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U.S. wedding costs soar
Washington Times ^ | 6-15-06 | AP

Posted on 06/15/2006 11:59:09 AM PDT by JZelle

The cost of weddings in the United States has soared to a point some of today's younger generation may be turning away from the ritual. Courtney Martin, whose article on marriages appears in the Christian Science Monitor, seems to be one. She says a typical wedding in 1990 cost $15,208, compared to $4,376 in 1980. Martin, who has no immediate plan to wed her friend of seven years, says that wedding today will set a couple back $22,360, or enough for private college tuition for their future child if that sum is invested at 10 percent return. "Truth be told, we (she and her boyfriend) avoid the topic of walking down the aisle because it is so inextricably tied up with gross, conspicuous consumption," she writes. "We have watched friends get sucked into the tidal wave that is the emotionally manipulative wedding industry -- now totaling $50 billion in sales a year." Saying the marriage ritual has turned into "a circus of decadence," Martin says, "Not only is the egregious spending offensive in a world where too many have too little, but the meaning of the ritual is all but lost amid the designer dresses and lobster dinners."

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: decadence; extravagance; wedding; weddingbubble; weredoomed
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To: JZelle

My wedding cost the price of a new dress and a marriage license.

Man, why people want to waste all that money on a party is beyond me...For the price some people think they have to put out for the wedding, hubby flew to Houston from Idaho, I was able to go from Houston to Boise on a leisurely trip with Hubby for our honeymoon and have my stuff moved by a moving company, and have his kids flown to his mom's in Seattle for the time we were gone, and us fly there and fly back to get them, and had his dogs boarded while we were doing all of this, and I still hadn't spent that much.

When my brother got married, we all went to the JP, then went to McDonalds! (It was his second marriage, and this time it took. First one was a church wedding but even then the bride wore a borrowed dress and we did the reception at our house.)

And considering the success rate of a lot of marriages, they'd do better spending that money on a lot of pre-marriage counselling to make sure they understood what they were getting into and perhaps with lawyers drawing up pre-nup contracts...

Maybe I'm cynical, but good marriages don't have anything to do with the size of the wedding...and perhaps there's an inverse relationship, even...


161 posted on 06/16/2006 7:33:21 AM PDT by Knitting A Conundrum (Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly With God Micah 6:8)
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To: Xenalyte

That should be easy. Just save a lot of bacon fat and deep-fry the Zingers in it.


162 posted on 06/16/2006 7:42:08 AM PDT by linda_22003
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To: JZelle

My wedding and reception was well under $5k and my wife and I paid for it all, and thats the all inclusive price... cake, gown, hall, food, etc etc etc...

Wasting 15k on a wedding is rediculous.. that's a down payment on a house.. hell in some places that a HOUSE! Spending that is just stupid.... unless you are so well off financially that blowing 15k doesn't even matter.


163 posted on 06/16/2006 7:46:44 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: Grammy

You are most welcome! I think your cakes are gorgeous.

Bold and underline work the same way, except for bold you use a B and for underline a U instead of the I for italics.


164 posted on 06/16/2006 8:07:51 AM PDT by Xenalyte (Can you count, suckas? I say the future is ours . . . if you can count.)
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To: JZelle

Well, Chicken Little. Even the roadtrip to elope has gotten more expensive than it was in 1980.


165 posted on 06/16/2006 8:11:18 AM PDT by azhenfud (He who always is looking up seldom finds others' lost change.)
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To: JZelle

Yet another bubble which will doom us all!


166 posted on 06/16/2006 8:12:32 AM PDT by VegasCowboy ("...he wore his gun outside his pants, for all the honest world to feel.")
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To: Grammy
And it was yummy too! :) Top two layers were Tiramisu flavored.
167 posted on 06/16/2006 9:05:51 AM PDT by Kaylee Frye
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To: Xenalyte

Beautiful! And they look yummy too!


168 posted on 06/16/2006 9:33:58 AM PDT by Kaylee Frye
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