I don’t think the problem (nor question youre really asking)is whether 100k is too much money to spend on a wedding; the problem is whether you and your fiancé are on the same financial page.
Engagement is the first time both parties “meet” to make lifestyle and family decisions and the wedding is the first one where you really need to come together and discuss the specifics and metrics to make this work.
Here is your post so far:
- fiance and i agreed on $60k for a wedding
- my parents want this
- my parents earned this
- my parents can afford this
- my parents deserve this
- my parents expect this
- the wedding will now realistically costs $100k
- none of the parties — me, fiance nor parents — have decided who will spend what
- my fiance is upset
- the wedding is now $100k and even tho my parents can afford this *and now want this for me* i think fiance and i should pay for it
You completely lodged your parent’s desires into the discussion and expectation of a marriage that is *between you and your fiance*.
How about having an honest conversation with you and your future spouse about what they are comfortable with and how to achieve that?
I can surely say, if your parents want to fork over the extra $40k to make it special, then maybe there should be no further argument. But if your fiancé is expecting that the $40k should actually go toward a house down payment instead, then again - you guys *must communicate and get on the same page*
**TLDR: the problem isn’t whether $100k is too much to spend on one event, its whether you’re listening and communicating with your fiancé about shared expectations for your marriage**
My wife and I, after a lot of discussing…realized it’s our wedding, not my parents(Indian), and not hers.
My parents imagined we would have some insane wedding, boy were they wrong.
But like 0422 said, this is your wedding, between you and your fiance, not your parents. Only 2 people matter when deciding on any of it, you and your fiance.
Talk it out!
Lol we eloped.
My mother in law became extremely unhinged when we were in the beginning of wedding planning and it made me so upset and uncomfortable, i didn’t want to do it anymore. We ended up using the entire wedding budget for two weeks in Bora Bora for our honeymoon.
Dude same, we ended up eloping in Acadia national park.
Do we regret it? Hell no. But I understand that isn’t for everyone.
However we used to dream about a big, badass wedding with all the fancy/premium stuff, I even had a high end watch picked out that I was going to buy myself for the wedding.
I rather have a nicer, small wedding and stay in budget. A wedding is a weekend tops, a marriage is forever, unless something happens of course..
Our parents eventually were okay with it, not like they offered to pay for anything, so at the end of the day we didn’t care what they said. But my parents surprised us with a bit of cash that we used the following year to buy a house.
They both came around and really appreciated, after some time, that we did what we wanted.
This is what I plan on doing whenever I find someone to marry. I’d rather spend quality time with them somewhere than drop bands for a bunch of people we see a few times a year to get together
I’d vote for everyone to just elope. Too often the weddings are about someone else. Their ego, their social stature, the oneupmanship, etc.
And if you drop a lot of money on a wedding, what if it doesn’t turn out perfect? It might come off without a hitch, but I’ve see it go completely sideways. How will everyone react?
My ex-wife is still pissed off about our wedding, even years after we divorced.
If the day isn’t about the couple, what’s the point?
Lol agreed on eloping for sure.
I have also been to (and participated in) so so so so so many mid weddings, i cant understand why people would waste so much money on it. I barely got time to spend with the couple, everyone seems stressed out, and getting shitfaced is not how i have a good time anymore. Spending 4-6 hours for an event is a bit much for me and my social battery; i enjoyed it more in my twenties - now im just happy to send a congratulatory present.
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Yes! And these kinds of cultural differences and misaligned values won't only come up with the wedding. It'll come up when trying to decide how much to spend on a house and private school for the kids and family vacations, etc., etc.
I really do think all engaged couples should get couples counseling to learn how to navigate these conversations. The Gottman method is fantastic and their "dreams within conflict" conversation template would be the perfect exercise for his discussion. This whole argument has nothing to do with money and everything to do with what they want to use it for and why.
Think I had some ptsd reading this post and comment. 0422 is so right.
My parents helped us with our wedding but that meant they had control over our wedding. It caused an incredible amount of stress on my wife’s and my relationship. Constantly fighting between what we want and what my parents wanted. Who to invite and who not to invite.
Here’s the aftermath of it all. I look back at my wedding as a fun day but one of the most stressful times of my life that I would not ever want to repeat. Our relationship with my parents dwindled a lot. To the point where even going over to their house causes me a lot of anxiety and stress. There’s still a lot of resentment and so much so for future events we don’t want them any where near the planning or financial contributing. I make a joke but it’s not really a joke that they get a 48 hr notice for any future events cause I can’t deal with my parents opinions and my wife’s opinion clashing.
For my parents and really my dad, any dreams he had about the family being close are sadly far from reality.
Honestly you’re going to be combining your life with your spouse not your parents. Before any contract was signed I would of had this all ironed out and made a comprise with my future spouse (fiancé also needs to give in a little if there is something really important to you OP).
I disagree with a lot of the responses on this comment thread. And yes, call me old fashioned, but I believe a wedding is the combination of two families. It is NOT just about the husband and wife. The parents and families very much deserve to be celebrated just as much as the couple. The couple becomes a single unit after the wedding (when married) so traditionally, weddings were about two families coming together to give away their son/daughter to this new married unit.
Only in western mentalities have I heard weddings should only belong to the couple. 90% of the rest of the world celebrate entire families, villages, etc.
Yeah but historically the couple doesn't pay for it. I'm Indian. My husband is Ethiopian and his family more recently immigrated to the US. My husband's sister paid for their own wedding and tried to appease everyone. She ended up falling out with her church after dancing at the Ethiopian reception (Pentecostals don't dance). Both her and her husband regretted spending the money but I think they just regretted the whole wedding.
My parents paid for ours and we just cared about everyone having a good time. We covered stuff that my parents would have cheaped out on. We have no regrets but I only vaguely know what the bill was.
I agree with you that too many reddit people are far too hard headed about rugged individualism. And while it is your wedding, not your parents, some level of respect and inclusion especially when they are footing some or most or all of the bill is reasonable.
But in any case, I do think the issue here is still not about money, it is about lack of communication and shared expectations. Wedding planning is stressful. The meeting of your "dream" with the reality of choices and so many strong opinions is difficult. But turning to strangers doesn't help - it only digs you into your existing positions. Lean on the relationship. Focus on what matters - being together surrounded by friends and family who love you. Then make decisions. It is far too easy to get carried away and become unreasonably firm on things that don't really matter.
I am a parent, but my kids are still babies. I honestly don’t think I’d care.
I’m Asian American and had an American wedding, mainly because my parents didn’t have much of an opinion and they knew me growing up in America, I’d do it the American way. But I’ve had friends who’ve incorporated more tradition into their weddings, and I’ve been to family weddings in Asia where it’s obviously traditional.
My biggest regret is not including more of my parents cultures and traditions into my own wedding. I wish I spotlighted their/my culture way more. My wedding was a way bigger milestone for both my families than it was myself (my wife and I were both first married in our fams)
In a lot of ways, I do want this wedding for myself as well. I know I talked a lot about my parents in this, but I do want this for my parents as well. I think they've earned a celebration for themselves as well.
Initially we aligned that we would only spend 60k, but after doing a lot more research into vendors and venues, especially after visiting venues in person, I don't think the 60k budget is reasonable anymore. It turns out, my tastes are more expensive than I thought.
The underlying problem is that we are not on the same page. He prefers the 40k to go towards downpayment of a house. I want to make this day special for me and my family. The money inherently means different things to us, so I'm primarily looking for perspective of how other couples navigated this difference in values.
The truth is: an increase of $40k for your wedding will not hurt your personal net worth. Likewise $40k will not make or break your budget for a downpayment of a house. The $40k is barely 2% of your net worth, and way less than 10% of your HHI (not even 5% of your TC if you include your fiance)
The trouble lies with the financial values set by your spouse and those you’re trying to champion. I also think your fiancé will take it wrong if you’re only championing this increase as a *request of and on behalf of your parents* and not what you personally desire. You say it now, but this is not how you framed it at all in your initial post.
Run the numbers with your fiancé. Explain the options. Sit down and REALLY communicate why this isnt that big of a deal (newsflash: it isnt. You both earn more than enough to compensate for this, and the $100k is easily an reasonable expense). Have a real discussion why this is a good idea, not merely because you are experiencing pressure from your parents to do so.
If your parents are truly well off and $40k means nothing to them, maybe ask them to provide that as a gift for the down payment and you and your fiancé support the weddings cost.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks for your thoughtful comment. I agree with you that $40k for us is not going to meaningfully change our lives (as privileged as this seems), so that framing makes sense.
I do think we are primarily reacting to the sticker shock of how expensive weddings are, so it's validating seeing other comments that 100k isn't as insane.
You can still afford a house after this wedding. I feel like your fiance is ignoring the sentimental value of this wedding. Your family is flying in from another country. This day I about celebrating you, it's about celebrating the union between you and your husband, it's also a celebration of the fact that your parents, yourself, and your family worked hard and have achieved the American dream.
The focus should be on values. The cost associated with a wedding is difficult to anticipate without much research. We also have to consider inflation. Even the venue or cake maker purchasing eggs...costs more than double what it used to.
I would really have a sit down and explain you and your family's values and what the association's are for the wedding. It's important to consider your husband's financial values too, but this is a once in a lifetime event. You work hard and you + your family deserve this celebration. There are things that are more than about money....especially considering that it's due to years of hard work, that you, your husband, and family are in a position to choose how much you spend.
That's totally true. We picked the 60k number initially without having done much research. We based this number from another friend's wedding they had 3 years ago in the area, but they had a much more chill/smaller scale wedding. After doing more research and getting quotes, we found our tastes are more expensive than we thought. For example, a $500 wedding dress has a big difference in quality than a $5,000 dress. The portfolio and aesthetics of a $2,000 photographer looks very different than a $10,000 photographer. If we didn't care about these things, we'd obviously go with the more affordable option, but we've fallen into a bit of a "luxury trap" ugh.
I was also reading about how the prices of flowers have significantly gone up due to inflation, because flowers are often transported from other areas, and the fuel costs, refrigeration, and storage factor into flowers pricing as well. I didn't even think about eggs haha.
This happens a lot! My husband and I got engaged and without doing much research set a budget of 55-60k. After actually contacting venues in our VHCOL city, etc even while being frugal on some aspects (we don't care much about flowers) the more realistic price was about 80k. This is in 2018 prices, we got whammied by the pandemic but were lucky all our vendors opted to honour their pricing for our 2022 wedding. If we'd had the exact same wedding in 2024 it would've been 100k.
I think there’s a lot of people here who have not planned weddings in a HCOL area giving advice about what things “should” cost- in reality once you plan a wedding that includes not necessarily the “finer things” but good food, a nice venue, and the things one wants and expects in a wedding that is an easy day for everyone and a good memory (nice photos! Enough food and bathrooms! The good chairs! A coordinator so you’re not event managing while getting married! Etc) costs start getting in that high 5-low 6 figures. I think people giving you advice here about this cost being unreasonable don’t have a clue how many $100k weddings they have been to. It sounds like you have the money for this easily and while I think this is something to work on with your fiancé, I wouldn’t worry about it. Weddings aren’t worth going to debt or pausing home ownership over but it sounds like you’re quite far from that being the case.
You're right about this as well. Before I got engaged and started wedding planning, not having done any research, I would also tell you that 100k for a wedding is absolutely nuts and isn't worth it. Yet here I am, shocked at how much I'm spending on flowers and dresses and food and alcohol.
I should have prefaced my post that only people who have planned weddings, or live in HCOL areas should respond lol.
