High cost of Weddings

[sanfanciscotreat]

Cannot help but wondering.

What was the brides family response to the compromise?
If there was an agreement.

 

[Souschef]

Nemo, you know what they say "A fool and his $ are soon parted." We actually eat dinner in the dining room because I enjoy the food and the experience. Plus the food is better. We eat our other meals in the buffet. I don't get the specialty restaurants either on the ships. I should pay more $ for dinner when the dining room has great food. They are always trying to up sell them. Last cruise a guy wanted to sell us dinner with the chef at 85/person. He was going on and on and I told him I would think about it and he said that only 5 couples would get to attend so the opportunity would be gone. I told him if it was such a easy sell he would not be wasting so much time bugging me. He huffed and walked off. Pretty funny actually.

Dear TT,
YMMV. We enjoy going to the specialty restaurants because the food is cooked to order, and they offer many things unavailable in the MDR. We did the Chef's Table once, and really enjoyed it.
Attached is our story with pictures of our experience.
My wife is a gourmet cook, and I enjoy her cooking. The problem we have found on many mass market cruise ships is the food is dumbed down with little seasonings. In fact, we found a place that sells "travel spices", an assortment of 24 small bottles of spices. I threatened to take them with us.

 

[Just_Steve]

Souschef, I love the way you document your trips, I have read a bunch of them. I wish I had the patience to do that.

 

[Meadbh]

I’ll chime in here. I have cruised four times. In my experience the food at the dining room has generally, but not always, been of a high standard, though on my last cruise, a transatlantic, a newbie waiter brought me the wrong starter, the wrong entree and the wrong dessert! I like to mix my dinners between the dining room and the buffet. The buffet can be a great escape from people you dislike at the dining table. I have only once paid to eat at a specialty restaurant. I did so because there was a long queue for dinner at the very busy dining room. I went to the Italian restaurant, where it was quiet and peaceful, I struck up a fascinating conversation with the waitress, who had time on her hands, and the food was perfect. It was a perfect evening for an introvert!

 

[Souschef]

We normally chose Anytime dining, because early seating is too early and late seating is too late.
We ask for a table of 2 or four, and may never see the others again.

 

[bclover]

Dear TT,
YMMV. We enjoy going to the specialty restaurants because the food is cooked to order, and they offer many things unavailable in the MDR. We did the Chef's Table once, and really enjoyed it.
Attached is our story with pictures of our experience.
My wife is a gourmet cook, and I enjoy her cooking. The problem we have found on many mass market cruise ships is the food is dumbed down with little seasonings. In fact, we found a place that sells "travel spices", an assortment of 24 small bottles of spices. I threatened to take them with us.

OMG!! that sounds amazing. Do you guys need a baggage handler on your next trip? I'm a great minion, I work for food and you wont even know I'm there..

 

[Nemo2]

I'll use it to have great dining experiences.

This is perhaps (one area) where thee (and others) & we diverge; DW & I are ingestive plebeians, 'dining out' for us is not a 'treat', it's more of an imposition.

Yes, we get hungry, and yes we eat, but eating, (other than for refueling purposes), is not our predominant focus.....it's not a central part of our itinerary, especially when traveling.

Me, I'd rather eat like a peasant than dine on pheasant under glass.

 

[MichaelB]

Not at all--you are being subjected to the humble brag! Hey, I would love to go to the Cheesecake Factory with you--my treat!

DD told me once, which pretty much sums me up: "You know when to save money, and you know when to spend money."

+1. Nothing better than sharing a table with people that enjoy a good meal.

We may be thrifty in some aspects of our lifestyle, but not when we dine out. We explore menus, order lots of food and use the opportunity to try different things that we don’t get at home.

 

[Dtail]

+1. Nothing better than sharing a table with people that enjoy a good meal.

We may be thrifty in some aspects of our lifestyle, but not when we dine out. We explore menus, order lots of food and use the opportunity to try different things that we don’t get at home.

+1 Went from frequent foodies to occasional foodies, but still love great different types of food.

 

[Teacher Terry]

We took 1 Princess cruise and the food was not very good. In the MDR it was ok. That was disappointing. We have found that when we eat out the portions are huge so we usually end up taking half of our meal home. We don't order appetizers for that reason. Sometimes we order dessert but usually split it. On RC you can now order filet mignon for an extra charge and I usually do that once on the cruise. Some friends of ours said that Holland has quality cruises too but at this point we are starting to get perks from the cruise line for remaining loyal so it is hard to switch.

 

[bclover]

This is perhaps (one area) where thee (and others) & we diverge; DW & I are ingestive plebeians, 'dining out' for us is not a 'treat', it's more of an imposition.

Yes, we get hungry, and yes we eat, but eating, (other than for refueling purposes), is not our predominant focus.....it's not a central part of our itinerary, especially when traveling.

Me, I'd rather eat like a peasant than dine on pheasant under glass.

It's all good. Dining out is tremendously important to our family on vacations. Seriously. One of the reasons we delayed traveling to London was the rumor that British food sucked.

I think it's perhaps a holdover from growing up in Manhattan where there is such a tremendous variety of good food at all different price points and easily delivered to you.

I'm very much like Michael B, getting together with my 3 best friends going to a great restaurant and eating a fantastic meal is about the best thing in life and so dropping 60, 70 bucks on a great dinner is much better than Boston market.

 

[Nemo2]

It's all good. Dining out is tremendously important to our family on vacations. Seriously. One of the reasons we delayed traveling to London was the rumor that British food sucked.

