What We Hate About Weddings?

I’m a dude who kicked off the planning. I agree that there is a lot of “keeping up with the Jones” when it comes to weddings and that part is totally a scam. That said, I see it as a valid excuse to have two simultaneous family reunions with a little sidebar for two people to say, “hey we love each other and we love you all, thanks for coming.”

I just got engaged this weekend, and immediately started educating myself on what goes into a wedding. Oh boy howdy, it’s a lot. The first thing nearly every site I signed up for had me do was make a website!? With matching ridiculously expensive save the dates and invitations. The whole thing was starting to feel not only expensive but too flamboyant for my taste. My partner and I aren’t shut ins but we are pretty introverted, and the idea of inviting every single person we share blood with because anything under 100 guests is a small wedding, was a little ridiculous. We decided on 40 guests, in his dads backyard, with pizza and cupcakes and a Spotify playlist. It’s low key, I have faith with the people we are inviting it’ll be fun, and still romantic even though we aren’t forcing hundreds of people to give us all the attention for a whole day. Long story short, thanks for being one sane voice in the avalanche of people trying to sell me something!

The commercialization of weddings is a scam indeed. Let’s not assume this is the only way to get married, though. My wife and I spent money only on weddings rings and dinner at a normal restaurant. We even had a party the night before on the street in front of my parents place. Everyone had a blast and some neighbors joined as well! I would do it again if I could! Best couple of days of my life!

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 🤖 Weddings can cause ethical and financial drama among families and friends. 00:44 🛡️ The average cost of a wedding is $30,000 and attending one can set you back $611 on average. 02:50 💼 The concept of the modern wedding emerged in the 1800s with Queen Victoria’s lavish wedding. 08:30 💰 Weddings have become a mass-marketed production with emphasis on luxury and opulence. 15:47 💔 Marriage is treated as fundamental to social order and is financially incentivized, but it excludes many and can cause financial burdens and disparities.

My friend is getting married in October, and of course I declined, because 1) it’d cost me $6000 just to attend (via travel & accommodations), 2) I haven’t even talked to her in years, and 3) weddings are boring as hell, especially Catholic ones. I had another friend get married for the second time in 2021 and also chose not to attend, because I knew it wouldn’t last and I didn’t want to waste my time or money (the divorce was in fact finalized last month).

9:06 I am a man who planned his wedding (with my wife). Not only that, we worked together to make sure that the budget of our wedding didn’t exceed what we could pay for in cash and would not put us in debt. We had a great wedding and avoided any “traditions” that we didn’t want / need. We only did the things on our wedding day that we wanted to do and not what was “expected” and it significantly reduced the stress. We also avoided the “wedding tax” by making sure weren’t up-charged for things just because it was for a wedding.

Just got married 2 weeks ago.. The burden of planning falls on the bride often b/c between they’ve been getting fed the allure of being brides their entire lives. And when a young girl is fed the idea of a dream wedding day all about her, and finding her Prince Charming, she wants it a certain way. We as men, generally have not been fed this messaging the same way, this don’t think about all the small minutia until the moment presents itself. Even when we are told by our bride-to-be’s for our input, if it doesn’t match with what she wants than the price of bowing to her desires is much less than fighting for your opinion, regardless of how sensible it is. The wedding industry preys upon young girls from birth and they’ve been planning this day since they were 5. As grooms, we just want to make our future wives happy. There is no winning there for us.. we often feel like accessories during the process and on the day of. This is not to whine or complain, but just a realistic reason as to why the burden falls on the bride. We understand it is what it is..

All of our rings were $40 each (engagement, both wedding bands). My wedding was $6k back in my husband’s country with no special decorations in the venue. Did I mention that they don’t do altar ceremonies (so no bridal party)? It was so easy. Plus, my mother-in-law handmade a traditional outfit for me. It was all a wedding needed to be and no bullshit. Meanwhile, my sister had a $7k engagement ring and manipulated the parents to help her pay for her $40k wedding (even though they’re not well off at all). There was so much drama being a bridesmaid like her getting upset that people didn’t wanna pay $500+ to attend her bachelorette party. It was so expensive but as an attendee, it was nothing special. All that for basically a duplicate student loan. My husband and I make way more than my sister and her husband. And yet they just burned through all that money when they still don’t own a house. It’s stupid. Could I “afford” it? Maybe. But do I want to waste my money on it? Hell no. perusal her make all those bad decisions was so frustrating but it’s not like I can tell her what to do on “her day”. It just makes me so mad.

