Average cost of wedding?

[mystiqkal]

I''m just curious what the average amount people on PS have spent on their weddings (for everything, dress, location, caterer, flowers, etc). I know we have to keep in mind that everyone lives in different locations so the standard of living will definitely vary. I you guys could post where you live and how much you spent, i think it''ll be interesting to see the variation.

Even though i''m not married yet, i can tell you that i have had two friends who just got married and they both spent over 80k on their weddings. We live in the bay area, CA.

 

[Kaleigh]

I think there are numerous threads on this subject, so I''d do a search. Good luck!!

 

[Haven]

We were married in Chicago, and spent $35,000 on the entire wedding, not including our rings.
We had 150 guests to a formal wedding, an eight-piece band, engraved invitations, etc.

 

[luvmyhalo]

We were married in Houston in 2002 and spent $17,000. We had around 120 guests.

 

[mystiqkal]

Date: 7/23/2008 12:21:38 AM
Author: Kaleigh
I think there are numerous threads on this subject, so I''d do a search. Good luck!!

I did read a thread where people posted the cost of their wedding but i think its important to list where your wedding was hosted too. Then we could get an idea of which areas have a tendency to spend more or what not...i think alot of how much you will spend or did spend on your wedding depends on alot what the cost of living is in the area you live in. ie. spending 80k in the bay area may be more common in the bay area or NYC but not so much in the midwest...

 

[SarahLovesJS]

We''re getting married in central VA and it looks like we''re going to be at around $25,000 total 80-90 people. I don''t have a final tally yet, but I really don''t want to go much over $25,000. I am hoping to keep the flower budget low and everything else low from here on out. I don''t think that is outrageously high for the area if you look at the supposed averages on the internet. However, I know for my circle of friends/family it''s on the upper end spending-wise. Still, one could definitely spend more in this area if they tried.

 

[diamondfan]

I got married a long while ago so that must be factored in.

I got married in Los Angeles at the Bel Air Hotel in 1990. It is a lovely lovely spot but certainly not inexpensive. Their restaurant is wonderful, and the food for all their events comes from there. I also had more expensive wine and champagne than might normally be served, and a full seafood and caviar offering during cocktails. I think we had a total of 175 people. We invited 200, and I was told due to summer and people's travel, to count on 20% declines. I really wanted 150 to attend since the room was better suited to it, but it was fine in the end, a bit crowded but lovely!

NOT including my ring (which of course my husband got for me), my mother paid $75,000.00 for my wedding nearly 20 years ago. That was only the wedding itself, not the dinner for out of town guests on Thursday and Friday nights, with music, flowers etc,nor brunch on the Sunday before my wedding, which was a Sunday evening. It did include flowers, band and photographer plus all fees for the hotel. Probably all told, all the events of the weekend I would say $100,000.00. My in-laws only paid for the rehearsal dinner on Saturday night, which was totally fine. I was the first one in my family (my sister, and then 4 immediate cousins) to get married, and this was my dream location to get married. It was worth it to me, though family stress made the actual wedding day kinda tough!!!

 

[mimzy]

our wedding in december has a grand total of 21k, which includes the rings, dress, honeymoon, and everything else. it''s in the detroit area and we''re expecting about 210 guests.

 

[miraclesrule]

style="WIDTH: 101.05%; HEIGHT: 167px">Date: 7/23/2008 1:00:13 AM
Author: diamondfan

NOT including my ring (which of course my husband got for me), my mother paid $75,000.00 for my wedding nearly 20 years ago. That was only the wedding itself, not the dinner for out of town guests on Thursday and Friday nights, with music, flowers etc,nor brunch on the Sunday before my wedding, which was a Sunday evening. It did include flowers, band and photographer plus all fees for the hotel. Probably all told, all the events of the weekend I would say $100,000.00. My in-laws only paid for the rehearsal dinner on Saturday night, which was totally fine. I was the first one in my family (my sister, and then 4 immediate cousins) to get married, and this was my dream location to get married. It was worth it to me, though family stress made the actual wedding day kinda tough!!!

