S

When JC daughter got engaged we brought her in, by herself, no fiancé and told her "We have $X set aside to spend on a wedding, we are going to give all of that money to you and you can have whatever kind of wedding you want. You can spend all of it or none of it. You can go to a justice of the peace and get married and the money will be yours. If you decide to not have a wedding the only stipulation is that we have to be with you when you get married. If the two of you want to spend more you will have to put in the rest of the money".

She ended up having a very nice wedding and we had no stress whatsoever about the cost.

Stupid what these venues cost. Had two friends recently have their childrens weddings. Both seemed to be in the 30-35k range.

(07-31-2024, 02:16 PM)Replying to Smokindawg Stupid what these venues cost. Had two friends recently have their childrens weddings.  Both seemed to be in the 30-35k range.

You can spend whatever you want to on a wedding.  I've heard of several of the country club set weddings that were well into six figures.

(07-31-2024, 02:00 PM)Replying to JC-DAWG83 When JC daughter got engaged we brought her in, by herself, no fiancé and told her "We have $X set aside to spend on a wedding, we are going to give all of that money to you and you can have whatever kind of wedding you want. You can spend all of it or none of it.  You can go to a justice of the peace and get married and the money will be yours.  If you decide to not have a wedding the only stipulation is that we have to be with you when you get married.  If the two of you want to spend more you will have to put in the rest of the money".

She ended up having a very nice wedding and we had no stress whatsoever about the cost.

That is exactly how we did it…

(07-31-2024, 02:00 PM)Replying to JC-DAWG83 When JC daughter got engaged we brought her in, by herself, no fiancé and told her "We have $X set aside to spend on a wedding, we are going to give all of that money to you and you can have whatever kind of wedding you want. You can spend all of it or none of it.  You can go to a justice of the peace and get married and the money will be yours.  If you decide to not have a wedding the only stipulation is that we have to be with you when you get married.  If the two of you want to spend more you will have to put in the rest of the money".

She ended up having a very nice wedding and we had no stress whatsoever about the cost.

That's what we did as well.  It seems like if there are multiple daughters, that's really the only fair way to go.  Establish a budget, let them pick what they actually want.

When I was growing up in the 70s, almost all of the weddings my family went to were in our church, with modest flowers, and a reception of punch, cookies, and a wedding cake in the church fellowship hall.  My sister, who is almost a decade older than me, decided to have her reception off site at a park, but it was still relatively modest.  We really made a turn for the worse when we started as a society spending more than a college graduate entry level job annual salary on a focking wedding.  Live bands, open bars, etc. - just stupid.  Upper middle class families save their daughters whole life to put on an elaborate event, and roughly 1/4 of them aren't married in a decade.  

My grandparents drove to a justice of the peace's house and got married the same week he asked her to marry him.  My wife and I had a decent wedding, and I love looking at our wedding pictures.  But if I had it all to do over again, we would have done what my grandparents did.  No showers, no wedding gifts, but we could have just started our life together when we wanted to.

Be sure and have the “talk” about scheduling a wedding on a game day.

I told my wife and daughter that they could spend a modest amount, but they are to not spend ANY of it on something stupid. They asked me what I considered stupid. I made them both watch “Father of the Bride” with Steve Martin. In that movie, “Fronk”, the wedding coordinator, talked them into spending big, useless bucks on a bunch of swans to walk around the venue…their home.
I told them “See that?? Swans! Swans are stupid! ABSOLUTELY NO SWANS!!”.
So, whenever they were discussing wedding plans, I would reiterate “No swans.”.
We had no swans…….that I know of, anyway.

(07-31-2024, 01:12 PM)Replying to Smokindawg S

What’s it going to be? Little girl or boy? Or does she know yet? Gotta teach them to keep them legs together.

(07-31-2024, 08:21 PM)Replying to 90grad

(07-31-2024, 01:12 PM)Replying to Smokindawg S

What’s it going to be?  

the soft dive of oblivion