Wedding Bills
18 Feb 2009This year I have a number of friends and family who are getting married. So when 
I was waiting for a coffee at Coffee Trails this morning I noticed an article in Sydney?s Daily Telegraph opened on the table about the cost of weddings.
According to the article, ?the average combined cost of a wedding and honeymoon has risen by 25 per cent – or $10,000 – in the past two years?. Apparently the ?average wedding now costs $49,202, which is 76 per cent more than it did eight years ago?.
I generally take anything that a tabloid such as the Daily Telegraph prints with a generous dose of salt ? if I read it at all. However, what the article reports is not inconsistent with my anecdotal knowledge of what is happening in the community. The numbers given in the article did not surprise me but they do provide me with some concern.
Does a $6000 wedding dress really contribute any value to the day. If anything such expenses are not really likely to put the marriage on a easy path. In 1998 a report by Relationships Australia stated that financial stress is one of the primary factors in contributing to divorce. I am not convinced that it is healthy for a marriage to have a situation where people take on second jobs to cover the cost of the wedding day. It is hard enough as it is for young couples to add this to the load.
I know for many people (and cultures) the wedding day is a really important and big thing. Jesus used the metaphor of the wedding to talk about the Kingdom of God and he clearly enjoyed a party and making a contribution to the celebration. Weddings really are a good thing and worth celebrating. It is fine to spend money on a good party.
We have a monster in our culture ? the wedding industry. To a great extent the contemporary wedding has become a rite that is practiced at the altar of consumerism. To make matters worse, despite the declining role of the church in weddings, it too is complicit in this industry.
I believe that the church really needs to address the whole concept of weddings and marriage. This is an area where the culture of the wider community (and state) has influenced the practices and culture of the church community significantly. And, this is not just about the issue of same-gender marriage ? it goes well beyond that.
So, what should the church be doing to practically address this situation?
- Tags: Consumerism, Divorce, Marriage, Weddings
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The Circuit Rider
My name is Dean Tregenza. My posts to this blog come from stuff on my notebook that I gather as I go about doing the things I do. The subject matter of the posts cover pretty much anything that comes to my mind. Some of it may be about technology related things. Everything I write is possibly heresy and wrong. For the record the content in the blog posts are not necessarily the opinions or the beliefs of the author, the people he quoted, or anyone else for that matter.
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3 Responses to Wedding Bills
Grant
February 18th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Coming up to a wedding in April next year, we’re currently working on our budget and how much we want to spend on the entire event. At each turning point in our calculations and the budget we’re reminding ourselves that ultimately it doesn’t matter – the celebration and the cost are irrelevant compared to the whole reason of the entire day.
It irritates me to no end that people put so much emphasis on the size of the engagement ring, the cost of the wedding and the various other materialistic values that seem to be imposed.
It seems to me that really, if the couple need to put so much effort into the materialistic supplements of the wedding, releasing butterflies and having the ‘perfect wedding’ – perhaps there are some more fundamentally deep rooted issues to be addressed before the wedding happens.
To me, a wedding is announcing and celebrating the commitment of love between two people, and the day should be treated accordingly.
A great article.
Bells
February 18th, 2009 at 10:44 am
I don’t know about the church, but I think the consumerist angle you take is spot on. Couldn’t sum up my feelings about the cost of weddings better. The guilt the industry puts on people is not helpful – if you really love each other, you’ll want to spend an amount that adequately displays to everyone you know just how much you value your relationship. It’s rubbish.
Cadence
February 18th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Speaking as someone in a de facto relationship, in the broad sense of the word, Sam & I are married. We are in a committed, mutally exclusive, financially dependent, legally binding, romantic relationship. We just don’t happen to have the piece of paper elevate us to “properly married” status yet. So getting married – and yes, it is on the cards at some stage – does not hold the same significance as it would for couples not in this type of relationship. For us, it’s not about ratifying our relationship, sealing the deal, or making an honest man/woman out of each other. Neither of us feel we need the government’s stamp of approval to be any more or less committed to each other.
So Grant said: “the celebration and the cost are irrelevant compared to the whole reason of the entire day.” But for us, the reason for us getting married IS the celebration. If it were just the piece of paper I wanted, I’d simply go buy a nice dress and shell out $300 for the registry office assembly line special. What’s important to us – in addition to publicly declaring our commitment – is hosting a celebration for family and friends to say “thank you” for all the support they’ve given us in our relationship so far. I believe every woman, no matter what her situation may be, is entitled to have the wedding day she wants. So yeah, that does cost, which is why we’ll get married if and when we can afford it.
But weddings don’t have to cost that much. We’d love to have $10k to spend but we could have the day we want for much less than that. It really is a crazy industry. I’ve been to a few bridal fairs, joined a few online wedding forums, and some of the stuff that brides feel they “have to have” is just pathetic. At the end of the day who’s going to notice that the napkin rings were the exact shade of the invitation? Most people have thrown out the invitation by that stage anyway! And “theme” weddings are the worst, because now not only do you have the victorian style wedding dress, all of a sudden you have to have parasols and fans for you and all your bridesmaids (and don’t forget those ivory damask granny boots which I still haven’t managed to track down, lol).
And initially the wedding vendors are the ones who start the waters churning. But ultimately it’s the brides themselves (and their friends) who are to blame. Women feed their frenzy by word of mouth and internet forums and bridal magazines and encourage each other to spend way more than what the item is worth – and these are SMART women, women who should know better, but for some reason, they become a bride-to-be and all thier brain cells fall out of their ears. And I don’t know if this is just a response to social pressure or maybe a diversionary tactic so they don’t have to deal with any real issues. But Bridezilla is alive and well and definitely on the warpath.