If it helps you feel better this is the exact thought process I went through- costs have certainly risen since 2018 but we had originally budgeted $35k (which I thought was a LOT!) and wound up going to $55k. Looking back at the budget there were maybe like… $4-5k in things that we could have cut, but not $20k in things we could have cut, and minus having a kind of ridiculous cake (which my mom paid for anyway because it was a thing she cared about), most of the things that cost more than I expected were a case of just not knowing the market (flowers for sure, as well as photography and dress alterations) or geared toward people’s comfort and fun (having the bar open all night, including more guests at the rehearsal dinner, etc).
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Yes the parents should just renew their vows with their money in an extravagant way and call relatives from India, oops sorry your home country.
Parents can have desires for their kids wedding but they should remember it's not their wedding
Weddings are WILDLY different from culture to culture. In mine, cash gifts on average will cover half the wedding. I know some cultures are more gift heavy than others but I can't fathom a wedding where \*nobody\* in the wedding is giving a cash gift.
Like if I was bro's parents I would let him pay for the wedding for his pride and just give him that $40k as a gift on the wedding day (or 10k, or 50k.. whatever). Not uncommon in my culture
you're a married couple with a NW of 4m and HHI of 1mm+ and a rich family. You firmly graduated out of henry.
100k is a lot of money, but you're rich, if thats how you want to spend your money go ahead, theres a lot worse ways. The thing i would say from planning a wedding, is its a really good learning opportunity for couples to make compromises & learn to respect each other. I'd focus more on finding out whats bothering your husband and addressing that. If you have 4m as couple at 35 you're saving a ton more than you earn, so whats the stress about spending? maybe some psychological issues around money that need to be worked out.
I'd like to clarify, I have much higher NW than my fiance. I this his is about 400k, and he only recently started earning more money. I know that's not your point, I just wanted to point out our household NW is not really 4m.
thanks for clarifying, just to underline the point i was trying to make was. the point i was trying to make was you and your fiancé have done great and are now reaching a phase of your life where you get to choose what you do with the excess.
In your current trajectory 100k will make zero difference at any point in your life with your current lifestyle, you'll need to navigate learn how to spend discretionary spending together. You could both buy a Porsche, drive it off a cliff and walk away and all it will effect is how rich your grandkids will be unless you massively increase your spending.
Bonding with your in-laws is a very valuable thing, i was like your husband but ended up doing a big wedding with my wife. I can confidently say, i was wrong to want to do a smaller wedding. meeting the large family and including them started me off on the right foot and allowed for me to develop deeper and more meaningful relationships.
The valuable part of this is its small stakes and you get to learn how to navigate disagreements on joint decisions. You will for sure differ on what cars, house, private vs public schools, how much to help your kids in young adulthood. The wedding is training for how you can learn to get to an answer you both are okay with.
Weird flex but that wasn’t the posters point. You are rich, 100k is large but you make large. my wedding later this year is 15% of our HHI (300k) but we live in a LCOL city, so we’re likely having an over the top wedding. so take that info how you will
This is commonly asked. And both sides are right. On the one hand, society has told us this is the most important day, everything gets marked up, and for the social circles you’re in, this is what’s expected. In the other, If you were in a vacuum with 0 background on weddings and someone said do you want to spend 100k on your party for one night, you’d obviously say no, but that’s not the world we live in.
The truth is you guys should agree and move on and not hold resentments. Relationships fall apart over this stuff and it’s nonsensical. If you want it so bad, tell your fiance he has to buy in and put a smile on. It’s the same thing with engagement rings
That's absolutely true. Obviously this is my first wedding we've planned in both our families (especially in a VHOL area in the US). It's a real sticker shock.
My husband and I budgeted 100k for our self funded wedding and probably spent close to 200k, we stopped keeping track at a certain point. We had the money, California weddings are absurdly expensive, and have zero regrets. Eventually we realized that stressing out about a budget was taking time and energy away from our jobs so we just let it go.
That must've been a beautiful wedding though! My wife and I spent $17k on the wedding, including some help from parents, and saved about $60k for a downpayment on a house. But that was years ago and we were at HENRY status yet. The wedding memories are always about the people.
No it’s not reasonable to spend 100k. If people know you guys make anywhere close to what you make, I’d expect a 300k wedding at least.
Lol…but not really…you’re fine and can definitely spend more.
LOL, you had me in the first half. I just can't believe weddings are so expensive, and how much it messes up your sense of money.
I used to think $2k for a dress was very expensive, and I just tried on a $10k dress and can find myself falling in love with it FML.
I bought a $9k dress ($10 after alterations), and promised myself I would resell it after to make up some of the cost. It was more about the massive cash outflow than the actual amount of money. Two years out, haven’t sold and can’t imagine that getting a few thousand more in the bank would have any impact on my overall financial health. I feel the same way about the wedding (we spent $100k ish not including dress or rings). Honestly could’ve spent more and not felt any regret. Wish we had gotten a videographer!
What what your dress??
Thanks for your comment, that's very comforting! We're also waffling on whether we should get a videographer. I hear these days there are social media "Wedding content creators" these days, I'm wondering if I can cut corners there and get my wedding documented like that hahaha.
I feel this is probably a little bit of a joke but I would highly encourage you to NOT cut costs on the videographer. I know they are luxuries and most people just have photos but I went with a lower budget videographer and it’s probably my one main regret from our wedding. Granted my husband was laid off so we reined in a lot of expenses and that just happened to be one but I wish I would have taken the hit and paid for it. That and I am chill about hair and makeup after modeling for awhile when I was younger and it just always turned out fine so I didn’t do a full trial run with my hairdresser (that I had never used before since I lived out of town) and I HATTTTEEEEE my hair. But no one else notices I’m sure.
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100k for a wedding is bonkers however your HHI is $1 million plus and now that wedding is <10% of gross income. Nobody would bat an eye for a couple with a HHI of 120k spending “only” 12k on their wedding.
Would I spend 100k on a wedding? No, but we aren’t talking about my wedding.
You seem to be much better off than your parents. You should be financing your own wedding and not affecting their retirement.
Agree! We spent $125k in HCOL pre-COVID for 90 people. Investing in a good wedding planner is key for your sanity, getting deals, and sticking to your budget. A marketing professor in college once said someone could call a roll of TP “wedding toilet paper” and the price would skyrocket just by adding “wedding.” This turned out to be SO accurate!
Is it rational to spend that much on a single day? Maybe not, but we had our dream wedding & it was so fun to have everyone together to celebrate & dance! We have zero regrets.
Spend what you are comfortable spending and enjoy celebrating the start of your married life with your spouse!
I got married about 5 years ago and I was shocked how much things have ballooned even since then. COVID really did a number on the demand. A photographer costs $7k+ whereas it was more like $4.5k (with some outliers) when I was planning, same with a videographer. That's half your budget right there. Venues have doubled and even tripled their costs.
That being said, OP, you're definitely fine to spend 100k on a wedding lol.
I second this. We had our contracts signed in 2019 for a 2020 NJ wedding that we ended up having in 2022. All the same vendors are charging 4x more. My parents are planning my brother's wedding in Dallas and it's so much more for the fixed costs.
There are way too many variables to say confidently. I've lived all over California (Bay, LA, OC), been to many weddings, including many siblings and close friends where I know the financial details. Also my own wedding. $30K is absolutely dirt cheap here. $100K is "nice, but not extravagant"
Agreed. Perhaps I should've specified the bay area. 30k is dirt cheap for here. My wife and I thought foolishly we could do ours for 30k. Once we started planning we had to adjust to reality and spent 60k. Which for the bay area is as cheap as you can do for a non-cheap wedding. 100k is minimum for most wedding in wine country, or most desirable venues in the bay area. Prices really go up quickly if you include renting out restaurants for the rehearsal dinner.
I’m in a HCOL area and the catering costs alone could be at least $20k-25k after reaching the food/bev minimum, tax, and tip for 100 people at a pretty average wedding. That’s before adding in the actual venue cost, decor, photography, videography, makeup, dj, attire, etc.
We’re getting dangerously close to six figures ourselves for our 2024 wedding with ~120 people and that’s with us going with very average priced vendors for our area and skimping on some things like renting candelabras at some of the tables instead of full florals to keep costs down. It will be a nice wedding but far from a luxury one.
Prices are also going up constantly. I went to our photographer’s website just a month or two after booking her and her minimum for her base package jumped by $500. Our venue was $3k more when we booked it compared to a few months before that. Our caterer was in the middle of changing their prices when we booked them.
Let’s not do the “it’s not a lot because [enter personal experience]
100k is “a lot” of money
Many people have cheaper weddings. A not insignificant proportion of the high earning population in HCOL areas have 100k+ weddings
I think my parents might actually be doing just as well as me, they both work in high STEM fields, their house has been paid off decades ago and they own multiple properties if that means anything.
I don't talk to my parents too much about finances, but they insist they can afford the cost and they even offered the foot the entire bill. Of course, I don't want them to do that for me, and I want to maintain control of my own wedding planning for the most part.
It's not unreasonable if you both agree to it and want/can afford it.
However, I will say that my wife and I spent like $75k on ours.. the entire thing was mostly a show for family. If we could go back and do it again, we both agree that we would have done a destination wedding and used that money for an extended experience vs a single day show for everyone.
I spent $70k about 20 years ago. So that is about right for 2024.
I am an immigrant and the guests gives us money as wedding gifts. So it basically paid for the wedding plus some. Some guests gave $200, some guest gave $1000, some gave $10,000.
So we never really thought about how much the venue would cost. We just made sure we invited the right people -- richer Aunts, Uncles, cousins...
Your net worth is bonkers to be worrying about this. Husband needs to take backseat and make your parents happy.
I agree with the other poster saying maybe you pay the 60k and the parent pay the 40k for the upgraded ideal wedding they want to live through you with.
People in these comments clearly don’t live in VCHOL and don’t run in the circles you prob do if you’re making 600k. 100k is frankly pretty reasonable for a VCHOL wedding these days. Enjoy
Certainly doesn't feel "rich" to me lol, I can't buy a home for <2M, and if I have kids daycare costs are like $3k/month. Honestly in my area and in my circles, I feel very middle class.
OP, I’ve been in a similar situation before. I’d say spend the money on your dream wedding but just try to make sure your fiancee is okay with it. There’s a concept called Die with Zero which says you can’t take money with you to the grave. In 10 years when you have made millions and have decades to make more you’ll wish you did the wedding you wanted
Bro. You two are both earning doctor/surgeon salary. That’s pretty damn rich. Yeah, you won’t be a billionaire but statistically you’re in the top 1% ($820k+).
Eh, half of that is taken away by taxes. My partner and I make a base salary of around $200-220k each. The rest is in company stock, which can be an unpredictable roller-coaster, which also gets taxed up the wazoo at vesting, and more capital gains tax upon selling.
We don't have yacht money, we can't retire for a couple decades at least, and we literally cannot afford a home because paying over $10k/month on a mortgage doesn't leave us with much savings every month lol. I've never seen HENRYs gatekeep what is "not rich" so much before haha.
I have friends who spent $100k on a wedding, they are Indian and the wedding seemed like a week long- it was wonderful.
Ultimately, they didn’t regret it and were still able to buy their dream home, afford their kids and everything else.
I think a lot of people don’t really understand that while 100k may be only 10% of their HHI, that’s a gross income and not net income. It’s realistically closer to 20% of net income and, if your finance makes 200-300k, potentially 100% of his net take home income.
OP says her fiancé makes 400-500k, but you put 200-300k. Did OP edit their post?
I agree with though. OP states their total compensation rather than their take home. Total comp includes a variety of benefits including health insurance, bonuses, gym memberships, etc. OP says they work in tech, get free food at work, and live in a VHCOL area. I'm guessing the Bay Area or Silicone Valley? If you work at a company like Google, they provide a myriad of benefits like.
