EasyWeddings.com.au<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cThey want to spend that little bit more on their once-in-a-lifetime wedding gown; they want a romantic European honeymoon, they want lots of friends and family to be with them on their big day \u2013 and they\u2019re willing to pay for it themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tradition of having the bride\u2019s parents pay for the entire wedding is a thing of the past, certainly in Australia,\u201d adds Butterworth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vast majority of couples, 49%, are pooling resources with both sets of parents to pay for their wedding, while a whopping 43% of couples are funding their big days entirely by themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
That means 90% of couples are either sharing the cost of the wedding with their parents or paying for it themselves, while less than 3% of Australian weddings are paid for solely by either set of parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cModern newlyweds love to travel with 74% of those taking a honeymoon doing so overseas,\u2019\u2019 says Butterworth who started Easy Weddings, a Telstra Victorian Business of the Year, 14 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile nearby destinations such as Fiji and Thailand have always topped our list of favourite places to honeymoon, this year, we\u2019ve seen couples travel further abroad, preferring European destinations such as London, Turkey, Italy and the Greek islands.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 2100 Australian brides responded to the 2014 Easy Weddings\u2019 Annual Australian Bridal Survey, <\/i><\/b>which <\/i><\/b>also showed a significant rise in the budget for a bride\u2019s wedding gown. The average wedding dress spend is up 13.5% to $2,030. It was $1,788 in 2013.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the past 12 months, we\u2019ve seen that brides are willing to spend much more on their wedding gowns,\u2019\u2019 says Butterworth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile this may be due to the fact that they\u2019re cutting back on other wedding expenses or that the wedding gown is simply a modern bride\u2019s No.1 priority, the fact is gown prices haven\u2019t increased significantly during that period, so we suspect there\u2019s a swing back to buying from local wedding dress suppliers after the last few years where so many brides have experimented with buying gowns off the internet unseen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve heard too many stories of brides being stung after buying their wedding gowns off overseas websites and being seriously disappointed with the final product that arrives. The gowns are often roughly sewn, they rarely look like the original picture, they may be the wrong size or, perhaps, the wrong colour \u2013 and, sometimes, they just don\u2019t even turn up.<\/p>\n
Of course, that\u2019s not always the case, but it is a common scenario and may explain the increased spending on wedding dresses,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
The survey also confirmed that the average expected wedding costs was $28,131, though most Australian brides end up spending about $36,200* on their big days.<\/p>\n
Most respondents (78.83%) believe gay marriage should be legalised while 8.71% do not. 12.46% of respondents said they were still undecided.<\/p>\n
Snapshot: The typical Australian bride<\/b>
\nAge (<\/b>29.2 years) | <\/b>Her groom is <\/b>31 years old
\nWill marry in a civil ceremony<\/b> (71.7% of respondents up 0.5 per cent from last year, 24% are marrying in a religious ceremony)
\nIntends to honeymoon overseas<\/b> (74% of respondents who are taking honeymoons)
\nEstimated wedding costs <\/b>($28,131) | Actual wedding costs <\/b>(Likely to be around $36,200)
\n100 wedding guests <\/b>will attend their big day (Up from 95 last year)
\nBelieves gay marriage should be legalised<\/b> (78.83% of respondents; 8.71% did not believe in it and 12.46% of respondents were undecided)
\nShe uses specialist wedding websites to plan her wedding<\/b> (95% of respondents)
\nHer wedding dress spend is up<\/b> 13.5% to $2,030 ($1,788 in 2013)
\nShe will be engaged for an average of 20.4 months<\/b>
\nShe is likely to marry in November<\/b>, which is now our No.1 month for marriage. It used to be October, which is down 12%.
\nBlue continues to be most popular wedding theme colour<\/b> (21.57%).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12651,"template":"","au_article_tag":[752,117,84,285],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-article\/35219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/au-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-article\/35219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"au_article_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au_article_tag?post=35219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}