WEDDING FARES TAKE OFF
Cost of attending ceremonies is steep — especially for destination vows.
The wedding season is upon us, so I’d like to discuss not the high cost of weddings, a common theme, but the cost of attending a wedding, the obligations of which have become more onerous than in the past. It used to be that the gift of a $ 20 toaster guaranteed you an open bar and a night of dancing to YMCA in a state of total hammered- ness. Those were the days. Some research: In February, TD Canada Trust commissioned the Environics Research Group to conduct something called the Affordable Wedding Season Poll, in which 6,015 Canadians across the country were asked why weddings — and I’m paraphrasing here, but this is what the numbers said to me — have increasingly become a pain in the ass to attend. The salient findings: • One in five British Columbians planning to attend a wedding this year have previously declined an invitation because they could not afford to attend.
• Twenty- two per cent replied that the cost of attending a wedding would be “a considerable drain on their household budget.”
• Thirty per cent replied they would be using their reward points to cover the cost of a gift or travel.
• Half of British Columbians polled who were attending a wedding this year expected to spend between $ 100 and $ 500, 21 per cent plan on spending between $ 500 and $ 1,000, and 12 per cent plan on spending more than $ 1,000 to attend.
None of those numbers surprise me. Between the ornateness of modern weddings — now encrusted with stags ( complete with stripper), stagettes ( complete with stripper in police uniform), bachelor and bachelorette weekends, group spa makeovers and hair salon outings, tux fittings, limo rentals, gift registries and, increasingly, destination venues — the costs add up not just for those staging the wedding but for those obligated to attend. Love has become a many- spended thing.
A niece of mine, for example, was tagged as a bridesmaid recently. She initially considered declining. She was carrying more than $ 20,000 in student loans. She hadn’t yet begun to work. Out of a sense of obligation to the bride, she decided otherwise, and by the time the I Do’s were done, she was $ 1,000 poorer.
An aunt of mine and her husband did decline a recent wedding invitation. It was a destination ceremony in Cancun, Mexico. They declined partly because of the cost, and partly because, having attended the bride’s first two weddings, the odds seemed small that the money would be well spent. One can invest only so much in a relationship.
Destination weddings are a growth industry. The urge to exchange vows barefoot on a beach in Hawaii or in the Caribbean has taken hold on this generation of couples.
Depending on which source you read, destination weddings now comprise around 16 to 24 per cent of all weddings in North America and the United Kingdom, and the number is growing.
“For the bride and groom,” said Marsha Steeves, of Marsha Steeves Destination Weddings on West Broadway, “a destination venue can be one- fifth the cost of holding a wedding in a local venue.
“Even the cost of booking a desirable local venue alone can be more ( than a destination venue), and some ( local venues) have to be booked two years in advance. At a destination, the wedding can be part of an all- inclusive price.”
Steeves — who on the phone sounded like she had the kind of happy energy needed to organize a wedding — said the most popular destination venue for British Columbian couples was Mexico, usually Cancun, followed by other Caribbean venues like St. Lucia or the Bahamas.
And research backs up what Steeves said about costs: While destination weddings cost more per person than local weddings — about $ 600 per guest for a destination wedding, as opposed to $ 170 per guest for a local wedding — destination weddings are ultimately cheaper for the bride and groom because the buying power of the dollar goes a lot further for them in places like the Caribbean, and they have a ready- made honeymoon destination right there. Local weddings are cheaper for the guests, but they cost more for the hosts because the guest lists tend to be much larger.
According to one survey of 10,000 respondents in the United Kingdom, couples spent an average of $ 42,000 on a local wedding, compared to $ 7,850 for a destination wedding.
“Some people,” Steeves said, “might say it’s selfish ( to ask guests to attend a destination wedding), but it’s the bride and groom’s wedding. It’s their day, after all.”
Is it OK to say “thanks, but no thanks” to a destination wedding invite?
“Sure, why not?” Steeves said. “And for those who can’t afford to go, or if they can’t attend for personal reasons — say, a grandmother too frail to go — some couples will arrange a video feed of the ceremony so the grandmother can watch it at home on a computer.”
I asked her: Where was the farthest- flung destination wedding she had organized?
“In Fiji,” Steeves said. “It was my own. Three years ago. I invited close family mostly, but I knew from the get- go most wouldn’t want to go, anyway. So it ended up being an elopement wedding.”
It cost, she said, about $ 2,000 all in, including a stay at a top hotel, a wedding cake, champagne in their room and music at the beach ceremony provided by a local Fijian band.
Alas, the couple has since divorced.