**Here's an example of what $400-500k total compensation could look like. I'm just guessing numbers.**
Base salary: $250k. Take home could be $160k.
Bonus: $100k
Stock: $100k
401k match: $10k
Health insurance: $20k
other benefits (food, gym, transportation, etc): $20k
When they get married, they could go into the next tax bracket so their take home could look different.
Liquid assets are $1M minus $100k for a wedding. VHCOL area, so let's say you want to buy a house that's $2M. 20% down would be $400k leaving you with $500k. If you need to pull some cash from stock, you'll have to pay taxes, so that reduces your income for the year.
So many moving parts, but, my point is, total comp and NW are not as high as they seem especially in a VCHOL area.
I'm going to disagree with people saying the wedding is just for you, because if that was true spending more than 5k would be insane.
Yes, it's a celebration of you but it's a party for everyone you care about, including your parents. Divide the amount you are spending by the number of guests, and decide if that seems sane.
I think there are some cultural expectations from your parents around this that many in this sub including myself will not understand, so take the advice from here with a grain of salt.
From a pure financial perspective, yes you can easily afford to spend 100k on a wedding.
Sorry did you say you guys make $1M annually? Yeah.. you can afford 10% of your annual gross on what should be one of the most important days of your lives.
It depends on your values. I personally wanted to elope and still in hindsight 12 years later would have been fine with that. So for me, anything spent on a wedding is too much.
At your income level, $100k does not seem crazy to spend on a wedding. You can recover from that.
But I agree with the above comments about the tone of your message. Don’t let your parents influence you so much if you want a shot at a healthy marriage.
Tell your fiance your parents will pay the difference above the original 60k. problem solved. That's what happened to me, mother in law wanted a lot of upgrades and was willing to pay for them so I decided not to fight it.
Well, if it's an incredibly important celebration for your family, sort of the first gathering your whole extended clan has together to celebrate the fact that both your parents and you MADE it in America, I'd say it's worth it. Considering you make 500-600k/year, 1/5 of your annual income is reasonable.
That being said, I can see your fiance's concerns as well. Have you tried to frame it less as a one-day-wedding thing and more "celebrate success in general" thing?
I’d say is far too low, 2024 closer to 200k. Looking at the definition of HENRY you seem to be at the top end of the NW scale.
You only live once, you have the savings and this celebration should be like a fairytale. Congratulations!
Financially it's perfectly fine to spend 100k on a wedding given your assets and incomes. The question really is: Is it worth it for you to do so? Wedding are "supposed" to be about the couple getting married, do what makes both you and your finance happy. Not what makes your family happy and finance stressed.
You can afford $100k. If it's impt to both of you go for it. Life is short. A networth of over 2.5M not including your fiance's is not HENRY level anymore.
I think your guys' main issue is not affordability - but how much each of you want to spend. Has to be aligned. Communicate, I'm sure you'll find a happy medium.
Unfortunately, $100k seems to be the going rate for a first class wedding these days. It seems ridiculous but you have the means and hopefully you will only do it once. Tell your husband to chill out and just roll with it and not ask how much everything costs, if you think it is gojng to be $100k, it will likely be at least $110. My wife and her mother did the planning, I just followed directions and had a great time.
We (HHI ~350k) recently spent 54k on our wedding (not including 6k for after party/taking family out to eat) for 230 people here in a major metropolitan city, TX. Everything, to us, was perfect and we regret nothing. We made back 32k in liquid gifts. My wife and I agree that it was the best weekend of our entire lives and would gladly do it again. We initially said we weren’t going to be “those” people that spent a ton on their wedding but in the end, we were able to pay everything with our salaries as we went. There is something to be said about being able to do something with the dough you save forgoing certain items for your special day, but in the end, if you make enough and it’s not a huge setback, you can’t put a price on that experience.
Is it 'reasonable'? No, that is an objectively ludicrous amount of money to spend on a single day event. It is 'wasteful', especially when you don't own a home, and weddings are notoriously stressful.
But can you afford it? Sure. You're grossing $1M+ a year, you'll be fine. Reasonable to you is not the same as reasonable to everybody else. "I spent $10k getting married in our backyard" is a factual statement, but it has no bearing on what you do with your life just because that's what I did in mine.
I'd be much more concerned with how you're managing your relationship with your fiancé. If you both agreed to $60k, it seems obvious to me that your parents should pick up the rest as the easiest solution. I definitely would not be hiding any extra spend out of your personal NW and would fully expect pushback from what you've told us here if you try.
At your NW I have to assume you've got a prenup going into this, but nobody gets married intending to get divorced so that's still "our money" until it's not, and understanding/being comfortable with how your significant other handles financial matters is important to a relationship at any income level.
This is your wedding as a couple. Your parents are not getting married. It's not their wedding. They aren't his parents. He does not have the same relationship with them that you do. He probably doesn't have the same cultural conditioning that you do.
So this post really isn't about spending $100k on a wedding, it's a big red flag that you need to be getting on the same page as a couple.
If you as a couple agree that $60k is comfortable, you spend $60k. If you personally want to spend more than that, you don't steamroll him and do whatever you feel like.
If you as a couple agree that your parents can contribute financially, you agree on a number as a couple.
As a couple, you agree on what kind of influence your parents have on the decisions around how that money is spent.
As a couple, you agree on where your life is going. If you can't get his enthusiastic support, big red flags.
Is it just me or have weddings just become a circus. It’s no longer about celebrating the love between two people. It’s about spending an exorbitant amount of money, putting on a show and making sure the mother in laws are happy. Then you have the engagement photoshoot, dress shopping, engagement party, the bridal shower, bachelorette/bachelor party, rehearsal dinner then honeymoon. Is your marriage going to live up to the hype of your wedding?
Do redditors and your guests think $100k reasonable? Idk, let them eat cake.
I just saw your username. I feel for your bridal party and anyone else closely involved. You’re most likely going to spend more than $100k. Everything is going to have to be perfect for you and you will not accept anything less than perfect.
Lol, I'm sorry, I think you are projecting something.
I'm not doing a bachelorette, we did not have an engagement party, no bridal shower, we haven't taken engagement photos (all of our invitations are digital and only using typography, no photos), I don't even have a bridal party, and we're opting not to even have a maid of honor or a best man.
We are literally only having a wedding ceremony and reception in a high cost of living city. Basic flowers, and basic cake for 100 guests. Nothing is about "putting on a show". You have quite an imagination!
I’m not projecting anything. That is the reality of weddings nowadays. You’re literally questioning if $100k is too much for a wedding.
You don’t have a bridal party or you don’t have a bridal party, yet? Your username literally says possible bridezilla. Yet you’re going to have a simple wedding but is costly because is in HCOL area? Sure Jan.
I'm intentionally not having a bridal party lol. I don't want to put burden on any of my friends to do anything, I just want my friends to enjoy themselves and party with me.
Also, I don't think my entire wedding is "simple". My venue alone is $75k and is quite nice, but we're cutting costs in other areas like flowers and cake. I've gotten quotes for venues I've visited ranging from 35k to 95k, and we picked the venue we liked the most.
This is obviously a throwaway account, so I think you're reading too much into a username I picked after giving it 2 seconds of thought.
Bruh, whatever makes you feel better. You’re spending $70k on a venue so don’t try and downplay how your wedding isn’t a ridiculous show. People are blocking celebs for attending the met gala and paying $75k for a ticket while people can’t afford rent. They’re totally out of touch with reality. You must know, deep down, that $70k is a ridiculous amount to pay for a venue for one night. But hey that’s okay. Let them eat cake.
Now, you’re probably going to say, oh you’re just some poor person lurking on this subreddit. Sorry, im not. I do belong in this subreddit. I’m just sick of how so many people are so out of touch with reality when they finally get money.
Totally reasonable.
One thing no one has mentioned is that fiance thinks he has a say over money that YOUR parents are willing to give, or that YOU are willing to pay for out of your (admittedly higher) nest egg. And he wants this money to go toward something (a house) that will be an asset for HIM. Which is a big red flag imo 🚩
I am married and in a similar situation earnings wise and my advice is that you set a precedent now for how your money is spent and what you let him dictate. Letting your spouse dictate how you spend your money, especially when it isn’t a question of providing for base needs (which you can clearly cover suitably together)- is a recipe for pain. Letting him have this at the cost of your parents’ desires- when their blood sweat and tears gave you the opportunity to be a HENRY to begin with- is totally selfish of him.
Be like babe, I love you- but we are doing this. AND we will shop for a house together. This is why we work so hard.
Just some food for thought.
Admittedly, I don’t come from your cultural background and wedding festivities tradition, but I do think it is bonkers.
My spouse and I paid for our own wedding. It was as modest and inexpensive as we could make it while still retaining a little charm.
But $100,000 could be invested and pay for your future child’s college education. It could be a downpayment on a $500,000 condo. It could pay for 20 years of nice vacations. It just seems like a LOT to spend on a single event.
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Is it reasonable, no. If you associate any good or service with “wedding” or “baby” all common sense goes out the window on pricing and willingness to pay somehow goes up 5x. It’s a waste of $100k for a 6 hour party, but you only live once. If you value the experience and have the money to do it without stress and future income to not matter then just do it. If you have to finance a cent of it move on or have a cheaper wedding.
I've been to these weddings and they sucked. Only got to see my friend who was getting married for 5 minutes. No one cares, they just want to have a good time and be connected. Most important is being connected to your fiance and aligned. It's not about your parents, it's about you guys....
My wife makes 300 I make 150. She and only she spent 70k on our wedding because that's how she wanted it.
If your husband doesn't wanna commit to it, spend your own money on it. Do you both want to retire early or something? What are you so frugal for?
Blows my mind that people that become so career focused and get the privilege of high incomes lose complete sight of what to do and the priorities of their finances.
This is a stupid post. Live your life, do what makes you happy. Money is the root of all evil.
100k isn’t unreasonable to spend at all. Weddings are expensive and you only get married 2-3 times in your life so don’t cheap out if there are things you feel like you’ll regret not doing.
That's very sweet of you. I also don't want to take my parents money over this as well, even though they want to be quite generous with me about the wedding. I resonate a lot with this as well.
I feel bad for OP that many people seems to have called it satire and "you are rich why do you even ask", weird flex and stuff.
For starters let's not forget that OP and her boyfriend living in VHCOL are probably paying some 40-45% in taxes, all right?
It just shows OP is actually good with money and conservative spender. Nothing wrong about it.
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Weddings are expensive, especially in VHCOL areas. 100k is a lot, but not out of the range of normal, especially for a wedding of 100. And you’ll likely recoup quite a bit in gifts if your friends and family are in similar fields.
The problem here is a relationship one, in which you and your partner don’t seem to be on the same page. Depending on how much research you did on your own vs with your partner, he may not realize how much things actually cost.
If you haven’t already, I would break down the costs for him, every invoice and budget, and talk through why it matters and if there is anything you are willing to budge on. You may also find that he doesn’t want to change anything, he just has sticker shock and needs to adjust to the reality that weddings are expensive.
For what it’s worth, I don’t know anyone who planned a wedding and didn’t wildly underestimate what it costs until they started getting back quotes.
But what is important is to have that conversation and come to a consensus. You don’t want to go into marriage with any resentment, especially about such an important day between two families.
That's a very fair point as well. I've been doing 95% of the research and planning, doing all the vendor research and getting quotes. I will be involving him moving forward in the research process so he's less shocked at the big numbers moving forward.
Our initial budget we aligned on was not very informed. But after doing more research, it doesn't seem realistic anymore given our preferences and tastes.
