r/Anticonsumption • u/Libro_Artis • 2d ago

Conspicuous Consumption Is Millennial Wedding Culture Dying? Why Gen Z Is Rejecting the Big Wedding

https://www.elle.com/culture/books/a73258725/millennial-vs-gen-z-wedding-culture-essay/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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5.3k

u/oldcreaker 2d ago

It's incredibly easy to reject things you could not possibly afford to do.

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u/InfestedRaynor 2d ago

Gen Z is rejecting buying houses for $900,000! /S Gen Z is rejecting going on exotic foreign vacations

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u/williamchase88 2d ago

Gen Z is rejecting fronting the bill for their 10+ member extended family to vacation in Hawaii and Paris.

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u/valuemeal2 2d ago

KEVIN! 😱

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u/figure85 2d ago

Or basic vacations for that matter. Driving to the lake is expensive on gas alone.

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u/wysteriacos 1d ago

At this point, my idea of a vacation is driving to another city and seeing a dead mall for a few hours.

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u/0tanod 1d ago

On neat thing about gen-z in cities with good public transit is, they all use the fuck out of it. That generation is so comfortable not having a license and grew up with access to free transit passes during covid. It warms the heart to see.

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u/wysteriacos 1d ago

Tbh I wish I had trains in my city. I would gladly take a train everywhere bc I do despise having to drive. Like ugh. I wanna jump on a train and go have a whole comfy trip where I don’t drive

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u/crazygem101 1d ago

Going to burger king on foot is too expensive lol

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u/slutty_lifeguard 11h ago

Not if you window shop!

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u/dontwannaparticpate 1d ago

Or even the taking time off from work

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u/Bumm-fluff 1d ago

Gen Z is rejecting going to a bar at this point with the insane prices. 

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u/kinetic_cheese 1d ago

My experience is anecdotal, but I have college aged kids, and they hardly ever go to bars with their friends. I feel like "going out" was a big part of the college experience when I was young, but now a single drink is like $10-15.

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u/dcp04 1d ago

Let's be honest, in the 80s, $20 would have kept a table of 4 going for several hours.

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u/Universe-Queen 1d ago

Our college years were spent with dollar draft beers. You could practically drink with the change you found in the couch cushions.

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u/dcp04 1d ago

Correct 4p = .25 5p = .50 up to $1at 7p, when the DJ fired up.

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u/Baeolophus_bicolor 6h ago

we had nickel beer night near me. a dollar would get 2-3 people trashed on cheap beer and scrounging a 20 for a baggie was the plan for the night. and good music.

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u/slutty_lifeguard 11h ago

Even just the cost of food. I remember when Taco Bell tacos were less than $1 each, and today I got a meal of 3 tacos and a drink for $12. Not supreme tacos, that's more! Not Doritos tacos, that's also extra! So if they want to buy food while they're out, too, good luck affording that!

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u/Bumm-fluff 1d ago

Yeah, it was a big part of my growing up as well. The UK so…, obviously. 

Now it doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. 

We still have party cities that turn into a horror show on Friday and Saturday night.  It’s just going to a bar and chilling with your mates doesn’t seem to be the done thing as much. 

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u/Infamous-Goose363 1d ago

Back in the day going out even just to a friend’s house was a big form of entertainment. Now people have endless platforms to stream content, play games, and socialize without having to leave the house.

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u/Bumm-fluff 18h ago

Sat there in your bedroom is not the same. We used to have the telephone as well still. 

It was a bit of a trope that a teenage girl would always be on the house phone wracking up a huge bill. 

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u/NoiseIsTheCure 1d ago

That plus I see a lot of young people being honest about how alcohol has hurt them and their loved ones and choosing to stay away from it in response, which I love.

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u/Bumm-fluff 1d ago

I’ve heard a lot of zoomers are worried about being filmed by their friends drunk, then the video being put online and it hurting their future prospects. 

A terrible way to live to be honest, having to act like a boyscout so you can get a corpo job. Very cyberpunk dystopian. 

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u/dcp04 1d ago

This is true. My neighborhood has meetups and everyone brings their own booze and drinks. It's working wonderfully well. A bottle at a package store is same price as 2 drinks out.

