^ I completely agree. If someone wants to host a wedding and feed me dinner worth $200…that’s their decision. I’d be just as happy with a simple $20 meal. I’ve been to gora weddings that had like 50 people in it and “reception” consisted of dinner at a local, reasonably priced restaurant. I didn’t think any “less” of them just b/c they didn’t spent $$$ renting out a fancy hotel with hundreds of guests, and a meal with steak/lobster.
My husband and I paid for our wedding and never once did we take into account how much of it we will get back. Our wedding wasn’t the typical desi lavish wedding. We only had around 120ish guests. But it was still nice and more importantly…we spent what we could comfortably spend out of our savings without being stressed. If $34,000 was that big of a deal to Laura & her bride…then they should have just skipped the party and put that money into their bank account.