What's your wedding day worth?
Most would answer that question by saying "priceless."
OK. Yeah, I know. What-ev-er.
In truth, for most people it's about $30,000, which CNN Money reported in 2005, or a little less, about $28,732 according to costofwedding.com. Costofwedding.com is a nifty little site that shows the average (not median) cost of a wedding, where you can also find out what other people are spending in your zip code. Note: 82% spend less than the average, meaning the 18% who spend over the average go big. REALLY, REALLY BIG!
I plugged in the cost for the following cities/towns and found the following:
* The town in the Napa Valley where we're having our wedding: $29,541
* The area of Los Angeles where we live now: $42,124
* San Francisco, CA, where we lived until three months ago: $23,282
And just for kicks, Beverly Hills 90210: $56,534
And New York City's east side: $54,882
If you want to add 4% -- the difference between CNN Monday and the self-reporting by couples on costofwedding.com -- that brings up a Beverly Hills wedding to $58,809 and a New York wedding up to $57,077.
The cost of our wedding will be less than a Beverly Hills wedding, but more than a San Francisco wedding. Truthfully, it's the cost of food and, especially, booze that will really add up. "Dry" is not a word in my Irish family's vocabulary. It's not in mine either.
Nevertheless, it's a ridiculous amount of money, and I am having trouble swallowing it. With that kind of money we could quit our jobs and travel around the world for a year. We could put a down payment on an investment property in another area of the country. We could donate it to a non-profit and make a difference in other people's lives.
But just like a lot of other couples, to some degree, we're sucked in by the fantasy. Fortunately, our stupidity is being partially supported by my generous parents. I mean, they just wrote a check and asked how they could help out with logistics. How lucky am I?
People tell me that having a successful wedding is an important and satisfying experience. It's also important to my large family, who enjoys getting together and finds these gatherings incredibly meaningful.
Maybe that, in itself, is worth a lot.
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