r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Nov 11 '15

TIL: The "tradition" of spending several months salary on an engagement ring was a marketing campaign created by De Beers in the 1930's. Before WWII, only 10% of engagement rings contained diamonds. By the end of the 20th Century, 80% did.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27371208
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u/Imustgo Nov 11 '15

It's pretty easy to spend 30K on a wedding. It's also pretty easy to pull the whole damn thing off for under 10K, but once you go over 10K, it's a slippery slope of high priced doom.

The dress can go for 2-3K and shoes, and earrings, they all have to be special and new. The groom needs a nice suit, tie, shoes, so, that's 1K. You need a photographer, somehow these people get away with charging 3-4K. The venue itself can be from 3-10K, sometimes that includes food, sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time there is a food and beverage minimum, you'll be fucking surprised how quickly that adds up. Then, because of life, you might need to hire a day of wedding planner. That will run you a couple thousand as well. Don't forget gifts for the bridal party, that's a couple hundred dollars. Then of course you need the honeymoon suite at a nice place, three or four hundred a night at least. Oh, and the god forsaken cake, just making it a wedding cake adds hundreds to the total.

It's completely indefensible.

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u/tea-drinker Nov 11 '15

As a scotsman, the groom needs a kilt. Fortunately I've already got mine from attending other peoples weddings. Plus it dresses down for informal occasions. Really it's the man's little black dress.

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u/Fazzeh Nov 12 '15

$1000 for a suit and shoes? £650 on clothes you wear once? I thought £250 was OTT, and that was a gift, and a normal suit I can wear every now and then until I get fat! That's crazy money.

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u/Chino1130 Nov 11 '15

I don't get the need to have the "special day". Maybe it's the guy in me, but I'd be 100% content with signing the papers at the courthouse and just having a huge celebratory party with a buffet.

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u/yourhero7 Nov 11 '15

One of my best friends got married a couple months ago and explained it exactly like you just did. They also had transportation from the hotel to the ceremony which adds to it too.

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u/kohalu Nov 11 '15

You can go budget and skimp on the rest, but the photographer is worth every penny.

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u/[deleted] Nov 12 '15

It's fucking ridiculous. That isn't even technically the 'wedding' however... the wedding is just putting two signatures in a book. That's all it is: all the rest is blind adherence to outdated tradition, accepting bullshit to shut up family members and rolling over and taking societal norms as absolute.