How Much Did You Spend On Your Wedding?

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

A friend of mine wants to know. This survey is anonymous, so tell the truth! 🙂

{democracy:6}

I will follow up with a more detailed post next week. For the curious, various studies report the average cost of weddings in the US to be about $30,000, while the median is around $15,000. Those crazy celebrity weddings must throw off the averages, especially since everyone seems to get married three times each.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


User Generated Content Disclosure: Comments and/or responses are not provided or commissioned by any advertiser. Comments and/or responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. It is not any advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Comments

  1. The premise of the question is that having and wedding and getting marriaged are the same thing. I am of the opinion that they are not. A wedding, to me, is the party you hold for your friends and family to celebrate and to begin your marriage. In that light, it seems to me that getting married at a courthouse does not constitute having a wedding. I may be wrong on this one but who am I to say…….I am yet to get married.

  2. your numbers are going to be off….the people who read this blog (especially the woman – at least form what I see in the comments) are unlike most people willing to go into tens of thousands (or more!) into CC debt for their wedding.

    Despite my reading of this blog I am still in favor for not skimping on your wedding, however, the defintion of “skimping” is to each their own.

  3. I think you also need to know when a person got married in order for these numbers to mean anything. I’ve been married for over 7 years. Costs have changed and can’t be compaored to someone who got married this year.

    I also think you are missing an option for the survey “I don’t know”. Often it is the brides parents that foot the bill, and TBH, a lot of women don’t know how much money their parents spent on their wedding. And if the brides parents paid for it, then the groom probably doesn’t know.

  4. ~$1500 for a church wedding for 250 & reception for 300

  5. On the same note, I’m curious on how much people spent on the wedding ring.

  6. I’ve always wondered if the average wedding takes into consideration the rings and the honeymoon, because 30k just seems high to me.

  7. …er…i meant engagement ring

  8. Vegas baby! Only way to go.

    In laws said do you want the money and get married in Vegas or we can spend it on a big wedding. We made the smart choice and don’t regret it a bit. 10 years later.

  9. I think that you’ll find the numbers from your survey are a little bit lower than what they’re calling the average. The majority of the people on this site are at the very least cost conscious and in many cases frugal. I think between 15-30K is probably where most weddings will fall if they’re modest affairs.

  10. My wife and I spent around 15k for a destination wedding in Mexico. We had around 40-guests. For us, that was getting our money worth. We didnt have every little little do-dad made up with our name on it – and we didnt pay for all the ridiculous stuff. We simply had a nice modest wedding in a beautiful beach-side villa with only the people we wanted to be there – close family and OUR friends. We also paid for a majority of our wedding (12k) – which is probably part of the reason we maintained a budget of 15k. We take a lot of pride in paying for our own wedding and not expecting our parents to shell out all that cash.

  11. We got married four+ years ago. The total cost of our wedding was in the $50-$100k range. That being said, this included EVERYTHING that was spent on the wedding, regardless of who/what was done. As an example, our final check for the photographer was around $14k, but included lots of orders for other people. Despite that sounding like a huge number, we did not have an extravagant wedding by any stretch. This number is going to have a lot to do with where you live (we are in the suburbs of a major city) and how big your family is (we’re Irish and Italian and had 265 guests). The most important part, however, is we did not go into any appreciable debt for the wedding. Within 60 days of returning from our honeymoon, everything had been paid for in full. This isnt because we are independantly wealthy, but because of proper planning and budgeting. One thing everyone seems to forget is gifts. Granted, you are not throwing this “party” to make a profit, but it does ease the cost of the wedding somewhat.

  12. Ha! We had a simple, intimate wedding at the church. For the reception we hired music-school students. Our “wedding gifts” were all comestibles (pot-luck on the food; some friends brought a case of good wine). The reception was in someone’s house. Why so cheap?

    Well, becasue the aforementioned house was OURS: it’s what we did with our $ instead of blowing our (tight)wad on a party. That “modest’ $30k figure would have represented a sizeable percentage of our down payment.

    Total wedding expense was under $1500 (with $500 of that representing the “courtesy” for the church & minister).

