For absolute precision and transparency, the current costs amount to CHF 5550.02, encompassing various elements described before + including the photographer’s deposit and the engagement ring.
This is by no means a competition to spend the least .
My intention is rather to detail the costs for informational purposes rather than comparison. If someone can learn something from it, it’s a success; otherwise, it loses its significance. I personally benefited from some advice, and I thank those who contributed to the discussion .
In summary, life is not solely about being mustachian in every aspect. I am very pleased with what we have achieved so far for our wedding .
I stumbled upon this post and find it extremely interesting! Making your own rings seem very mustachian (good way to spend your precious time in creating real value for yourselves).
I was wondering if there are other mustachian ways to make/purchase rings? Is it really worth to do/buy them abroad and import them back to Switzerland?
I’m not sure if this is only a Latino thing (I got married 34 years ago in Spain) but there the more you spend the less you spend…
Everybody pays you in addition of the gifts, hard cash and a lot of it. The better the fiesta the more cash. I got around 1.5 million Pesetas more than I spent (by then a lot of money, around CHF 15’000) and I did spend a lot: 7 days of festivities, a bull fight, a rock band that played on
a stage built fo that purpose at the plaza of the village the whole night and so on. I think it was the last traditional wedding in that village.
So, in Latin countries you have to spend a little to get a lot.
Bull fights where already regulated (you would need a permission, doctors and a lot of things). But those were other times. I just had to write “traditional activities” like all the villages did when announcing a bull fight. Everybody knows what “traditional activities” are.
The bull fight was organized by the restaurant and they did charge me nothing until one week later, so I did not even have to forward the cash, could pay it with the gifts.
This is probably legally expired so I can tell: 50 of our 300 guests did eat and drink for free because I did not need an invoice. That is normal today in a country with over 20% VAT, but was even more frequent in that times.
Funny thread, we’re coming up to 10 years of marriage in a few days.
Our wedding happened in the depths of the Syriza bamboozlery in Greece, with capital controls on (up to 60 EUR/day in cash allowed, all other transactions by ebanking, cheque or card) so we needed to get frugal by external force majeure.
Our wedding bands cost 200EUR each from a friend who’s got a side gig as a jeweler, wife’s dress was made by her cousin whose job is to construct clothing prototypes from plans ahead of production for a large clothing firm (he wouldn’t take any money for it), we got married in the town hall (the fee was something like 50EUR) with only close family, then threw a party for our friends in a beloved bar where the owner is a friend and the sound engineer is my best friend and was best man in the wedding. They provided the food, drink and music, cost of ~1200EUR for ~50 people if I remember correctly. Then we did a more formal reception for fairly close family and parents’ friends but kept numbers fairly low, ~60 people, with a very good quality catering company, cost ~2500EUR. In lieu of a gift a family friend who is a master patissier made a phenomenal wedding cake, an uncle who’s a published photographer did the photos, again in lieu of a gift.
So all in all, an extremely “mustachian” wedding, not by design, now I can hold my head high in this forum!
Ding ding ding. we have a winner. Well, except those who avoid getting married at all. Now that is the true Mustacian way: no wedding costs, no divorce costs!
Not only Latino or Spanish, but rather not that common here to invite the whole village or town for several days . Depends of course not only on budget but how big the families and social circles are. And you’d be expected to chip in on all the other invitations you get from others.
Not related to the event, but skip the diamond on the engagement ring. Or get a fake one if it has to be. I did get a real one, but it’s sitting in some drawer now. What a waste of money.
Fair enough, might as well skip it completely. I didn’t want to deviate too much from (questionable) social norms or traditions to unsettle potential newly-weds
edit: I didn’t tell my spouse that it’s a waste of money and it never mattered.
It’s not even that, how would you lose a ring? Personally, I just don’t care about jewelry. I understand there are those expectations how a proposal a or wedding “should be”, but you can make it any way you like.
I see the ring as an insurance against hardship: in case of really serious trouble, you have that ring that you can sell/barter for its gold (and diamond? - the diamond is more about the symbol to me and I probably wouldn’t add one). Presumably, you really don’t want to sell that ring because of the symbol it represents (or social pressure), meaning you’ll find additional resources in you until it really comes to that.
My view is, of course, biased. It’s probably more of a “see, I’m gifting your daughter this expensive thing so that shows I can make your descendents rich” kind of thing, which is debatable in current societey to say the least.
The thing is that in a hardship you could probably expect to sell a ring for the value of the material. So you’d need a pretty nice ring for it to bring you far and even then. Preferably a very heavy one. I would more rely on the gold value than any stones, because diamond value seems to be much more debated over (Real? Not real? Grown or Found?).
(Not that I would personally ever pursue “storing value” in jewellery + I find valuable metals and stones ethically questionable).
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that must be the secret code. Will try that in ZH city.
. Depends of course not only on budget but how big the families and social circles are. And you’d be expected to chip in on all the other invitations you get from others.