According to a NJ radio talk show host yesterday, the average wedding costs $20,000 in Afghanistan, a country where the average wage is $7000. Despite the flawed numbers (averages are meaningless, doing the average is what keeps the average down etc), and despite the fact that the presenter of the show likely could not pinpoint Afghanistan on a map, it provided an interesting insight into - US mindsets!

Lobbys provoke Afghanistan invasion to kill off weddings

Starting from the top, with the wedding industry lobby, I think Western aggressions in Afghanistan have been provoked by jealous wedding party planners who have the government's ear. Let's face it, when was the last time you went to a $20k wedding in America with animals, balloons and several hundred guests partying like loonies for days? Planners can't put on that kind of show here, because no matter how much money or credit card debt you have, some people just can't be bought. Even with the lure of a healthy back-hander payment and a high-paying position on a once-a-month committee, animal rights officials simply won't permit endangered species to mingle with wedding guests,.

I think the housing lobby is also tied up in the anti-Afghan wedding putsch. We are led to believe that this is the land of milk and honey and home ownership is nirvana. If we all knew how great it really was in Afghanistan, we'd all be jumping ship and buying up mortgage-free caves ready to move into after our stunning weddings.

And the fashion lobby want their say too. If the traditional Afghan wedding head dress ever became fashionable, Vera Wang would be out of business in the click of a rifle.

How cheap is a cheap wedding in America?

Some guy from Jersey was all proud that in 2001 he spent $10k on his modest wedding. It sounded like he had 10 guests, a couple of Big Macs per head, and everyone got drunk on wine gums. At the other extreme, a woman explained how she had a friend whose wedding cost $100k. That sounded like it had the potential to match an average Afghan wedding for pomp and circumstance, (albeit 5 times the price) but alas, still no animals were mentioned in the Jersey exytravaganza.

Cheap Spanish wedding

I couldn't get to the phone so I couldn't put in my own experience. Our wedding in a picturesque mountain village lasted 3 days. We fed all our family and friends to bursting with Spanish and Moroccan food and it cost me $4000. The secret was that we have small families and a few friends. To further weed out the guests who didn't really really love us, we staged the wedding thousands of miles from America and hundreds of miles from other family and friends in Europe. Playing fair, we asked for no gifts, just their presence. It was a great 3 days and it was all paid for, but not forgotten.

Value for money wedding

The radio conversation probed the idea of cost of wedding v longevity of marriage. The $10k skinflint announced that he is still married, whereas his buddies who spent $25k are all divorced now. Way to go, cheapskate! On that basis, it looks like I will be with Mrs Ed until at least 2020!

But the kicker was the $100k extravagants. They got divorced 7 MONTHS after the ceremony where they pledged to be together for richer or poorer till death us do part. Well, if I were the parents who paid for the wedding, they would certainly be dead, or at least forced to sign up and go study Afghan treatment of brides who don't want to be married any more.

Got any wedding horror stories, foreign perspectives?