Many Americans are choosing to have a red wedding.

Not the kind depicted in “Game of Thrones,” which ended in a massacre, but one in which they go to extreme lengths to pay for their dream wedding, even if that means starting out their married life in debt.

Some 36% of couples paid with credit cards and 32% of couples agree that having access to credit/loans will allow them to spend more than their budget, according to a survey of more than 1,000 women who are engaged to be married. The survey was conducted by wedding website TheKnot.com and electronic payment service PayPal.

And going into the red for your wedding isn’t just a U.S. phenomenon. This study supports research released last April by the Debt Advisory Centre, a U.K.-based financial advice group, which surveyed 2,000 adults and found that nearly one-quarter of couples are prepared to go into debt to pay for their wedding, and nearly half of those (47%) say they immediately regretted their borrowing. And almost 30% of those were still paying off the costs of their big day six years after the event.

The average cost of a U.S. wedding last year exceeded $31,213, up 4.5% from $29,858 the previous year and an increase of 16% from a recent low of $26,984 in 2010, according to an earlier survey of 15,800 brides by The Knot. The most expensive place to get married was Manhattan ($76,328) — five times the cost in Utah, the least expensive ($15,257). (The Knot doesn’t release the median cost, so expensive weddings in large cities like New York could result in a higher overall cost.)

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Before going into debt, couples might take these things into consideration. First, the cost of getting married happens to be just shy of a 15% down payment ($34,305) on what a median-priced home cost in August — $228,700, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. And, as unpalatable as this may seem to first-timers, nearly one-fifth (17%) of couples who get married will marry again (and likely end up paying for a second wedding), according to the U.S. Census.

Read: Should my daughter elope or have a big wedding?

It may not seem surprising that so many couples are having difficulty staying out of the red on their big day. The average cost of a wedding, which varies from state-to-state, is more than half the median annual household income that hovers at $55,218 in the U.S., according to Sentier Research, a group that tracks household income. And hourly earnings have risen by 2.2% for all jobs over the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than the rise in the cost of weddings.

It’s possible to have a perfect wedding by spending a fraction of The Knot’s average wedding cost. In 2012, this bride and groom spent $4,000 on their wedding with 100 guests in Southern Virginia, which included $1,000 spent on a lakeside gazebo and indoor venue at Clayton Lake State Park, $400 on mason-jar centerpieces with hydrangea and delphinium, and a bouquet and boutonnière, $600 on a photographer found on Craigslist, $200 on a cake, and $650 on food and drink.

The bride has no regrets. “The wedding industry constantly attempts to up-sell brides and grooms on so many items, and it was reassuring to realize that none of those (expensive) superfluities mattered,” the bride, Abigail Dalton wrote about her experience for LearnVest.com. “At the end of the day, we have photographs we love, memories of delicious cake and happy friends, and the relief that we could throw a party without drowning ourselves in debt or liquidating our savings.”

Also see: The larger the rock, the rockier the marriage