What did your wedding cost?

[DisneyBrideToni]

My Disney wedding came out to about $30,000.00 for 34 guests.

 

[monkey68]

My sister just got married in July, and her wedding probably cost 30-40,000. But the food was non-stop, and really good. If there hadn't been good food, then that would have been it, In my culture, people will not only remember how good teh food was, but how much food there was. The flowers were incredible. The video/photography also cost quite a bit, but they got a lot. They had engagement photos done, a "Love Story" video to show at the wedding and to keep for themselves, as well as 2 photographers and 2 videographers the day of. They get all the proofs, a leather album, Thank You cards, and 3 DVDs of the day, and they were there from start to finish. The photographer and video guy were a husband/wife team, so it was kind of cute.

I think the prices also depend on where in the country you are, what kind of wedding you are having, and when you got married. If you got married 20 years ago, of course things were cheaper then. Eloping is not for everyone. When I get married, I want the big wedding, with the poofy dress and all my friends and family celebrating with me. I want to be the center of attention for a day, and when the time comes, if I can afford it, you can bet I'll do a big wedding.

 

[mvazul]

I think most of them probably live on the west coast.

I will travel!!

 

[sarasotamom]

My daughter was married in July 2007. The grand total for the wedding was $33,000.

 

[freckles and boo]

I wish SOME people would spend as much time and money on the marriage as they do on their wedding. Its one day compared to a lifetime.

I agree. I don't begrudge people an extravagant wedding, but sometimes it is easy to lose sight of what really matters. My sister-in-law had the big to-do (with seven bridesmaids and seven groomsmen) and it didn't make her any more married than I am. In fact, she is less married than I am right now. One of the loveliest (and most fun) weddings I ever attended was a garden wedding. The bad weather rolled in and I watched my friends dance their first dance in the mud. I knew they were going to make it. They absolutely refused to let the rain spoil their happiness.

 

[LaraK]

I wish SOME people would spend as much time and money on the marriage as they do on their wedding. Its one day compared to a lifetime.

I agree. I don't begrudge people an extravagant wedding, but sometimes it is easy to lose sight or what really matters. My sister-in-law had the big to-do (with seven bridesmaids and seven groomsmen) and it didn't make her any more married than I am. In fact, she is less married than I am right now. One of the loveliest (and most fun) weddings I ever attended was a garden wedding. The bad weather rolled in and I watched my friends dance their first dance in the mud. I knew they were going to make it. They absolutely refused to let the rain spoil their happiness.

I'm going to add my agreement to this....people forget that it's about the marriage, not the wedding.

I did the full church wedding with a fire hall reception. We had a buffet dinner that only cost us (I think) $7.25 a head. But to this day people talk about our wedding and how much fun they had. We did budget because we paid for a lot of it ourselves and frankly, couldn't afford more. My dad bought the booze (full bar), my mom bought the flowers and my MIL bought the invitations...the rest was on us.

 

[mum4jenn]

Less than $1000. My dress was from JCPenney for $135 (just celebrated 20 years) I did almost everything myself except cake and photography. Cake was around $85 and the photographer just printed the photos he took and we did not go through the "proofs" thing. Did not need decorations at church because church was decorated with poinsettias all over the place and the kneeling bench and candelabra were owned by the church and I did not have to pay for them. Reception was at our house and we had mints, nuts, punch, and a couple of sandwich trays. Most people in the South do not have lavish receptions.

 

[Ember]

Ours was about 30k. BUT that includes a lot that wasn't the actual wedding itself.

- 10k was for the Disney wedding, reception, and fireworks party. This included everything involved with the wedding day except the photography.
- 3k for photography
- 5k in trips for the bridal party. Air fair, hotels, and park passes for 5 people, plus one extra flight for a favorite aunt.
- 7k for the 2 week wedding trip including our flights, hotel, food, and spending.
- 5k for my dress, shoes, accessories, hair, dress steaming, his suit, our rings, invitations, welcome bags for guests, bridesmaids dresses, the SLR digital camera we finally splurged on and called a wedding expense...

 

[MomofKatie]

Let's see if I can remember- it's been 17 years! Mom and Dad paid for everything but our rings and our wedding clothes:

Venue (both ceremony and reception at same place): $750
Food: $850- heavy hor deurves and cake
DJ: Free (a client of my mom's, she bartered her CPA services)
Flowers: free (same as above)
Dress & tux: $250 (DH got his tux rental for free)
Wedding bands: $150
Misc (champagne, chair rental, favors, napkins, invites, etc): $400
Photographer: $600
Honeymoon: free (gift from DH's parents)
TOTAL: $3000

 

[Disney Doll]

Probably around $10K for everything.
Dress
Veil
Shoes
Flowers
Photographer
Videographer
Reception for 200(open bar, choice of prime rib or chicken)
Invitations
Favors
Band

 

[LOVEDISNEYLAND]

Our wedding was around $5,000. We had 8 people in our wedding party including me and DH. Got married in a church and had our reception in a almost brand new community center. We had 110 guest and had a mexican restaurant cater our wedding, where we had our first date and continued to eat there for 5 years. We were even on a first name basis with the people who owned it. So, it was kinda neat for them to be apart of our day. The food was fabulous. It was a sit down dinner. We then had DH cousin DJ (did a fab job!) My MIL also made all the flowers for the wedding ceremony and reception. We made all wedding favors. The whole wedding process was very fun and it made me and my MIL closer because we did it together. It was a lot of fun.

