by brad olson, psy.d.,m.div.
Do you remember the anticipation of your wedding day? It started before you ever made the formal announcement. It may have started as a young girl. Time was spent dreaming in anticipation… hours and hours… for weeks and weeks. What will the colors be? What kind of dress? What about the bridesmaids and groomsmen? The venue? The food? All that time and energy spent with one “simple” goal… have the perfect time, the perfect setting, with perfect people, in perfect clothing, eating perfect food, listening to the perfect music while enjoying the perfect First Dance.
So we spend our time, energy and money on what is important to us. Recent surveys have highlighted that we believe the marriage celebration is very important to us (2013 statistics from TheKnot.com). What is the cost of the wedding?
- Average Wedding Dress: $1281
- Average Length of Engagement: 14 Months
- Average Number of Guests: 138
- Average Cost of Flowers: $2069
- Average Cost of Cake: $546
- Average Cost of Venue: $13,385
- Average Overall Cost of a Wedding: $29,858
And the Honeymoon… oh, we love the Honeymoon. On average, 1.4 million couples per year in the U.S. book their Honeymoon 4 months in advance, staying at some place exotic for 8 days, and spend $4,466.
So, what’s wrong with this picture? The average divorce rate in America is somewhere between 40%-50%. The average married couple spends just 30 minutes of quality time with each other per day, which contributes to most divorces occurring by the 8th year of marriage. And, 73% of couples who divorced said a lack of commitment was the main reason their marriage didn’t work.
We spend a lot of time and money on the wedding, but the marriage itself gets a fraction of the attention. All the time and energy invested in the “big day”, becomes less and less time and commitment spent on the very person I committed to spending life with. Does that make sense? Shouldn’t we be investing more in the relationship that we hope will last a lifetime, instead of one day?
How important is our marriage to us? What is the level of commitment we have to our marriages? How much time, energy and money do we invest in the relationship that means so much to us? Maybe our time, energy and money could be better spent investing in our marriage… making sure it becomes the relationship of our lives… worthy of $29,858 party.
(Data derived from: TheKnot.com, HuffingtonPost.com, magazine.foxnews.com, “A Diamond is Forever and Other Myths”- by Randal Olson, TheEconomist.com, CNBC.com, and The National Fatherhood Initiative)
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