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"If we eloped we could spend this money on....."
I think this just about every day. All said and done, including rings and honeymoon, our wedding will cost about 20k. Assuming we had that to just spend (which I guess isn't really true because my parents are giving us 7k and they wouldn't do that otherwise... but let's pretend)... this is what we'd spend it on:
Fence for our back yard- $4,500
Stamped Concrete patio for back yard- $3,500
Landscaping for yard- $2,000
Lasik for me (hate glasses/contacts so much!)- $3,000
New furniture/tv for "man cave"- $5,000
Painting great room- $1,000
CS4 + lightroom for me- $1,000
And that doesn't even include buying me a new car, which I desperately need. But... it will all be worth it in the end. I'm told. :)
What could you be spending your budget on if you didn't have to throw a wedding?
omg with $30k to spend...
i'd go all out for a tahiti/bora bora honeymoon (min. $15k)
new living room set, kitchen table, french doors for our den, desk, chandelier for our foyer ($5k)
pay off all my student loans! the rest! :)
I'm so glad I'm not the only one making lists about where this money could be going! My family gave us about 20k, and we've put in some too. This is money we were told we could do whatever we want with and on some days I truly wonder what the heck made us decide to spend it all on one day!
If I could go back, I'd spend it on down payments for new cars for both of us, a honeymoon-esque vacation, and the rest would be a down payment on a house. Ugh, I am kicking the romantic part of myself that thought this was a good idea!
If we didn't have to pay for this damn wedding, I'd be putting every cent toward the down payment for a new home.
I also think about this quite often. Our wedding is also costing about $20,000 and I hate the idea of spending all this money on one day.
@missjyc- I'm jealous that you only have 10k in student loans!! that didn't even make it to my list because honestly... between the two of us we have 120k (80k mine, oy) and our entire wedding budget would barely nudge it haha. we have just accepted we will be paying them off FOREVER. :)
We'd probably just keep it in savings. Boring, eh? We aren't too spendy and we don't have any immediate needs. My husband wants a new car, but in a couple of years when his milage gets higher. Our loans have such reasonably low interest rates that it's almost crazed to pay them down. We would just do nothing with it, haha. Maybe outright buy first class tickets for a Hawaii trip we have planned for our 1st anniversary instead of using frequent flier miles. Though I'll admit that I'd LIKE new couches.
I say this to myself all the time! We're probably spending ~40k and more than half of that is to the reception venue. If we eloped (and our families wouldn't hate us forever for doing that!) we would be in a much better position to buy a house. Plus we'd both get Lasik.
I hate to say it.. but for 31 years I have been imagining this day.. walking down the aisle, walking into my reception.. I wish things were less expensive, but I just don't think I could elope. If we eloped, we only get the bit of cash my mom is giving us.. which might buy us refinished hardwood floors, a new half bath & fence in back yard... but I'd much rather spend it on my wedding...
Uhm... If it wasn't for this wedding I would be putting every cent towards paying off my student loans.
@corgi, don't be too jealous! i have around $20k from undergrad left... and id use the 10k towards that... but im starting law school in may and for the next three years, will amass another 60k, so i'm almost right there with yoU! lols.
i guess i shoulda said, 10k to pay off all my credit card debt and have a lil shopping spree (since my cc debt isn't the entire 10k)
Paying off debt.....well, the wedding wouldn't cover our debt, but it would make a HUGE dent!
@missjyc- ahh that does make me feel better! I had only about 10k from undergrad and left law school with 80k. oy. that last summer is hard to get through with the bar expenses and not being able to work... i took out 9k right before i graduated. *sad panda*
@ella- that is SO great that you don't doubt your choice to spend the money on the wedding. honestly... i wish i was one of those people who was certain it was all worth it. I think your life is probably less stressful and guilt-ridden :) i'm a person who has not always dreamed of my wedding. i have no idea what i want or IF i want anything really... and a fiance who would rather elope. I'm doing the "wedding thing" because i'm scared if i don't i'll regret it... but it makes for a very stressful experience because i'm constantly questioning all the money i'm spending on something i'm not even sure that i want!!
Oh boy...while we don't have NEAR the budget some of you have mentioned I still think about how this day could pay off several bills!
About half of my student loans: 7k
OR
Pay off the furniture: $1500/Have a freakin' sweet honeymoon: $5500
OR
Pay off a third of our car note!
Sigh...we both reallly want this wedding, so...cest la vie, right?
Lol, i could do a lot with the 18K we spent on the wedding. I don't think I could have justified spending the money on the wedding if either of us had student loans or personal debt. We have neither and it's STILL a lot of money! I just don't think I coulda done it!
@ejs- i agree with you on personal debt. but we're both psycho about staying out of cc debt. student loans though... meh haha. i think i'd be a lot more gung-ho about paying them off if they were like... 20-30k. but at 80k, i will NEVER be able to pay them off in a big chunk. and my interest rate is low. i just think of it as a monthly payment i'll have forever as the cost of being an attorney.
For the $5000 that was our wedding, we could pay off and fix my car: $3000,
go to disneyland (I've never been and he hasn't in years): $600
rent a bigger home: any amount!
I love the wedding that we had and it was only $5000, but it's fun to daydream about what we could do this various amounts of money.
