BOB writes:

The liberal website Slate had a good article about how the $27,000 figure popularly used to estimate the cost of an “average wedding” is essentially a statistical contrivance of the wedding industry, which obviously has an incentive to encourage people to think that spending such (and greater) sums on weddings is normal. Still, difference between mean and median, and the median wedding is around $17,000. Selection bias (i.e. the woman who respond to these surveys are likely to be bigger spenders than those who don’t know there is a “Brides” magazine) probably accounts for some of that. But still.

We know that marriage is rapidly becoming a less attractive institution to men. With the advent of homosexual “marriage,” it is no longer an exclusively heterosexual institution. Laws incentivize divorce, et cetera. But what about the ridiculous cost of weddings?

On that note, I would be personally wary of a woman who insists on having a large, expensive wedding. Given that women often act as a family’s CFO, the willingness to expend large sums of money on what is a one-day party speaks poorly of her ability to prioritize financial commitments.

And, of course, the rise in the cost of weddings happens as the marriage culture continues to decline.

Laura writes:

The decline in the marriage culture has caused wedding extremism. The more uncommon marriage (and all that it traditionally entails) is, the more extreme weddings are.

Weddings have become theatrical to mask their banality. The wedding is intrinsically less thrilling when the bride and groom have been living together for months or years. There is none of the dynamic tension that existed when all the guests were secretly marveling that these two people who have committed themselves for life will get to know each other more fully on their wedding night. A bride and groom who have woken up together on the day of their marriage are dull. The bridal gown is mostly theater. It speaks of youth still, but not virginity, and the qualities that go with it. Even in distant times, couples had gotten to know each other before their wedding night, but they had not done so publicly.

Weddings have become ridiculously expensive because there is no urgency to marry and brides can spend a year or two planning the event, which leads to insane excess, such as destination weddings where the whole party is transported to some castle in France, something that princes and princesses might reasonably do, not middle class couples who can barely afford a house.

Weddings have become extreme because of feminism, which has made it difficult for men to say no and has exalted girl power. I have felt pained sympathy for some of the grooms I have seen dragged through humiliating maneuvers to capture the bride at her best photographically. The bride has become a narcissistic monster, a galloping, unstoppable, frilly-clad Fury with a battalion of bridesmaids. Men are afraid to say no because she seems to have everything, her entire identity, invested in this single day. The in-laws-to-be stand by and passively watch as money is burned like so much kindling. They have no power to control the proceedings because it is not their money. Feminism has also prevented women from knowing just how expensive domestic life is, since they have been too busy learning about other things to prepare for it. They devour their earnings for the wedding, often mistakenly thinking they will have plenty of earnings later on. The wedding industry, like so many businesses, has benefited from the feminist’s poor concentration on the most important things in her life: her marriage and home. She spends wastefully and prodigiously, and is easily coaxed into excess, because she is not paying attention.

 And finally weddings have become frivolous because marriage is less serious. Legal divorce has rendered every single marriage conditional.

All that is not to say that weddings should not be festive events that involve expense, great planning and effort. They are among the sweetest pleasures and most sacred moments of life. But enough is enough.

— Comments —

Mary writes:

Bob wrote: “On that note, I would be personally wary of a woman who insists on having a large, expensive wedding.”

Ditto the woman who is unhappy because the ring isn’t big enough. The two women I know who did this to their fiancés are extremely domineering and the marriages aren’t happy ones.

Laura wrote: “There is none of the dynamic tension that existed when all the guests were secretly marveling that these two people who have committed themselves for life will get to know each other more fully on their wedding night. A bride and groom who have woken up together on the day of their marriage are dull.”

How very true. If only all young people could have this idea hammered into their heads: much joy and excitement are drained out of early marriage by living/sleeping together beforehand. And the important bonding of early marriage, meant to cement the marital union for life, is short-circuited.

Laura writes:

I have made some additions to the first version of the post so readers might want to look at it again.

Speaking of weddings, I am suffering from a massive headache this morning, caused by excessive celebration of my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary last night. My husband and I went out with them to an elegant Italian restaurant. As luck would have it, they had won in a raffle a dinner for four to this restaurant and the meal came with “wine pairings.” Too many wines were paired.

