Irvine511 said:
but it's not their decision, is it?
Have you ever seen a wedding or a marriage where the in-laws thought it was a bad union? Yikes.
take a look at my friend's story -- they have 2 kids, another on the way, and despite a 6 figure salary, there's no achievable down payment (got strollers and Subarus and carseats to pay for) in sight. what are they going to do?
My wife and I have one kid and another on the way, have a reasonable middle class salary, and there's no way we can afford a house either. The thousand dollars I paid for my wife's diamond isn't going to change that. Unless your friends spent well over a hundred grand on a wedding (we did ours for $10K six years ago), there's no reason to assume that the cost of a wedding day would afford them a downpayment in this market.
And my wife has never complained about gifts that are tokens of my love for her. That ring says an awful lot.
As a wedding planner, my wife has done lots of weddings for under $10K -- which is half of the average median wedding price of $20K. (And we know people who have spent much, much more on that.) I do agree somewhat with Ruckman's thought that some people spend far too much time and $$$ on the day as opposed to the lifetime together -- but on the other hand, there are very few days in your life where your friends gather around you and pledge their support, and if a woman wants that day to feel as special as possible, I am a firm believer in that.
I have far more issues with the amount of money the average teenager spends on prom, for goodness' sake. If I were the parent of a teenage girl, I would take the $1,500 that an average prom night costs (dress, jewelery, ticket, limo, hair, makeup) and put it into a high-yield CD instead.
And let's not even get started on the Sweet 16 thing.