Infographics are a relatively new phenomenon. They are, in essence, a visual way of exploring and explaining a wide variety of data. One of the industries that has benefited from the increased used and development of infographics is the wedding industry. In our current wedding-obsessed culture there is always a lot to talk about and reflect upon. The year of 2010 saw the development of some really excellent wedding infographics that managed to relay a lot of information about weddings, wedding spending and other details while displaying the information in a very readable, user friendly, highly visual format.

1. Buysights infographic “The High Cost of Wedding Bells” detailed how much it costs to get married these days. It showed that last year about 75% of all weddings in the United States took place between May and October. May, marking the beginning of wedding season is when the industry sees a serious influx in spending. Interestingly, the peak spending month in 2009 was noted as October, where over $8 billion was spent on weddings. In second place month, June $6.5 billion was spent. This infographic showed that the average cost of an engagement ring was $3,186, and that, interestingly, despite all of the coverage that celebrity weddings receive, the average cost of wedding has decreased steadily since 2005.

2. F.Y. Weddings infographic explored the kinds of weddings that most people are likely to have. Most popular was the “traditional wedding”, which would likely have a white dress, three tiered cake, a band and a DJ. As you might expect, the extravagant wedding in a cathedral, with masses of flowers and hundreds of guests was the kind of wedding enjoyed by only a small percentage of people. Another chart revealed that the bride and groom are most likely to pay for the wedding themselves, with the bride’s parents taking second place. This infographic also detailed the average time of engagement which is seventeen months, the average number of guests, which is about 196, and the average cost of a wedding which is a whopping $27,710.

3. Exploring the wedding-planner-or-no-wedding-planner question was Wholesale Event Solutions’ wedding infographic. It is said that wedding planners generally account for 15% of the cost of the wedding. The infographic breaks down the basic pieces of planning a wedding-caterer, flowers, venue, dresses, photographers and invitations- and shows that thousands of dollars can be saved on your wedding and put towards your honeymoon, or the beginnings of your new life together, if couples ultimately decide not to use a planner.

4. Another interesting infographic to examine the details and realities of weddings was the Book of Odds infographic, which measured the odds of certain wedding-related things. Their exploration revealed that the odds that a bride will hire a wedding planner to be 1 in 5.26. The odds that a bride will plan to spend at least $50,000 on her wedding day are 1 in 4.55. The odds that a couple will choose to have a destination wedding are 1 in 10.

5. Finally, Fast Company’s infographic dealt in hard facts. This beautifully designed infographic showed that David’s Bridal doles out dresses for 30% of the brides in the country, that December is the most popular month to propose resulting in one in five engagements. It also reveals that steel tyccoon Lakshmi Mittal spent $60 million on his daughters five day wedding at Versailles, and that $707,051,028 worth of wedding cake and fondant frosted was consumed in 2009 in the United States.

The infographic is an innovative and creative way of displaying information without forcing readers to parse through tons of numbers and data. The visual representation of the facts allows the viewer to gather information without reading paragraphs of information, making the learning more fluid and enjoyable.

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