Thanks for this post. This is a topic that is hitting home for me as my fiance is in the finance industry and has been able to survive three sets of lay-offs. I just took a pay cut to switch careers. Weactually already own our apartment and are very careful with how we spend our money, but it still does not help knowing that he could possibly be out of job before the wedding. I just try my best to make sure that we come under budget as much as possible and don’t spend needlessly. We have our health and each other.

I definitely have made sure not to buy into the WIC, but at the same time I don’t think I can do the DIY route either. My new career is more travel intensive (and 8 weeks before our wedding it will be at its most intense period). I don’t craft. I’m not a designer (I can barely sketch!) and I don’t have friends or family who are designers or seamstresses. While I really like this post, I feel like the opposite of the WIC is the DIY movement. I guess I don’t really feel part of either.

Thanks again for provoking thought as always.

Ps: Cake is also VERY easy to DIY:)Buttercream, and ribbons as decor, and done:)But I guess you know:):)

But I’ve been looking at our budget and wondering if we’ll wish we had that money back a year after the wedding. We’re both academics finishing graduate school, and so many universities are watching their endowments shrink and thinking about hiring freezes. What if we don’t get jobs? What if my car gets totaled while it’s minding its own business in the parking lot and I have to buy a new car? (Don’t laugh, that’s happened to us before!) What if one of us gets hurt or sick or any of the other million things that could go wrong goes wrong? Our parents are also contributing — will they regret their generosity? In a bad economy like this, all of those things seem much scarier, and it’s tempting to just hoard our money in case things get worse.

Having our friends and family together means the world to us, but my fiance and I have agreed that we will re-evaluate in December and if we’re not sure spending that kind of money is the right thing to do, we’ll cut back dramatically. I’d be bummed to lose the gourmet menu and the gorgeous invitations I’ve been eyeing. But I know I will still be holding my new husband’s hand at the end of the day.

I’m engaged and have just been laid off. The funny thing is that losing my job has actually killed any wedding stress I had. We’re lucky that the big day is still a while off so we don’t have to make any rash decisions about our wedding budget, but really we just want to be married. A wedding is just gravy — and nothing to lose sleep over.

We’re pulling through this tough time together, which serves as a great reminder of why we actually want to get married. My (admittedly expensive) new-found perspective is worth its weight in pink slips.

So, it’s great if the economy is not affecting your wedding plans. That’s something to be profoundly grateful for. But please don’t think that those of us that are having economic concerns related to our weddings are somehow trying to diminish your appreciation of your day, or guilt you into spending less, or are somehow anti-wedding. I know the economy is bad (please don’t make me explain the numbers behind the latest GDP print) and I know it’s not getting better soon. So, I personally am worried about spending money that I could keep in savings and use to pay the bills if we needed to. And we, quite frankly, are in much better economic shape than the majority of American families right now. Which I’m grateful for.

Surely you can sympathize with these concerns, even if you are not in the same situation.

Meg