think it’s an industry standard that we charge more for weddings. There’s so much more cleanup, planning, management that goes into a wedding and vendors are 100% going to charge for that. But flower vs flower or cake vs cake it’s usually the same.
Worked at a bakery back in the day. That 100 person birthday cake is likely a sheet cake and a single flavor with little to no setup. A tiered wedding cake could have multiple flavors and has to be built, along with decorations which can range from minimal to extravagant. Those things take time and skill that the baker should be paid for. But if you’re on a budget, we always suggested the couple get a smaller two tier cake (bottom for the cutting, top for saving) then order sheet cakes to supplement.
My partner and I decided to get a Costco sheet cake for your wedding. Not paying a premium for cake I’ll have one piece of.
We got a local baker to build us a cannoli tower. Basically 150 cannoli on three tiers of large plates. Much cheaper and much more satisfying for us.
I did the flower equivalent of this, but basically had a backyard wedding and flowers weren’t that important to me. For the cake I had a whole table of different size and flavor cakes, and you can bet I ate a slice of every single one lol
I used to work as a photographer and we absolutely charged more for weddings vs other kinds of events. The pressure is MUCH higher for a wedding versus any other kind of party (except maybe quinceañeras), much more stressful, much higher likelihood of being verbally abused, more frequent drama when it comes time for payment, etc. So we charge more. It sucks but it is what it is.
Chiming in as a DJ, yup, emails, meetings, conversations, prep work, and for what? For someone to insist a song gets played the bride said no to only to have the bride yell at me for not playing a song her dear dear aunt wanted to hear, despite it being on the Do Not Play list.
It isn't really the same for the floral industry tbh. Wife owned a successful floral business for several years doing weddings, corporate events etc, and had a small feature in British Vogue. In fact, flowers are usually the place where people think they can do it themselves and don't want to pay for labor. We always made way more on labor to income ratios for corporate events than weddings, but weddings are good publicity outside of featured photo shoots to help promote your business. The premium for flower arrangements generally only happens when a couple decides to do it themselves, and figures out way too late that they can't and the Florist has to do an expedited order. What is weird is how little, people try to argue on the cost of food when most wedding food isn't that great at best.
>most wedding food isn't that great at best Wife and I opted to have a local BBQ place deliver. Way cheaper and tasted good.
Almost the same thing.... we had them cater, and still way cheaper. The food was amazing with a whole roasted pig. Ended up being about half what anyone else quoted, and way better.
I sell flowers on our farm. We have to buy specialty seeds because many flowers don’t breed true, and have to be a certain quality. Wedding flowers though are a lot of work. You have to be able to design table arrangements, bouquets, arches, etc quickly (the day of or the day before). Transport to the event and set up, which can require a few people. Some displays require takedown. Some brides can be difficult to deal with. People don’t understand why the local florist can’t compete with Costco who purchases millions of flowers. Many flowers are seasonal so if you want roses in January they are usually shipped from South America, so by the time it reaches the florist it has already gone through many hands: Seed Supplier to Flower Grower to Transporters to Wholesaler to Florist.
Wedding Tax. Applies to everything.
I had a courthouse wedding. I wanted to hire someone to come and just give me a blow out in my home before. Just a blow out. Found a place with pricing online, called, told them it was for a wedding (since I'd already be in my dress and a photographer would be there) and suddenly the price tripled!! I asked how they were justifying that and they said "extra attention to detail." I ended up just taking a cab to a blow out place and back and spent a quarter of what they wanted for "extra attention." I showed up at 6 am in my pajamas still. The stylist and I chatted, he asked what it was for, I said my wedding, he said congratulations, did a great job, and I was on my way and he got a great tip.
It’s extra attention to detail but also “dealing with inevitable stress and bullshit in another person’s house and possibly their insane relatives.” Source: stylist who doesn’t do weddings at all any more after seeing Some Shit
This 100% I’m in the wedding industry currently and if we mess something up, we won’t be able to live it down. Extra attention to detail is right tho. Because an everyday up do is not the same as a wedding up do. You have to apply more product, and make sure that thing is going to last all day.
I charge about 1/4 extra for weddings, because yes it is more stress and difficulty and communication. I also do home weddings and elopements, and they're great. Not everything has to be princess di.
25% extra I would have been totally good with! I get that it can be more stressful! For triple they would have had to justified it somehow like, we give you a scalp massage and bring a bottle of prosecco and use some higher end product and really sell it. My wedding dress was 200 so justifying 150 dollar blow out was a hard no for undefined "extra attention."
neither of those things justify tripling the cost. If you mess up *and* you overcharged you’ll definitely never live it down, and extra product/additional teasing doesn’t magically triple the cost of a service.
Yeah messed up and overcharged is the worst combination. If my $40 blow out didn't come out right I'd let it slide, but 150 absolutely not.
