Economic Hardships Contributing to Cohabitation?

[SolEX01]

Personally, I've always thought that the tradition of having a huge wedding which can range anywhere from $20,000-$100,000 is incredibly stupid to be honest.

Some Greek weddings reach $250,000 and have 700 guests.  These kind of weddings happen a few times a year where I live.

With all that money, wouldn't it be more prudent to instead spend it on a house, car, baby-supplies (if you plan on having children), your remaining debt or something that will actually benefit you opposed to a big stupid celebration full of people you hardly know that are only there for free alcohol?

I agree.  A decade ago, I thought about inviting poor people off the street as guests if I were to be married.  Now, I would want my sister, my nieces and nephew, my bride's parents, any siblings, nieces and nephews she may have and the sponsor - no one else with a dinner at the restaurant where my father works at after the sacrament.

[Maria]

Personally, I've always thought that the tradition of having a huge wedding which can range anywhere from $20,000-$100,000 is incredibly stupid to be honest. With all that money, wouldn't it be more prudent to instead spend it on a house, car, baby-supplies (if you plan on having children), your remaining debt or something that will actually benefit you opposed to a big stupid celebration full of people you hardly know that are only there for free alcohol?

My husband and I paid about $2000 for our wedding in 1982.
I made my own wedding dress and veil with blush.
We hired a photographer to video tape and photograph our wedding.
We did not have a ballroom with a dance as my parents were Protestants and did not want to have alcohol nor dancing. That alone cut the costs.
One of our friends owned a mansion in the foothills where we had a fantastic dinner reception for all the guests.

[vamrat]

Nope. Executives would no longer receive extravagant bonuses for exploiting the workers an the labor they produce. Do away with serving the shareholders.

Are you relying on the Underwear Gnomes for this or are there going to be some steps in between that need to be fleshed out?

[J Michael]

What difference does it make? If anything, wouldn't marriage benefit them even more because they get tax deductions? I think people cohabit because they are afraid of committment and divorce, selfish and want the freedom to leave whenever things get rocky and don't have to share their assets. My parents may have fornicated and had me pretty young, but they still married the moment they turned 18.

Just a minor addition.

LOL

I know it's pretty wrong, but when I went to Protestant School, I remember all the middle aged wealthy people used to tell us how it's so bad to rush into marriage when you are a teenager or to get pregnant as a teenager, and I always took it as a personal insult to me and my parents. But then, most of those people now are still divorced whereas my parents are still married. I laughed in many of those peoples' faces after their marriages failed. 

 

Really??  Why on earth would you have done that? (I honestly hope the smiley you put there means you were joking!)

And then you go and say something quite intelligent and reasonable:

Personally, I've always thought that the tradition of having a huge wedding which can range anywhere from $20,000-$100,000 is incredibly stupid to be honest. With all that money, wouldn't it be more prudent to instead spend it on a house, car, baby-supplies (if you plan on having children), your remaining debt or something that will actually benefit you opposed to a big stupid celebration full of people you hardly know that are only there for free alcohol?

Go figure.

[jmbejdl]

Personally, I've always thought that the tradition of having a huge wedding which can range anywhere from $20,000-$100,000 is incredibly stupid to be honest. With all that money, wouldn't it be more prudent to instead spend it on a house, car, baby-supplies (if you plan on having children), your remaining debt or something that will actually benefit you opposed to a big stupid celebration full of people you hardly know that are only there for free alcohol?

My husband and I paid about $2000 for our wedding in 1982.
I made my own wedding dress and veil with blush.
We hired a photographer to video tape and photograph our wedding.
We did not have a ballroom with a dance as my parents were Protestants and did not want to have alcohol nor dancing. That alone cut the costs.
One of our friends owned a mansion in the foothills where we had a fantastic dinner reception for all the guests.

Indeed, there's absolutely no need for the huge, massively expensive weddings that people seem to think is 'required' now. The argument 'I can't afford to marry' is bizarre. My wedding cost about £500 (and I borrowed that from the bank, which was quite amusing when I was met by the whole, "Do you know how much weddings cost?" speech from the manager) back in 2001. Now admittedly we were married in Romania which was much cheaper than here, but that £500 included my brother's flight (he was a student at the time) so you can probably tell that the wedding was hardly extravagant.

If you just want to save money sharing a house is surely just as cost effective as cohabiting, and surely the sex of those sharing is an irrelevance? Not sure if I'm reading things into the thread but I got the impression that people seemed to think the only options were same sex sharing, cohabiting or marriage. Back when I was working in the psychiatric hospital I shared a house with four girls quite successfully. Everyone had their own rooms and there was no bed hopping or anything of that sort, it was just an economic arrangement and it was no different than sharing with other boys (except that it was tidier and likely smelled better) and saved us an awful lot of money.

James

[Father H]

Personally, I've always thought that the tradition of having a huge wedding which can range anywhere from $20,000-$100,000 is incredibly stupid to be honest. With all that money, wouldn't it be more prudent to instead spend it on a house, car, baby-supplies (if you plan on having children), your remaining debt or something that will actually benefit you opposed to a big stupid celebration full of people you hardly know that are only there for free alcohol?

James.  YES.  spot on

[Tags:]

OrthodoxChristianity.net > Moderated Forums > Free-For-All > Non-Religious Topics (Moderator: Pravoslavbob) > Topic: Economic Hardships Contributing to Cohabitation?