How does the wedding industry do as well as it does?

I am engaged, and am going through the whole wedding planning thing. I am amazed what a scam the whole wedding industry is, how people are paying top dollar for things that are supposedly "traditional" or "mandatory" that our grandparents never heard of. I could care less how the wedding goes, so long as people are well fed, drunk, and merry. Yet women feel the need to make sure everything is absolutely "perfect" and are willing to pay good money for this "perfection" and this pursuit of "perfection" becomes a major source of anxiety for women involved in weddings.

I've been told that every woman has a fantasy of being a princess on their wedding day that goes back to when they were little girls. Well, every guy has a fantasy of being a sports hero, yet how many men will pay $30,000 to live out a fantasy of being a sports hero. Imagine if one of your friends invited over 100 of his friends and relatives so he could dres up like a basketball star, maybe take a foul shot in front of everyone. We would find the whole thing silly. Similarly, the reenactment of the princess fantasy is equally silly, yet thousands of people are spending billions of dollars on it. So how does the wedding industry get away with this?

Firstly, congratulations

I know what you mean about the wedding "industry" being a scam.
I just don't get the idea of paying thousands for a short ceremony and a slap-up feed for the guests. It seems these days that a three month salary cost of a wedding or engagement ring is the norm too. It's absolutely crazy.
On a flight to Mexico a couple o weeks back I had 2 young women sitting in the seats behind me talking about a friends wedding plans, the 20K USD dress and the plans down to the finest detail like some intricate military operation. It seems to me it's become more of a status thing than any sort of pledge of love and commitment. Even the mention of anything wedding related and the costs spiral out of reality

Welcome to the world of wedding rip off

Is better if you get your girl to Las Vegas and have the wedding over there.

Unless you are lucky and have your father in law pay for everything.

Because we want to ensure that our wedding day is one to remember and so it should be. It goes so fast.

When I got married and looking at food, I just felt the prices were high so I asked on of the the caterers to quote for a weekend meal for a business meeting rather than a wedding. Guess what, for the business meeting, the cost was 50% less than for my wedding. Same menu!!

Guess what, I did not order with them.

I even got a discount on the honeymoon from the travel agent by using the "we can afford it along with everything else and the sad look on my future wife's face"

Haggle and shop around and enjoy the day. It goes very quickly.

To remember . . . lets see, I had 350 people in my wedding 26 years ago, my father paid for everything . . . because I was the older daughter to get marry and their first wedding.

Ask me if I remember what was for dinner or the names of the people that attended.:Lil:

All I got is pictures. and a the memory of been just like a rag doll on a schedule.

The institution of marriage is a beautiful thing, but its just like everything else thats connected to religion. Take away the money, and you just ruin the whole thing, dont you?

Interestingly, a friend of mine flew to the Carribean and got married on the beach, and including flight and dress and food, etc, it cost far less than what a 'traditional' wedding would have here.

Personally, if I ever take the plunge . . . Elvis wedding

Originally posted by Freedom ERP
Because we want to ensure that our wedding day is one to remember and so it should be. It goes so fast.

When I got married and looking at food, I just felt the prices were high so I asked on of the the caterers to quote for a weekend meal for a business meeting rather than a wedding. Guess what, for the business meeting, the cost was 50% less than for my wedding. Same menu!!

Guess what, I did not order with them.

I even got a discount on the honeymoon from the travel agent by using the "we can afford it along with everything else and the sad look on my future wife's face"

Haggle and shop around and enjoy the day. It goes very quickly.

I proposed doing many things from the get go. For example, I insisted that the caterers think that they were catering a business meeting rather than a wedding, as the markup would be substantially less. This went largely ignored, because somehow the business meeting menu is "not as nice and as special" as the wedding menu.

I think a large part of the whole industry, and I apologize to those who may find this offensive, is that many of the spending decisions are made by women who have no idea what the value of a dollar (or Euro or pound) is. This is not to say every woman is ignorant, but many women, e.g. Brides and their mothers, have not worked an honest day's work in their life. They are not spending *their* money, but the money their husband earned. To them spending thousands of dollars on a dress that is only worn once means nothing as they have never had to put their nose to the grind stone, day in and day out, to make thousands of dollars.

