Real Talk: Financial Regrets

Hi there! I think this is a very valid concern that a lot of us have. My husband and I were very fortunate to have the majority of our wedding paid for by our parents (each parent contributed about the same) and then I used my tax return for the extras. Even with this not coming much out of our pockets we still questioned if we should be spending so much on one day. We're practical people and it was scary to spend so much on a day that while fun, could have been accomplished for much less had we done a courthouse wedding.

In the end...it was totally, absolutely, 100% worth it. On the day of, not once did I think of the costs with regret. I looked around at the beautiful wedding we'd put together, all of the people who came to support and celebrate us, and my husband's loving smile, and knew it had been worth it. Now 3 weeks post-wedding, I still feel the same. We kept within our modest budget and can't imagine having gone a different route-- the wedding is one day, but it is one day you'll remember forever.

If you are wary of spending *everything* you could, you might set your budget somewhat lower and try to stick to that while knowing you have a cushion if you need it!

My husband and I paid for the majority of the wedding (with his parents paying for the band and my mother paying for the dress and cake). We didn’t want to start our marriage in debt, so we discussed what was reasonable for us in regards to length of engagement, money contributed each paycheck, etc.

we absolutely 110% do not regret it. Yes there are purchases that in hindsight didn’t have to make (rented pipe and draping and didn’t use, didn’t have time to set up photo booth, etc), but we still weren’t hurting after the wedding. It’s all about being reasonable and what works best for you both.

i keep replaying the day in my head, and to be honest, I wouldn’t change anything and glad we went with the budget we did. Hope that helps!

Hi,
I regret to say that I'm regretting the amount of money we are spending. Parents are helping some but the bulk is our finances. And technically we will be in debt the first year of our marriage. I say technically cuz the debt is 0% intro APR. We are just going to have to work our butts off to pay off the debt before intro period is over. If could do it all over again I would have eloped. 21 days out and I'm just ready to be married.

Similar boat here to OP. Only my FFIL is paying and we moved up the wedding to Dec 2018 because of his health issues. So, like 50 days and we started planning last week. He is insisting on paying for the bulk of it. For which we are grateful because there's no way that we could pay for a wedding like the one we are having in two months. It's in our backyard and her dad is paying to have our entire patio redone to our dream patio (that we were going to pay for in time ourselves). So the money is going to something that I will enjoy for more than one day. HOWEVER I have major stress anxiety spending someone else's money. And the more anxious I get, the more money he throws at things! "I want yall to have a tent in case it does get cold" another grand. I am so blessed but I'm totally having spenders regret right now!

None of the married people I know who had big, expensive weddings like 10 years ago look back and say that it was worth it. We set a budget that was money we were willing to part with which was sort of on the low side (in wedding terms). On a certain level, I might rather have had a really nice vacation. But we made a budget, stuck with it, and spent according to our priorities so it was worth what we did spend, but I wouldn't have spent any more. I think that if we'd spent a bunch of money on "stuff" that would bother me - like thousands of dollars on a dress or flowers. When we were "wedding shopping" I used the same rules that I do with any other shopping decisions - shop around and the 30 day rule (as in will I still want this totally optional thing 30 days from now). It's easy to get caught up in the hoopla - and people are always making you feel like there are all these things you need and everything's going to get booked up and you're going to miss out on everything. But that's also a recipe for making emotional financial decisions.

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Thanks so very much for your reply! We are fortunate that my dad has been able to contribute more than expected but it makes me more torn on spending because we could save some of that for things like retirement savings too, which is so much more practical!

Unfortunately, we've been very budget conscious about everything that doesn't affect guests so we can't make any cuts! The original budget was 12,000 for around 75 people, which I think is pretty reasonable where I am. We're now looking at at least 14,000 >.<

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Thank you so so much for this view from after. It's helping me realize I'll have memories to cherish and that is valuable in itself!

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I really appreciate your honesty. It's hard to balance to excitement around such an important and emotional event with financial objectivity!!! I hope you're day is absolutely beautiful and all the joy and happiness of it helps offset the financial challenges of it! Plus, if it's a wonderful day to remember hopefully that will help all the hard work after seem super worth it!

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My dad is similar! The more I worry over cost, the more he reassures me he'll help and I shouldn't worry. He could dump buckets of money on me and I'd still agonize about if it should really all go to the wedding!

