“That being said the habit of buying a dirah for the couple needs to stop.”
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and try to make a point. I am NOT disagreeing with what you are saying but I realllllly would like to give a perspective shift. Working with the needs of community for decades has taught me a lot and I think lack of perspective is so much huger (is that a word?) than people realize.
Purely as a response to that point above and NOT to go off on a rant, yes, so many people agree with you on that. But the same can be said for gowns for anyone other than the bride. For professional makeup for the families, for the basic expectations of the chuppah, flowers/centerpieces, music etc. These things are strangulatingly expensive and it’s always nice when big talkers (usually with money) say “oh, just have what you can afford”. Um, none of it is affordable. AND it’s nice to tell a family to have a simple meal served in a shul with 150 people and rented flowers but really?
I have been to many weddings in E”Y where they DO do that. They have “family style” seating and serving. Chicken on the bone, 150-200 people. They do their own hair and makeup except the kallah. and guess what, the money goes to a dira. And they think you are the crazy one for wasting a dira’s worth of cash on stupid materialism.
So the point is that it is very very hard to decide what other people should stop doing based on what your consider important. But it is even harder to look at what you consider important and wonder if perhaps you are mistaken.