Weddingbee Blog

Have a look-see at an interesting post from an SFGate blog: City Brights, by Kit Yarrow. She culled this info from a range of sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, The Knot, The Association for Wedding Professionals, the Bride’s Millennium Report, the National Center for Health Statistics, and BridePop. It got me wondering: where do we fit in among these national averages, now that almost everything has been said and done? And, huzzah: We also have a nationwide audience of brides that can weigh in, too!

I love this kind of stuff, by the way. If I had an app for my phone tracking how many times I’ve ever sneezed, how many miles I walked in a year, or how many drinks I consumed in the last month, for example, I would be a really happy camper.

Source: BrideTide

• Thirty years ago, the average age of a bride was 22.5. Today, it’s 26.
  
  There are a number of under-25 brides in the hive, so you gals are apparently bucking the average. Regional, cultural, or familial factors surely affect this stat, so where do you fit in? I’ll be two months away from 29 on our wedding day. I knew I wanted to finish college (which I did in 2003) and settle into a career (which started in 2003) before marriage (which starts in August 2010, eee!), but my main reason was, simply, that it didn’t work out with anyone until now.
• “Don’t bring your gift to the wedding or reception.” Is the gift table officially a thing of the past, then? It makes perfect sense to me (and to whoever is tasked with carting gifts out of our reception, mwahaha), especially since we only registered for our honeymoon. But it seems like some are still compelled to bring something tangible to a wedding: maybe because it feels more like a gift that way?
• “San Francisco weddings are the most expensive in the country, coming close to an average of $45,000. That’s nearly three times more than Philadelphia and twice as much as Chicago.” We didn’t/won’t spend this much. But we also spent more than Philly and Chicago, if that narrows it down.
• “The largest weddings, averaging over 200 guests, are in Nebraska and Iowa.” Is this because there is more space for a large wedding and more desire to invite more people, including everyone’s kids and super-extended family? Or is it neither of those and something else?
• July recently topped June as the most popular month of the year to get married. I don’t live in a place with those “seasons” I hear so much about, so wind-chilled June never struck me as a great month for a local wedding. We originally wanted to get married in September or October during San Francisco’s Indian Summer, but our choice venue only does weddings in July and August. What informed your wedding-month choice?
• “Destination weddings now account for nearly 20% of all weddings.” We are locals in a popular vacation spot, so it’s more of a destination for our guests only. My figuring shows that ~43 percent of our invited guests would need to get on a plane (this counts people in Southern California, who could somewhat easily drive, too).
  
• The average couple invites more than 150 guests. We invited 190 seated persons; not counting babies that get high chairs or baby bjorns instead of seats. Though we both have massive extended families, less than half, ~45 percent of our invited guests, fit into this category. Color me surprised, as I thought it was higher.
• “Last year, the typical wedding was financed 45% by the bride’s parents, 40% by the couple, and 15% by the groom’s parents.” Barring any unforeseen asplosions, we’re looking at: ~4 percent from FIL and MIL Taco, a collective ~5 percent on the Tacos’ credit cards, and good ol’ Taco cash making up the remainder. But don’t be fooled: we took on a lot of freelance work and pinched every penny for more than a year to make it happen. Our résumés are at least looking spiffy! These estimates don’t include a bunch of initial honeymoon spending (flights, trains, etc.) or my engagement ring.

How does your wedding shape up in this regard? Does it matter?