Marriage, taxes and the royal wedding costs of William & Kate

Did you take a nap this afternoon so you can get up at o'dark thirty and watch Prince William and soon-to-be Princess Kate Middleton tie the knot?

The hubby is laughing (well, it's really more like a sad grin while shaking his head), but I'm going to set the alarm and watch the royal wedding.

I watched Charles' and Diana's nuptials, although that was because I worked the 3 p.m. to midnight shift at the newspaper, then helped colleagues close down a bar or two and was already up when the wedding march started. So I might as well take in William's and Kate's ceremony, too.

Plus, I'm a closeted (or not so closeted now) romantic.

And there is a financial component to the event.

WePay, an online way to collect money from groups, has analyzed the upcoming royal wedding and says it will cost almost 3,000 times as much as an average U.S. wedding. In fact, says WePay, it will be the second most expensive wedding ever.

Some other royal vs. commoner wedding comparisons:

• Kate's wedding dress is estimated to cost $41,000. The lacy piece of apparel for a U.S. bride averages $2,450. Costs
• The royal wedding's flower bill is estimated to be $360,000; Westminster Abbey is big and Kate has a lot of attendants. The average U.S. marrying couple pays "just" around $1,230.
• William and Kate are expected to spend around $655,000 on their honeymoon, although where the young British couple will canoodle is still secret. U.S. newlyweds spend on average $4,000 on their post-ceremony getaway.

Even more royal wedding costs are illustrated in WePay's Royal Wedding vs. Normal Weddings infographic.

Click the infographic for a larger view. You might need to click it again
to get the biggest view once it opens in a new page.

Despite all the hoopla surrounding the vows of Kate and William, it's not the most expensive wedding in history, says WePay. That honor goes to the seven-day affair in 1981 when Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai married Pincess Salama. Its estimated cost was $100 million in today's dollars.

These weddings make the intimate, and cost-effective, ceremony the hubby and I had seem very small potatoes. But as the hubby says, "At least it was legal and we didn't piss away money that we needed later on."

See, I am the romantic one!

Wedding and marriage tax and finance tips: To round out this post, here are some stories and blog posts from my personal finance and tax colleagues that young couples in love, as well as marriage veterans like the hubby and me, should read.

• 7 tax reasons not to get married (MSN Money)
• 6 ways marriage can improve your finances (Investopedia Financial Edge)
• Marriage, Children, Tax Credits, and the Alternative Minimum Tax (TaxVox)
• Marriage Can Still Boost (or Cut) Your Income Tax (TaxVox)
• How getting married affects your taxes (SmartMoney)
  
• Six smart wedding tips from William and Kate (Wall Street Journal)

And from me here at the ol' blog, I give you these related posts:

• Tax to-do's after saying 'I do'
• Wedded tax bliss
• Madoffs, marriage and tax filing
• For better or … apparently just better
• Love and taxes
• Hearts and flowers … and taxes
• Valentine's Day tax tips and tidbits
  
• Defense of Marriage Act loses a defender
• Royal engagement romantic ring gesture could produce big capital gains tax bill

Now I'm off to catch a few ZZZs before the big event!

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