  13. You need to correct the range that says 5k-15k. It should probably be 10k-15k. You have overlapping ranges.

  14. $18 for the license, under $75 for the “reception” across the street from the Justice Building at the Tibetan restaurant.

    Almost 14 years later, we are still on our honeymoon.

    We did buy wedding rings about 5 years after we got married, they cost about $150 total.

  15. $40 for the license, and about $120 in sushi afterward. No rings. We spent her “dowry” (har har) on a house.

  16. I don’t like diamonds and gold doesn’t look good on me. Since I don’t see the point of getting a platinum ring (which to me just looks like silver), I suggested getting steel wedding rings – their durability is symbolic to me, and I like the color.
    I have yet to convince my BF.

  17. Garden State Goomba says

    $67K on wedding, got nice gifts from each set of rents and we covered the rest ourselves. Nice, unique setting in Philly and our wedding is going to be featured in the Philadelphia Magazine’s “Wedding Edition” next year, so, according to my wife anyway, it was worth it. Plus, after getting all the gifts in from over 215 guests, we more than made up for our personal out of pocket payments. It’s all relative, but I certainly wouldn’t have minded using our parents’ gifts for something a little more worthwhile, however, as a good husband, I do as I’m told….

  18. I was one of two witnesses to a friend getting married in ohio by a justice of the peace. A few months later I went to the wedding Mexico and the reception when the came back. As i recall the whole ball only cost them around $5K and it was all very nice. The guests in Mexico had to pay their own airfare and lodging at around $800. Spectacular place though, and i got to do some sightseeing in Mexico. Made for a good vacation 🙂 .

  19. Ours will run a bit less than 15k. Her dad is paying for it in the end and yet we’re still very conscious of the cash we’re spending.

  20. And if I had my way, we’d elope and spend about $500. On the good side though, we’ll probably make 10-15k on wedding gifts. So even though it’s a huge waste of her dad’s money, for us, it’ll be a boon.

  21. Under $5000, I believe. Only about 100 guests, small church, lunch reception (plenty of little sandwiches from a local sandwich shop, people seemed to love ’em). Meal was a total of maybe $6 a head. A number of friends made desserts, I even baked 100 chocolate chip cookies. Officient did the ceremony for free, but we paid for his plane ticket $206 (he stayed with friends). I made the wedding dress–huge savings!

    We also did the courthouse thing for personal reasons.

  22. I lied a little, we haven’t actually had our wedding, it’s next year on Labour Day long, but we’re booked in and it’s well under 10k for 100 people. (we will of course pay for it in cash, in advance, which is why we had to know now what it would cost).

    Yinna, the question of the ring is actually a multi-post topic in and of itself. Fundamentally, giving a ring made of precious metals carries part of it’s significance in the “preciousness”. This may be part of the reason that your BF is hesitant to abide. The ring is a social more, so buying you a cheap steel ring may go against his own social consciences.

    Of course, I went against the grain and bought my fianc? an emerald-set 20k gold engagement ring (custom-made), rather than the diamond one. It took me forever to find a good emerald, but I also didn’t spend a fortune on the ring. What’s more, most of the value is actually in the gold (kind of the point of a ring) which has an actual resale value. Diamonds are flashy but have little secondary value. Yeah, we never plan to sell the ring, but I think she’s happy knowing that it’s not just a piece of metal with a flashy stone.

    If you don’t really like platinum or silver or gold or white gold (basically gold with platinum), take a look at tungsten. They can’t be resized, but they have this amazing luster and durability, and there is more variation in the coloring. They’re popular in men’s rings, but I’m sure that you can find some women’s ones too.

  23. Quite literally we skimped on our wedding…however, no-one knows the better. Had it outdoors in a public park ($250 donation to park), had a 4 piece string quartet ($1000), went to a lovely restaruant…a friends…and by the way, only had family and 3 sets of close friends at the ceremony ($2000). Pretty much did the whole thing for less than $3500. Even the honeymoon in Hawaii was first class travel and accomodations…but all on miles. People are still talking about it…Don’t waste your money on pomp and circumstance.

