Cousin S’s Wedding
Over the weekend, I attended my cousin’s wedding. It was nice. It was nothing overly extravagant. I was told that the bride and groom saved wherever they could. But, it was a very joyous day. I got the chance to see relatives that I haven’t seen in year. I got the chance to dress-up and be in photos.
Since this is a personal finance blog, let’s put in a word or two about the subject. I have read articles about the typical wedding costing about $30,000. I would not doubt that the bride and groom spent that much.
Take, for example, the dinner banquet. We dined at a nice Chinese restaurant. The set banquet menu was priced at about upper-$300 per table. If you include the drinks, tax (8.25%) and tips (18%), it easily came out to $500 per table. There were 23 tables. So, the dinner alone cost $11,500. And, I hear that they will be hosting another dinner banquet in Hong Kong for the relatives living there!
One of the things that I noticed about the quoted figures is that it does not account for the gifts that the couple received. Since there are no articles about that and I am a never-married person, I have no idea how much of the costs that a couple typically recovers. Anybody want to volunteer that information?
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I got married on Long Island in April of 2004. We had a lavish wedding and it cost about $60,000, not including the honeymoon. Our gifts totalled about $30,000 so we got back about 50%.
