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    Oh-IndeedJenna Sauers
    7/03/13 4:45pm

    What the fuck is wrong with people?!?? If you can't afford your lavish, $200/plate wedding without expecting your guests to pay for it, then don't fucking have a lavish, $200/plate wedding, you spoiled, entitled, pathetic brats.

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      CeraunographOh-Indeed
      7/03/13 4:49pm

      While I fully agree with your sentiment, when you include the cost of open bar and food, $200/person really isn't that much if you're getting married in a big city. Shit is suuuuuuuuuper expensive these days.

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      queenoftheforestOh-Indeed
      7/03/13 4:50pm

      Yes. This.

      Since when are wedding guests expected to cover the wedding costs? Really??

      If you can't afford an expensive wedding then don't have one. Period. The end.

      This bride is an ignorant, arrogant, spoiled, selfish twat.

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    BobLobLaw2013Jenna Sauers
    7/03/13 4:45pm

    A pox on all people who think that the amount given at a wedding should match the 'per head' cost of that wedding. A massive pox.

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      AikageBobLobLaw2013
      7/03/13 4:51pm

      Courthouse marriage ftw! 50$!

      The bachelor party was a quickie with the leprotic hooker down the street.

      And they say romance is dead!

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      kiisseliBobLobLaw2013
      7/03/13 4:52pm

      Seconded. I mean, you do you when it comes to your wedding, but I'm still in grad school. If you want me to come, I will come and be happy AND bring a present....but don't expect me to pay for your expensive taste by default.

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    Ari Schwartz: Dark Lord of the SnarkJenna Sauers
    7/03/13 4:49pm

    Full disclosure: My wife and I asked for cash through a "Honeyfund" for three reasons:

    1. We had been living together for years and were pretty well-established as a unit

    2. She's Chinese, and red envelopes and cash are the usual gifts in Asian culture.

    3. It's simple. And it lets people think less about which gifts to give.

    At no point was our thinking, "our guests will pay for our wedding!" In fact, the cash we received was largely used for purchasing goods for the house later anyway.

    However, we STILL made a registry and told people, "if you prefer gifts, please feel free to look at our registry." Furthermore, people who couldn't afford either were told, "no problem." It's that simple. These assholes who think it's okay to bitch about gifts are absolutely beyond my reckoning. You don't invite people to your wedding to pay for your wedding, numbnuts. You invite people to your wedding to celebrate your marriage. If you can't afford to have guests, then don't invite anyone. It's that simple. Don't stick people with your financial bullshit.

    I would de-friend any "friend" who pulled a stunt like this. Unbelievably boorish behavior.

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      LulutheFishGIrlAri Schwartz: Dark Lord of the Snark
      7/03/13 4:56pm

      I always like hearing about how other couples how cohabitated handled this part of the wedding. Originally, I figured we wouldn't need a registry, and wanted to just invite everyone without expecting gifts, unless they were the artsy-crafty type and wanted to make an end table or a painting or whatever. My mom insists that I cannot have a wedding without a registry (O rly?), but we'll have been in the same house for two years by then, and I don't care to replace all of my dishes and silverware. We do the money dance on both sides of our family, so that's more than enough in my eyes, but have repeatedly told my mom that the only kitchen item I lack is a Kitchen Aid mixer and if it is such a big deal, she can go ahead and get that.

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      MargaretGAri Schwartz: Dark Lord of the Snark
      7/03/13 5:00pm

      You and your wife handled it the classy way. A wedding is about sharing your special day with your loved ones, not about seeing how much of a profit you can make and not everyone can afford expensive gifts.

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    emfish55Jenna Sauers
    7/03/13 5:00pm

    Funny this woman expected her guests to make up for the portion of the reception she and her new husband couldn't afford. I'm taking the exact opposite approach with my wedding: we're keeping it low key and inexpensive (given the fact that we have very little money), and figure that will help weed out guests who are only coming because they want an expensive party, not because they give a shit about us getting married.

    #financetipsfortheneweconomy

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      EdnasEdiblesemfish55
      7/03/13 5:14pm

      This. My wedding cost a grand total of $5,000 including my dress. We did not have to put any of it on a credit card. This was the wedding we could afford and it was nice even though it will never be on any Pinterest page.

      Also, I would have jumped for joy to get a cash gift of $100. Most of my family/friends stayed around the $25-$50 range for gifts. I received two gifts that were around $100. They were from very close family members (grandma and an aunt).

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      JoyScoutemfish55
      7/03/13 5:26pm

      Take a friend's giant barn, add some cheap paper lanterns, lots of booze and some bbq and you've got my wedding. Which coincidentally was OFF. THE. HOOK. I don't get the urge some people have to spend oodles of money on what amounts to a single evening.

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    pond-side-overJenna Sauers
    7/03/13 4:50pm

    Sorry, I've never gotten married before: $200 a head?

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      LadyOfTheWordpond-side-over
      7/03/13 5:04pm

      Seriously. This is why I keep pushing the bf to consider a backyard bbq/ceremony for our wedding (when it happens.)

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      frickinehpond-side-over
      7/03/13 5:05pm

      No. That's insane. I got married in Grand Cayman (one of the most expensive islands in the Caribbean, from what I've seen) and our entire wedding package was like, $5000. That included the rehearsal cocktail party (an hour and a half with enough hors d'oeuvres for 35 people to have 4, and enough wine/champagne for 3 glasses each, which was great since we really only had about 20 people), the ceremony, and the reception with a massive brunch buffet, basically unlimited champagne, and the (cheese)cake. Oh and flowers, decor, setup, tear down, servers for all the events, and the officiant. So basically we spent about $250/person for a 2 day event with every detail included. These people are fucking nuts.

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    Sparkle_MotionJenna Sauers
    7/03/13 4:49pm

    Hmm.

