When you write ads for a living, you learn that the truth is often the opposite of what people believe.

Most people believe an ad will work if people like it, and an ad won’t work if people hate it. But that’s just not true. And we’re wrong about far more important things than that.

Take marriage, for instance. You’ve heard it said countless times, “Marriage is just a piece of paper.”

But the data clearly indicates otherwise. Not only are unmarried couples more likely to split up than married ones, couples who elope are 12.5x more likely to end up divorced than couples who get married in front of 200 people.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise.

But this next bit of truth may indeed surprise you:

The less you spend on the wedding, the more likely you are to stay married.

According to The Knot, the average wedding in America costs about $30,000. But when you look at their methodology and realize The Knot surveyed only those brides who spent a lot of time on their fantasy wedding website and felt inspired to fill out a wedding-cost survey, this “average wedding” figure becomes somewhat suspect. Added to that, The Knot needs its advertisers to believe, “There’s gold in them thar hills.”

I’m sure you’ll forgive me for not swallowing the hook.

Better data would suggest the average American wedding costs between five and ten thousand dollars.

According to Dr. Hugo Mialon and Dr. Andrew Francis of Emory University, if a couple spends 10 to 20 thousand dollars on their wedding, they increase their likelihood of divorce by 29%. Couples who spend more than $20 thousand are 46 percent more likely than average to divorce.

When you spend less than average for your wedding, you increase your odds of staying together. Statistically, a couple is 18% less likely than average to get divorced if they spend between 1 thousand and 5 thousand on the wedding. And a couple is 53% less likely than average to get divorced if their wedding costs less than a thousand dollars.

Interesting, huh?

One last thing: that little factoid that “half of all weddings end in divorce” has never been true. The divorce rate in America has never exceeded 41% and that number is trending downward. In reality, the odds of staying married today are nearly 2 to 1 in your favor.

Passion does not create commitment.

Commitment creates passion.

To whom, and to what, are you committed?

Roy H. Williams