Will I regret not having a wedding afterall?

Can you have a very small one instead? Maybe you and FH can sit down and look at what you can afford including what you need to purchase a home. And if the number for a wedding is smaller, just invite your immediate family and have a great celebration with the people you love and who love you both! You can have both but if the house is the priority, have a super small wedding and call it a day!

I don't understand, are you not getting married? Are you having a courthouse wedding? Or are you just downsizing your wedding?

It's not either/or. There's lots of in between. You could have a smaller, less than 30 people wedding for less than you were planning to spend.

My FH and I have had the same discussion and have a 5k budget we found a venue to work with us with 50 ppl. If your open to that I'd say go for it. I totally understand and agree a wedding is expensive and stressful. A house is better.

Only you can know that answer... we dont know you and that is a personal decision.

What would your plan be if you do not have a wedding?

Only you can answer that. For starters, no one knows 300 people intimately. It is a LOT of money for what is, essentially, a party.

We actually bought a house in July last year before we got engaged . We are now having a simple 120 guest wedding for about 6k. But in my area in Wisconsin that's do able . With all the groomsman and bridesmaid gifts and a few extras it may end up being 7k. I truly don't think I'd have wanted to get married before we bought our house because it really put things into perspective for us.

Whether you'll regret it or not is something none of us will be able to tell, since everyone is unique.

However, I can offer my own experience.. I have always been a practical person and have set my goal of purchasing a home before getting married since before I was 20. I, however, have also always wanted a large impractically expensive wedding. Then I met my FH.

The longer we dated, the more I thought about our future together. I started to lean towards not having a wedding because of the cost. We thought, all that money can be used as a down payment. We were almost set to just having a courthouse wedding. Then he changed his mind because of me. He told me that he doesn't want me to regret not having a wedding and having that moment.

Here we are now, in the middle of planning. We decided to purchase a home after. We're excited as ever and so are our families since we're the first 'kids' getting married.

If I may offer my opinion, have a small intimate wedding with your closest friends and family. Ask some help from family to cover costs if that an option. We started with a list of over 300 guests (over 200 were FH's) but we were able to cut it down to ~125. Our wedding could cost us $18k here in California and we plan to shoulder all the cost (no loans of course). But when my family heard we wanted to make it simpler, they offered to help with the expenses.

Whichever route you choose to take with him, I'm sure you'll still be happy because you have each other.

We have such a big Mexican family and I've narrowed my list down and we even were thinking no kids at the wedding just to cut the costs. We definitely rather prioritize a down payment on a house. I always thought I wanted a simple nice romantic wedding with all our family there. Especially since everyone has been so excited that we finally got engaged and I was so excited to plan a wedding but the more we look into the house buying process the thought of wedding expenses for a day is just stressful and I didn't want to feel that way planning what is supposed to be one of the most memorable days of my life. I told him we can just go to the courthouse and get married then have a small backyard wedding maybe at our new home if the yard is big enough or maybe at one of our parents houses. Just make it a small intimate garden wedding..I've just always dreamt of that walking down the isle & having that moment as he looks at me, or our first dance etc..

It sounds like you'll regret it. At least not having something. I feel for you, as we're looking at houses and going through the costs I have definitely looked at him and said "maybe we should've eloped and spent ALL the money on the house." But then again I want that with him. It's frustrating because money is the only issue.

My FH bought US a house before he bought ME an engagement ring! We'd only been dating officially for 11 months, not even a year! He wouldn't even consider walking through a house without me and it was never talked about in a "his house" kind of way even though I wasn't contributing anything towards it's purchase and it was all in his name. I helped find it though and we were on it like white on rice immediately, LOL. We'd canceled a previous contract due to poor negotiations and lost out on two others by being too slow to enter negotiations so we were determined on this one. May 30th will be the 2nd anniversary of our home purchase. ^_^

As for the wedding regret... I don't regret not having a wedding the first time I got married at 22. We got married in a courthouse during his lunch break with just my mom and my twin sister with her husband as witnesses. The rest of my family didn't even know until much later. I was in a $20 prom dress (after prom sale) and we went to a steak house for dinner and that was that, married. Within a year and a half, if that, he was cheating and said the only reason he proposed was because if I was a "wife" I'd be more invested in fixing my problems than if I was just a "girlfriend". Yes, "my" problems, not "our" problems. He was a narcissist. I don't regret not having that wedding because I was young and somehow I always thought we'd have a big wedding later on to renew our vows. That didn't happen I'm I'm glad I didn't celebrate something false.

