How Weddings Exploit your Love & Wallet - The Wedding Industrial Complex (ft. HeyItsVadim) | Salari

[Music] in february 2016 i moved to the united states of america to get married to my then fiance we'd been dating long distance a few years prior and visited each other's home countries a handful of times we knew it was the real deal and wanted to be in it for the long run it took over a year before my k1 fiance visa application was approved which was both time consuming and expensive and one caveat to that that people may not know is that you need to get married within 90 days of entering the country so the time to plan a wedding was limited my wife and her parents were keen on having a proper wedding with a ceremony reception and all the other stuff on the other hand as much as i was on board with getting married i would have preferred the occasion to be as low-key as possible but i didn't protest although the process was short planning the wedding was still stressful for the both of us and the fact that i left my home country seemingly moments ago added to the mental toll of the situation but despite the severe bouts of anxiety and waking up with jaw pains every morning thanks to the tension i soldiered on my fiance and her parents planned much of the event while i was still in the uk scouting venues finding a dress getting a photographer and so forth thankfully we didn't go over the top as weddings go we got a smaller venue with around 30 guests including my parents nephew and my closest friend as my best man from the uk it was still expensive but drastically under the average cost one saving grace was that my wife's extremely kind godparents offered to pay for her address on march the 6th my bride-to-be got ready at the venue with her close friends and family whilst i got ready at her parents house and had a panic attack at the thought of being front and center the feeling eventually passed and of course the rest of the day happened my wife walks down the aisle to the instrumental version of the ballroom dance music from beauty and the beast which to this day makes me wonder if i'm supposed to be the beast and during the recessional we left to neutral milk hotels in the aeroplane over the sea which was my choice because i'm a hipster it was all very lovely we got married near a pond on a mild day while swans were passing by many people dream of having a day like this perhaps oneness even more lavish we all know it's stressful that choreographing an event like this can sometimes take up to a year and take a long time to save for but many will agree that it's worth it when you get to say those magic words i do not believe that you want to charge extra to cut the cake are you out of your mind we've already spent 350 on a tower of sponge and buttercream and you're saying unless we give you 50 extra dollars we've just got to stand there looking like overdressed cheesecake factory workers weddings are a scam [Music] before we go any further i'd like to talk about this video's sponsor surfsharkvpn the internet can be a wonderful thing but as we all know it has a shadier side it's almost impossible to comprehend how much surveillance is happening even with your regular browsing habits on social media shopping websites and search engines your data could be being mined and your personal information is being given out without you even noticing surfsharkvpn can help you with this and it's ridiculously easy to use you just download and install the app click connect and within a matter of seconds you're on a secure and fast connection it's more than just security too plenty of websites geoblock content which means that if i get a bit homesick and want to watch content from the uk i can use surfshark to watch content from streaming services like iplayer now i can catch up on all the eastenders i've missed call blimey geezer have a butchers at that why am i doing a british accent you can even watch content on services like netflix or disney plus that isn't available in your country thanks to the surfshark extension you'll have access with just a couple of clicks but seriously i've been using surfshark a lot recently it's a genuinely great service that i can vouch for it's super easy it keeps you protected and it opens up the web just like it should be it's also available on android and ios so you can be protected on the go so you can use open wi-fi networks like in coffee shops airports etc and still be protected use the promo code solari to get 83 off plus an extra three months for free they also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee so there's no risk if you change your mind surf the web safely today link in the description [Music] in order to understand how the wedding industry came to fruition and how marriage has changed over time we have to look into the past a bit so since this is a youtube video essay let's start off with a brief history of marriage and just to clarify this will mostly be viewed through a western perspective matrimonial traditions may drastically vary across the world especially in continents such as africa and asia but you'll often find there are similarities across the world and some countries have even adopted western or christian style weddings wholesale such as japan or south korea this has happened for various reasons including cultural influences via the media or in the case of south korea it's partly cultural and also due to christianity being a prominent religion there but i digress western marriage and their traditions go as far back as ancient rome and greece but back then it was primarily a legal contract for things such as military treaties political deals expanding family labor forces and other economic reasons in many cases there wasn't even a ceremony it would simply be an agreement between two men that the chosen bride and groom were to be wed and they wouldn't have any say in the matter some women were even sold or bartered for in these situations it had nothing to do with romantic love in fact love in marriage was frowned upon by many in the second century bce a roman senator was expelled from the senate after being seen kissing