I’m a guy who did half of the wedding planning. I designed my own wedding suit and was involved in every step of the wedding planning and design except for the design of her dress. Our wedding didn’t really fall into the description in the article either. It wasn’t a consumerist display for our family and friends; it was a massive tribute to each other, the largest and most customized party we would ever throw. It was all about each other, from start to finish. It was also nowhere near as expensive as described. All in all, weddings are a scam if you follow this formula. If you ignore consumer pressure, take control of it and make it what you want, I’d say a wedding is a great way to kick off a fantastic marriage.

As a newly wedded male, I can confidently say I contributed more to the wedding planning than my wife and I’m both proud and very happy I did what I did. We started with a budget and ended up being over by 3%. And honestly 30% of the entire budget is for my family’s accommodation being interstate travelers. We put the whole thing together to be as intimate and warm as possible for our 20 guests. We would not change a thing if we had to do it all over again. Much rather save the money to go towards a house deposit!

In my law degree I wrote an essay about marriage vs cohabitation and read a government whitepaper analysing the institution of marriage. It started off explaining that marriage is entirely a social phenomenon that the government should have no place in, it carried on explaining why it was a social phenomenon that the government has no place in and ended concluding that it’s important that the government enshrine marriage. It was a wild ride

My cousins did their wedding right. At the bride’s house, both families and all friends attending, everyone brought something (i brought a case of beers and lasagna) pushed all tables in the house together to eat together, finished up with a couple aunts doing babysitting duty while everyone else got drunk, danced, played cricket and generally had a blast. Anyone could crash at the house but had to pay the fee by helping with the cleanup. Couple of the groom’s mates crashed in the lounge room and helped clean the place up after. Though they got a free breakfast out of it.

As I’ve gotten older and having gone through a marriage and divorce I find the entire concept to be antiquated. Weddings are a colossal waste of resources and my ex wife and I even went out of our way to be low key and chill. Close family and friends only. It was still very expensive due to outrageous rates for anything that comes from the wedding industry. It’s also so difficult and time consuming to decouple your finances after a marriage it’s almost not worth marrying again in the future, to me. Not with a coin toss’s chance at another divorce. Years later I found a credit card in my name that my ex wife had. Thankfully she was paying on it.

Man who planned over 50% of his wedding here! As a pro musician I have performed at hundreds of weddings and therefore benefited from the wedding industrial complex. Everything you say in this article is spot on based on what I’ve seen. If you have the means and desire to throw a big party, go for it, but unless you shape it according to a sense of what it means to you, it will be a hollow experience. For example, having all your friends and family there eager to celebrate you, while you are away from them for an hour trying to take the perfect photograph. Is that really what you want?

9:11 My fiancée and I are planning our wedding together. The main reason I’m helping is to share the load and manage things easier. I would have felt weird having her do everything anyway. The second reason is because I didn’t want a ceremony but I’m going to have my opinions on it. I’m an introvert with social anxiety, but she want to have one. There is no real middle ground there. I thought in the future she would regret not having a ceremony more than me having an anxious day. So, I wanted to be fully involved and have my say with what I will and won’t do.

The best advice I was ever given on marriage was: Before getting married, Travel together to a new country where you don’t or barely know the language, get lost, do something dangerous, try something new, and live together. This is one of the best ways to get to truly know someone else, and you see so much of that which people hide, that frustrationed person underneath, and how well you can work together in tense situations. Also, have a cheap wedding, spend half that money on a good honeymoon, andnmake long term, wise finacial investments. Not sure who who said this, I think it is a paraphrase of three or more celebrity quotes lol. Still solid advice I think. But I’m single so what do I know.

coming from the lGbtq side, we almost eloped in vegas, but at the time, my grandmother had passed, and being the matriarch, she was where we would all go to gather our very LARGE family, but after that, we had been more fragmented. so i wanted to have a wedding, partially for gay pride, partially to get the family together for something happy (not another funeral) and for extra fun, we had a 1920’s theme wedding. it was great. people loved the theme, and weve seen people hang the invitations we made because of how pretty they were. oh and we didnt have a registry. we just wanted people to show up to party. also we ordered a small version of our wedding cake because it was that good. anyone who has bland wedding cake shouldnt be having a wedding in the first place

I got married a few months ago – my now wife is a medical resident so she didn’t really have time for planning so we hired a wedding planner and the wedding planner and I did most of the prep panning. My wife was very happy on the wedding day; I was mostly happy I didn’t have to plan anything anymore 😂. I will agree that wedding costs are too much though.

