How much should a wedding cost?

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I’m not surprised to learn about wedding loans because so many are conditioned into accepting that debt is normal. Most students graduate in debt thanks to student loans. Maybe it would be better to pay their fees and recover them later, but that’s off-topic.

I wonder if couples should pay less attention to the wedding itself and more to their anniversaries, marking the achievement of happy years together.

I have not been to a wedding where the family has provided much more than the cake and decorations but at other events the food is usually much better quality and it’s more personal. Employing commercial caterers means that a significant amount of the budget goes to pay the organisation that provides the food.

Well, as you seem intent on this course of action I thought I’d provide a choice of wedding traditions.

Marriage for love is a very recent phenomenon; for most of recorded history it’s been essentially an economic and military / strategic union. In past times there were common elements: gifts, which included rock, horses, saddles, (Ørnulf Hodne recounts an example in his book Kvinne og mann i norsk folkekultur [Woman and man in Norwegian folk culture], in which the bride was “bought” for all the granite that lay six meters below the Tisleia river) and of course, the often mandatory chastity belt.

In ancient times the bride was often given three gifts: the first on engagement, the second on the wedding day and the third on the morning after the first night, a tradition now somewhat superfluous. In many Greek weddings it’s still accepted to pin money to the bride throughout the night (suppose it ensures she sticks around at the reception, anyway). Jewish weddings always have a lot of broken glass involved, for a variety of reasons. But both Jewish and Greek weddings are lots of fun.

In Gaelic wedding ceremonies when a bride entered her new home, by custom her mother-in-law would break a cake of bread over her head, as a token that she would take over as the woman of the house. Best to hope she wan’t adept at making rock cakes… But in the 12C marriages in Ireland were only for a year. They also prohibited the obese, infertile and impotent from marrying.

In ancient Abyssinia after the first night the bridegroom would emerge with a filled cup. If he and the Bridegoom’s father drank it, everything was fine but if he poured it out it was proof that the Bride wasn’t good in bed – or cave – and the marriage was annulled.

In the Northeast corner of Russia the Kamschatkadal (Kamchadal) demanded the Bridgroom would be sold into a brief slavery to her parents. If her parents were satisfied with the work, they’d give permission to marry the girl. This meant the Bridegroom had to find her and and strip her naked.

Swedish weddings involve the Bride attempting to see her husband on the wedding day before he sees here; that way she’ll be in charge of the marriage.

In Colombia the groom’s best man follows the couple into the bedroom, waits until they’re under the covers, beats his friend with a whip and yells, “Look at each other, kiss, and embrace! FAST!” In old Colombia, the whip-man follows the couple to their marital hut and yells at the groom, “TAKE THE WOMAN!” and then beats him with a whip. Can’t help the concentration…

British royal marriages involved the first night surrounded by the Privy Council, taking detailed notes as events unfolded. Gave new meaning to making sure the entry was accurate.

I looked up wedding traditions in the UK and it mentioned that the bride throws the bouquet of flowers. I’m sure Lauren will be happier with this tradition. 💐

I believe originally the tradition required that only marriageable [nubile] women were assembled in the throng to catch the bouquet, with a little contrived jostling taking place to ensure the ‘right’ girl got the prize as the sign that she would be the next lucky lass of the village to take the bridal path. I seem to recall that was one of the ironies underlying Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Nowadays the bouquet ritual seems to be a mad free-for-all involving all available female folk be they maidens or matrons.

I suspect the point is not to pontificate but to assess whether wedding arrangers are becoming too greedy .

It is the families (traditionally the brides, but more usually the prospective bride and groom) who decide what sort of a wedding they want. There are then no end of ways to arrange it and that is their choice. if they want to hand it over to a professional arranger for a fee then again its their choice. Its not quite like a funeral where the whole process and costs seem much more opaque and more worthy of this sort of discussion than a wedding. We each decide how to spend our money, whether it is on expensive holidays, houses, cars…..and we all sometimes make a choice others might disapprove of. But we live by our choices.

@Laura, I am sure you are a sensible bride-to-be and know how to deal with your finances to achieve the ends you want. Congratulations on your engagement and I wish you every happiness.

It is too late now but I gather Dubai is a very good place to get an engagement ring made.

As long as you Dubai the ring and don’t use credit.

Delete ‘you’. I should not attempt humour early in the morning.

I find it curious, Malcolm, when you say “We each decide how to spend our money, whether it is on expensive holidays, houses, cars…..and we all sometimes make a choice others might disapprove of“. Not simply ending a sentence with a preposition (although that does hurt) but a statement of the blindingly obvious which seems to miss the presumed point of the topic. Surely this is not about whether anyone disapproves or not (other than one or two have made that clear) but more about how Lauren can save a few bob on the big day?

I fear that Lauren may give someone the idea of selling budgeting spreadsheets for weddings. 🙁

For many hotels and other wedding venues these events are their No.1 profit stream but they are at risk of milking the market. Having said that, they are dealing with a market that is highly suggestible and afraid of appearing parsimonious. Because it is such a lucrative business many more places are developing that aspect so that supply and demand will eventually become more balanced such that extortionate prices might be moderated in future. Charging £20 corkage on a £5 wine is exploitation and since it is possible that you might need more than one bottle, Lauren, it might be worth seeing if you can come to a more favourable arrangement or just walk away.

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Generalising is fraught with difficulties. While some UK Asian families mighty be well-off and can afford lavish ceremonies [and I have been to a few], I expect the overwhelming majority of Asian families are in the lowest income quartile. That’s not to say they don’t give their brides a fantastic wedding but the expense is relative to their means, so humanity, goodwill and spiritual providence prevail over more mundane considerations.

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Duncan – I don’t know why you are having a go at me. I have not seen what you originally wrote and which has subsequently been removed by the moderators.

My comment above was not solely in response to yours except your first sentence where you say a “large majority” of the Pakistani/Indian population own businesses, which I do not think is remotely true. Even many that do own businesses are struggling financially since the market they predominantly serve is poorer than average. I was also reflecting on the poll referred to by Patrick T [on the money spent by the Asian community on their weddings] which I feel is unreliable since I would question whether the selected demographic is truly representative of the Asian population throughout the UK.

And I’ll thank you not lecture us [your final sentence] on the payment of interest which has nothing to do with this topic.

It is a feature of this site that the sequencing of comments in the sub-threads can lead to unfortunate juxtapositions.

I thought the cost of Asian weddings was a fair point in the context of this Conversation, Lauren; reference has previously been made to Greek weddings and other cultures’ traditions. I have added a few words to my comment above to reinforce its relevance.

I see this as a part of a much more general problem caused by social and peer pressure and high pressure marketing. Look at the way marketing is currently working on pushing people to change their phones yearly and extract more money for the privilege. The received wisdom seems to be that people should shop around for the best value for money for their wedding day but forgoing some of the frills seems a better way of saving to me.