Posted on 04/11/2005 8:59:33 AM PDT by qam1
Haydee Leon is planning her wedding with a spreadsheet in hand.
It's the “something new” prospective brides need these days.
Leon and her fiance, Chris Mandernach, 25, have set a budget for their Sept. 18 wedding at The Clubhouse on Baltimore, and she's determined not to overspend.
When they got engaged in December, they decided they wanted a wedding that was elegant and in good taste, “but without going overboard,” says Leon, 26, who lives in Overland Park. “Something that was just reasonable.”
In the end, they decided that $16,000 was reasonable. It is, compared to the cost of a typical U.S. wedding, which is now more than $26,000.
That's almost 50 percent more than what they cost in 1990 according to the latest estimates from the industry.
Americans, it seems, are in love with love, and a savvy industry that throws seminars for photographers and wedding planners on how to “sell the bride” is a more-than-willing suitor.
From TV shows such as “Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?” and movies such as “Bride and Prejudice,” to bridal expos, celebrity wedding coverage and Internet bridal sites, everywhere you turn, someone is saying “I do” — or at least telling us how to do it. This weekend will surely bring up the subject again with Prince Charles' royal wedding in England.
Today, the bride-to-be has her pick of at least 77 bridal magazines on newsstands, more than four times as many as the 18 published in 1989, according to the National Directory of Magazines.
Most of them will tell the happy couple how to save money and many a father of the bride has joked about mortgaging the house to pay for his daughter's wedding.
These days, that's no laughing matter.
Before World War I, the average wedding cost one-third of the annual U.S. median family income, says Alan Fields in Boulder, Colo. He and his wife, Denise, have become well-known watchdogs of the wedding industry.
By the 1960s, it had risen to half. Today, wedding costs are closing in on 60 percent of annual family incomes, says Fields, co-author of the popular Bridal Bargains series of books.
It's all too much for some couples. The commercialization of weddings has caused inflation and people are forgetting what the ceremony is about, says Pete Tarantino, a 35-year-old Kansas City loan officer who just got married to Susan, 31.
“It's important to stay focused on spending a lifetime together and not just a day,” Tarantino says of the planning process. “It's about your relationship with your spouse and your relationship with God. Stay away from the magazines and the TV shows, and be involved with each other.”
“The focus has moved to the bride's dress, the size of the ring or how many people are at the reception, when it needs to be the exact opposite,” he says.
How did we get to this point? The idea of the big, fancy wedding is seductive.
Cele Otnes, an associate professor of business administration at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, spent four years researching weddings for a book she co-wrote with colleague Elizabeth Pleck called Cinderella Dreams: The Allure of the Lavish Wedding.
One reason the lavish wedding has taken off to near recession-proof costs, they argue, is that “it allows people to experience magic in their lives,” Otnes says.
It's guilt-free magic, she says, because people tell themselves this is a once-in-a-lifetime event, though that's not necessarily true anymore. Half of all new unions involve at least one partner who is marrying for a second time. And there's no more reluctance in spending big on a second wedding either. Encore weddings in the United States average about $12,000, Otnes says.
Weddings also let people “remember themselves as close as they'll ever get to being celebrities,” Otnes says. “People are young, and probably the most attractive they'll ever be, given the amount of pampering that's gone into one day.
“When you think about the powerful task that it accomplishes, it's hard to beat. You get a lot of sociological and emotional bang for the buck, even at $26,000.”
Romance is a huge driver of consumerism, Otnes says, quoting one of her sources who suggested that the lavish wedding allows us to express our romance with consumption and our consumption of romance.
So is it any wonder that the fairytale wedding has become the picture of a romantic marriage?
“A fantasy is much more appealing than reality,” says Susan Shapiro Barash, professor of gender studies at Marymount Manhattan College and author of The New Wife: The Evolving Role of the American Wife.
The glamorized wedding epitomizes the hope for happily ever after and with that idea comes the willingness to create it at any cost, says Barash.
And it's important to today's young bride that her marriage is enduring. These are the daughters of baby-boomer women, many of whom are divorced or have never been married but often have careers and educations, she says.
But when these brides look at their grandmothers, they see women who have been married for 50 years to the same man. They want that kind of marriage. They want to live “happily ever after.”
“The 21st-century wife is determined to not have a stressful marriage, but to have a very romantic, exciting marriage,” Barash says.
Sarah Burkindine of Prairie Village has seen the fantasy of it all while planning her Nov. 5 wedding to Brian Roberts, 32.
“Weddings are becoming more of an event,” says Burkindine, 28. “I definitely think people are spending more these days on weddings than they did years ago.
“My aunt got married in the early to mid-‘80s and my grandmother paid for it by herself, and that wedding was much less than $10,000,” says Burkindine. “My sister recently got married and had a wedding similar to that one, but 20 years later the cost more than doubled.”
That is closer to the cost of the average $20,000 Kansas City wedding, according to local bridal publications.
“Weddings are more extravagant,” Burkindine says. “It's not your basic dress, tux and 50 guests. People get wrapped up in the little details, like favors, chair covers, huge halls, big bands and outstanding florists. But there's a supply and demand, and people will pay for it.”
It would be hard for any one person to pay for all of the cost themselves, Burkindine says. Her budget is made up of a large contribution from her parents, some from his parents and a few thousand from the couple.
That's not necessarily a new phenomenon, but this pitching in to cover the cost of a wedding is happening more often these days, wedding experts say.
“It's just becoming more unusual for the bride's family to foot the bill,” says Kara Corridan, executive editor of Modern Bride and Elegant Bride magazines in New York. “It happens, but it's not the norm anymore. It's almost seen as old-fashioned.
