Let’s look at opportunity cost. This is a basic economic principle defined as the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen. You walk into a prestigious jewelry salon and find that wedding ring of your dreams, for $5000. While most people might not second-guess putting a ‘price’ on something as special as a wedding, the reality of the matter is that if you spend $3000 on one instead, you’ll have $2000 of potential resources to allocate to something else – like the catering, or the reception hall, or the honeymoon!