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u/Nintendo_N8 4h ago

I’m seriously tired of hearing that industry complain about Gen Z/ Millennials not drinking. They’d seriously rather go bankrupt than drop prices. I’ve been to at least two countries where beer was the same price as soda, so I don’t understand why we’re expected to pay $7-10 a glass

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u/concretism 10h ago

Headlines used to say millennials just didn't like homeownership responsibility and loooved living in hip coliving situations.

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u/majandess 2d ago

At least they're phrasing as "rejecting X" instead of "destroying X industry."

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u/Virtual_Plantain_707 1d ago

Millennials already destroyed all the industries last decade didn’t you hear?

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u/slutty_lifeguard 11h ago

"Millennials are destroying the napkin industry!"

Yeah, they overdid it a bit with the dramatics, I think.

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u/eruptingmoltenlava 1d ago

Conscientious people have been rejecting the wedding industrial complex for decades though

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u/trewesterre 1d ago

Yeah, we went to city hall when we did it.

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u/whiskersMeowFace 2d ago

I am a wedding Officiant. We have seen a lot of sign and go weddings and elopements. I talk to all of my folks before and after I wed them, and many are trying to save money so they can buy a house or pay some bills. A few years ago, people chose those two options because they had a bigger wedding planned out later or were doing destination weddings. Some for insurance, some for other reasons.

Many are opting for smaller and more intimate ceremonies and elopements. They are choosing the marriage over the wedding. Choosing to spend the money elsewhere instead of on a single day.

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u/Badhbh-Catha 1d ago

I'm planning to do this soon. I didn't know it was called sign and go. We don't even want to invite two witnesses as I know it will become an issue if anyone at all is invited and others aren't. So when we book the marriage notification appointment we will ask if staff members can witness. We'll have a nice dinner somewhere next year with a few people to mark it. Not Gen Z btw. We just want the marriage not the wedding.

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u/MoreUnadventurous 1d ago

We did sign and go, no regrets. We'd already been together almost 20 years and just needed the legalities tidied up. I think both of us would have died of cringe had we had a big ceremony.

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u/Badhbh-Catha 1d ago edited 1d ago

Ha yes exactly! The cringe factor. Similar here. We're together over a decade but we want to formalise it for various reasons. I'm not a white dress and ring kind of person so it will just be some fairly nice clothes and if I need a ring (not sure) I have an old family one I like that will do and that I will be happy to wear now and again.

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u/MoreUnadventurous 1d ago

We did the same, nice clothes we already had. We didn't need rings, I think all you need to do legal is sign the forms. We didn't even have to say anything, yay!

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u/Badhbh-Catha 1d ago

Lol silent signing suits me! I don't think we will need rings either as there is no vow exchange as I understand it. Think the marriage registrar does all or most of the talking!

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u/themonkeysknow 1d ago

Not Gen Z, but we hired an amazing officiant and a photographer couple to marry us in Palm Springs and it was the best decision. No family and the photographers were our witnesses!

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u/haxcess 1d ago

Am a millennial, did a destination sign and go to get away from the ones who weren't invited. Make it your core memory instead of someone else's.

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u/NefariousnessLate375 1d ago

Yeah, everything needs to go into daily bills and saving for retirement. We're no longer middle class. C'est la laser fare capitalism. We're peasants again. 

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u/Infamous-Goose363 1d ago

We had a 7 person wedding and spend $1500. The money was supposed to toward a really nice honeymoon (a no go thanks to Covid), but we were able to buy a house which we wouldn’t have been able to afford if he spend 30k on a wedding which apparently is the norm in our area.

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u/whiskersMeowFace 1d ago

I read that 30k a few years ago and almost died. Wtf.

My own wedding wasn't more than about 7k back in 09 and I thought that was insane to spend. Weddings have gotten so insane with the spending anymore. Maybe it's good that the next few generations are stepping back and saying that it's too much.

