By now you might have heard about the incredibly harsh email that British florist Carolyn Bourne sent to Heidi Withers, the fiancee of her stepson Freddie. This is the kind of dressing down that could make both Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan appear as encouraging as Mr. Rogers. It's fortunate that Ms. Withers shared this gem with a few of her closest friends, and that they decided to do likewise.
Email-is-forever lessons aside, this suggestion from Ms. Bourne was interesting:
No-one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash, celebrity style behaviour. I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding . . . If this is the case, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes.
A couple of things I'll say up front before I shoot off my mouth and live to regret it:
- I'm a guy. Even though two people are getting married and even though they both have to say “I will” at the appropriate time, let's face it: It's about the bride, and getting things right is usually more important to the bride than to the groom. The wedding day might have been a decade or more in the making emotionally for the bride. Probably not so for the groom. This may be a stereotype but I don't think it's terribly far off.
- I had very few opinions about how the wedding or the reception should play out. Probably more so that even an average guy I was very hands-off in planning my wedding. My wife and her mom did almost all of the heavy lifting for planning the wedding and reception. At the time, I honestly couldn't have cared less what type of flowers were decorating the sanctuary, or whether the wedding invitations were written in 9-point or 10-point. (I just knew that I wanted to exit that day married.)
- Money wasn't an issue at the time. Neither side was strapped for cash, so we didn't feel like we were
So, having said all of that, and even if every other statement in that email was completely out of line (hint: yes) … should they have considered skipping the castle and having a more modest wedding?
Weddings don't have to cost anywhere near five (or six?!) figures
My mother told me about a couple that had gotten married in her church. They were of very modest means, and had a very limited budget for their wedding. All of the traditional ingredients of the wedding were there: decorations, wedding dress, reception, etc. These things were all done on a budget, and my mother (and perhaps others) saw this, but it mattered very little. It was clear that the whole day was planned thoughtfully and with as much attention to detail that would have been put into a wedding that cost twenty times as much.
The emphasis was on the marriage, the celebration, and the people, rather than the bells and whistles. Ultimately, that's what the main point is, right? Isn't everything else just a giant, heavily-marketed, often insanely-overpriced consumer good? At least some thought should be given to reining in the cost. Even more thought should go into not borrowing for it.
The mother-in-law is stressful enough. 🙂 Don't add money issues to the mix if you don't have to!
(Feel free to send this post to five of your closest friends. 🙂 )
I have attended a couple of weddings of people I worked with; both cost into the five figures and both were divorced within a year.
Money issues were part of the problem in both instances; in particular, the spending styles of the husband and wife were different and that was obvious by the wedding, themselves: The grooms seemed out-of-place and uncomfortable by all the pomp and circumstance.
Still, going into a marriage it is often hard for the man to tell his wife-to-be no even if that would be the prudent thing to do or, at least, rein it all in some.
I think spending even $10,000 on a wedding is hard to justify even if it is paid for in cash — wouldn’t that couple be better off with that money in the bank?
With divorce rates being what they are, maybe a better custom would be to plan for a more elaborate ceremony on the 10 year anniversary and a more modest one when you first tie the knot.
My two best friends have been married for 6 years now. The bride’s parents offered them two options, either a big fancy wedding or they could have the money they would have spent on the wedding and elope. They opted for the big wedding and have regretted it ever since. They say now they wish someone had sat them down and drilled into their heads that the wedding is not the marriage.They realize now that they should have taken the money and paid off their student loans so they could have started their marriage nearly debt free.
That said, the Momzilla is an uptight shrew. The modest wedding comment might have been reasonable if she had stated it with a little tact but she didn’t and the rest of the letter was worse. She clearly doesn’t like her future daughter-in-law and was trying her hardest to break up the couple.
I really want to have an extravagant wedding, but at the end of the day it’s not about how much you spend, but that your guests have a good time and you end up married. I agree that a castle is a little extravagant, but for every girl who dreams of being a princess, the wedding day is her chance to express that. -LaTisha
Man, sounds stressful to me!
BTW, please sign up for being a Yakezie Member in the post on Yakezie.com. Would love to have you!
Best, Sam
Weddings will always be a challenge. Whether it is your own, or one you are in, or one you have to attend.
That being said, at the end of the day it is about the bride and groom.
Almost every girl wants to have a perfect fairy tale wedding, but that comes with a huge bill. So it’s always advisable to make weddings a private affair.