Billionaire Budgets & the Fake Poor Bride: Inside the Luxury Wedding Industry | Amanpour and Company

Weddings are milestone events that leave couples with their hearts full but their wallets light. The average American wedding runs up $30,000 in costs. In her recent article "The Fake Poor Bride," award-winning author Xochitl Gonzalez reveals the world behind the lucrative wedding industry.
Originally aired on June 11, 2023
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Amanpour and Company features wide-ranging, in-depth conversations with global thought leaders and cultural influencers on the issues and trends impacting the world each day, from politics, business and technology to arts, science and sports. Christiane Amanpour leads the conversation on global and domestic news from London with contributions by prominent journalists Walter Isaacson, Michel Martin, Alicia Menendez and Hari Sreenivasan from the Tisch WNET Studios at Lincoln Center in New York City.
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[@aiai-j7i]

She is a terrific interviewer!

[@caesmonde]

I clicked on this because I didn’t want something heavy and I love Michel’s interviews . What fascinating insights into this world. The historical perspective info at the end was really cool.

[@Tephiffany]

Michele Martin I truly appreciate your interview skills...

[@cherylrleigh1912]

One of my utmost joys in life is the act of waking up at 5:00 a.m. and indulging in the experience of shopping at the Los Angeles Flower Mart. So much fun!!

[@annsmith7207]

There is so much emotional baggage and investment around planning a wedding. And the expectations all around can be daunting -- or for some -- absurd. I would prefer to pay for my daughter's new home than splurge on a wedding -- where there is no return on investment. Lifting the burden of a mortgage over a lifetime is far more meaningful than a blow-out wedding that fades to vague memory in a few years. Old money would never take out a wedding loan -- truly the definition of "keeping up with" who? whoever ihe nouveau riche are in the media. No! But everyone is different.

[@_NAED_]

The podcast re the Peltz-Beckham PR wedding is a must listen!

[@ErJoeJehosaphatz]

Oh, the daughter had a conscience but we found a way around that! HA HA HA HA HA 🤮

[@lynneichling725]

The movie "A Catered Affair" addresses this from a mid 1950s perspective.

[@Achill101]

Interesting. Did it show also some things that the wedding planner said at the end, like how the wedding was seen as the last big action of the free woman who married?

[@lynneichling725]

No. It is about a couple who want to get married and the mother of the bride is obsessed with putting on a a fancy wedding no one can afford or the couple even wants. It is a very moving story-shows the devastating emotional effects capitalism and all of its emotional manipulation it creates can have. I recommend watching it if you can find it streaming somewhere.

[@sojiogungbesan5547]

It ain’t tricking if you got it, if you don’t have it and you insist on going into debt to do it you’re a trick.

[@kathydavidson6241]

Terrific interviewer and terrific interviewee! It would be great to go out for coffee with these ladies.

[@jessicawolvek9167]

Beautifully said

[@virginiamoss7045]

Lovely interview. I've noted over my 74 years that the people who grow up the poorest value luxury items like diamonds, gold, silver and fancy cars first and foremost over secure housing, a good job, etc.; that's why they steal to be able to buy a $200 pair of athletic shoes and fight over them. Makes you want to ask, "Where, where are your values?!" Then there are the uber rich whose values are so distorted that they never achieve happiness because they think money can buy it; they are so far removed from the lives of others that they cannot even conceive of real want, much less need.

[@Achill101]

EVERYBODY values appreciation from their peers: the poor, the rich, and the middle class. Maybe the best predictor of how you want your wedding is what your friends appreciate.

[@emilyfeagin2673]

Fascinating interview. I had friends go all out on a wedding. The marriage lasted less than two years. Shouldn’t we be more focused on the marriage rather than the ceremony?