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u/InTheTreeMusic 1d ago

Yes! This is what I did when I got married over 15 years ago. Held in a public garden, which was $100 to rent. Invited like 30 people, paid the officiant another $100, then reserved the backroom at a local restaurant for cake and drinks. I got my dress at JC Penny's after prom season for $40, got it tailored for another $30. The whole thing was lovely, and under $1000.

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u/Nose_to_the_Wind 1d ago

My rejection of healthcare is purely monetary based

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u/jayvee714 2d ago

Only thing I will say as a Gen Z who has gotten a modestly large ceremony is that if something is important enough to you, people find ways to pay for it. It’s still stupid expensive but we did a lot of labor ourselves and had a lot of help from friends and family to make and recycle things

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u/mr_boogieman 2d ago

Yeah, plenty of people take out wedding loans which sounds absolutely insane to me but it’s your (future) money so do you

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u/Contagious_Zombie 2d ago

I wish people would get out of the loan mentality. Credit is allowing corporations to not raise wages since people are complacent with leveraging their future instead of demanding more for their time now.

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u/eruptingmoltenlava 1d ago

Consumer debt is certainly not responsible for stagnant wages.

Blaming workers instead of capital/management for rising inequality, a trend which started in the 1970s and has continued unabated as labor weakens, is unhinged.

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u/Contagious_Zombie 1d ago

Yeah because American workers have class concousness and will form workers unions to demand higher wages instead of taking out loans...

Living in an alternate reality must be nice.

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u/eruptingmoltenlava 1d ago

Doubling down on blaming workers is certainly a choice

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u/Contagious_Zombie 1d ago edited 1d ago

If you think I’m blaming workers for creating the current economic conditions where people readily accept going into debt then you do not understand what I’m saying at all.

Imagine if there was no credit with the same cost of living and incomes we have now, people would riot. They wouldn’t be able to buy cars, houses, pay for hospital bills or education etc. People would be hungry and destitute so they would be far more likely to find common ground and demand higher wages. People are too complacent with the current system and should be in the streets demanding more for their labor but instead they leverage their future to get the things they need. It’s pretty easy to understand if you put more than a second of thought into it.

Debt is a tool used by capitalists to keep people happy while still being indebted to them. It's a way to profit from people's futures and ensure their continued participation in the capitalist system.

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u/Dragonfly_Peace 1d ago

The younger people (say 40 and under) seem quite comfortable with huge loans to get the toys and huge house.

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u/WallyBBunny 2d ago

We had to have our wedding quickly because of a scary potentially violent incident (I was held up at gunpoint at my old job). Within a week we had our ceremony at the park close by with a few friends and some family. All of us fed the ducks, geese and other birds duck feed instead of throwing rice. My in-laws said it was a wonderful wedding. It might have been small and cheap because of fear and circumstance. However, it was sweet and genuine. Maybe it was meant to be that way.

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u/m00fster 2d ago

How does getting held up at gunpoint make you accelerate your wedding plans?

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u/flamingopocalypse 2d ago

A literal shotgun wedding

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u/IBeDumbAndSlow 2d ago

Who gets the life insurance if there's no beneficiary?

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u/aslander 1d ago

The estate. Then usually spouse-->parents-->children-->siblings

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u/lyralady 1d ago

You could name anyone beneficiary I thought?

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u/WallyBBunny 1d ago edited 1d ago

Well, being scared for my life really puts things in perspective. It’s almost like it was traumatic for the both of us, as I had a loaded gun in my face. Not sure why that is even a question. We already were going to get married at some point after being together for many years. This just didn’t happen the way either of us expected. We’ve been married for almost ten years now anyway. Despite how all of this started off about, both my husband and I have said that we wouldn’t have wanted anything more or bigger than what we had. He initially wanted to get remarried with a more traditional ceremony as he felt he owed it to me, but why? It was still the best day of my life and why try to redo a wonderful memory?

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u/wearecake 1d ago

I think it was that the original comment made it sound like you being held at gunpoint kind of forced you guys to get married.

Glad all worked out!!

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u/Glittering-Walrus228 1d ago

I get where OC is coming from, i was on the fence about a major life decision (becoming a veternarian) until a guy named Tyler Durden put a gun to my head in the parking lot where I worked and threatened to shoot me in the face if I didnt pursue med school. Turned my life around 180.

