Wedding costs in perspective

(You must understand that I was a very, very lucky bride and found my wedding dress for $12.50 at a thrift store.)

As soon as I updated my relationship status on Facebook from "in a relationship" to "engaged," there was a notable change in the ads that clutter the sides of the window when I visit their site. Obviously, they're attempting to capitalize on the notion that a bride-to-be is going to be doing shopping for wedding-related stuff, and, not realizing that I'm a frugal femme, were going after my consumer dollars. Granted, every once in a while I find something somewhat useful. But more often than not, if I even bother to click on a link, I wind up rolling my eyes. 

The other day, an evidently brand-new company had an ad up which touted a "huge" fifty percent off sale on invitations. We're already 98% certain where we're going to have our invitations done, but I figured it couldn't hurt to at least take a look.

Imagine my horror to discover that their "normal" prices for fifty monochrome invitations started at over six hundred U.S. dollars... which means that even at fifty percent off, invitations would be over three hundred dollars!

There's a mix of social pressure and personal taste that can drive a person to want really fancy invitations to set the mood for a special event. I get that. Just because it's not something I personally need to spend a lot of money on doesn't mean that it's not understandable, on a certain level. 

But really... invitations at over six dollars each? When they're supposedly on sale? And they're nearly thirteen dollars each when they aren't on sale? Where the fudge did common sense go?!?

Later on in the day, I happened to read about a bride who was lamenting that a dress she really, really wanted was "two thousand dollars over my budget." Again, my jaw about hit the floor. Two thousand dollars over what you had budgeted for a dress you're only going to wear once? I could never even dream having two thousand dollars as my wedding dress budget.

I mentioned all of this to my fiancé while acknowledging that my own frugality was somewhat anomalous in this often topsy-turvy world of all things wedding-related. "It's just funny to think of how many things I can go around saying, 'Oh, we spent more on x than she did on her wedding dress.' Hell, we're going to spend more on alterations than we did on the wedding dress."

"Honey," he reminded me, "we spent more at Asian Buffet last night than you did on your wedding dress."

Touché, darling. Touché.