For her second wedding, my sister had a fairly big wedding. She was also part of a two career couple and had lived a long time in the same state. She knew a lot of people.

In contrast, I have moved a lot as an adult and nearly 6 years of homelessness taught me that poverty is very hard on your social life. I would have trouble coming up with, say, six people to invite to a hypothetical second wedding for me. I just do not have a big social network of that sort.

Congrats on getting a wedding for very little money. But I strongly suspect that knowing 200 people well enough to even invite them to your wedding makes you more upper class than you likely realize.

I eloped at age 19. Including rings (bought on sale), dinner and a movie, marriage license, blood testing and cab fair, it was under $300. So you sound like you did amazingly well.

Your testimony doesn't change my opinion that a mock cake for 160 guests is a rather upper class first world problem.

> But I strongly suspect that knowing 200 people well enough to even invite them to your wedding

That just depends on what you define as "well enough". I've been invited to quite a few weddings of people I barely knew.

Oh yeah, gotta adjust for the fact that the article was about NYC/Washington DC and mine was rural New Hampshire.

Edit:

Redacted.

I'm tired and maybe misreading your comment.

I'm outta here folks. Talk at you good people some other time.

A 200 person wedding on a $2000 budget is a remarkable feat.

It depends on who you know and what you can do yourself.

I had a simple courthouse wedding both times. My sister, though, wanted a "fancy" wedding.

She was able to have the ceremony in the church she attended and use their place for the reception, all pretty cheap. All the formal wear was rented save for one bridesmaid that decided to buy hers for herself: She was using the same dress for another formal event. I personally made the cake, though my sister paid for supplies (that was my wedding gift). My mother did most of the simple decorating.

The reception was mid-afternoon, between lunch and dinner. No food beyond cake and non-alcoholic drinks were served.

2 gourmet hotdogs per person

It was a Sam's club hamburger, but hotdogs were also available. No, I'm not kidding. The wedding was in a friend's backyard with folding chairs and tables borrowed from a church. The cake was made by a friend of a friend for about half the going rate, but we also bought a couple dozen gluten-free cupcakes. We tried to pay the cooks but they refused; the musician was family, and the officiant and the sound guy (for the dance music) were personal friends and didn't charge. It was nearly a regular BYOB backyard party but with better decorations.

That's not really $10/head, that's a lot of in-kind wedding gifts. It's just an accounting difference from paying for all that stuff.

Yeah, that's totally fair. And we treated it that way, asking certain guests to bring certain things instead of gifts.

Honestly I'd prefer that over the expensive yet awful food I've had at weddings. They charge expensive restaurant prices but all the food has to be made in bulk to serve at once so you're not getting expensive restaurant quality.