But with health issues and a short timeline in play, that really changes things! I think you guys have a good reason to maybe spend a bit more considering it'll mean he can participate and you can have it in a timeframe that works for him!

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Oh 100% agree. He loves to feel like he is helping us and LOVES knowing that he is helping build our future. So I would never take that away from him and we are so grateful! But it's still never wracking when he's like, "Here's money for the wedding. Buy stuff with it." LOL

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So one of the things I agonize about is finding my happy place between big expensive wedding and skimping so much I regret it. I definitely think I would be someone who would regret a big fancy wedding- but the level that is big and fancy can be hard to see when you've been in the midst of planning for so long!!

I started out with a budget of $12,000 and for 75 people I was super comfortable with that. Real life pushed it closer to somewhere between $13,000 and $14,000, which I came to terms with. Now I'm worried we may need more food to really host guests well and not just at the basic level and that would put us at $16,000 and I'm terrified it's becoming a slippery slope kind of thing. That's still well below the national average but so much higher than where I started.

I find it difficult to think I have an idea of a budget only to continue finding out the costs of vendors we need. Less people equates to less food and drink, but that doesn't help the fact that photographers in eastern PA are not affordable, djs think they're special somehow needing $2,000+. I have not even begun to venture into flower prices yet.

It sucks knowing how much we are going to spend but I just couldn't have a backyard, lowest budget wedding. I guess our only saving grace is that we know in a year we can save for the expenses and we will not be in debt. My fiance and I already have had a house. I am putting off getting a new vehicle because of the wedding and can only pay the bare minimum on my student loans.

Very interesting question - and one my husband and I were just talking about last night. While I was planning I did have a hard time with all the $ flowing out on what seemed like a daily basis - - wondering if it would be better spent on something else? Sometimes it actually kept me up at night as I am generally a very financially conservative saver. My husband and I both have good jobs, each owned a house, had savings etc so we in no way went into debt to finance our wedding. We probably spent around $26k for 185 guests (not including rings or honeymoon). Three months post- wedding we have ZERO regrets. Our wedding was fantastic, everyone we wanted to be there attended and the memories/photos/video are just what we hoped for. I can't think of anything I should have done differently (except perhaps to worry less about the &dollar. Good luck!

View Quoted Comment Thank you for your response! We are both very very money conscious and both very concerned about savings for retirement. While we have enough money for the wedding, it's hard to see it go to something that doesn't build/expand on our financial stability. We just aren't splurgers by nature and so the struggle is real because I am also very sentimental and want a traditional wedding with all our loved ones to celebrate!

It's so hard to have these two big parts of myself so utterly at odds! I've worked to reconcile them but someone's I still look at my retirement amounts and feel uneasy/guilty.

We spent about $10,000 on our wedding for 72 ppl. I had unrealistically hoped to do it for $5000 before looking at prices. We also agonized over spending so much on one day. We also were not in a great financial position at the time of the wedding. I was in law school and working part time at the time. And husband also a grad student and working. My parents and his gave us about $4000, and we borrowed extra student loans to pay the rest. So we have LOTS of debt (mostly student loans) BUT I have never regretted our wedding. Everyone had a fabulous time, still talk about today, it felt special, and it felt appropriate given our family personalities. Finally, it was an amount of money we were comfortable spending.

I'm almost three months out from our wedding at this point, and I flip flop on this. I flip flopped while planning too. I would say most of the time I don't regret the money, but there are definitely times when I do. I did have a great time, as did my husband and guests. But we could have also scaled things back some and had a great time as well.

There are certain things that the wedding industry and society tries to convince you are absolutely necessary to have a good wedding. They rarely are necessary. I know I would have had a lot of regrets if we had gotten some of the things everyone thinks are absolutely necessary. For example, we found a photographer who was willing to do just an hour of photos after the ceremony. I don't regret not having all day professional pictures. But I'm pretty sure I would have regretted spending the money to have all day professional photography. And sure, photos are more important to some people than others, but they aren't an essential part of a wedding.

There definitely were things that seemed a lot more important pre-wedding to spend money on that post-wedding. Maybe in a few more years more things will seem like they weren't worth the money. But at this point, I'm generally ok with the money we spent.