The following is an excerpt from my book Margin Matters: How to Live on a Simple Budget & Crush Debt Forever.
Getting married is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make. If you’re fortunate enough to meet your one and only, you will quickly realize there is a major price tag that comes with it. Have you ever noticed when it comes to weddings, money is no object? Is it because love is blind?
Before You Say “I Do”
First, let’s start with the engagement. According to Brides 2018 American Wedding Study, Americans on average spend $7,829 on an engagement ring, compared to $5,023 in 2017. For us guys, this is a serious investment BEFORE we even get to the wedding—not that you ladies aren’t worth it. The same study cited the average cost of a wedding dress at $2,260—up from $1,562 in 2017. Groom attire spending is also up: $602 average in 2018 versus $328 in 2017.
On to the Wedding
It’s finally happening, and you’d better make it the best, most memorial event ever, right? Between the time I was 25 to 35, I attended a lot of weddings. It seemed as if everyone I knew was getting married (and remarried), which resulted in me attending a wedding at least once a month. It was exhausting, expensive, but also educational. I found myself taking mental notes at each wedding with most thoughts being, “That will NEVER happen at MY wedding.” I also took note of the estimated costs of these extravagant galas and struggled to comprehend the rationale. Specifically, I’ve been to weddings that I know easily cost more than $50,000 and some that probably reached six figures. And the popular destination weddings tend to drive up the price. Being the practical and logical person that I am, I thought, “Wouldn’t you rather take that money and use it for a down payment on a nice house?” as opposed to having a four-hour, blowout party with half the people there you don’t even know or like. Is it necessary to have 200 people at your wedding? Do you even know 200 people (in real life)?
The wedding industry is big, real big. According to 24/7 Wall St., there are more than 2 million weddings every year in the U.S., and business is booming. In 2017, it was a $56 billion industry. In America, the average wedding cost was nearly $27,000 in 2017, but that number has escalated to more than $44,000, according to the Brides 2018 American Wedding Study.
Our Wedding Story
My wife and I were both turned off by the big, outlandish weddings and thought it was a huge waste of time and money, nor was the stress of planning a wedding over an 8-to-12-month period appealing to us. Our decision process was aided by taking part in several of our friends’ weddings and seeing firsthand the amount of stress and anxiety that went into every little detail of the momentous occasion—not to mention all the family drama. (All my friends are reading this right now thinking, “Is he talking about our wedding?” Of course not!)
After learning valuable lessons from attending numerous weddings during our courtship, and since we were paying for our wedding ourselves, my wife announced that she desired to elope. However, I wanted a small event that would include my immediate family. The idea of a wedding on a cruise ship popped in my wife’s head as she recalled a previous wedding she was in that took place on a cruise liner. She began searching online for costs of cruise weddings. Knowing her favorite day was New Year’s Eve, we looked for potential events on that day—which I believe also helped bring down the cost. She found a wedding and honeymoon package deal offered by Carnival Cruise Line that fit our budget.
On December 31, we traveled to Tampa, Florida, where the ship was ported and had our wedding onboard before it departed. The package allowed us to invite 20 guests and provided a full buffet of food and open bar. It was cool to be treated like royalty and allowed to board the ship several hours before the thousands of other vacationers. Our wedding was at 1 p.m. We brought all our guests onboard and were the only ones on the ship except for the crew. Then, we kicked our families off before we set sail on our five-day honeymoon cruise later in the afternoon. We paid $3,000 for everything, but the irony is they tried to upsell us a photography package for more than we paid for the entire trip. We passed on the premier package and bought a few prints instead. When we returned home as newlyweds, we hosted a reception event for all our Atlanta friends for the cost of $500.
I will admit, we did things a little backward. We planned our entire wedding and honeymoon before I asked her to marry me. I guess we just knew.
What We Spent
- Engagement ring and band – $2,000
- Groom’s ring – $350
- Wedding dress – $300
- Wedding/honeymoon cruise package – $3,000
- Reception for our Atlanta family and friends – $500
- TOTAL – $6,150
Final Thoughts
In hopes of not sounding too braggadocious, I would like to share that over the years we’ve had several of our friends and acquaintances (perhaps still paying off their weddings) tell us how “We did it right,” and “We should’ve done something like you did,” regarding their weddings. Hindsight is always 20/20, I guess.
Did you know, Europeans spend roughly $5,500 to get hitched. Don’t get consumed with planning for your wedding when you should be planning for your marriage.