Jenni Avins at Quartz breaks down the cost of getting married today using data from The Knot. Adjusting for inflation, a wedding 80-years ago cost $6,481. Today’s weddings cost $29,858. Of course, this data isn’t quite reliable. The Knot’s survey of 13,000 brides focused on UPM brides who frequent that website. Still, that number is astounding.

Our wedding wasn’t cheap even though I cut a lot of corners. I found a seamstress who made my dress for a fraction of the cost of a dress at a wedding store. We backpacked through Europe on our honeymoon vacation, rather than hitting a resort in the Caribbean. We bought our rings from a front for the Russian mafia in the Diamond District. Still, it was costly. We did some dumb things, like hiring a band instead of a DJ. We hired a tempermental artist to take the photographs, rather than a standard wedding photographer. We cared too much about the quality of the food.

It was a great wedding. People had a lot of fun. But, looking back on things, was it really worth blowing all that cash on one night? Some people earn back the costs of the wedding with cash from the wedding guests, but we didn’t. Too many poor, socially stupid grad students in our circle. Many didn’t give us a card.

One friend of mine had a small ceremony with just the immediate family. Her nuptuals were witnessed by twenty people at most. Her father gave her $20,000 — the amount he would have shelled out for the wedding. And she invested it in a Vanguard account.

We’ve made some good financial decisions over the years, and some poor decisions (Hello PhDs). The wedding extravaganza was perhaps a bad one. I loved my pretty dress and the vacation. I would do that again. Watching my husband tear up as my father walked me down the aisle was a perfect moment. But all those guests, the loud band, and the silly hair-do? Should have skipped all that.