Married in High School: A Beautiful Wedding & Ongoing Love Story –

Our oldest daughter was married in high school. We had only ten weeks to put the wedding together, and we are firm believers in staying out of debt, so we did not spend a lot of money. We made most of the decorations ourselves using supplies we purchased online where they are much cheaper, and we prepared all the food for nearly 300 people for a total of $1500 (you can read the self-catering details here). We did not keep a super close accounting of everything else we spent because it was so rushed, but we believe our total for everything, including the food, was somewhere around $2500 for a wedding that turned out beautifully and a full reception. You DO NOT have to spend a lot of money to have a nice wedding. An elaborate ceremony has little or no bearing on the quality of your marriage, and it could actually have a negative effect on a couple’s future happiness if that couple ends up with debt because of it. No one should ever feel pressured to throw a wedding just to impress friends and relatives. If having an inexpensive wedding is going to be a problem for your friends, you should probably consider finding new friends. Obviously, you can’t choose your relatives, but you can determine whether or not to allow their opinions to affect your life and your actions. This may sound harsh, but you never need people in your life who do not respect your decision to live within your means.

*This post may contain affiliate links.

Several readers have been curious to hear more about my daughter and son-in-law’s decision to marry while still in high school. I plan to share more information about that here. I will also be sharing pictures, descriptions, and instructions for many of the decorations we made. We designed our own Tying the Knot invitations and had them printed at an office store. The rustic cake stand was made from a log. The bouquets were held by shotgun shells from the couple’s date at the shooting range to celebrate their six month anniversary, and the boutonnieres and corsages were placed in bullet casings. We painted the scripture on the aisle runner ourselves for less than $25. We made all the pew bows and table decorations. The sisters of both the bride and groom stapled labels onto roughly 600 mints. We tied paracord into wedding favors. I ran five crockpots overnight for nearly a week slow cooking the pulled pork. We spent a lot of hours of our time, but we did not spend a lot of money. Even the amazing wedding dress only cost $99. Please feel free to follow The House That Never Slumbers on social media using the follow buttons on the right side of this page to get updates about new posts as they are added.

Posts related to this topic: