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My wife's engagement ring cost ~$1700. This was right after I got out of college (she was a senior in college) and at the time I was driving a car that cost me $1500. I told the ring lady that the ring cost more than my car. She said "but you'll have the ring and your wife forever." I said "well, the car is running pretty good....."

The wife didn't see the humor.

I have to say that you shouldn't be stingy on the photographer, that while everything else may be temporary, food and fun, the pictures will last forever. In other words don't let a family member who says they have a nice camera do the pictures, unless they are a professional photographer. Like myself, hint, hint, nudge, nudge.

The one thing I did find actually ridiculous is wedding photographers. Most of the companies that specialize in wedding photography maintain the rights to your photos. When we called one place I was like WTF? They own the rights to our wedding photos? They even restrict how you can use the photos. And they said they might give you the opportunity to buy the rights to the photos in the future. I basically told them to take a flying f***ing leap.

We ended up hiring a photographer the was looking to break into the business. He had previously done marketing and press photography. Everything was done on a digital SLR using the RAW uncompressed format. He delivered the pictures to me on a DVD filled with PSD's Not only did we own the damn pictures but I got to do all of the post production work myself in photoshop and we used Kodak Gallery for all our printing needs.

also DON'T GO CHEAP ON YOUR DJ !!!! hire me! lol

anyways... i'm glad that the woman i would decide to tie the knot with
wouldnt be a materialistic wench. i feel sorry for the guys who have those
types of girls in their lives.

Gleek, so are you going to address my comments earlier in this thread, or are you ignoring them?

FroBozz_Inc wrote:

Gleek, so are you going to address my comments earlier in this thread, or are you ignoring them?

lol... i dunno yet.

i'm just tossing around ideas now...

i'm not avail for any interviews at this time.

thegleek wrote:

i'm not avail for any interviews at this time.

lol gleek. classic.

thegleek wrote:

$50k can buy a lot of concert tickets. or a nice downpayment on a house, or invest in stocks, or pay for your childrens college, or donate it to TR, or buy a nice new BMW 740iL... the possibilities are endless and lasts longer then 1 day.

QFT.

hey you guys,
Well im East Indian so my wedding just from the guys side is going to cost me around 30 grand. We are controlling it.
My fiance's family is looking at over 50 grand because we doing out traditional stuff outside at their house.
For the actual ceremony its going to be around 900 people.
For the reception at night around 550.

Gotta remember though. We rent out a big hall, have a full buffet morning and evening and open bar(just evening). Our weddings are big family events and consist of a whole week of events leading up to it. There are many gifts that are handed back and forth between the 2 sides. We had to book our reception hall 1.5 years in advance.
For those of you who say ur wedding is expensive. Trying forking the dough over for mine.

But at the end of the day and hopefully our lives. Its all worth it.

jheetathegreat wrote:

hey you guys,
Well im East Indian so my wedding just from the guys side is going to cost me around 30 grand. We are controlling it.
My fiance's family is looking at over 50 grand because we doing out traditional stuff outside at their house.
For the actual ceremony its going to be around 900 people.
For the reception at night around 550.

Gotta remember though. We rent out a big hall, have a full buffet morning and evening and open bar(just evening). Our weddings are big family events and consist of a whole week of events leading up to it. There are many gifts that are handed back and forth between the 2 sides. We had to book our reception hall 1.5 years in advance.
For those of you who say ur wedding is expensive. Trying forking the dough over for mine.

But at the end of the day and hopefully our lives. Its all worth it.

I was at a traditional Indian wedding when I was in grade school. It was LLOOONNNGGGG!!! And ELABORATE!!

jheetathegreat wrote:

hey you guys

Goonies anyone?

jheetathegreat wrote:

For the actual ceremony its going to be around 900 people.
For the reception at night around 550.

i've also been to an Eastern Indian wedding (in Bangalore actually), and
they are an all day event, filled with endless food, glamour, and people.

what i dont get. is how 550-900 get invited to a wedding. i know some
families can be big. but 550-900!?!?!

let's take the average of that, so... 725. divide in half for each side of
the family... ~360 ppl per side, or 180 couples per side.