Definitely agree, I’m with someone whom I love more than anything, going on 10 years but we’re both still young & therefore poor. At least a whole paycheck goes to rent utilities and other bills, so we know a flashy wedding isn’t in the future and our plan rn is just a super nice vacation abroad for just us two; it’ll still be expensive but atleast it’s money on something we want to make us happy & not just a ‘nana-nana-boo-boo’ to people we haven’t seen in years & will never see again

My home country has a tradition of having huge weddings. We has maybe 200+ people back in 2008? Also cost about 25k usd. However, it was the parents who footed the bill. It was their request, after all. Me and my wife just wanted to register the marriage and maybe get a couple of friends as a party? But noooo, it had to be a grand wedding, eh

It doesn’t have to be this way and your wedding doesn’t have to be a 5-6 digit expense. You could elope, have a backyard wedding with close friends and family, or just get the cheapest options available to you. Oh yeah and it’s never about the money to get married, at least not anymore. Just go to the court house and celebrate your own way.

My fiancé and me are planning our wedding right now. We’re both equally envolved and we agreed both to wanting something “bigger”. we are going to have around 80 guests. We’re in Austria, so not that affected by American wedding and spending culture (yet). We have our wedding venue in a rural area close to his home village though, and we are sure to spend all the money with local businesses. I feel good about that because I think those smaller caterers and florists and bakers deserve to get those paychecks. plus, some of them are losely connected with relatives of my fiancé and as it’s a pretty tight knit community, those people will make sure we get a good deal and good service. If you’re going to spend a bunch of money, I think this is how it should be.

I think it is bullshit to say men are wrong for not putting more work into planning their weddings. You know why most men don’t? Because it is the woman’s dream day, not the man’s. If men planned weddings they would cost 1/3 of what women spend or less, and be far less extravagent because men typically feel less social pressure to spend big and put on an extravaganza. Men don’t care as deeply about the social show; women do. So, we step back and let the woman get exactly what she wants instead of risk dissapointing her and hearing about for the rest of our lives. If women want help, lower your expectations and be willing to accept simple fun instead of a day designed to make you appear “perfect” and “flawless”, and trying to make all your friends jealous over how “perfect” their day is.

I don’t know why men not planning a wedding is framed as a misogynist state of mind. To the point of this article, weddings are marketed to women because they’re susceptible to the opulence of the modern wedding. If women left the wedding planning to the men, it would cost a couple hundred dollars. Women wouldn’t let men plan their wedding, not really. Not without a lot of oversight.

@8:58 To be fair to the dudes, it should be acknowledged that they often aren’t allowed any input on the wedding, even if they want to (I’ve yet to meet a guy who had the luxurious vision of a wedding most women seem to have). Much of the industry relies on the marketing brainwashing that’s been instilled for generations that it’s the Bride’s day — the Groom’s input is typically limited to who gets invited from his side and what the bar serves. Changing the Bride (or often her Mother’s) vision is as violating as the idea of not getting a diamond ring for the engagement. I only hope that COVID the proliferation of COVID weddings got some sectors to rethink the insanity that the modern wedding has become in cost and effort.

I think the latter half of the article is great. Postfeminist thought is more nuanced than YouTube’s algorithm would have you believe. \r \r Wisecrack is one of the handful of YouTube websites I trust to address the overlap of romance and consumerism, and do it with some sincerity. I don’t think this article as anti-love or even anti-marriage, I think it’s just plainly railing against vapid consumption and manufactured cultural spectacle. It’s cool that they are linking economics, philosophy, and relationships (in all their various forms).\r \r I hope everyone who is getting married these days does it because it genuinely means something to them and their partner, not because they feel like they “should” or are “supposed to”. That’s just the internalized consumer culture talking.