his wife in public this isn't to say that love wasn't allowed in marriages understandably given enough time in close proximity with one another some couples ended up falling in love and that was fine but public displays of affection were about as welcome as a couple making out in front of the subway doors and it's your stop other than serving as pawns in a game between oligarchs married couples had responsibilities and it's not surprising to learn that women were expected to bear children raise them and look after the household and men had to work a household dynamic which has lasted for centuries and is only in recent decades being challenged thanks to shifting gender roles around 1076 ce things started to change a bit women could no longer be bartered or sold as part of marriage but arranged marriages were still very much a thing but the blessings of a priest would be required arranged marriages were still a thing among aristocracy and royalty as part of deals for property and inheritance and love still didn't matter which isn't too surprising when you consider that people were getting married as early as 10 years old jesus christ to give you some idea on how little love had to do with marriage during that era in andreas capellanus's treaty the art of courtly love he said everybody knows that love can have no place between husband and wife they may be bound to each other by a great and moderate affection but their feeling cannot take the place of love because it cannot fit under the true definition of love nice guy in the elizabethan era around 1558 women had little say in who they could marry but they could consent at the age of 12 years old oh come on selling women into marriage was still illegal but people would get around this by providing a bride's dowry where the groom and their family would accept what was technically a gift from the bride's family in exchange for their hand in marriage this could be for money but it wasn't uncommon that goods or land were offered as a gift of course this was all just a way to circumvent the laws which prevented women from being sold off powerful people using their wealth to get around the law no way during this era weddings became known for their extravagance and a lot of customs that we have today originated from then the bride would prepare for the day with her family and kept separate from the groom until the ceremony there were bridesmaids and groomsmen a bridal procession a ceremony exchanging rings and a reception or feast in the american colonial era women were in short supply and high demand due to most settlers being white males so marriageable women were highly sought after in some cases women were even imported from european countries and sold to the highest bidder when a man wanted to marry someone within a colony they would have to ask for the potential bride's father for permission there would still be a business and breeding element to this but men would send letters to the father of the bride explaining why it would be financially beneficial and what makes them a good suitor kind of like tinder but with slightly more tuberculosis oh this one has wooden teeth and a pig swipe right believe it or not it was as recently as the late 18th century and early 19th century the people started marrying for love and wasn't primarily for the wealthy thanks to the american and french revolution there was more of an emphasis on the right of personal happiness and freedom as we entered the industrial age and economies moved towards wage labor people started to develop financial independence they were no longer reliant on family income or being trust fund kids so lovers were finally able to make their own decisions about who they wanted to spend their lives with and women didn't have to worry about being sold off to a complete stranger in exchange for a bunch of cows or something so there we have it marriage went from being a financial arrangement between royalty and the wealthy who treated women like property and then eventually got transformed into a symbol of everlasting love between free people who could earn their own money via the free market capitalism saved the day and made everything okay hooray what it didn't how could that possibly be what do you mean sarcastic twists are overused what do you mean that highlighting that doesn't make it any funnier and my attempt at being meta comes across as being pretentious [Music] a common thread throughout the centuries of marriage is that it was largely the domain of the privileged and even though in the victorian era marriage among the lower classes became more popular it would understandably be more low-key compared to the wealthy in fact the whole notion of the bride wearing white wasn't even a thing back then white textiles were expensive and hard to produce and incredibly hard to clean so most brides would just wear their nicest dress for the day they also used to have cakes made with fruit and suet which for some reason is still a thing with some people in england what better way to tell your loved ones that you hate them than serving them tightly compressed fruit in the shape of a cake the lower classes may have been limited by budget but there was clearly an attempt to emulate what the upper classes were doing queen victoria wore a white dress to her wedding which became one of the most influential moments in wedding history after the world learned of this brides in england and america simply had to copy her look and to this day is practically a must that a bride wears white for their special day queen victoria was essentially to white dresses as pinterest was to mason jars also there's a commonly held belief you may have heard that a white dress is supposed to represent brides being virginia but as you've probably guessed this isn't true if anything white wedding dresses are a symbol of wealth and status to this day the wedding dress is easily one of the largest expenditures of a wedding according to a survey by the nantes across a sample of 27 000 people they found the average cost of a wedding dress in 2019 to be around sixteen hundred dollars and ninety five percent of those