I’m not a Mormon either, but I lived in Orem, Utah for 2 and a half years in my early twenties and was invited to several wedding receptions.
I can tell you this much, while I despise all the pompous overkill that this article mocks, it is possible to spend TOO LITTLE on a wedding and that too little isn’t just money, it’s also decorum.
The worst one I went to, had only half the church gymnasium blocked off and teenage boys on the other side kept slamming their basketballs against the free-standing partition all throughout. You couldn’t tell from the dress. demeanor, decor, or food that a wedding was being celebrated.
Music, celebration, ritual, dancing, spirits (in moderation) are all ways people share joy. Just because too much is nauseating, doesn’t mean none is better.
Disclosure: My father spent $3000 for my reception in 1995. And my husband and I probably spent about $2000-2500 for everything else including my dress, church, invites, decor, my one bridesmaids, the tux rental, all the rings, photography, and our honeymoon and travel.
We also did a reverse destination wedding, where we traveled to where our families lived and got married so no one would have to travel to us.
I feel it was money well spent and don’t regret a penny of it.
Yours sounds quite reasonable, but I won’t criticize the half-a-gym affair. If they were happy with it, and they and their guests were focusing more on their long future together than on the Big Special Day, it probably got the marriage off to a great start.
I try to avoid weddings, but went to my nephew’s last summer. It was nicely restrained, especially in view of the fact that he could easily have afforded to drop 6 figures on it — just 2 bridesmaids (her sister and his 7.5 months pregnant sister) in inexpensive-looking dresses that they’ll probably wear again to other social occasions (wrap-around style, to accommodate the pregnancy), table centerpieces featuring photos of the couple on various overseas trips they’ve been on together (a Shanghai table, a Venice table, etc) with very small floral pieces arranged by his mother. It was out by a lake, so they’d rented a tent and a portable restroom trailer, but those were probably the biggest expenses.
I think the wedding I most enjoyed was over 20 years ago, the wedding of a friend who worked at a fast food joint with me, to a young Marine. Her family was very working class (dad was a gas meter reader) and they lived in a little prefab house that was very nearly a trailer home. The wedding was in a little church, with just a couple of small flower arrangements for decoration, and the reception was in her parents’ backyard, with the same floral arrangements brought over as the main decorations, and all the food prepared by her mother (even the cake, as I recall). Dress included, I doubt the whole thing cost over $1000, and it was perfectly lovely.