I thought including the ring was weird…I would have assumed te cost was venue, food, dress, photography, floral, cake, perhaps the planner if that’s a thing (it is not, hereabouts). And maybe a rehearsal event as well, but thhose vary sooo much. We are paying for everything except B&G are covering the dress, cake, invitations and photography. Now that he’s lost his job, I’m glad we did it that way. FDIL’s mom occasionally says she will cover the dress or cake, but nobody is counting on that. So together we are at about $12000 for it all.
Cost of wedding is as much as you are willing to spend. If per person cost for food and alcohol is $200, then 200 people going to cost you $40000 before anything else. Our planner said the best way to cut down on the cost is number of people. Flowers can be in the 5 figures, but can also be a lot less from Costcos. There is also photographer, videographer, music, furniture/tableware rental, Welcome party, and the list goest on.
Our state average is about $23K. Pretty close to what we spent, but that included airline tickets to Italy and accomodations for our big family.
I think there are a lot of really inexpensive weddings, too. I’m seeing a backlash against the whole lavish wedding industry, with more couples getting creative to stick to a budget. I’ve seen quite a few weddings at parks with picnic receptions.
Last December, D had a civil ceremony (to be legally married in USA) on the steps of a local museum with only parents of the bride and groom, her sibs, the “minister” (D’s friend who was “ordained” online) and minister’s H. If we (group of 13) hadn’t gone out to a nice restaurant afterward, it would’ve been about $150 total for the license, her dress, corsage/boutinierre, cake and champagne at our house. With the dinner it was about 1K. If D hadn’t gone on to have the church wedding in Italy (which we all wanted her to have), we would’ve gotten off easy! I will think hard about the budget for future weddings for our 5 younger kids–including 3 more daughters. (None in the works yet, and none living overseas.)
My daughter and fiancé set a budget of $27,700 (25,000 euros). There will be about 100 guests. No attendants. No rehearsal dinner. Reception venue provides centerpieces, seating chart, DJ, as well as cocktail hour, three hour meal with three kinds of wine, and open bar, all for a very reasonable fee. This lasts for 6 hours. Then there will be a rooftop after party at another venue. They are considering hiring buses to move guests from one venue to another.
Also, they commissioned a painting of a famous landmark in the city in which they will be married to include in their save the date email. They are also planning some events for the two days before the wedding. I don’t know how they will handle the fees for those, but assume they will foot the bill.
I don’t know how they will keep under budget. They are also requesting no wedding gifts, so there will be no pay back for money spent.
We are giving them a lump sum and telling them they can do what they want with it. Wedding, house, honeymoon, whatever. They did not expect that from us, so they’re pretty happy.
My husband and I were married in a restaurant with Immediate family only, so we think spending money on weddings is frivolous. Younger daughter is appalled at all the decisions that need to be made for a wedding and is already making comments about what a waste a wedding is. Crossing fingers.
I agree. Apparently it’s the custom of her fiancé’s culture to include the bank account number on the invitation, and she adamant about not doing that.
^^DH and I also think spending so much money on a wedding is frivolous. We were married in the chapel at Yosemite. This was 31 years ago and the rental was $25 for half an hour! It was just our families and afterwards had dinner and cake at the Ahwahnee Hotel. We later had a reception for our friends but it was nothing like the receptions people have today.
@downtoearth, I can’t imagine spending $70,000 on a wedding and covering most of the cost on that(and we don’t have that kind of extra money anyway!). You are very generous! My son has felt us out some about whether we will contribute anything when the time comes. We will but the money will be in the few thousand range. He makes good money so can help pay himself for any wedding down the line. Costs and expectations seem to be getting out of hand these days .
DD is saving money by having a Saturday Brunch wedding ($36 pp including bottomless mimosas). A lot of places we looked at for dinner wanted $125 pp not including the bar package.
My niece had an absolutely gorgeous wedding which I guessed cost $50k. Her cousin, who eloped with her husband, sat with us at the reception and pointed out she and H were no less married than my niece. Yep.
Forgot to point out that my D is not having an engagement party, as well as no bridal showers, bachelorette or bachelor parties. Essentially she considers her wedding a party where she can have all her friends and family gathered at one time. So I do give her credit for that.
^^^ True. But I do think hearing the ranges or levels of “wedding” is good food for thought for many and also can provide the opportunity for some really hard thought from a couple of $$, personal needs and perhaps how else a large amount of money could be used - for themselves or others.
Regarding paying for wedding, I doubt we will pay a lot for any of our kids to get married. We paid for all of college, and they each had a low end but new (or in one case used but a nicer) car when they graduated, paid for by us. It was important to us to get them through without debt. Weddings - they just aren’t so important to us. That said, we will likely give them some amount, but I would rather see them go on a nice honeymoon or use it to help fund a down payment on a house.
I guess you could say the community college of weddings makes them just as married as the full pay private. If others can afford to and choose to go for the expensive weddings, that’s totally a personal choice, just like college. BUT, just like college, I don’t think taking a huge loan or using retirement funds to pay is the way to go.
We were invited to five weddings in 2018…that includes ours. They were all different. They were all wonderful and fun and great. They were in places from Austin to Greece. I’m quite sure the costs varied a lot. It didn’t matter.
Comparing what is done might be helpful! But comparing the costs is probably not. Costs vary so much by region if the country, and venue type…and, of course, number of guests.
When we were planning our daughter’s wedding, we made a list of things that were important and that WE were willing to pay more for (photographer, live band). And things we felt didn’t need to be as costly but could still be nice (flowers, invitations).
Then we shopped around in OUR area for what we were looking for…getting lots of recommendations from family and friends.
^^But if you haven’t been in the wedding game for a long time or even been to weddings (we actually don’t get invited to many weddings) when presented with the fact that your child is getting married I think one of the first things that comes to mind is “what will this cost us/them/whoever”? Planning a wedding is not something every woman/man/mom/dad dreams about. I for instance have not waited for the day that my daughters get married - I don’t have big dreams of their dress or whatever - I just want them happy and the wedding part of it is sort of an aside! So for me, all the options/costs was eye opening.
And costs DO vary by region but also largely by choices. If I’m a newbie reading this thread I want to realize that depending on area and CHOICES a wedding can or does not have to cost 10’s of thousands of $$!!!
I didn’t chime in on this question because I am loathe to disclose what we’ve spent/are spending on weddings though I think what @thumper1 and @abasket each say above is important. I totally agree that where you live and the type of wedding being planned will largely dictate the amount it will cost.
We live in the NYC metro area and S2 is getting married in March. S1 got married two years ago. For S1 we ended up paying for specific items (which ended up being over 5 figures) and for S2 we are splitting the cost of the wedding with FDIL’s family. That one was and this one will be on the expensive end of the spectrum.
No one involved went/is going into debt or taking loans or dipping into retirement funds to pay for either wedding and the per item costs vary depending on the families’ and bride/groom’s priorities. More is being spent on a band for S2’s wedding than was spent on the DJ for S1, for example. We like a great party and that’s how I look at this - what defines great and how much we are willing to spend on it is individual to each family. In this area per person costs at a venue that can accommodate 200+ people can easily top $200 when you add alcohol, gratuities etc. That doesn’t include music, flowers, invitations etc. Can you have a beautiful wedding without spending so much? Absolutely, it all depends on choices and resources…