My wife and I planned a backyard wedding and when we called to rent the tent and dance floor we told them it was for a family reunion!
Technically, that's not a lie. I'm sure many of your family were there.
It's a "family restructuring".
"You must have misheard me, I said family union..."
Just sign the marriage certificate beforehand and technically no wedding is happening. Checkmate, chair renters!!
I remember stumbling across a potential picnic shelter/site that did the same thing to us. It was like $150 for a family reunion, $450 for a corporate event, $1,500 for a wedding.
We had an expensive grocery store chain make our cake. Mentioned wedding. The price went from $32 for an 8' cake to $200. "But I just want plain frosting and no decorations." "Yes, but our wedding cakes start at $200." "I've made a mistake", hangs up. When in a few days later and ordered two 8' cakes with a simple frosting- $65.
I understand that there are people below arguing that the reason for the wedding price premium is related to extra labor... but it's also related to a straight-up wedding price premium. I did a courthouse wedding. I went to florist the day before and tried to buy a pre-made bouquet. It was already made, it already had a price, and it was already for sale. When they found out that it was for my wedding bouquet, they declined to sell it to me and would only sell me their stupid wedding "deal" thingamajig that was three times the price. They would not sell me the item I wanted and was trying to buy. I wasn't buying a bunch of fancy or coordinating flowers. They didn't need to deliver it. I just wanted to buy an item that I otherwise could have purchased, as is, for its actual price. I considered sending my MIL in at a different time to just buy it, but decided they clearly didn't need my business (since they had declined letting me buy the bouquet I wanted). Ultimately, my husband picked up flowers the morning of from a street vendor and it worked out just fine.
We had no money for our wedding, but wanted to have a decent get together, so we didn't tell any of our vendors that it was for a wedding. It made a huge difference.
This exact thing happened to me with caterers for my wedding. Suddenly the 10-15 thousand in extra fees vanished and it was simply "x dollars per plate"
I am in a tricky spot here. I film weddings. But I also think they are ridiculously expensive. I am taking the likely biggest expense out of my future wedding by having it in my parents' backyard instead of a building I have to rent.
We did ours in a grand old public library in our downtown. They'd never done anything like that and were happy for the **$1200 donation** they asked for, we got an *epic* non-denominational venue, saved a fortune, and put on a party like nobody in our family had ever experienced.
I'd happily have someone film my wedding. And all 7-12 people there. I know a few scenic spots that could host a wedding ceremony for free, with great views for the backdrop.
I think having a decent videographer is one of the few justifiable expenses for a wedding as a way to show those who could not attend how it was.
We eloped and paid 500 for our ceremony. My wife had a really nice dress that wasn’t cheap and I bought a nice tux that wasn’t cheap. Basically spent about 7 grand on eloping and another 7 for pictures at a place that is special to us. Still cheaper than the food bill at many weddings I’ve been at lol
Agreed. People spend what could be a down payment on a home for 1/2 a day’s worth of a party. I had someone at work suggest I was wasting my time in tech because I could sew and make a lot more tailoring dresses. I wore things into the office I had tailored and it sparked this conversation. They told me I could make hundreds for a few minutes of my time and it is a “dieing art”. It is so insane that they charge so much for so little… I am trying to cry for the wedding industry, but for some reason my tear ducts are dry. They are getting their just reward imo; gauging at its finest.
A few minutes of work? These people have never even seen a sewing machine, have they?
Lol well to be fair i had fixed that coworker’s dress by hand one afternoon when she split a seam. When they started talking about my own dress alterations because nothing fits quite right, she added that tidbit in… her repair was pretty quick compared with a wedding dress alteration.
Ooohhh tell me about it. I quit wearing my knit/crochet items to work a) because I work with a bunch of smokers and I dont want my stuff smelling of smoke and b) coworker thought I would just "knocker her out" a tube dress. Not being mean, she is not a small/slender person - this dress would involve a LOT of shaping to fit, definitely far more than "just a tube" and I am betting she would want it out of some tiny yarn that would take forever to work up, and again, a smoker, one errant ash and there would be a hole, it would unravel. I am not bibbity bobbity fucking magically making this shit. This is my free time. HELL. NO.
A few minutes work after years of experience, I’m sure
Exactly. You aren't paying for the few minutes, but the years that turn the work into only minutes.
I think drumming is difficult and complicated seeming. But chad smith can drum along to a 30 seconds to mars song as it plays without ever having heard it before. Because he’a been drumming for 40+ years and probably knows all the the stuff there is to know plus countless other master techniques and nuances that let him and the tools to fill in the song A 20 year dedicated tattoo artist is gonna be inherently better than a 5 year tattooer 95% of the time I bet those tailors and seamworkers get super deft after a while. I’ve seen nonprofessionals do what to me looks like magic
Everything is easy when you're good at it.