    I went to a place once that expected me to pay for my own food and beverages while someone else took care of "decor, photography, attire" and the rest.

    It was called a restaurant.

    I found the whole thing incredibly gauche, so I never went back.

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      DweezeSparkle_Motion
      7/03/13 5:07pm

      You know, I ended up getting stuck with the check. And you could have said that's why you were leaving. I waited for hours for you to come back.

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      Sparkle_MotionDweeze
      7/03/13 5:25pm

      That was you?

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    RaisedByHeathens Orange Meanie-PantsJenna Sauers
    7/03/13 4:49pm

    I just want to know is there any reason or dissatisfaction of Mike's and I wedding that both you and Phil gave 50$ each?


    Because- turns out that you are tacky and I hate you.

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      yvanehtniojRaisedByHeathens Orange Meanie-Pants
      7/03/13 4:50pm

      <3

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      rollsniderollRaisedByHeathens Orange Meanie-Pants
      7/03/13 4:52pm

      I just posted a gif to that effect below.

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    Pope AlexanderJenna Sauers
    7/03/13 5:37pm

    My friend got married to her long-time boyfriend in her parent's backyard in a polka-dot sundress and had a barbecue afterwards. Everyone had a really great time.

    Her friend, who is in a better (although not amazing) financial position, has just gotten engaged. They met a while after my friend got married, so she noticed her wedding ring and said, "Oh, I'm planning mine now — what did you do for yours?"

    As she described the BBQ, the polka-dots, the grass, the lawn chairs, Friend #2 began to pale and look disturbed. When my friend finished talking, Friend2 blinked like Friend1 had been speaking English in a thick, hard-to-understand Russian accent and said, "Oh, okay. Yeah... I'm going to be having, like, albino peacocks at mine."

    Point being: it seems as though having a fun, low-key, informal wedding — the kind of wedding most people had up until the middle of the 20th century — is now some kind of horrifying perversion that should be avoided at all costs, preferably with rented decorative fowl.

    If you are not royalty, celebrity or just plain-old rich, you do not need fucking albino peacocks swanning around the lawn at your wedding. But if you choose to spend money on fucking albino peacocks, nobody else needs to pay for them but you and your crazy future spouse.

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      silentstone7Pope Alexander
      7/03/13 6:05pm

      I have a coworker who rented full size sofas and canopies so her guests would be comfortable at the beach. I was like, "Um, I rented a rec center and made centerpeices for the rec center's fold out tables."

      My wedding was under $1,000. Her's definitely cost more than my spouse and I make in a year.

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      Pope Alexandersilentstone7
      7/03/13 6:06pm

      I'm shocked that she didn't rent decorative, silk-lined driftwood with her name etched into each individual stump.

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    Pope AlexanderJenna Sauers
    7/03/13 5:08pm

    Brides and Grooms of Earth:

    If someone chooses to show up to YOUR wedding and share in YOUR special day where YOU are getting married to the person YOU love, YOU should be grateful. If that someone buys you a gift or gives you a gift of money, what a wonderful thing to do.

    Oh, you spent a lot of money on their dinner? And how much did they spend to:

    1) Drive or fly to your wedding?

    2) Stay a night or two in a hotel, if you didn't get married locally or if they weren't in your immediate town/state/province/country/continent?

    3) Buy a nice outfit for your wedding, or dry clean a nice outfit they already have?

    You are asking someone to invest their money and their time in a day that is literally all about you. You are never, ever allowed to be shitty about the present they give you unless the present is a purposeful and direct insult to you, your family, your groom or your beloved cats.

    That's it. That's what you're entitled to.

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      fortheloveofbeetsPope Alexander
      7/03/13 5:14pm

      CORRECT. You invite people to your wedding because you love them and want to share an important day with them and celebrate with them, not because you want money from them.

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      Pope Alexanderfortheloveofbeets
      7/03/13 5:27pm

      I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't a strange perversion of particular cultural attitudes around weddings, though.

      I know there are a lot of cultures where a wedding really is meant to be a way to set two young people off on their life together. The problem is that many people getting married today already live together or, at the very least, don't live with their parents. So the need for new kitchen implements, furniture or money toward a new house isn't the priority it once was.

      But I think the real issue here is that the tradition of the bride's family paying for the wedding is seriously fading. Now it's the bride and groom picking up a check that their parents or their parents' parents didn't have to, and they do feel like *someone* is responsible for paying for this since, in the past, that would've been the case.

      So now instead of money or objects to set you on your way to shared adulthood, you have bills and debt.

      But... that's still no one else's problem. And a wedding is still a big fancy party — not an obligation or a priority.

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    Ginger, get the popcorn!Jenna Sauers
    7/03/13 4:46pm

    I feel like she does not understand how weddings work. A wedding reception is basically one giant party. You do not throw a party and then ask your guests to pay for it, unless you are a frat house and you are charging a cover to pay for the kegs. DO YOU WANT YOUR WEDDING TO BE A FRAT PARTY? (Side note: I typed "fart party" at first because my outrage clouded my keyboard skills. I considered leaving it.)

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      TheFilthyGoatGinger, get the popcorn!
      7/03/13 4:51pm

      I would not attend a fart party. No, it won't change my mind if Christopher Walken would be there. The choice to have a lot of potpourri seems counter-intuitive to the theme. There is not enough ventilation OUTSIDE to make this seem feasible.

      Not too big on Frats either.

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      DorsalPrimaGinger, get the popcorn!
      7/03/13 4:54pm

      This actually makes so much sense. A massive light bulb just went off above my head. Lots of people get married right out of college. I wonder if they are still in the mindset of paying per head to drink from the keg. They should start adding this information to those post graduation advice columns (heck, put it IN the commencement speech): In the real world, you pay for the parties you throw.

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