The Average Cost of a Wedding
I was listening to The Matt & Ramona Show today and they were talking about weddings. Ramona said that the average cost of a wedding is $28,000. I could hardly believe my ears. I mean, I know the wealthy might spend that kind of money on their weddings, but do normal people really spend that much?
We spend less than $2500 on our wedding. It can be done. We didn’t have a grand reception at the country club or a 4-star hotel, but it was a nice wedding.
Given the new information I’ve heard today, I’ve created a poll. Please vote and let us know how much you spent on your wedding. I think I need to write a post on ways to save money while planning a wedding.
Tags: cost, Matt-and-Ramona, weddingRelated Stories
POSTED IN: financial matters, odds and ends
14 opinions for The Average Cost of a Wedding
Jane
May 22, 2007 at 2:46 pm
We DID have a big wedding - over 100 guests in a reception hall with a reception following. There were even things added that I felt were unnecessary so the cost was higher than I would have liked. And yet we still spent under $10,000. I can’t imagine what a $28,000 would look like! What a waste!
Angie at Baby Cheapskate
May 22, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Hi Karen!
We had a very small (20 guests) wedding on a beach that was in a state park (free!). Our reception was at a beach house we rented and that we stayed in while we were there. I think the house and the catering, including drinks were about $2000. The rehearsal dinner was a homemade Mexican food fiesta that was also at the house. My dress was under $75 (!) and came from a department store. All told, I think our wedding was under $3000. It was really fun and laid back.
Karen
May 22, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Sorry the poll is not up on the sidebar. I’ve sent an email about it and am waiting for a response.
We had about 90-100 people at our wedding. I borrowed my aunt’s dress. It was a nice dress (and expensive). She had it preserved after she was done with it, so I only had to incur the $150 expense of having it preserved again. It wasn’t the exact dress I would have picked out, but it was still a very nice dress. I think the main way we saved money was by doing most of the food ourselves.
Maria
May 23, 2007 at 1:29 am
I think we had around 60-80 people (some missed the ceremony due to a big accident on the highway!), but we kept costs down by doing a lot of things ourselves. My step-mom and I made and decorated the cakes. We decorated the reception hall. My family did some work on a old church near our farm in return for a “free” wedding site. We spent the most on travel– flying my husband’s much poorer brother to MN to be the best man, our own travel from Tulsa, and transporting/hotel/car for the chaplain of our University (he did the marrying).
Sally Parrott Ashbrook
May 23, 2007 at 7:06 am
I don’t think the average US wedding is actually $28k unless some Hollywood weddings are really skewing the average. I do know people who have paid that much or more, but they are rare. The website in my link is my wedding planning blog for people who want a reasonably priced budget and also for people who want to pay attention to the ecological impact of their weddings. One of my friends said yesterday, “Sally’s website is for people who want inexpensive and elegant, not cheap and tacky.” :)
Renee Miller
May 23, 2007 at 9:54 am
We just finished celebrating our wedding. The ceremony and dinner to follow all took place in a reserved room at a restaurant that we got for free! There were 30 of us there, and it was gorgeous. The only thing we paid for was the food. Add my dress, the cake, and the pictures and all of it came up to under $2000. That’s pretty thrifty if you ask me, and it was gorgeous. I couldn’t have asked for anything better
Tracee Sioux
May 23, 2007 at 12:00 pm
It’s such a giant waste of money really. When we lived in New York, we would meet “engaged couples,” I put it in quotations because when you asked when the date was they planned it two years out to save $20,000 - minimum. Think of the house down payment a couple would have if they did that instead! Or a heck of an emergency fund! But, we at http://www.blogfabulous.com and http://www.traceesioux.blogspot.com are notoriously cheap.
We got married on the beach with two witnesses and a pastor we found in the phone book. Total cost of two kiosk bunches of flower, wedding license, preacher, and lunch - around $300.
Karen
May 23, 2007 at 1:04 pm
LOL Sally. I saw some pictures of a camouflage wedding. I couldn’t decide if I should be horrified in shock or rolling on the floor laughing. I had never seen a camouflage wedding. I’m trying to decide if I should post the pictures. I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but you just have to see it!
wedding gift portrait
May 24, 2007 at 12:18 am
The numerical figure mentioned in that show is something that’s no longer new. Knowing that it’s the average then there must be something that costs below or above it. I’ve known that in rich countries the graph would show a high number of couples getting married and spending more than that. In the case of poor countries more number of couples who are into saving can be observed. But in both cases that average cost is still present.
Trench Reynolds
May 25, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I couldn’t get the poll to work but it may be my browser or OS. Anyway when I got married all we spent was $50 for the marriage license.
Heather
May 25, 2007 at 8:51 pm
I used to think that this number was ridiculous, but now understand how easy it is to get to that point! I am getting married in November and am having a ‘typical’ wedding with a church service, a reception with a buffet dinner and a band for the 4 hour dance afterwards. I am being incredibly frugal about most things (my dress cost me $40 at a thrift store), but we are still really working hard to keep things to about $13,000. When you feed 250 people in Milwaukee at a hall you will pay a lot. In fact, ours is the most reasonable I’ve heard. Even the things you’d think wouldn’t cost much do, as an example our license is $100, our church, priest and musician (employed by the church) is another $500+ without any decorations or flowers. It is not that hard to see where a couple who aren’t frugal and doing things themselves could fairly quickly spend $20-30,000. I think it is a bit scary to think of where that puts most young couples. I’m grateful that my fiance and I have saved a lot and are in a position to throw this ‘party of our lives’ for our family and close friends without depleteing our savings.
Karen
May 25, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Heather: I’m glad you are able to plan your wedding without depleting your savings account. That certainly is a smart thing to do.
When I was planning my wedding, my mom told me I could take the $2500 and plan my wedding or I could elope. I chose the wedding. I’ve been married for 13 years now and I guess it really doesn’t matter now. If I didn’t have a wedding, I might be looking back on that with regret though.
We were fortunate that we didn’t have to pay for a church, singer, organist, etc. I had gone to church with the people for most of my life and they gave their services as a wedding gift.
Karen
May 25, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Now that I think about it, I believe my parents gave us $2000 and we came up with the other few hundred ourselves. My hubby told his parents that he wanted money for a wedding gift to help pay for the honeymoon. If you include the honeymoon, we spent around $3,000.
Corie
May 29, 2007 at 12:19 pm
I can easily see how people could spend $20,000 or more on a wedding, especially if you are including the honeymoon. My husband and I spent over $10,000 on our wedding. We invited about 250 people (he has a very large family). The reception portion of the wedding was the largest cost, over $5,000 (with the rental cost, sit down dinner and alcohol). We didn’t include our honeymoon in this cost, so that would up it another $3,000 or so.
Thank goodness we are only doing this once! :)
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