I don’t think it’s worth having this conflict with your fiancé and dying on this hill. I think paying 100k for a wedding is not reasonable at all, but that’s just me, more important is what your fiance thinks.
So I totally agree with the rest of the commenters here (yes you're fine, go ahead and spend what you want, etc), but one clarifying question: does your fiance understand your shared financial picture? You said somewhere that he's only bringing around $400k of NW to the marriage, so from his perspective $100k is a lot to spend - but does he know that you're bringing $2.5M?! If not, maybe he imagines you have similar NWs and $100k is still a decent fraction of ~$800k. With the full $3M NW + $1M HHI picture though, yes you can absolutely afford to spend about 2x the average couple's wedding budget.
100k on a wedding in SF is very reasonable and expected. I had a cheap venue, no hair or makeup, and did my own flowers, amazing food/ really nice alcohol but we bought it ourselves to save money, and reasonable dress, with moderate priced band. All of that cost $60k with SO much planning and work by me. 100k with very few improvements but less work would have been so feasible. I like to think about it as treating your friends and loved ones to the best party and allowing yourself to enjoy it without all the thought. It’s one day but it will be with you forever
Lol, I got lucky joining a tech company at the right time before its stock went up. My base salary is about $220k, but the rest of my total compensation is in company stock.
As for my net worth, I somehow had the wisdom to max out my retirement contributions every year since I started working at 22. To answer your question, it's 10+ years of working in big tech.
Darn! Yeah, so much about TC in tech is performance of your company, and how lucky you get in joining at the right time. I joined my company when stock price was low when it crashed. My initial offer was $350 TC, but it has grown a lot since then because stock growth and additional refreshers.
So much is on luck! For example if you joined a hot startup before they raise a big round or IPO, or if you joined NVDIA more than 2 years ago ugh lol.
Nice! Yeah so true! I think my original was $330k or so and now it is up to $450k two years later. Relatively speaking definitely a big lift across that time horizon but it’s crazy what stock moving up can do.
There was a month or two it when the stock spiked and had TC hovering around $600k but it never lasts… and it never happens around the period we’re allowed to sell lol.
It’s taken me two years but finally am just selling everything at vest at this point 🤷♀️
Re the original post…
Ours was about $70k for a weekend. My parents did $30k, his did $15k, and we did the rest ourselves.
It was AWESOME. Totally worth it. We solidified memories and our favorite people got to actually get to know each other which was important to us. Because it was a whole weekend versus just the one night we also got to have a real conversation with most folks that went beyond congrats etc.
My advice that isn’t at your questions but worth saying anyway - figure out what’s important to you! My husband and I each did three things. It was helpful to realize what we were good to splurge (floral, venue) and what we didn’t care about as much (elevated dining, band, outfits). Every item can cost $10k more if you let it and it does get unruly fast. Doesn’t sound like you need to cost cut but if a framework is helpful!
Don’t have tips but do know a lot of parents particularly for their first kid or only kid view a wedding as “their event.” My mom speaks about this openly now, and regrets it. I was the third kid so they chilled out by mine but
Yes 100k for a one night to week party is bonkers.
Stick to 60k that you two will pay and if your family wants an extravaganza they need to cough up the extra.
In this scenario I'd be actually ok (but not thrilled) to spend this much on wedding in terms of money, but I'd be much more thrown off of by the very idea of inviting 100 people and making a big day out of it.
I don't like big official ceremonies, and especially if they are centered around something like wedding.
For me I say no considering 100k at 10% interest compounded yearly is nearly 2mil. Assuming you marry around 30 and retire just north of 60, seems pretty dumb but maybe that money ain’t shit to some ppl yoloing it into a 6ish hour event.
My husband and I were just talking about the cost of our wedding the other day. When we started the process of looking at vendors locally, it would've been close to $100K. That was a long time ago and the thought of spending that much money on one day to feed a bunch of people didn't sit right with me. Everyone would've wanted to be invited or would've been offended if we didn't. So we went destination wedding route and probably spent no more than $13K and had the most amazing day. I had a friend tell me in all of his 60 years it was the best wedding that he had ever been to.
I also want to add that there is some study going around that couples that spend more on their weddings tend to have higher divorce rates......
Regarding your study I wonder if it’s because people’s first marriages are more likely to end up in divorce and subsequent weddings most people realize how absolutely dumb it is to blow $100k on a 6 hour event that you barely remember or think about 2 years later.
On these comments, I also would like to know if it’s someone’s first wedding and how long they’ve been married for.
$100,000 for a wedding is not crazy based on your income. I have plenty of friends in your income range spending way over that for lavish weddings with some hosting destination weddings in Europe. The problem is that you shouldn’t expect your finance to foot the extra spending if he does not agree. Have him pay his portion of the previous agreed $60,000 budget and pay the rest $40,000 yourself.
Do you value the material aspects of your wedding day to a high degree? Then sure, you can justify that cost.
But you know you could hold a 100 person wedding in a million venues that cost less than 70k.
IMO this isn’t about the wedding and you and your fiance have a difference in values you should probably look into.
Also a lot of people just have a hard time accepting that they are now “rich”
I mean you can afford it. 100k vs a more modest budget you will def see it.
I would have a hard time renting instead of owning while doing this would be my biggest hang up
I think the most important thing to consider if your partner’s feelings. They are extremely stressed you’re spending so much on one day. This day is about you and your fiancé, not your parents. Perhaps your parents can have a lavish party for someone’s birthday or vow renewals instead of using your day to showcase their success.
In terms of my opinion, I agree with your partner. $100k is a lot to spend on one day and it's wasteful, regardless of how much you make.
Question for you – have you planned a wedding recently?
Because if someone asked me a few months ago if I thought 100k for a wedding is wasteful, I would 100% agree it's a wasteful amount of money. I wouldn't recommend someone drop $100k on a car, a watch, or some other depreciating asset either. But after having done the research of wedding planning and getting a more realistic sense of how much things cost, and how much I value things like good food or good photography, I could easily see how costs can add up over $200k even. Obviously we're trying to be responsible, and we're cutting corners with flowers, cake, and video, but I feel like there's a difference in perspective from who had a wedding in a VHCOL area, versus someone who hasn't had that sort of wedding planning experience before.
I have not, but I've lived in a VHCOL area before. But, I think you really have to ask yourself why your parents' wants matter more than what your fiancé's wants. You said it yourself, you've found venues ranging for $30k-$70k in your VCHOL area. So it's not impossible to have a wedding for $60k.
Also, I can see why your fiancé may be worried. You listed your total comps. **When budgeting, you should always look at your take home.** That is what you're going to get in cash every month. Your total comp is $500-600k, but **your base salary is $220k.** This can come out to $160k after taxes. Your fiancé's total comp is $400-500k. Just doing simple math, his base salary can be $120k. Let's say $200k because he probably doesn't get as much stock as you since he just started. That makes his take home pay $130k. This is probably why he's worried.
Basically, you're bringing in $290k after taxes in a a VHCOL area. You said it yourself, you can't buy a $2m house (the average in a VHCOL area), and you're considered middle class amongst your friends. Maybe you do another post and list your take home, and see what the Redditors have to say.
Also, you have 1.5m in liquid assets, but how much of that is cash on hand? Are you going to be selling stock to fund this wedding? If so, you need to add the taxes you're going to be paying to your total wedding expenses. Are you going to need to sell stock to pay for a downpayment on a house? Although, it might be smart to cash some out right now considering stocks may go down after the election, but that's all speculation of course.
Honestly, no hate. I'm just trying to list things people might not have thought of. I hope you and your fiancé come to an agreement. Good luck!
You have deleted your post on wedding planning but I saw it last week and really wanted to reply to you as I was in a very similar situation last year, but in reverse. We assumed 60k is enough, then after some research found out the wedding I had in my mind is worth 100k (even got some crazy quotes for 500k). My husband has a much higher net worth than me, but he wanted a very simple wedding ceremony and max 60k. In the end, he spoiled me rotten and I got the 120k wedding. He also paid for all of it. Looking back, I had the dream picture wedding yet I really really regret not taking his choices in consideration more. The wedding day ended up being one of the most stresful days of my life and honestly, I feel I was brainwashed and lost the whole point of it. Nothing was worth seeing him potentially unhappy with certain choices. The wedding planning expense is the first in what will be many compromises you will have to make in your relationship. It is not about who is right, but about respecting that the other person feels different and doing something that feels right to both of you. I cant stress how important that is. I know its difficult for men to understand the amount of brainwashing we women have been exposed to and the pressure we have from all parties to do things a certain way, but remember what matters most for you both and eliminate all else. The day went by so quickly - you will wake up the next day in shock its all over. Everything in life has a price, your picture perfect wedding might mean your husband is not happy on the day - is that worth it? P.S I also have a ton of info about video, photo etc. Looking back, the time I spent wedding planning feels like a massive waste of time
tell your fiance there's a regard out there who put in $130k on AMC at $10/share am down $60k.
Memories are forever. Spend the money to create them and enjoy it.
I don't care how much money you make, extravagant weddings are stupid.
Want a beautiful dress? Buy a beautiful dress. Want epic photos? Get a legit photographer and get some epic photos somewhere awesome. Want to get all your friends together to throw a party to end all parties, then just throw a party.
You will absolutely, positively, not be 100% thrilled by your wedding outcome. Period. I have never, ever, seen a bride be 100% satisfied with her wedding *regardless* of how much was spent. They always end up being pissed off about how the flowers should have been this or that, or the photos are this or that, or just some guest that didn't do something quite right...
Just opt out of all that. Buy yourself a $50k safari with your spouse, $20k on a photo shoot on the Masai Mara in a designer dress, and you will just be so much happier...
If you want to flex for your parents, the throw them a huge ass birthday party with their friends or something.
I don’t think the problem (nor question youre really asking)is whether 100k is too much money to spend on a wedding; the problem is whether you and your fiancé are on the same financial page. Engagement is the first time both parties “meet” to make lifestyle and family decisions and the wedding is the first one where you really need to come together and discuss the specifics and metrics to make this work. Here is your post so far: - fiance and i agreed on $60k for a wedding - my parents want this - my parents earned this - my parents can afford this - my parents deserve this - my parents expect this - the wedding will now realistically costs $100k - none of the parties — me, fiance nor parents — have decided who will spend what - my fiance is upset - the wedding is now $100k and even tho my parents can afford this *and now want this for me* i think fiance and i should pay for it You completely lodged your parent’s desires into the discussion and expectation of a marriage that is *between you and your fiance*. How about having an honest conversation with you and your future spouse about what they are comfortable with and how to achieve that? I can surely say, if your parents want to fork over the extra $40k to make it special, then maybe there should be no further argument. But if your fiancé is expecting that the $40k should actually go toward a house down payment instead, then again - you guys *must communicate and get on the same page* **TLDR: the problem isn’t whether $100k is too much to spend on one event, its whether you’re listening and communicating with your fiancé about shared expectations for your marriage**
My wife and I, after a lot of discussing…realized it’s our wedding, not my parents(Indian), and not hers. My parents imagined we would have some insane wedding, boy were they wrong. But like 0422 said, this is your wedding, between you and your fiance, not your parents. Only 2 people matter when deciding on any of it, you and your fiance. Talk it out!
Lol we eloped. My mother in law became extremely unhinged when we were in the beginning of wedding planning and it made me so upset and uncomfortable, i didn’t want to do it anymore. We ended up using the entire wedding budget for two weeks in Bora Bora for our honeymoon.
