Over 4,000 years ago, the very first weddings were performed when human beings transitioned from living communally towards family group habitation. Babylonians decreed in the code of Hammurabi that a husband must return the dowry of his wife if she bore him no children before dying. A lot has changed since then, but a lot has stayed the same. For instance, wearing a white wedding dress became a tradition after Queen Victoria wore one to her wedding 1840. Today, almost 90 percent of brides wear white wedding gowns at the wedding reception and ceremony.

Did you know that Bride Magazine recently reported that the typical couple spends $27,000 on their wedding and that the typical engagement ring costs $5,847? You might think that a lot of this money goes towards event planning for weddings, but less than one quarter of all brides hire a wedding planner. The fact is that wedding receptions and wedding venues have become far more costly over the last couple of decades.

The average number of guests per wedding in the United States is approximately 175. Weddings and wedding receptions are thus far bigger affairs than they used to be. About 7,000 wedding ceremonies and wedding receptions take place in America each and every day. Many of these are waterfront weddings because weddings on the beach have become particularly popular lately.

Over the last ten years, beach ceremonies and wedding receptions have caused an explosion in the destination wedding business. Although many engaged couples opt to have their weddings in exotic tropical locales, there are many domestic beaches that provide spectacular settings for wedding receptions and ceremonies at a much lower cost to the bride and groom and to their guests. This is definitely something to think about when planning your wedding. You can have your very own beach wedding right here in the United States!