“We know a lot of couples bringing in a nice income and they feel funny turning around asking their parents to pay for it.”
Even arbiters of etiquette such as Peggy Post contend that it's not unusual for families to pool their money to get their sons and daughters hitched. Today, approximately 25 percent of weddings are paid for solely by the bride's parents, according to wedding industry estimates.
“I think that's a reflection of that $20,000 figure,” says Alan Fields. “It's just a lot of money.”
The Cinderella Dreams authors found little backlash to the lavish wedding during their four years of research. But they didn't meet Kansas City couple Jamillah Duckett and her husband, Quentin. They steered well away from the marketing and hype when it came to their 2004 wedding.
“My wedding was simple, intimate, elegant and romantic,” says Duckett, 29, whose wedding cost about $2,500. “I only had my sister stand up with me, and his brother stood up with him, and I would not change a thing about my day.”
Duckett thinks people have forgotten what a wedding is supposed to be.
“Spending your whole life savings makes for a dream wedding, but it's not the (blueprint) for a healthy marriage,” Duckett says.
“One of the main things for my husband and I is that we had to remember that this was our day, because everyone is going to give you their opinion of how they think your wedding should go and that, in itself, can be stressful,” Duckett says.
“Just remember the purpose and you'll be fine.”
Red
Red
I often hear stories about wedding cakes that taste awful. It is sad that yours was so bad, as well as being so expensive. There are lots of opportunities for there to be wedding cake drama. I have never heard a bad thing about one of mine... in fact usually they are raved about. (thank you Lord)
I wish I would have used all that money for a house. But, I got overruled. It was $15K for us.
"Every case is different."
You got that right...
My wedding, which will be 7 years ago this May 9th, added up to the following expenses for my wife & I:
Wedding dress- Handmade by mother-in-law. Cost of materials $100
Bridesmaid dresses- Handmade by their wearers. Cost of material $120
Tuxedo- Rental $120
Groomsmen Tuxes- Free (actually, a gift to us..the groomsmen paid for their own)
Invitations- $35, postage included. Invitations were done on premade card stock at a Kinko's.
Wedding cake- Free (donated as a gift to us by my work, a bakery)
Church cost- $250
Pastor honorarium- $50
Drinks- (all non-alcoholic) $30
Asst. party favors/decorations- $90 (provided by in-laws)
Wedding photos- Free (gift from photographer, value $400)
Cost of wedding for us: $585
The honeymoon was paid for entirely by money recieved as part of our wedding gifts, which totalled about $700. We flew to San Diego essentially for free...since my wife was employed by the airline we took. We got hotel discounts (also courtesy of the airline) and other discounts by looking for them.
So you see, you CAN do it well, and do it cheap. We look back on our wedding with no regrets.
Newly weds can recoup most of their wedding expenses by throwing a wedding fund raiser (aka, a wedding reception) immediately after the church ceremonies. That's what I did.
"My friend's parents spent $250,000 on his sister's wedding."
Are you sure you didn't put an extra zero in there? Maybe you meant $25,000?
Good for your wife. She's to be commended for her own design. There's something to be said for good ole American ingenuity. Why pay someone like a designer when you can do what she did and have someone make it locally who can do just a good a job or even better than a designer. Her "Bride of Frankenstein" dress sounded beautiful and what a memory she created, huh? Who would have thought you would be telling someone about this on something called the internet years later? :) You sound like a very loving couple. Keep up the good work and we wish you a long and happy life together. :)
Makes ya wonder about the guests huh?
Hmmmm. ;o)
We had a cheesecake too, three layers. But our cake chef put supports in each layer so it stood up just fine. People kept going back to try the different flavors in each layer! We paid $500.
What if the bride's father is a businessman who can't figure out how not to invite half the town without risking offending someone?But every case is different.
Quite. And parents who are worth their salt care about giving their children a boost - why else do they spend "princess wedding" bucks on college tuition? (That last, I'll admit, is a rationale against the tradition of brides' parents paying for a big wedding - the guests of which reciprocate by giving the bride a boost on setting up her own home).
At our wedding (before videotaping) the wedding photographer was a family friend . . . who functioned as a de facto structurer of the event, setting up the shots he wanted.It made all the difference that it was Will, of blessed memory, doing it - but I'm sure that other people, who weren't his friends before he photographed their weddings, felt like he was their friend afterward.
I think there were supports in ours also, the cake just almost melted over the sides. It was treading a fine line between liquid and solid. It also looked nothing like the picture my wife picked out of their catalog. I'm glad yours worked out, though.
It's okay, because everything else was great. Including our marriage. Now we're taking care of a little girl and hope for more products of it.
Good article, thanks.
The Cinderella Dreams authors found little backlash to the lavish wedding during their four years of research. But they didn't meet Kansas City couple Jamillah Duckett and her husband, Quentin. They steered well away from the marketing and hype when it came to their 2004 wedding.
“Spending your whole life savings makes for a dream wedding, but it's not the (blueprint) for a healthy marriage,” Duckett says.
I'd rather buy me a husband with that money, LOL. Kidding!!
Industrial demand for diamonds is not what's keeping gem quality stones high.. you are definately dreaming on this one. If it were your diamond tipped blades would be far more pricey than they are.
Diamonds, even gem quality diamonds are not remotely RARE.. they are high priced because a consortium has managed to rather effectively create a world wide control on the supply of them.
Industrial use of diamonds is not remotely driving gem quality prices.
Yes there is, and we will be celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary later this year. Assuming that I can call a spade a spade when it comes to wasteful spending, doesn't mean I'm not married. And no we didn't spend anywhere near 20k for our wedding.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.