Why we cancelled our $40,000 wedding
It was 2018. Suspended in a glass box 88 storeys above the shimmering Melbourne CBD, my then-boyfriend got on one knee and asked, ‘Will you marry me?’
It was the most beautiful proposal and the highlight of our week-long holiday - a holiday to attend the annual PAX convention with friends, including one of my best friends. An absolute dream!
My new fiancé and I were ready to start wedding planning straight away. I knew what I wanted - something bright, airy, and modern (no traditional churches or rustic barns for me). Luckily, my fiancé agreed, and when we checked out a hotel rooftop we’d seen online, we fell in love immediately and chose it to be our wedding venue. After enquiring, we got our first indication of how much it would cost: 60 guests at $189 per person for hire of the rooftop terrace, a 3-course menu, and 5-hour beverage package = $11,340.
This was only the beginning: we still needed a wedding dress, a wedding suit, wedding save-the-dates & invitations, photography, videography, fresh flowers, candles & other decorations, a DJ or a band, hair & makeup, and more. By the time we’d priced everything up, it came to over $40,000 - and this didn’t even include the honeymoon!
I felt incredibly fortunate that just a month after getting engaged, I landed a new full-time job. For the past year, I’d been doing freelance photography, selling candles, working a part-time job, and earning rental income from a flatmate, making a living from several inconsistent streams of income rather than one. I was ecstatic when I landed my new job at the tax office, which would in hindsight be one of the best jobs I’d ever had.
At the new job, I worked hard and saved hard. The cost of living crisis was not a thing yet, so even with the modest paycheck, it was easy to save hundreds of dollars every week in our wedding fund, and even more after I ‘passed competency’ and got a pay rise.
Everything changed when that job - which was fixed-term - came to an end, and I changed jobs. Immediately, something didn’t feel right. My two seniors, the manager and assistant manager, were passive aggressive and condescending; the office environment was deadly silent and awkward; the work was tedious and monotonous. At the same time, my fiancé received some bad news in his family. And so began our rough patch.
Our rough patch wasn’t so much that we as a couple were going through a rough patch, but rather that we were individually going through our own rough patch, which made our relationship harder. I continued clocking day in, day out. Driving long commutes to an office I hated, to work under people I hated, doing work I hated…
Until one day, I thought: for what?
I was living a life I hated so that I could save a huge chunk of my paycheck every week. Our wedding fund kept growing, while my mental health kept deteriorating.
One day, I realised: I was doing this all for one night. The thought that we would’ve saved 1-2 years, consistently, diligently, not going out, not having fun, not splurging on non-essentials, and living a frugal, minimal life, just to spend it all on one night, and even then mostly on other people…
I was filled with complete dread.
Days and weeks went by. I was stressed to no end and lost so much sleep that I realised that it wasn’t just a doubt anymore; I had to stop this.
So I told my fiancé. After a heartfelt conversation about our priorities, he agreed to cancel the rooftop wedding, even though we’d already paid a $2000 deposit.
Here’s what’s crazy: Covid-19 was unheard of at the time. Little did we know, the global pandemic would hit NZ in March 2020, just when the wedding was originally meant to take place - and due to the contract, even if we’d paid for everything, we would’ve lost it all!
Which leads me to what actually happened in March 2020: on the 26th March 2020, our 4-year anniversary, we flew to Queenstown to get married in a mountaintop elopement ceremony. We’d found a company that did elopement wedding packages for $5000, including helicopter rides to the mountains, hair & makeup, the celebrant, and photography. There’d been talks of a potential lockdown, but nothing announced yet.
We landed in Queenstown to discover that lockdown had been announced during our flight - businesses were preparing to close and travellers were preparing to return home. We tried to get on a flight back home, but nothing was available, meaning we were stuck until our return flight to Auckland a week later. We spent that week in our hotel room blissfully reading, playing board games, watching movies, and eating room service. Our honeymoon, a Topdeck Travel 12-day tour of Japan, was also cancelled due to international travel restrictions, for which we were refunded $12,000.
Come November 2020, when lockdown had lifted and we were free to roam once more. We got married in our dream mountaintop elopement ceremony on top of The Remarkables and Cecil Peak, with my best friend and her husband as our witnesses. It was the most gorgeous day, with clear blue skies reflected in the waters of the vast Lake Wakatipu. We were officially husband and wife!
We never went on our Japanese honeymoon. Instead, we got married and had our honeymoon in the same week, by spending the entire week in Queenstown not only getting married but enjoying food & drink at our lakeside hotel, soaking in the hot tubs, exploring the town centre & gardens, going on a lake cruise & farm tour, and doing the most magnificent bike ride from Arrowtown to Gibbston Valley, where we cycled along the Kawarau River, enjoyed a long lunch and a tour of the winery. At night, we had dinner with my best friend and her husband, then retreated to our room for wine & board games. It was an absolutely perfect week.
All up, we spent $5000 on the wedding package and $3000 on hotel accommodation, food & drink, attractions, and travel. We cancelled our $40,000+ wedding and had an $8000 wedding instead, and I don’t regret a thing. Years later, we would use the $32,000 we saved towards repairing and upgrading my house to sell, then buying our first house together as a couple - the house we now call home for our family of four, since welcoming a baby boy and baby girl!
I learned so much from this experience. Mainly, it was a reminder that in order to get the most value out of your money, you need to spend it in line with your values. I’ve seen friends with big, lavish weddings, but I remind myself that 1) I don’t know what kind of privilege or financial help they had behind the scenes - like parents funding the whole thing - and 2) I’m an introvert. I don’t like public speaking and bond better with people one on one than in groups. As someone who was struggling with social anxiety at the time I got married, having an intimate ceremony gave me a huge sense of relief and comfort, and made the day feel so, so easy - something I hear isn’t always the case for big weddings.
Now that it’s 2025, my husband and I have been thinking about our life plans moving forward. In 2030, it’ll be our 10-year wedding anniversary, and we’ve decided we’re in a good place to be able to plan a vow renewal ceremony or second wedding. What’s even better, we’d like to host it at the hotel we stayed at for our first wedding - by the lake, overlooking the mountains, this time surrounded by our family & friends and our children!
If you’re currently engaged, or otherwise making a big financial life decision, I hope this has given you food for thought and inspired you to use your money in the best way: by knowing what will make you the happiest, with no spending regrets, only lasting positive memories.
Sophia
