Welcome to our video series of the top 20 questions brides ask when planning their wedding.  Today I want to tell what it means to have a wedding.  You might be thinking, I know what a wedding means, but bear with me for a moment.

You can read along the transcript if you prefer:

Imagine that your fiancé’s birthday is coming up, and that you decide to have a small dinner party with 4 friends coming over to have a little celebration.  You plan a nice meal, and some drinks, purchase the ingredients, cook, and have a wonderful evening with your guests.  You do not say to your guests as they leave, “oh, by the way, I want $50 to cover the cost of the dinner”, or “where is my fiancé’s birthday present”.  It’s just poor form and bad etiquette.  Would you say to a friend, “oh, we are celebrating Phil’s birthday with a dinner party, you can’t come to the dinner, but you can come after 9 pm” Of course not.  It is insulting that you think they aren’t important enough for the dinner party, but you want to get their gift so invite them to come after.  You don’t do that at a birthday party, and you don’t do that at your wedding.

Your wedding is a larger version of a typical home party that you host.  You don’t ask for money.  You don’t ask for a gift.  When you host a party, you are inviting your guests to share your event—in this case, your wedding.  You don’t have a cash bar at your home dinner party, so you don’t have a cash bar at your wedding.  Whenever you are in doubt as to the proper etiquette of your wedding, consider it from the angle of having a party in your home.  A wedding is just a larger version of a home party.

So, that leads us directly into your budget.  When you are planning your wedding, it is so important that you establish your budget as early as possible.  The Wedding Planning Institute of Canada states that as of 2009 the average urban or city wedding costs $25,000 and the average rural wedding costs $20,000.  The average cost of a wedding reception is $50 per person, and that’s just 37% of your total budget.

So many times I get questions from brides who are trying to get everyone they know to their wedding that they forget the basics of true hospitality.  Sometimes, brides and grooms need to face the fact that they just can’t afford to invite everyone to their wedding.  The purpose of a wedding is not to get money and gifts, but to invite the people who are important to you to share your special day.

So, when I say I want to tell you what it means to have a wedding, what I am really saying is:  I want to remind you what true hospitality means.  It is so exciting to be getting married, and the urge to have everyone share in your happiness is so strong, it is easy to forget what having a wedding means.

Hosting a party means extending true hospitality to your guests—whether your wedding has 50 guests or 300 guests.

Good luck, and congratulations on your upcoming wedding.