Destination Weddings -- Thoughts?

[Phemie]

“The survey also discovered that married parents planned to spend $770, while single parents would spend nearly double, with $1,563.”

(It makes me wonder if the “married” estimate was artificially lowered because VISA got Dad on the phone, instead of Mom, and asked him to mentally tot up what the night would be costing the family.

When I think that 16 years ago I made DD pay 50% of the cost of her dress, ensuring that she opted for a $99 dress that she was able to wear to a good many other functions, and I bought her shoes. There is no way I was spending the equivalent of a university credit on prom night.

 

[PatriceA]

The same thing is happening with high school proms. The spending and extravagance is totally out of hand.

This is what amazes me the most (the information comes from a survey conducted by VISA):

“Visa found that the parents surveyed who fell within lower income brackets, earning less than $50,000 a year, planned to spend more than the national average with $1,245. Parents who earned more than $50,000 planned to spend an average of $1,129.”

and

“The survey also discovered that married parents planned to spend $770, while single parents would spend nearly double, with $1,563.”

(It makes me wonder if the “married” estimate was artificially lowered because VISA got Dad on the phone, instead of Mom, and asked him to mentally tot up what the night would be costing the family. The fact that couples are putting on “destination” weddings has to have to do with the fact that couples are putting on their own, because I know how my own dad would have reacted to the idea of footing the bill for a “destination” wedding!! )

I think you’re onto something EasterJoy.

If you think Prom is bad, you should see the planning that goes into Homecoming at my daughter’s school. She’ll be entering the high school next year, first year for her classmates to be able to go to Homecoming. The kids were already asking each other out in April for a dance that doesn’t take place until OCTOBER! Spray tanning, getting their dress over the summer, flowers, etc. etc. The dresses that are already in the bridal store windows, look like Prom dresses to me.

No, my daughter hasn’t been asked to the dance yet. I’m hoping to actually steer her more towards just going to the game and getting some friends together and go bowling or something. They have to go as couples to the dance, no going with a big group of friends. And not everyone is ready for so much stress in finding a date when they are in 9th grade, it takes the pressure off if they plan something to do as a group.

But once Homecoming in 9th grade becomes the same status as Prom was for my classmates when I was a Senior, where do they go? If you’ve done everything that makes High School special when you’re a Freshman, what do you have left to look forward to? If Prom begins to look like the extravagance of a mini-wedding, what is left to do?

 

[Aggie414]

Fiji is a neutral location?!? Get out a globe!

Now…put X number of people at each location, then get online and check airfares and hotel rates. Yes, it does make a huge difference, and the choice of Fiji is very unfair. Again: nobody blames the bride and groom for marrying where they are living, provided they realize that fewer people may be able to come if they do. They do blame them for deciding to travel, but not travelling to a location that is convenient for anyone at all except perhaps their own fantasies. If you’re not getting married right where one of you lives, at least get married somewhere that is good for someone besides you.

As I said, we can agree to disagree. It’s my opinion, and I’m entitled to my opinion just as you’re entitled to yours. If you’re invited to a destination wedding in Fiji and you choose not to go, that’s great. I support you a hundred percent in your decision. If I’m invited to one and it’s in my budget or I have enough time to properly plan, I’m probably going.

 

[EasterJoy]

As I said, we can agree to disagree. It’s my opinion, and I’m entitled to my opinion just as you’re entitled to yours. If you’re invited to a destination wedding in Fiji and you choose not to go, that’s great. I support you a hundred percent in your decision. If I’m invited to one and it’s in my budget or I have enough time to properly plan, I’m probably going.

I’m not quibbling with your opinion that destination weddings are fine or that it is up to the bride and groom to choose and up to the guests to accept or not. That’s not my take, but I’m willing to admit that I’m firmly in Opinionland on that point. If you prefer to be invited to a resort instead of some who-knows-where in the middle of nowhere and where you know no one and would never have travelled on your own volition in a million years, that is indeed up to you. I have no quarrel with that, I agree that I have no ultimate standing to have a quarrel with that, and that holds even if the resort costs three or even ten times as much as some other location that could have been chosen.

