Hindsight Thoughts on Getting Married

Olivier Chabot|July 29, 2024|Advice To Myself, Money
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We got married in July 2024. Getting married is a huge project and I wanted to share what went well for us and what we’d do differently.

Would Do Again

  • Weddings are expensive. Our initial budget was around 25K but our total expenses added up to approximately 45K. You can consult our detailed list of expenses. Our experience lines up with the traditional wedding advice to double your initial budget to set realistic expectations. 45K seems like an insane amount of money to spend on one day. It’s true. However, it’s important to keep in mind a few points:
    • We were expecting the average gift per guest to be around 100$ given that they are getting a 5-course meal and an open bar. We had about 85 guests which resulted in an expected 8500$.
    • Additionally, our parents already told us they would contribute more. Getting their gift early is key because all the expenses occur prior to the wedding. This prevented us from having to use our line of credit.
    • I proposed in 2022 which gave us two years to save and plan our wedding. Our goal was to save 30 thousand in two years. Crunching the numbers gives us that we each needed to save roughly 280$ every two weeks to attain our objective. You can read this article to see how we automate our finances.
    • Some of the expenses such as the wedding dress and decorations can be sold to other couples who are trying to save some money.
    • Some of the expenses keep their value after the day of the wedding. For example, the wedding party get to keep their gifts, the rings have an inherent monetary value that is relatively stable over time, and I get to keep my suit and look fresh for future events.
    • Most importantly, I was complaining about how expensive weddings were to a colleague of mine who recently got married. He told me: “What else would you rather spend your money on?” This instantly changed my mindset. We know that spending our experiences and relationships gives us the most happiness.1 A wedding is the ultimate experience with everyone you love. I still get bursts of joy thinking back on events and stories from the wedding. It’s a bonding experience to reminisce with our attendees every time we hang out.
  • We got married at Le Belvédère in Wakefield. We couldn’t recommend this place enough. The guests loved the venue and the staff was great. They saved us a ton of work.
  • Our DJ was great. He was our MC which allowed one of our guests to not have to worry about that. We asked our guests in their RSVP to request songs. We then selected the top 80 songs and indicated in the software the few songs that were a must. The rest was left to the creativity of the DJ.
  • Our officiant was great. Kayla and I answered a few essay questions, so the officiant could personalize her speech. We also created our own ritual by breaking some sticks and making a bundle. In hindsight, I’m glad we opted for a secular wedding as organized religion is not part of our values.
  • Our photographer was great. The package included engagement photos that we used our wedding website and invitations. We cheaped out on the wedding video because it was too expensive. We figured that we could always create a video with the pictures. We also printed QR codes with WedUploader to collect pictures and videos from our guests.
  • We decided to not send paper invitations and use Joy to create our website and manage our guest list. The free version was perfect for our needs. We managed to save significant money, prevent some headaches, and cut less trees.
  • Some details matter. Kayla created the signs above with pictures of our cats. Both items cost around 40$ in total and were the talk of the night.
  • Other details don’t matter. Did you notice the typo in the sign above? Don’t sweat the small stuff. Enjoy the Cemerony.
  • The open bar was a hit. It results in shorter waiting times since people don’t have to pay for each drink. People’s gifts were likely higher which essentially paid for itself. The open bar was a fix rate of roughly 50$ per guest. I would never get a running tab as open bar because I would subconsciously keep track during the wedding day.
  • I designated a few friends to get drinks for me. It was awesome to not have to wait in line for drinks. Every minute counts on your wedding as it goes by so fast. Looking back, I should have designated a few people to get me a glass of water every 30 minutes. It would have helped with the next day’s hangover.
  • Family and friend drama is inevitable. Focus on your day. People are responsible for having a good time. All you can do is create an environment for people to have fun. If they choose to be grumpy, that’s on them. Don’t let them ruin your day.

Would Do Differently

  • The downside of proposing two years in advance is that relationships evolve in that time span. I would wait a bit longer before sending out our invitations to limit the number of relationships that grew apart. Our rule was to invite only people that we both met and interacted with on a regular basis. Kayla was ruthless with the invitations, and I’m happy she was.
  • Expect people to drop out last second. In hindsight, we should have sent an email with Joy a week before the final payment to ask people to let us know if they’re not going to be able to make it so don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars for empty seats.

Read This Next

  1. See Daniel Gilbert’s paper called “If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren’t Spending It Right” and Bill Perkin’s book called Die With Zero. ↩︎

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