Young folks weddings: match "projected" quality of life?

Debbiecatal

This has been a really interesting thread, and I feel I am able to give a long term perspective here. I married in 1979, I was 18, my OH 25, and we will celebrate our 33rd anniversary in June. We got married really quickly, not for the reason people thought at the time , but because we had been offered a really nice flat that was slightly above what we could afford and we calculated that with the married man's tax relief available at that time, we could manage the payments! So we were on a limited income, with few savings and probably not marrying for the 'right' reasons at all!

We had a church wedding followed by a village hall reception and evening party - 80 to all day and 400 (yes 400, my husband's family is enormous) in the evening. We had a simple sit down meal at lunch and a paying bar and just bread, cheese and pate for the guests in the evening. We chose to invite everyone and give them all less rather than leave people out.

Possibly if we had had more money to spend we would have done things differently, but it didn't matter, we all had a great time and I have never really ever thought 'if only' or 'what if'. To be honest I barely remember the day, it is a lovely hazy blur, and my marriage was and still is much more important than my wedding.

heretolearn_2

No-one can answer this question for you, as we aren't you, and that's why we can't really understand how you feel about this. We are all different. Reading the thread, I suspect that 'the day' and the image/status you'll be publicly projecting, is very important to you. If that's the case, then save up for it and wait until you can do it in real style, is my advice. You want to feel happy about your day when you look back on it. Please don't go into big debt for it though.

That's different to how I feel/felt, I got married at 20 (wow!) and although the marriage was not great (lasted 10 years mind) the wedding I'm still happy with. We did it quickly and on a tiny budget as to us 'the day' wasn't that important. Register office, small number of guests, off to my parents house for nibbles and drinks, friends-only party at the shared house we lived in in the evening, for which we bought just normal party snacks and drinks. We had a blast. Yes, I went and bought a white dress but it was a pretty summer cotton one from Topshop! I had a small bouquet and some buttonholes done by the daughter of someone I worked with. A friend who owned a deli did the cake (pretty plain and simple, one round cake, decorated with colours to match my flowers). Our photos were neat, done by my brother. Only our nearest and dearests and great mates there, in all sorts from full-on suits to jeans and jumpers. Our two witnesses turned up dressed in leather jackets, string ties and sunglasses and looked like a pair of bouncers or something from blues brothers. My parents paid for one wedding car hire as their contribution, we wouldn't let them do more as we only wanted low key and wanted to pay for most of it ourselves. All in all cost around £500 for everything. No regrets at all about it. (the day that is, lol).

Most fun reception I' ve ever been to was a friend's held on a farm where she worked. It was held in a real life cow byre that had been full of cows and !!!! 2 weeks earlier. Family scrubbed it down to within an inch of it's life, put up decorations and fairy lights all over, and it looked magical (and was perfectly clean and not smelly/unpleasant, promise!). Had hired 'posh' mobile loo units. Bride and groom turned up on the back of a decorated trike. they provided lovely home made wine and asked everyone to bring picnic food to share. We all sat around tables with groups of friends and it was a lovely, lively sociable event. The entertainment was a Ceileigh band which was great as so much fun and got everyone up dancing.

I guess I just like more individual weddings. Doing things on a budget tends to bring out people's creative side and also you think 'I'm just having what I want' rather than falling into the whole wedding industry. The corporate hotel package weddings are all so samey samey they bore me to death, even though they cost a bomb and they pretend all that theming and colours and choosing menus makes it personal. It doesn't. It's like going to a conference.

That's just my take. Do what makes you happy. If you think you would later regret a smaller/low-key wedding then go for it big time! :-)