Hoping I am not getting off topic with my comment but one thing I’ve heard stories and rumours about is that when it comes to getting married, for a lot of young 20 and 30 something women, it is a given that the father is going to splurge that big amount on the wedding and making it that kind of a big party for their daughter. The big important thing now among the fashionable crowd is the bachelorette party and you’re now getting these girls/women heading off to Vegas or the Caribbean or Hawaii for these sorts of extravagant things.
I do not want to make some sort of generalization or judgement here, but I don’t have a good feeling about something like this when you have women like that that want to have these big lavish affairs for themselves and their girlfriends and not seem to look beyond much that point.
I also don’t like these huge weddings with bachelor parties and bachelorette parties - it is all about parties and drinking, nothing about commitment to marriage and family. I’ve been married going on 30 years and we had a lovely wedding with champagne and sandwiches and a cake. That was it. It was an event in our life that we took seriously. (But we did have a good time!)
One of my sons used to work for a catering company that specialized in these celebrity weddings and birthdays, mostly on the island of Maui, sometimes on Lanai. But the company is on the island of Oahu. That means the day before or very early on the day of the event, they have to ship all the equipment (food serving equipment, entertainment systems, special lights, decorations, centerpieces, etc.) to Maui on the plane. Plus all the staff involved—equipment movers, servers (”eye candy” since you have to be good-looking to get that job), dj. And then depending on the timing of the event, they may have to put all the workers up in a hotel for one or two nights (usually a dump, they of course don’t stay in the nice hotel the wedding party and guests do).
I’m sure just looking at that, and given all the other things you would have to have in addition, those weddings are into the six figures.