I just saw this great article over on www.acculturated.com by Jennifer Graham It’s about the fashion for massive, expensive weddings. I worry for the young people who have never encountered the word “No.” They run up loans on college degrees that are proving difficult to repay. They max out credit cards. (Don’t get me started on the fact they can’t fight their own battles and take every grievance to a higher authority — and I don’t mean God!) They figure they “deserve” it. Disclaimer: This is not every kid. But there are enough of them around to make it a trend.
Think back a few years.
“Then…there wasn’t such a thing as a destination wedding or a performance wedding, and no commercial market for wedding loans, so there was not yet a need for a scathing exposé of an industry that makes both of these things seem necessary.
Now, alas, there is, and wedding loans are a “thing” for couples who find that their combined student-loan debt doesn’t concentrate the mind wonderfully enough. “You shouldn’t let your finances or your credit keep you from having the wedding you’ve always wanted,” chirps the website Bridalloans.com, encouragingly. (Note to brides: Actually, yes, you should. It’s called living within one’s means, and those who do it fare better on every scale of physical and emotional health than those who don’t).
Another website, myweddingloans.com, frets with brides-to-be over the cost of the photographer ($2,000!), the caterer ($65 per person!), and the “Historic church you’ve always dreamed of exchanging your vows in” ($4,000!). You know, in case the Mandarin Oriental isn’t available. At least we now know what churches will be used for when the secularization of America is complete…
Remember what old-fashioned photos looked like, a picture on the church steps and maybe a simple reception at an hotel. Now, weddings are like Cecil B. DeMille movies!
“You shouldn’t let your finances or your credit keep you from having the wedding you’ve always wanted,” chirps the website Bridalloans.com, encouragingly. (Note to brides: Actually, yes, you should. It’s called living within one’s means, and those who do it fare better on every scale of physical and emotional health than those who don’t).
I have a daughter. She knows that when her folks got married there wasn’t much money around. We invested in a pair of good wedding rings and a DIY wedding reception. It was fun and it freed up a little money for a honeymoon spent traveling – something dear to the hearts of the bride and groom. Now she’s planning hers along similar lines.
As society takes religion out of marriage, it will become more and more hedonistic. There has to be a line somewhere. Let that line be economy, and fewer parents prepared to submit to the blackmail of “It’s the most important day of my life.”