180 couples per side?!

or maybe is it realistic to say 1 couple has approx 4 kids along with gramma, gramps, and 4 sisters and 4 brothers. let's toss that idea around.

for each 1 couple, the total average per family household is 12 + 2,
so 14 ppl per family group. divide that into 360 will bring you 25 family
groups per side (based off the 360 ppl per side number).

bah. i dunno. i just dont grasp the concept of how you can have SO many
family at one wedding. does that total count even include friends?

also, at 725 ppl total, take the standard amercian $20pp charge, thats
$15,000 just for the food! hopefully you'll average $50 in each envelope
you get, just to get back 50% of your investment.

I think thegleek is studying to be a math major.

I think the Gleek is thinking about the concept of getting married in the not too distant future and he's shocked at how expensive it's all going to be for something that he kinda (understandably) believes is a giant waste of money. He sees weddings nearly every weekend and MUST be jaded to some degree about them. He's trying to figure out how he could afford everything and justify the expenses and just can't do it. I've been there. What worked for me is threating to go to Vegas (like I said earlier). YMMV for several reasons. But tell me this - if you were going to get married, couldn't afford the traditional ceremony, fiancee doesn't care, etc. - would you consider Vegas? Best: parents will panic and hook you up? Middle: You make the threat, nobody objects, and you actually DO go to Vegas and get married Last: You see a judge and get married with no ceremony - maybe just a party afterwards...

marriage is a combination of a religion-based commitment and a dyad defined by society.

if and when i decide that i wanna tie the knot with one person that will
help pro-create more gleek jr's, this is my step-plan for that goal

1. finish college to obtain bachelors degree in computer science
2. seek out and find employment with a company that hires me in with a starting salary of $60-80k/yr
3. purchase ring, i'm thinking the initial investment would be under $2k.
4. think of interesting way to propose, then do it
5. have uber small wedding and get-together. not even sure it's gunna
be in a church since we don't participate in any religious stuff anymore
6. work, save money, pay off college debt, invest in first home, make babies

thats about it in that order, although depending on girl, #'s 3 and 4 might
come before 1-2 depending on how long the engagement process will be.

My wife and I agreed before the wedding that we were going spend very little on the rings and instead get something PRACTICAL for each other. Ended up buying each other nice mountain bikes (about $500 ea) while the rings cost us about 200 to 300 each. We still agree that was a good idea for us, after 16 years of marriage, although occasionally she will remind me (jokingly) that I owe her a rock, since hers was about 1/5th carat. Of course, that was college days...

Oh yeah, total cost for wedding was about 2 to 3k (no real honeymoon).

i love the fact that 2 people have voted for the $200,000+ selection on this poll

$200,000? for one day? i call that a straight out lie and yer just voting for that for the attention or to offset the vote

no one makes $200k in a year let alone to be STUPID enuff to blow
that much cash away for a friggin wedding event.

thegleek wrote:

i love the fact that 2 people have voted for the $200,000+ selection on this poll

$200,000? for one day? i call that a straight out lie and yer just voting for that for the attention or to offset the vote

no one makes $200k in a year let alone to be STUPID enuff to blow
that much cash away for a friggin wedding event.

Gleek, need I remind you of the discussion that, imho, sparked this poll?

Clearly, there are people who do it. When you're worth hundreds of millions of dollars, or even tens of millions of dollars, spending $200k on a wedding is mere pocket change.

The important part of the wedding, imho, is that the ceremony is respectful and meaningful to the bride, groom, and those in attendance. For some people, that could mean a private ceremony with a priest, a judge, and a few witnesses. For others, that could be a smash-bang affair with music, dancing, exotic food, and all the gold trimmings you can imagine. It's a matter of taste and style.

thegleek wrote:

...no one makes $200k in a year let alone to be STUPID enuff to blow that much cash away for a friggin wedding event.

Yes, quite a few people do. I came very close one year while the tech bubble was still around and stocks were flying high. That ship has long since sailed.

And one thing you can count on is the stupidity of people.

Talking to my wife's parent's pasteur (before we got married) was very interesting for me.

I did not beat around the bush and basically said that I don't believe in God and all these faith based questions he was asking me had answers of NO and N/A on this test I was given. He basically tried to pressure me into becomming a member of her families church. He kept saying that marriage was a religious institution that should not be taken lightly in the eyes of god or some BS like that. I countered with: "so you are saying that only religious people should be able to get married and that only religious people have the proper morals you speak of?" That was pretty much the end of the discussion and nobody in her family has ever asked me to participate in anything relious since. Wife's father was "president" of the church group and I know he was briefed in detail from the pasteur.

pmeysemb wrote:

although occasionally she will remind me (jokingly) that I owe her a rock, since hers was about 1/5th carat.