?? How do they get away with it ??


we might have a 'to heck with the cost...it's a once in a lifetime splurge'!!

then again Promotion is a biggie,
betcha the "Wedding of the Century", with Prince Charles & Princess Diana
got your attention & generated at least a passing daydream

the next shot-in-the-arm will be when one of the royal lads gets to place his ring on his princesses finger.
the wedding promotion cycle that the royals generate, be it Britian or wherever,
sets a new standard for the worlds idealists to work from

"New Beginnings" is the theme
and that pristine bubble will not be popped by objectivity....
besides, most of the costs are deferred on credit cards, a device that makes for gratification

Originally posted by marg6043

Welcome to the world of wedding rip off

Is better if you get your girl to Las Vegas and have the wedding over there.

Unless you are lucky and have your father in law pay for everything.

I am fortunate to have father in law pay for everything, and it could be much worse. I still think it is a sin to waste all that money, especially when we could use it for other things. I am a student right now, and I think it is embarassing to spend thousands of dollars on my wedding when in a couple years time I will be $150,000 in debt.

An elvis wedding is not really my style, even though I can only praise and not fault those who chose them. I actually wanted something in the middle.

We live in Southern California, so I suggested that we get a "traditional" (i.e. non-Elvis wedding) in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is close enough where people that really wanted to make it to the wedding from California could easily do so, but it is far enough away in that those who are mildly interested in the wedding will not come. This significantly cuts costs as it weeds out a lot of people, people who you are indifferent about having at the wedding anyway. Currently we are having problems narrowing down the guest list, with my future wife, her mother, her father, my family, and myself all trying to put our people into a limited number of spots. If everone followed my advice from the beginning, this dispute would not exist, as the list would be cleared.

My advice to anybody planning a wedding is to have the wedding far enough from town to weed people out, but close enough so people who really want to come will not be terribly inconvenienced to come. 150 people may seem like a lot, but it is not when you consider that you, your future spouse, your parents, and your future in-laws all want to invite all their friends, family, and hangers on.

Originally posted by St Udio
?? How do they get away with it ??


we might have a 'to heck with the cost...it's a once in a lifetime splurge'!!

then again Promotion is a biggie,
betcha the "Wedding of the Century", with Prince Charles & Princess Diana
got your attention & generated at least a passing daydream

the next shot-in-the-arm will be when one of the royal lads gets to place his ring on his princesses finger.
the wedding promotion cycle that the royals generate, be it Britian or wherever,
sets a new standard for the worlds idealists to work from

"New Beginnings" is the theme
and that pristine bubble will not be popped by objectivity....
besides, most of the costs are deferred on credit cards, a device that makes for gratification

There are a lot of cable TV shows about extravagant weddings that help fuel the mania. Another disturbing show is the Sweet 16 show on MTV where 16 year olds are literally spending $200,000 of their parents money on birthday parties. While the typical 16 year, nor their parents will spend that amount of money, they may be feeling pressurd to pay for some of the things they see on MTV. This money would of course be better spent on the young person's education and/or helping that young person start out their adult life in this world.

Congrats on your wedding. I do agree that people spend excess amounts of money for just one ritual. My sister's wedding alone will cost my parents $245,000. They paid $5,000 for their engagement party, when my parents were here, and they plan on spending an additional $90,000 to fly everyone to Hawaii so that they can have their wedding on the beach. It's ridiculous.

Man,

Am I glad I'm not the only one who feels this way!!!!

I gotta tell ya my bride to be was cooking up these grand memories that I could careless about. She had drove the price up in the 20grand range and I finally told her that this is crazy...And she wasn't happy at first but I told her that we could get a beach house in the OBX in S.C. for a week for 3 grand and have family and friends over and have a week long party and at the end of the week we could do a pig roast on the beach and then tie the knot and have 15 grand in the bank to do our honeymoon or what ever? I tell ya these blasted wedding planners are no more than a con artist. And don't even get me started on the photographers.

Sounds like a great plan! I intend to save my wedding money to buy a big house (or at least make a down payment on it). I'm sure my future wife would much rather have a big house and small wedding, rather than a huge wedding and a tiny apartment.

I was in a wedding last weekend. The girl that my cousin married is an event planner and the company that she works for belongs to her uncle so she got most of it for free. If she had to pay for it, it would have cost $30,000+. At the reception, one of the bridesmaids which is the sister-in-law of the bride got mad and started a fight because the wedding was nicer than her wedding was.

