Wedding - What I'd do differently (Part 1)

Luckily, my wife's parents paid for almost the whole wedding. This was a huge help since I would not know how to afford a wedding that my wife wanted. Interesting how women want these sometimes large, glamorous weddings, yet they turn out to feel somewhat different. My wife, for example, doesn't feel like it was all that wonderful just because it was too short and we were so busy with pictures and all of the other stuff.

Knowing how much the wedding cost, I would have changed a lot of things. First, I think we would have made it a lot smaller. There was really no need for a big wedding, or anything that glamorous, as fun as it was. This, of course, was not my choice though. My father-in-law was giving away his last, and most favored, daughter. He of course wanted to make it a wonderful experience, and therefore didn't spare much expense. I wouldn't have minded cutting it a bit and using the extra towards our future goals. Even cutting the cost by $10,000 would have made a huge difference in our finances, and we probably could have cut a lot more.

So my first conclusion is that it was too big. I think we could have had a great time with a wedding of only 40-50 people. To include family and friends, though, required us to invite a lot more. Plus we didn't want a small wedding. We didn't know any better. The cost per person expenses was at least $80-$90. Cut the list by 50 or so and that's almost $5000 in our pocket. That would have been nice.