Aug 2011 // Matt Teel
$5,000 and a ladder: That’s what I’ve offered each of my children if they will forego a traditional cathedral wedding with the taffeta and the tuxes and the cake as tall as the Chrysler building. “Just elope,” I tell them. “Don’t invite me; don’t tell me. Just come home the day after you do it and say, ‘Dad, meet the love of my life.’”
I remind them of this (very generous) offer every week or so. But my daughters—neither of whom are old enough to marry without parental consent anyway—have seen too many episodes of “Say Yes to the Dress” and attended far too many cousins’ weddings to find this offer tantalizing.
I do hold out hope for my son, because he doesn’t like weddings, either. But that might be because he’s 8 and his sense of propriety is offended by the sight of two people kissing in public. Still, I take camaraderie where I can find it.
I feel like a drug addict admitting he has a problem every time I say this, but I don’t like weddings. I’m not against marriage, understand; I have nothing but reverence for the institution. And I’m not against the idea of friends, family and well-wishers gathering to celebrate rites of passage with food and drink; I rather like Irish wakes, for example. I just don’t know that I’ve ever been to a wedding (including my own) where I wasn’t left sitting in a pew thinking the money would have been better spent on something else.
What else, you ask.
On something that would strengthen the actual relationship—like putting a down payment on a house, paying off credit cards, paying down the student loans, taking a vacation together, buying a new car … anything that might help the couple start off their married life from a position of strength.
But nobody is going to watch a reality show about people paying off their student loans, so instead we get the industrial-wedding complex’s list of items you must have for a successful wedding: gown and veil for the bride, tuxedo for the groom, dresses and suits for the attendants, trips to the salon for hair and makeup, wedding bands, altar flowers, bouquets, decorations, invitations, save the date cards, place cards, thank you cards, photographers, videographers, wedding planners, hotel rooms, the honeymoon suite, entertainment for the reception, an open bar, caterers, centerpieces, gifts for various people, wedding favors, the wedding cake, the groom’s cake, the day-after brunch, wedding dress preservation …
I’ll spare you the rest and say only that I culled these from a list that was actually three times longer. People whose job it is to know such things estimate that, by the time the rice is swept up and the cake is eaten, the average American wedding costs in the neighborhood of $30,000.
Thirty thousand. Let’s put that into context: The bride and groom could buy a brand-new Buick LaCrosse for that amount of money. Better yet, they could put a 20-percent down payment on a $150,000 home. In fact, $30,000 is more money than some people make in an entire year. And that’s the average!
My wife and I attended a friend’s wedding in Charleston, S.C., while we were in grad school, and the bride had, I forget … 23 bridesmaids? Twenty-four? I’m not joking. It looked like central casting for a mob scene in Gone with the Wind. The reception was held in a refurbished mansion on the waterfront. The waiters all wore white gloves and served shrimp and mint juleps. If $30,000 is the average, this wedding easily cost twice as much, maybe more.
That $5,000 and a ladder is starting to sound better, isn’t it? Because that’s what I’m offering them: 5,000 unmarked American bills to start off life together, plus a ladder that retails at, maybe, $75. (Heck, I’ll buy them the $150 aluminum ladder with the slip-resistant steps if it just gets them out the window and into the car faster).
My wife hears me make my offer for the umpteenth time and she says, “Come on now. You don’t want to walk your daughters down the aisle?”
Well, yes. I do. I’m not as callous as I sound. I don’t begrudge them or anyone else a ceremony. What I object to is a $30,000 photo op. I want my children to have good, strong, healthy marriages. I’m just not sure that a massive wedding contributes to that.
In fact, I’ve seen too many marriages start off behind the eight ball because of a massive wedding. Think about it: The bride-to-be has been told since childhood that this will be The Biggest Day of Her Life; the groom is living for the honeymoon. She produces the guest list; he has trouble coming up with the right number of groomsmen. She chooses the wedding colors; he finds a cummerbund to match. This is a horrible way for a marriage to begin. They aren’t partners. They aren’t sharing responsibility. An unhealthy pattern is set right from the start: the woman does everything and the man takes care of himself (and sometimes not even that).
Resentments start to fester. She accommodates the few suggestions he’s made (a groom’s cake in the shape of beer can, for example), but not everything. He does the few things she’s given him to do, but not in the way she wanted it done. He wants his boyhood rabbi to do the service; she wants the priest from her mother’s parish. The groom thought her parents were supposed to pay for the wedding; the bride thinks his mother should lay off about living together before marriage.
The magnetic strip on the back of the credit card is scratched from overuse. The checkbook is thinning. The caterer wants more money. The groom snaps. The bride cries. And so on and so forth.
Many marriages of 20 years wouldn’t survive a wedding, but we still expect the bride and groom to start out their family like this.
At its most basic, the marriage rite is about exchange and commitment. It is a holy negotiation, symbolized in the making of vows and the giving of rings. A massive wedding eclipses all that. This huge event is hers and everybody knows it’s hers, including him. A marriage that starts off that lopsided, crippled with debt, mired in animosity, is already dragging one leg behind it when the couple walks down the aisle.
So what would $5,000 and a ladder do to alleviate all that? It would help the happy couple put their energy where it should go: into the relationship. They could use part of the money to have a family wedding in some significant place, maybe a small gathering afterwards. If some sort of public gathering is required, I’d be happy to host a reception at home a few weeks later, as long as the guests don’t mind crackers and cheese from Costco.
$5,000 and a ladder. That’s what I’m willing to invest in my children, so they can start off their marriage right. And then if, after 20 or 30 years, my children and their spouses still want the wedding they never had, I’ll give it to them. Because that would be a photo op worth sitting through.