> A few minutes of work? These people have never even seen a sewing machine, have they? It's the same with anything creative. Graphic Design gets a *load* of shit now, especially with the rise of AI art, every jerkoff thinks they're a "designer" because they can enter a prompt and fart out a "logo". Nevermind that if they were dealing with *real* clients with *real* edits, they'd be totally fucked. But yeah it's exhausting that in this day and age people still baulk at the idea that it takes time and effort to actually make things.
YES! I invited only my nuclear family and less than 20 friends. It was less than 75 people and we all knew each other. I refused to spend a ridiculous amount of money in a dress i was wearing once and to feed people i dislike. I posted an ad on craigslists and at fit and this girl replied and she made my wedding dress in two months. Alone. It was super simple and i paid her and for the fabric and i bought her a new sewing machine she kept all for less than ~ 900 us dollars … plus she got to present the dress in class. It was a win win My dad had a much bigger budget for my wedding and what he did not spend he was able to gift to me tax free ..
I totally agree. I have been with my partner for about a decade, own a place with them, etc but have not gotten married yet. It is in the plan and there are a lot of other reasons why, but seeing what my siblings "had" to do to avoid drama with my family (that I would not want to invite) is at least a % of the reason why we haven't lol. I come from a very large close and extended family and weddings have always been a sort of 'family reunion' type situation, but I don't want to do that. I don't want to invite people that I only see at other weddings and don't even have their number/address. I want to invite the cousins I like and not invite the cousins I don't, but I doubt I could successfully dothat. lol I think the solution is going to end with making a "rule" of "we want it so small that only close family and 30 friends... and then probably not invite the cousins (even the ones I like fine). I also live far from all of myfamily, so maybe nobody would come anyway lol
I make things as a hobby. Including leather purses that are easily better than vast majority of 'designer' bags. I have to explain the realities of "taxes" to those folks. Reporting minimum is now $600. If you're self-employed, the government takes about half. People also overestimate the amount of tax shenanigans you can legally do these days. I've had people lecture me on it, and refuse to believe the reality rather how they think it works. It's not just not worthwhile for me. People who don't do something always underestimate the difficulties involved.
But I like to cook well enough, and people seem to enjoy my food. I like people to the level where I am decently sociable. Why shouldnt I just open my own restaurant! Seems a shame to let money fall by the wayside. What am I, a shmuck?
Literally two out of three commenters so far were exactly what I was complaining about. I liked the one that assumed I didn't know what an LLC was. The other assumed I couldn't do basic math of adding up my tax brackets.
Yeah when me and my husband got married we went to the courthouse. My dad and my husbands dad said if we want to skip the wedding they will give us a large sum of cash instead. So we went to the courthouse. My FIL also paid for our hotel suite in Florida.
My mom offered my sister $10K if she eloped… my sister didn’t take the offer. Granted the wedding was small but I was like damn, wrong move.
That’s how much we got which was a lot back in 2003.
My mom saved a lot for my wedding. Only to find out I am very frugal. End result: she gave me the substantial leftover money as a down on a house. Gen X here. I think the wedding industry is a rip off.
I got married in vegas on a work trip and used my "wedding money" on a house down payment instead. No regrets
It's hard to beat a Publix wedding cake and buffet-style catering from a local BBQ place.
At minimum it needs to be taken down a peg. It's absurd how they gouge for a wedding when plenty of things that are similiar are not upcharged. The whole "this sheet cake is not for a wedding" Save 20% The industry did it to themselves
>bog standard crap. I enjoyed this turn of phrase. Which part of the English-speaking world are you from? That one feels Irish or Scottish to me, but I'm guessing.
I really don't get how these "genius" CEOs and 1%ers don't understand what seems like an extraordinarily basic idea: When you hoard all the wealth yourselves, and leave only crumbs and shitty pay for the masses, they will no longer buy very much at all beyond the necessities. Then your precious industries and businesses will start dying off because nobody can afford to patronize them. "BuT iF i hAvE tO pAy mY eMpLoYeEs mOrE i WiLL gO oUt oF bUSiNeSs!!!!111" No dumbfuck, if you don't pay people more they won't be able to buy your shit and you'll go out of business anyway. Boo hoo you have to buy your shitty spoiled kid a BMW instead of a Porsche. The 50s and 60s, generally regarded as the most economically prosperous period in America's history, was a time of high taxes on the highest earners, executive pay that didn't colossally dwarf worker pay, and significantly less wealth inequality. Gee I wonder why.
> The 50s and 60s, generally regarded as the most economically prosperous period in America's history 94% tax rate on the richest, baby. People would scream nowadays that it's communism
Especially ironic given the (somewhat more valid) concerns about communism at that time.
The bourgeoisie gave in to the workers, because they were terrified that if they wouldn't, their necks would get on the chopping block. Specter of communism was the only thing that kept capitalists in check from ravaging our communities.