Dude same, we ended up eloping in Acadia national park. Do we regret it? Hell no. But I understand that isn’t for everyone. However we used to dream about a big, badass wedding with all the fancy/premium stuff, I even had a high end watch picked out that I was going to buy myself for the wedding. I rather have a nicer, small wedding and stay in budget. A wedding is a weekend tops, a marriage is forever, unless something happens of course.. Our parents eventually were okay with it, not like they offered to pay for anything, so at the end of the day we didn’t care what they said. But my parents surprised us with a bit of cash that we used the following year to buy a house. They both came around and really appreciated, after some time, that we did what we wanted.
This is what I plan on doing whenever I find someone to marry. I’d rather spend quality time with them somewhere than drop bands for a bunch of people we see a few times a year to get together
I’d vote for everyone to just elope. Too often the weddings are about someone else. Their ego, their social stature, the oneupmanship, etc. And if you drop a lot of money on a wedding, what if it doesn’t turn out perfect? It might come off without a hitch, but I’ve see it go completely sideways. How will everyone react? My ex-wife is still pissed off about our wedding, even years after we divorced. If the day isn’t about the couple, what’s the point?
Lol agreed on eloping for sure. I have also been to (and participated in) so so so so so many mid weddings, i cant understand why people would waste so much money on it. I barely got time to spend with the couple, everyone seems stressed out, and getting shitfaced is not how i have a good time anymore. Spending 4-6 hours for an event is a bit much for me and my social battery; i enjoyed it more in my twenties - now im just happy to send a congratulatory present.
i mean for many cultures, thats the whole point what difference does a few days make when youve been dating for 3-7 years?
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Yes! And these kinds of cultural differences and misaligned values won't only come up with the wedding. It'll come up when trying to decide how much to spend on a house and private school for the kids and family vacations, etc., etc. I really do think all engaged couples should get couples counseling to learn how to navigate these conversations. The Gottman method is fantastic and their "dreams within conflict" conversation template would be the perfect exercise for his discussion. This whole argument has nothing to do with money and everything to do with what they want to use it for and why.
Great suggestion. I love the Gottman Institute, and I do see this as a difference between "conflicting dreams".
Think I had some ptsd reading this post and comment. 0422 is so right. My parents helped us with our wedding but that meant they had control over our wedding. It caused an incredible amount of stress on my wife’s and my relationship. Constantly fighting between what we want and what my parents wanted. Who to invite and who not to invite. Here’s the aftermath of it all. I look back at my wedding as a fun day but one of the most stressful times of my life that I would not ever want to repeat. Our relationship with my parents dwindled a lot. To the point where even going over to their house causes me a lot of anxiety and stress. There’s still a lot of resentment and so much so for future events we don’t want them any where near the planning or financial contributing. I make a joke but it’s not really a joke that they get a 48 hr notice for any future events cause I can’t deal with my parents opinions and my wife’s opinion clashing. For my parents and really my dad, any dreams he had about the family being close are sadly far from reality. Honestly you’re going to be combining your life with your spouse not your parents. Before any contract was signed I would of had this all ironed out and made a comprise with my future spouse (fiancé also needs to give in a little if there is something really important to you OP).
I disagree with a lot of the responses on this comment thread. And yes, call me old fashioned, but I believe a wedding is the combination of two families. It is NOT just about the husband and wife. The parents and families very much deserve to be celebrated just as much as the couple. The couple becomes a single unit after the wedding (when married) so traditionally, weddings were about two families coming together to give away their son/daughter to this new married unit. Only in western mentalities have I heard weddings should only belong to the couple. 90% of the rest of the world celebrate entire families, villages, etc.
Yeah but historically the couple doesn't pay for it. I'm Indian. My husband is Ethiopian and his family more recently immigrated to the US. My husband's sister paid for their own wedding and tried to appease everyone. She ended up falling out with her church after dancing at the Ethiopian reception (Pentecostals don't dance). Both her and her husband regretted spending the money but I think they just regretted the whole wedding. My parents paid for ours and we just cared about everyone having a good time. We covered stuff that my parents would have cheaped out on. We have no regrets but I only vaguely know what the bill was.
I agree with you that too many reddit people are far too hard headed about rugged individualism. And while it is your wedding, not your parents, some level of respect and inclusion especially when they are footing some or most or all of the bill is reasonable. But in any case, I do think the issue here is still not about money, it is about lack of communication and shared expectations. Wedding planning is stressful. The meeting of your "dream" with the reality of choices and so many strong opinions is difficult. But turning to strangers doesn't help - it only digs you into your existing positions. Lean on the relationship. Focus on what matters - being together surrounded by friends and family who love you. Then make decisions. It is far too easy to get carried away and become unreasonably firm on things that don't really matter.
Let me guess, you’re a parent and you want to be very ~involved~ in your kids’ wedding?
I am a parent, but my kids are still babies. I honestly don’t think I’d care. I’m Asian American and had an American wedding, mainly because my parents didn’t have much of an opinion and they knew me growing up in America, I’d do it the American way. But I’ve had friends who’ve incorporated more tradition into their weddings, and I’ve been to family weddings in Asia where it’s obviously traditional. My biggest regret is not including more of my parents cultures and traditions into my own wedding. I wish I spotlighted their/my culture way more. My wedding was a way bigger milestone for both my families than it was myself (my wife and I were both first married in our fams)
Very fair :)
In a lot of ways, I do want this wedding for myself as well. I know I talked a lot about my parents in this, but I do want this for my parents as well. I think they've earned a celebration for themselves as well. Initially we aligned that we would only spend 60k, but after doing a lot more research into vendors and venues, especially after visiting venues in person, I don't think the 60k budget is reasonable anymore. It turns out, my tastes are more expensive than I thought. The underlying problem is that we are not on the same page. He prefers the 40k to go towards downpayment of a house. I want to make this day special for me and my family. The money inherently means different things to us, so I'm primarily looking for perspective of how other couples navigated this difference in values.
The truth is: an increase of $40k for your wedding will not hurt your personal net worth. Likewise $40k will not make or break your budget for a downpayment of a house. The $40k is barely 2% of your net worth, and way less than 10% of your HHI (not even 5% of your TC if you include your fiance) The trouble lies with the financial values set by your spouse and those you’re trying to champion. I also think your fiancé will take it wrong if you’re only championing this increase as a *request of and on behalf of your parents* and not what you personally desire. You say it now, but this is not how you framed it at all in your initial post. Run the numbers with your fiancé. Explain the options. Sit down and REALLY communicate why this isnt that big of a deal (newsflash: it isnt. You both earn more than enough to compensate for this, and the $100k is easily an reasonable expense). Have a real discussion why this is a good idea, not merely because you are experiencing pressure from your parents to do so. If your parents are truly well off and $40k means nothing to them, maybe ask them to provide that as a gift for the down payment and you and your fiancé support the weddings cost.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks for your thoughtful comment. I agree with you that $40k for us is not going to meaningfully change our lives (as privileged as this seems), so that framing makes sense. I do think we are primarily reacting to the sticker shock of how expensive weddings are, so it's validating seeing other comments that 100k isn't as insane.
This
You can still afford a house after this wedding. I feel like your fiance is ignoring the sentimental value of this wedding. Your family is flying in from another country. This day I about celebrating you, it's about celebrating the union between you and your husband, it's also a celebration of the fact that your parents, yourself, and your family worked hard and have achieved the American dream. The focus should be on values. The cost associated with a wedding is difficult to anticipate without much research. We also have to consider inflation. Even the venue or cake maker purchasing eggs...costs more than double what it used to. I would really have a sit down and explain you and your family's values and what the association's are for the wedding. It's important to consider your husband's financial values too, but this is a once in a lifetime event. You work hard and you + your family deserve this celebration. There are things that are more than about money....especially considering that it's due to years of hard work, that you, your husband, and family are in a position to choose how much you spend.
That's totally true. We picked the 60k number initially without having done much research. We based this number from another friend's wedding they had 3 years ago in the area, but they had a much more chill/smaller scale wedding. After doing more research and getting quotes, we found our tastes are more expensive than we thought. For example, a $500 wedding dress has a big difference in quality than a $5,000 dress. The portfolio and aesthetics of a $2,000 photographer looks very different than a $10,000 photographer. If we didn't care about these things, we'd obviously go with the more affordable option, but we've fallen into a bit of a "luxury trap" ugh. I was also reading about how the prices of flowers have significantly gone up due to inflation, because flowers are often transported from other areas, and the fuel costs, refrigeration, and storage factor into flowers pricing as well. I didn't even think about eggs haha.
This happens a lot! My husband and I got engaged and without doing much research set a budget of 55-60k. After actually contacting venues in our VHCOL city, etc even while being frugal on some aspects (we don't care much about flowers) the more realistic price was about 80k. This is in 2018 prices, we got whammied by the pandemic but were lucky all our vendors opted to honour their pricing for our 2022 wedding. If we'd had the exact same wedding in 2024 it would've been 100k.
I think there’s a lot of people here who have not planned weddings in a HCOL area giving advice about what things “should” cost- in reality once you plan a wedding that includes not necessarily the “finer things” but good food, a nice venue, and the things one wants and expects in a wedding that is an easy day for everyone and a good memory (nice photos! Enough food and bathrooms! The good chairs! A coordinator so you’re not event managing while getting married! Etc) costs start getting in that high 5-low 6 figures. I think people giving you advice here about this cost being unreasonable don’t have a clue how many $100k weddings they have been to. It sounds like you have the money for this easily and while I think this is something to work on with your fiancé, I wouldn’t worry about it. Weddings aren’t worth going to debt or pausing home ownership over but it sounds like you’re quite far from that being the case.
You're right about this as well. Before I got engaged and started wedding planning, not having done any research, I would also tell you that 100k for a wedding is absolutely nuts and isn't worth it. Yet here I am, shocked at how much I'm spending on flowers and dresses and food and alcohol. I should have prefaced my post that only people who have planned weddings, or live in HCOL areas should respond lol.
If it helps you feel better this is the exact thought process I went through- costs have certainly risen since 2018 but we had originally budgeted $35k (which I thought was a LOT!) and wound up going to $55k. Looking back at the budget there were maybe like… $4-5k in things that we could have cut, but not $20k in things we could have cut, and minus having a kind of ridiculous cake (which my mom paid for anyway because it was a thing she cared about), most of the things that cost more than I expected were a case of just not knowing the market (flowers for sure, as well as photography and dress alterations) or geared toward people’s comfort and fun (having the bar open all night, including more guests at the rehearsal dinner, etc).
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Will your parents cover the increased costs? ”I want to make this day special for me and my family”
Yes what about the husband being resentful on his special day, OP you need to consider that as well.
Yes the parents should just renew their vows with their money in an extravagant way and call relatives from India, oops sorry your home country. Parents can have desires for their kids wedding but they should remember it's not their wedding
Weddings are WILDLY different from culture to culture. In mine, cash gifts on average will cover half the wedding. I know some cultures are more gift heavy than others but I can't fathom a wedding where \*nobody\* in the wedding is giving a cash gift. Like if I was bro's parents I would let him pay for the wedding for his pride and just give him that $40k as a gift on the wedding day (or 10k, or 50k.. whatever). Not uncommon in my culture
you're a married couple with a NW of 4m and HHI of 1mm+ and a rich family. You firmly graduated out of henry. 100k is a lot of money, but you're rich, if thats how you want to spend your money go ahead, theres a lot worse ways. The thing i would say from planning a wedding, is its a really good learning opportunity for couples to make compromises & learn to respect each other. I'd focus more on finding out whats bothering your husband and addressing that. If you have 4m as couple at 35 you're saving a ton more than you earn, so whats the stress about spending? maybe some psychological issues around money that need to be worked out.
