What images come to mind about your parents’ or grandparents’ wedding? Maybe a short service after morning worship with “cake and punch,” then a drive out to Long Island, the Sierras, or the Florida Keys for a few days. Perhaps an afternoon affair in the local courthouse, with some siblings, cousins, or friends acting as witnesses.
When you picture their wedding, you’ll notice that you have to imagine much of it because there’s probably only one or two pictures of the day that are still around. Rather than a 500-picture album documenting every tiny detail, there’s probably one prominent picture of them at the altar or walking down the stairs outside the chapel.
Times change, and there’s little we can do to stop the tide of monumental forces that shift our expectations of what’s considered “normal,” especially in the specific cultural contexts in which we live. The ceremony and style of weddings are no exception. However, the generation currently seeking spouses and marrying is facing a paradigm shift of colossal proportions. The expectations frequently placed on a young couple have gone from “a little excessive” to downright crushing.
Why is this? What changed? And how can you be a force for sanity and grace?
Let’s examine a few contributing factors and some biblical principles that can bring peace and sanity to our modern wedding paradigm.
Connie’s Wedding
The beginning of the 1972 film, The Godfather, depicts the marriage celebration of Vito Corleone’s (“The Don”) daughter, Connie. The scene takes place shortly after the end of World War II, as Vito’s son, Michael, dons his US Army uniform for the occasion. What immediately stands out is that the wedding is over the top compared to the average ceremony in the 1950s. In addition to a huge crowd of family and friends, there’s an endless cascade of food, drink, and authentic Sicilian celebration. Complicating the day for Vito Corleone is the expectation that, in addition to paying for everything, he also must meet with other family members and community members who “need a service performed.”
Connie’s wedding may just be a cinematic portrayal of a typical Sicilian wedding, but it also represents the importation of new cultural norms into the US. The “Protestant thrift” that shaped much of the character of the US has progressively been cast aside in favor of lifestyles built on dramatically high personal debt. Could this change stem from mass immigration? There’s probably a connection. Does it stem from a national rejection of basic common sense, logic, and moral practice? Most definitely. Either way, in about 50 years, we’ve gone from Connie’s wedding being an American novelty to being the norm, regardless of affordability (minus “performing a service”).
Crushing Debt at the Start
Proverbs 22:7 tells us that “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.” It’s thus been standard in the Christian-influenced world to regard being in debt as generally undesirable. It’s no coincidence that many of the most popular and successful debt-freedom companies are explicitly Christian. Nevertheless, Christians in the US and across the world are largely living in a credit-based economy. Swimming upstream of the personal debt crisis is difficult, rare, and often requires significant cultural deprogramming. Going into deep debt for the cost of a wedding is a symptom of this larger problem.
In 2025, 67% of couples went into debt to pay for their wedding, with the average total cost coming out at $34,000, more than many pay for a down payment on a house. Each facet of the wedding comes with a laundry list of price tags, with photography alone often accounting for nearly $3,000 in wedding costs. A litany of small businesses centered on weddings capitalizes on squeezing every possible cent out of the bride, groom, and their parents.
Wedding costs vary regionally, with the Northeast being the most expensive for weddings in the US (an average of $40,000-$50,000). Rural parts of the country trend much less, but still, on average, are at least as expensive as a typical down payment on a house. With over two-thirds of Americans going into debt to pay for their wedding, it’s worth asking: Is this the best way?
Economic Realities
It’s well documented that young people setting out on a life together in 2026 are saddled with debt to a level largely unlike their forbearers. Student loans, credit card debt, rising cost-of-living due to inflation, and the rapid rise in housing prices have placed young people in an economic situation more similar to the Greatest Generation than the Baby Boomers or even Gen X. Many who have been or are planning to get married in the 2020s have had to come to terms with a significant adjustment in financial expectations for their future.
Additionally, engaged couples who want to model a more traditional, biblical model for their home fight a profoundly uphill battle. Currently, only 34% of US families get by without both parents working. Simply committing to an arrangement where a young wife can stay at home with her children presents significant challenges, often requiring relocation, changing jobs, or even moving in with relatives. These particular struggles require a change in approach to how a young couple should start their lives together.
What Couples Can Do
As already mentioned, young couples will need to adjust their financial expectations. Comparing themselves to previous generations’ wedding celebrations could cause frustration and resentment. We live in a different time with different challenges. Establishing a thriftier budget is paramount. However, this does not mean sacrificing beauty or meaning. A wonderful wedding can still be had at a lower cost.
One way to cut high costs is by tapping into the circles of family, friends, church, and community. Make a list of everyone you know who could perform a wedding-related task, especially if they’d be willing to do so as a volunteer or at a lower cost. Is your aunt an excellent baker? Ask her to bake the cake. Is there someone at church who streams the service each week? Ask them to be your videographer.
What you’ll find when you include those who are already in your circles is that what was always supposed to be a close-knit event will be just that. And having people you know and love put your wedding together will be far more meaningful than a list of strangers who have an impressive Instagram feed for their particular service.
Approaching the wedding this way will be counterintuitive, especially for the bride, who has usually been told her whole life that she deserves the “best-of-the-best” on her wedding day, and that it absolutely must be the “greatest day” of her life. But thinking of the wedding as a community event where family and friends are a part of the celebration will ultimately be more satisfying. Try your best not to fall into a self-ish “I-should-get-whatever-I-want” mentality, and remember, “in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.” (Proverbs 11:14).
What Churches Can Do
In the church, the young couple has access to an immediately available network of help for their wedding that the world typically does not. There are several specific ways churches can help. For one, church members can embrace weddings as a part of church life. Parishioners can pursue excellence in the various areas where they can contribute. If the engaged couple is part of the church, they should be able to use it without great cost.
Also, the church can help by pursuing aesthetic beauty. As building and decorating decisions are being made, it may help to take weddings (and similar events) into consideration: Is this a church that a young bride would want to be married in? In some situations, it may even be prudent to construct a small chapel on the church’s land for such occasions.
On a side note, the pastor can help the couple by requiring pre-marital counseling and helping the couple hash out their wedding expectations. He might even want to go over their wedding budget with the assumption that the couple is getting very little guidance on what a reasonable wedding cost is in the 2020s. He can provide spiritual and practical wisdom throughout the process.
What Parents Can Do
Much of the pressure to have a precise quality of wedding often comes from parents (as well as other family members). Often, these expectations are built up over decades of going to weddings that fit the same mold. This is one of the reasons why so many weddings feel carbon-copy – the same order, the same food, the same redundant songs played by the same DJ.
Parents, if you can financially contribute to your child’s wedding, take the times in which they live into consideration. Encouraging – or even contributing – tens of thousands of dollars to a one-day event and then leaving your children to deal with the financial aftermath could wind up turning a blessing into a curse. Again, over two-thirds of couples go into debt over their wedding, even with parental help, because of how expensive every facet of the wedding is.
With the current economic situation in mind, it may be prudent to consider assisting the engaged couple with purchasing a house, paying a rental deposit, or even paying for the honeymoon (which lasts a lot longer than the wedding day). Remember the words of Ephesians 6, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
If you start early, you can help craft your children’s wedding expectations, teaching them to pursue beauty, meaning, and wisdom in planning their day.
A Joyful, Beautiful, Attainable Day
A wedding is one of life’s greatest celebrations, but increasingly, they’re becoming rarer. Those currently at marriageable age are marrying at a rate nearly half that of their grandparents. Churches, parents, communities, and young people can swim against this tide by making weddings less complicated and financially burdensome.
Let’s make weddings joyful, beautiful, and attainable.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
