I was having a drink with a friend—an executive in my former company—who makes a lot of money. He was complaining about the fact that his daughter’s wedding was going to cost him around $50,000. I almost fell off my chair. And with my usual tact asked; “What-the-hell-are-you-thinking?” “What do you mean? What am I supposed to do? Nickel and dime her? Put her on a tight budget?” “Nope” I answered, “you’re not supposed to pay for it at all.” The look on his face spoke volumes—confused, surprised, disbelieving. “You mean to tell me that you’re not going to pay for your daughter’s weddings? I don’t believe you.” “You should” I said. “Because since my kids were old enough to walk I’ve told them—all of them—boy and girls—that we would not be paying for their weddings.” Sounds harsh I know—but it isn’t. We believe it is smart, wise and even morally superior to NOT partake in this particular form of crazy American consumer excess. And a few years later, when my oldest daughter got married, we didn’t (so to speak) put our money where our mouth is.. we didn’t pay for it. Yes, even though I was at the time a highly paid CEO of a small-medium sized company, I didn’t pay for her wedding. And I don’t think that makes me a bad person or a lousy father, I think It makes me a slightly better person, and a much better father.

To understand my admittedly minority point of view, it is important to understand where the tradition of the bride’s father (or family) paying for the wedding originates. It started with the very old and patriarchal concept of the DOWRY.  This tradition originates from the very dated patriarchal idea that daughters are useless burdens and possessions and fathers have to pay another person to take those burdens off of their hands. Think about that for a minute. When you pay for your daughter’s wedding you are partaking in an ancient patriarchal rite that symbolizes passing the ownership of your daughter to another man. You don’t have to be a progressive feminist to understand how completely bonkers that idea is.  If you love your kids and you respect them as people, that seems like reason enough to opt out right there. And to tell your kids why you are opting out so they can thank you politely and often for your compassion and love.

Secondly, the custom evolved in American culture to give young people who who were just starting adulthood a head start and an occasion to mark their separation from their families of origin. That made some sense when the average age of first marriage in the USA was 19 as it was just 50 or so years go. These weddings were generally small, family affairs handled either in the local church, synagogue or courthouse with a dozen or so people involved. The new couple’s uniting was then celebrated with music, food, and whatever cultural rituals their backgrounds suggested. It wasn’t expensive. It wasn’t lux. It didn’t involve mortgaging your home to pay for it. It made sense for a young couple with few possessions to have the families pool their scant resources to send them off into adulthood with a family ceremony and celebration symbolizing their new independence and some pragmatic gifts to enable them to set up their own household. That may still make sense in some cases—but that cultural milieu barely exists today. In America the average age of first marriage has crept ever closer to 30 years old–currently 29 for men and 27 for women. In other words,  what is happening is that many relatively affluent late twenties and early thirties adults are asking and expecting their parents (who are contemplating their own retirements and probably just recovering from helping said children with exorbitantly expensive college bills) to pay for a party for them and their friends. Usually a ridiculously expensive party.

The sheer expense is the third reason not to pay for your kid’s wedding. Modern day, American weddings are a serious waste of money. The average cost of today’s wedding is nearly $20,000. Strip this idea down a bit. Take away the emotional and cultural baggage associated with the word ‘wedding’ and honestly examine what is happening. You are paying $15,000- $30,000 or more to throw a party for two grown adults and their friends, family and acquaintances. How many $20,000 parties have you thrown in your life? And how many $20,000 parties have you thrown in which you don’t know half of the invitees? Bonkers. Stupid. And (to my mind) vaguely immoral.

Which brings us to the final reason giving in to this silly idea is actually morally iffy. The wedding industry in the US alone is over $50 billion per year. We live in a world where residents of a major city in my home state of Michigan don’t have safe drinking water and as a culture we’re spending over $50 billion on parties for people who are just as likely as not to divorce and then get married all over again. Something is seriously wrong with that priority set. But let’s posit that you and I don’t care about the water in Flint, or starving kids in the Sudan or any other more socially useful ways to spend our money. Let’s posit that our give-a-shit starts and ends with our own families and that we have been saving for this moment and have an extra $20,000 laying around. Even then does it make sense to spend that $20,000 on a one-day event in our kid’s lives? Or could you and I help our children more by paying down their student loans, helping them with graduate school, or a down payment on a house? Or frankly, keeping the $$ in our 401(k) accounts and retiring a bit earlier or with less financial stress and worrying that our kids will end up having to take care of us.

I know you love your daughter dearly and that she has been thinking about this day her whole life. And that the expectations of the consumer based culture have been conning you and her and everybody else into thinking that this is her special day and that only a bad parent who doesn’t love their children will refuse to give her that special day. But don’t—because you will do far more for your kids by reminding them that weddings don’t really matter in the long term. The success of marriage and long-term commitments to the people we love and want to share our lives with are what really matter. The success of those relationships has nothing to do with that overwrought one-day moment. Success in those partnerships are about things like forgiveness, honesty, trust, love, and the opening of our hearts and souls to our partners in life. And those things cannot be bought. Those qualities must be both earned and given freely. (But that is the subject for another set of posts at another time.)

If your daughter or son wants to celebrate their wedding day with an $20,000 party they are perfectly free to do so. If they consider that a viable and useful way to spend $20,000 that is entirely up to them. What they are not perfectly free to do is to expect you and yours to pay for it. Don’t be silly. Point your kids to the stuff that matters-that makes a difference in their lives for all of their lives.

*Full disclosure: For my oldest daughter’s wedding we did pay for the wine at the reception. Honestly, that was selfish, I wanted to pick what we would be drinking…