Money might not buy you love, but it sure helps.
Wedding costs have reached an all-time high as couples look to make the ultimate personal statement. The average cost to walk down the aisle is now $32,641, according to The Knot 2015 Real Weddings Study.
The study finds one of the main reasons for the 5 percent increase over the previous year is personalization. Couples want custom entertainment and signature cocktails, and they're hiring wedding coordinators to make sure the whole shebang goes off without a hitch.
So who pays for the lavish affair? On average, the bride's parents contribute 44 percent of the overall budget, the bride and groom pay 43 percent and the groom's parents kick in the rest.
The "Real Weddings Study" is one of the most extensive surveys and most widely cited.
TheKnot.com and WeddingChannel.com surveys nearly 18,000 brides and grooms, but all of them are culled from the sites' online membership, which is surely a more spend-happy bunch than, say, the couples who elope or take a trip to the courthouse to get married. In other words, the survey doesn't take into account the couples who don't have a lot of money or don't want to spend a lot on their big day.
The cost for a Minnesota wedding is $29,403, according to theweddingreport.com. In the Twin Cities, couples spend an average of $32,104, slightly below the national average.
The least expensive wedding locales are Alaska ($17,361), South Dakota and Texas.
Manhattan is the most expensive place in the country to get married-the average wedding there is a whopping $82,299.
In light of the price tag, it's no wonder more couples are crowdfunding to raise money for their honeymoons.
Before you start writing checks for your big day, keep in mind that a big-ticket wedding doesn't ensure a happily-ever-after ending. Randal Olson, a data analyst and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Biomedical Informatics, found that once a wedding passes the $20,000 mark, marriages are 3.5 times more likely to end in divorce.
Another study by Emory University economics professors also found that the more couples spend on their wedding, the shorter their marriage will be. The larger the rock, the rockier the marriage.
Perhaps the moral of this story is that you should just have a destination wedding in Alaska.