Hah. Joking? That's what you think, but it's not what she thinks!

lol.

FireGryphon wrote:

Gleek, need I remind you of the discussion that, imho, sparked this poll?

no, it was a good spark too. this has proven to be a most interesting
thread to read so far in this forum section...

FireGryphon wrote:

Clearly, there are people who do it. When you're worth hundreds of millions of dollars, or even tens of millions of dollars, spending $200k on a wedding is mere pocket change.

oh i know ppl do it, i've dj'd only 2 of those weddings in my life out of
the 12 years of weddings i've dj'd at.

where do these ritzy snobs hire their dj's from? thats what i wanna know!

FireGryphon wrote:

The important part of the wedding, imho, is that the ceremony is respectful and meaningful to the bride, groom, and those in attendance. For some people, that could mean a private ceremony with a priest, a judge, and a few witnesses. For others, that could be a smash-bang affair with music, dancing, exotic food, and all the gold trimmings you can imagine. It's a matter of taste and style.

yeah and they spend $200,000 on their wedding and fork over $1,000
to the dj. nice ratio there. is your entertainment and host of your entire
friggin night not worth more then your veggie platter???

thegleek wrote:

where do these ritzy snobs hire their dj's from? thats what i wanna know!

Why are you assuming they even hire DJs in the first place?

thegleek wrote:

yeah and they spend $200,000 on their wedding and fork over $1,000
to the dj. nice ratio there. is your entertainment and host of your entire
friggin night not worth more then your veggie platter???

If you don't know where these people hire DJs, how on earth could you know what they pay them?

mattsteg wrote:

thegleek wrote:

where do these ritzy snobs hire their dj's from? thats what i wanna know!

Why are you assuming they even hire DJs in the first place?

why do you assume that yer smartass tends to know all the answers?

i've been HIRED to do weddings in my life. 12 years of it. and 2 of those
500+ weddings happened to be in the $200k+ range where i've been
hired to DJ at their wedding. what assumption am i not making clear here?

mattsteg wrote:

thegleek wrote:

yeah and they spend $200,000 on their wedding and fork over $1,000
to the dj. nice ratio there. is your entertainment and host of your entire
friggin night not worth more then your veggie platter???

If you don't know where these people hire DJs, how on earth could you know what they pay them?

again, cuz DJ's do get hired by this class of wedding all the time, and the
average cost of a 6-hour wedding runs $1k-$2k (tops) for events like that.

my question was, is what criteria do they use to decide on which dj
company they will be using for their $200k extravaganza? and why $1k
is the price thats fought over. for example, if said person called up the
dj company they liked, and we quoted them $5k to do their wedding, they
would have a canary over the price and call another cheaper dj.

thegleek wrote:

oh i know ppl do it, i've dj'd only 2 of those weddings in my life out of
the 12 years of weddings i've dj'd at.

where do these ritzy snobs hire their dj's from? thats what i wanna know!

I've never heard of weddings having DJ's. All the weddings I have been to and heard of have actual bands. Besides, if you're going to spend any considerable amount of money on a wedding, you'd want to up the bar a bit and have real band. Maybe they do things differently out in the Midwest, but here, it's all about the band.

FireGryphon wrote:

I've never heard of weddings having DJ's. All the weddings I have been to and heard of have actual bands. Besides, if you're going to spend any considerable amount of money on a wedding, you'd want to up the bar a bit and have real band. Maybe they do things differently out in the Midwest, but here, it's all about the band.

WOW... thats almost impossible to believe. and let me state the facts
on why that is so.

i belong to a nation dj association. and each year, mobile beat hosts
an annual dj conference for dj's across the nation to attend.

in those seminars, some of the dj's across america are asked to speak
how weddings are done in their neck of the woods.

while i know bands are used a lot in weddings, especially the more
prestigious ones, dj's are also co-hired to play the music in which no
band can perform (ie: top40 rap/dancier songs).

so i have no clue how yer so blind to the fact that dj's are not used in
weddings, even in your neck of the woods.

