I am normally the first to admit that I would rather not adopt most of the “trends” touted by the New York Times “Sunday Styles” section. I was disdainful of its piece about people who have apparently abandoned regular showers, and was frankly horrified by the purported “fashion” of women wearing potentially harmful contact lenses in order to make their eyes look rounder and more doll-like. However, this past week the section included an article about a trend that immediately resonated with me: people choosing to have smaller, less expensive, less ostentatious weddings than in years past. The article included a number of reasons for the rise of downscaled weddings, including the recession and spreading frustration with the excess of the wedding industry.
My first thought upon reading the article? This is one trend the Orthodox community should think about adopting this fall.
Orthodox weddings, like weddings across the country, have long since passed the point of excess and have approached the realm of absurdity. Orthodox weddings can often carry a price tag of $30-40,000, with weddings in the $80,000 not unheard of.
What does all this money pay for? The extravagant cocktail hour, replete with ten types of food, carving stations, and sushi that have become de rigueur, wedding dresses that can cost as much as the down payment on a small apartment, and, of course, meals for three or four hundred of the couple’s closest friends and relatives. While all these elements admittedly combine to create lovely parties, it seems reasonable to ask whether such excess is really necessary in an event that, no matter its importance, usually consists of no more than the first five hours of the new couple’s life together.
This, perhaps, is the most important fact to remember in a discussion of limiting spending on weddings. Weddings are, at their core, a celebration of the new couple’s love and commitment to one another. They are a way for the Jewish community to welcome the couple into its midst, to acknowledge them as a new family, and to establish their place in the history and future of our people. None of these, to the best of my knowledge, requires twelve bridesmaids or a carving station. As far as I’m concerned, a choice of three entrees cannot possibly add to the happiness of the occasion.
The excess that has become standard in Orthodox weddings is not only unnecessary, it is also dangerous. Everyone has heard the horror stories: the family that removed one child from a private university in order to finance another’s wedding; the young couple forced to choose between a down payment on a house and an appropriately lavish wedding, the parents who took out a second mortgage on their house to pay for the four hundred people they needed to invite. Even for families for whom the pressure to finance a socially acceptable wedding does not reach horrific proportions, the burden is still staggering. Unfortunately, families are held hostage by communal expectations. People seem incapable of resisting the pressure to empty their bank accounts for what essentially amounts to a (very important and admittedly meaningful) party. Whether out of anxiety that they will somehow miss out by avoiding the “extras” that other weddings have or fear of social censure, families seem unable to say the one word that our community so desperately needs to hear: Enough.
Engaged couples of Yeshiva University: consider this an opportunity. Make the first decision of your new life one that establishes what your values are, one that acknowledges what is really most important to you on the most important day of your lives. Choose a slightly more modest wedding, and in doing so help remove pressure for countless other couples who are struggling to make a decision about how to finance their weddings. Remember that a few days after your wedding no one will remember exactly how many dishes were served at the cocktail hour, how big your dress was, or anything about the shininess of the chandelier. What people will remember is the joy of the dancing, the simple beauty of the chuppah, and how wonderful it was to celebrate your marriage. In other words: the only things that ever should have really mattered to begin with.