Eddie Hobbs - Wedding Plans

Grizzly said:
If you married couples out there were doing it again, the wedding I mean, would you do things differently?
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. No, exactly the same. Church wedding, immediate family only (27 total) for a meal in Shelbourne, followed by anybody who wanted for the DJ later on (in the same room in Shelbourne). Total, incl photographer, cake, dresses, suit, string quartet (at church and at beginning of reception), honeymoon, etc etc - 6k.
 
Watching the programme, I was just wondering why they felt they had to marry at that point in time anyway. Maybe it was for religious convictions. But I felt they were putting themselves under pressure to get married, rather than buy a house which might have been more sensible financially given the high rent they were paying. Then they could still have married a few years down the line when the student finished his PhD and got a job. I did the conventional wedding route, church and hotel wedding reception but it was mainly for out of respect for my parents who were of an older generation and that was how they wanted me to get married. If I felt I could do things differently I probably would have just had a church or registry office marriage just for family only and a barbeque at home afterwards- probably with a caterer, again only for a small number of people. Or maybe if I could have organised our families ( who are all over the world), a big get together in France with a hired large house or something similar.
Legally there are still advantages to being married rather than not, completely aside from tax issues, and more especially for women where a couple want to have children. I have always been of the view that women should be very careful about giving up their career to have children and become a stay at home mum where a couple are not married, because they have much less rights tnan a married woman would have.
 
It seems in Kerry the weddings are massive altogether - 300, 350 ......

I think the Hobbs theory is at work there - marginal contribution from each extra guests, then just need the numbers to get up to breakeven point !!
 
I could not believe the advise that Eddie Hobbes gave to that couple. I am a long time married now and am glad I went down the sencible route for me that being 30 guests - all people we wanted there and are still in touch with all of them 29 years later. My nephew got married one year ago and had 300 guests present and I heard his mother afterwards saying that alot of the guests "didn't covered themselves" meaning that what they gave didnt pay for their meal. Isnt that sad!!!
Modern Ireland!!!!
 
My advise for the couple would have been "don't get married if you can't afford it", I find it foolish to take a loan for a wedding and get in debt just for one day.
 
My advise for the couple would have been "don't get married if you can't afford it", I find it foolish to take a loan for a wedding and get in debt just for one day.
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Everyone can afford to get married it is the extras that cost the money. Even a Church wedding doesn't have to cost anything if getting maried in your own parish with 2 witnesses! It is the optional extras that cost the money and if you can afford these have them if not do without!
You dont have to get a 1000 euro dress,hire suits,bridesmaid dresses,honeymoon in Barbados....these are what cost the money and not the wedding ceremony! If you can afford these extras they are nice but not worth having to get a loan for!
 
I agree with Eddie that certain elements of a wedding are fixed costs, ie dress, suits,flowers etc will cost the same regardless of the number of guests, while the meal/wine cost is really the only variable. Its a bit late coming in with 3 months to go as most of the big expenditure is committed to ie hotel, dresses, band etc.

That said it was a bit idiotic imo to tell the couple to invite more guests in order to get more cash gifts..and then for Eddie to tell them to ask for cash only ..its just not the done thing and while I would generally give a cash gift I would take offence if asked for it.

Relying on cash gifts from guests to pay for your wedding is a foolish thing to do. Just to shoot Eddies theory down in flames we found that some guests are incredibly generous, some wouldn't cover the cost of the meal/wine and some guests give nothing.(and before I get flamed for that comment I mean it as a way to show the fundamental flaw in Eddies thinking...it didn't make a blind bit of difference to us)

We wouldn't do anything different. We had some pressure from our parents to invite certain people so as a compromise we gave each set of parents X number of friends to invite...and they could choose who they wanted there.

We kept costs down as much as possible and only splashed out on one thing...the band. But as we are both big music fans it was important to us. In total we spent about €11K for 70 people...my Dad insisted on paying for the meal and got quite insulted when we initially refused. The balance we paid for from savings. Neither of us would have been happy getting into debt for one day....and we certainly wouldn't have got married without having our house first.
 
Hmm it seemed to me that the couple had already decided to get married and were well underway before going on SMTM. They were advised to use a Credit Union loan facility and seemed to have a spread sheet done out with all the costs identified including the cost of stamps. There was no over-run with everything being monitored. I got the impression that Eddie was tongue in cheek with the idea of doubling up the wedding size. He described it himself as vulgar.
 

I belive that most would be of the view that is vital for the man to get married if having childern, basically to just have rights to see them if the couple break up.
 