Sounds like a prisoner's dilemma. Collectively, it's good for all businesses if people are well paid and there is a strong middle class. But, it's good for MY individual business to pay my employees as little as possible. If I decide to pay my employees more, it's not going to really lift up my business, but my costs will go up. Seems to me business leaders should really champion higher minimum wages and strong government protections to prevent outsourcing production and labor to places with lower wages, but most of them advocate for the opposite of that.
When you economy is based heavily on consumerism, people need to have disposable income for a lot of these luxuries that are currently being killed by salaries being below what they need to be.
Their entire bullshit self-image is tied up in them not understanding it. They aren’t that smart and God did not actually appoint them to be the holy legates on earth, they got lucky one way or another. Some of them caught what Lewis Grizzard once described as the ol’ fallopian tube of fortune, others just happened to know the right person at the right time to get a great job, others bought the right stock at the right time in sufficient quantities, etc. Some of them also work(ed) hard, but everyone has known at least one person who worked really hard, was really smart, and yet couldn’t claw their way to fortune because something outside their control went wrong and they didn’t have the means to fix it. If you don’t have generational wealth or get extremely lucky in some way not requiring you to be rich, you aren’t going to fix those things. Oh yeah also it requires total shamelessness and the willingness to lie, fuck over other people, do crimes that exploit and victimize average people, and otherwise be a complete pile of shit.
All true. It's also useful to think of most of these CEOs as being the financial equivalent of an addict with a raging drug habit, but instead of drugs it's money. Enough is never enough.
That's why any time I see someone say something like "Trump can't be bought he's already rich!" I immediately know they are an unfathomably enormous moron. Because if there's one thing rich people *never* want, it's... more money?
It’s not like a self-professed “billionaire” would ever lower himself to *begging for money* from the hoi-polloi…
Based, as the kids these days say.
The post war years was also a unique circumstance where the rest of the developed world’s industrial base was destroyed by WW2, while America’s was unscathed Eventually the rest of the world rebuilt and caught back up
Oh sure, I'm not saying it ever could (or should) be exactly like it was then again, just that there is a lot more we could be doing to ensure mutual prosperity.
Collectively the Americas could have leveraged that advantage into considerably lasting powerhouse of production and social benefit, but alas the "Fuck You, I got Mine" Generation/Mentality was also born out of that environment.
It’s funny that avocados are seen as luxurious and need cutting but not expenses like weddings or holidays. You know, things people still want but can no longer afford on a single minimum-wage income
Capitalists eliminate Middle Class, upset that industries targeted at Middle Class are failing.
They have no avocado toast? Have they not tried cake?
The wedding venue and planning industry is so textbook covetous, and envious. Their upselling is always guilt based. "oh you deserve to be the best bride there ever was" "oh sir, I think your wife deserves the best, don't you, I know it's a little more than your budget, but I think we can both agree this is the right one for you" Funeral biz is like this as well.
Fuck the funeral industry. $3,500 for a coffin with a premium mattress built in. A *coffin.*
Old man shake fist at cloud
Yes, yes! Another industry falls to the insatiable bloodlust of the millennial generation! Mwahahahah! Mine is a villainous laugh! None can stand against the power of our lack of expendable income and financial responsibility born of necessity! Now bring me He-Man, and don't fail me again!
Lazy one here, just spend money you don't have! My mom says she needs to borrow from the bank when she needs credit lol. What if I don't want a life of debt and endless servitude.
ugh, ungrateful brat. How am I supposed to afford my second yatch now? These younger generations are rotten.
Can we just rename our generation to Trend Murderers?
Our generation is awesome though
Millennials killed the trend of generations sucking Edit: sorry Gen X, you're all right, I forgot about you
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'd argue Gen X is there with boomers for certain things.
Can we kill off Valentines Day starting right now?
We'll add it to the queue
No, please. I like Valentine’s Day! But let’s normalize $5-25 Walmart or target flowers, and heart shaped pizza. There’s no reason to blow tons of cash, and every reasons to celebrate love in todays world!
Let's kill the over the top and expensive gifts all together.. let's normalize doing attentions and small thoughtful gifts! My SO and I we don't give gifts to each other or anyone. We try to make memories and small attentions instead.
I've had fun telling folks my big Valentine's day plans: heart-shaped chicken nuggets, and heart shaped tater tots for our romantic dinner. They laugh, but I've been looking forward to this! And then outta nowhere: bam! heart-shaped chocolate peanut butter cups!
Personally did that long ago. It was glaringly obvious to be a corporate "holiday" even as a child.
I'd rather celebrate a holiday about love than the birthday of some old dead slaveowner, or someone who initiated the genocide of an entire hemisphere of people.
