http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480&u...
The only thing that was contradictory was the parts about the wedding. How can you not spend 20k or more when there are 200 or more guests?
Of course this pattern is probably well-correlated with the "goes to church regularly" set and may indicate a level of serious commitment to marriage as "'til death do us part", to say nothing of other demographic differentiation.
I'm peripherally involved in the wedding industry, as I play in wedding bands. Granted, I only see the weddings where the couple hires live music (not necessarily expensive). But I get to observe some things about the couple, their guests, and how much they spend. All of this is just my biased anecdotal guess:
You don't have 200 friends, so if you've got 200 guests, probably 180 of them are someone else's friends -- distant relatives, business associates of your parents, church members. Perhaps simply being part of a larger network of supportive people helps stabilize your marriage. Especially if you didn't invite them to impress them with your lavish expenditure.
It's just my impression, but it seems like the folks who spent 20k, were the ones who were sold a big package, perhaps because they are young and un-confident about their social stature. They're probably spending someone else's money. I have rarely if ever seen anybody spend that much if they're older than 30 or even 25.
So it's quite possible that the same marriage will destabilize itself when the partners develop their own independent identities, i.e., "change" to the point where they're no longer compatible. Folks who are more comfortable with their own identity may also be comfortable saying "no" to the dozen or more people who are trying to fleece them as they navigate the wedding industry.
The short answer is: don't do the expensive things people normally do at their weddings.
It's not required to have a meal at a wedding; some American subcultures expect cake and punch only. It's not required to spend thousands on a single-use dress; my grandma still brags about getting her dress on clearance and being able to wear it for multiple occasions. It's not required to have thousands of dollars of flowers; at my wedding, my mother-in-law and her friends grew flowers in their gardens for us, and my sister's wedding (one week from today) will use the church's silk flowers. You can actually have a wedding with 200+ guests and still come in under $1000 if that happens to align with your priorities.
Venue: grandparent's backyard. Had that not been available a local church's community center would have worked (usually free or "free" with a donation of like $500).
Food: simple catered food. The wedding had a picnic theme (summer wedding) so we went w/ sliders and other finger foods. $8/head
Chairs and tables: Rented, but set up ourselves.
Photographer: Flew in someone from out of state. Much cheaper than a local LA photographer.
Dance Floor: Rented ($800) DJ: iPod with a playlist
Decorations: made our own decorations, borrowed strands of lights, etc.
It was a great wedding, wasn't terribly expensive and had a lot of guests.
The short version is we planned our wedding with a mindset of "we want as many of the people we care about to be able to share this day with us as possible, and since we have a limited budget we're only going to spend it on things that make a positive difference in the day".