What Will Your Wedding Mean For Your Marriage?

Budget, cakes and glittering tiaras all slide through a bridezilla's brain when she's planning for her big day. It all seems silly for most of us looking in from the outside, but did you know that a wedding could potentially influence the quality of married-life?

Recent findings from the University of Virgina's National Marriage Project found that couples who have larger and more formal weddings have a more successful, happy marriage.

"In what might be called the "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" factor, this study finds that couples who have larger wedding parties are more likely to report high-quality marriages," said W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project and a sociology professor at the University of Virginia, via the Daily Mail.

For the study, researchers followed 418 couples for 5 years of weddings. The couples reported their own information on overall happiness throughout their marriage.

Findings revealed that those whose weddings were more extravagant were also likely to report a better quality of marriage.

Furthermore, 41 percent of participants who had a formal wedding reported having a higher quality marriage, compared to the 28 percent who did not have a formal wedding. 

The study results might suggest that money is a big part of the equation for happiness, but Wilcox says no; it's quite the opposite, in fact.

"One possibility here is that couples with larger networks of friends and family may have more help, and encouragement, in navigating the challenges of married life: Note, however, this finding is not about spending lots of money on a wedding party, it's about having a good number of friends and family in your corner," he concluded.