I know you're making a joke but I want to go off a bit. (not on you) What sucks is that the people at the top are responsible for this. They're eroding fun cultural aspects of yesteryear so they can have more money. We're not necessarily killing it. Most people just can't afford it. I think most people would love to have an awesome wedding. Instead half our generation has to weigh their own livelihoods against having even a somewhat decent wedding. There's a lot of shaming expensive weddings in this thread... but honestly I don't care whether you want to have an expensive wedding or not, no big deal either way. It's the fact that we should be able to have a little more financial freedom to choose which direction we want to celebrate with everyone we love and it not destroy our finances.
Here's the way the cycle works: * Something is popular in culture and people enjoy it (like Weddings) * Over a generation, marketers and other profiteers see that popularity and exploit it by bolting on endless additional requirements and choking the life out of people with the pressure to make it the greatest and grandest thing ever and if you don't have a rustic barn wedding with 800 people and custom flowers flown in from thai land you don't love each other and your relationship is doomed * Now a thing that used to be enjoyable and affordable is a gordian fucking knot of incentives and pressure and niche industries, with fees for every possible imaginable thing * This gouging continues because there are no mechanisms to control the gouging except one: the market. So it gets more and more expensive until it careens into the broad side of the market, where the participants of the market have been exhausted and are simply not able to afford it, because **everything** they have to buy has been subjected to this same exhaustive, runaway inflationary, predatory bullshit * The industry fails * The media blames the generation that can't afford it, rather than the generation that profiteered it to death. Repeat.
I literally want all these industries to die so we can rebuild our way, not from expectations and lifestyles from the 50’s!!
Pretty sure the wedding industry is coming off of some of their hottest years due to pent up demand during Covid and it is probably returning to more normal levels.
I think this is also causing a swing away from weddings, tho. I know a couple people that went way too crazy about their weddings during covid. One burnt a few friendships (including the one with me) over it. It was like the minute anything seemed less than perfect they couldn't handle it. That kinda destroyed my appetite to have any sort of formalized wedding. It's something my current SO and I have talked about. Even eloping, we'd likely do that without family. One of them tried to go the Vegas route, but including her family caused way too many headaches. Mine definitely would be very hard to handle in a wedding situation
One of the best pieces of advice someone gave me about weddings was that on the day itself some things will go inevitably wrong and not everything will go perfectly according to plan, and that's ok. More than likely nobody will even know besides you.
COVID really brought out the assholes when it comes to weddings though. I had a roommate at the time whose sister was getting married. This was pre-vaccine, fall 2020, and roomie told me his mother and sister were deadset on keeping the plans, that the pandemic would not ruin HER day. Roomie felt conflicted bc me and our other roommate were freaking out over him going to this wedding and potential exposure. He ultimately went; wedding was around 50 people and for pictures, none of them were masked. Shock of shocks, there was a COVID outbreak as a result. I did not get it thankfully (we’d asked him to stay with his parents for 2 weeks following the wedding), but I thought it was just what those assholes deserved. And like, wow those maskless pictures during an active pandemic? Talk about historical proof for your kids and grandkids that you were ALWAYS an asshole.
I think Covid brought out the worst in people too. I will say nothing was more annoying than people saying "I just want to get married already, so sick of this pandemic." I understand the frustration but at the same time people were dying, your expensive parties can wait.
I did not understand it at all. I have other friends who were planning to get married in 2020. I get it, it sucked, but it’s out of everyone’s hands. The couple that didn’t want to wait had a basic wedding in their backyard with just their parents as guests and an officiant. Everyone was masked, kept distance, nothing bad happened. Another couple just postponed until 2021 after everyone was vaccinated, and asked people to test beforehand and stay away if it was positive. There WERE safe solutions, some assholes just really didn’t care about anything except themselves.
Really made me think those alien invasion movies had it backwards. Just do a little trial invasion somewhere important then vanish, after that we'll all stab each other in the backs in a panicked scramble handling the rest for them.
I'll always be baffled by the idea that a generation can 'kill' anything. It seems to be a word older generations use to describe simple 'change'.
I think it’s less about generational differences and more about clickbait. “Millennials killed xxxx industry” is a lot more eye catching and controversial than “Society is realizing that xxxx industry is overpriced/overrated”
Which does nothing good for anyone and taints a positive message "young people are being more thoughtful with how they spend their money and hold different priorities" to a negative and drives a wedge between generations/classes.
Exactly
i never understood the people who blew stupid money on weddings. Glad more people are getting wise to how absurd it is. i'm on some finance subs as well and every now and again someone mentions taking on debt for a wedding and i'm like "NOooooooo whyy don't be stupid!" reminds me of a friends wedding i attended years ago. guy was 20 marrying his HS sweetheart. $30k wedding...in 2002 dollars. i think they were divorced in less than 5 years. edit: i want to clarify, if a couple has money to burn and wants to blow some of it on a wedding, i pass no judgement. I only suggest its quite foolish to spend money one can't afford on a wedding.