  24. We had an inexpensive wedding (under $5K), but it was very fun (everyone said so) and we felt very lucky. There were several reasons that we didn’t have a more expensive affair — without getting into too many details — if we could have, I think I would have tried to make it a little more ‘ritzy’. Those were my “no-frills” days. Hopefully, I won’t see those again for a long time, if ever. Not that I think it’s smart to spend $2500 on 400 sea-shells (there’s this wedding reality show I saw last night which really made me think “moron!”) for a “theme” or anything. But I would have spent more like $15-20K, if I had it then.

  25. The numbers should be way off considering people’s interpretation of wedding costs. Are we talking reception, wedding ceremony, gowns, gifts, ring, groom’s dinner, bride’s dinner, transportation, lodging, or what?

  26. I know my poll results are going to be off from the overall public, that’s kind of the idea. I already have the results from the national polls 🙂

    To me the cost of wedding is everything minus the engagement ring and wedding rings. Reception, wedding ceremony, gowns, gifts, groom?s dinner, bride?s dinner, transportation, lodging…

    There’s a groom’s and bride’s dinner? I don’t think we did that.

    I wanted to do another poll of cost per person, because some people have 10 people wedding and others have 500 people, but I went ahead and kept it simple.

  27. Just so you know, those “national polls” are done from a very biased pool of brides according to a very interesting book I’m reading on the subject (The Selling of the American Wedding). The survey takers are subscribers to fancy wedding magazines and/or websites. The type of bride who does that has already demonstrated an interest in that kind of wedding. It’s like polling Cosmo readers to find out about “average” sex practices–you might get thousands of responses, but the average is still going to represent a huge bias compared to the whole of America.

  28. Meg – I agree, so it would be interesting to see the bias of a group of people who read personal finance blogs. I don’t have exact numbers here either,

  29. This is interesting seeing as how I just proposed to my girlfriend just yesterday. So far I’m out of pocket 3k for the ring.

  30. It would be interesting to see the correlation between how much was spent on the reception and how much was received in cash gifts. My wedding cost ~15K. My parents paid for the reception and band (the bulk of the cost), my husband and I paid for all the other odds and ends (ie, decorations, invitations, favors, church fees, etc etc). My folks are very traditional and would think of doing it no other way (well, at least given that I was married at a very “traditional age”: 25).

  31. It would be interesting to see the correlation between how much was spent on the reception and how much was received in cash gifts.

    Cash gifts, well, big cash gifts, seems to be a regional thing. I have not been to a wedding (amongst our large group of friends), where the B+G received more than a couple thousand total. This seems rather mercenary. All the weddings I have been to, the predominant gift exchanged is something from a registry.

  32. If people stop throwing lavish wedding parties, where we all go for free food, drinks and entertainment on a Saturday night? Okay, so it’s not really FREE, as I have to buy a dress, travel and take a gift. But we all know over-the-top weddings really exist only to impress the guests, so why not go and BE IMPRESSED? The question is, is this the way you want YOUR wedding to be? We preferred to respect the solemnity of the occasion by keeping it real, staying within a reasonable (in our opinions, of course) budget ($7K), not going into debt and focusing on starting a beautiful MARRIAGE.

  33. Since we’ve brought up the topic of gifts…does anyone other than me take an unsealed card and checkbook to the reception (along with something from the registry) and fill out the card based on how much they think eat plate cost? I know it sounds cheap, but in reality I just want to make sure that I am _at least_ covering the cost of a similar evening elsewhere as well as giving a gift for the occassion. Before anyone jumps on me, I’m fairly certain that that’s more than most people outside of core family give. My sister had a $30K wedding 10yrs ago and I remember making fun of the family of four (friends of my parents) that came and gave a $25 check. You can barely feed a family at McDonalds for $25. If you can’t afford to buy your family a meal, the least you can do is leave your kids with grandma…

    While I’m at it. I’m also sick of people having a bridal party of 20 or more and forcing them all to rent the most expensive tux with the extra layers in the middle of summer, or buy the most expensive dress in a ridiculous color that they’ll never be able to use again for the price. Just because you have to spend thousands to wear a dress only once does not mean you should force others to. And if you are going to do that, don’t think that stupid engraved pocket knife or costume jewelry that matches the dress to make up for it! My favorite retaliation to this was my ex, who had a pillow made out of hers after the wedding as her gift. They couldn’t be mad, because it was sentimental…and obviously quite expensive!