 

[adkkev]

I wish SOME people would spend as much time and money on the marriage as they do on their wedding. Its one day compared to a lifetime.

That is oh so very true. Sometimes it seems as if the more that is spent on a wedding, the shorter and more volatile the marriage (that does not mean that every expensive wedding ends in disaster!).

 

[java]

We were around $20,000 with dress and everything but the honeymoon(we went to Tahiti!)
Ours was in NY about 20 years ago now.

Forgot to add that we paid for it ourselves and at the time we could afford it. If I was relying on someone else to pay for it it would have been much different.

 

[aprilgail2]

I wonder if some of the wedding budget figures are skewed by geographic location. I just got back today from a friend's wedding. Both the bride and groom are from Long Island, middle class families, not wealthy at all. It was easily the most expensive event I've ever attended- 35 different kinds of hors douvres (sp?), premium open bar the whole night, 10 piece band for the dinner (plus a jazz combo for the cocktail hour- they're both musicians), 150 guests, amazing plated dinner, dessert trays in addition to the cake. I can't even fathom how much that cost, especially when you consider that everything is more expensive in the NYC metro area.

.

Sounds like the last 5 long island weddings I have been too-what you describe is par for the course around here. Five hour receptions with 5 hours of open bar. Some have a DJ instead of the band but all have the cocktail hour- usually it includes a carving station, pasta bar or seafood bar and then the actual reception itself. Cant forget the Viennese Hour -yum!

 

[Ember]

I wish SOME people would spend as much time and money on the marriage as they do on their wedding. Its one day compared to a lifetime.

I wish people would focus less on the gifts they think they deserve for getting married. Forget about the marriage AND the wedding. I suspect some couples do it for the presents. (Personal pet peeve of mine...)

 

[TLSnell1981]

I wish people would focus less on the gifts they think they deserve for getting married. Forget about the marriage AND the wedding. I suspect some couples do it for the presents. (Personal pet peeve of mine...)

Considering the price per head and that's just the reception....I doubt that many do it just for the gifts.

 

[binny]

I wish people would focus less on the gifts they think they deserve for getting married. Forget about the marriage AND the wedding. I suspect some couples do it for the presents. (Personal pet peeve of mine...)

Oh yeah that too.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

We got hitched at the courthouse, went to Olive Garden after, then "honeymooned" at a fancy place downtown for 1 night. No rings.

So under $300.

 

[dislal]

Our wedding cost us less than $5000, that was a little over 15 years ago, I tried to keep the prices low on everything, because my parents don't believe in credit cards so they paid cash for it. We had almost 200 people there and we still have people talking about how nice it was and everyone loved our DJ who we only paid $100 and he did a great job.

My wedding gown was a little less than $500. and now I see that some prom gowns are more than $500 I have already warned both of my DD's that they will not have a prom gown worth more than my wedding gown.

 

[phragmipedium]

We spent probably $3700-4000 on the wedding. I consider myself a bargain queen and not terribly high maintenance, so I got some great deals for the price. I could not see going into debt for the wedding, or spending a terrible amount on one day. It included

-my dress, shoes, veil, our rings,
-reception site, ceremony site, officiants, rentals (chairs, etc),
-flowers which I purchased wholesale and arranged with my SIL (bouquet, table arrangements, corsages/bouts, rose petals for my aisle),
-a sandwich/salad/fresh fruit and fresh veggies buffet reception
-microbrews on tap, wine and punch,
-a photographer for the whole wedding/a few hours before with an album and all our prints,
-favors
-and everything else I guess - little stuff like postage, etc

This was summer 2006. Some ways I was able to cut corners -

-my aunt is a hairstylist and did my hair for free,
-I did my own makeup and nails,
-a close family friend professionally makes cakes and made a beautiful wedding cake for us for free,
-we used an iPod with all the music we wanted and hired a friend of SIL to hook everything up and do the music at the wedding and reception,
-another friend of SILs covered the buffet and made sure everything stayed stocked
-my mother is terribly creative and good with paper/graphics and she made our invitations.

My parents gifted us with $3500 toward the wedding so it covered almost everything, and MIL gifted us with a rehearsal dinner at a local Mexican restaurant for our out-of-town family and our wedding party, parents, etc. FIL paid for DH's tux. The men in the bridal party rented their own tuxes and the women were allowed to select a black dress of their own choosing (one they already had if they liked) to wear, hair and shoes of their choice. I did for my bridesmaids what I'd have liked done for me.

This didn't include our honeymoon, which we took two months later. FIL gifted us with our airline tickets and we went during free dining, so we just had to pay for our room at Pop Century and our tickets, so it was about $1200.

I think that's everything - it was a beautiful day but it was very hot, and the stress of planning it all by myself at a distance was very big. It was good to have such a nice wedding at a bargain, but all that legwork was the price. It's hard work to be your own wedding planner and do the most for your money, but it was worth it. I was very relieved when it was finally over and I was just married. And we didn't go into any debt for our wedding or spend what I would consider an exhorbitant amount on a wedding day.