With $20,000 (roughly the amound we put into the wedding) we could put a nice downpayment on a condo in PR and never look back.
@Corgitails, haha, true. I went to a cheap college so the idea of 80K in debt makes me go "gah!". But i'm getting ready to pull out 35K in loans so i wonder how my perspective on them will actually change one i have the loans. We'll see.
Ours is only gonna run us about $3000, but tuition here in Canada is about $6000, so I could pay half of next year's school with my wedding money.
@corgi: It also helps that my FI's first wedding was a spur of the moment thing at the courthouse... That marriage didn't go so well, so I don't want this to be ANYTHING like it.... I want him to have a TOTALLY different experience.
And at the same time, while I wouldn't really change spending what I have, I do totally covet those "perfect weddings", however.. If I were given more money right now... I don't think I'd spend a penny more on the wedding! I need to tell myself every day that it will be perfect!
Our wedding only cost about 3k, so it wasn't a huge dent that could have been applied elsewhere. Maybe some new furniture or put it towards the honeymoon that we keep having to put off.
@ejs- it wasn't undergrad that got me. Like I said, I was able to work throughout for living expenses and my parents helped some and I got out with 10k in loans. But law school... ugh. You can't work at all during school really and its way more expensive. Plus books are just insane. I just kind of got the attitude that I was going to live as frugally as I could but beyond that you just CANT obsess about loans. There is no other way to get an education so you just need to bite the bullet and do it. I believe that going to law school allowed me to get a job making at least double what I would have made without it (sociology degree!), so in the end it was totally worth it, and my monthly student loan payment is just a "law school tax" i'll pay foreeeeever heh
honestly - my biggest "if we eloped, i could have used my $17,000 that i have used on my wedding on..." I would have paid off:
$10,000 credit card (even though i have this debt, NONE of it was wedding debt, it's all old debt...)
$1,000 credit card (same here)
$2,000 for kitchen upgrades
$3,000 just to go to the rest of the house - upgrading electrical and other small things.
I'd get rid of all our credit card debt/student loans...then put a down payment on a house...
We were just talking about this last night! It's not as much about what we would spend the money on, since we are so lucky to have my parents pay for the wedding. But we are so stressed and overwhelmed by how BIG this thing has gotten, and we were saying how much of a stress relief it would be to everyone involved if we just went to city hall.
Oh man, this wouldn't work for us, because our parents are helping for the wedding, not gifting us a lump sum. We're paying for about $5,000 ourselves so I'll use that
-new shoes and clothes. Sounds stupid, but we've been so good with not buying replacements that our clothes are starting to get gross and old!
-I could switch back to the better birth control. I hate the generic with my body, but can't justify $50/month when I can get the generic for $10/month. And my ridiculous school doesn't believe in birth control or HIV testing so I can't go to the clinic for a reduced rate.
-eating out again. I miss it some days!
-a new bed. Ours is old!
-a nicer apt next year.
Ummm...new clothes and shoes (I'm truly sacraficing). Food. I guess just things we want. Our budget is only 7,000
We could've payed off BOTH of our cars with the money we put into the wedding :(
@corgitails, yeah that's the price of 'higher' education--your education costs a ton, but you make more but it takes YEARS for you to actually reap the benefits of banking your whole salary.
There's a reason I looked to have the Army pay for medical school back when I wanted to go, haha. I was willing to sign away 4 years of my life for that free ride!
Do our dream holiday..
Buy an around the world ticket and go from country to country going from concert to concert.
Worry about a putting money on a house, when we get back :P
haha... ah well. It will be worth it!
If my parents gave us the money that is being spent on the wedding, we could buy that new truck we desperatly need (his car leaks and the back seat litterally floods) and then still have our fabulous at home reception with change to spare. I seem to be the only one worried about the cost of everything though, so that will never happen.
Funny about law school debt. I'm graduating med school on May 6 and so is my fiance. B/n the two of us, we owe about $300K (and neither of us has undergrad debt....this is med school alone....in state tuition). Hence, the $5000 wedding budget. We are also buying a new home 2 weeks after the wedding, so I guess the wedding budget could have gone into the closing costs or med school debt :o(
We have a $5,000 budget, which includes $1,000 his parents are giving us, so we couldn't do A LOT, but we could make a small down payment on a small house, by me a small used car, make a very small dent in our loans, or JUST pay off our credit cards.
Ack! Sometimes these thoughts start to creep into my head...truth is, I don't even want to think about it! When all is said and done our wedding will probably cost about $50,000-$60,000! I feel like this is a ridiculous amount to spend on one night However, we will have about 300 guests and FIL are paying for most of it. But when I think about what this money can do:
Glad someone else thinks about this. Erase my school debt and buy a used car. :S
hmmm with $45k, furnish our condo, have a baby! travel.
or throw a kickass wedding that we'll remember for the rest of our lives.
considering it's the parent's money, it's wedding or nothing :)
Honestly, I haven't even thought about that. If I did, I think my fiance & I would have opted for a smaller, courthouse wedding or something of the sort. And, had we chose to go that way, our families would be OK with it. To me, our wedding is worth it and that's how I am choosing to spend the money we've been given.
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