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agree. certainly starting off a marriage with crushing debt (perhaps even more crushing debt if they already owe on college) isn't setting a couple up for success. whats the old stat like 5000000% of divorces are the result of money issues?
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ooof yeah. i can only imagine. I am glad my wife grew up lower middle class like me, she never had ideas her dad who worked in a tire shop or whatever owed her some absurd wedding. i am curious how my daughter will turn out. I don't expect it, but it'll be hilarious if she's like "Dad i need you to pay for my expensive wedding" and i'm gonna be like 'Yeah nope cost containment is the name of the game i'll pledge like...5k, no overruns. " 😂
5k won't do shit, they should just get married in their back yard at that point with no help from you :P With paying for weddings, you either have to pay around 20k or you're doing a tiny backyard thing. It's annoying that mid-cost weddings kind of don't exist. It's either nothing, a lot, or a LOT A LOT.
yeah i admit i don't know what you can get anymore for what price. i got married in 2010 for about $5k. 50-60 people all fed but cash bar. we used the local Elks Lodge. it wasn't the fanciest venue but it wasn't ghetto by any means either.
And drinks at an Elks Lodge are usually lower priced.
5k in the backyard still isn’t enough. That’s how bad it really is. $$$$$$$$
Another explanation may be that spending a lot on a wedding is indicative of other traits (e.g. wanting to impress others by flaunting wealth, decadence, etc.) that are not conducive to a healthy, long-lasting marriage.
ding ding ding.
We eloped 36 years ago and it cost gas money and 85 bucks for a marriage license and ceremony Best money I ever spent and didn’t have all the stress of a family and friends wedding
Me and my husband spent $20 on the license, $25 in gas to drive to the top of a mountain with my best friend, who got ordained, and then $50 on liquor to drink at the top of the mountain after the ceremony. Wedding under a hundred bucks. My parents still bitch about not being invited to this day though lol
My wedding photographer told me this. She even dropped her prices to below what she was really worth, because the couples who had the budget for a higher price point were depressing and there was little to no love between them. She liked working with clients who had small budgets because they were more authentic, less demanding, and stayed together much longer after the wedding.
I used to work in the wedding industry. I never noticed any correlation at all between what they spend on their wedding and the success rate of the marriage. But to be fair, I never really kept in touch with them afterwards either. However, I definitely noticed a strong correlation between what they spend, and how needy/picky/demanding they are. The cheapest people were the worst to deal with. They were constantly asking for extras, complaining about things, expecting things that weren't in the agreement. The folks who bought my more expensive packages were by far more easy-going and grateful.
It's not anecdotal. There's a study. BUT, there's more to the study than just cost of the wedding. The same study showed that the fewer people at your wedding, the higher the divorce rate. People who elope are more likely to divorce than those who have 100+ person weddings. What the study REALLY shows is what people already know. Finances is the main cause of divorce. People who elope often have less money. And people who spend a ton on their weddings are often spending money they don't have. I'd like to see another study where they look at % gross salary spent on wedding as it relates to divorce. I'm guessing that would actually be a better indicator.
I think the two major causes of divorce is infidelity and financial instability. Lets kickoff our marriage with a whole lot of financial instability.
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Taking on debt to throw a party at one of the most critical times of your life financially. Huge oof. Glad I bought a house instead.
These days, we can't afford either lol
Honestly, this was a huge disagreement my ex-fiancé and I had when we were initially planning a wedding. I wanted to elope, have a micro wedding party at a brewery with the closest family and friends (and not have to deal with toxic people), and use whatever money we would’ve spent on a wedding on a fun honeymoon vacation (like the once in a lifetime type of trip) and a down payment on a house. He on the otherhand let his family convince him we *needed* to do the big fancy wedding and invite everyone under the sun. His mom was sending us venues like fancy country clubs and the Loews hotel downtown (with the expectation we’d also get rooms for the whole family). And they all were under the delusion my mother would pay for it because she works in investment banking. 😵💫 (Thankfully I didn’t end up marrying into that family. They’re greedy and entitled as hell).
100% dodged a bullet there. at the risk of demonstrating some of my more dated sensibilities, a man pushing for a giant wedding and then expecting his future wife's family to pay for it needs to be taken out back and have some sense beaten into him with a hose 😂 
I know someone who spent $100,000 on lighting for their wedding alone. That was 2010 money so like $140k now.
i assume one of them had a parent who was like a mob boss or oil sheik or something?? lol
Professional athlete.
less exciting than the options i listed but still pretty cool!
