Every time you turn on the television, open a newspaper or read online news, you hear about the current horrific events in our world. It's hard to escape from seeing events from the earthquake in Haiti, the economic crisis we are facing and the new statistics on the unemployment rate. Yet I feel as if every time I come back from a break to our campus, some new story has unfolded about a couple getting engaged and I see a huge shiny rock sitting on a girl's tiny finger. We are facing cutbacks at our university on the amount of paper teachers are allowed to use as well as seeing tuition increases and still thousands of dollars seem to be creeping into our campus in the shape of sparkling diamonds.
The wedding industry is a $161 billion industry each year. One hundred years ago wedding coordinators, wedding consultants, David's Bridal, bridal magazines and even the idea you had to wear white on your wedding did not exist. A wedding in 1900 usually consisted of the bride wearing the best outfit she owned, regardless of the color and inviting her family and closest friends. No exotic honeymoon, no carriage ride from the church to the reception hall, no 350-person guest list, $3,000 bridal gown or $400 gold-painted flowery doily floating in the center of each perfume-scented centerpiece.
America has gone overboard in creating what used to be the most memorable life-changing day of your life and has created an industry that simply wants to sell your "special day" in a way that will make the most money. What the average person spends on a wedding is staggering; as of 2008, it was $28,000. Because $28,000 is an average, many couples are spending less, but many couples are spending far more. The average per capita income for an American household is $47,000. Where do couples come up with $28,000 for that "perfect day"? They go into debt, take a hit from paying a mortgage payment, start saving early or butter up their parents. I'm not condemning weddings in any way, but the fact our culture has instilled us with this notion that we need to spend about $28,000 on just one day is simply outrageous.
The wedding industry is only growing with the number of wedding consultants increasing each year, David's Bridal continuing to redesign bridal lines and florists continuing to sell you the most expensive bouquet of flowers you will probably ever buy in your lifetime. One might even argue the sudden increase in the cost of a wedding, which started to drastically spike in the early 1990s, is a small contributor to the percentage of divorce rates in our country. Girls seem to dream of their wedding day for their entire lives and sometimes they rush into a marriage simply for that wedding day. Comparing us to some of our other world powers, Russia for example has an average per capita income of $11,000 a year to each household while China is at an average of $2,900. In a time when our economy is criticized for all of the American spending on consumption goods, the money Americans spend on weddings is a bit overwhelming.
The wedding industry is not trying to sell you on creating the greatest day of your life; they are trying to sell you what will give them the most money. I argue that instead of spending thousands on one day for the sole reason of two people exchanging vows, you should make the day more personal and spend less money, putting the money you would have spent toward building a future together. The fact so many couples waste so much money before they go into marriage, which usually involves them starting off their marriage in debt, can cause even more rifts in their marriage.
The media bombards females with the need to get married and have a perfect day even from the earliest ages of dress-up bridal Barbie. If a perfect day is hinging on burdening my future debt or my parents' future debt, then no thanks to being relaxed and enjoying the wedding day in such a way. We need to rethink the actual root reason why Americans are pouring so much into a wedding when the divorce rate is now at 52 percent. That means more than half the couples who wed this weekend will be divorced. It's a sad fact, but a realistic one. While the wedding industry alone is not solely responsible, I argue it contributes to that statistic. No longer is it who you marry that says a lot about who you are, but it seems it is the way you marry that says who you are.
Kelly Dawes Smithsmithkd3@muohio.edi
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