To Have or Not have a Wedding

Have the wedding you can afford. You should never go into debt for a party. If this means a small, intimate wedding, so be it.

Look at what you can save in the next year, and plan your guest list and wedding around that amount.

I'd have a simple tasteful wedding on an island somewhere. Save your money for a house. I know I'll get slammed.. but I wouldn't purchase a home until I was married.

A ceremony at city hall is no less a wedding than one in a church or any other venue.

It's smart to not to want to go into debt for your wedding! What about a small ceremony followed by dinner at restaurant? If you keep your guest list small, you can keep your costs down! Just make sure that any guests you invite are properly hosted with good food and at least beer and wine.

Getting married at city hall IS a wedding.

If you want both a house and a big party, push your date back a year to save more.

Going to city hall is a wedding. I understand not wanting to spend a ton but f money. I would just find a happy medium.

I agree with PPs have the wedding you can afford to have. Start a budget of what you think will be doable and go from there.

Congratulations, OP!

I hear you on the expense of weddings. Even with the best budgeting, unforeseen expenses come up constantly in the planning process. It all gets real expensive real fast once you start hiring vendors.

However, there's nothing wrong with having a very intimate wedding or elopement! You can still wear a pretty dress to the courthouse/go to a restaurant afterward and pick up the tab/have a well-hosted garden party - often for a fraction of the cost of a traditional wedding in your area.

Only you can make this decision. Here are your options:

(1) Go to City Hall and have a Celebration of Marriage party, but this will still be expensive because it's the party/reception that costs the bucks. So this doesn't make sense.

(2) Go to City Hall with only immediate family (say, 10 people) and take those 10 out to eat afterwards. Your treat. Whoever witnesses your ceremony must be treated to a meal as a thank you for watching your union (this is what a reception is, but if it's a small number, you can just take them out to eat instead of a formal reception).

(3) Elope just the two of you. It can be at City Hall or on a vacation somewhere. If it's just the two of you, you don't have to worry about the expense of a party or dinner for others.

(4) Have a destination wedding somewhere other than NYC. You can easily drive up into New England and get cheaper prices, depending on the venue/time of year. Guests can make the 2-5 hour drive if they want to be there. If they don't, you save money. If you go the destination route though, check with VIPs (parents, siblings, grandparents, best friends) on whether this is feasible for them and the time of year. You can have a gorgeous wedding in Vermont or New Hampshire or in the Berkshires with the fall foliage as a backdrop.

(5) Postpone the wedding until you can save the amount you want to spend, even if that's a couple of years.

(6) Have an elopement/City Hall wedding now and then have a vow renewal for your 10-year anniversary. I'm not a fan of a vow renewal any earlier than that, but you could do it for your 5-year as well.

Weigh out your options and then decide which one works for you! Good luck!

No reason to go into debt for a wedding. For us (NYC), we have a great apartment, so we aren't going to be purchasing a house, and we are childfree, so we are using money we've saved to pay for a big celebration. But different folks have different priorities.

My thing was always " hey, lets just go to a city hall and do a small party of maybe 50 people afterwards" and for some reason, my fiancé was always against it. He is Italian-American so he has a pretty big number of families on both sides.

I totally get what you mean. Buying a house and having a wedding is gigantic.. it is also so stressful (the reason why we are just going to rent for a year or two, because our search for the dream home continued for 2.5 years and still found nothing!)

I understand that your family will be upset, but what do you and your fiancé want ? if he is on the same page as you, then do what works for you guys. I am also in New York, and I know weddings are probably the most expensive things one can do here.

We ultimately decided to have a big wedding - 165 people, but if I knew I would go into debt, I wouldn't do it. Weddings should not put you in debt. I think its pathetic... because I know some people who have taken out loans to have a wedding and I cant grasp it!

ETA-added more stuff. lol

This is me. Except for the NY part. We're going to have a small wedding. Sticking to a strict budget and eliminated unnecessary things and people.

We bought a house in 2016. At the time we where not engage but were in long-time relationship (9 yr when we got the house). Marriage wasn't in my radar, and we wanted a house- so that was our priority. He propose on X-mass eve 2016, and we are having a wedding for ~55 guest which is what we can afford. Have we had no $ for the wedding (to properly host) I would've been fine going to the courthouse. I guess it depends on your finances...

Thank you. I know it will break my mother's heart but I hope she will understand.

At time like these I wish I didn't live in NYC. I would love a Backyard wedding

Courthouse weddings are real weddings.

Ashley - a lot of people are going out to PA to do their weddings, because its so much cheaper there. There are a lot of things you can do to cut down some costs. I can give you a few:

1- Invite a small number of people. You don't need to invite EVERYONE you know

2- Have a Sunday afternoon wedding. ( Not all Sunday weddings are cheap, but they are certainly cheaper than Friday and Saturday nights)

3-Move the date - have a wedding when you can afford it and save until then.

4-Negotiate with vendors. I know most vendors will not be negotiable, but some are willing to work with you. You just have to keep looking for the ones that are willing to do so.

I am sure there are tons of other ways to save on costs, just not sure how, because I didn't need to look into it for myself.. the only thing I want to save on is flowers, and it seems next to impossible.

Just make sure no matter what you do, host your guests properly.

My Fiance and I got engaged in August, bought our home in November, and will be getting married in September. It definitely has been stressful, but we decided that we did not want to hold off on purchasing our home or getting married. Buying a home in my opinion is the first part in building your foundation together, so after that, see how much you have left and do something simple. You don't have to go all out or spend a ton of money to have a nice wedding.

If eloping is an option I would do that! Save the stress and money!

I am not familiar with the NY area but I am sure there are some nice Civic Centers that you would possibly could rent and DIY decorations can spruce it up. If not go to the courthouse and then have fun reception. That would cut half of the costs.

2 of my cousins had courthouse wedding with approximately 15 people in attendance. One still wore a pretty white dress and they went out to dinner at a nice restaurant afterwards. If you'd rather have a big wedding..........what about eloping, buy your house and then save money back for a couple of years and have a renewing of vows ceremony/reception on the scale you'd want???

I was torn between having a wedding or remodeling my bathroom which needs major work.(seriously), Weddings are one day and a new bathroom is forever. Even though I'm 56, this is my first marriage so I did want to mark the occasion and celebrate with close friends and family. We are having a relatively small wedding (inviting 90 and expecting 70-75). I am sticking to a strict budget of $20K which in NYC is no small feat, without compromising on venue, food/booze etc. I had a lot of difficulty finding a NYC venue that would accommodate our numbers but found a great place and August was an off-peak month for them and I also chose a Sunday to accommodate 2 religious guests and for the savings.

You should do what feels right for you and if you're paying the bill, no one else has a right to say a word about it.

If you do decide you want to have a wedding, I will be happy to share some of my research with you.