By Staff Writer: Caitlin Daugherty
Your wedding day is considered by many to be the most important day of your life. A dream that many people have and spend years planning and fantasizing about. Your significant other finally pops the question and you are getting ready to get hitched. However, the costs of the wedding day pile up until you finally see just how much it will cost you.
The average cost of a traditional wedding in the United States is $30,000 dollars. With many attending having to spend $600 dollars. For many, this is enough to set them back financially for a decade or more. So, why are we spending so much money on one day?
The history of expensive and luxurious weddings can be traced to the monarchy in Britain with Queen Victoria’s lavish and ludicrous wedding. The roots of many cultural trends can be followed back to the monarchy, and weddings are no exception. For example, the concept of the towering wedding cake, shining ring, and long wedding gown comes from the marriage of queen Victoria. After the massive event occurred, many middle-class folks attempted to replicate the wealth of Victoria through weddings.
However, after the decades passed this royal origin became forgotten and instead of being a special and extravagant event for queens and kings became the norm. Elaborate expectations were the established precedent and a 3-month salary ring and loans of more than hundreds of dollars for a single day were the only options for people to have a wedding. Today, people are being influenced not by the monarchy, but by commercials and consumer markets that hound people into making their wedding the most expensive thing in their life. Weddings are now seen as the highest level of romance.
Many people now opt to have a small wedding, and some have made it as cheap as $125 dollars. Getting married in a courthouse or having a wedding in your backyard with just your friends and close family is just as good and possibly even better than a massively expensive wedding at a huge church or outdoor arena.