How to Have Half a Million Dollars at Retirement by Controlling Wedding Costs

It's springtime (at least it is in 98% of the U.S. here in Michigan, it's still winter. ;-) ) which means it's coming upon wedding season. I'd like to revisit an idea a guest poster had a few weeks ago when he suggested we should spend less on our weddings and pocket the difference. If we did so, we could have a good amount saved up when we reach retirement. I've had some thoughts on this issue since then (surprise -- I think it's a good idea) and here they are:

1. According to The Wedding report, the average cost of a wedding is $28,800.

2. Let's say we have three couples -- couple A, couple B, and couple C -- who decide to cuts costs on their weddings and spend $15,000, $10,000, and $5,000 respectively on their special days. If they took the difference between the average cost of a wedding and what they actually spent and invested it at 8%, in 40 years they would have the following amounts:

• Couple A -- $278,000
• Couple B -- $378,000
• Couple C -- $479,000

Yep. Couple C nets almost half a million dollars by spending $5k versus $28.8k.

3. For all of those who say, "yeah, but a wedding can't be held for $5,000." Maybe. Maybe not. It's certainly true that a very nice wedding can be held for much less than $28,800 -- if you're willing to be flexible and creative. Here are a few posts to give you some ideas:

• Save on Your Wedding

• Great Comments on Saving on Wedding Costs

• More Tips to Save on Wedding Costs

• Even More Tips for Saving on Wedding Costs

• Saving on Wedding Tips from a Wedding Consultant, Part 1

• Saving on Wedding Tips from a Wedding Consultant, Part 2

• Save Money on a Wedding by Renting a Wedding Cake

• How to Have A Wedding for Under $200

4. For all those who say, "It's a day we'll remember for our entire lives -- we want it to be special." A few thoughts on this:

• "Special" is not a synonym for "expensive." I've had plenty of special days in my life that I'll remember forever. Most revolve around having those closest to me present and doing something fun together and/or creating a memory. And very few of those days involved significant sums of money. In short, you can still have a special day without it costing you a fortune -- the two issues are not related!

• Isn't "house downpayment" just as "special" as a fancy wedding?

• This one's a hard one, but I'm being realistic here. Let's face facts -- a HUGE number of couples end up divorcing. Wouldn't you rather have a good chunk of change at your divorce than the memory of spending a fortune marrying someone you now want to forget?

5. When we got married, we paid for everything ourselves and spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000. Of course this was over 15 years ago, but it was still an inexpensive wedding compared to the norm those days.

6. When our kids get married, we're going to give them cash. They can then choose what they want to do with it -- have a big wedding, pocket the money, or meet somewhere in the middle. I think one reason weddings are so out of control is that someone else (mom and dad) are paying for part or all of them. Transfer that spending responsibility to the bride and groom and I think a whole different dynamic starts to play out.

Comments

[Rachel @ Master Your Card]

I agree with you that weddings are too expensive. I managed to keep my wedding below $4000 by inviting very few guests and not having a wedding car or too many flowers and a cheap dress. I have no regrets at all, in fact I am thrilled that I managed to spend so little, have a perfect day and have good savings to show for it.

[rwh]

We spent about $1500 back in 1986. My wife's parents paid about $800 for the wedding and reception, my parents paid about $400 for the rehearsal dinner and we paid about $300 for the minister and 6 tuxedos. Obviously prices have changed since then.

But I think the low cost of the wedding is one reason why my father in law likes me.

[Ryan]

My wedding was only around $3K and was 3 years ago. It's called having a destination wedding in a low cost country. The flights were $2K, the wedding itself was only $1K due to the low cost of living there.

[Cheap Like Me]

Great post. Our wedding cost about $2,000 (plus a rehearsal dinner that my in-laws covered) 12.5 years ago. And, as for it being a special day, we have since had several people tell us it was one of the nicest and most touching weddings they had ever attended. I know this is partly because we included things like having our first dance to "Always," the same song my grandparents danced to at their wedding, and having them join us (not a dry eye in the house and a beautiful memory for me). Free, but meaningful.

The only problem is HAVING the $28,000 to invest the extra -- our wedding was so cheap mostly because we didn't have any money! Cheap by choice would be a great start in life.

[Jake]

"This one's a hard one, but I'm being realistic here. Let's face facts -- a HUGE number of couples end up divorcing. Wouldn't you rather have a good chunk of change at your divorce than the memory of spending a fortune marrying someone you now want to forget?"

Starting off your marriage thinking about divorce contingencies is a great way to undermine your marriage.

