 |
It’s the end of the wedding era.
No more summer vacations spent attending destination weddings and bachelorette weekends that cost more than my first car. The chunk of change my husband and I once had set aside for Williams-Sonoma has officially been redistributed. Never again will I Spanx myself to the point suffocation to fit into a strapless tea-length dress.
While the butlered hors d’oeuvres may be mini, everything else about modern weddings is big. American Express recently surveyed 1,500 Americans and found that guests will likely spend, on average, $592 per wedding on hotels, flights, outfits and the like. That’s a 10 percent increase over last year—and a 75 percent spike from two years ago. Mind you, that doesn’t include the bridal shower or the wedding gift.
Over the course of a decade, I’ve attended seventeen weddings. (Yes, I actually counted.) Five were destination—two on tropical islands. That’s a lot of bobby pins and dripping makeup.
Now that I’m 33, I expect a dramatic dip in wedding invites, as most of our friends are married. But don’t choke on your canapés you lovers of love. Weddings will never fail to bring me to tears. I’ll still giggle when the flower girl makes her confused trip down the aisle and (cuteness overload) holds hands with the ring bearer. I’ll continue to stand and turn for even the most egregious Bridezilla.
But I must ask: What ever happened to the concept of a wedding day, when you’d call it an afternoon after the cake cutting. Now, it’s all about the mandatory into-the-wee-hours after-party, followed by the groggy bridal brunch.
At first blush, a destination wedding at a sunny, seaside resort sounds like a pretty fun proposition. Just be prepared to endure an overscheduled itinerary, a blur of awkward conversations and a hung-over flight home. Granted, I might miss the open bar. But I couldn’t choke down one more bite-size quiche. Really.
Katie Bambi-Kohler couldn’t be more thrilled that “Lucky” has dethroned the “Chicken Dance” at most wedding receptions. Visit her at www.katiekohler.com.