Trying to bring a bit of civilty back into the discussion...

... during my research into locations for my upcoming wedding, I flipped through one of theose "places to get married in the Wasington DC area" book. They had lots of good suggestions (and some awful ones). The best part was that they grouped them by state and by price.

Waaaaaaay in the back of the book is the most expensive place to have a wedding reception: The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. The price? Not listed because the Smithsonian will request a donation to the Smithsonian Institution for the use of their museum for an evening. A "suitable donation that we don't want to discuss" is the price. One the plus side, they have room to seat you and 3,000 of your wedding guests.

As for the price of DJs at weddings... If you look at it from the perspective of the people paying the bills, the price of a DJ can be seen as a fixed expense. Just because you're shelling out obscene amounts of money to get a reception at El Swank, the DJ's job stays the same. Unless the reception is going to be over-long, the DJ still plays music for X hours, still has to dress up in the monkey suit, still has to set up his/her equipment.

So tell me, why should people pay the DJ more money just because everything else is costing more money?

Darkmage wrote:

So tell me, why should people pay the DJ more money just because everything else is costing more money?

For the same reason why you go to McDonalds and pay for a hamburger
for under $1.00 and the same hamburger at a 5-star restaurant will cost
you over $10.00.

a DJ of a wedding just don't push buttons and plays music for
6 hours (some states i think it's 4 hours). there's a lot that goes into
he night that is very vital to the event.

but from what yer saying, if i normally charge $1,000 for a 6 hour
wedding event, the common hillbilly hick wedding would hire me on
that same pretense? I think not. i've gotten many phone calls that do
nothing but haggle over the price.

thegleek wrote:

Darkmage wrote:

So tell me, why should people pay the DJ more money just because everything else is costing more money?

For the same reason why you go to McDonalds and pay for a hamburger
for under $1.00 and the same hamburger at a 5-star restaurant will cost
you over $10.00.

Last I checked 5 star restaurants don't serve Macdonalds "hamburgers".

thegleek wrote:

a DJ of a wedding just don't push buttons and plays music for
6 hours (some states i think it's 4 hours). there's a lot that goes into
he night that is very vital to the event.

Which may or may not apply to a given wedding.

thegleek wrote:

but from what yer saying, if i normally charge $1,000 for a 6 hour
wedding event, the common hillbilly hick wedding would hire me on
that same pretense? I think not. i've gotten many phone calls that do
nothing but haggle over the price.

What's the point of that statement?

thegleek wrote:

For the same reason why you go to McDonalds and pay for a hamburger for under $1.00 and the same hamburger at a 5-star restaurant will cost you over $10.00.

I don't know where the hell you eat, but I would never go to a restaurant that serves McDonald's quality food for $10. McDonalds burgers suck. Their saving grace is that they're cheap. I've overpaid for burgers before, but I always get better than McDs.

thegleek wrote:

a DJ of a wedding just don't push buttons and plays music for 6 hours (some states i think it's 4 hours). there's a lot that goes into he night that is very vital to the event.

And how does that change when the venue is El Swank compared to when the venue is Mom's back yard?

thegleek wrote:

but from what yer saying, if i normally charge $1,000 for a 6 hour wedding event, the common hillbilly hick wedding would hire me on that same pretense? I think not. i've gotten many phone calls that do nothing but haggle over the price.

If you're worth $1,000 for six hours, then charge that amount. Mr. Hillbilly won't be able to afford it and he'll go with his toothless friend who DJs at the local strip joint. He'll get lousy music but he'll save money. If you're not worth $1,000, then why charge that amount just because your client can afford it?

As for haggling over the price... that's what contracts are for.

Darkmage wrote:

If you're worth $1,000 for six hours, then charge that amount. Mr. Hillbilly won't be able to afford it and he'll go with his toothless friend who DJs at the local strip joint. He'll get lousy music but he'll save money. If you're not worth $1,000, then why charge that amount just because your client can afford it?

As for haggling over the price... that's what contracts are for.

well all good points, but there's a lot of variables that go into it.

ie: equipment quality (audio, microphone, video, etc), music selection,
knowledge/experience, attire/appearance, etiquette/attitude,
availability, how big your company is, reputation, and so on are all
determining factors those base your contractual price per hour.