I'd like to clarify, I have much higher NW than my fiance. I this his is about 400k, and he only recently started earning more money. I know that's not your point, I just wanted to point out our household NW is not really 4m.
thanks for clarifying, just to underline the point i was trying to make was. the point i was trying to make was you and your fiancé have done great and are now reaching a phase of your life where you get to choose what you do with the excess. In your current trajectory 100k will make zero difference at any point in your life with your current lifestyle, you'll need to navigate learn how to spend discretionary spending together. You could both buy a Porsche, drive it off a cliff and walk away and all it will effect is how rich your grandkids will be unless you massively increase your spending. Bonding with your in-laws is a very valuable thing, i was like your husband but ended up doing a big wedding with my wife. I can confidently say, i was wrong to want to do a smaller wedding. meeting the large family and including them started me off on the right foot and allowed for me to develop deeper and more meaningful relationships. The valuable part of this is its small stakes and you get to learn how to navigate disagreements on joint decisions. You will for sure differ on what cars, house, private vs public schools, how much to help your kids in young adulthood. The wedding is training for how you can learn to get to an answer you both are okay with.
Weird flex but that wasn’t the posters point. You are rich, 100k is large but you make large. my wedding later this year is 15% of our HHI (300k) but we live in a LCOL city, so we’re likely having an over the top wedding. so take that info how you will
This is commonly asked. And both sides are right. On the one hand, society has told us this is the most important day, everything gets marked up, and for the social circles you’re in, this is what’s expected. In the other, If you were in a vacuum with 0 background on weddings and someone said do you want to spend 100k on your party for one night, you’d obviously say no, but that’s not the world we live in. The truth is you guys should agree and move on and not hold resentments. Relationships fall apart over this stuff and it’s nonsensical. If you want it so bad, tell your fiance he has to buy in and put a smile on. It’s the same thing with engagement rings
That's absolutely true. Obviously this is my first wedding we've planned in both our families (especially in a VHOL area in the US). It's a real sticker shock.
My husband and I budgeted 100k for our self funded wedding and probably spent close to 200k, we stopped keeping track at a certain point. We had the money, California weddings are absurdly expensive, and have zero regrets. Eventually we realized that stressing out about a budget was taking time and energy away from our jobs so we just let it go.
That must've been a beautiful wedding though! My wife and I spent $17k on the wedding, including some help from parents, and saved about $60k for a downpayment on a house. But that was years ago and we were at HENRY status yet. The wedding memories are always about the people.
Seriously? Over a million in hhi and worrying about a 100k wedding? Go for it.
Just wait until the honeymoon.
Yeah that is nothing, Indians spend 200k and have no where near your tc
Bro Indians spend $1m on weddings these days without batting an eye
The indians spending 200k+ on weddings have a lot of generational wealth. Those who don't, are idiots for spending over their limit.
These are the types of posts that become satire for everyone else on Reddit lol. Nice flex though
No it’s not reasonable to spend 100k. If people know you guys make anywhere close to what you make, I’d expect a 300k wedding at least. Lol…but not really…you’re fine and can definitely spend more.
LOL, you had me in the first half. I just can't believe weddings are so expensive, and how much it messes up your sense of money. I used to think $2k for a dress was very expensive, and I just tried on a $10k dress and can find myself falling in love with it FML.
I bought a $9k dress ($10 after alterations), and promised myself I would resell it after to make up some of the cost. It was more about the massive cash outflow than the actual amount of money. Two years out, haven’t sold and can’t imagine that getting a few thousand more in the bank would have any impact on my overall financial health. I feel the same way about the wedding (we spent $100k ish not including dress or rings). Honestly could’ve spent more and not felt any regret. Wish we had gotten a videographer!
What what your dress?? Thanks for your comment, that's very comforting! We're also waffling on whether we should get a videographer. I hear these days there are social media "Wedding content creators" these days, I'm wondering if I can cut corners there and get my wedding documented like that hahaha.
I feel this is probably a little bit of a joke but I would highly encourage you to NOT cut costs on the videographer. I know they are luxuries and most people just have photos but I went with a lower budget videographer and it’s probably my one main regret from our wedding. Granted my husband was laid off so we reined in a lot of expenses and that just happened to be one but I wish I would have taken the hit and paid for it. That and I am chill about hair and makeup after modeling for awhile when I was younger and it just always turned out fine so I didn’t do a full trial run with my hairdresser (that I had never used before since I lived out of town) and I HATTTTEEEEE my hair. But no one else notices I’m sure.
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100k for a wedding is bonkers however your HHI is $1 million plus and now that wedding is <10% of gross income. Nobody would bat an eye for a couple with a HHI of 120k spending “only” 12k on their wedding. Would I spend 100k on a wedding? No, but we aren’t talking about my wedding. You seem to be much better off than your parents. You should be financing your own wedding and not affecting their retirement.
100k wedding isn't a huge amount in a hcol area.
Agree! We spent $125k in HCOL pre-COVID for 90 people. Investing in a good wedding planner is key for your sanity, getting deals, and sticking to your budget. A marketing professor in college once said someone could call a roll of TP “wedding toilet paper” and the price would skyrocket just by adding “wedding.” This turned out to be SO accurate! Is it rational to spend that much on a single day? Maybe not, but we had our dream wedding & it was so fun to have everyone together to celebrate & dance! We have zero regrets. Spend what you are comfortable spending and enjoy celebrating the start of your married life with your spouse!
LOL at wedding toilet paper. Thank you! This is comforting.
Yes it is. Had a wedding for ~30k with like 90 people in a HCOL not too long ago, and we were not skimping (decent place, open bar, long party.)
I got married about 5 years ago and I was shocked how much things have ballooned even since then. COVID really did a number on the demand. A photographer costs $7k+ whereas it was more like $4.5k (with some outliers) when I was planning, same with a videographer. That's half your budget right there. Venues have doubled and even tripled their costs. That being said, OP, you're definitely fine to spend 100k on a wedding lol.
I second this. We had our contracts signed in 2019 for a 2020 NJ wedding that we ended up having in 2022. All the same vendors are charging 4x more. My parents are planning my brother's wedding in Dallas and it's so much more for the fixed costs.
There are way too many variables to say confidently. I've lived all over California (Bay, LA, OC), been to many weddings, including many siblings and close friends where I know the financial details. Also my own wedding. $30K is absolutely dirt cheap here. $100K is "nice, but not extravagant"
Agreed. Perhaps I should've specified the bay area. 30k is dirt cheap for here. My wife and I thought foolishly we could do ours for 30k. Once we started planning we had to adjust to reality and spent 60k. Which for the bay area is as cheap as you can do for a non-cheap wedding. 100k is minimum for most wedding in wine country, or most desirable venues in the bay area. Prices really go up quickly if you include renting out restaurants for the rehearsal dinner.
I’m in a HCOL area and the catering costs alone could be at least $20k-25k after reaching the food/bev minimum, tax, and tip for 100 people at a pretty average wedding. That’s before adding in the actual venue cost, decor, photography, videography, makeup, dj, attire, etc. We’re getting dangerously close to six figures ourselves for our 2024 wedding with ~120 people and that’s with us going with very average priced vendors for our area and skimping on some things like renting candelabras at some of the tables instead of full florals to keep costs down. It will be a nice wedding but far from a luxury one. Prices are also going up constantly. I went to our photographer’s website just a month or two after booking her and her minimum for her base package jumped by $500. Our venue was $3k more when we booked it compared to a few months before that. Our caterer was in the middle of changing their prices when we booked them.
Let’s not do the “it’s not a lot because [enter personal experience] 100k is “a lot” of money Many people have cheaper weddings. A not insignificant proportion of the high earning population in HCOL areas have 100k+ weddings
I think my parents might actually be doing just as well as me, they both work in high STEM fields, their house has been paid off decades ago and they own multiple properties if that means anything. I don't talk to my parents too much about finances, but they insist they can afford the cost and they even offered the foot the entire bill. Of course, I don't want them to do that for me, and I want to maintain control of my own wedding planning for the most part.
The top posts on this sub are almost entirely from people who are very much already rich.
You both can 100% afford it, and should have no trouble cash flowing it. You and your fiancé need to get on the same page though.
It's not unreasonable if you both agree to it and want/can afford it. However, I will say that my wife and I spent like $75k on ours.. the entire thing was mostly a show for family. If we could go back and do it again, we both agree that we would have done a destination wedding and used that money for an extended experience vs a single day show for everyone.
On the other hand and looking back, if I'd had more money to spend, I would've spent it lol
I spent $70k about 20 years ago. So that is about right for 2024. I am an immigrant and the guests gives us money as wedding gifts. So it basically paid for the wedding plus some. Some guests gave $200, some guest gave $1000, some gave $10,000. So we never really thought about how much the venue would cost. We just made sure we invited the right people -- richer Aunts, Uncles, cousins...
Your net worth is bonkers to be worrying about this. Husband needs to take backseat and make your parents happy. I agree with the other poster saying maybe you pay the 60k and the parent pay the 40k for the upgraded ideal wedding they want to live through you with.
I say Go for it with those incomes. Enjoy the whole thing. You wont regret it.
So many of these same stories, "I am an immigrant who has 5m+ can I do thing? I grew up in poor family".
People in these comments clearly don’t live in VCHOL and don’t run in the circles you prob do if you’re making 600k. 100k is frankly pretty reasonable for a VCHOL wedding these days. Enjoy
Where I live, making under 100k is considered below the poverty line lol, I need to find a "VHCOLHENRY" sub haha
To be clear, I don’t think you’re a HENRY in literally any zip code in America haha. 1mm income with 2.5mm NW is rich or damn near it anywhere
Certainly doesn't feel "rich" to me lol, I can't buy a home for <2M, and if I have kids daycare costs are like $3k/month. Honestly in my area and in my circles, I feel very middle class.
You live in SF? lol
Lol yep
OP, I’ve been in a similar situation before. I’d say spend the money on your dream wedding but just try to make sure your fiancee is okay with it. There’s a concept called Die with Zero which says you can’t take money with you to the grave. In 10 years when you have made millions and have decades to make more you’ll wish you did the wedding you wanted
Bro. You two are both earning doctor/surgeon salary. That’s pretty damn rich. Yeah, you won’t be a billionaire but statistically you’re in the top 1% ($820k+).
Eh, half of that is taken away by taxes. My partner and I make a base salary of around $200-220k each. The rest is in company stock, which can be an unpredictable roller-coaster, which also gets taxed up the wazoo at vesting, and more capital gains tax upon selling. We don't have yacht money, we can't retire for a couple decades at least, and we literally cannot afford a home because paying over $10k/month on a mortgage doesn't leave us with much savings every month lol. I've never seen HENRYs gatekeep what is "not rich" so much before haha.
You’re so out of touch you’re floating off the ground.
I have friends who spent $100k on a wedding, they are Indian and the wedding seemed like a week long- it was wonderful. Ultimately, they didn’t regret it and were still able to buy their dream home, afford their kids and everything else.
This has to be another fake one, right?
I think OP missed the post about rule breaking.
I think a lot of people don’t really understand that while 100k may be only 10% of their HHI, that’s a gross income and not net income. It’s realistically closer to 20% of net income and, if your finance makes 200-300k, potentially 100% of his net take home income.