I was quibbling with whether you are factually correct in strict financial terms that every choice of location is equally fair to the guests no matter where the wedding is and no matter what means the guests have at their disposal. There are some places that will, objectively speaking, cost the guests far more money, both as a group and individually, than other places will. There are some places that are out of the means of some guests…again, objectively speaking, they might not have the means to accept an invitation or might have to make a far greater personal sacrifice to go to the wedding than would have been strictly necessary, purely based on a alterable choice by the bridal couple. Therefore, there an objectively demonstrable difference in what is being asked of the guests depending on the location chosen. Not all travelling is created equal, and that is a fact. That is what I meant to say.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I think you’re onto something EasterJoy.

If you think Prom is bad, you should see the planning that goes into Homecoming at my daughter’s school. She’ll be entering the high school next year, first year for her classmates to be able to go to Homecoming. The kids were already asking each other out in April for a dance that doesn’t take place until OCTOBER! Spray tanning, getting their dress over the summer, flowers, etc. etc. The dresses that are already in the bridal store windows, look like Prom dresses to me.

No, my daughter hasn’t been asked to the dance yet. I’m hoping to actually steer her more towards just going to the game and getting some friends together and go bowling or something. They have to go as couples to the dance, no going with a big group of friends. And not everyone is ready for so much stress in finding a date when they are in 9th grade, it takes the pressure off if they plan something to do as a group.

But once Homecoming in 9th grade becomes the same status as Prom was for my classmates when I was a Senior, where do they go? If you’ve done everything that makes High School special when you’re a Freshman, what do you have left to look forward to? If Prom begins to look like the extravagance of a mini-wedding, what is left to do?

Don’t get me started on “Homecoming!” This is not even supposed to be FOR the current high school students in the first bloody place, but for college students who are “coming home” to their HS for the first football game. It’s STUPID that not only high schools but even middle schools are holding homecoming celebrations!!!

Here, we have dinner before the Homecoming dance. The boys pay for the dinner and the tickets to the dance, as well as a corsage for the girl’s wrist. Then, the next day is the game. The boys give their dates “mums” to wear to the game. Just Google “Texas Mum” and see what I mean. These can easily run to over $100. (The girls make or buy a garter for the date, not as expensive nor as gaudy). Well over $200 for a weekend, and that’s just the minimum!

Ridiculous Local Custom

 

[irishpatrick]

I long for the day when couples use fire halls or the parish hall again, and the parish ladies are cooking fried chicken and cabbage rolls, rigatoni, etc. for the reception.

That food is normally delicious too…

 

[Bobby_Jim]

So the wedding is in a Catholic church, just out of town? I guess it meets the formal requirements then?

In a purely secular sense, I tend to believe that an invitation to a destination wedding is like saying “we’re thinking of you, but we don’t expect you to attend, please just send a gift.” For some people that’s all you really want to do anyway (send a gift that is).

At least in recent history, the secular tradition is for the happy couple to take off after the wedding for a honeymoon at a destination of their own choosing. To me the destination wedding seems like it’s rolling the honeymoon and the wedding into one extended thing, and expecting the family and friends to come along for that too. Most of the wedding guests only have limited time & money for vacations, so it’s a bit presumptuous of the newlyweds to think very many people are going to want to take 3 of their 10 vacation days and a couple thousand dollars to accompany them to Vegas, or Aruba, or wherever, when really you would rather spend your vacation driving cross-country to see the grandparents and then take the kids to Disneyland for a couple days.

In a Cathoic sense, the wedding ceremony is a very public sign to the family, and to the community, of the sacrament. So it makes sense to have your family and friends present in the church that is the center of your faith life, i.e. your local parish. So the destination wedding may lose some of that sign value. However it’s not such a big deal in my opinion; the subsequent 50-70 years of marriage are much more important than the wedding day itself.

Personally for my wedding I would have been happy with a nice ceremony on Saturday afternoon and then cake & champagne in the church basement. However we ended up doing the much more traditional reception at a banquet hall. It was nice and all, but it was stressful and expensive and now I barely remember it.