I asked my father, “How does it feel to be married for 60 years?”

He said, “Wonderful.” And then he added, “But she still won’t do what I tell her.”

I asked my mother, who spent much of the day talking on the phone with her seven children, who all called to wish them a Happy Anniversary, what they had for the wedding lunch with 150 guests at the Casey Hotel in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

She said, “I don’t remember.” And she has a very good memory.

Mary writes:

“Too many wines were paired.”

Ha! Poor you. But what a happy occasion – congratulations to the happy couple. What a lovely thing for you, as their child, to witness marriage as it was meant to be. I , and many others, will never experience such a thing. So we need happy examples such as this one to give us hope. So thanks!

Laura writes:

Thank you.

I wish every child could be as fortunate as I have been.

My parents taught me that no marriage is perfect but every marriage is inherently good. As Robert Frost said, marriage is movement through time with another human being, “wing to wing, oar to oar.” Even when marriage is not happy (and my parents’ marriage has been very happy; Frost’s was less so), there is this movement, this synchrony which breaks through what Frost called the “stream of time.” Marriage is superhuman. No human being is fully worthy of it because it transcends time and this world.

To be married is to be humbled — humbled as one tries to row that boat through time in synch with another being — which is why the weddings of today are so out of step with the spirit of this divine institution.

Mary writes:

Your reflections on marriage are beautiful and profound. Your mention of Frost puts me in mind of the marriages of two other writers, one recently discovered and one discovered during my engagement almost twenty years ago. The example set by their marriages supports your view of marriage as transcending time and this world; of it being for life and our unworthiness of it.

I am reading The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc. Out of curiosity I looked him up on Wikipedia to get an idea of what his life was like. Of course I found out he was an interesting fellow, to say the least, as many probably already know. He is described as a “noted disputant”. But what really struck me most was his marriage. He and his wife had five children. When they were courting he walked from the Midwest to California to visit her. When she died he dressed in mourning for the remainder of his life. Very touching.

I came across a short poem of Longfellow’s during my engagement and learned of his life as well. He and his beloved wife had six children. She died tragically. A fire started while she was putting locks of her children’s hair in an envelope and sealing it with wax; Longfellow was seriously burned trying to save her. He never fully got over her death. Eighteen years later he wrote a sonnet called “The Cross of Snow,” expressing his grief in verse for, I believe, the first time:

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face–the face of one long dead–
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died, and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

Laura writes:

Thank you.

You remind me of the British artist John Constable, whose beautiful wife, Maria Bicknell, died of tuberculosis in 1828, leaving him with seven children. He wrote to a friend after her death at the age of 41, “hourly do I feel the loss of my departed Angel — God only knows how my children will be brought up…the face of the World is totally changed to me.”

Here is his portrait of his wife. So delicate and serious. Does she look like the sort of woman who would have an army of bridesmaids and a three-day bachelorette party at the beach? Aside from the expense, the sheer vulgarity of these events is stunning. How does one enter a marriage with any consciousness of its reality and terrors after one has spent a year and a half planning and talking about the wedding? How could marriage be anything but a let down after that? That reminds me, I have a friend who attended one of those lavish destination weddings in Europe. The couple is now divorced.

Mrs. M. writes:

I coordinated a wedding last fall that was not extreme. The couple opted for a punch-and-cake reception in the church fellowship hall instead of a lavish party. It was a pleasant reception although most brides would not likely choose something so “plain”.

The couple did not live together beforehand and both were virgins, a very rare occurrence indeed these days. The “dynamic tension” of which you spoke was a part of the atmosphere which gave the occasion a special quality that most extreme weddings lack. No amount of money on blinged-out weddings can compare to the shy but passionate smiles of a newlywed couple as they leave the reception to begin all aspects of married life.

Eric writes:

My wife and I had a very modest wedding over 20 happy years ago.

Christina writes:

I just wanted to say that not all brides are horrid, money hungry banshees like the ones portrayed on that odious T.V. show Bridezillas. My parents, as is traditional for the parents of the bride, paid for the wedding, (apart from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law’s plane tickets to America from Wales, as they insisted on paying for that themselves.) My family gave me a budget, and I knew I had to stick to it. I would feel horrible to have been a financial burden on them, or have spent exorbitant and unnecessary sums of money (I have family members who spent shocking amounts).