    I’ve been in one wedding where the B+G paid for the rentals/dresses for the whole party. I made sure to cover the cost in my gift. It’s a matter of perspective. 😉

  34. We spent $8k on our wedding two years ago today and our friends still talk about how great it was. We had around 250 people and our formula for keeping it on the low cost side was do the basics witout being cheap.

    We had the wedding about 45 min south of Chicago in a small town because big city = big cost. We went with a family run operation and worked with them on prices and limited add ons. We opted for a buffet style dinner which was cheaper than serving food. Basic wine/beer nothing top shelf.

    For us it worked well and everyone had a great time. BTW we got back everything we spent on the wedding in cash aprox. $6000 (my FIL provided the rest)

  35. Our total wedding costs will be about $20,000 for 100 people. I planned and aggressively saved for it. We aren’t spending our life’s savings and we aren’t relying on our parents for help. My fiance would have had a beach BBQ if he’d had his way, so I did not ask him to pay for anything Still, I always viewed $20,000 as a lot of money to spend on a wedding and part of me cringes when I think of what else I could do with it. The thing that astounds me is that I cut A LOT of costs and it still came to be that much. I am the DJ, the florist, the graphic artist, the invitation, save the date, and program printer, and the wedding planner. I spent $450 on my wedding dress. Our photographer was $1500.

    The biggest expense was obviously the cost per person. Our cost is $130 per person. Everyone is always shocked and disturbed by that, but the funny thing is that our venue actually costs the same amount as all the other venues that were $50 per person. The difference is that our venue doesn’t have the hidden costs and site fees that the $50 per person places do.

    For those of you interested in the Math…Our venue is $130 per person (includes set up and take down, valet, linens, chairs, sliverware, china, food, appetizers, alcohol, and cake cutting). So, our total is $13,000. Almost all other places (Santa Barbara, CA) had a $50 per person fee + $10 appetizers + $15 alcohol + $6 cake cutting + $3000 site fee + 18% gratuity + 7.75% tax + $1500 ceremony fee, etc. So then it was really $102 per person x 100 people = 10,200 + $3000 site fee + 1500 ceremony fee. The grand total for the “cheaper” $50 per person place ended up being $14,700!

    I’ve learned that wedding sites and costs are very sneaky. The wedding is in three weeks, so I’m not sure yet if it’s all worth it. I’m pleased with my total savings, but still in disbelief that the costs are so high! Even though I’m also more of a backyard BBQ type of girl, it was important for me to break my mold for my wedding 🙂

  36. Finally a bride and not a bridesmaid. says

    My thoughts on weddings….

    I think it all depend on what kind of wedding you choose to have. What makes or breaks your budget DEFINATELY is the food at the reception. You can spend anything from $8 a head for a cake and mints reception to $100 a head for a dinner reception. I really lucked out and am paying $17 a head for a dinner reception. If you can find a reputable caterer that won’t charge you an arm and a leg for a meal, then you can save a lot of money. Also, if you live in a big city, if you find a place a little outside of the city, prices go WAY down. I’m from ATL, but I’m geting married in Athens where we met… way cooler and WAY less expensive. My parents gave me $30,000 for my budget. We are going to spend 10,000 and use the other 20,000 to pay off our student loans. In the end, its one night that most people don’t remember EXCEPT you. Why not save a little of money and make the MARRIAGE easier by paying off debts, putting a down payment on a house, whatever? In the end, whether the wedding day was a hit of a complete failure, you’re still married at the end of the day.

    PS.. While I’m on my soap box….. PLEASE.!!!! don’t spend $4 a piece for your wedding invitations… that’s crazy! I know they’re pretty and all, but really, most people just write the date and time on their calendar and then throw them away… so put the extra money in the party… that’s the only reason people go to weddings anyway.

    I am going to have the wedding of my dreams for $10,000, but I don’t think I could do it for less than that. We are having an evening wedding and we are serving dinner. However, to work in this budget, I had to do A LOT of shopping around and comparing prices.

  37. I love how people try to support their budget weddings by saying “everyone is still talking about it.” Let’s be realistic – no one is going to tell you that your wedding sucked. Not that budget weddings are bad as a rule, but consider the source.