Weddings suck. 100% bs. Our wedding was done more to appease my wife’s mother who only had a JP ceremony with the required number (1 for each side) of witnesses to make it legal and then a small party at their house. Which honestly sounded rad as hell to my wife and me. But because there was fall out over some family not being at their wedding, we had to have a big to do with all the grandparents and aunties and uncles. We so should have just gone to city hall to file the right paperwork and then had a shindig with our friends and immediate family only. Will definitely suggest this to our kid if they end up getting married (but also be willing to go bigger, within reason, if wanted). I also recommend just asking for cash as a wedding gift, making your guest’s life easier by not having to check a registry and buy some random flatware set or something at some big box retailer. Down with the consumerist wedding industry!🧨💥🔥

In today’s money the avg wedding cost a house deposit. ($40k-50k) What would you rather have? A fancy wedding or – A Despot for a house – A fantastic holiday for the next 1-10yrs (depending on how much you spend each time) – Furnish you entire house – Give your kids a fantastic childhood – Pay for the insurance of all you things for the next 10-20yrs – Pay of an amount of both your student loan debts or go study instead. Basically saying you improve you life or throw a massive party

One of my closest friends got married in court and threw a barbacue at Prospect Park for close friends and family. It was during the summer so there even was a free concert at sundown the whole party could move to after cleaning up for ourselves. Sincerely the best wedding I’ve ever been to and it cost practically nothing to attend and for them to organize. He even raffled some artwork (very well known) at the park to raise some funds for their honeymoon trip!

One big reason poor people don’t get married is: if they’re disabled and receiving SSDI or SSI, Social Security actually penalizes marriage by dropping the benefits when you get married. If both members of the couple receive benefits, they’ll both see their benefits drop. Thus, most don’t get married.

I’d honestly break up with someone if they tried to spend tens of thousands on a wedding and weren’t willing to tone it down. It’s just an utter waste of money and a good way to end up with enough financial stress to lead to a divorce. I’d much prefer something more akin to those traditional working class weddings where you just hang out with friends and family. Plus they’d probably expect me to do all the planning. Women’s work and all that…

I helped plan my last wedding: ok, more work was done by my ex-wife, but I planned the honeymoon all alone. And yes, I agree this is all a big theatrical money sink. I won’t say I didn’t enjoy, and it was an amount of money that didn’t break me financially, but all those expectations, “must-dos” and “must-haves” are really a pain.

Male here. Currently going through wedding planning with my fiancée and we both decided to split the cost of our wedding. I even took up as much of the wedding planning as possible since she’s in nursing school still. We’ve got around 100 people we’re planning on inviting but we’re saving a ton on venue by choosing to do it at my church cafe outdoor property and forgoing the vast majority of “add-ons”

My town doesn’t do “city hall elopement” so we have to get an officiant to marry us, which is $250, and that’s just us, the officiant and witnesses. I think $150 for a marriage licence. And then we are doing a little reception for 2 hours where we’ll have sandwiches… Ham and Swiss and Roast Beef and cheddar… Maybe a vegan option.

I don’t disagree, but as someone who just got married in June, it’s hard not to get caught up in the wedding industrial complex once you’re in it. I will say that I wrongly assumed that most of what drives up the cost of a wedding are frivolous extras: by far our greatest expense was feeding people, followed by the venue. Could we have spent less by going to a restaurant? Yes, but dancing was important to my husband and I think it is to a lot of people… I will say that if we had been paying ourselves, instead of my mother who is a doctor and makes twice our combined salaries, we would have insisted on something small instead of the 100+ guests we ended up having. Going into debt for a party is kind of insane.

I think often times women care more about weddings and wedding days (probably because it is marketed towards them since birth) than men do which is partially why women do a lot of the wedding planning and labour. Wedding days are also usually seen as “her” perfect day, not the grooms, who usually doesn’t care about most of what goes into a stereotypical wedding. Its not that the groom isn’t happy he is getting married to the bride but the average guy just doesn’t care all that much about weddings.

