When Dani Rose, a legal assistant in New York, recently came across a Facebook FB, +0.39% friend who had posted a GoFundMe page for her wedding ceremony, her initial reaction was a hearty eye-roll. Rose, who is currently planning her own ceremony, said the challenge of staying within one’s financial means for a wedding is the first test of a marriage — one that should be tackled without the help of others. “It’s so tacky,” she said. “You can have a beautiful wedding on any budget.”
Thousands of couples today are looking to friends and family – and, really, anyone – to help them afford to tie the knot. Campaigns on GoFundMe have likely raised millions of dollars for wedding-related funds, according to a recent report by the BBC. Many of the wedding-related campaigns on GoFundMe are related to emergencies, like a couple racing to the aisle after a cancer diagnosis and another whose destination wedding funds were stolen by a scamming travel company.
‘It’s very gauche. It’s part of an entitlement phenomenon in this country.’ Elaine Swann, an etiquette expert based in Los Angeles.
However, a number of funds are simply because they can’t afford their own reception, a practice increasingly frowned upon by wedding-goers who are already shelling out hundreds of dollars for travel and gifts to attend the average ceremony. In fact, the cost of attending a wedding rose to more than $700 per person last year, up from $673 in 2016, according to American Express, and around 40% of guests have skipped a ceremony due to the cost of attending. While 54% of millennials don’t expect guests to bring anything for a wedding, nearly one-third say it’s appropriate to ask guests to spend up to $500 and 7% say they can ask even more, according to a survey from TD Bank TD, +0.25%
GoFundMe encourages users to “get help offsetting some of the costs by reaching out to your friends and family for support.” One young couple is asking for $3,000 to make their wedding day “as special and beautiful as the day we met.” Thus far, they’ve raised $125. “Robert and I met over seven years ago online by complete fate,” their pitch reads. “We were both only freshmen in high school at the time. He lived in Pennsylvania and I was in California. We were the greatest friends and we talked and Skyped every single day for four years.”
Another religious couple with a large YouTube following raised more than $15,000 for their wedding. “If the Lord leads you to support them in raising money for their wedding, please visit their fundraising site and donate what you can,” they wrote. Another says, simply, “I need money for my wedding.” He gave no back story or reason. So far he has raised $25 of his $5,000 goal. GoFundMe’s terms and conditions say it cannot verify or guarantee donations will be used for the purpose advertised on a fund.
Don’t miss: The larger the rock, the rockier the marriage
Elaine Swann, an etiquette expert based in Los Angeles, said couples who cannot afford the ceremony or reception they want should downsize — not ask for donations. “It’s very gauche,” she said. “It’s part of an entitlement phenomenon in this country. You are not entitled to have people fund your wedding. The only people who should be funding your wedding, if at all, are parents, grandparents, or the bride and groom themselves.”
Others say many young couples feel under pressure to have a big wedding. “Weddings are absurdly expensive but there’s a lot of pressure to have one,” said Angela Giacchetti, 29, a marketing manager based in New York who is currently planning her own wedding. “In families like mine and my fiancé’s, elopement is not an option but it’s not like we have $20,000 to $40,000 just sitting around for a party.”
‘I’m cool with honeymoon funds, because people often just don’t need that much household stuff anymore.’ —Christine Victoria Waller, a childhood educator who lives outside of New York City
Getting married is “neither an accomplishment nor a necessity,” she added. “I feel like I’m fighting so hard with everything around me to keep it that way.”
While many people balk at the idea of crowdfunding a wedding in addition to attending it and buying gifts, others might find asking for funds for a honeymoon much more tasteful, if it’s in lieu of a wedding gift. Sara Margulis, chief executive officer of Honeymoon crowdfunding site HoneyFund, said less than 1% of couples asked for money instead of gifts for their wedding when she started the site over a decade ago. Now, the website serves 15% of the U.S. wedding market.
“I’m cool with honeymoon funds, because people often just don’t need that much household stuff anymore,” Christine Victoria Waller, a childhood educator who lives outside of New York City, said. “I’ve even been to a wedding where, in lieu of gifts, they asked guests to donate to their house fund or buy Loews gift cards. To me, that was a totally acceptable thing to ask for.”
The average wedding in the U.S. costs upwards of $26,000, according to the Wedding Report, but many couples spend far less than that. Swann has regularly helped couples plan “budget weddings” under $2,000. Others avoid the big ceremony and reception and speeches, and simply elope. Catey Hill, a reporter for Dow Jones Media Group who got married in a $20 dress at a tiny wedding chapel in Reno, Nevada, used the money she would have spent on her wedding as a downpayment on an apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y. She described it as “the best financial decision I ever made.”
(This story was republished on Nov. 7, 2018.)
Get a daily roundup of the top reads in personal finance delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Personal Finance Daily newsletter. Sign up here.
