Full Transcript for ‘Zombie’ Classroom Crackdown & The Cost Of Marriage

long way to go as they grapple with a culture problem. Papley allegedly returned a positive roadside test for methamphetamine on Monday and will appear at court this month for driving with a suspended licence. Papley's looming court appearance comes after the Swans suspended five players for breaching club behavioural standards in August. And NASA's Swift Observatory has crashed back to Earth after two decades studying the most powerful explosions in the universe. Built to last just two years, the 1,450-kilogram satellite spent almost 22 years tracking cosmic gamma-ray bursts before it lost the ability to steer. NASA has since confirmed it re-entered the atmosphere over Indonesia's North Sumatra on Wednesday, with most of it expected to have burnt up as it re-entered the atmosphere. How much do you think an average Australian wedding costs? I would say about 60 grand, like 40 grand, $ 80, 000. 00:04:18 Speaker 2: I'd say probably 50 to 60K. I tried to spend $ 10, 000 on my wedding. 00:04:24 Speaker 1: I had to double that. 00:04:25 Speaker 2: So I spent around 20K and that was still skimping on so much stuff. 00:04:31 Speaker 1: Well, we had a range of guesses here in the Mamma Mia office, so we went to the experts. 00:04:37 Speaker 2: So the average Australian wedding's now about $ 38, 000. In New South Wales, it's a little bit more, around $ 42, 000. 00:04:45 Speaker 1: Yep, $ 38, 000 for one day. But that's just the average, according to Easy Wedding's most recent annual survey. An average means there are plenty of couples spending a whole lot more. Just last month, Australian comedian Andy Lee and Rebecca Harding tied the knot in New York. There was a rooftop ceremony at a luxe Big Apple hotel, the bride wore a very designer wedding dress, and welcome drinks were at one of Manhattan's most famous bars. And of course, Vogue gave us a look inside. Amy Parfitt is director of Wedshed, a wedding venue and vendor marketplace. 00:05:22 Speaker 2: Honestly, those weddings you're seeing on Vogue, they're normally, look, it's so hard to say, but it's not unusual for them to be 120k to 250k plus. 00:05:31 Speaker 1: Then there's singer Dua Lipa and actor Callum Turner, who got married earlier this year. The pictures were, quite frankly, delicious, but the price tag was eye-watering. According to reporting in Elle, the Sicilian celebration cost around 1.7 million US dollars. But if you want to talk about extravagant weddings, look no further than Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. The pair got married at New York's Madison Square Garden in July in front of around 1,000 guests. According to estimates from luxury wedding planners, the whole thing would have cost somewhere between 20 and 25 million US dollars. That's not a confirmed bill of course but it gives you an idea of just how much money you can lay down on a big day. But it's not just celebrity weddings. As soon as you're on the wedding algorithm you'll be flooded with the most beautiful of celebrations. 00:06:26 Speaker 2: Course you're going to turn to social media, but then of course you're inundated with like these dream weddings that you probably don't realize at the start, but they might be budgets of $ 250, 000. And so you're comparing yourself to something that for most couples is just so unrealistic. 00:06:42 Speaker 1: And another thing worth knowing, sometimes what you're looking at isn't even a real wedding. 00:06:47 Speaker 2: A lot of what is in your feed as well sometimes isn't necessarily a real wedding. Like a lot of couples will look at stuff and not realise that it's a styled shoot or that vendors have donated their work in exchange for content because it might have been an influencer as well. 00:07:01 Speaker 1: It might have been a styled photo shoot. And yet we're comparing our own weddings to these images. Parfitt says with weddings, their comparison can be the thief of joy. 00:07:11 Speaker 2: Social media, it's your best friend and also your worst friend when it comes to wedding planning. 00:07:17 Speaker 1: In Australia now we're heading into peak wedding season and for plenty of couples that means the end of months of planning and spreadsheets and some pretty confronting conversations around money. Any time spending tens of thousands of dollars is a big deal and in the current financial climate with rising interest rates and a cost of living crisis it's hard to even imagine. Parford has been working in the industry for more than a decade and she's seen how things are evolving. 00:07:44 Speaker 2: It's been a massive change. There's been so many changes in the wedding space since we started. 00:07:49 Speaker 1: One of the biggest shifts is the guest list, which was a bit of a pandemic flow-on. 00:07:54 Speaker 2: They've dropped now. Once upon a time, they were 100 plus. Now they're sort of sitting around at 85 plus. But I think what COVID really did was it gave everyone permission to cut obligation invites and ditch the traditions that they didn't really care about and do things more personally. 00:08:08 Speaker 1: So fewer cousins, fewer plus ones, and perhaps fewer people you've barely spoken to since school. Parvath says many couples have also been putting their wedding plans on hold altogether, perhaps until things feel a little more in reach. 00:08:22 Speaker 2: A lot of people do really want to get married. And the sense that we get, and in fact, the data shows us in our business, that a lot of people have been sitting on the fence for a little while, hoping that things are going to get better when it comes to the cost of living crisis. 00:08:37 Speaker 1: But for people wanting to take the next step, the important part is figuring out what's actually important to you and your partner. 00:08:44 Speaker 2: And that might mean having a really nice dinner for 20 people at your favorite restaurant or at a private property versus, you know, going and having an all out party together. at like a 130 person estate. 00:08:57 Speaker 1: It's about working out what you value as a couple and putting your money there and making compromises. 00:09:03 Speaker 2: When you sort of think about the fact that the average couple spends about $ 3, 000 on flowers, that sort of gets you bouquets and buttonholes. 00:09:11 Speaker 1: So when you see those photos of weddings where flowers seem to be cascading from every available surface, well, you can see how the bill might add up. Another big trend is courthouse weddings or micro ceremonies. Think about what Charli XCX did with her London Hackney Town Hall ceremony. She wore a short Vivienne Westwood wedding dress with a simple veil before celebrating with friends at a nearby bar. And while of course that wasn't cheap and she did go on to have a much bigger celebration in Sicily a couple of months later, it's indicative of another emerging trend. 00:09:45 Speaker 2: So many couples are opting to have a courthouse wedding, have an elopement or just a small wedding for like five or ten people. And then they might choose to have a party afterwards or not. 00:09:57 Speaker 1: Parfit says top priority should always be working out a North Star between yourself and your partner. Pick the things that matter and put your money towards them. 00:10:06 Speaker 2: Maybe it's like the music, the food and the photographer, like that's where you should spend your money. 00:10:12 Speaker 1: And perhaps that's the thing worth remembering as we head into another busy Australian wedding season. There are so many different ways to celebrate getting married if that's what you want to do and the amount you spend doesn't determine how good that celebration will be. 00:10:27 Speaker 2: Some of the most expensive weddings we've been to have been phenomenal and some of the more affordable weddings we've been to have been phenomenal as well. It's really just about how much of the couple you can feel in the actual celebration itself. 00:10:40 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening today. For more news like this, please click follow on the quickie wherever you get your podcasts and please leave us a rating and a review. It helps other people find us. 00:10:55 Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.