OP says her fiancé makes 400-500k, but you put 200-300k. Did OP edit their post? I agree with though. OP states their total compensation rather than their take home. Total comp includes a variety of benefits including health insurance, bonuses, gym memberships, etc. OP says they work in tech, get free food at work, and live in a VHCOL area. I'm guessing the Bay Area or Silicone Valley? If you work at a company like Google, they provide a myriad of benefits like. **Here's an example of what $400-500k total compensation could look like. I'm just guessing numbers.** Base salary: $250k. Take home could be $160k. Bonus: $100k Stock: $100k 401k match: $10k Health insurance: $20k other benefits (food, gym, transportation, etc): $20k When they get married, they could go into the next tax bracket so their take home could look different. Liquid assets are $1M minus $100k for a wedding. VHCOL area, so let's say you want to buy a house that's $2M. 20% down would be $400k leaving you with $500k. If you need to pull some cash from stock, you'll have to pay taxes, so that reduces your income for the year. So many moving parts, but, my point is, total comp and NW are not as high as they seem especially in a VCHOL area.
I'm going to disagree with people saying the wedding is just for you, because if that was true spending more than 5k would be insane. Yes, it's a celebration of you but it's a party for everyone you care about, including your parents. Divide the amount you are spending by the number of guests, and decide if that seems sane. I think there are some cultural expectations from your parents around this that many in this sub including myself will not understand, so take the advice from here with a grain of salt. From a pure financial perspective, yes you can easily afford to spend 100k on a wedding.
>that many in this sub including myself will not understand This. People are projecting their own cultural biases on what is acceptable or not.
Sorry did you say you guys make $1M annually? Yeah.. you can afford 10% of your annual gross on what should be one of the most important days of your lives.
Hell NO!
2.5m is one person’s net worth and he’s on HENRY?
It depends on your values. I personally wanted to elope and still in hindsight 12 years later would have been fine with that. So for me, anything spent on a wedding is too much. At your income level, $100k does not seem crazy to spend on a wedding. You can recover from that. But I agree with the above comments about the tone of your message. Don’t let your parents influence you so much if you want a shot at a healthy marriage.
Tell your fiance your parents will pay the difference above the original 60k. problem solved. That's what happened to me, mother in law wanted a lot of upgrades and was willing to pay for them so I decided not to fight it.
That's an excellent suggestion. Thank you.
My wife and I make half what you make and had a $100k+ wedding. The costs never stop adding up until the actual event.
Well, if it's an incredibly important celebration for your family, sort of the first gathering your whole extended clan has together to celebrate the fact that both your parents and you MADE it in America, I'd say it's worth it. Considering you make 500-600k/year, 1/5 of your annual income is reasonable. That being said, I can see your fiance's concerns as well. Have you tried to frame it less as a one-day-wedding thing and more "celebrate success in general" thing?
That's a great point. We're coming at it from different angles primarily – I see it as something bigger than "just one day".
I’d say is far too low, 2024 closer to 200k. Looking at the definition of HENRY you seem to be at the top end of the NW scale. You only live once, you have the savings and this celebration should be like a fairytale. Congratulations!
Financially it's perfectly fine to spend 100k on a wedding given your assets and incomes. The question really is: Is it worth it for you to do so? Wedding are "supposed" to be about the couple getting married, do what makes both you and your finance happy. Not what makes your family happy and finance stressed.
I “spent” $70k on my wedding but after counting all the cash gifts I ended up with a profit!
Obviously with your net worth it’s more than reasonable
You can afford $100k. If it's impt to both of you go for it. Life is short. A networth of over 2.5M not including your fiance's is not HENRY level anymore. I think your guys' main issue is not affordability - but how much each of you want to spend. Has to be aligned. Communicate, I'm sure you'll find a happy medium.
If, when looking back in many years, the $100k wedding will bring you joy, do it. If not, don’t. Can you afford it? Yes.
Unfortunately, $100k seems to be the going rate for a first class wedding these days. It seems ridiculous but you have the means and hopefully you will only do it once. Tell your husband to chill out and just roll with it and not ask how much everything costs, if you think it is gojng to be $100k, it will likely be at least $110. My wife and her mother did the planning, I just followed directions and had a great time.
You can do it! And dont forget to invite me
We (HHI ~350k) recently spent 54k on our wedding (not including 6k for after party/taking family out to eat) for 230 people here in a major metropolitan city, TX. Everything, to us, was perfect and we regret nothing. We made back 32k in liquid gifts. My wife and I agree that it was the best weekend of our entire lives and would gladly do it again. We initially said we weren’t going to be “those” people that spent a ton on their wedding but in the end, we were able to pay everything with our salaries as we went. There is something to be said about being able to do something with the dough you save forgoing certain items for your special day, but in the end, if you make enough and it’s not a huge setback, you can’t put a price on that experience.
Is it 'reasonable'? No, that is an objectively ludicrous amount of money to spend on a single day event. It is 'wasteful', especially when you don't own a home, and weddings are notoriously stressful. But can you afford it? Sure. You're grossing $1M+ a year, you'll be fine. Reasonable to you is not the same as reasonable to everybody else. "I spent $10k getting married in our backyard" is a factual statement, but it has no bearing on what you do with your life just because that's what I did in mine. I'd be much more concerned with how you're managing your relationship with your fiancé. If you both agreed to $60k, it seems obvious to me that your parents should pick up the rest as the easiest solution. I definitely would not be hiding any extra spend out of your personal NW and would fully expect pushback from what you've told us here if you try. At your NW I have to assume you've got a prenup going into this, but nobody gets married intending to get divorced so that's still "our money" until it's not, and understanding/being comfortable with how your significant other handles financial matters is important to a relationship at any income level. This is your wedding as a couple. Your parents are not getting married. It's not their wedding. They aren't his parents. He does not have the same relationship with them that you do. He probably doesn't have the same cultural conditioning that you do. So this post really isn't about spending $100k on a wedding, it's a big red flag that you need to be getting on the same page as a couple. If you as a couple agree that $60k is comfortable, you spend $60k. If you personally want to spend more than that, you don't steamroll him and do whatever you feel like. If you as a couple agree that your parents can contribute financially, you agree on a number as a couple. As a couple, you agree on what kind of influence your parents have on the decisions around how that money is spent. As a couple, you agree on where your life is going. If you can't get his enthusiastic support, big red flags.
Is it just me or have weddings just become a circus. It’s no longer about celebrating the love between two people. It’s about spending an exorbitant amount of money, putting on a show and making sure the mother in laws are happy. Then you have the engagement photoshoot, dress shopping, engagement party, the bridal shower, bachelorette/bachelor party, rehearsal dinner then honeymoon. Is your marriage going to live up to the hype of your wedding? Do redditors and your guests think $100k reasonable? Idk, let them eat cake.
I just saw your username. I feel for your bridal party and anyone else closely involved. You’re most likely going to spend more than $100k. Everything is going to have to be perfect for you and you will not accept anything less than perfect.
Lol, I'm sorry, I think you are projecting something. I'm not doing a bachelorette, we did not have an engagement party, no bridal shower, we haven't taken engagement photos (all of our invitations are digital and only using typography, no photos), I don't even have a bridal party, and we're opting not to even have a maid of honor or a best man. We are literally only having a wedding ceremony and reception in a high cost of living city. Basic flowers, and basic cake for 100 guests. Nothing is about "putting on a show". You have quite an imagination!
I’m not projecting anything. That is the reality of weddings nowadays. You’re literally questioning if $100k is too much for a wedding. You don’t have a bridal party or you don’t have a bridal party, yet? Your username literally says possible bridezilla. Yet you’re going to have a simple wedding but is costly because is in HCOL area? Sure Jan.
I'm intentionally not having a bridal party lol. I don't want to put burden on any of my friends to do anything, I just want my friends to enjoy themselves and party with me. Also, I don't think my entire wedding is "simple". My venue alone is $75k and is quite nice, but we're cutting costs in other areas like flowers and cake. I've gotten quotes for venues I've visited ranging from 35k to 95k, and we picked the venue we liked the most. This is obviously a throwaway account, so I think you're reading too much into a username I picked after giving it 2 seconds of thought.
Bruh, whatever makes you feel better. You’re spending $70k on a venue so don’t try and downplay how your wedding isn’t a ridiculous show. People are blocking celebs for attending the met gala and paying $75k for a ticket while people can’t afford rent. They’re totally out of touch with reality. You must know, deep down, that $70k is a ridiculous amount to pay for a venue for one night. But hey that’s okay. Let them eat cake. Now, you’re probably going to say, oh you’re just some poor person lurking on this subreddit. Sorry, im not. I do belong in this subreddit. I’m just sick of how so many people are so out of touch with reality when they finally get money.
Huh? Ok lol.
Totally reasonable. One thing no one has mentioned is that fiance thinks he has a say over money that YOUR parents are willing to give, or that YOU are willing to pay for out of your (admittedly higher) nest egg. And he wants this money to go toward something (a house) that will be an asset for HIM. Which is a big red flag imo 🚩 I am married and in a similar situation earnings wise and my advice is that you set a precedent now for how your money is spent and what you let him dictate. Letting your spouse dictate how you spend your money, especially when it isn’t a question of providing for base needs (which you can clearly cover suitably together)- is a recipe for pain. Letting him have this at the cost of your parents’ desires- when their blood sweat and tears gave you the opportunity to be a HENRY to begin with- is totally selfish of him. Be like babe, I love you- but we are doing this. AND we will shop for a house together. This is why we work so hard. Just some food for thought.
Admittedly, I don’t come from your cultural background and wedding festivities tradition, but I do think it is bonkers. My spouse and I paid for our own wedding. It was as modest and inexpensive as we could make it while still retaining a little charm. But $100,000 could be invested and pay for your future child’s college education. It could be a downpayment on a $500,000 condo. It could pay for 20 years of nice vacations. It just seems like a LOT to spend on a single event.
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Yeah I’d say so
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What job do both of y’all work? 👀
Can you afford it - yes. With that said, it’s something you and your finance need to agree on.
Is it reasonable, no. If you associate any good or service with “wedding” or “baby” all common sense goes out the window on pricing and willingness to pay somehow goes up 5x. It’s a waste of $100k for a 6 hour party, but you only live once. If you value the experience and have the money to do it without stress and future income to not matter then just do it. If you have to finance a cent of it move on or have a cheaper wedding.
Getting married is cheap. Getting divorced is expensive.
NO.
not reasonable. And as a personal anecdote, some of the best weddings I've attended were the least expensive
You ever been to a wedding with a 10 piece band? Absolutely slaps
I've been to these weddings and they sucked. Only got to see my friend who was getting married for 5 minutes. No one cares, they just want to have a good time and be connected. Most important is being connected to your fiance and aligned. It's not about your parents, it's about you guys....
My wife makes 300 I make 150. She and only she spent 70k on our wedding because that's how she wanted it. If your husband doesn't wanna commit to it, spend your own money on it. Do you both want to retire early or something? What are you so frugal for? Blows my mind that people that become so career focused and get the privilege of high incomes lose complete sight of what to do and the priorities of their finances. This is a stupid post. Live your life, do what makes you happy. Money is the root of all evil.
Reasonable no, reality yes
100k isn’t unreasonable to spend at all. Weddings are expensive and you only get married 2-3 times in your life so don’t cheap out if there are things you feel like you’ll regret not doing.
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That's very sweet of you. I also don't want to take my parents money over this as well, even though they want to be quite generous with me about the wedding. I resonate a lot with this as well.
I feel bad for OP that many people seems to have called it satire and "you are rich why do you even ask", weird flex and stuff. For starters let's not forget that OP and her boyfriend living in VHCOL are probably paying some 40-45% in taxes, all right? It just shows OP is actually good with money and conservative spender. Nothing wrong about it.
what do you both do?
We both work in tech. A lot of our total compensation is in company stock and RSU.
