What is the point of a wedding?

Think about how horny it would be lifting up your new wives wedding dress and doing her on the honeymoon bed. That's the real reason people get married.

The point of a wedding is to join 2 lives together before God (if you're religious) and/or the Government (if you're not religious and/or to get the government benefits of being married). It's a time for family and friends to congratulate the husband and wife, share in their exchange of the vows, and then have some kind of social event afterwards. The advantages are getting a chance to share your love with the people that mean most to you (and they give you gifts if there's a wedding, though that shouldn't be the reason to have one).

A wedding doesn't have to cost a lot of money. I know people that got their gown at Salvation Army for $15, or even just got a Justice of the Peace to come and marry them in their house. You can get married at city hall and have a BBQ in your backyard if you want to. It's just putting into writing and then showing everyone that you plan to spend the rest of your life with someone. If all you want to do is "buy more stuff", then you're not ready on a maturity level to be married yet anyways.

The ONLY point of a wedding is that it's a celebration of two people expressing their love and promising to stick by each other for life.

People get married without the celebration too. You can just go to city hall and do it if you don't want a dress/party/whatever. So, getting married doesn't mean you have to spend much money at all.

Also, if your thing is "buying stuff" anyway, that's still materialistic, so the argument could be made that the people who pay for lavish weddings are people who like to buy stuff too, they just like to buy different kinds of stuff than you do.

Getting married has nothing to do with spending money because all getting married means is exchanging vows and signing papers. The things people chose to go along with that, if they chose those things, are what cost money, but they aren't needed to get married.

A wedding is held to legally join two people together in a legal status (and for some a religious status).

A wedding does not require a wedding gown or spending tons of money -- plenty of people have weddings at the courthouse or somewhere that they have chosen to elope.

People save their money for a wedding and buy stuff for their wedding -- in economics terms, having a fancy wedding supports the economy just as well as people not getting married and spending their money on non-wedding related items. So long as people are spending, it could be considered a good thing for the economy.

If you do not feel the costs of a fancy wedding are worthwhile, then don't have one. But don't tell people that choose to spend their money on a wedding that it doesn't make sense to you, and none of us will tell you that spending your money on non-wedding "stuff" doesn't make sense to us.

1. The point of a wedding is for a couple to formally declare that they wish to be each others partners forever. This is significant as it means that both people have found the love of their lives. A wedding also allows the couple to celebrate this fact with all the people that care about them

2. If the ability to "by more stuff" is more important to you than declaring and celebrating your love for your life partner then marriage isn't for you. That's okay as long as you fall in love with someone that feels the same way.

3. Weddings can cost as little as £80 / $130

Why do people celebrate birthdays? or go to prom? hold funerals? or retirement parties? or housewarming parties?

We live in a society that likes to mark certain milestones with parties or social gatherings. Most cultures have some kind of recognition ceremonies for major life events.

Aside from that, there is the spiritual aspect of a wedding: make a solemn promise before God to be fully committed to only one person, and to become One in His eyes, and to get His blessing on your relationship. There is the political aspect which entitles you to certain tax benefits and other legal benefits and property rights. There is also the social aspect, in which you have fun with all your friends and loved ones on a day that marks a new beginning.

But none of that has to come with a high price tag or lots of stuff.

the point of a wedding is for friends and family to witness and share in the full and total committment two people have decided to make to one another through the legal ceremony of marriage which legally joins them and binds them together under state and local laws.

the wedding itself can be a simple or elaborate as they wish it to be. some weddings are simply affairs done in their living room or back yard while others are elaborate and expensive affairs done in a hotel or ballroom. that is a matter of personal taste and financial ability.

many people do not spend a great deal of money on a wedding or on a dress or anything else, but their wedding ceremony is just as important and meaningful as those who do.

to answer you question....it is just you. most people consider getting married one of the most important events in their lives and so are willing to put as much effort and money into as they can afford in order to show the degree of importance it has to them. if your stuff is what is important to you, then go ahead and put your effort and your money into your stuff, but don't fault those who put their efforts and their money into their weddings because being married and sharing that with their family and friends is more important to them than stuff.

You are making two ridiculous assumptions.

1. That a wedding = an expensive, traditional party with dress, cake, bar, dinner, etc. That is simply a party that accompanies a wedding, and many, many people do not have weddings that resemble this.

2. That people can't afford expensive weddings. There are many people in the world who do not have to make financial tradeoffs - they can have an expensive wedding AND everything else they want. Not everyone is poor.

A wedding does not have to expensive

You can get married in a church in a nice outfit(does not have to be a dress)

Then have a simply meal with a few family members

A wedding is a celebration of your love and wanting to share it with family and friends

I really do not think they need to be so big or expensive

A lot of people like to celebrate with their family and friends

I got some very nice gift, most gave money

We had most family

You're equating "wedding" with spending thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars on a party when reality is, that is merely one type of wedding.

A wedding is the ceremony in which two people promise and devote themselves to each other for life, for better or worse. And this can be done in the courthouse, in a park, on a beach, in a church, in a hotel etc etc etc. It can be done for a hundred dollars or less or it can be done for a hundred thousand dollars or more. You're making a very common misconception.

Weddings are had to create marriages. Big, lavish weddings are had because people want to create a party that aids them in showing off.

What is the point of a wedding? Or what is the point of marriage? They aren't the same thing.

If you believe in science, marriage is kind of like prenatal vitamins. We aren't quite sure why, but a massive amount of evidence shows it improves the odds of kids turning out all right. Kids with parents who are married have lowe rates of mental illness, incarceration, and poverty.

If you believe in religion, it is the magic ceremony that lets you have sex without going to hell.

If you look at the law, there are all sorts of legal protections for "stay at home Moms" built into the system. A women who quits her job to raise kids full time is in a precarious situation if her relationship ends. Getting a cut of your significant others stuff in a break up makes things a little easier. There is a reason children of single Moms are disproportionately likely to end up living in poverty.

There are a few details in a wedding that are required by the State to make it legal..a.few more required by the Church if it is a religious wedding...but 90% of the wedding is really just a party intended to mark a right of passage. Like a graduation ceremony, really...only more expensive.

(Which is why it really bugs me when people obsess about the reception and treat the few details required by the law or by their religion as an afterthought.)