While weddings are mostly filled with celebrations and spending time with loved ones, they can also be a huge money suck, especially for a couple just starting out.
That seemed to be a particular issue for a groom who posted to the subreddit r/AITA that his fiancée had gone a bit overboard on her wedding dress budget, so he had to make a drastic financial decision about their honeymoon.
The groom canceled their honeymoon after finding out that his fiancée went way over budget on her wedding dress.
In his Reddit posthe explained that he and his fiancée are planning to get married later this year. They had decided on a small wedding with a strict budget to help them not overspend anywhere they didn’t need to.
They were only planning on having 30 guests total, and the ceremony would be hosted at a family friend’s house.
FENCE | Reddit
“We’ve been making the decorations, doing online RSVPs, ordering our wedding cake from Costco. As a trade-off, my fiancée and I would be going on a very expensive honeymoon,” he revealed. When it came to her wedding dress, however, he left the responsibility of buying it to her, thinking that she’d consider their budget and not buy an overly expensive dress.
Wedding expenses can sneak up on couples, so it’s understandable that this groom was upset about the cost of the dress.
According to Fidelity Investmentsthe average cost of an American wedding in 2023 was $29,000, while the knot reported that the average was $35,000.
When it comes to who ends up footing the bill, only 16.6% of couples pay for their entire wedding themselves, while 33.6% pay for at least part of the festivities, according to online wedding resource Zola. Parents or in-laws pay for at least part of the wedding for 32.5% of couples, while the lucky 9.4% say their parents or in-laws are paying for the entire wedding.
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Budgets are important, especially when it comes to weddings.
It’s understandable that couples want to make their special day as extravagant and memorable as possible, but it’s also vital that you don’t break the bank and end up spending way more than you can afford or plan to, in this instance.
His fiancée argued that she spent as much as she did because it was her ‘dream wedding dress.’
When he confronted his fiancée after finding out she spent $10,000 on her wedding dress, she argued that she deserved to buy it since she compromised on having an “ugly wedding” for him, which was confusing for him to hear.
He admitted that he had no idea that she felt that way because she never expressed it.
She claimed that she could afford the dress, but he pointed out that there was no way they could, especially since they didn’t even have a house yet. He also insisted that they couldn’t afford the dress and their honeymoon at the same time.
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“I immediately canceled our honeymoon trip. When she found out I canceled the honeymoon, she got very angry. She said I had no right and if I didn’t fix it she would go on the honeymoon alone.”
If she had been unhappy about the way the wedding was being planned, it would’ve been easier to say something instead of making the decision to buy an expensive wedding dress that’ll just end up sitting in her closet for years after the ceremony.
She and her fiancé could have negotiated a compromise about some of the budgeting decisions they’d made before and ended up with a wedding ceremony that they both would be happy with.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.
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