Well before the details of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s so called wedding of the century became (rabidly embraced) public knowledge, the expenses associated with the average wedding both here at home and abroad had skyrocketed out of control, particularly for brides and grooms-to-be already saddled with their own sizable
credit card debt relief woes. Even if the average American wedding ceremony only costs about one tenth of one percent of the estimated thirty million dollars to be spent upon this Friday’s royal spectacle – as industry reports indicated – thirty thousand dollars still seems an unnecessary extravagance for all but the wealthiest Americans and several times what anyone embroiled in debt relief should think about borrowing to afford.
If you truly want your own wedding to represent the auspicious start of a shared life more than a well photographed but inevitably anticlimactic party, then you’ll want to do whatever it takes to stamp out credit card debt from the onset rather than risk struggling through those difficult first few years of marriage with the added pressure to
avoid bankruptcy protection. Not too many years ago, it was commonplace for proposals to only be issued by bona fide suitors once they had not only fulfilled any conditions of debt relief that would exist but had further saved up sufficient funds to prepare for a comfortable foundation for shared futures. These days, however, with an entire cable channel devoted to the world of weddings, the importance of all that surrounds the exchange of vows has rather overtaken the meaning of the words themselves.
At the end of the day, the royals are not so terribly different from the athletes and movie stars similarly granted uninterrupted access to all the trappings of privilege for little more than an accident of birthright, and ordinary folk on either side of the Atlantic would be wise to remember the distinction rather than amass further credit card debt in a misguided belief that monetary investment in the ceremony somehow matters more than a focused attention to debt relief. Study after study has ranked the stress from accumulated credit card debt and similar unsecured bills as the number one cause of divorce and separation for citizens of both the United States and Great Britain, and, while economic uncertainty and health care costs and other issues may certainly have forced some accounts toward overdrive, it’s more or less undeniable that the average couple’s credit card debt relief predicament rises for no other reason than consumerist envy and poor budgetary decisions.
In a way, set against the ever spiraling spendthrift abandon of average citizens in either country (escalating tendencies seen at their absolute worst during wedding planning, unfortunately), the proportionate reserve of William and his bride seems nothing less than admirable. Following the recent British financial difficulties – hundreds of thousands of positions eliminated from the government payroll and nine figures worth of social spending cut from the budget to comply with the new Tory debt relief initiatives – the royal family insisted upon funding the entirety of all costs related to the ceremony themselves in direct contrast to the common custom of their forebears. Furthermore, the Prince’s proposal involved extending his late mother’s engagement ring valued at just fifty thousand dollars, which, while still more than most could afford, remains quite a bit less than the equivalent of three months’ salary, and the effects of the gesture should dispel any myths that romance need require significant expense.