I hear ya.....people are different......some think the idea of sitting in a blind looking out for animals, as my late wife & I did in Senegal, (that's her waving), is a waste of time...but she, and now DW & I, loved it:

 

[audreyh1]

It's all good. Dining out is tremendously important to our family on vacations. Seriously. One of the reasons we delayed traveling to London was the rumor that British food sucked.

The British are great at desserts and afternoon tea with loads of goodies (none of which I can eat anymore ). But we also ate out at some quite nice restaurants as well in some smaller cities. And great fish and chips in a seaside town. It wasn't all pub grub. Plenty of Indian and other ethnic eateries as well. No lack of ethnic variety in England or Europe.

Dutch food isn't that inspiring to me except for the seafood which is absolutely fantastic, but they have tons of great ethnic restaurants as well: Indonesian, Suriname, (which we don't have around here) as well as all sorts of Asian, French, Italian, etc.

 

[Bestwifeever]

It's all good. Dining out is tremendously important to our family on vacations. Seriously. One of the reasons we delayed traveling to London was the rumor that British food sucked.

I think it's perhaps a holdover from growing up in Manhattan where there is such a tremendous variety of good food at all different price points and easily delivered to you.

I'm very much like Michael B, getting together with my 3 best friends going to a great restaurant and eating a fantastic meal is about the best thing in life and so dropping 60, 70 bucks on a great dinner is much better than Boston market.

I was amazed at how good the food in England was last spring, from the pubs to the fine dining—lowered expectations were exceeded immensely! Fun to talk to the other diners and the staff especially, as well.

 

[Teacher Terry]

The 2x's we went to Italy the food was fantastic. On the enjoyment of food I fall somewhere between Nemo and Clover. BTW: I think sitting in the blind waiting for animals would be awesome.

 

[Moemg]

I was amazed at how good the food in England was last spring, from the pubs to the fine dining—lowered expectations were exceeded immensely! Fun to talk to the other diners and the staff especially, as well.

When we went to England and Ireland years ago I loved the food especially the scones .Their are pictures of me looking very chubby at the end of that trip.

 

[pb4uski]

Thanks for the replies. I have been at the beach trying to get a handle on all of this. I have spoken with some dear friends, and we decided that we will give$10k for the dinner. I had always said that I would give each son 10k and a ladder if they would elope, so I guess that means 10k is the number. 25k wouldn't break the bank, but it would be 2 years of vacation funds. From what I have heard and seen, the new in-laws are very wealthy (8 figure wealth and 7 figure income), so the wedding isn't too much for them. I am in the 7 figure wealth (low 7 figure) and no earnings.

Thanks again for the help.

How are things going? Any update?

 

[aida2003]

Well, I actually would have expected the bride's family to cover the majority of costs especially knowing their income. I don't budget for any wedding yet but I also hope our children will not have high expectations either.

 

[brett]

Weddings cost as much or as little the people want to spend. They can go from 0 to infinite.

There is always a choice to be made.

 

[Katsmeow]

I am less frugal than many here. Even so, I've always thought expensive weddings were a waste of money. Nice to attend, of course, but it just was not how I wanted to spend my money. When I got married 26 years ago (I was in my 30s) my parents gave us $5000 to spend as we wanted. We flew to Las Vegas and got married (for some reason I always thought that was romantic and wanted to do it). So we had money left over.

I've told my kids that I don't believe in big weddings and I won't be funding one. I'm sure if any of them have a wedding I will do something like my parents did and that will be that. I think what the OP is offering to do ($10k to be spent however they want for the dinner) is about what I do in the situation given.

 

[ElizabethT]

This is definitely a YMMV issue, however, I do find it beyond annoying to hear people complaining about it. Seriously, it's only expensive if you wish it to be so, and since there is absolutely no correlation between the cost of a wedding and the success of a marriage, spending a small fortune on one is a choice, not an enforced sentence.

In our case, we chose to fund our children's college educations, believing them to be of far more worth over their respective lifetimes than a fancy wedding. For weddings we gave them each $5,000 and said it was theirs to do with as they chose. Both went modest and small, focusing on gorgeous outdoor locations that were both free and breathtaking - alongside the ocean, and overlooking Lake Tahoe. There is simply no possibly way either day could have been more meaningful simply because more $$ was spent.

I applaud those who choose to have expensive, lavish weddings, but please, please don't complain about a decision that was willingly made if so. And in return, I promise not to judge.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I will admit that I didn't read nearly 1/10th of the 196 posts...so forgive me.

When DW and I got married, the entire thing cost about 5K as we did a destination wedding. It made planning very, VERY easy and it went off without a hitch. The only downside was that a couple days after we married, all our friends and family left. DW and I kept ourselves entertained, but the days with the friends and family were a helluva lot of fun.

A few months ago, we attended a family member's wedding at the same location (about 9 years after ours). It was a bit odd to see it again...but with us as spectators. Nonetheless, we all had a great time.

 

[Taxman59]

Received the proposed guest list last week. over 300 people so far. My son thinks the rehearsal idea is a good one (a nice roast pork dinner on the grill with buffet style service to facilitate the photographer getting all the photos he wants to chronicle the event). Future DIL emailed back that she appreciated our generosity and she would keep us apprised of the plans! A total brush off. Oh well, I tried. I will send a check and she will have the party she wants!

Thanks for all of the responses, when the city and venue are selected, I will update.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I think sending a check is the best way to keep the peace.

 

[Moemg]

Sorry to reopen this thread but I have a question .How would you feel if you paid for a semi lavish wedding only to have it end three months later ?