[Christopher]

This may be silly to some but useful to others.. If you’re in your 20s and 30s and have a pretty solid friend group make sure you budget for weddings once you get that invitation. I’m a pretty extreme saver but poor budgeter.

Well this year my fiancee and I are going to have spent like $4000 just on weddings before June.

Between airfare, hotels, rental car, suit rental, wedding gifts, etc it really adds up.

Sure, we are going to have a great time and it’s sort of like a mini vacation but if you get a wedding invite or know of any friends about to get engaged make sure you stack a few bucks away so when the time comes it doesn’t sneak up on you.

[Lori]

Or, play the travel credit card game and never pay for travel again.

[Koonal]

Yes! Super good advice. Definitely might want to look into travel hacking also with credit cards as my wife and I were able to pay for a few flights via points this way which saved us some money.

[Lori]

My daughters are 20 and 22. They are feeling this stage already. How would you advise your kids who are without employment?

(One is a student and the other just graduated and has been job hunting).

I told them they don’t need to give a wedding gift if they’re already buying a bridesmaid dress, traveling to the events, and giving shower gifts.

[Lori]

What a great reminder. Weddings were such an unexpected extra expense for me at that age. I remember feeling tempted to save money and decline an invite or two, and I bet you’ll get some advice to do just that.

But IMO celebrating people you care about is a top-priority life experience, and a top memory maker as well.

Enjoy every single one.
I miss that season of life so much! Someone invite me to a formal affair!

[Linda]

Good advice!
It starts all over again when your own kids, nieces and nephews, and friend’s kids all get married around the same time and then have babies!

You’re not in the wedding parties, of course, but have all the other expenses, and sometimes are cash flowing from retirement accounts, without salaries.

Definitely something to consider!

[Lacey]

My best friend is doing a destination wedding in 2026, so I have already started stashing money aside each month for that.

I also have a few other short-mid term goals that I have savings plans for and put certain amounts of $ in those “buckets” each month.

I am very big into cashflow projecting and making plans to follow.
As others have suggested, leveraging travel cc points is huge.

When done correctly, you can get good redemption values that exceed that value of cashback.

Like you, I previously did cash back cards, but I switched to the points game with Chase because their airline transfer partners are the most useful to me, and I’m now working on my 3rd SUB.

I plan to eliminate the cost of flying to her wedding next year by using points.

If you decide to go the Chase route, feel free to DM me and I’ll let you know what I’ve done to maximize SUBs so far.

I’m no “expert” but I’ve been able to do some successful redemptions that exceeded the 1 cent per point value.

[Jeff]

I’d send cards with money in them instead of going to a destination wedding…

[Neal]

I remember when wedding season hit and I was in 5 weddings in less than a year. It adds up. Then all of a sudden I went 3 years without going to any.

It was surprising to me how much each wedding varies.

I feel like somewhat of the expert after being in 12 weddings.

And some were nearly free and others just the tux rental alone was $220.

[Erin]

I don’t miss “wedding season” one summer I stood up in two weddings and attended another within 2 weekends.

[Drew]

Agreed! We just got married this past year and gave our wedding party rough costs of evening upfront so they could plan for them.

We even broke down when different things would be due (like deposits for hair/makeup or suits) so they could plan.

We also did a joint bachelor/ette party with everyone at a family cabin and it was a blast and helped keep costs down.

Having friends just starting out with full time jobs we did our best to make it a budget friendly wedding for them to be involved in

[Author]

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