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orichalcum at 09:24pm on 14/09/2004
orichalcum at 09:24pm on 14/09/2004I probably shouldn't have mentioned the 6-lb burger to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
julianyap, but well, it seemed inevitable. I'm a bad girl.
While I'm being a bad girl, two more amusing quotes from J&T's wedding:
KidCthulhu, to Fajitas at the end of the evening: Go now, and take your lovely wife and korak like a war lizard!
(If you weren't at the relevant game, it's really not worth explaining.)
Sam: So, oddly enough, silk boxers turn out to be a seasonal item, only sold around Valentine's Day and the holiday season.
AHM: Oh, like cocktail weiners.
I've got a nasty sore throat now, which I'm really hoping isn't strep or worse. Ah well - yet more excuses for honey! Because some folks asked for it, my Rosh Hashanah Sauteed Apples and Honey recipe:
In a large skillet or saucepan, melt 1/8 cup of butter (2 tbs?). Add 2
sliced and cored apples; peel if you want to. Cook, stirring constantly for
6-7 minutes. Add 1/4 cup honey, and some cinnamon and nutmeg, and stir
around in the pan until the honey melts and caramelizes over the apples. Eat
while hot, possibly with some cream or ice cream if you want to be really
decadent.
Takes only about ten minutes, and oh so yummy. I'm going to use the goody bag apples from the wedding for it.
So, I was watching part of the stress that J&T have been undergoing the last month or so, and remembering my own stress and that of other couples, and wondering, "Is it worth it?" Is a wedding really worth that much agonizing and energy and time and money? But one positive way to look at wedding planning, I was thinking, is that in the process of planning a wedding, you have to go through many of the same sorts of issues and problems that you do in the course of the actual marriage. Each of you will value different parts differently, just as each of you will value different parts of everyday life differently. You will have to make compromises about time and financial management. You have to deal productively and amicably with each others' extended families and friends. You have to remember, in all of this, to love each other and to frequently express that love. Maybe wedding planning exists because it's easier to work out a compromise over what cake-topper you want than over what house you want, over what the food will be for dinner than whether or not you should both become vegetarians, because it's easier to put up with Uncle Ernie for five minutes than it is for an entire weekend at Disneyworld. At least, this is the positive spin I'm choosing to put on it at the moment. Not that I won't totally understand if various of my friends elope, as they have threatened.
julianyap, but well, it seemed inevitable. I'm a bad girl.While I'm being a bad girl, two more amusing quotes from J&T's wedding:
KidCthulhu, to Fajitas at the end of the evening: Go now, and take your lovely wife and korak like a war lizard!
(If you weren't at the relevant game, it's really not worth explaining.)
Sam: So, oddly enough, silk boxers turn out to be a seasonal item, only sold around Valentine's Day and the holiday season.
AHM: Oh, like cocktail weiners.
I've got a nasty sore throat now, which I'm really hoping isn't strep or worse. Ah well - yet more excuses for honey! Because some folks asked for it, my Rosh Hashanah Sauteed Apples and Honey recipe:
In a large skillet or saucepan, melt 1/8 cup of butter (2 tbs?). Add 2
sliced and cored apples; peel if you want to. Cook, stirring constantly for
6-7 minutes. Add 1/4 cup honey, and some cinnamon and nutmeg, and stir
around in the pan until the honey melts and caramelizes over the apples. Eat
while hot, possibly with some cream or ice cream if you want to be really
decadent.
Takes only about ten minutes, and oh so yummy. I'm going to use the goody bag apples from the wedding for it.
So, I was watching part of the stress that J&T have been undergoing the last month or so, and remembering my own stress and that of other couples, and wondering, "Is it worth it?" Is a wedding really worth that much agonizing and energy and time and money? But one positive way to look at wedding planning, I was thinking, is that in the process of planning a wedding, you have to go through many of the same sorts of issues and problems that you do in the course of the actual marriage. Each of you will value different parts differently, just as each of you will value different parts of everyday life differently. You will have to make compromises about time and financial management. You have to deal productively and amicably with each others' extended families and friends. You have to remember, in all of this, to love each other and to frequently express that love. Maybe wedding planning exists because it's easier to work out a compromise over what cake-topper you want than over what house you want, over what the food will be for dinner than whether or not you should both become vegetarians, because it's easier to put up with Uncle Ernie for five minutes than it is for an entire weekend at Disneyworld. At least, this is the positive spin I'm choosing to put on it at the moment. Not that I won't totally understand if various of my friends elope, as they have threatened.
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(My mother has threatened to hunt me down, if I elope.)
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And I think I might make that apples-and-honey recipe tonight. It's way yummy!