    We recently got engaged, and my uncle called to give me his advice on weddings, since he had one a few years ago. He told me not to do the traditional stuff, and do something like his, which was drinks and appetizers for our family (my father’s side, about 30 people). He said that even though his wedding didn’t cost an arm and a leg, people are STILL talking about how fun it was.

    Let me tell you, people are still talking about how awful it was. It was hot, and we arrived at 11 am, expecting lunch. We got three passed appetizers and champagne. Then we had to sit through a concert. With more champagne. Several people threw up. It was awful, and the whole family talks about it.

    Similarly, my finace’s sister (who I adore), had her wedding last year. They paid about $3K, and had it in a VFW hall. They got an inexpensive caterer, and kept it small (about 70 people). She says she knows it was inexpensive, but that everyone had fun. What she doesn’t know is that the food was awful, and that a number of people, including her brother, got food poisoning as a result.

    For us, our challenge is we have a very large family. We are extremely close to both my mother and father’s side (I talk to my aunts and cousins on a regular basis, and see all of them every two months or so). Plus some close friends, our guest list is at 100. It is very important for us to feed our guests well. Even with our rock bottom price for the location (which has to include a fail safe in case it rains), a good catering menu including service and fees and wine and beer is going to cost around $10K. Add to that $1K – $4K for the reception venue, even if it is outdoors since you have to anticipate the cost of a tent. Plus a good photographer, which is very important to me, some decorations, nice favors (we wouldn’t think of not thanking our guests for making the trip) and a band so that everyone has fun, and you’re now just under $20K. Is it extravagant by my standards? Yes, I think it is! But to me, it is a matter of putting our guests first and making sure they have a good meal and a good time. I wouldn’t serve them something I wouldn’t eat, and I don’t eat at Applebees! The bottom line is that I am happy with the wedding, and it is our style. My fiance and I are funding the wedding ourselves, and we won’t go into debt over it. Would I have rather spent the money on a down payment? Sure. But we’ll be there soon enough, and I feel like you either do the event right, or not at all.

    Just because your friends told you it was great, doesn’t mean it was. They told you your baby was cute too.

  38. Thank you Erin well put. A similar conversation arose just recently on another blog where someone was gloating about getting the meal for $8.75 / plate and couldn’t understand why people were spending $50-100 / head to host their guests.

    My reply is an echo of yours:
    … I have family flying in internationally and from parts of Ontario and Alberta [east and west coasts], I have other family playing host and offering their precious time to help at the event. Offering a quality dinner and a nice party experience are my way of respectfully thanking them for joining the celebration.

    Showing extreme frugality at a wedding (or extreme lavishness) is not something to be proud of, especially when it concerns the guests. It has nothing little to do with absolute number, there’s no moral victory in running the cheapest (or the most lavish) wedding.

    My wife and I have been to well over a dozen weddings in the last four years. And honestly, as a guest, they’ve mostly been hassles. People book church ceremonies for noon and then run off to do photos and expect everyone back at dinner for 5:30. So “out-of-towners” are left to wander the city in their good clothes for 4 hours b/c nobody planned for something for everyone else to do.

    People, like John above, booked weddings “out of town” to save money which was basically just their way of off-loading the cost onto their guests who now have to spend 90+ minutes driving on their own holiday / weekend time, spending their own gas money. John decided to pull this on 250 people (that’s 375 hours of additional driving that he “saved”). Then there’s the usual mix of so-so meals, boring DJs, painful ceremonies, photo guest books gone awry and being stuck at the “reject table” with no introductions and nothing to talk about.

    We’ve spent literally thousands on these weddings (> 12k in 4 years) on flight tickets, car rentals, hotel rooms, presentations, dresses, meals on the road, etc. We’ve had one or two really good weddings, but the key factor was organization first and price second. People remember your wedding when they had a good time.

    Honestly, most weddings don’t suffer from “overall frugality” issues; they suffer from “specific frugality” issues. The worst weddings we attended all suffered b/c corners were cut at the expense of the guests.

