Good comment!
The whole ‘destination wedding’ thing is a bit over the top, and a waste of money, in my opinion.
The wedding industry pushes these lavish ideas. Even the thought of a wedding industry is absurd.
I’m in agreement with those that want to do it on the cheap, but I’m torn. Thing is, we held a friend’s wedding on our farm and it was a huge hit. Every single person there that is “in the wedding industry” told us we had a gold mine site for wedding events. Even the pastor.
So we’ve now been planning on it being a part of our income into retirement. They used a large tent for that one, but we want to put up a nice sheet metal building with some special touches primarily for weddings and other events.
But now I feel guilty. ;-)
“...thought of a wedding industry is absurd...”
We would know - we have 4 daughters - two married and one probably soon to be engaged.
Ironically my husband was more willing to overspend our budget to keep up appearances because his Ct. (liberal) family expected it. My mother in law is more keep-up-with-the-Jones’s than I am. I begged him to keep it simple - in the scope of things neither wedding was overly lavish as we are not rich, but we ended up spending more than we should have.
Peer pressure including from family is real and hard to resist. Both our daughters are securely married - the older one has a daughter and they are expecting twins and the next couple in line is expecting a girl in September. Neither daughter were bridezillas and neither are very materialistic per se.
The third will be engaged soon and wants a very simple wedding.
Say no to the dress! Just kidding the dress itself can be very nice but the ceremony and the solemn exchange of the vows (we are catholic so in our case the nuptial mass) is the most important part of the day and this should always be in the forefront. The rest is superfluous.
If only we'd had a real depression, these frivolous gotta have industries would disappear and maybe stayed gone long after a recovery. Far too much of the American economy is based on fluff and nonsense.