I belive that most would be of the view that is vital for the man to get married if having childern, basically to just have rights to see them if the couple break up.
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Unmarried fathers do have legal rights to see their children if a couple breaks up. What I am talking about is the difference between a married couple and an unmarried couple as regards maintenance in the event of a breakup, when a married person does have the right ( depending on the financial circumstances) to maintenance for themself but an unmarried person has no such right.
 
Grizzly said:
If you married couples out there were doing it again, the wedding I mean, would you do things differently?
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I had wanted to get married in Italy, but gave in to pressure from family to get married in Dublin. That said I would do it all the same again. I did the church thing but had none of the trappings (ie no pew bows, 1 small bouquet (total flower cost 150 euro), no bridesmaid, wedding cake, no veil, didnt spend money on shoes or accessories, no favours etc), we invited 60 people, we didnt borrow or stretch ourselves financially. Id wanted to get married in Italy because the meal/reception we could have gotten for guests would have been so much more superior than what you'd get in Ireland for the same money. Mention wedding in Ireland and they seem to add 1000 thousand euro onto any price! It was also very very hard to get a venue for only 60 people, so many places wanted to charge us extra for the downfall (ie 10 euro per person not invited upto 90 for example, so one place wanted to charge 10euro x 30 and were really surprised when I cancelled the booking as a result).

I cannot believe Eddie Hobbs suggested upping guests to cover costs? What ridiculous and narrow-minded advice. Its not even good financial advice, as some people feel quite strongly about not giving money. Were there any compliants about it at all?
 
Surprised he didn't suggest saving money by getting married in the Cape Verde Islands
 
Grizzly said:
If you married couples out there were doing it again, the wedding I mean, would you do things differently?
Click to expand...
Nope, registry office wedding in Switzerland, mainly to avoid the hoardes in Ireland who I hadn't seen for about 20 yrs! Small reception for 25 guests afterwards - cost around €3,000. We used our savings to put a deposit on a house in London the same year and are absolutely certain we did the right thing.

I'm amazed at how much people here in Ireland are prepared to spend on one day - a friend of mine got married in Australia, flew all and sundry over for the occasion, had a 'blessing' and party in Ireland on their return for the 180 or so guests who couldn't attend in Australia and five years later is still in rented accommodation lamenting the fact that she could have used the money to put a deposit on a house.

Would have liked to have heard Eddie say that they were foolish to put themselves into so much debt for one day.
 
Is €6000 the average spend on the "honeymoon" these days? Again another frivolous expense, I thought. You could have a very nice holiday for less than €3000 surely? It seems that round the world trips and excursions to Bali, Singapore, South Africa or Australia are the expected norm now! Mrs C and I had to laugh- our "honeymoon" was a 12 day stay in the Peak District: days spent sightseeing or hillwalking and plenty of real ale along the way! I think the total cost of our wedding for 90 people or so was about £10000, back in 2000- including the honeymoon. We had our house a year before we married- a priority for any couple.
 
There were about 60 guests at our wedding. I can't remember the overall total for our big day, we didn't have to borrow to fund it.

Without wishing to generalise, I think there's a different attitude outside of Dublin when you start to identify who should/must be invited.

I think SMTM has run it's course.
 
Definitely agree with Carpenter re the honeymoon too. €6000 is crazy money to spend on a holiday and much much more so when you have to borrow for it. Mr.V and I had a great honeymoon, but we married AFTER we started building our house when we had our finances straight, and didn't have to borrow for the wedding or honeymoon. If we had had to borrow, the honeymoon would have been two weeks at home in Kerry or at the very most a very cheap package holiday. I just don't understand the mentality of borrowing for an expensive holiday at all.
 
Wrong. The father has an obligation to help look after the children - not his ex wife/partner. Married or not this is the same.
 
Read my post again. All parents, married or not have an obligation to maintain their children, yes. But only married people have a right to seek maintenance from the other spouse in respect of themselves.
 
Getting married myself in 3 months so I'm quite interested in this topic. It's interesting that most people here seem to have gone for the small, intimate affair here or abroad. We're going for the full traditional wedding in my local church and on to a hotel. We're paying for the entire day from our own savings and already have our own house. Incidentally, we're not going to adhere to the politics of an Irish wedding - you have to invite X because we were invited to their child's wedding or if you're inviting those cousins, you have to invite your other cousins. We are inviting people who we see on a regular basis and who know both of us. I will not be introducing anyone to my spouse on our wedding day - they will certainly have met before.

I cannot understand why anyone would get into debt to get married or go on a honeymoon. We certainly won't and if we couldn't afford it now, we would simply postpone the wedding. I suppose the people who get into debt for their honeymoon are also the people who get into debt for their annual holiday, Christmas, Holy Communion .....
 
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