When I tied the knot – quite a loose one as it turned out – it was at the local register office wearing off the shelf clothes in front of half a dozen members of our families. We went back to my new mother-in-law’s for tea, a few sandwiches, cake and a couple of bottles of wine. We took our own photos. I doubt if it cost £50 all told. Not any more. The average cost of a wedding has soared to around £15,000. As much as a deposit on a new home.
And parents still pay a lot of it, though the cost is shared out more than it used to be. Liz Savage, editor of Brides magazine says "Back in 1981, 57 per cent of brides’ parents paid the biggest share, now only 19 per cent do with 46 per cent of couples making the biggest contribution to the cost."
But the bad news is the groom’s parents now chip in too – often taking on a specific cost item such as a party the night before, or the flowers.
Weddings seem to be governed by a different sort of inflation from anything else. In 1981 Brides magazine says the average wedding cost less than £2000. Since then general prices have doubled, wages have gone up about three times and even house prices by about four times; but weddings have gone up seven times.
That is partly because people expect more now. In 1981 having a few pictures taken cost an average of £54. Now the couple will require hundreds of photos and a video, both shot by professionals – total cost £1265. That’s not much less than the wedding dress – which You and Your Wedding puts at £1300 though Brides says the average was £913 last year. Either way, on a cost-per-wear basis that is probably the most expensive garment the bride will ever own. In 1981 the dress would have set you back an average of £158. But today just the bridesmaids’ dresses will come to £500. And if you do offer to pay for the flowers, remember that wedding flowers to today’s standards would also set you back almost £500, compared with around £50 in 1981.
Source: Brides magazine
Top of the expenses though is the reception. If you add in the drink, you will not get much change out of £5000, compared with around £600 in 1981. Next is the honeymoon, reckon on £3000. Fortunately you won’t be expected to pay for the hen night (£150), stag night (£215), the wedding night itself (£129) or the weekend away to propose (£500). If you think this sounds like a circus then you need three rings – engagement (£850) plus his and hers wedding bands (£453), again fortunately not your responsibility. That offer to buy the flowers, though, could set you back £500 – ten times the cost in 1981. Against all this, the cost of the church, £200, and another £50 for insuring the big day, seem modest. The cheapest thing of all is the marriage certificate itself. Which at £3.50 for a permanent record that will last for hundreds of years, is the only wedding bargain to be found. And remember to set aside a few quid for a week away yourself – as parents of the bride (or groom) you’ll need it!
Check the critical list
Critical illness insurance is supposed to pay out a lump-sum if you fall ill
with a major health problem such as cancer, stroke, blindness or heart attack.
But insurer Standard Life confirmed recently that it turned down one in five of
the claims made. In a rare piece of openness for a life insurance company, it
said there were two main reasons for refusing to pay out. First, about a third
of the people claiming had failed to disclose key information about their health
when they applied for the cover. Just about any visit to the doctor or known or
suspected medical problem has to be disclosed and if it is not then the claim
can be disallowed. Second, nearly six out of ten claims were not paid because
the person had not met the conditions. The problem is that the documents used to
sell the insurance are very good at explaining what is covered but do not set
out at all what is not. For example, the sales literature says clearly that
‘cancer’ is covered. But the customer needs to get hold of another document
which defines what ‘cancer’ means. Only if they read that will they discover
that ‘cancer’ does not include many kinds of non-malignant tumour and excludes
most prostate and skin cancers. Similarly ‘heart attack’ excludes many ‘acute
coronary syndromes such as angina’. ‘Loss of limbs’ means two or more.
‘Blindness’ has to be total and in both eyes. And so on. Explaining all these
exemptions is left to the financial advisors who market the cover and earn very
high commission for each policy they sell, normally alongside life insurance. So
it is perhaps no surprise that many people put in a claim only to discover that
their condition is not covered.
Romanian leu's a loser
There are still some countries in the world where you can become an instant millionaire. In Romania, £20 will buy you a note in its own currency of one million lei. But not for much longer. As part of its bid to join the European Union, the currency is being ‘redenominated’. From July 1st every 10,000 of the old lei will be exchanged for one new leu, knocking four noughts of the currency. So a cup of coffee will cost the much more sensible amount of 5 lei rather than 50,000. And of course if Romania does join the EU in 2007 or 2008, a few years after that the leu will go the way of the mark and the peseta when Romania adopts the Euro.
A similar change was made in Turkey on January 1st when a million old lira became just one new lira. And some readers will remember the disappearance in 1963 old the old French franc, with every 1000 replaced by one new franc.
New rules on warranties
No sooner has the salesperson sold you the hi-fi, radio, or washing machine
than they offer you an extended warranty in case it goes wrong. The advice from
most consumer organisations is that these ‘warranties’ are not worth buying. But
electrical retailers keep selling them because they earn high commission from
the insurers, who know, like the consumer groups, that they will rarely pay out
because all goods are covered by a statutory one year guarantee, sometimes
longer, and most electrical goods are very reliable anyway.
After years of consultation, the Office of Fair Trading has stepped in to control this trade. Since April retailers have had to show the price of the warranty clearly on all their advertising material including catalogues. They must also set out customers’ rights, what happens if the company becomes insolvent, and give all customers the right to cancel the deal for a full refund within 45 days.
This cent's a winner
The official national coinage of the USA started in 1793. So it is perhaps
no surprise that a trial one cent piece dated 1792 recently fetched a world
record price of $437,000 (£243,000).
The penny was minted in Philadelphia and its anonymous owners are descendants of Oliver Wolcott who signed the Declaration of Independence and was Governor of Connecticut in the 1790s, according to the Beverly Hills auction house which sold the penny. Only eight other examples are known in museums and with collectors. But this one had sat in a tobacco tin for generations until they took it to a coin fair to ask about its value.
June 2005
e-mail Paul Lewis on paul@paullewis.co.uk