Hi All,

I remember when I was a little girl, I dreamed that my wedding would be just like the ones on TV. ('cause that’s how weddings were supposed to be ) When I did finally get married I had realized that many things on TV are fantasy like as are some expectations of people living in reality.

I noticed around the age of about 18, that many people who spent thousands of dollars on their weddings ended up divorced after only a few short years. I remember thinking that it seemed a waste of so much money for a commitment ceremony that had no guarantees of longevity.

I also realized that many women (and fathers who were willing to pay for another wedding) do not spend nearly as much money on the ceremony the second time around. There are of course exceptions to this, namely celebrities. I believe that the fantasy-above-the-top aspect of the whole ceremony is propagated by the media coverage of celebrity weddings.

In our culture it seems that if a celebrity has it, we have to have it too. (which is pretty silly seeing as how the majority of Americans do not have the income to obtain many of those things, but we will go into debt to get it huh?!) I think we fool ourselves into placing so much importance on a single event, when our focus should be on how to make the relationship be a lasting one.


I do know that for some people the event can be a very special one, but I believe it is because they are truly elated to be formally joined with the person who seems to complete them and make them whole. They want to share this joining with friends and family as a celebration. (As they have already joined in a spiritual way )

Well, that’s my take on the matter anyway. When I got married 14 years ago it was a very informal, yet highly enjoyable affair (we paid for it ourselves). Wedding Dress $60, food for all 40 people $300, Reverend $0, being married to my husband and acquiring awesome in-laws---$PRICELESS )

If anyone is interested here is a pic of our wedding day--

I think your theory on people who spend too much money on weddings tend to have a higher chance of divorce, is very true. Most will find financial problems later on the in marriage, which will effect many factors such as bills, housing, children (and number of children), as well as vacations, anniversaries, and so on.

Lovely wedding picture, by the way. You make a beautiful bride

Congratulations hotpink!
I understand exactly what you're going through as I am a newlywed who didn't even have the wedding (to the surprise but immense relief of my fiance).
I couldn't be arsed to be honest and just didn't want the headaches and extortionate costs associated with it all.
I'd much rather the money in the bank, saving for that house in the future
We had to leave my home country soon for my husband to report to his station so we didn't have the time anyway but I don't mind.
We had a lovely family dinner with my 2 best friends at the time and that was all I wanted, to celebrate with those that mean the world to me.

All I regret in not doing it is not having the pics up but I'm pretty camera-happy so I am sure there will be many opportunities to snap some lovely pics of us to hang up

My sister is now planning a wedding too, a very informal yet formal 'do'. It's more of a big party for everyone she likes and loves so she's on the right track.

I took a peek at her wedding registry and whoa mama! $120 for a cake stand ?!!!! *whistles* I think I'll get her the toaster lol

Wonder if the stores mark up the prices of items just because they are on a registry


Sylvr you look lovely and very happy

Congrats Hotpink.

What part of the world are you in?

NorthEast coast of the US? Because thats where wedding's have become a real industry, lavish affairs, overpriced, etc etc.

Other parts of the US still have what is considered 'normal' weddings.


Weddings can be incredibly expensive. I've seen some wedding shows where the couple had actually TAKEN OUT A MORTGAGE on their home in order to pay for it.

Thats just plain stupid. I mean, the whole overspending thing is stupid anyway, but that, I mean, that goes BEYOND the normal amount of stupidity that we can expect.


And the best part is, after all that preparation, stress, and hassle, and spending and going into debt, its only an event that lasts a few hours, and that (according to everyone married that I know) breezes by quickly in a haze.

You'll spend far more time figuring out what catering hall to use and picking out the menu, than you will even see the food. And everyone I know didn't even have time to sit down and eat their dinner, or anything like that. Ironic.


As far as people who spend lots having a high rate of divorce, the divorce rate in teh united states is already above 50 percent. So the majority of peoelp are getting divorced anyway.
WHich is also ironic.

Yes, lovely picture sylvrshadow.

I guess if I ever get married I'd take the Las Vegas route. It doesn't have to be a cheesy Elvis like thing, I couldn't imagine a nicer place than the Bellagio to get married! And right after you get to play blackjack!

[edit on 1/9/2007 by djohnsto77]