Reply To: Is it the correct thing to have takanos for weddings?

I have mixed feelings about this. I don’t have a great deal of money, but I don’t feel it is my place or anyone else’s to tell someone else how to spend his. Yes, people get way too frivolous at times, and spend conspicuously, but as long as these same people are giving their maaser money to Tzedaka with the same open hand as they spend it on their simchas, then I have no reason to be critical of them. We cannot all be equal financially, and I think it is wrong to try to tell someone who can afford certain things, not to use his money to buy them. Then again, I feel uncomfortable with sometimes feeling as though we need to “keep up with the Goldbergs,” when many of us clearly cannot. I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle, and maybe in Kallah classes, and even starting early in Yeshivah, priorities should be taught to be less grandiose. Just my opinion…