u/Sovereign698

So I randomly ended up at a dealership with my fiancée and her parents because they were shopping for a new car. They ended up buying one, and while we were there I casually asked the salesperson about my current vehicle. I wasn’t actively looking for a new car — more just curious whether getting into something newer would even be possible.

The salesperson told me he’d look into options. A few days later he called and said they had a 2026 model available with only 1,200 miles on it. It’s the base trim. I assumed it had been a courtesy/demo vehicle, but he told me it was originally leased by an elderly person who unfortunately passed away, and the family returned it to the dealership and they bought it back. They were selling the vehicle now as a used vehicle.

A few days later they fixed a small ding and a cracked taillight, and I went in to test drive it and talk numbers.

At this point, I’ll fully admit I should’ve done more research beforehand.

Side rant this annoyed me slightly: they offered me $18,500 for my trade-in while I owe $18,600. I know it’s only $100, but seriously… you couldn’t just cover the extra hundred bucks? I’m sure there are dealership rules about appraisal limits, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

Then we got to financing. The monthly payment was higher than I expected.

Here’s the part that really confused me.

They priced the vehicle at $29,995. Initially that sounded decent because brand-new versions of the same car on the lot were around $32k+.

After I got home, I did more digging and found the original window sticker online (it was actually on the dealership’s website the whole time). The original MSRP was $32,390, BUT that included a $1,795 destination charge.

So the actual MSRP of the vehicle itself was really $30,595.

This is where I want clarification from people who know more about car buying than I do:

Since this car is technically used now, does the destination charge even matter anymore? My understanding is that destination fees are tied to new vehicles being shipped to dealerships. If that’s true, then they only discounted the actual vehicle by about $600 despite it being:
- Used
- 5 months old
- Already driven 1,200 miles

That doesn’t seem like much of a discount to me. Especially considering through some research I found cars typically loose 10% of their value the moment they drive off a lot and I heard people say this before as a general rule of thumb. Curious thought from people is this accurate?

Once I got the numbers I told him I’d sleep on it, so the next day I texted the salesperson and basically told him the payment was higher than I wanted, so I’d probably pass. Then after finding the original MSRP, I told him that based on my research — including the general idea that cars lose around 10% of their value once driven off the lot — I would buy the vehicle for $27,500 not $29,995 and explained that based on it being used, the original MSRP not including destination charge, and the 10% reduction in price this seemed like a fair number to me.

I haven’t heard back yet, and honestly I assume they’ll say they can’t go that low, which is fine. They may or may not negotiate with me a further and I am fine either way if they do or don’t. I already have a car, so this wasn’t something I needed to do. If the deal worked out, great. If not, no big deal.

What I’m really trying to understand is:
- Am I wrong for comparing the price WITHOUT the destination charge?
- Does a $600 discount off the “actual” MSRP for a used car with these specs seem unreasonable?
- Is this actually a decent deal and I’m misunderstanding the market?
- Or does this sound like a dealership trying to squeeze as much profit as possible out of a low-mileage used vehicle?

Also, the salesperson kept saying they had other buyers waiting on the car. Maybe true, maybe sales pressure — I honestly don’t know. If they do great and good for them they can end up selling this vehicle to them.

Either way, I’m most likely not getting this car because this doesn’t really feel like a great deal to me, but I’d appreciate advice from people who understand car pricing better so I can negotiate smarter next time.

My fiancé and I are planning our wedding for 2028, and we’re stuck on what to do.

One date that means a lot to us is 5/11 because it’s the date we got engaged. Weirdly enough, it’s also exactly half of the date we started dating (10/22), so now we’re emotionally attached to it for nerdy math reasons too lol.

The issue is… 5/11/2028 falls on a Thursday.

We both really like the idea of keeping 5/11 as our actual anniversary date, but we don’t really want a Thursday wedding/reception because most of our guests would be coming after work and it just feels inconvenient for a middle of the week.

So our idea was:

- Do a very small courthouse/private ceremony on Thursday 5/11 with either immediate family only or maybe just our maid of honor and best man.
- Then on Friday 5/12 have the full ceremony and reception with everyone else (75–100 guests max).

The Friday ceremony would still be a real ceremony with vows, walking down the aisle, etc. My fiancée still really wants the moment of her dad walking her down the aisle in front of family and friends. We basically see Thursday as the private/legal marriage and Friday as the public celebration of our marriage.

Part of us wants to openly tell everyone because we don’t want to feel weird about celebrating our anniversary every year on 5/11. We even thought maybe the officiant could say something like:

“We chose to privately marry yesterday in an intimate moment for just us, and today is the day we share and celebrate our love with all of you.”

But another part of us worries some people would feel upset or think the Friday ceremony is somehow “fake” because technically we’d already be married.

We also don’t really want to do the “tiny ceremony and reception-only invite” thing because honestly… how is that much different from what we’re proposing here? Maybe a tiny ceremony and reception only invite is the better idea, but that’s feels weird, more weird than getting married the day before, but that’s just us.

Now we are overthinking the whole thing and wondering if this is secretly a recipe for disaster lol.

So our questions are:
- Has anyone here done this?
- Did guests care?
- Did you tell people beforehand (like through invites) or during the ceremony?
- Are we overcomplicating this and should we just have a Thursday wedding and reception?
- Should we just choose a different date all together and forgo this entire thing? We do have some other dates in 2028 picked but they don’t have the same meaning 5/11 has.