Holy Macaroni DF. That musta been one awesome party!!

Did they have the gazebo back then? Did you have it there outside? They do have amazing food at that venue.

 

[pennquaker09]

We had a commitment ceremony and it probably shouldn't have cost as much as it did. We rented this historical mansion in suburban Philadelphia in November of 2007. Even though it was a commitment ceremony, it was a formal affair and we treated it as such. We are fortunate to have a great set of parents that were willing to pay for our ceremony and that allowed us to have a really nice affair. There was really never a set budget for it, but I did try to keep the costs in mind when it came to things that really were not important. One of the single biggest costs we had was the catering. We had a plated meal for 185 guests and the final cost was a little over 25,000. And then we didn't just serve regular drinks, our bar had cocktails and mixed brinks so our alcohol bill was pretty high. Then factor in the travel for some our guests, hotel rooms, the dinner the day before the ceremony, two BABYSITTERS for the kids, and the breakfast the following day, the who affair cost somewhere between $115 and 120K.

 

[WishfulThinking]

I will be the outlier here, I am sure, but we will have spent [by the time we get married in May 2009] about $1,100 on the wedding, including the dresses. Rural Massachusetts, 15 people, outdoor wedding, less formal than most [not catered], but fits FI and me perfectly and is just right for our "starving student" budget. No wedding should put someone into debt!

 

[jewelerman]

Wishful thinking,
I agree that no one should go into debt for their wedding(or any one day event)Something is wrong when an event such as a wedding has to cost so much to be a perfect or memarable day.

 

[WishfulThinking]

I agree. Plus, it''s a horrible way to start out a life with a partner, especially considering that so many people already have debt before the wedding. Why add to it? We have student loans, which some people consider to be "acceptable" debt, but there''s no way we are going to add to that with even more debt for *one* day!

 

[diamondfan]

Date: 7/23/2008 1:53:01 AM
Author: miraclesrule

style="WIDTH: 101.05%; HEIGHT: 167px">Date: 7/23/2008 1:00:13 AM

Author: diamondfan


NOT including my ring (which of course my husband got for me), my mother paid $75,000.00 for my wedding nearly 20 years ago. That was only the wedding itself, not the dinner for out of town guests on Thursday and Friday nights, with music, flowers etc,nor brunch on the Sunday before my wedding, which was a Sunday evening. It did include flowers, band and photographer plus all fees for the hotel. Probably all told, all the events of the weekend I would say $100,000.00. My in-laws only paid for the rehearsal dinner on Saturday night, which was totally fine. I was the first one in my family (my sister, and then 4 immediate cousins) to get married, and this was my dream location to get married. It was worth it to me, though family stress made the actual wedding day kinda tough!!!

Holy Macaroni DF. That musta been one awesome party!!


Did they have the gazebo back then? Did you have it there outside? They do have amazing food at that venue.

Yes, they still do. I got married outside, with the swans, we had cocktails on the lawn and then went into the room for the dinner and dancing. It was a nice party and I wished I could say I enjoyed it. Family issues made it so unpleasant. The setting is so beautiful but OMG it was so stressful. We did a veal chop or salmon, and a wonderful salad and soup and I cannot recall what else. Our appetizers were amazing too, and the setting was so perfect...I wish I enjoyed it more...

 

[pennquaker09]

Date: 7/23/2008 3:53:47 AM
Author: diamondfan

Date: 7/23/2008 1:53:01 AM

Author: miraclesrule

style="WIDTH: 101.05%; HEIGHT: 167px">Date: 7/23/2008 1:00:13 AM


Author: diamondfan



NOT including my ring (which of course my husband got for me), my mother paid $75,000.00 for my wedding nearly 20 years ago. That was only the wedding itself, not the dinner for out of town guests on Thursday and Friday nights, with music, flowers etc,nor brunch on the Sunday before my wedding, which was a Sunday evening. It did include flowers, band and photographer plus all fees for the hotel. Probably all told, all the events of the weekend I would say $100,000.00. My in-laws only paid for the rehearsal dinner on Saturday night, which was totally fine. I was the first one in my family (my sister, and then 4 immediate cousins) to get married, and this was my dream location to get married. It was worth it to me, though family stress made the actual wedding day kinda tough!!!

