Wedding season is officially back.

And somewhere between “I do” and “until death do us part” there’s a vendor who needs to hear, “here’s my credit card.” It seems like somewhere along the way, wedding culture stopped making financial sense, and couples are starting to course-correct. For some couples, that course-correction is about preference. For others, it’s about necessity.

The average U.S. wedding bill has crossed $34,000, and that does not include a single flight or hotel night. According to Fora’s newly released Wedding and Honeymoon Trend Report, nearly two-thirds of their clients are spending $10,000 or more on post-wedding travel alone. The same advisors tracking those big spenders are also watching something else happen alongside it. 

Black couples have always had to think about this differently. The racial wealth gap means that financial decisions around the wedding don’t exist in a vacuum. Honeymoon debt does not disappear after the tan fades, and more couples are doing that math before they book anything.

A lot of that shift is happening closer to home. Why fly overseas when the Carolinas exist? Or the Hudson Valley, or coastal Georgia? Domestic destination weddings have quietly become one of the smarter moves in wedding planning right now, delivering the feeling of going somewhere without the cost of actually going far.

Couples who do want to travel for their honeymoon are getting smarter about timing. Sixty-four percent of advisors say clients are increasingly choosing shoulder-season trips, hitting Greece, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand at off-peak times when the crowds are thinner and the prices follow. The dream trip is still happening. It just looks a little different on the calendar.

The biggest shift, though, is the rise of the mini-moon. Nearly six in ten couples are now choosing a short trip right after the wedding and saving the bigger, bucket-list honeymoon for later. You still get the big trip. It just happens later, with a lot less debt in between.

Gen Z couples are leading the shift, and being drawn to micro-weddings, all-inclusive packages, and leaner planning timelines that prioritize experience over spectacle.

None of this is settling, for the record. You just need to know what you actually want and refuse to go broke during the process just to perform for other people, because that’s always been the smarter play.

The post Love, But Make It Strategic: How Black Couples Are Doing Weddings on Their Own Terms appeared first on Essence.