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Median income for married couple sans children: $51k pre-tax (with this being an overestimate, since this includes older childless couples who are likely to be making more). After tax, we're probably down to about $38k.
The average cost of a wedding: $18k.
Throw in an engagement ring at two months salary: $5k
On one hand, buying everything involved in a wedding may involve financial management. On the other hand, not spending two-thirds of your post-tax income for an entire year, especially when you expect to make an extremely large down payment on a house and take on large amounts of debts immediately afterwards may constitute much sounder financial management.
Or, or, or, in other terms: $23k dumped into the stock market (12% average returns - 3% inflation) at age 25 yields at 65: $830,000 in constant dollars, or more or less, your entire retirement fund.
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And get my ass in gear to get a TIAA-CREF counseling session and put more of my investments in stocks. But that's a separate issue.
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But then again, there's also cake.
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My cake theory: if you were to come up with the exact same design for a cake, called it one instance a wedding cake, and in another instance, call it a cake, you would pay probably half as much for the second.
So just think: elopement = 2 cakes!
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You're KIDDING, right?
You're not. Are you.
What in hell is the matter with us as a society? I should be a able to buy a white dress, have some flowers, rent a room, eat good food and good cake and dance in celebration of my marriage, without dooming my retirement fund!
To be fair
Re: To be fair
Re: To be fair
Re: To be fair
Re: To be fair
There's also the issue of how much is recouped by registries, and whether having a "not-wedding" lowers that substantially.
Re: To be fair
Yet, and again, this is only observation, but a lot of the other ways you can cut the cost of weddings are by throwing more time, which is increasingly difficult for two-worker couples. (This is of course, not to imply that grad school isn't very much 'work', but rather that it's probably much easier to deal with preparations when you can just take an hour or two or a day off at mostly will to work on the wedding).
How much of the savings are possible without increasing time demands and how many aren't? Not sure.
This probably also lines up to: "Social expectations pressure 'complete weddings' pressure financial disaster." where the people most likely to buy into the social expectations are the ones least likely to realize the impending financial disaster, and contrapositively, the people least likely for financial disaster are also the ones who aren't going to be swayed by social expectations.
I can't seem to find any median data on wedding cost, which is sad. Here's another set of figures: (http://pressroom.americangreetings.com/Summer04/WeddingFacts04.html) which doesn't solve potential problems of distortion, but gives an average income ($60k pre-tax, or about $45k post-tax) versus average wedding + honeymoon ($25k + $5k = $30k). The distortion could still be there, if the amount spent on weddings grows faster than the amount that income grows, but it probably accounts for that a little.
Re: To be fair
Well, I have good and bad news:
The good news: uh, um...society continues to emphasize both old-style gender roles and the idea that spending lots of money and gathering large amounts of debt are the only way to happiness.
Oh, wait.
the better news: don't forget to cost of the honeymoon!
Oh, wait.
I wonder how many couples who stress about financial situations, and maybe even break over those problems, might have not run into those problems with all that extra money sitting around. It's got to be at least a few.
Re: Well, I have good and bad news:
Some people do fine without this kind of community event, but I believe that, despite the need to spend some significant amount of money on it and despite the fact that it generally causes stress, it is beneficial to most couples in the long term.
-MJNH
Re: Well, I have good and bad news:
What has happened in our society is that the celebration of those bonds, has somehow become inextricably linked with multi-tier cakes, very expensive dresses, with bridesmaids in matching dresses, flowers, and rings which cost two months salary. Some advice here is that you get out of this with a lot less financial damage than most people do (although I'd still argue that while it's clearly less important, ($6500-$1000) = $5500 can be a car or a $172K retirement fund chunk of change), and that's nice, but I don't see why you should buy into the industry at all.
I'd be surprised if any conversations even vaguely resemble:
A: "I'm celebrating my lifelong commitment to B, will you come?"
B: "Will there be multi-tier cake/people in very large dresses?"
A: "No."
B:
Let's note the word I've avoided, which is tradition: it obviously factors into my analysis that tradition has never been something I've had a huge amount of reverence for: that many people have had two-month salary engagement rings does not weigh on my mind. Your mileage may vary; also, I carry the short-term benefit/possible eternal drawback of not being religious, which means that I don't need to worry about religious tradition at all, although even in those circumstances, I'm not sure how much of that tradition has been dissolved into consumerism (see also: Christmas).
I just think it's easy to draw a false distinction between meaningful wedding and piece-of-paper and a gavel elopement.
ps: You also mention the once in a lifetime thing: there's the side of this which is that if you're a kind of person who thrives off accumulating peak experiences, than the tension/release of a wedding is likely to be far greater than that of a potluck/party. I'd contend that skydiving is a better choice.
Statisticalfool