We canceled our $37K wedding and were encouraging others to ditch theirs for one important reason
They said “we don’t” to a lavish wedding.Sasha McDonald, 24, and Rory Allison, 25, downsized their pricey wedding to a more minimalistic event to spare themselves financial poverty.“Financial strain was definitely something we were worried about.And we thought, ‘Why would we start our marriage in debt?’ I wasn’t willing to sacrifice holidays and dinners for this one day,” McDonald told Kennedy News and Media.The young Scottish couple, who dated for nine years, booked a traditional white wedding at a stately home in Dumfries, Scotland, for nearly $37,000, which included a list of vendors.“We came across a venue that we both really liked and was what we wanted at that time.
We booked that and were super happy with it,” McDonald confessed.Although their big day was set for 2025, McDonald and Allison stressed over the aftermath of their big celebration.“We were stretching ourselves thin financially for just one day to spend an extortionate amount of money, and it just did not align with us anymore,” she said.“I just thought, ‘Why would we spend more on a wedding than a house deposit?'”The couple canceled their 100-person marriage ceremony in favor of an intimate affair in March 2025 at a French-themed hotel in Glasgow with 25 guests.“We said to each other from the start that we’d marry each other tomorrow, so why are we doing this? The rose-tinted glasses just came off,” she added.Prior to making this decision, the couple restricted themselves to only working and saving, eliminating vacations from their calendar to prepare for the grand wedding.Despite Allison working as an engineer and McDonald working as a nurse, the pair took on side hustles to help fund their wedding.McDonald competed for the title of Miss Scotland 2024, where she placed as a finalist.
The pair also worked as wedding model couples.However, all that work made them realize that the wedding they envisioned for themselves wasn’t what they truly wanted.So, instead...