Weddings the Fatzinger Way\
A wedding is often a reliable test of a couple’s readiness for married life. It tells a lot about how the two of them make decisions, what they value, and who the most important people in their life are. If your child is planning a wedding, we suggest that you decide up-front what you can afford to contribute—whether it’s $500 or $50,000—and give it to the couple to budget. This will help them to discern what is important to them. Starting out, Rob and I were in total agreement over what we wanted: a big, debt-free Catholic family. We wanted a lifestyle that allowed me to stay home with however many kids God sent us. And so, our wedding was very simple yet also reflected who we are. And for our honeymoon, we spent a week at a friend’s beach house and had a great time. Rob’s dad offered us some money to help because he knew we didn’t have much, and he said we could use it any way we pleased. We put this gift toward a down payment on a town house. As the kids have grown up and gotten married, they have taken a page from us and have kept their expectations about their wedding and honeymoon very reasonable. As of this writing in 2020, two of our daughters and two of our sons have gotten married, and each of them has managed to keep the expenses down. And while we could have written a whole book about how to do weddings on the cheap, we want to share a few ideas with you now. (If you like what you read here, be sure to get a copy of our book, A Catholic Guide to Spending Less and Living More.)
Tip #1: Fit Your Wedding to Your Budget (Not Vice Versa)
Each time a daughter gets married, we give her and her fiancé $5,000, tell them it’s theirs to do with as they want, and suggest that they decide together what is important to them. (Rob usually suggests they pocket the money and elope. He really does hate large crowds!) While it is traditional for the bride’s family to pay for the wedding, many couples today budget and pay for this event on their own. We have seen in our own two daughters’ weddings that they had different wants vs. needs. One daughter wanted a fancy dress and a good photographer. She stayed under budget by having a smaller wedding. The other daughter married into a very big family, so she decided to host a big group and save money on her dress. She wanted delicious food, so we paid the caterer for his special recipe of meat and mashed potatoes, skipped his servers and appetizers, and enlisted some friends to make our own appetizers. We saved so much. Here is what our oldest daughter, Alexandria (Alex), had to say about her wedding: My parents gave us $5,000 for our wedding. I could decide to spend that however I liked and pay for any extras. We even paid for the honeymoon with that money! I chose the things that were important to me to focus on. For me, that was the dress, photos, and flowers. However, I still saved on those areas by negotiating a lower photo price by only doing the ceremony and formal portraits. I saved on flowers by buying online from a wholesale flower farm and making table arrangements myself. For the venue, I was able to use a clubhouse in my grandpa’s neighborhood, which also helped to keep the guest list short and allowed me to save on food. Finally, for the honeymoon, we stayed in a private house on the beach but did this at a place within driving distance. 4 Weddings the Fatzinger Way We were so proud of our daughter for managing her money so carefully. Since she wanted a certain fancy dress, she figured out when it would be on sale. Then she negotiated a deal with the photographer to take pictures just for the ceremony (instead of buying one of his packages) and had friends and family take photos at the reception. We ended up with about seven hundred photos in total! Alex ordered most of the decorations and flowers online, and discovered it was cheaper to buy tablecloths than to rent them ($12 per tablecloth to buy them online versus $20 to rent them). That was ten years ago, and we use those purple tablecloths at least five times a year at our church for funerals, weddings, and retreats. The food was from a local Italian restaurant, and we had friends serve it and help with the bar and kitchen. (Yes, we have amazing friends.) A friend of Alex’s made cupcakes for dessert, and we used an iPod for the music with a playlist that Alex and her husband created. I purchased my dress and shoes at a consignment shop for under $40 and found a tux for Rob at Goodwill for $15 that fit him perfectly. We sprang an extra $10 for dry cleaning because Rob was afraid someone died wearing it. After Alex’s small wedding, we wanted to invite the entire town to meet our new “son-in-love,” so we had a huge open house a week after the wedding to show off the photos and celebrate our first child getting married. We rented our parish hall and had about three hundred people in and out all day. Rob did the cooking with some help from friends. We hired a DJ and a face painter, and cotton candy was provided by Alex’s old boss at the concession stand where she worked during high school and college. It was a blast because our friends could bring their kids!
Tip #2: Ask and You Shall Receive
When our second daughter, Elizabeth (Lizzie), got married, we also gave her $5,000 and told her it was hers to do what she could. Her priority was inviting extended family on both sides (she married a guy with a huge extended family) and having good food. There were 160 guests. Because her wedding was twice as large as her sister’s, the expenses were also higher. But as usual, God provides the biggest blessings if we get out of his way. At a church dinner, I was talking to one of Lizzie’s coworkers at the Catholic school where she taught math and explained what a hard time we were having finding a hall we could afford for that number of guests. “Have you talked to the high school president?” she asked. “I bet she’d let you use the gym.” So our very shy daughter asked Sr. Joan, who gave her blessing. The school let us use not only the hall but also the huge kitchen attached as well as tables and tablecloths. Another friend gave us her white chair covers from her own wedding. I put on Facebook that I was looking for mason jars to use as vases, and all my friends came through again! Two different friends commented, “I have had this case of jars just sitting around waiting for a good home!” All you need to do is ask, and God provides! We selected a caterer and picked out the food we wanted. When we got the cost estimate, we were a little overwhelmed. We thanked the caterer kindly and explained that we had fourteen children and that was a little pricey for us, and he emailed back with a huge discount. Thanks be to God! The caterer provided the main and side dishes. We made three huge tables of appetizers with some help from friends, and it was fantastic. Our simple style was three tables in different parts of the gym, all 5 Weddings the Fatzinger Way having the same food: a fruit tray, a veggie tray, cheese and crackers, tortilla chips, seven-layer dip, and queso cheese sauce from California Tortilla (our daughter’s favorite). Brides need to learn that investing in one area means cutting costs in others. Lizzie ordered her dress and a veil on eBay for $155 total. The friend she hired to take the pictures did a lovely job and didn’t charge much. I found lovely, brand-new navy shoes from a thrift store for $9 that I have worn for three more weddings. Rob wore his tux from Alex’s wedding and got a new tie to go with it. It was a wonderful celebration, doable with hard work and help from family and friends.
Tip #3: Avoid Falling in Love Long-Distance (A Groom’s Family Splurge)
Our oldest son fell in love with an amazing girl he met while working for FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students, missionaries to college students). To be honest, when I found out the girl lived in Arizona, I wasn’t too pleased. I know what happens when you fall in love with someone far away: You leave your momma! We all flew out for the wedding and took advantage of being near the Grand Canyon to make it a dream vacation. We may not be able to have a family trip like that again, but it was terrific. We rented a house and had a great rehearsal dinner there. We cooked food and celebrated with all the local family and wedding party. Rob purchased a gray suit to match the wedding party: $99, free shipping, and no alterations needed. This son’s wedding cost us more than the girls’ weddings, but it was a huge success. Rob told the kids that he wouldn’t be traveling more than an hour from our house for any future weddings, so the boys had better fall in love with local girls. And so far they have.
Tip #4: Don’t Forget the Fun
Our second son married a wonderful girl he met in physical therapy school. We took advantage of a good opportunity to host the rehearsal dinner at a restaurant near the church. The chef had just won the cooking contest show Chopped, and the food he prepared was incredible. For that wedding, I borrowed a friend’s stunning dress, and another friend did my hair. Rob bought a navy-blue suit online for $120 that was similar to what the groomsmen wore. Before the spate of weddings, he hadn’t purchased a suit since 1987—now he owns two suits and a tux.
A Final Word on Weddings from Our Daughter Lizzie
Weddings don’t have to cost $30,000 or more. For my wedding, my parents gave me $5,000, my grandparents gave me $2,500, and my in-laws provided beer and wine. Anything more we wanted, we had to cover ourselves. We stayed within (or very close to) our budget, however. I ordered a $100 wedding dress on Amazon and had it altered by a local seamstress. I bought a pair of shoes for $78, which was a little pricey for me, but they were very pretty, had lace on them, and matched my dress. I borrowed my veil from my grandma; she and my sister had bought it years before at a consignment sale for 25 cents and the lace matched my dress perfectly! To help my bridesmaids save money, I let them pick out their dresses. As long as it was a floor-length, dark green dress, it was fine with me. Some purchased a dress for $20 on Amazon or eBay, and some spent up to $75 buying 6 Weddings the Fatzinger Way a dress elsewhere. Either way, they were able to save more than you would typically spend at a bridal shop. My husband and two of his groomsmen wore $150 suits from Men’s Wearhouse that they had bought earlier in the year for his cousin’s wedding. The biggest expenses for my wedding were photography and catering. However, we still saved money in those areas. We hired a family friend who was a photographer but hadn’t done weddings. She was wonderful and much cheaper than the typical wedding photographer. To save money, we just hired her for the bridal party pictures and the ceremony, but to gain some extra experience and because she was awesome, she came and took getting-ready shots and reception pictures! Since I don’t really care for cake, we had doughnuts for dessert. We ordered 180 doughnuts (fifteen dozen) from a local doughnut shop, and it cost about $200, which is cheaper than a wedding cake. Music was another large expense. For the ceremony, we hired two people from a music group at church to play music and sing. They cost $300. We opted for a DJ at the reception, which is cheaper than a live band. The DJ cost $650. Since it was December, we decided against having flowers at the reception, which saved a lot of money. I bought roses and baby’s breath at a local grocery store two days before the wedding and made my own bouquets. I had a bouquet of red roses, greenery, and baby’s breath, and my bridesmaids had just a single white rose (the maid and matron of honor had three) and greenery. Overall, it was very inexpensive for the flowers. For favors, we ordered custom plastic cups in our wedding color with our names, the date, and a fancy monogram design. They also had white labels each guest’s name and table number, so they doubled as place finders. We purchased more than two hundred cups for about $200 online. These are all simple ideas anyone can come up with that didn’t cost lots of money. We all had a blast, and many hands volunteered to make the evening incredibly special. We know that God and family come first and that marriage is a lifetime—not a one-day party that costs thousands of dollars
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