How weddings keep the poor people poor

Catherine at unrequited narcissism has figured out what weddings are really about:

did you know weddings are a racket? really, they are. i hadn't really figured this out earlier because i haven't been to a lot of weddings in my 25 years, but after talking with some friends last night, it's totally obvious. weddings are like...a republican institution or something. they're all about benefiting the rich and, um, helping out corporations like, um, pottery barn and williams-sonoma, and giving ridiculous material possessions only to straight folks

Our society has a lot of scams designed to make sure the poor stay poor. The only way to really become wealthy in this country is to accumulate capital, but the big corporations, run for the benefit of the top one percent, conspire to ensure that regular people don't accumulate any capital.

And probably nothing is a bigger waste of material resources than a wedding. Guests spend money to buy/rent clothing that will only be worn at that one event, they spend money traveling, and spend money on useless wedding gifts purchased from big retail chains. And on top of that there's the huge amounts of money spent by the bride, the groom, and their families. Weddings prevent the poor from accumulating capital and becoming rich.

If a man ever asks to marry me, I would prefer he give me a Cubic Zirconia engagement ring and a brokerage account with Ameritrade funded with the money saved, rather than an overpriced diamond that will just further enrich the super-wealthy principals of the DeBeers Diamond Cartel.

Comments

[Knemon]

"but the big corporations, run for the benefit of the top one percent, conspire to ensure that regular people don't accumulate any capital."

There you go again with the conspiracy stuff.

Here's a question for you: Would you be in favor of lowering the tax on capital gains, or not?

If "yes" - as Ahnuld would say - "den yu ah uh REPUBLIKAN!"

If "no" - explain the apparent (to me) contradiction.

[Kender]

Toponepercenttoponepercent....man you guys re like a bunch of socialist monkeys.

My wedding cost less than 600 bucks, and most of that was for my wifes handmade dress.

[Kender]

make that socialist parrots.

[Fargus]

Well then, Kender, you're an anomaly, as far as weddings go.

[KraftyOne]

Hmmm...disagree with this one. Weddings don't keep poor people poor. Poor people who overspend their abilities keep poor people poor. At what point should people have to take some responsibility for their choices? True, society tends to push the expensive, big wedding, but we also need to avoid the trap of giving people excuses for Everything.
When you can go before a judge and have your close family present as witnesses and get the whole thing done for extremely little, there is little excuse for overspending or debt.