Why Expensive Weddings are a Bad Idea
Something we have discussed at length over the years at WhereToElope.com is how big spending during wedding planning puts additional stress on a couple and can ultimately lead to break ups. That is just one of the reasons why we say “big weddings suck“! But more about that later… As we write this blog the world is in a frenzy about one of the ultimate examples of a ‘Big Expensive Wedding’ – the marriage of Britain’s Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle. The Economist took this opportunity to take a closer look at why big expensive weddings are a bad idea.
One of the key points raised in the article was on the cost of an average wedding. They state that in Britain, the typical cost of a traditional wedding runs between £18,000 and £25,000 ($23,800 to $33,120) similar to the average cost of a wedding in the United States. They help put it into perspective by highlighting that this is almost a full year’s wage for a median household. Of course, the Royal Wedding is a more extreme case of an expensive wedding with a £2 million ($2.6 million) price tag and that’s before we even consider the additional cost to the taxpayer of £30 million ($39.7 million) for police security and counter-terrorism surveillance.
Are Expensive Weddings a Recipe for Disaster?
The royal couple will have had much less wedding planning stress than most couples thanks to a team of staff taking care of every detail, but for the average pair, The Economist suggests that the flashier the wedding the more stress levels will increase. In fact, they cite a 2017 study by Splendid Insights that found couples who spent over $500,000 were more likely to feel like they were too preoccupied with showing off to guests to truly enjoy their big day! These couples were also five times more likely to say that a wedding is an important way of reflecting the level of success they had achieved. So much for it being about celebrating your love for one another!
Another important point that was raised in the article was that having a luxury wedding with a high price tag is certainly no guarantee of a happy ever after! In 2015, a study carried out at Emory University established that when comparing couples of a similar race, education, and income it was the pairs who had spent more on their wedding who ran into marital problems down the line, usually triggered by the stress of having to pay off wedding debts!