11 January 2008 2 Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

I’m in the process of planning my wedding. I’ve read a lot of blogs and websites about wedding planning and such, and I keep hearing numbers that make me want to hide my head and cry.

The average wedding costs $30,000 (depending on who you talk to you, you can hear that the average is anywhere from $25 to $35,000). We’re talking about the down payment on a house here! Furthermore, for every bride who keeps her wedding budget under $5K, which some manage to do, there’s another bride who has spent $55K. You can buy an entire house for $55K in some towns! (My aunt’s 3 bedroom house in Small Town, Iowa sold for $43K last year, if you’re wondering).

I can barely convince myself to spend more than $50 on a dress ever. Imagine my sticker shock every time I hear about anything involving a wedding.

It’s not just weddings that people are going into debt over, though. My mother is in the process of planning my youngest sister’s bat mitzvah. I regularly get to hear about arguments between the two of them:

“Jenna had a live band at her party!”
“No.”
“You’re the meanest mother ever!”

“David had a bounce house at his party!”
“No.”
“You’re the meanest mother ever!”

“David got to invite his entire grade at the middle school for his party!”
“No.”
“You’re the meanest mother ever!”

Sensing a theme yet?

My mother has this unusual belief that a bat mitzvah is supposed to be a fairly religious occurrence, with, perhaps, a small party afterwards. She refuses to go over the top, unlike some of the other parents I’ve ran into. I’ve heard some pretty scary numbers for bar and bat mitzvahs, too: I’ve heard of some parents spending upwards of $15K on parties for their 13-year-olds. Not in L.A., either — in plain old Colorado, where parents aren’t competing with rich movie stars!

I think I’m just incapable of understanding the mindset for these sorts of huge shindigs. I keep thinking that these families spend a year’s tuition or a down payment on a house on literally a single day. All they have to show for it at the end of the day is a photo album. I can understand paying for an amazing experience, but I don’t think I’ll be spending even $1K on my wedding. My friends will come with out fancy appetizers and my maid of honor can wear a dress she’ll get more than one use out of.