Pumpkin
is an EoFF Legend
Pinkasaurus Rex

Well at least they admit this part too,

"This is on its way to being a Discredited Trope: the latest Japanese census data shows that more and more people are marrying older, with most people under 25 remaining unmarried. Many teens and young adults have never heard of the concept and many that have think it's old-fashioned. Having a character believing in the Christmas Cake concept may mark them as being likewise old-fashioned."

Yeah, same here. If it can be written out of the game, then it isn't necessary. It might still be just for fun, though. Because there's necessary (or fitting) "fanservice", there's fun "fanservice", and then there's simply gratuitous "fanservice." It definitely tends to be a male-driven phenomenon. My opinion is that this is something of a natural and understandable phenomenon (though that doesn't necessarily mean it's acceptable). (4k)

Most people exist at the extreme ends of a spectrum of choices. The truth usually exists somewhere closer to the middle, or somewhere tangential, in which case the only way to get on track is to get centered, find balance and start over.

Though actually, as far as this particular thread goes, I mostly just agree with what you said.

Perhaps both! Which is usually true of everything I say.

"Kitteh! Dar'f dar'f, nubnubnubnub, brrrrrr, fst, fst, fst, fst." ~ Conversation I had with my cat, Maggie.

Shhh... No more tears

/Girths around on the couch and eats the food crumbs he finds collecting in his belly button.

I'm feeling pretty intimate already.

I agree, it's a combination. There's nothing incredibly wrong with wanting to feel that way on your wedding day (as long as they don't only focus on that feeling and make sure their partner is included and matters), but I think in the pursuit of that they spend too much and then the relationship (perhaps because it's so young) can't handle the sudden financial burden. Especially if they also had an expensive honeymoon and/or bought a house as part of the whole process. They could suddenly be 300k in debt or more with very little principle paid down and some pretty tough monthly expenditures to meet.

Plus it's hard to to continue to justify the costs after the fact. 20-30k dollars on a single day doesn't feel the same a year later as it did on that day. It starts to feel more foolish and frivolous, I would think at least.

I'm not too surprised by that article. I think a lot of the stress in young marriages is started by the couple saddling themselves with a chunk o' debt. Taking that 20-30k and doing almost anything else with it in regards to their future would yield better results. 30k down on a house comes to mind. They were using a flat cut off rate though. Around 20 thousand. I'd be curious to see how much the divorce rate changed in relation to amount spent vs. collective annual income. 30k to one couple isn't the same as 30k to another.