[Becky@FamilyandFinances]

I was pretty proud of spending only $6000 on my small wedding last year...until I read the above comments. Way to go, everyone!

I thought my wedding was just perfect and I'm really glad we didn't spend any more than what we did. It is just one day, and we want to have money to enjoy the rest of our lives together :)

[LC]

Our wedding in 2004 was well under $5000 including the honeymoon. Most people think that doing a destination wedding would be more expensive but it's included if you honeymoon there at most places. With just immediate family you can have an informal party when you get back for the rest of your friends.

We had it in the off season (December) so everything was cheaper and we didn't need as many flower because everything was decorated for Christmas already. We also went to in-home businesspeople for photography and cakes, which saved a TON.

[Pat Flynn]

Wow, what a timely post for me. I recently got engaged (yay!) and we're already starting the wedding planning process. We're lucky because we have a lot of friends and family who are willing to pitch in and help - for instance, my fiancee's mother's hobby is creating flower arrangements, and she agreed to do all of the arrangements for our wedding. She feels special doing it, we feel special because she's helping out, and we save money too. Win win win situation!

[FMF]

A question for those of you talking about destination weddings. Don't they add a huge cost to attendees? For instance, going to Hawaii as a wedding guest would be much more expensive than going almost anywhere else in the US (and a lot more expensive if the alternative site -- usually the bride's home -- was in the same city.)

Or am I missing something?

[guinness416]

As a veteran attendee at several destination weddings, it generally is much more expensive, FMF. But the wedding party expect that only people who REALLY want to attend will come, there's no animosity about people bailing. I've always been very touched by the genuine appreciation from the couple for the travel/expense guests have put in. One I went to in Italy was literally the most stunning, perfect wedding I could imagine - and there were only a few dozen people there.

[JB]

My fiancee and I are getting married next month... in the end we'll have spent less than $5000 - not including our honeymoon which was a gift from my mom (so it doesn't count!). Too bad we don't have the other $23,000 to save! Ha ha!

I think that's another thing to think about though... most people probably put a lot of their wedding on credit... lucky for us we've saved for our tiny, humble wedding!

[LC]

Just to clarify - I did not have a destination wedding. We did go to a caribbean resort a few years later and were surprised to find out that we could have had our wedding and honeymoon there for the same price (~2500).

Yes, the costs for guests are higher, but close family and friends may be looking for an excuse for a vacation anyway. Also, it is common for the couple to pay to fly out their wedding party and family, but at $1200 per person (this is what we paid for the flight and a WEEK at an all inclusive resort), it is still a cost-effective option. It is also common to only invite those very close to you to the ceremony and then host a more informal BBQ when you get home to show off your pictures and greet a bigger crowd of friends.

To put it another way, for the same $28,800 you could spend on an average wedding, you could take over 20 of your closest friends on the vacation of a lifetime. (Not that you want them all there while you are on your honeymoon, but hopefully you get my point).

[John Jimenez]

Married 6 years ago (her 19, me 21), for just under $3k (*very* small and more personal wedding)
Honeymoon Time Share in GA was gifted to us, the cake ($300) was a gift from my parents. Paid for everything in cash and have plenty of photos that were all perfect (fresh starting local photographer)
It can be done, you just have to compare what is more important, a big part or your future.

[John Jimenez]

should have read "big _party_ or your future"*

[Bobby]

I got married on Feb.29th, this year. We went to southern Utah, Escalante National Park, it was great. We honeymooned different national parks and had a wonderful time. Way under $5,000, it was right around 2k.

[Kelly]

Hehe. You will all hate me for this I suppose, but... We had a wedding that was a bit over $25,000 in North Carolina. Our rationale was this: We wanted to have a wedding in front of close family members and friends. My parents are from another country, so my relatives had to travel a really long way to be here. We have also moved alot and close friends came from around the country. We felt like with the big expense they were putting out to come and share this day with us that it would be most gracious to serve them a nice meal and have an event with nice surroundings and beverages for them to enjoy. Catering and drinks cost about $150 per person (open bar, sit down dinner, appetizers, dessert, cake, servers, bartenders). This was something that was important for us to do, so we saved up the money in advance and paid for it ourselves. It ended up being really cool, because we could do whatever we wanted since it was our money. AND, since both sides were so pleased that we ut on such a nice wedding that they did not have to pay for, they both gave us large cash gifts that they themselves had been saving. We were then able to replenish our savings accounts. We don't regret this one bit and are in fact doing quite well financially. People still tell us they had an awesome time at the wedding. I think this would be a foolish thing to do if you can't afford it, but if you can I see no reason why you shouldn't!