Also, I have no engagement ring, a fact that nearly all my family and absolutely all my friends found to be quite disturbing. However, I actually requested NOT to have one.

In Wales, there is an old custom of men giving their intended what is called a Lovespoon. This is a wooden spoon, generally small, with very ornate carvings of symbols that mean different things such as interweaving vines for unity, hearts for love, and the dragon (symbol of Wales, which is actually on it’s flag) that means protection. This is what is on mine, but all are different, and have different symbols.

I wanted it for two reasons, first: because that is more thoughtful and special to me than any ring, and also, they aren’t expensive. My devotion, my love, and my life are NOT for sale, and I don’t feel that my husband should spend huge amounts of money to buy me something that I don’t need. My wedding may not have been expensive, and I may have made my own flower arrangements, ring-bearer’s pillow, bride’s maid’s dresses, and helped to make the food, but you know what … to this day, everyone in my family agrees that was a really fun wedding! Everyone enjoyed themselves, and it was beautiful, not because of the cake or the flowers, but because it was a special moment in my life that I shared with the people that matter most to me, and it saw me joined to my husband, the most honourable, kind-hearted, and true man I know.

Terry Morris writes:

I listened to a good (recorded) sermon about this just yesterday. The pastor cited the exact same statistics Bob did in the initial entry, then went on to make precisely the same points you did in your commentary following Bob’s correspondence. I couldn’t agree more with both of you.

Also, you mentioned that a friend of yours had attended one of these extravagant ‘royal’ weddings in Europe, and that the couple is now divorced. This brought to mind the fact that our state’s governor attended one of these weddings in 2011 – her daughter’s – and less than a year later their marriage was annulled. Moreover, the young woman was remarried only three months after the annulment of her first marriage, and again divorced within a few months. I’m not sure one can expect anything better from the daughter of a “career Mom” public figure who is herself once divorced. The story may be found at Wikipedia if anyone is interested.

But my hearty congratulations go out to your wonderful parents in the year of their sixtieth wedding anniversary! My parents were divorced when I was eleven so, like Mary and many others, I won’t be able to experience anything of the kind with them, which saddens me in one respect, but in another I have always thought it my responsibility to, for the sake of my children, and for the larger culture, to do all I can to end the divorce cycle with me and my marriage. We teach our children that divorce is simply not an option, and that, therefore, we must be extremely vigilant in choosing for ourselves a lifelong mate.

And that is why permission for a date with one of my daughters must be obtained from me.

I trust your headache is gone now. I can’t think of a better cause for celebration, and of slightly over-indulging drink, than your parents’ sixtieth anniversary. Small price to pay, I should think, that headache now that (I assume) it is gone. God bless ’em!

Laura writes:

Thank you.

Karen I. writes:

I have seen shocking things at weddings, including brides who got married in fancy white dresses while their illegitimate children served as ring bearers and flower girls.

The most recent wedding I was invited to was so expensive, the bride’s parents could barely afford it. It cost well over $25,000. The bride’s parents were already struggling to pay her huge student loan debts. After it was over, the father confided to us that he needs a new vehicle but he would have to put it off for at least a year due to his daughter’s wedding expenses. I have seen the man’s current vehicle, and it is in bad shape. I can’t imagine a bride allowing her parents to sacrifice everything she can have her big day.

I have also received invitations to weddings where I barely knew the bride or groom. In the case of one invitation, I had never met the bride or groom but was an acquaintance of one of the parents. I can’t imagine introducing myself to a bride or groom on their wedding day, so of course I declined to attend.

As bad as weddings are, showers are even worse these days. I was invited to one baby shower for an illegitimate baby several weeks after he was born. I had heard rumors that the baby’s paternity was in question. Apparently, the man’s family decided to wait for the baby to arrive and make sure it was his before hosting a shower. Another shower I attended was so huge, it was held at a local inn where the pregnant princess was seated in the middle of the room, in a sea of gifts that she took so long to open, people started just quietly leaving before she was done.

I don’t know if the women who do these things realize just how tacky it all looks.

