One in three Brits spend over £100 to look good as the busiest wedding weekend of the year approaches
Looking their best is the biggest priority for today's web-savvy wedding guests, according to a survey conducted by social networking site Friends Reunited. A poll of its users demonstrated that as many as 38% of us have spent the last three months getting ready for a friend or family member's wedding - a whole quarter of a year!
More weddings will take place this weekend than any other weekend of the year* and with 69% of respondents expecting to see photos appearing online within days, it's no wonder that we're more interested in our appearance than ever before. 57% of respondents admitted that it's important to them to look good in their friends' wedding photos, so much so that one in three of us spend over £100 on preparing ourselves for the big day and one in ten spend a whopping £200 or more.
Upstaging the bride, such as Victoria Beckham's appearance at Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' wedding, is another big concern for wedding guests. 74% say they would find it mortifying if they ended up outshining the lady of the day.
According to the research, wedding guests flock to the web within days of an event to see photos that others have taken, compare tales and catch up with events they missed. An estimated 500 photos are shared online through social networks in the week after a wedding, meaning none of us dare look anything less than our best on the big day - even if we're not walking up the aisle ourselves.
Jon Clark, head of Friends Reunited, said: "Our members are sharing more and more photos online and it's the major events like weddings that create the most excitement. Members have always used the site to find out what old friends are up to but since we took the site free in April, new features like our Timeline are letting people swap stories and photos from event like weddings. This is the way the web is evolving and it's allowing British grown-ups to become more sociable online."
*(according to previous years' statistics).