purchase dresses were brand new when you take into account dresses that aren't off the rack and custom made the costs can skyrocket into the tens of thousands and this isn't even taking into account alterations the cost of accessories like veils headpieces undergarments garters shoes or jewelry you may be thinking that given how elaborate and well-made these dresses are and how most people will never get a chance to look as amazing as they do on their wedding day again well the wedding industry or as somebody the wedding industrial complex is very aware of this the research company edited found that retailers charge 3.9 times more on average for a white wedding dress compared to white dresses of a similar design not entirely intended for weddings this even extends to bridesmaids dresses which are marked up by 1.8 times compared to their non-wedding counterparts men on the other hand can easily get away with wearing a 75 3-piece suit that they bought through amazon prime no need to visit every bridal shop across the city with your maid of honor who's finding it harder and harder to ignore the deafening tick of a biological clock you could be a careful spender in recent years there's been a trend towards thrifting wedding dresses and perhaps making some alterations and improvements but there's still a stigma where some people think that a cheap dress is an indication that your love isn't worthy enough of being invested in then there's also the belief that a used wedding dress is bad luck that wearing something by someone who didn't value their dress enough to keep it or got divorced or even lost their partner carries some negative connotations heck it's even expected for people to keep their wedding dresses long after they get married and just leave it sitting in the wardrobe untouched and unseen my wife still has a wedding dress bagged in our closet and it's not like she can just go wear it somewhere fancy like i don't know tgi fridays normalize wearing wedding dresses if you spend over a grand on a wedding dress you should be able to wear it whenever and wherever the hell you want you deserve to look good cheers [Music] if you're planning on asking that special someone in your life for their hand in marriage then of course there's the proposal which means next to nothing without a diamond ring or some other kind of expensive bling kids still say bling right if you or someone you know has been proposed to you'll have noticed that one of the first things that people ask to see is the ring the size of the diamonds and design is symbolic of how much love you have for your fiance and how much love they have for you when people usually announce their engagements through places like instagram there's always the picture of the ring usually with the caption i said yes hashtag let the adventure begin my soulmate i'm secretly in love with your brother then comes the engagement photo shoot for some reason where the happy couples stand around in a field striking completely unnatural poses just like every couple does when they're you know just hanging out i don't know why engagement photos have become a thing but they need to stop now so why do we say it with diamonds is it a tradition passed down from royalty and aristocracy much like receptions and white wedding dresses nope not at all in fact there's a very recent thing in 1938 the de beers diamond corporation or cartel as they were considered back then were in desperate need of sales thanks to the effects of the great depression they began what could be considered the most successful ad campaign in history and i am not being dramatic when i say that harry oppenheimer the son of the founder of de beers traveled from johannesburg to new york to meet with gerald luck president of nwaya no not that one to discuss how to tackle this issue de beers had a monopoly over the jewelry market including gold and silver but it was hard to sell shiny things in countries where people could barely afford bread and ovaltine especially since up until this point the kind of person that bought jewelry tended to be wealthy lark came up with a well-orchestrated and executed ad campaign which associated diamonds with romance a link that has since become nion inseparable they released prince ads across the country and even managed to convince the burgeoning hollywood film industry to include scenes where the stars would propose with the ring it almost completely changed the idea of how we see the process of courtship the campaign was a resounding success over a third of all diamond sales were for engagement rings but this still wasn't enough because as we know corporations don't just want money they want all the money on average people were paying about eighty dollars for an engagement ring which in today's money is roughly fourteen hundred dollars so they weren't cheap to tackle this the de beers and lock campaign was tweet and they began to claim that if you wanted to truly show your love then you need to spend at the very least three months salary on an engagement ring i'm going to put that into perspective for you the average household income in 1938 was two thousand one hundred and sixteen dollars three months salary was 529 which in today's money would be a whopping nine thousand four hundred and forty dollars just for one piece of jewelry and what you asked was the slogan for this campaign a diamond is forever which to this day is still used by the de beers diamond corporation and has been permanently engraved into our collective consciousness more so than the engraving on any ring in existence considering that so many people in this day and age work paycheck to paycheck it's frankly unreasonable to expect someone that earns fifty thousand dollars a year to spend twelve thousand five hundred dollars even if you save over time but there's still a stigma against spending too little on a ring or even not buying a ring with diamonds on it a gold ring with huge rocks have become almost a necessity to both people that see them and receive them and in all honesty it's a little disgusting that we're willing to undermine people's affection based on how much they spend on