(Finance) – Italians who choose to get married do not give up on their dream wedding, despite the costs; on average 13,721 euros according to the survey commissioned by Facile.it to mUp Research and Norstat and linked to the last 24 months. An important figure so much so that, among those who have not married, 21% declared that they had given up for economic reasons.
In the report, it is also noted how the costs of organizing the wedding have grown significantly over time; if in the 80s just over 7,000 euros were enough for clothes, invitations, flowers and the ceremony, those who got married in the last two years had to budget, on average, almost double that. There are also those who spare no expense and in the same period of time the share of those who paid between 20,000 and 50,000 euros increased from 3% to 21%.
Not insignificant costs, so much so that, as emerged from the investigation, more than 7 out of 10 couples have had to ask for help. Parents remain the first option, but the number of spouses opting for a personal loan is growing. If in the ’80s and ’90s it was an almost completely absent practice, in the last two years the percentage of spouses who asked for a loan has reached 10%.
“Italians’ relationship with consumer credit is increasingly mature”, explain the experts at Facile.it. “This type of product, if used with awareness, can be a solution both for not giving up on a dream and for making spending more sustainable on the family budget.”
According to the analysis of Facile.it and Prestiti.it – carried out on a sample of over 200,000 requests collected in the last year – those who have applied for financing to pay expenses related to weddings or ceremonies aimed to obtain, on average, just over 9,000 euros, with a repayment plan of 5 years. It is curious to note the increase in the average age of applicants, which went from 39 to 41 years. Looking at the territorial trend of loan applications, it emerges that the regions where the percentage weight of this type of financing on the total requests is greatest are Campania, Puglia, Sicily and Calabria.
Looking at the results of the investigation, some interesting phenomena emerge; the budget needed for the ceremony, for example, is normally higher in the regions of Southern Italy and the Islands, where, on average, between 14% and 17% more is spent than in the North. Data to be read also according to the number of guests: if in Northern Italy the participants in a wedding are, again on average, less than 80, in the South and in the Islands they reach 110, and in 10% of cases they even take part in the party between 200 and 300 people (a percentage which, however, falls below 1% in the North West).
Together with the number of guests, which has remained substantially stable over time, the custom of getting married in the region of origin of at least one of the spouses resists the passing of generations; just 4% of couples chose to celebrate their wedding outside these boundaries. What changes on a territorial and generational basis, however, are the gifts given by the guests; the envelope with cash has been the most common gift for 40 years (about 50%). On the other hand, over time the percentage of those who show up at the ceremony with a physical object has significantly decreased (47% in the 1980s, 23% today). The wedding list, however, continues to be used, albeit less than in the past (it was 48% forty years ago, it is 36% today), while the use of bank transfers as a contribution to the honeymoon has grown significantly in the last 20 years; it was 6% at the beginning of 2000, today it represents 26%).
To the in fact, you can’t give up on a honeymoon; according to the survey, 8 out of 10 couples do italthough in recent times the percentage of those who postpone the date has grown and now more than one couple in four choose to leave far from the ceremony.