The Booming Wedding Industry

By guest host John Hockenberry:

How much is your wedding worth to you? What will it take to launch a young couple off into a lifetime of bliss? In dollar terms, if your wedding costs exceed the Gross Domestic Product of any nation in say OPEC, then you may be over the top.

Weddings these days are more expensive, more elaborate, with more competition to be memorable than ever before. We're not just talking about celebrities. Forget mere catering — how do you book a fleet of choppers, film crews, a herd of color-coordinated ornamental mountain goats, an island, or your own stadium?

Hear about getting from I will to I do in the most expensive and traumatic way possible.-- Quotes From the Show --

"What's happening is that the celebrities are sort of setting the bar and because of the incredible access that the average person has to the celebrities' lives ... [regular] brides are inspired... " — Elizabeth Jenkins

"What the wedding industry has been savvy about is that ... the number of weddings that take place each year has not grown ... and there's been a recognition [by the wedding industry] that the only way to make it grow is up the cost of every single thing that happens during that wedding." Kamy Wicoff

"The wedding industry has become a 125-billion-dollar industry." - Kamy Wicoff

"People are so focused on the day [wedding day] and not the marriage." — Elizabeth Securro

Guests:

Elizabeth Jenkins, assistant editor, In Style Weddings Magazine;
Kamy Wicoff, freelance writer and author of "I Do but I Don't: Walking Down the Aisle Without Losing Your Mind";
Elizabeth Seccuro, creative director of the event planning firm Dolce Parties;
Jill Plutnicki. She is getting married Sept. 29 and has her wedding shower this weekend.