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Topics: Money, Wedding, Sex and Relationships, Science
Britt Jones
Topics: Money, Wedding, Sex and Relationships, Science
If you are planning your dream wedding or if you have already had it and the amount you spent was over $20,000 (£14,920), we have some bad news.
There are so many people who sit and imagine what their nuptials will entail, and often, that involves extravagant furnishings, venues and gowns.
With so much to live up to, it’s only natural to want to cough up as much money as possible, but what does that mean for your relationship?
You might not know this, but how much you splurge on your big day directly affects how long you’ll last with your partner.
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According to a 2015 study by economists Andrew Francis-Tan and Hugo Mialon, if you’re spending loads of money, you’re likely to be doomed.
The study, which is titled 'A Diamond is Forever’ and Other Fairy Tales, found that couples who spend more money on their happy occasion are more likely to get divorced after it analysed survey data from over 3,000 married people in the US.
Interestingly, they found that men who spent between $2,000 and $4,000 on an engagement ring are 1.3 times more likely to divorce their new spouse than those who spent between $500 and $2,000.
Compared with couples who spent between $5,000 and $10,000 on their wedding as a whole, men who somehow managed to spend just $1,000 were half as likely to divorce.
Meanwhile women who spent over $20,000 on the ceremony were 3.6 times more likely to get divorced than those who spent between $5,000 and $10,000.
The researchers went on to wonder if it was financial strain that was tanking some of these marriages.
Advocating budget weddings, they found that couples who spent less than $1,000 on their wedding were 82 percent to 93 percent less likely to report feeling stressed about money than those who spent between $5,000 and $10,000.
Pretty sure I could have told you that.
The researchers concluded: “We find that marriage duration is either not associated or inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony.”
People responded to the findings on Instagram, with one person writing: "We spent $250 and we’re still married 32 years later and we love each other!!"
Another said: "Makes sense, considering lots of marriage end in divorce due to money issues. And spending an exorbitant amount of money on a wedding isn’t very fiscally savvy."
Maybe a tiny wedding is better for all?