Weddings - Out Of Control Commercialism

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) March 4, 2008 -- Getting married is a major event in anyone's life - but for many people the wedding itself is the focal point. People plan the event for months, sometimes years, and women fuss about the smallest details of their dress and that of the bridesmaids and pageboys; the flower arrangements; the food, the reception and so on. They get their inspiration from celebrities who they want to emulate, so that they too can be a star.

The average cost of a wedding in the UK is £17,000 and in the US $28,000. Only a quarter of those weddings are paid for by parents, according to a US survey.

Wedding dress.

Even the Church of England has become so alarmed by the insane overspending and materialist obsession around weddings that it produced a booklet, "Making the Most of Weddings," saying that people should spend far less and be more environmentally responsible. The Church rightly points out that the meaning of marriage has been lost through the "spend, spend, spend" culture. In a rare example of down-to-earth common sense from the Church, they advise that brides should go so far as to consider buying their dress from a charity shop, hitching a ride and having guests at the reception bring along their own alcohol!

The mega-wedding is a crazy modern trend, and it is good to see ecclesiastical opposition to it. Yet people go ahead with these shows in their millions, and they are organized in Churches regardless of the disgust of the clergy carrying out the ceremony. And the clergy is probably too polite to have a word with the couple in advance.

The cost and the spectacle does put some people, either bride or groom, off being married, if they are being pressured into it, adding to the likelihood of remaining unmarried permanently. Other brides, however, seem to be so keen on being the center of attention at the nuptials - being a princess for the day - that the event itself becomes their main reason for getting married!

Many feel humiliated if they don't make a costly impression on friends and family, as if it would make them seem to be lesser people. Yet, the duration of the marriage is generally in inverse proportion to the cost of the wedding. Possible reasons for this: starting marriage off in heavy debt; the sheer stress of the event; the anticipation followed by the anticlimax of returning to normality and then, the kind of people who want to have a big, vulgar wedding. Such people are egotistical materialists with personalities ill suited to long term cooperation in a relationship.

Read more at:
www.corrupt.org/articles/culture/victoria_mcmagnus/weddings_-_out_of_control_commercialism

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