Me and my girlfriend moved out of 18, I was graduated, but she saw about seven months to go and she did it without informing her family Neither of us had a license, and we both worked as much as we could Then we got a car and started getting stuff together and after I proposed to her and she said yes, we discussed this whole thing and decided that we wouldn’t get actually married, unless it financially made sense lol we waited until after we had our first kid, and she was laid off of her job to get married, because it benefited us during tax season, as well as with a couple other lines of assistance that we sought out Ultimately, we just went to the courthouse and pissed off pretty much everybody that we knew because they only had a limit of six people coming to the ” wedding ” Literally to this day( about 5 years later) we talk about what kind of perfect wedding we would have, and who the maid of honor would be and crap like that, and we even have considered essentially redoing our wedding down the line and then we ultimately decide that money would be better spent on the kids or honestly a bottle of alcohol because why the hell does anyone have to parade around others to show you are making a commitment to them 😂

What i haven’t found in a article: the same time when women became more financially independent, cultural upbringing and socialization of women stayed the same. Women continue to be taught that marriage and wedding will be and should be the best day of their lives and now they have money to make it so, therefore many decide to. Previously wedding and marriage still was a big goal and the prize of being a successful woman in a society, but the actual image and the looks of a wedding weren’t really dependent on women in classes lower than elites, because they themselves were financially dependent on their family and later – husband. So what we see now is basically “postfeminist” outcome of patriarchal upbringing.

I am a man and I planned and paid for a lot of my wedding. I think the obsession with the wedding ceremony belies a lack of confidence in the institution of marriage. A large expenditure of money and resources is perceived to be needed to show one’s commitment to a relationship, whereas if couples put a tenth of that effort into figuring out how to be considerate of each other, respectful of each other, tolerant of each other, and supportive of each other, day in and day out, perhaps the institution would be more durable than it ends up being. An expensive wedding does not make a good marriage.

I dunno, I organised the venue, food, drinks, band, photographer, courtesy bus, cows (not a metaphor) and menswear… Wife organised anything else that wasn’t provided as a gift (fancy bridal party transport and post nuptial accommodation were gifts). Did she organise most of it? Was the labour split equitable? I dunno, she didn’t complain and hasn’t since so I guess I did ok. Cost wise we got away with less than $15k AUD for the whole shindig including providing some travel and accommodation for relatives, with the two main expenses being a live cover band and photographer. Worth it? Yes. The opportunity to get both extended families and friends together was worth the hassle and expense. While we minimised the distance for everyone to travel, it is unlikely that people would’ve taken the time for less than the ‘W’ word. Necessary? No. We could’ve gradually visited the guest list over a few years.

Wisecrack is my favorite website ever! And for any record, I absolutely have no grasp at all of why I would care about any theoretical wedding, even one of my own, let alone pay a dime for one of them. Such things are so outside of my ability to understand (not socially gifted here…) Dear god, i fought myself violently, from a budgetary point, regarding the $2 beer I’m drinking now, and a nice cold beer feels better than any wedding I’ve ever attended

Brides-to-Be usually plan their weddings cuz most dudes are good with “We gotta couple card tables, a couple table cloths. I gotta suit, you gotta nice dress. We’re good to go.” You can suggest that a predatory industry is built up around The Wedding, and I’ll agree, but to say that men FORCE women to develop elaborate plans on their own is horseshit. When I got married, my wife leafed through an ever-increasing pile of overpriced magazines trolling for things that she’d feel bad about if she didn’t include, despite efforts to stop her. In the end, it was a simple loving affair and we were happy with it. Thank goodness her Mom talked her off the ledge.

I feel it’s the “specialness” of weddings that everyone put on everything from media, kinda like how people does “Sweet 16” birthdays. You hear from people is “It’s my/_____’s special day” when comes to weddings, and everything must be “perfect” like they see on TV (or the internet). Honestly, I would rather just go to the courthouse, sign some forms, pay the processing fees, and hold a come as you are small party afterwards. Goes from tens of thousands to a couple of hundreds. Hopefully my future partner feels the same.

There are few facts presented here. Marriages ten to last only 8 years on average. Who is getting divorced and what are the consequences of divorce? No discussion. The high cost of a wedding reception seems like the only focus. Does the bride or the bride’s family foot the bill? Seems like it because if the groom was paying, it is likely that he would be in on the planning also. So much for “femininity” determining the wedding plans. The increasing cost smacks of capitalist interests intervening into family formation in yet another way although there is no reasoning offered for the opulence or poshness of these events – what is the motivation or desire for the wedding, for the reception? Given the increasing rate of illegitimate births, marriage looks more like an upper middle class ritual or at best a traditional practice where the age old reasons for marriage: romantic love, legitimate births, and even inheritance are norms being followed for practical reasons.