With our wedding we paid for all of it, just the two of us as neither of our parents had coin for the project anyway, and it was less than $5K total including everything and the fee for the county officiant we'd hired. We paid with cash from our savings. BTW that was also just about how much money I'd used to fund my then 2 yr. old startup so for us $5K was a damn lot of money to be blowing on somethign that would provide us no tangible financial return nevermind spending more than that in multiples of 2, 5, and 10 like most of our other friends & family did...who are now all divorced or separated but one.
There is no real reason to have some crazy extravagant and kings ransom costly wedding, if you are paying for it. Our wedding was come this Halloween 8 yrs. ago and still people talk and remark about it. Even the officiant sent us a letter afterward saying he had a grand time during our reception and after party and that guy was some old geezer on his last week before retirement. It was fun, small, classy, had lots of music and dancing and laughing and didn't at all come off as cheap even as we kept to a very strict budget.
As to the honeymoon we didn't have one. Instead we took the money for a trip to Moneysuckville with pics to put in a scrapbook and invested that into a down payment on a house we'd built. We both saw that as being a more favorable and lasting memory and memorial toward getting our marriage off to a strong foot than throwing ourselves down a debt pit from which we had for years prior worked very hard to get out of...and stay out of.
But then we, like Ducman, did things in a non traditional manner and as well put or foot down toward the naysayers and haters who before hand swore our wedding would come off 'cheap'. It didn't while the naysayers and haters, they for the most part found themselves hearing about it from the VIP only guests that made our purposefully short and exclusive list of friends & family invited attendees. We were strict about that too. No wedding crashers and no if you were not invited don't bother asking or begging for an exemption.
Good luck to ya Bruce but do not feel like you are in a headlock by your wedding and getting married. That whole industry and the De beers diamond cartel too are nothing more than racketeers who prey on peoples emotion, sentimentality, and simple outright stupidity...kind of like the automotive industry, the insurance industry, the funeral/mortician industry, and well many other industries.
Keep your wits about ya and don't get sucked in by everyone elses hysteria, histrionics, and attitudes about what you are supposed to be feeling, desiring, and being.
Just $0.02 for a friend and hoping this doesn't sound too cynical.
- Janq
P.S. - WTF man?! You know TTIWWOP!!!1
