Copyright Charleston Post and Courier
Weddings are a big business in America. Weddings are a big business in Charleston. For some, brides particularly, a wedding is the most important day of their life. It’s also one of the most expensive. Explore Charleston’s website has an extensive section on weddings. “Say ‘I do’ in one of the most celebrated destinations in the world,” it beckons. The site has listings of wedding planners, venues, vendors and accommodations, along with a tab to click on to request a copy of the Official Area Wedding Guide. “A centuries-old church sanctuary, an avenue of ancient oaks, a storied ballroom or social hall, a sand dune at sunset … where do you want your special day to take place?” Not to be outdone by Explore Charleston, Charleston Magazine has a publication — Charleston Weddings — published quarterly, with accompanying web pages. Unfortunately, a body of research indicates that there is an inverse relationship between the cost of a wedding and the length of the marriage. The more you spend on your wedding, the less time you seem to have to amortize those costs together. It’s understandable. When getting married becomes such a grand undertaking, being married can be a letdown. Compared to a grand venue, a top-flight caterer, a stunning wedding dress, an array of beautiful bridesmaid dresses and a good wedding band, everyday marriage can be a disappointment. I know one bride who sent out her save-the-date wedding mailing 18 months ahead of time. We thought it was a typo. No, she said, so many of her friends were getting married in the coming year that she wanted to schedule her wedding for the year after. Her wedding — the wedding event — was that important to her. The website for Charleston Weddings lists about 140 vendors and 45 wedding venues, including plantations, hotels, clubs, marinas, an auditorium and a theater. In addition, downtown Charleston has a renovated parsonage of a 19th-century church only 50 yards from my house; the parsonage is used now exclusively as an event space. The parson lives somewhere off-site. It's managed by Explore Charleston, operating under the gentle name of Lowcountry Park Venues. It notably does not appear on charlestonweddingsmag.com, but does appear on lowcountryparkvenues.com, linked to Explore Charleston’s website. Most events there with electronic amplification take place in the evenings Thursday through Sunday. Most of the amplification — the bands, the DJs, the recorded play lists, the classic wedding announcer (“Put your hands together for (the bride)!") — shuts down by 9 p.m., our normal bedtime. We live with it. Explore Charleston through Lowcountry Park Venues books multiple weddings a week at the parsonage. There were eight on the books this month, and seven for November, or about two a week. The fee for the parsonage is $3,500 on Thursdays and $5,500 on Saturdays. Do Saturday weddings have higher divorce rates? I don’t know. I do know that Thursday weddings there tend to use playlists, not live bands. They're not necessarily quieter, since most wedding guests know the songs and sing along with gusto. Last week, we often heard: “Tonight’s gonna be a good night. … Tonight’s gonna be a good, good night.” Most academic research on wedding costs and divorce rates includes data that is really quite quaint. A survey of 3,000 ever-married people in the United States — conducted by two members of the Emory University Department of Economics and published in 2015 — found that couples spending more than $20,000 on their wedding were six times more likely to get divorced than those spending less than $1,000. Even adjusting for inflation, who spends only $1,000? And, secondly, who limits their budget at $20,000? Not long ago, a prominent Charleston-based wedding planner told a table of locals at the Marion Square Farmers Market that she accepts no weddings with a budget less than $500,000. Her business is an international one, not primarily Charleston venues. Still, $500,000? Charleston does, in fact, host some premium weddings, which raises the question: Given the link between high wedding costs and divorce rates, is there a Charleston market — a secondary market, so to speak — for high-budget second weddings? Would second weddings in Charleston be for people who held their first weddings elsewhere? For my part, I was inclined to go low-key after my first wedding. But then, I am not Jeff Bezos. Sue is not Lauren Sanchez. And Charleston is not Venice. At least not yet. Roy Owen is a retired management consultant and a longtime Charleston resident. He can be reached at royowen@earthlink.net.