Holy Macaroni DF. That musta been one awesome party!!



Did they have the gazebo back then? Did you have it there outside? They do have amazing food at that venue.

Yes, they still do. I got married outside, with the swans, we had cocktails on the lawn and then went into the room for the dinner and dancing. It was a nice party and I wished I could say I enjoyed it. Family issues made it so unpleasant. The setting is so beautiful but OMG it was so stressful. We did a veal chop or salmon, and a wonderful salad and soup and I cannot recall what else. Our appetizers were amazing too, and the setting was so perfect...I wish I enjoyed it more...

I wish you would have too. Maybe you can have another one day?

 

[anchor31]

We''re having a semi-formal morning wedding with sit-down lunch and open bar. We''re in the greater Montreal area in Qc, but not IN Montreal, which makes a huge difference cost-wise. We''re expecting 55 people, and it will cost us a grand total of 7k. People kept telling us we couldn''t pull it off for less than 15k... Ha!

 

[february2003bride]

Date: 7/23/2008 5:16:21 AM
Author: pennquaker09

Date: 7/23/2008 3:53:47 AM
Author: diamondfan

Date: 7/23/2008 1:53:01 AM

Author: miraclesrule

style="WIDTH: 101.05%; HEIGHT: 167px">Date: 7/23/2008 1:00:13 AM


Author: diamondfan



NOT including my ring (which of course my husband got for me), my mother paid $75,000.00 for my wedding nearly 20 years ago. That was only the wedding itself, not the dinner for out of town guests on Thursday and Friday nights, with music, flowers etc,nor brunch on the Sunday before my wedding, which was a Sunday evening. It did include flowers, band and photographer plus all fees for the hotel. Probably all told, all the events of the weekend I would say $100,000.00. My in-laws only paid for the rehearsal dinner on Saturday night, which was totally fine. I was the first one in my family (my sister, and then 4 immediate cousins) to get married, and this was my dream location to get married. It was worth it to me, though family stress made the actual wedding day kinda tough!!!

Holy Macaroni DF. That musta been one awesome party!!



Did they have the gazebo back then? Did you have it there outside? They do have amazing food at that venue.

Yes, they still do. I got married outside, with the swans, we had cocktails on the lawn and then went into the room for the dinner and dancing. It was a nice party and I wished I could say I enjoyed it. Family issues made it so unpleasant. The setting is so beautiful but OMG it was so stressful. We did a veal chop or salmon, and a wonderful salad and soup and I cannot recall what else. Our appetizers were amazing too, and the setting was so perfect...I wish I enjoyed it more...

I wish you would have too. Maybe you can have another one day?

Diamondfan- why not have a vow renewal ceremony?

I was married Feb. 2003 in Northern Va, and we spent $11,000 with 70 guests and that included the honeymoon (a weekend in DC, staying at the Hay Adams hotel, eating at great restaurants, saw a play, had a couples massage and just relaxed! That was about $800 for the weekend). We had our wedding ceremony held in Reston and had our reception at the Tyson's McCormick and Schmick's! It was perfect. I didn't want a huge formal wedding and our main priority was that the reception dinner be amazing as a thank you for our guests sharing our day with us. It was great because we got to choose 8 different dishes and 3 different salads, and they had personalized menus for our guests. So our guests got to choose what they wanted when they sat down after cocktails. Even better was I didn't have to choose ANY decor for the room or tables except for our "centerpieces" which was very simple and romantic. M&S has whitetable cloths and beautiful dishes already so I didn't have to choose any of that (thank god!). So for decor on teh tables, (which ranged from seating of 8 to seating of 10) I chose my favorite rose petals to be scattered down a line down the middle of the table with white votive candles placed in the rose petals. It was perfect! All total for the reception? $3800 and that included wine, cocktails, coffees, lattes, all the food and the gratuity!