[DTobin]

In response to the question about attendees: This may seem cynical on my part, but we are saving a ton of money because many people WON"T be attending. This is one reason why destination weddings are so inexpensive, you don't have to feed 200 people. An added bonus is that we can invite almost anyone (saving ourselves from family issues of who to invite and not to invite), but generally people are only going to invest time and money to come if it is really important for them to see your union. Ultimately, it ends up being your closest friends and family, letting you have a very intimate experience (at least this is my hope!).

[guinness416]

I don't hate you Kelly! We spent about 500 bucks - city hall, us + two witnesses; we actually were the only straight couple getting married that afternoon, which certainly added to the fun!

But my brother had a huge wedding, which was great fun too. That's the point of making good financial choices - so you can spend on the things you really want. There's certainly no need to feel defensive about it.

[KM]

Pat - I recently got engaged too! Congrats! :)
And my fiance's mother will also be making our flower arrangements! Our wedding will probably still be expensive because we both have big families, but every little bit helps.

[Aaron]

The wife and I spent about $1200 on our wedding 4 years ago. We paid a JP $75 to hike with us and 2 friends (witnesses) to the top of our favorite local 'mountain' and perform the ceremony. We spent about $100 at JCPenny getting a few clothing items for the ceremony (I got new wedding jeans). We got 2 custom made carbon fiber and sterling silver rings made ($110 each), paid $300 for a custom 4 tier cake from a local bakery, and spent about $500 for a wedding night fajita buffet for our family/friends at a local Mexican food hotspot. This let us present ourselves to everyone as a married couple (SURPRISE!) and stay very low key.

My parents ended up picking up most of the dinner as a wedding gift, so that was a nice treat. It was really something we'll remember for a long time, and there weren't any schedules to keep etc. http://picasaweb.google.com/bmph8ter/02182004 if you would like to see pics of the rings or the cake.

[Kelly]

:) Yep-- sorry if I was defensive--I have heard so many people talk down about those who spend a lot on it--I feel like that is the same as me looking down on those who spend less. If it is your money and your wedding, I say go for it!

[FMF]

Aaron --

Nice pics! (BTW, was there any food dye in that cake?) ;-)

Your wife doesn't look too secure standing on the top of that mountain!!!!!

[Umm...]

We're three weeks away from the big day, and we've kept pretty close to the original budget target ($15k in Chicago proper). We'll be doing passed hors d'ourves, buffet, and open bar for ~120 guests. We found a venue ($<1000) and a caterer (~$8k, including liquor bought at cost, and where they accept returns of unopened bottles) that we love and that were also the least expensive we looked at. A friend who's an apprentice pastry chef (~$300) is making the cake, ceremony music is another friend who plays piano semi-professionally ($0), and the reception music is by yet another friend providing DJ services as his gift to us ($0). We hired a wedding coordinator to help us with the details and the day of stuff (<$2k), and she's really helped to keep us sane. We splurged on the photographer (~$1700), but we get the digital negatives and will put together our own albums and provide prints to friends and family without additional markup.

We also made our own invitations (~$150, including postage; we received several glowing comments on them, and we really enjoyed coming up with the design), and are using postcards for the return RSVP to save on postage. We enlisted a couple more friends to help with decoration and favors at their cost. We got our wedding bands online, and they are beautiful ($400 for both). No limo, three attendants apiece, and we'll be staying in our apartment the night after, which is a $8 cab ride from our venue, saving on hotel. And we got a great price on airfare to the honeymoon destination.

While there's been stress, it's not quite as bad as I would have thought, at least not yet :) When we first started in on the planning it didn't seem feasible to make this come together, but with some digging around and prioritization we kept to our number. It won't be conventional, but it should be a great time, and it will be reflecting our values and style. I'm looking forward to it!

[Eric]

Cool article. But it's a pet peeve of mine when people make extrapolations like this without factoring in inflation. People read this and think, wow, 500k! That's some serious money! But factor in inflation and you're down to like 150-200k real dollars at year 40.

[Aaron]

Thanks FMF! We actually bypassed all the front-house/sales people at the bakery and went to the folks in the kitchen. We told them that if they only remembered one thing it was that we wanted them to have fun making our cake. That was the cardinal rule. Turned out GREAT!

Once we started cutting it, my MIL made a comment about not eating eat because she thought it was Playdough. My father overheard it and said "You better take it, because knowing Sarah & Aaron the next tier will be even stranger." It was really awesome to put all these people together in this way. Our families had never met, and didn't know we had gotten married. We just called everyone and said "hey, long time no see why don't you meet us for dinner?" Classic!