  39. i’m getting married in a few weeks and all in, including the ring, honeymoon and all the wedding stuff we are at 125K. our wedding is not too big, 100 people, but we are having it at a private residence where we had to rent EVERYTHING, which made everything much more expensive. my fiance and i have expensive tastes which didn’t help either, but similarly with others, we paid cash for everything and were able to have our dream wedding without any debt, which i think is what is important. IMO, it doesn’t matter how much you spend but whether you can afford it without going into debt because of it.

  40. Charlotte says

    My parents gave us $25K for our wedding and we did not spend a penny of it. Our wedding was earlier this year and we had 20 guests (family and relatives only) and spent 3,000 of our own money on our wedding at the City Hall (1K photographer, $1,300 on dinner, and the rest on random things like flowers to make my own bouquet and his boutinnaire, dress, hair etc). I doubt that anyone “is still talking about my wedding” but I can bet they they are still talking about how we specifically asked people NOT to give us gifts. I think it’s digusting how some couples will invite everyone in town just so they can collect gifts and hope to net positive.
    The reason we didn’t go all out for our wedding is because we just bought a house and after our hefty downpayment (160K) we wanted to keep some cushion in our savings in case we get laid off. And it was nice we were able to add what’s left of our savings, my parents wedding gift money. Some of my friends think that I will regret not having an extravagent party for my wedding, maybe. We’ll see.

  41. I think people spend to much on wedding, weddings are about people married to the one you love and about building a new life together. Having a expensive marriage is no guarentee the marriage will last.
    Marriages today don’t even last that long.

  42. My son is getting married and will be spending 20,000…..this will give them a nice, elegant wedding w/o going crazy, I believe that a wedding should be about the couple, not about the parents, PARENTS think it’s a party for them, this is all wrong and a set up for a bad marriage. Parents, butt out and let the kids do what they want, if they want that BBQ then, so be it….let them have it and don’t go asking people that the kids don’t know, worst thing is to have people celebrating your day and having no clue who they are…..I have a friend who’s daughter is getting married and spending 50,000 and 10,000 for the rehearsal dinner, funny thing is, the bride and groom are so unhappy, they’re both low-key, down to earth kids and don’t even want to go through with all of this, really sad….

  43. I spent 1.5 million on my wedding and paid for it all in cash. This is a small price to pay if you ask me. I couldn’t imagine spending only 125k on a wedding. Where did you have that thing, a soup kitchen? I am a business owner and pay very low wages and gain huge profits. I work my employees to the bone so I can take advantage of the benefits. The other way I was able to save was taking some poor folks off the street and trade them food(not money) to serve my friends at the wedding. Since they are the lowest common forms of life, I feel like I should be able to write this off on my taxes or something. My wife and I have very expensive tastes, and I do not wanna waste money on cheap stuff. We returned any gifts under 10k. Are you kidding me? I hate cheapo’s.

  44. To Travis:

    I am sorry that not everyone is not as well off as you. I’m sorry that your mother did not raise you properly. I’m sorry that you feel the need to even write off hiring poor homeless on your taxes. I’m so sorry that you are so full of yourself that you can’t possibly understand what life is really about.

    People like you is why America’s economy is falling apart and why the world is so corrupted. I seriously hope your comment is a joke. You make me sick.

  45. Bridiesmom says

    Of course that was a crude joke at the expense of Cassie Says, who posted previously. Some people can only focus on their envy. I think no one should go into debt for their wedding or anything else for that matter. Pay cash, you’d be amazed at how you really can do that. Having said that, spend what you can afford to on your wedding. I feel sorry for the people who posted that their parents gave them 20,000 – 30,000 and they used it for a down payment on a house. You’ll get a house, we all manage that, you will never want to save up and spend that amount on your wedding or vacations. When you are older, as i am, you will discover that things never mattered, people and relationships did. What is more fun than to celebrate your love with your loved ones? It’s an outsized party, treat your guests as if their participation is the most important thing to you, isn’t it? The fun the brides will have with their mom, spending a year planning, seeing your child begin their life with someone they love and respect. Yes this is till a cause for celebration. Very few moments in your life will actually be this enjoyable. Why would you pass on that? You have the rest of your life to be practical, you will, and at the end believe me, you’ll regret that you didn’t enjoy more of it.