We did spend some $600 on flowers for the wedding ceremony though because while the church was beautiful, it had no color on the inside, so we had bright floral arrangements to help with the decor of the church. My dress was $2000 of the $11,000

but totally worth it

. I printed our own invitations on my computer and assembled them on my won as well (heavy white cardstock with a silver border and a white tissue paper overlay tied with a simple white and silver ribbon) - total cost with postage? $80

My mom with her beautiful hand writing did our placecards. My husband paid for our rehearsal dinner (at an indian restaurant with amazing food! And they surprised us with a special strawberry and chocolate dessert) because his parents were in India and not coming to the wedding, so he wanted to stay "traditional" and feel like his side of the family paid for the rehearsal dinner, lol.

One of my favorite ideas was having a kids table. We made snack packs with each child's name on it, incase they didn't like the h'ordeurves, each child was given 2 color books, a box of crayons and stickers and a balloon at their chair.

Our favors at the end where wrapped mini hershey bars with our names, wedding date and a picture of wedding bells on them. I found out later that guests had taken handfuls and had eaten them on the way home and loved them! Our cakes done by a local baker (whom no longer works) and for a 3 tiered cake with snowflake theme on it (which was appropriate since we had a blizzard the week before the wedding!) was only $200.00. It fed all 70 guests with some slices left over!

The only thing I would change is my phootgrapher. I didn't care for him and wish he had done better.

 

[diamondfan]

Penn and Feb, I would love that. I think for our 20th or maybe 25th. We are building a new home and I would love to have it there some day. I think that would be lots of fun, and I could do it without all of the family issues!!! That sure put a damper on what should have been an amazing day.

 

[littlelysser]

DH and I got married in Pittsburgh, PA, last summer.

We spent around 7k for everything, including rings and a photographer, and we had 55 guests.

But we got married in our friends' backyard, another friend made our wedding cake and another friend made most of the food (greens, mac 'n cheese, etc) and another made some great Mojito Sorbet to pass around right after the ceremony.

We had some super yummy BBQ catered in, bought tons and tons of microbrews and other faboo beers and wines, rented tents, tables, linens, diy-ed the flowers and the decoration and used a digital dj.

We were really adverse to going into ANY debt for the wedding...and we were paying for it ourselves, as my parents had already given us a down payment for our house, in lieu of paying for the wedding.

For what it is worth, we had a number of our guests tell us that ours was their favorite wedding ever, barring their own of course!

ETA - that did NOT including the honeymoon...9 days in Kauai...which ended up being WAY more expensive than the wedding!

 

[Linda W]

Caroline, Don''t tell me, your MIL ruined your wedding!!!! Am I right???


Linda

 

[diamondfan]

Linda, weelllllll...she was not the only one!

I do not want to jack but I could give details if you like...

 

[iwannaprettyone]

Our budget is 5K not including rings and my dress.

we are doing sooooo good, probably wind up being 7K....9K if it rains (tent)

 

[scarlet16]

Ours is in a month (August 22) in Manhattan. It''s a Friday night, extensive cocktail hour, sit-down dinner with full open bar (top shelf) for 200 people. In the end it''s costing about $65,000 (includes attire for bride and groom, makeup/hair for bridal party, photography, flowers, invitations, gifts, tips, dj, ceremony music), not including our rings or honeymoon/post-bar trip (which is about another $10,000 total).

I think we did a pretty decent job for such a large wedding in the City, but it is by NO MEANS budget or inexpensive! There a quite a few things we could have sacrificed or cut down on (ie., my dress/accesories, his tux, photobooth) but decided it''s worth it to us in the end. I saved a lot by doing my own invitations and by really really negotiating with our vendors.

Although some days I think that we should have just taken all that and purchased an apartment...unfortunately, our parents would never have allowed it!

 

[HollyS]

The average cost of any wedding is too high these days. I''m not an advocate of cake and punch in the church basement, but . . . this whole bridal/wedding industry thing has become an insatiable monster. It seems nothing is considered ''over-the-top'' anymore.

