Granted we got married back in the Dark Ages but everything from the venue to the gown to the cake to the license was $500. You don’t have to have a multi-million dollar destination wedding that you spend the rest of your lives (or until the divorce) paying for it. But, yeah, millennials only know $$$$ weddings.
Daughter is engaged and planning wedding now. Both she and her fiancée have stable, good-paying jobs. Only debt is his mortgage, and I think they both have car payments.
They are trying to stick to a strict budget for the wedding plans, and (while it is still a lot of money), it looks like it may come in for about $10K.
Too many of my daughter’s friends had over-the-top weddings (say $30K-$60K), and were divorced less than 2 years later, which I think was a good lesson for her. And the wedding is really only a FEW HOURS... The guests will not even remember anything about it in a couple months.