There is a worrying concern for all couples out there looking to get married. The cost of getting hitched seems to be rising and rising. It seems that the costs for each of the components of the big day are exceeding the rise in the cost of living, and certainly shooting up beyond our pay rises. This brings about the question “why get married?”.
A number of countries around the world have political parties in power who are actively promoting marriage between any couples regardless of gender. Yet who can afford to? It has been widely reported that the average cost of a wedding now sits at $30,000. A lot of people who have been knocked by the recent years of financial gloom struggle to take that kind of money home in the course of a whole year. To pay for one single day, $30,000 is too much to ask for most people.
It is expected the parents of the bride will pay. The trouble is, all generations have been in the sinking ship of economic difficulty, and it just isn’t appropriate to blow everything you have on a single party. Of course, any bride will tell you it is the one event in life you want to remember forever, so it has to be extraordinary. There is extraordinary, and there is irresponsible.
Wedding invitations often include a ceremony and reception invite. Despite a marriage becoming legal at the ceremony, the reception party to celebrate is where the bulk of your money is going to go. Can you really have a special day on a shoestring budget? The bride may not think so, but surely there is a way to reduce the bill?
The first thing to ask is this: “Will the happy couple still be a happy couple if they never tied the knot?”. In Britain, a registrar marriage can cost as little as £100. The couple and their witnesses turn up to a small room in the local government office building, say “I do”, and sign the book. It takes 10 minutes and is a purely legal exercise. There is nothing then stopping the couple going back to work to save up for a celebration later when they can afford fancy bridal dresses and parties. OK, so there’s no romance in it. It’s not special and memorable. But it is a legal marriage. That’s what we’re after… isn’t it?
No bride would put up with just that. Some may say they will never get married if that’s the best they can do. But what of our tolerant, family orientated nations then? If no-one is getting married because the cost of a dream wedding exceeds sensible funding, what becomes of those industries reliant on this trade? Perhaps it is merely our expectation of what a wedding should be that needs cutting back. It is possible some of the recent high-profile weddings may have generated overly elaborate wedding dreams. Or it may just be that every girl deserves to be a princess once in their lives.