Oh, and the mountain was totally her idea.

[Katie]

Our wedding cost my parents $1500 in 2001. I'm with the others who did it cheap because there wasn't any extra money to spare. So we couldn't have invested 'the difference', since it didn't exist ;-)

[Sara]

Weddings can be very beautiful on a smaller budget. I worked out what I thought was a mid-sized wedding six years ago - 8K. My dad was so excited..we spent a little over that because I forgot to include hotel rooms for the girls and guys to get ready in, and mom decided on a custom dress. But it really had everything I wanted - beautiful flowers, great location, the best wedding cake I have ever eaten, fantastic food (the caterer was a breeze to work with), nice pictures, and lots of family. We burned CDs of music to play, and skipped the alcohol.

Too bad I got married way too young. Now I have to do it over again and I am dreading making decisions on how to do this one. The money will be coming from me and fiance this time, as my parents cannot afford to pay for it, nor would I ask them to. We would like to have a destination wedding, but my grandmother has trouble with several hour car rides, so forget a plane! And some pretty woodsy places would be too hard for many family members to get to. So probably going have to do some sort of celebration after the fact in possibly two cities. Some days I just want to elope....

[Mike McDougal]

$500,000 in the future will be less than $500,000 today. I think it's borderline intellectually dishonest to present figures that are the result of compounded returns but then neglect to inform us of the present value of that future sum.

[Mike McDougal]

Assuming an inflation rate of 3%, the present value of $479,000 40 years in the future is about $147,000. A nice number, but not nearly so impressive as "OMG! A HALF A MILLION!"

[Tim]

Nice post, this really puts the cost of getting married into perspective. Most people aren't thinking that far ahead and equating dollars spent now on a wedding and how it could impact their retirement!
Tim

[FMF]

Mike --

Take a chill pill.

1. The absolute number still is almost a half million.

2. Use an 11% return with a 3% inflation rate and you get -- what I calculated (a net 8% return.)

3. Even if it's "only" $160k -- that's still a sizeable chunck of change for doing ONE thing. Do a few smart things and you'll have a fortune!

[LotharBot]

My wife's parents paid for our wedding. I don't know the exact numbers, but I know the budget was $3000 and they went slightly over. This was a wedding with 200 guests, and it was definitely a nice event -- the quality didn't suffer for the cost.

Ways we saved:
1) her dad is a pastor. He performed the ceremony, and we used their church.
2) we got married just before noon on a Saturday. We served a tasty brunch (without alcohol) rather than an expensive dinner.
3) her mom and several friends prepared and froze most of the food in the 2 months prior to the wedding. We didn't have a caterer at all.
4) we decorated with colorful origami paper cranes (1001, from 2 to 36 inch wingspan, folded by us) rather than flowers. Her mother grew some vines, so the only flowers we paid for were the bouquets and corsages.
5) a family friend / baker made the cake.
6) we found a photographer whose rates AND portfolio we liked a year before the wedding. (Our engagement was nearly 3 years long, due to college and the fact that she was 17 when I proposed. This gave us time for things like that.)
7) we used several other decorations the church, her family, or friends already had available.
8) a close friend managed a nearby hotel's banquet setup and such. He coordinated the church youth group, who set up all of the tables and such. (We did give a fairly generous donation to the youth group.)

We probably could have come up with a way to throw a more expensive party... but I'm not sure we could've thrown a better party.

[Anitra]

This assumes that you are somehow "saving" money by having a less expensive wedding. I guess in one sense you are - but that doesn't mean that you have $10k lying around because you only spent $5k on your wedding.

In my case, my parents offered to pay for my wedding (after we had worked up a budget - ended up being about $11k four years ago). This freed up my own money to start paying down my student loans... but if we had scrimped even more and had a cheaper wedding, that wouldn't have put any additional money in my own bank account - just in my parents'.

[Samantha]

I've never, ever, ever regretted having a tiny wedding that cost less than $500. If I had started the marriage in debt I would be regretting it to this day

[Emily C]

My wedding budget was $2000 from my parents. I certainly didn't have any money lying around--I got married while still in college in 2005.

There's not much of a way to save the money you're not spending if you don't have it to spend in the first place.

Great idea for the nutters who spend so much in the first place, I suppose.

[F]

Great post; I especially love (excerpts):
3. "a wedding can't be held for $5,000." Maybe. Maybe not. [...] be flexible and creative.
4. "we want it to be special." Special is not a synonym for expensive.

The best is these don't just apply to weddings