Money & Matrimony

According to Bride Magazine, the average total wedding cost in 2010 was $19,000. An amount viewed as reasonable or outrageous depending on a couples resources, and who is actually paying the bill. Special occasions can and should call for reasonable expenditures consistent with means. That said ... getting hitched can be an expensive proposition in more ways than one.

Assume a couple pares their wedding expenditures by a modest ten percent. Then redirect the savings toward long term investment where it could morph to a sum many times greater than the initial expense. The point is not about being pecuniary, but rather to illustrate how minor adjustments can render major outcomes. For in a real sense the true expense of the union, sans a bit of discretion, could run to six figures ... taking into account potential lost opportunity costs.

                                                           Roger L. Caron