jewelry i bought my wife a ring with reclaimed diamonds for our engagement and i certainly didn't drop three months salary on it but it was still pricey does it mean that i love her less of course not funny thing is the value of a diamond is completely arbitrary they only have value because corporations like the beers say that they do even the ex-chairman of the company said you can get a diamond which is worth 10 cents you can get a diamond of exactly the same size which is worth a hundred dollars but if you're a millennial or if you're a zoomer well i have good news for you we're killing the diamond industry much like cable tv applebee's and the greeting cards industry good job if you want my advice and i know you do if you must have a ring either buy used or buy cubic zirconia compared to diamonds they're ethically produced so the origin doesn't have to weigh on your conscience and they just look as good and honestly no one can tell the difference that way if you feel like it you can still make your friends jealous and tell them that your partner spent seven thousand dollars on diamonds it's not like one of them's gonna whip out a jewelry loop just to check and see if they're real diamonds and well if any of your friends do do that then stop being friends with them because clearly they can't trust you what was i trying to get oh yeah you don't have to overspend to prove anything okay speaking of overspending [Music] for almost everyone the wedding ceremony and reception are by far the most important and expensive part of getting married you've scouted out the venues anything from rustic chapels that are just the right amount of dilapidated perfect for the gram or a mumford and sons music video to barnes where the faint smell of years old cow dung still lingers in the air this can cost about twelve thousand to fourteen thousand dollars you send out the invitations which on average can set you back about four hundred to five hundred dollars and even though the days are gone where people would hand over their daughters for marriage you'll find that in some invitations there still exists a suggestion that women are property such as mr and mrs edward wilson request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter thankfully a lot of couples avoid that wording these days expressing that it's an arrangement between the couple like anthony and julian are getting married you're invited buy as a ps5 of course there's a huge laundry list of all the things you have to book for the wedding day including the wedding party photographer registrar catering cars floral arrangements a dj if for some reason you don't know how to make a spotify playlist hair and makeup presents for the guests table decorations a cake including tasting sessions hotels seating plans menus including dietary restrictions and the registry which was my favorite part the rehearsal contingency plans in case it starts raining and of course dealing with the organizer it's a stress-inducing nightmare for what's supposed to be the happiest day of your life and even when the day does arrive you spend most of it worried that something may go wrong according to the knots from the same survey mentioned earlier out of those same 27 000 couples asked about wedding dress costs the average cost of a wedding in the united states including engagement rings and excluding the honeymoon is a colossal thirty three thousand nine hundred dollars thirty three thousand 900 on a single day of your life just think of all the things that you could do with that money but instead it goes into an event that goes by so fast that you barely remember it and the only memento you have are the photos that all seem to have a dying sun in the background it's good to shop around when planning a wedding even if you do have money to burn many vendors will happily sit down with you and go over what their packages include but since it's expected for people to spend ludicrous amounts of money on their weddings they will happily take advantage of the fact that your purse strings are much looser than usual vendors like florists cake makers and services like car rentals and photographers will more often than not charge more for weddings than they would for other events a practice that's become so common it's been referred to as the wedding tax in an experiment conducted by the leading australian consumer research group choice they contacted a total of 60 businesses twice 30 in sydney 30 in melbourne and they were asking around about pricing one shopper called each business to ask how much their services would be for a wedding and the other one called to ask how much it would be for a birthday but it would be the exact same package this included flower decorations for the venue but no wedding bouquet and hiring the photographer for just the ceremony as suspected the quotes for the wedding event were significantly higher the study found that three of every six venues contacted would charge a premium for the wedding despite having the exact same requirements photographers and car hire companies allowed hourly rates for the birthday but required fixed rates for the wedding such as a three hour minimum for one thousand dollars for cars and photographers that could only be hired for the entire day some wedding venues will also provide quotes but omits certain services which adds to the cost and if they can't pay for that well tough luck one story that a research group shared was from a man named george paul he contacted a venue to get quotes for a wedding but described it as a birthday party they were fine with all his requests and gave him a quote but when he later confessed that it was for a wedding between him and his partner the staff got upset and claimed that weddings require a different menu because they had separate packages for the wedding upon being asked why they did this they simply replied that's just the way we do it the quilt for the wedding was 60 more than the birthday package with the only difference being the drinks and a slightly different menu it was only when they were caught out and george paul said he wanted the original birthday package