Doren writes:

As is my wont, the other day at Firestone, I replied to a fellow talking about weddings by saying, “The more you spend on a wedding, the more likely it is to succeed. Why it’s just like higher education: the more you go into debt the better education you receive.” He told me he didn’t think so since he’d just been to his niece’s wedding a couple of months ago in the Bahamas and, in less than six weeks, the blissfully wedded couple decided to call it quits! He said the parents spent well over $100K on the nuptials. I replied that had they spent more, the couple surely would still be married!

Seriously, I couldn’t agree more with your observations about wedding extremism masking the banality of the mostly meaningless ceremony. So many brides are narcissistic monsters. I recently heard of a wedding at one of the best local clubs where the bride was caught in flagrante delicto with the best man at the reception! Unfortunately, I’ve too many similar stories to recount.

Feminism, homosexual marriage, cohabitation, generally frivolous attitudes and easily available divorce have all served to make a total mockery of marriage. Thank you for your wonderful essay.

 Linda N. writes:

When I was a girl in elementary school, I once overheard some other girls discussing their mothers’ wedding gowns and weddings in some detail. Gee, it had never even occurred to me to ask my mom about that stuff! So I asked that night at dinner. Mom passed my plate and said, “Your father bought me a smart blue suit and we went to Reno.” Turns out they’d simply gone to Reno one weekend and returned to work the next Monday. My mom came from a . . . turbulent family, and my dad was a bit older than mom and didn’t have family in California. Still, things seem to have worked out well enough all the same. They were married until dad’s death. My mom once told me several of her acquiantances had commented on how polite my parents always were to one another.

Wendy Sherrat writes:

I thoroughly agree with your observations on the ever mounting price of weddings which parallels the increasingly frivolous attitude toward marriage.  Have you heard of a current fad called “Trash The Dress”?  It started, typically, as a gimmick pushed by professional photographers to create one-of-a-kind, edgy images of the bride.  It entails photographing a bride in all her pristine finery, wading through waves, slopping through mud, traipsing through Skid Row, and destroying her wedding gown in the process, all while being followed by a professional photography team, recording the moment.  Here is an article on it from a photographers’ journal.

I first heard of this phenomenon a year ago, when a bride doing this stunt in a river near my home was caught by the current and actually dragged underwater to her death.  Although that is an extreme consequence, all I read about events like this left me disgusted.  It seems like a deliberately transgressive act, like so much of our “art” today – take something that is traditionally cherished and valued, and degrade and destroy it.  Even if it’s only a dress being trampled, I feel as if the people doing it are sneakily trying to do the same thing to marriage.

It’s also so utterly shallow.  On a day when two people are undertaking a new and unknown adventure, they are obsessing over “images”.  Instead of the real thing, they’re clutching at shadows.  And not even shadows of real things – the whole stunt is fake from beginning to end, plunking the bride in outrageous, illogical and unlikely situations just to make a shocking contrast in order to snap a photo.  I think these women are acting out a fantasy of themselves as top models on a photo shoot.  Since it would never happen in real life, they sacrifice the reality of an important life event to fake a moment as one of the rich and famous.

Laura writes:

I have addressed the phenomenon of trashing the wedding dress before. In this post, a photographer defends the practice. I responded:

Destroying one’s own wedding dress is a form of vandalism, regardless of the bride’s intentions and even if some consider it high art. It’s an ugly, meretricious gesture. No one who appreciates the meaning of marriage would find it entertaining or moving. Whatever the inner logic of a person who does this or of those who applaud, what matters is how people in general read it. Weddings are ceremonies, not avant-garde art exhibitions. And the message of trashing one’s dress is: “This whole ceremony was empty display.”

Mark Moncrieff writes:

Where I live it has always seemed to me to be that lavish weddings were once confined to Greeks and Italians. But since the 80’s that it has spread out to the wider community.

I’d be interested to find out if other people agree or no, that the “ethnic” wedding has had the effect of encouraging extravagant weddings?

 Laura writes:

The ethnic traditions you mention are very different from the extreme weddings discussed here. Those Southern European weddings, while they also may be excessive, revolve around extended family, not the bride and groom alone.

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