POLL: Wedding expenses in the frum Community - BH for simchos? or out of hand?

[aygart]

I would love to see this too

IIRC you were at one

[aygart]

"Peer pressure is when you do something beyond your means that you don't really want in order to keep up with others..... We keep to the standards set by others even though we couldn't afford it and took tzedaka money to do so. "

I guess in their mind once you actually want it then it is no longer peer pressure.

We made 3 weddings which were beautiful without spending this amount and without taking a penny from anyone but rather helping pay for a different wedding the same night made by someone who couldn't afford basics.

I want to back off a bit from my characterization here. When looking at the details, I see how a decent portion of the money was for expenses that are very standard among Chassidim but that I did not have.

[aygart]

Can you volunteer to be featured?

I need to think over whether it can be done without people knowing it is me or without including personal info, discuss it with my wife, and see if I can pull up the numbers.

[MiInvstr]

I really think either this is totally made up or by the time it got to print, it was so chopped up and tweaked that it just doesn't add up, because there are so many contradictions in there.

Which part is unbelievable? I believe every single word of it, as ridiculous as it sounds.
The only thing I found hard to believe is how a family with such a spending habit would actually have any sort of breakdown of what anything costs. But it sounds like it’s his wife and probably kids too who have the crazy spending habit and he’s more or less okay going along with it cause he’s making good enough money and appreciates the “finer things”.

[aygart]

If you're interested, would love to see the breakdown.  If it wasn't within the last year or so, you'll need to adjust the number for inflation.

2 were in the last year.

[MiInvstr]

2 were in the last year.

Mazel Tov!

[Dawie]

IIRC you were at one

and i just made one in the same hall
and although my numbers were lower overall then that guy, most of them weren't far off
also we bought them a car
also difference between the first and second probably 20% more

[Dawie]

I want to back off a bit from my characterization here. When looking at the details, I see how a decent portion of the money was for expenses that are very standard among Chassidim but that I did not have.

ya, same here

[Euclid]

I'm well on record about the dangers of the "game", but the kind of excess being described here has nothing to do with it

Exactly. I haven't married off a kid yet, but this isn't remotely close to what anyone in my circles would do.

Not only OOTers

It's part of the OOT propaganda - everyone who lives in town is living above their means and there's massive peer pressure etc.
Let them have this

[Euclid]

also difference between the first and second probably 20% more

because of inflation?

[Yehuda57]

Let them have this

At what cost though

[yfr bachur]

200k puts you in the top 5% of households in this country. That we don't look at that as at least upper middle class says a lot about us.

At some point when I was a(n older) kid, my father once mentioned to me, (not quite in these words but this was the gist) that if we would not be living a frum lifestyle, his income is the income of people who take international vacations multiple times a year. (This was def pre DDF, he means paying cash money for it...) but as we're frum he chooses to spend it on Yiddishkeit.
He never, ever asked for a break on tuition. He may have asked for a longer term payment plan but never a break. My mother often went YEARS without seeing her family (mother/father...) who lived in the UK. (Preinternet too...). They never renovated their house. (OK, this year they re did ONE bedroom - that hadn't been used as a bedroom since they bought the house 25 years ago - and only becuase a family member needed to move in with his family for a few months, and a couple of years ago they replaced the broken panes of glass (sorry Ma, I just lost control of my fastball...) around the front door with a nicer window when my sisters started shiduchim...).
They never ate out, as far as I know, more than pizza/felafel... A siyum or birthday was a large plate or two to go from Olympic Pita - for the entire family.
My father got a silver menorah when my mother won one in a chinese auction... after she'd been putting in for it for decades...
China for shabbos was the same thing...

Oh, he's a doctor, owns his practice and has been taking home north of 200k for quite a while...

I forgot... they also live in Brooklyn...

[dovy2]

Meh

I'm referring specifically about spending habits. If everyone in boro Park only used debit cards, half of the expensive stores would be out out of business. People would think ten times before spending a few k on a Judaica item or on tapestries.
And when that happens, people begin getting used to less expensive lifestyles

[Dawie]

because of inflation?

Inflation- yes
Car prices
didn't make an full shabbos & aufruf kiddush because it was pesach the first time around
among other various reasons

[avromie7]

Inflation affected the cost of simchos dramatically. I just spoke to someone who is making a bar mitzva, he said the price increase between the last one (18 months ago) and this one is double (although it's probably "only" 70-80% more). He went to the same sofer and asked for the same teffilin. The last one was $2xxx, this one is $4xxx (I don't remember exact). Same story with the caterer, $2x vs $4x PP. He's using a different hall, so can't really compare that.

[yfr bachur]

Inflation affected the cost of simchos dramatically. I just spoke to someone who is making a bar mitzva, he said the price increase between the last one (18 months ago) and this one is double (although it's probably "only" 70-80% more). He went to the same sofer and asked for the same teffilin. The last one was $2xxx, this one is $4xxx (I don't remember exact). Same story with the caterer, $2x vs $4x PP. He's using a different hall, so can't really compare that.

the diference between 2950 to 4050 is like 25% while 2050 to 4950 is 60%... the xxx's matter...

[avromie7]

the diference between 2950 to 4050 is like 25% while 2050 to 4950 is 60%... the xxx's matter...

4050 is 37% more than 2950. No it wasn't either extreme, but it was close to double. He told me this a few weeks ago, and I figured then that it's not actually double but pretty close. That's why I said around 70-80%. Regardless, it's a dramatic increase over a very short time period.

[mevinyavin]

At some point when I was a(n older) kid, my father once mentioned to me, (not quite in these words but this was the gist) that if we would not be living a frum lifestyle, his income is the income of people who take international vacations multiple times a year. (This was def pre DDF, he means paying cash money for it...) but as we're frum he chooses to spend it on Yiddishkeit.
etc
Brooklyn...

Somewhat similar to the way I grew up (attitudes, location, income a bit less). I remember an anectode in which they said the Rebbetzin (Shusholtz) A"H reprimanded them for never serving pizza ("American kids have to have pizza every once in a while...").
My parents never flew to Eretz Yisroel even though they wanted to "until we pay what we owe to the yeshivos." When I moved to EY I had no expectations of seeing them for a long time (flying there isn't in my budget either). By the time they did (my brother got engaged in EY and the chasunah was in England so they came for the aufruf 'on the way to the chasunah'), it had been 45 and 38 years since they had been in the country. Then another brother married an American Israeli and they started coming every few years.
I am happy to live in a neighborhood where people have lower expectations for simachos.

[David61]

I need to think over whether it can be done without people knowing it is me or without including personal info, discuss it with my wife, and see if I can pull up the numbers.

I'm the original poster of this thread.
If 4+ people want to share (recent & itemized) Wedding expenses numbers with me, I can post those anonymously (and treat the identity confidentially), in spreadsheet style, as in the original post.
PM if willing and I'll follow up when there are 4 people willing to share numbers.

[aygart]

It's part of the OOT propaganda - everyone who lives in town is living above their means and there's massive peer pressure etc.
Let them have this

THey are absolutely correct that the peer pressure is not comparable.
ETA: although to be fair there is plenty of OOT peer pressure that you don't have in town too about different items.