that they relented and gave him the option there's a lesson to be learned here and that is that if you shop around well you should probably lie about it being a wedding businesses claim that they need to charge more because of the higher expectations the customer can be higher maintenance they mostly occur on weekends although i don't know why that matters and managing rowdy guests can mean more work for the staff but the staff members aren't getting paid any more than usual to stop uncle tony from taking a piss in a ficus plant these vendors charge you more because well they know they can they know how important this is to you they know that you want everything to go right that you want to leave a lasting impression on everyone that attends and celebrate your love but financially exploiting people's emotions like this is predatory people are even more likely to spend more money when the shopping experience is personalized and tailor-made and given that a wedding is an entire event planned around you and the ones that you love well that's a pretty personal experience oh that's the real wine the wedding industry including vendors dressmakers jewelers florists and everyone else have been convincing us all for decades now that your wedding is the most important day of your life that everything has to be absolutely perfect so it can be a memory you can look back on and cherish in a sense they also want you to be afraid that even the tiniest mistake can jeopardize the entire event and if that happens it reflects poorly on your marriage even the dozens of myths and superstitions that surround weddings play a role in this like how rain on your wedding day is some kind of omen or someone getting food poisoning the day after the pressure is honestly so intense that it's hard to imagine how anyone can even enjoy this day when i think back on my own wedding it's hard to remember the things that went right because it all went by so fast but i do remember a couple things that went wrong like my wife's aunt and uncle leaving the reception without telling us because they were upset that we didn't involve them enough in the wedding i don't know if you watch my videos or anything but you know who you are and what you did was really crappy i'm glad you didn't have any cake it was delicious i also remember that when me my wife and my new father-in-law performed a cover of david bowie's space oddity my voice broke entirely when i was singing a high note and despite the guests saying that they loved the song i mostly remember sounding like a 13 year old boy that just hit puberty even movies music television have made it very clear that weddings are of the utmost importance it's why in sitcoms characters getting married is the most significant moment in their character arc it's why we've seen romantic comedies based on weddings that show everything going wrong but it still ends well because love prevails and it's why we even have reality shows like bridezillas that show what monsters this day can make of us it's because of these things that we've also been programmed to believe that love is eternal and that your wedding should symbolize this but sadly even this is a lie that feeling you get when you fall in love with that special person is actually called limerence it's the thing that makes you feel happy infatuated and lighter than air when you're in the presence of someone you can't go on without but this feeling fades at most it can last around three years and considering that the average time people spend dating before they get married is just shy of five years that feeling is probably gone by the time you tie the knot this isn't necessarily a bad thing after being with someone for so long of course you develop an attachment and a need for their companionship and that's really good too personally i'd be completely devastated if i lost my wife and i know you probably would feel the same too but the point is the wedding industrial complex and media want you to invest in keeping that feeling of limerence alive and well forever and because of all this it can be disappointing and confusing when that time comes where your eyes no longer light up when the person that you love more than anything in the world walks into the room for far too long these industries have made us believe that if you don't invest enough in your wedding then your partnership and love isn't as valuable as you want people to think but the feelings that you have for another person don't exist to be validated by others they exist for you and those you care about the wedding industry and marriage as an institution is deeply exploitative especially towards women and its sexist origin still exists throughout his dna of course i'm not saying that you shouldn't get married that would be hypocritical it's a genuinely wonderful thing to have someone that you care about and be cared by but how you feel is far more valuable than anything that you could buy to show the world how you feel be frugal be vigilant and don't fall for the tricks of the people who want you to believe that romance requires an investment mazeltov thank you very much for watching if you enjoyed this video then don't forget to leave a like and subscribe and if you'd like to support the channel please consider donating to my patreon anything you can offer goes a really long way in improving production and keeping the lights on in my apartment the wonderful people you see on screen right now are all helping out and i'd like to give an extra special shout out to my five dollars and upwards patrons marius stobarood benter steve ma catherine engelmann floof pants and niv breslin i also stream twice a week on twitch now mondays and wednesdays you can see the schedule in the description and you'll also see that we now have a discord server click the link and join absolutely anyone's welcome i'd also like to thank vadim for his incredible voice over for those quotes that you heard he's a great guy go check out his channel hey it's vadim i'm a huge fan of his videos and i'm sure you will be too once again thank you so much take care of yourselves and take care of each other bye-bye

