I feel like it’s almost a requirement for personal finance bloggers to have a post in which they rail against the outrageous average cost of a wedding these days. Considering how much Say Yes to the Dress/Four Weddings/General TLC wedding debauchery I take in on a weekly basis (Mr. Dollars is appalled at my series recordings on the PVR and at one point tried to limit me to only three ladyshows at a time. Ha) and my extreme level of judginess while doing so, you’d think this post would’ve been written a lot sooner (after all, my major was sociology). Also, let’s keep in mind that if you have no debt and you’ve been saving for years to throw you and your partner the wedding to end all weddings without debt, more power to you! Remember, personal finance is personal for a reason.
Cait summed up most of my feelings (and some great current statistics) in this post from earlier in the year. Fabulously Fru-Girl also wrote a fantastic post about how she’s avoiding the race to the altar. Krystal thought she was the only woman on earth who didn’t want to get married until many commenters chimed in that they felt the same way.
As I was watching an episode of Four Weddings the other night, I realized that the winning bride had a LOT of inspiration from Pinterest. And that got me thinking – is the flip side of spending thousands of dollars on one day actually just spending thousands of hours DIY-ing everything for your one day? Is it now de rigeur for brides to shun a catered event at a banquet hall in favour of an outdoor wedding lit by fireflies and tea lights with mismatched china and drinks in mason jars with striped straws? Does it give you more bridal street cred to say “I spent forty two and a half hours hand-grinding rocks into the sand we used for our unity ceremony” rather than “my wedding planner picked up bags o’ sand 2-for-1 from Michael’s”?
Maybe the average wedding price isn’t changing, but the time spent planning/DIYing them definitely seems to be. Ordering even 75 mason jars for your wedding reception isn’t cheap, and putting chalk labels on them costs a pretty penny too. Combine that with the fact that people will be pouring drinks in said jars and there’s really no need for the chalk label since it’ll be ruined by moisture anyway (trust me, I loves me some chalk labels, but you cannot touch the label when you pick up the jar or it’ll smudge). Is a handcrafted sign around the ring bearer’s neck saying “here comes the bride” really necessary when you’re at the wedding and the whole point is that she’ll show up at some point anyway?
Mainly I feel like I’m far too lazy to even consider doing handmade centrepieces because it seems like SO. MUCH. WORK. And, if you value your time, your opportunity cost skyrockets if you’re DIY-ing the shit out of everything. However, I’m not even engaged so maybe if that does ever happen I’ll change my tune. None of my friends are married, and I only know one other couple that’s living together so this isn’t something I get to talk about a lot with people (obviously).
I know I’m preaching to the choir a little here, but could the wedding trend now be to pin every little aspect of your wedding and then spend hundreds of hours making it a reality? Maybe I’m bitter because any time I try to do something DIY it always ends up being an absolute clusterfuck and by the end of it I’m covered in sparkles and glue and my final product looks nothing like the picture.
