I could not agree more with what you wrote.

With all due respect to Christine, there is a difference between good marketing and predatory practices.

Ben @ Trees Full of Money

My husband and I planned our whole wedding by ourselves with some help from the internet and my best friend, one of my maids of honor. We sent out invitations (I printed on my home printer), we planned the ceremony to the reception with the help of our hostess and DJ. We had all of the music picked out.

We found a reception hall a few towns away from us that had an outside garden. This is where our wedding was held, with the DJ playing the music. The DJ, the wedding cake and a Limo came with the package. Our photographer was a friend of ours from work.

For Our wedding ceremony, I made a disc from my computer due to the fact I did not want any glitches in the music for the ceremony. I included what is called a Rose ceremony.
Our wedding was May 29, 2004 and to this day people still talk about our wedding. We had an H’orderve reception and an open bar. Everyone enjoyed themselves–lots of dancing and having fun–it was simple. I think simple is the best way to go.

We spent $5,700.00 on my gown, his tucks, the wedding/reception package and a night in a hotel. We also had to pay our JP and the extra music outside for the ceremony.

We had our wedding we will never forget. Our marriage gets better and better everyday.

My mom, his mom and I have all had wonderful compliments on how much everyone enjoyed the wedding, how classy it was, how beautiful it was, how much fun people had. And we didn’t even have favors, let alone cheap ones!

Now, I am 30, so I pretty much knew in my mind what I wanted and if a vendor at the one bridal show I went to tried to pressure me to buy something, and I thought it was silly, I practically laughed at them. I was just there to get pictures of the decorations so we could make them ourselves!

I personally think that people started putting so much emphasis on weddings and not so much on the marriage when people stopped inviting God into their preparation and marriage. If there really is no difference for the couple between living together and being married, then all you are having is a big fancy party.

I hate how I endlessly hear about how women are so financially irresponsible, and yet we’ve been groomed to be concerned with appearance, clothing, and now apparently weddings. I’ve been told “Are you a woman?” because I didn’t paint my toenails. And then, of course, I hear financial planners telling me how debt happens when people “Buy dresses at the mall and don’t think about the price,” as if men don’t also get into credit card debt.

Women are constantly being socialized to think of themselves as great consumers, and also financially irresponsible (which is, of course, good for vendors). I am sick to death of it.

That said, the most memorable weddings I have been to were not the ones where the couple spent the most but the ones where they tried to save money and, as a result, wound up with very creative and personal ceremonies, often on their parents’ property.