Polling nearly 18,000 American couples who tied the knot in 2011, the Real Weddings Survey revealed that that couples spent a national average of $26,984 in 2010. Today, the average U.S. wedding in 2014 came in at a cool $31,213 — not including the honeymoon — according to wedding website TheKnot.com, which surveyed 16,000 of its users. However, a new trend in Asia may change the way Americans think about expensive weddings.
Kim Kwang-yoon and Cho Jin-oh were up until the wee hours of the morning the night before their wedding with bride’s mother setting tables. Their marriage venue was a small room they rented from the government in the basement of Seoul’s city hall for only $60.
Last year, the average costs of a wedding in South Korea was roughly $64,000, nearly double the amount of what the average wedding in the U.S. costs. However, more and more South Koreans are rebuffing extravagant wedding ceremonies for smaller, more intimate functions as the economy begins to slow. In addition, as the average age of marriage in South Korea rises, parents close to retirement have less money to contribute to their children’s nuptials.
Typically a show of status, South Korean weddings are notoriously lavish occasions with hundreds of guests and pricey gifts. The average cost of a wedding does not include housing, which is traditionally paid for by the parents.
The trend quickly began to gain momentum last year after a slew of inexpensive celebrity weddings. In fact, the inexpensive wedding trend has even made it’s way to China, where so-called “naked weddings” — no houses, no cars, no ceremony, and sometimes no rings — have become popular.
Huge, expensive weddings have prompted more young South Koreans to delay marriage, which in turn has also contributed to the country’s already low birth rate. With an aging population, South Korea has one of the lowest birth rate’s in the industrialized world.