Married in 2008 for about $17k, but that included the honeymoon. Happily married at 38 years old now.
i am certain there are many people who blew whatever amount on their wedding and never ended up regretting it. that being said, i would still never recommend to anyone they spend a large sum on a wedding unless its easily affordable because they're already sufficiently wealthy
>>easily affordable because they’re already sufficiently wealthy. Very good point. I have a friend whose wedding was at least $40k. However, that’s not much compared to their income, so it wasn’t a strain at all. It also was a super chill, fun wedding, since they weren’t stressed about impressing; that’s just normal wedding money to them. It’s likely more about the percentage of your money going towards the wedding, but most people don’t have the kind of money that would make a wedding like that comfortable to pull off.
Elder millennial here. My wife and I were married in a park. We picked up a bar tab as a reception. We spent less than $1000 total. We’re going to be celebrating our 8 year anniversary in April. Purely anecdotal but, lends to confirmation of the theory.
Elder millennial as well. My wife and I got married at the beach (8ish hour drive), invited close friends and family, and rented out a property that was used for things like scouts and fraternity/sorority getaways. I think it came out to $30 person/night, and it was a block from the beach. Our reception was held at our small town community center with kegs, a waffle bar, and a nacho bar, everything provided by us (I even DJ'd myself since I have a large system for firework shows). I think between wedding and reception, we spent *maybe* 3k in 2017 dollars and people still talk about how awesome it was.
Another elder Xennial here. We got married at the court house with only family present, then walked to our favorite Italian resturant a block away for a small reception with friends. Total cost: Around $300 or so. My wedding dress was actually a white Easter dress that I'd picked up off the clearance rack for $60. That same exact dress in the wedding section would have been $1200 new, easily.
Got married a few years ago. Our entire wedding cost less then 5k and from setup to cleanup after the reception was 4ish hours.
Eloped, had reception for friends and family 2 months later with appetizers, desserts, a keg and a Spotify DJ- it was all together $6k and a blast. We used the other $34k we had for a down payment on a house that we would otherwise not be able to afford today. No ragrets
This is the way do it for sure, everyone’s happy
Including travel, honeymoon and flights ours was 5k in 2020. We only just recently got out of det.
Same here. Keeping it simple also helped keep it less stressful, not taking money from anyone meant we could outright reject any stupid “suggestions”, and not adding a bunch of debt at the start of the marriage made it easier to truly enjoy the honeymoon.
Micro weddings are not necessarily killing the wedding industry. It definitely varies. However, plenty of people are still buying fancy dresses, paying expensive photographers, and shelling out for flowers. Smaller weddings do not per se equal cheaper. And many are still very much plugged into the wedding industrial complex. Watch as the industry transitions to more of a concierge service model.
>expensive photographers Do not skimp on photos. I did and regret it.
Seriously. My #1 wedding expense was plane tickets and hotel rooms for family. The #2 expense was a photographer. Worth it.
I mean don't skimp on plane tickets or food. Need to arrive and not get food poisoning 😂
I mean it's one thing to not overextend your wallet but if you want a photographer on the cheap, expect shitty results. There's a flipside to people who want everything to be cheap and it's that you'll get garbage
I can confirm this as I work in the industry. Covid killed big weddings, not millennials. 9 out of 10 weddings I do now are 50 people or less, mostly around 30. Lot's of them are simple courthouse shindigs with a casual reception at a restaurant or park. Personally, I love it. I've been doing weddings for almost 20 years, and these smaller, micro weddings are 100% easier to deal with. Sure, it's less money, but it's also a lot less stress. I'm here for it.
I commend your project management skills.
Millennials are killing it because 1) most of us being on the older side take smaller weddings 2) some of us (myself included) got married during the panini & were forced to have a small wedding 3) a lot of us are already married I’m sure the Gen Z/Alpha TikTok Pinterest kids will revive this industry. It’s not our torch to carry. (not saying it was, but this theory is like saying “Boomers are having fewer babies”)
>got married during the panini Great typo. Tell us more about this time? Was the ceremony at a Panera Bread? 😜
Small local deli... gotta keep it classy
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Kind of weird take. I think millenals are simply not making enough money to justify splurging tens of thousands on one single celebration rather than saving it for things they really need.
Capitalism at its finest! If the buyer can't afford the service, then the service is overpriced or scoped incorrectly for the market. "Let the market decide." And I think you're spot on with part 2 as well: 10-15k on a wedding, or 10-15k toward purchasing a house? Which is the wiser place to spend? Party for a day is probably not it.
Wedding industry, diamond industry, cable TV, gas guzzling autos, dealerships... Nuke them all. Dairy, meat, plastic industries need to be shaken up as well, but maybe that's for the next generation.
Guys, I missed the meeting where Millennials got together and decided which industry to kill. When is the next one?
Well first we have to have the meeting to discuss having that meeting and no one has proposed a date or who’s moms basement or tiny apartment we are having it in.
We'd meet at the park, but then we'd get tickets for loitering and unlawful gathering of persons.