  46. Thanks for your posts. I spent over 7 k just on the catering and received 4 k in gifts including $50 from several couples or families when it was open bar, dessert, 5 course meal, etc. My family who flew in from overseas were amazed at the over the top wedding. We decided against the standard wedding hall which would have been cheaper with a flat rate per person and went to providing our own bartender, booze, hall, and tables / linen. In total including rings, I am 14 k in credit card debt. I used the MBNA 0% balance transfer to cover the first year’s repayment costs and the RBC visa at 2% to carry the remainder.

    My debt will take me two years at $500 per month with $1600 paid in interest.

    My wife is happy with the big day but upset I keep complaining when I work 70 hours a week and am tired to pay for this one day. I am never home to play with my newborn child nor spend time with her cooking and cleaning. Every item requires a judgement decision about essential needs or wants as there is very little extra money against this crushing debt for unforseen emergencies such as car repair. We both drive 20 year old cars and spend $200/month in gas and as such they need constant repair.

    I try not to push my SOB story on anyone else especially coworkers when they hear I work my regular hours 8-4 pm then my second job 5-11 pm and weekends. The only day I have off is when I’m dead. I will try not to hold the 2 or 3 years of dreary tedious work as a grudge as I know simply by me only being home to sleep is punishment enough. I do not regret buying an expensive ring but to spend so much on a dj, photographer, etc. when we can’t even afford to develop the pictures and don’t have the time to put the cheap prints from walmart we did get into the expensive photo albums.

    My real grudge is society in general. That we are so busy buying things, we never use them. Much like my daughter’s toys, the act of buying the $50 toy is much more fun than playing with it and eventually it’ll end up in the dump or at a garage sale for $0.50

  47. My wedding next year April my total budget is 50k. I will break it down for you
    wedding ring 10.000 tiffany’s ring. My dream ring i am happy smile every time i look at it.
    his wedding band 3000 I am happy i got it for him.
    photgraphy 2400
    videography 2700
    wedding gown +veil+tiara+jacket + alterations 4800
    Groomen gift 11 x 15
    bridesmaids gift 11 x 32
    music band 2000
    reception with food and open bar till 2 am 350 x 50.50 + tax
    flowers 3000
    vintage brooches bouquet 300
    Right now is costing 43.200

    I still need Limo service music for band , cake and sweet table, hair dresser make up artist , honey moon and some thing else I am sure I am forgetting
    right now its

    I believe that this is one day in my life i will have pictures and video to remember forever, its a dream come true. Me and my fiancé are paying by ourselves we both saved up for the wedding.
    we will probably live at least 50 years thogheter so our wedding will cost 1000 every year and 2.73 dollars a day what most of people spend in coffee anyways.
    BTW I forgot to mention he is Polish I am Brazilian we get money gift from the guests usually it pays off the wedding.

  48. $25 for the license….that was the going rate in 1975. We eloped in bluejeans when we were 19 years old….and we’re still going strong. For us, it was about the marriage and the promises we made to each other, not the wedding.

    But…stuck in wedding hell with our oldest getting married in June. We’ve been extremely attentive to costs, attempting to get high quality while still saving as much as possible. We live in the ‘burbs of a major metropolitan area, and when all is said and done, this is going to cost about 25,000. And I’m freaking out about it. I really thought we could do this for $15000, but the catering is killing us! This is why I suggested an afternoon wedding with hors d’oeuvres and wine instead of an evening wedding with full dinner. Oh well, its going to be lovely, but it just feels borderline obscene to me to spend this kind of money on what is, essentially, a 6 hour party. Can’t really be that blunt with my kid, so I’ll just vent here!

  49. 22k so far. My hubby is paying for everything except the wedding gown. We are getting married in peru with 100 guests. Its going to be beautiful. I didn’t live with my mom for 1o years of my life and planning my dream wedding with hrer now isn’t literally a dream come true everything I wanted as a little girl when I used to cry all night long because I was so far from her. My husband (we foot married last year in the courthouse) is the man of my dreams and I low her dearly I want to spend everyday of my life with him. 🙂

  50. Is a dream come true* stupid phone!! Lol

Leave a Reply to Liz Cancel reply

*