by ARWA MAHDAWI
The average cost of a wedding is so high that many couples can’t afford it, but go ahead anyway and get into debt. But there is another way
If you want to scream at your television then, boy, have I got just the thing for you. It’s a new reality show called Marriage or Mortgage where young couples in Nashville, Tennessee, have to choose between – you guessed it – a marriage or a mortgage. Spoiler alert: most opt to spend their life savings on a wedding instead of a down payment. “We thought carefully about it,” they all explain, “and we realised blowing thousands of dollars on a doughnut wall [the latest wedding trend, apparently] was important to us. A roof over our heads can wait, but expressing our love through Instagrammable desserts cannot.” Rather sadly, a lot of these couples then have to downsize their big day because of the pandemic. Meanwhile, house prices in the US rocket, making homeownership even more difficult for young people.
If you have enough money for a down payment then you obviously don’t need to choose between a marriage and a mortgage. Newsflash: you can have both! Thanks to the Wedding Industrial Complex, however, a lot of people seem to think they need to spend a fortune on their nuptials. The average cost of a wedding is now about $33,900 in the US and £30,000 in the UK. If you can afford that, great. The problem is that a lot of people can’t, but have a flashy wedding anyway. A recent study found 28% of couples in the US and 30% of couples in the UK go into debt to pay for their wedding.
The Guardian for more