We had a wedding at a country inn. Catering, cake, decor, and linen remtals were included in the package. Their cost was wonderfully low at $4500. Adding everything else, to include the little things like favors, votives, and frames for family photos on display, we probably spent between $9K and $10K. It didn''t seem like a lot, because it was spread out over 18 mos. of planning and purchasing.

If I had lots of money, I would do what Heidi Klum and Seal do. They renew their vows every year. I miss planning my wedding!

 

[TravelingGal]

I got married in Los Angeles on a public beach. That part didn''t cost me anything.

Reception was at an Ocean Front restaurant on a Friday. It was a daytime wedding. We had 50ish guests and a full open bar. Food was great. Total for that part was just under 7K. The venue, cake, parking were part of that package.

With the photographer, rings, dress and flowers, invites, DJ, blah blah blah I think it was an additional 3 K or so for a total of around 10K (possibly 11K but I don''t remember).

 

[Bia]

Date: 7/23/2008 11:37:27 AM
Author: scarlet16
Ours is in a month (August 22) in Manhattan. It''s a Friday night, extensive cocktail hour, sit-down dinner with full open bar (top shelf) for 200 people. In the end it''s costing about $65,000 (includes attire for bride and groom, makeup/hair for bridal party, photography, flowers, invitations, gifts, tips, dj, ceremony music), not including our rings or honeymoon/post-bar trip (which is about another $10,000 total).

I think we did a pretty decent job for such a large wedding in the City, but it is by NO MEANS budget or inexpensive! There a quite a few things we could have sacrificed or cut down on (ie., my dress/accesories, his tux, photobooth) but decided it''s worth it to us in the end. I saved a lot by doing my own invitations and by really really negotiating with our vendors.

Although some days I think that we should have just taken all that and purchased an apartment...unfortunately, our parents would never have allowed it!

$75K for a wedding in NY

(I am sure it is going to be lovely, btw). I am thinking bye-bye NYC and hello PR.

A DW is looking more and more appealing to me...

 

[LaurenThePartier]

We got married on a Thursday at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and we live in Dallas, TX - including airfare, our room at the Bellagio, our ceremony, my dress, our wedding bands, and our reception dinner for 20 people, we spent ~$4k.

 

[goldenstar]

Date: 7/23/2008 12:14:26 AM
Author:mystiqkal
I''m just curious what the average amount people on PS have spent on their weddings (for everything, dress, location, caterer, flowers, etc). I know we have to keep in mind that everyone lives in different locations so the standard of living will definitely vary. I you guys could post where you live and how much you spent, i think it''ll be interesting to see the variation.


Even though i''m not married yet, i can tell you that i have had two friends who just got married and they both spent over 80k on their weddings. We live in the bay area, CA.

It doesn''t have to be expensive in the Bay Area. I''ll admit that I''ve been to three 70k weddings and two 30k weddings in the last two years. The 30k weddings were lovely. I think it helps to get married outside of the big cities. Although 30k is still a TON of money, its far from 80k. If 80k were the average, no one would be getting married.

You can definitely have a wedding for less than 30k. It depends how many guests you have and what your tastes are.

 

[HollyS]

Date: 7/23/2008 1:36:52 PM
Author: LaurenThePartier
We got married on a Thursday at the Bellagio - including airfare, our room at the Bellagio, our ceremony, my dress, our wedding bands, and our reception dinner for 20 people, we spent ~$4k.

HOW ???? Tell us how, please!! That''s just incredible!

 

[fieryred33143]

I can tell you that I''m doing the research now and this is what I''m seeing:

For a non-denominational (sp?...we really need spell check on here LOL) church ceremony is $1200. The reception for 80 people in a hotel that''s across from the church is $94 per person, plus an extra $2pp for salad(!!!), $5 for premium liquor, 22% service fee, and 6% sales tax. So the reception is about $11,000 which in total is about $15K. Then another $5 to $10K for everything else (photography, bands, clothes, invitations, etc). All in all my little Fort Lauderdale Beach wedding is going to run me at about $30K.

Which is why we are seriously looking into going oversees and as of about 30 minutes ago, we both agreed that''s probably the route we want to take.