comment: >
  
  From an ethnic viewpoint, it's almost always something prompted as "tradition" and "necessary" by family members. It's kinda exhausting
context: Upvote for the unpopular opinion, nice one.
  That aside, I’ve always held that you can hold a pretty cheap ceremony, spend a little to basically have a piss up, meal and general celebration with family (which as an aside functions as two family reunions in one) and then use the actual money for a decent honeymoon. 
  Seems better to me that way, some may disagree but hey, it’s your wedding. Do what you want, who’s gonna tell you otherwise? >
  
  That's what my husband and I did!! We went to a local lake with our parents and witnesses and had an outdoor fall ceremony. Family took some pics of us and we had a fantastic time because we weren't crazy stressed about it all! >
  
  How is this nsfw? Do you work for a wedding planner? >
  
  Because they’re Not Slightly a Fan of Weddings? >
  
  I’m amazed at how so many of my friends complain about being in debt or broke but they had big weddings that cost an arm and a leg. Big elaborate Weddings should not be a priority unless you actually have the money. I don’t have sympathy for people who spend 30k-40k + on a wedding and then complain about money issues afterwards. >
  
  We had a spectacular wedding with 38 guests on a mountain in Southern California. The total cost for the venue, an amazing brunch, professional photos, DJ, decorations, gifts, afterparty with sushi, deserts, dress, wedding rings, officiant was $4,600. This was 2016. A little DIY goes a long way. >
  
  I’ve always thought weddings were a waste of money, and those who pay thousands of $ are doing so because of family members and friends. I can’t fathom dumping so much money on food, cake, dress worn only once, venues, etc at overinflated prices. Imagine using that money to pay off school loans, pay off vehicles, down payment on a home, investing in the market. It’s just money being flushed away. >
  
  Weddings are fun and celebrating with everyone you love in your family and friends and people who have never met getting to meet is special
  It’s shown that the more people who attend your wedding the less likely you are to get divorced. Probs because you have a more supportive community keeping you together >
  
  That’s a hot take. Celebrities have thousands show up- divorce. I’ve been to 100k+ weddings with 500+ ppl- divorced. >
  
  While I do like a graph.. the man who did the study concluded that people who eloped were far more likely to get divorced than people who had guests at the wedding. It begs the question of, did they divorce through lack of guest support, or did they divorce because they rushed into a marriage without really thinking about it?
  He also found that the more money a couple spend on their wedding, the more likely they are to divorce. Which contradicts his first point (eloping is far less expensive than having 200+ guests).
  So really, his graphs were pretty pointless.. to have more people attend (meaning less divorce), you would need to spend more money (meaning more divorce). >
  
  I also think the culture of the people having large weddings changes things. Some cultures have weddings that are 3-7 days with a whole lot of guests. However, those cultures also heavily frown upon divorce typically. >
  
  Your cliche 10-20k weddings are definitely not necessary. I've always been one that I would never ever do an extravagant wedding. It would be low key, not a big group and maybe $5k max for venue and food but that's it. 
  I'd much rather spend the thousands of dollars on the honeymoon to travel across Europe for 2 weeks >
  
  I married a woman who had majored in drama, and it led me to realize that elaborate weddings are basically theatrical plays, where the bride is the star. The parallels are unmistakable.
  There are costumes (a white dress/tuxedo), scripted dialogue ("in sickness and in health"), multiple acts (ceremony and reception), props (rings and bouquets), and various musical numbers. It takes place on a stage in front of an applauding audience, who are seated by ushers. There's usually a wedding planner who acts as "director" to make the event run smoothly.
  It's a performance, through and though. >
  
  So true. Save your money for a down payment on a great house. >
  
  First off, you don't have to go into debt to have a wedding
  Secondly, you're generalising to an insane degree. Some people may have a wedding because they feel obligated, because it's a romantic ideal/dream to them, or because they love the community-aspect of it where everyone gets together and shares the joy.
  The inability to model other people's possible motives can be a sign of incredibly poor empathy and lacking ability to understand social situations, or it could speak of a fatal lack of general life experience.
  I'm just gonna assume it's the latter and that you're a child. So I'm just gonna say that you should probably stop spreading nonsense online. There's enough to feel embarrassed about when you're older, you don't need to go out of your way to add to it now.
  The same goes for everyone in this thread who agreed with the OP. >
  
  This is why the thread is unpopular ~~opinions~~ >
  
  Ong some people are just annoying condescending about this stuff. Yeah we know you don't agree, hence the goddam name of the sub man. >
  
  A very popular topic and opinion on this sub. >
  
  Is this unpopular.........or just stating the obvious? >
  
  Not sure this is an unpopular opinion, particularly in this day and age. It might be unpopular with the top 1%? >
  