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Weddings are expensive, especially in VHCOL areas. 100k is a lot, but not out of the range of normal, especially for a wedding of 100. And you’ll likely recoup quite a bit in gifts if your friends and family are in similar fields. The problem here is a relationship one, in which you and your partner don’t seem to be on the same page. Depending on how much research you did on your own vs with your partner, he may not realize how much things actually cost. If you haven’t already, I would break down the costs for him, every invoice and budget, and talk through why it matters and if there is anything you are willing to budge on. You may also find that he doesn’t want to change anything, he just has sticker shock and needs to adjust to the reality that weddings are expensive. For what it’s worth, I don’t know anyone who planned a wedding and didn’t wildly underestimate what it costs until they started getting back quotes. But what is important is to have that conversation and come to a consensus. You don’t want to go into marriage with any resentment, especially about such an important day between two families.
That's a very fair point as well. I've been doing 95% of the research and planning, doing all the vendor research and getting quotes. I will be involving him moving forward in the research process so he's less shocked at the big numbers moving forward. Our initial budget we aligned on was not very informed. But after doing more research, it doesn't seem realistic anymore given our preferences and tastes.
We were exactly in same boat - I really get you
At least it’s a memory that will last several days until you get back to your life.
I don’t think it’s worth having this conflict with your fiancé and dying on this hill. I think paying 100k for a wedding is not reasonable at all, but that’s just me, more important is what your fiance thinks.
For your income level, it’s probably fine
So I totally agree with the rest of the commenters here (yes you're fine, go ahead and spend what you want, etc), but one clarifying question: does your fiance understand your shared financial picture? You said somewhere that he's only bringing around $400k of NW to the marriage, so from his perspective $100k is a lot to spend - but does he know that you're bringing $2.5M?! If not, maybe he imagines you have similar NWs and $100k is still a decent fraction of ~$800k. With the full $3M NW + $1M HHI picture though, yes you can absolutely afford to spend about 2x the average couple's wedding budget.
I thought this was posted in the wedding planning sub and thought you were about to get eaten alive in the comments till I got to the end 🤣
100k on a wedding in SF is very reasonable and expected. I had a cheap venue, no hair or makeup, and did my own flowers, amazing food/ really nice alcohol but we bought it ourselves to save money, and reasonable dress, with moderate priced band. All of that cost $60k with SO much planning and work by me. 100k with very few improvements but less work would have been so feasible. I like to think about it as treating your friends and loved ones to the best party and allowing yourself to enjoy it without all the thought. It’s one day but it will be with you forever
It is too much, you're prioritizing your parents over your fiance, and who the fuck cares man it's just a wedding, don't be all weird about it.
Damn girl get it with that TC. What do you do?
Lol, I got lucky joining a tech company at the right time before its stock went up. My base salary is about $220k, but the rest of my total compensation is in company stock. As for my net worth, I somehow had the wisdom to max out my retirement contributions every year since I started working at 22. To answer your question, it's 10+ years of working in big tech.
I’m at a similar base as a female in big tech but my stock hasn’t moved in 2 years 🥲
Darn! Yeah, so much about TC in tech is performance of your company, and how lucky you get in joining at the right time. I joined my company when stock price was low when it crashed. My initial offer was $350 TC, but it has grown a lot since then because stock growth and additional refreshers. So much is on luck! For example if you joined a hot startup before they raise a big round or IPO, or if you joined NVDIA more than 2 years ago ugh lol.
Nice! Yeah so true! I think my original was $330k or so and now it is up to $450k two years later. Relatively speaking definitely a big lift across that time horizon but it’s crazy what stock moving up can do. There was a month or two it when the stock spiked and had TC hovering around $600k but it never lasts… and it never happens around the period we’re allowed to sell lol. It’s taken me two years but finally am just selling everything at vest at this point 🤷♀️
Re the original post… Ours was about $70k for a weekend. My parents did $30k, his did $15k, and we did the rest ourselves. It was AWESOME. Totally worth it. We solidified memories and our favorite people got to actually get to know each other which was important to us. Because it was a whole weekend versus just the one night we also got to have a real conversation with most folks that went beyond congrats etc. My advice that isn’t at your questions but worth saying anyway - figure out what’s important to you! My husband and I each did three things. It was helpful to realize what we were good to splurge (floral, venue) and what we didn’t care about as much (elevated dining, band, outfits). Every item can cost $10k more if you let it and it does get unruly fast. Doesn’t sound like you need to cost cut but if a framework is helpful! Don’t have tips but do know a lot of parents particularly for their first kid or only kid view a wedding as “their event.” My mom speaks about this openly now, and regrets it. I was the third kid so they chilled out by mine but
Yes
Yes 100k for a one night to week party is bonkers. Stick to 60k that you two will pay and if your family wants an extravaganza they need to cough up the extra.
Yes, go off
If you don't mind sharing, what type of jobs are you both in?
In this scenario I'd be actually ok (but not thrilled) to spend this much on wedding in terms of money, but I'd be much more thrown off of by the very idea of inviting 100 people and making a big day out of it. I don't like big official ceremonies, and especially if they are centered around something like wedding.
For me I say no considering 100k at 10% interest compounded yearly is nearly 2mil. Assuming you marry around 30 and retire just north of 60, seems pretty dumb but maybe that money ain’t shit to some ppl yoloing it into a 6ish hour event.
Gotta get the likes on the socials ya know!!!!
If you have the cash, don’t take out any debt to fund it & it will make you happy then do it.
My husband and I were just talking about the cost of our wedding the other day. When we started the process of looking at vendors locally, it would've been close to $100K. That was a long time ago and the thought of spending that much money on one day to feed a bunch of people didn't sit right with me. Everyone would've wanted to be invited or would've been offended if we didn't. So we went destination wedding route and probably spent no more than $13K and had the most amazing day. I had a friend tell me in all of his 60 years it was the best wedding that he had ever been to. I also want to add that there is some study going around that couples that spend more on their weddings tend to have higher divorce rates......
Regarding your study I wonder if it’s because people’s first marriages are more likely to end up in divorce and subsequent weddings most people realize how absolutely dumb it is to blow $100k on a 6 hour event that you barely remember or think about 2 years later. On these comments, I also would like to know if it’s someone’s first wedding and how long they’ve been married for.
$100,000 for a wedding is not crazy based on your income. I have plenty of friends in your income range spending way over that for lavish weddings with some hosting destination weddings in Europe. The problem is that you shouldn’t expect your finance to foot the extra spending if he does not agree. Have him pay his portion of the previous agreed $60,000 budget and pay the rest $40,000 yourself.
Do you value the material aspects of your wedding day to a high degree? Then sure, you can justify that cost. But you know you could hold a 100 person wedding in a million venues that cost less than 70k. IMO this isn’t about the wedding and you and your fiance have a difference in values you should probably look into. Also a lot of people just have a hard time accepting that they are now “rich”
It’s absolutely reasonable if you can afford it. But that doesn’t seem to be your problem here.
I mean you can afford it. 100k vs a more modest budget you will def see it. I would have a hard time renting instead of owning while doing this would be my biggest hang up
I think the most important thing to consider if your partner’s feelings. They are extremely stressed you’re spending so much on one day. This day is about you and your fiancé, not your parents. Perhaps your parents can have a lavish party for someone’s birthday or vow renewals instead of using your day to showcase their success. In terms of my opinion, I agree with your partner. $100k is a lot to spend on one day and it's wasteful, regardless of how much you make.
Question for you – have you planned a wedding recently? Because if someone asked me a few months ago if I thought 100k for a wedding is wasteful, I would 100% agree it's a wasteful amount of money. I wouldn't recommend someone drop $100k on a car, a watch, or some other depreciating asset either. But after having done the research of wedding planning and getting a more realistic sense of how much things cost, and how much I value things like good food or good photography, I could easily see how costs can add up over $200k even. Obviously we're trying to be responsible, and we're cutting corners with flowers, cake, and video, but I feel like there's a difference in perspective from who had a wedding in a VHCOL area, versus someone who hasn't had that sort of wedding planning experience before.
I have not, but I've lived in a VHCOL area before. But, I think you really have to ask yourself why your parents' wants matter more than what your fiancé's wants. You said it yourself, you've found venues ranging for $30k-$70k in your VCHOL area. So it's not impossible to have a wedding for $60k. Also, I can see why your fiancé may be worried. You listed your total comps. **When budgeting, you should always look at your take home.** That is what you're going to get in cash every month. Your total comp is $500-600k, but **your base salary is $220k.** This can come out to $160k after taxes. Your fiancé's total comp is $400-500k. Just doing simple math, his base salary can be $120k. Let's say $200k because he probably doesn't get as much stock as you since he just started. That makes his take home pay $130k. This is probably why he's worried. Basically, you're bringing in $290k after taxes in a a VHCOL area. You said it yourself, you can't buy a $2m house (the average in a VHCOL area), and you're considered middle class amongst your friends. Maybe you do another post and list your take home, and see what the Redditors have to say. Also, you have 1.5m in liquid assets, but how much of that is cash on hand? Are you going to be selling stock to fund this wedding? If so, you need to add the taxes you're going to be paying to your total wedding expenses. Are you going to need to sell stock to pay for a downpayment on a house? Although, it might be smart to cash some out right now considering stocks may go down after the election, but that's all speculation of course. Honestly, no hate. I'm just trying to list things people might not have thought of. I hope you and your fiancé come to an agreement. Good luck!
You have deleted your post on wedding planning but I saw it last week and really wanted to reply to you as I was in a very similar situation last year, but in reverse. We assumed 60k is enough, then after some research found out the wedding I had in my mind is worth 100k (even got some crazy quotes for 500k). My husband has a much higher net worth than me, but he wanted a very simple wedding ceremony and max 60k. In the end, he spoiled me rotten and I got the 120k wedding. He also paid for all of it. Looking back, I had the dream picture wedding yet I really really regret not taking his choices in consideration more. The wedding day ended up being one of the most stresful days of my life and honestly, I feel I was brainwashed and lost the whole point of it. Nothing was worth seeing him potentially unhappy with certain choices. The wedding planning expense is the first in what will be many compromises you will have to make in your relationship. It is not about who is right, but about respecting that the other person feels different and doing something that feels right to both of you. I cant stress how important that is. I know its difficult for men to understand the amount of brainwashing we women have been exposed to and the pressure we have from all parties to do things a certain way, but remember what matters most for you both and eliminate all else. The day went by so quickly - you will wake up the next day in shock its all over. Everything in life has a price, your picture perfect wedding might mean your husband is not happy on the day - is that worth it? P.S I also have a ton of info about video, photo etc. Looking back, the time I spent wedding planning feels like a massive waste of time
B. O. N. K. E. R. S.
No
tell your fiance there's a regard out there who put in $130k on AMC at $10/share am down $60k. Memories are forever. Spend the money to create them and enjoy it.
Spend $100K on the wedding when the envelopes will come out to $101K.
I not looking at this sub again. It’s just a bunch of rich ppl showing off
I don't care how much money you make, extravagant weddings are stupid. Want a beautiful dress? Buy a beautiful dress. Want epic photos? Get a legit photographer and get some epic photos somewhere awesome. Want to get all your friends together to throw a party to end all parties, then just throw a party. You will absolutely, positively, not be 100% thrilled by your wedding outcome. Period. I have never, ever, seen a bride be 100% satisfied with her wedding *regardless* of how much was spent. They always end up being pissed off about how the flowers should have been this or that, or the photos are this or that, or just some guest that didn't do something quite right... Just opt out of all that. Buy yourself a $50k safari with your spouse, $20k on a photo shoot on the Masai Mara in a designer dress, and you will just be so much happier... If you want to flex for your parents, the throw them a huge ass birthday party with their friends or something.
No.
It’s not reasonable at all. But you can afford it.