Anyone who’s ever planned a wedding — and didn’t keep it simple and just get married at the courthouse — knows it can be an expensive affair.

Many couples set a budget for their wedding, and many wind up blowing past it as costs add up, they keep making concessions to get what they really want, and they remember the little things — favors, gifts for each other, and lots more.

Weddings are a big business.

According to the Brides 2018 American Wedding Study, the average wedding cost more than $44,000 — an eye-popping increase from the 2017 average of $27,000. With about 2.5 million weddings in the United States each year, weddings are a multi-billion-dollar industry, and Suffolk’s economy wouldn’t hurt itself getting a bigger piece of that pie — or cake, as it were.

Suffolk has many beautiful venues to choose from, and Suffolk-based retailers, vendors and professionals are ready to help with all of the aspects of wedding-planning, from food and fancy attire to music and photography and everything in between.

That’s why we have lots of love for the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts’ first Wedding Showcase, held this weekend with about 30 vendors. The center not only showed off its own capabilities in hosting weddings and receptions but also invited in many other vendors, allowing engaged couples to sample food and cakes, hear musicians available for hire, see different table settings, talk to photographers and travel agents, and more.

If the SCCA’s Wedding Showcase can get more Suffolk couples thinking about keeping their nuptials close to home, and maybe even get more couples from outside the city planning weddings and receptions in Suffolk and using Suffolk-based professionals for all of the services they need, the resulting boost to the economy will benefit everyone here.

That’s a result we can definitely love.