  Yeah it’s definitely popular Reddit opinion lol >
  
  Never realized that Redditors had a lot of money to burn on fancy, antiquated parties. Seems to be something that they'd be vehemently against, but what do I know. >
  
  You think only the top 1% have expensive weddings? >
  
  That's a bit of an exaggeration since I've been to a few ridiculously expensive weddings and by no means do I rub elbows with one percenters. Perhaps I should say, "it's only arguably prudent to have an extravagant wedding if you literally have more money than you know what to do with," but even then it begs the question, "Really? There's literally nothing you could imagine that would have been a better investment than this? How did you get so wealthy to begin with?"
  Allow me to explain. I've been to many a wedding, including those that easily cost upwards of $100,000.00. They were not fun. I think it was you that said, "but the guests like it because they can drink for free," right and then I have to Uber home...where I would've had a better time drinking with a small group of close friends. And then there's the fact that weddings are far from "come as you are." That's right, you generally must dress like you're going to church. Such fun! You won't know most of the ppl at the wedding, but guess what?! You can be damn sure you're going to have to talk to them regardless. What's really great is when some alcoholic finds you interesting and wants to engage in some deep, intense conversation. If you want to take the path of least resistance and not be rude, you'll just have to groove on it and babysit this asshole for the rest of the evening. Bonus points if he wants you to take shots! Somewhat related to a previous gripe listed above - assigned seats for the dinner. In case you were wondering, this is generally when you're forced to talk to ppl that you don't know about stuff that either (a) you don't care about; (b) if the person is drunk, is inappropriate and cringey; or (c) if something about you strikes their fancy, then you'll have to talk about yourself and what you do for a living. On this latter point, I think we can all agree that talking about your work is about the worst topic imaginable in a social setting. 
  I mean, I could go on, man. But I've not met anyone IRL that's been, like, "fuck yeah...gots to go to a wedding this weekend. This is gonna be rad." Gotta' say that I'm a bit surprised that Reddit loves these large scale, narcissistic, overpriced, and decadent parties. >
  
  Who says you have to go into debt? All in we spent less than 5k, and most of that was on the photographer, and maybe 1k on food and alcohol. >
  
  Then this a shoe doesn’t fit your situation. >
  
  I spent 30k on my wedding and also did not go into debt. Is your problem the debt or the cost? How much money is “too much” to spend? >
  
  I think that some degree of spending on a wedding is okay without it being to impress others. Sometimes you have certain things because you like it yourself and want that for your wedding day.
  I agree with you though when you see some people go so over the top it makes the eyes water, it is most likely just to impress. I've attended a Sikh wedding before, one of my coworkers. The wedding I just could not comprehend the amount of spendature. If you could think of a single item that needed to be purchased, and then thought how you could make it the most expensive purchase possible, that's what happened. Down to the drinks being served were the ridiculously priced brands, down to the favours being made of gold, down to the biggest ice sculpture I've ever seen in my life, down to an actual miniature river flowing through the ceremony with flowers on, cars I had never heard of.. of course it was beautiful, but I was expecting the Queen to attend or something! I would not even want to hazard a guess at how much their parents spent on that wedding, how long they were saving, or how long they'll be paying it off! >
  
  100 percent >
  
  Maybe some people like parties > >
  
  For some that may be true - but not for all, as you imply.
  My wife and I didn't go into any debt at all for our (courthouse) wedding and (small local restaurant) reception.  Didn't post any photos, and friends & family members have brought up various things about it in the years since because they all had a great time.
  Also:
  "There’s a million other ways to celebrate your love"
  The point is to have a celebration that includes others. >
  
  I’m so over the wedding posts, say you’re unhappy or bitter and move on 😂😂😂😂 >
  
  I only had a traditional wedding to make my dad happy, I was planning on just eloping, but when I told my dad he started getting upset since I'm the only daughter... >
  
  It depends
  If it's a super stressful huge extravagant wedding with like 40 people in the bridal/groom party and lots of expenses the couple can't afford? Absolutely they are doing it for the attention and a big party.
  Smaller low stress weddings within people's budget with good friends and family? Celebration of the union between two families and new love.
  It's all about how you do it, if it's high stress, high dollar and way out of your range price range and comfort zone then it's definitely to impress someone. If it's comfortable and within budget(even if it's extravagant) then it's a celebration. >
  
  tbh if i ever got married im fine with just going to the legal office . i doubt id be with someone who wants to spend more than $10k on a wedding. because if theyre willing to do that theres a lot of other stuff we'd have problems with