Now that I'm 32, with a man who is my best friend and someone I'm super proud to be getting married to.... I want the wedding. This is the right guy, there are no doubts whatsoever and I want to shout from the rooftops, to the world and all my friends and family, that he's mine and I'm his. I'm inviting ALL my family because they mean the most to me and because I can. FH is awesome and wants me to have a wedding because I didn't before. It's not going to be huge, but we aren't saving for our house either, that's out of the way. That's a huge contributing factor.

For my two cents, having gone from one and now getting to do the other, you can do something small and personal, without too much of a dent in finances, if you're careful. It's worth making your wedding day memorable and a celebration, even it's a smaller one. If you want the big wedding, make it happen. Get the house first and plan the wedding after you've figured the bills out and know what you can save. Whatever you both want is the important thing.

We had our wedding planned for June 10th vendors booked, invitations waiting to be mailed, everything pretty much done. Then last week we found the perfect home for us. We are keeping our original wedding plans as we were only having 55 people, but have cut some of our honeymoon plans. It's been a little overwhelming. Good luck!

For me I want a wedding to celebrate our relationship. We are trying to keep things as cheap as possible, so we cut down our guest list as much as possible (to about 45 people) including us and our wedding party. I want to celebrate our relationship as we've been together since we were 14 and I've been dreaming of it since then. So that's my personal perspective on it. Our budget is small, so we are improvising by doing it at a beautiful spacious county park, ceremony and reception, and the bulk of our budget is going to food and drinks for our guests. Personally I think if you're asking if you'll regret it, it sounds like you might. Just keep it small, don't worry about who is going to get offended by not receiving an invitation. If we invited every single person that thinks they should be invited it would be like 400 people at least. So we invited only our closest family and friends. A wedding doesn't have to be huge to be special and produce that same feeling.

For me I want a wedding to celebrate our relationship. We are trying to keep things as cheap as possible, so we cut down our guest list as much as possible (to about 45 people) including us and our wedding party. I want to celebrate our relationship as we've been together since we were 14 and I've been dreaming of it since then. So that's my personal perspective on it. Our budget is small, so we are improvising by doing it at a beautiful spacious county park, ceremony and reception, and the bulk of our budget is going to food and drinks for our guests. Personally I think if you're asking if you'll regret it, it sounds like you might. Just keep it small, don't worry about who is going to get offended by not receiving an invitation. If we invited every single person that thinks they should be invited it would be like 400 people at least. So we invited only our closest family and friends. A wedding doesn't have to be huge to be special and produce that same feeling.

Brittany, can you have a small wedding, like immediate family only? I agree it seems like funding a 300 person wedding is not as important as buying a house.

Personally I feel like weddings have been blown into this huge, you must have everything, pressure.

I had booked a big wedding with FI but we have now cancelled that and are doing something that is about 1/4 of the cost and with only a few close friends and families.

I think the focus has been taken away from marriage and put onto throwing this huge lavish party.

I've seen a lot of posts on other forums of brides regretting having big weddings, but never the other way around.

Do what you can afford and what is special to you - at the end of the day it's about becoming a married couple and NOT spending thousands to impress a room full of people (some of which you don't know/like!)

I’m going thru the same thing. We’ve purchased a home in the midst of wedding planning and became overwhelmed so we cancelled the big wedding and decided on an destination Vegas wedding with like 30 people.