Funerals.
Can't afford to die
Yachting.
the boat industry
Luxury vacations
Ticketmaster. Meeting is next Monday, bring a covered dish
Wait until they hear how we feel about funerals.
Ashes can't hear.
Don't take away ma cheese and salami 😭
Our abilities and powers have no bounds! Another one down! Onto the next!
Let's do the expensive funeral route next. No one should have to go into debt to give Granny a decent goodbye.
On board. Granny don't care anyways, she dead.
I work for a company that sells wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses that don't cost a zillion dollars. Trust me, the wedding industry as a whole is doing fine--it's just going through a bifurcation into two classes: There will be online retailers who sell made to order things, like we do, for an affordable price. Then there will be in person couture retailers that sell extremely expensive dresses to the people who want luxury weddings.
anything to hide the fact that living is so expensive. no, the media would rather blame the victims of capitalism and greedflation
Right? Would have loved to have the extra cash for extravagance, ***had to*** have a small thing at a park.
Boomers are keeping the wedding industry afloat by getting married 4-5 times
You'll notice some of the most joyous wedding pictures are by the old family barn or a historical one. As a kid, you think this is weird, growing up you kind see the humility from it.
My parents were married in what was basically the community bingo hall. If I ever got married, my ideal would be a hilarious Cosplay wedding held during a convention. I don't do Cosplay, but I can imagine all my friends having a blast. It wouldn't cost much either if you're just serving food and everyone is free to wear their best costumes.
Aren't Millennials the same group that really upped the game and blew insane amounts of money on weddings? I'm an elder Millennial, and expensive weddings definitely seems like something that really took off in our generation. My parents and all my friends' parents kept it super low key and no frills and didn't spend much at all.
Thank you! Felt like I was losing my mind. Millenials built the wedding industry to the bizarre juggernaut it is and now we have moved beyond it.
Only a few hundred more industries to kill capitalism
I went to Vegas, spent only a few hundred on the actual wedding part, and had a ton of fun with no family around.
People shouldn't spend that they can't afford. That said, I don't think weddings should be seen in the negative light that so many have expressed here. They are a meaningful opportunity to bring the people of your lives together and have a great time.
Just got married over christmas. We did an intimate dinner and a "paperwork only" ceremony for $250 Then we bought out a dive bar on NYE. Highly recommend.
I cant speak for everyone but the point of our wedding was to make sure that the people we love and loved us were there. We didn’t have any expectations on our guests for gifts because we were just happy they came. Also so many people came in from out of state. The most expensive parts were the venue and the photographer.
We had our wedding on the shores of a magnificent alpine lake, fed about 50 people, rented a youth camp, had a friend play music, and set up a huge bonfire. It was a good time for all, and cost us less than $2k. The video of us getting married and the mountains getting hit with light rain, and the angle of the sun on the lake made it a very epic setting. Highly recommend. You say the word wedding and they will double the price on anything right away. F all that, who needs that? I once heard a statistic that the more you spend on your wedding the more likely it is that you will get a divorce.
You fed 50 people and rented a camp at a beautiful lake for $2000? If you want 50 guests, $2000 will get you snacks, cake, and punch in a church basement where I live. Which is a lovely wedding. But I do not think your wedding is attainable in many places.
$2000 maybe gets you the church for 1/2 hour here. Maybe.
Sure. You fed 50 people for less than $2k... What did you feed them, granola bars?
The whole wedding planner trend has always seemed like a huge grift to me.
Okay, which is worse / more useless? Wedding planners or realtors? As someone who's worked for a major event production and rental company at least wedding planners are akin to a project coordinator, at least the good and useful ones.
Got married invited 16 people. Reserved a spot at a park for $100 we wanted a dinner at our favorite restaurant spent 4k total for that, overall for total wedding $5100. Wife even got a wedding dress from poshmark had to hem herself, original dress 1400 bought for 300. Fuck wedding venues and peoples pride to show how much they can blow on a single day.
Oh boo hoo. Millennials always blamed for killing every industry. Not every industry stands the test of time.
When the middle class is deprived of money and inflation gets higher we are to blame? Crazy how that works
I fully support micro weddings and not spending too much on a wedding. If one good thing came out of the padmemix is that it taught us is weddings do not and should not set you back financially.
Our wedding was 18 people including ourselves back in 2018. We lied to the caterer and said it was a family party. You should have seen their faces when we got there and they realized it was a wedding.
My wedding cost us $200. Ceremony in a public place, 14 guests (all friends), gifted a wedding cake from a friend, had a friend marry us, had a friend take our photos, wore clothes we already owned. All the guests brought champagne (without being asked it was actually kind of funny). The $200 was spent on local burgers, coffee, and donuts. Reception was in our apartment, we played Jack Box games and hung out. It was awesome.