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Designer dress? Check. Yacht for reception? Check. Celebrity DJ? Check.
Once upon a time, all you needed to get married was friends, family, food, and flowers. These days, the only thing determining a wedding’s extravagance is the credit card limit.
But what sort of impact are these costly weddings having on the actual marriages?
Today’s wedding plans usually involve a combination of the following: engagement rings, wedding rings, announcements, invitations, designer gowns (for the bride and maids), a triple-tiered cake, flowers, spa treatment, cathedral and reception hall reservations, a DJ and/or live band, photo booth, fully-stocked bar, a website, horse-drawn carriage, hotel accommodations for friends and family, a marriage license…and an ice sculpture of the bride and groom.
Of course, some weddings involve all of those.
When you add it all up, modern-day couples spend $30,000 on average planning their big day, with 1-out-of-every-8 couples spending more than $40,000! Oh, and these numbers do not include the honeymoon. Thanks to reality TV shows and increased advertisement, weddings are now a $55-billion-per-year industry. It’s no wonder that sociologist Dr. Pepper Schwartz says, “The whole thing has gotten way out of hand.”
Supporting her assessment, Emory University professors Andrew Francis and Hugo Mialon have found that the more a couple spends on their wedding the more likely they are to suffer divorce. For example, if a dude spends between $2,000 and $4,000 on an engagement ring, he and his fiancé are 1.3 times more likely to get a divorce than a more frugal fellow who only spends $500 to $2,000 on a ring avis pharmacie viagra. Spending more than $20,000 on the festivities increases the frequency of divorce by 3.5 times compared to couples who kept it under $10,000. Those with the best marital odds were those who kept everything under $1,000.
The reason for the increase in divorce? Mainly debt. Hey, helicopters are expensive to rent and they take time to pay off!
William and Kate didn’t even have one of those!
Instead of the wedding being the “beginning of something,” it’s now a “highlight” in and of itself. Even celebrity wedding planner Kim Horn believes, “The focus is not on the relationship and the long-term commitment” these days.
The Church – and its leaders – needs to encourage young couples to spend at least as much time planning their marriage as they do their wedding.
Click here for the online report.
Topics Illustrated Include:
Celebration
Debt
Divorce
Husband
Marriage
Money
Plans
Relationship
Wedding
Wife
(Resource cataloged by David R Smith)
