Recently, a Houston couple asked guests to pay $450 to attend their wedding. Not surprisingly, most declined the invitation. Easy fix? Have a cheaper wedding. Not an option in a world of influencers who believe they have a personal brand which must be enhanced and protected. Marketing 101: Excessive discounting will destroy your brand. Faced with a tab of $200,000, $450 per person was their preferred solution. It failed.
Can this marriage be saved? Will people “pay to play?” Maybe, if you have the chutzpah to ask and are willing to approach it like another strangely similar event: the excitement and spectacle of a heavyweight title fight. You need a wedding promoter not a wedding planner.
Both are one-time events, marriage statistics notwithstanding, that are usually held at a special venue often in an exotic locale. At a boxing match gambling is expected and encouraged. At a wedding, the gamble is the marriage. The participants have been preparing for weeks, physically training to get in the best possible shape and will probably never look this good again. While each fighter commands an entourage of supporters and hangers-on, the wedding couple has bridesmaids and groomsmen. Admittedly, a boxing match and a wedding differ in some aspects. A wedding has no referee so it’s much easier for things to get out of hand; there is a lot more crying and no one is asking for a rematch.
Similar to a boxing crowd, wedding attendees are a conglomeration of the familiar and unfamiliar. People we see all the time, people we never see, and people we don’t want to see. Everyone is blinged-out and dressed to impress. There’s a lot of uncertainty leading up to the main event. Getting through the bachelor and bachelorette parties without physical and emotional injury can be difficult. The rehearsal dinner, the matrimonial equivalent to the weigh-in, can be tense and unpredictable. Sparks can fly when family, in-laws and alcohol get together in close quarters. The all-important wedding toast needs someone who brings everything to a fever pitch, someone like boxing announcer Michael Buffer:
“Ladies and Gentleman, Let’s Get Ready To C O U P L E !”
Like a knockout in the first round, sometimes it does not live up to the hype and is over quickly. You’re out a lot of money, but that’s the risk you take.
If paying to attend a wedding catches on I would suggest amending the vows: …“till death do us part or at least until the check clears.”
M.A. Duca is a resident of Twin Lakes, narrowly focused on everyday life.
