My wife and I were fine with a small wedding, but her parents wanted to invite all their friends to a lavish event. So they booked a very expensive place with the food and told us that was their contribution. We just had to pay for everything else. The photographer, the DJ, the cake, miscellaneous expenses. It all added up. I think we ended up paying around the same as they did, which was approximately double what we had budgeted for our small wedding we wanted. So four times more overall. But we got nice wedding photos and they got their extravagant party with their friends.