Mega-Weddings: Say "I Don't"

By Melanie Vu

 

New research has found that there is no positive correlation between having an extravagant wedding and a long successful marriage. “We find evidence that marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony,” write Andrew Francis and Hugo Mialon, two economics professors at Emory University in Atlanta.  This study was based on the wedding budgets and marriage track records of over 3,000 U.S. adults.

In their study, they found that 60% of couples whose wedding cost over $20,000, say their marriages ended in divorce. Men who spent $2,000 to $4,000 on their engagement ring ended up divorced 30% more often than those who spent between $500 and $2,000.

There are several reasons as to why costly weddings don’t necessarily lead to long and happy marriages.

·         Expensive weddings may attract the people who are materialistic and narcissistic – who are less likely to sustain a successful marriage due to money issues. Financial planners note that money troubles consistently feature as a leading cause of marriage problems.

·         A Fairy-tale wedding may also raise unrealistic expectations about marriage. Couples who plan an extravagant wedding may trap the fiancé or fiancée who is having second thoughts, not wanting to speak up because of all the effort going into planning the wedding and all the guests who have already bought their plane tickets.

According to Michelle Fait, a financial planner in San Francisco, “those who spend the most are often seeking external validation”. Modern couples are under pressure from family, social media and friends to spend more on the wedding. The wedding should be the special day for husband and wife, instead it turns into trying to please and impress guests. History has repeatedly shown that obsession with impressing others is all too often a formula for disaster.

These assumptions are only based on one study, so we shouldn’t put too much weight on the price of a wedding and the success of the marriage. Having an expensive wedding does not cause an unsuccessful marriage, but couples who plan a wedding need to ask themselves if spending more on the wedding will help the future of their marriage.

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