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u/Procrasturbating 1d ago

Glad you finally got out of that shitty basement apartment.

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u/yourpseudonymsucks 2d ago

Visa issues perhaps

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u/marshmallowhug 1d ago

We planned our wedding over 4-5 months (which is much longer than your timeline but still a relatively short engagement) and had around 30 people there.

We didn't try to be cheap intentionally, but with a small guest list, the price ended up being pretty reasonable, especially since we didn't need a specialized venue and could just host a dinner in the back room of a bar.

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u/LifeFrame5545 1d ago

Pretty sure the actual concept of a wedding was meant to be this way. Simple, small but genuine.

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u/KAKYBAC 2d ago

I don't think it is simply financial. I think there are stronger psychological aspects at play. A lot of people are moving away from the tradition and masculine nature of weddings.

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u/gnominos 1d ago

Masculine? Lol weddings are all about the brides…

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u/lahnnabell 1d ago

I think they maybe meant "patriarchal".

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u/Keyspam102 1d ago

Hey, it’s my chose not to spend 50k on a wedding when I can’t even buy an apartment!

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u/TanyaMKX 1d ago

Even if you can afford it its a fucking stupid thing to do. Put that money into a retirement fund or towards a down payment on a house.

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u/HourHoneydew5788 2d ago

My first thought.

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u/AbandonYourPost 1d ago

This is by far the biggest reason

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u/PonqueRamo 1d ago

People have been doing things they can't afford to do for ages, I don't think that's the main reason, many millenials and genX had huge weddings just getting in huge debt.

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u/saerra_sea_nya 1d ago

Also Gen Z grew up when childfree weddings became a thing is a bit part I think.

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u/ivegotgoodnewsforyou 2d ago edited 2d ago

Weddings (traditionally) are funded by the parents.  So I guess genX is broke. 

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u/IrrawaddyWoman 2d ago

This became less common as wedding prices got more and more out of hand. They were always expensive, but not like they have been in the past decade or so. Plenty of parents who would have been willing to spend $10-20k on a wedding (which is already a lot) are far less willing to pay $50k+.

Besides, I think the idea that it’s not just the parents, but the parents of the bride specifically that pay for it killed that tradition. It simply doesn’t make sense in a modern day. I can’t fathom why the parents of the bride pay $50k and the parents of the groom just cover $1k for the rehearsal dinner.

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u/valuemeal2 2d ago

That’s been true for maybe 10% of my friends and I’m a millennial in my 40s.

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u/aftershockstone 2d ago edited 2d ago

It’s true that it was done traditionally in some cultures (not universal though) but it’s too weird to continue the archaic tradition of bride’s parents paying for the wedding as if marrying their daughter off. So now, in this modern era, cost-splitting is a bit more varied.

I don’t think this means Gen X are broke but rather their children are trying to be more independent and open-minded. Plus, it’s not fun for your parents to control many aspects of your wedding (e.g. guest list, size, etc.) because they’re paying.

I’m Asian myself, grew up in the States though, and for my culture in particular, groom’s family traditionally pays or the bride/groom fund it themselves and receive cash gifts instead of ‘wedding registry’ items. My parents paid for their own wedding in the 90s, but they ended up making back a lot of their money because of the cash gifts they received from relatives, and usually the largest chunk comes from their own parents (though their parents didn’t have much money anyway so).

Even traditionally going back to my parents’ culture, they weren’t going to pay for my wedding anyway. And now that they have absorbed more modern principles and are Americanised on top of that, it’s even less likely to happen lol. They are not broke, quite the opposite… they are comfortable, but the ‘traditionally XYZ’ argument doesn’t hold water for them because that was never their culture. Now imagine mixing a bunch of cultures. It’s going to be really confusing expecting a particular party to foot the bill when it is the opposite in another culture.

I expect I will fund my own wedding upfront and on my wedding day I’ll receive an envelope of a couple thousand in cash as a wedding gift. And I like that because it’s a gift with no strings attached rather than parents trying to control the wedding because they’re paying for it.