Channel: Salari

Views: 57,134

Rating: 4.9544859 out of 5

Keywords: wedding, wedding dress, wedding video, wedding dance, marriage, marriage proposal, engagement ring, diamonds, divorce, wedding industrial complex, weddings, exploit, wallet, salari, heyits vadim, breadtube, de beers, vera wang, celebrity wedding, say yes to the dress, bhldn, carolina herrera, instagram, pinterest, tinder, the office, jim and pam wedding, wedding tips, royal wedding, fiance, fiance visa, south korean wedding, japanese wedding, love, bridesmaids, groomsmen, dress shopping, asmr

Id: 3haQT172wW0

Length: 30min 7sec (1807 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/kingjack170]

Ah something to watch with the fiancée on Valentine's day, I'm sure shell love this.

[u/DearLittleCat]

If I ever get married, I'll have a town hall wedding. Just the official stuff and then lunch with friends and family at a restaurant. I wouldn't marry someone who wants something else. Engagement rings aren't a thing where I live, fortunately. I've dreamed of wearing a wedding dress of course, but as someone with social anxiety, I know I couldn't stand being at a party (I don't even like parties) where all the attention is on me.

Nice video, a tad too long, though. The "history of marriage" section was completely irrelevant.

[u/Sell200AprilAt142]

And now let us turn the part of the Bible where it says you even need a ceremony..or a minister...

furiously flips pages

uhh..

[u/Sirbesto]

This Cracked video touches on this succinctly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNQ2kV1OTPU&t=6