What did your wedding cost?

[Va-bear]

Another 'eloper' here:

Dress on sale at Hechts = $25.00
Rings = $150.00
Ministers fee = $85.00
Dinner and champagne for us and 8 friends= $200.00 (we met them later...)
1 nt in a 'nice' hotel = $75.00
Breakfast the next am = $15.00

= $550.00 ....... 17 years of = priceless!!!

 

[pooh4evr]

I chose 10-21 (actually about 13
We had 300 people at $ 20 a head for the reception (open bar inc) , cake was huge but we knew the cake guy and got it cheap, dress was about 300, dj was like 250, dh did the honeymoon so don't know how much that cost, limo bus thing about 500 (for the day) and pics (photog for the day and at reception) was 1200. I know I am forgetting things but can't remember! - This was in spring of 2000.- my mom and I paid for it all.

 

[suzimar57]

for everything, around $15,000

 

[antmaril]

Got married in 1974. Had a sit down dinner reception at a very popular venue for 215 people with an open bar and a five piece band. Total cost including my dress, the cake, flowers and photographs was less than $3,000.

 

[mjkacmom]

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!

Yep, that's a NJ reception, too. I'm always way too full to enjoy the Viennese table - I fill up at cocktail hour (gotta love the seafood station!).

 

[JB111107]

I think my grand total was somewhere around 1k. I bought my dress and my cake, and the rings, everything else I made. Made 2 flower girls dresses, ring bearer pillows, flower baskets for the girls, my bouquet, MOH bouquet, my veil, etc.

We got married outside in a nature center and it was free. My pastor that I grew up with married us for free. We only had family and a handful of friends so I just did finger foods there at the center near a duckpond for the reception.

I got my dress on clearance at David's Bridal with the petticoat, slip, corset, etc. all for just under 500, at half price. I copied the 250.00 veil design and made it for about 12.00 from stuff I got at Walmart. My flowers cost about 30.00 total from Garden Ridge/Michaels.

I spent about 180.00 also on a B&B in the area for our honeymoon. Can't travel too far when you have kids!

 

[clgwli]

Around $3000 not including the honeymoon. My dress was hand made for me so that cut down a lot of he costs

 

[cruellababy]

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!

That is so true- I had posted earlier about our 33,000 wedding- it was on Long Island in 2000. We got married at the Miller Place Inn.We also had the full cocktail hout that you mentioned above; which alot of people thought was the dinner We also served champagne w strawberries for during the ceremony-and that was a decent chunk of $$ But, what an amazing day we had!

 

[SHAYMARAYSMOM]

I would say, including a honeymoon, 20K.... 222 guests. Nice place, open bar.... "I" would rather have had it at a fire hall and saved $15K.... but you know women..... ( runsforcoverandhides )

But I also worked as a Co-DJ for a wedding in New Hope, PA, that easily topped $150K.

I hope your DW does not see this. See knows when you are sleeping


Mine was around 10,000 dollars 20 years ago. DH and I wanted to sneak off to a Jp and not have a big deal. But my dad would have none of that.

One of my older sisters did that and the other one thought if her inlaws payed she would get a better wedding.
The one that had her inlaws pay turned out to be a mess.

 

[Laura]

I'm watching a show on WE and they were just talking about a "budget" wedding...the price tag was $37,000

That's four times what I paid for mine!

What did you pay for yours? (poll to follow)

About the same as you paid for yours. Well, except my dad paid for it.

 

[mom2aredhead]

I wonder if some of the wedding budget figures are skewed by geographic location.

Absolutely...typical NJ weddings (similar to NY) include an open bar, gigantic cocktail hour, sit down dinner, multiple desserts, DJ or band (or both) for the entire event...not to mention the dancers that are paid to get everyone moving, the plasma tv's mounted to the wall showing videos and picture slide shows and the light effects. Not that I had all of that when I got married 9 years ago, but I had a lot of it. Total was about $22K for the wedding reception, flowers, music, cake, photogropher, video and rings + about another $6K for the honeymoon in Hawaii.
And the worst part...I wanted to elope and it was my crazy "better half" that wanted the big to-do. Swear on my life.
I don't regret it though...it took us a little longer to save for our house, but we were still homeowners within 2 years of our wedding, we still love each other just as much and have a beautiful little boy...so regardless of how we got here, life's good.

I fill up at cocktail hour (gotta love the seafood station!).

Cocktail hour is my favorite part of most weddings! My husband laughs at me...I pretty much shrimp myself into a food coma!

 

[Todd&Copper]

Ours (in Virginia Beach in 2001) was roughly $7000, not counting the honeymoon.

My SIL had a $24000 wedding in Charlottesville in 1999. She insisted on having it at a swanky estate, with bridal party guests staying at the B&B bungalos on site, having a hairdresser come and do the entire bridal party on-site, fancy catered hors d'overs and meal, full open bar, string quartet, and fancy car import rental for the "married couple getaway" - although all they did was drive about 5 miles down the road and come back b/c they weren't leaving for their honeymoon in the mountains until the next day. All of this was weird-o to me b/c she is such a dirty hippie IRL that the swank stuff seemed very out of character.

 

[Andy B]

Actually I voted other because It was 22 years ago and I can't remember, it was a quite low key affair as we only had one parent alive between us and did not want a big affair, My MIl paid for the reception side and we paid for the church side.

 

[jodifla]

I grew up with weddings just being in a church with punch and cake afterward, so it was a surprise in college when I started seeing all these elaborate affairs!

DH and I wanted a lot of wedding for as little money as possible. He performed in weddings throughout high school as a musician so he had ideas on what should be done!

We ended up renting a private historic home and had the ceremony and reception there. We were really able to keep the food and alcohol costs down with this....we just hired a bartender. Martha Stewart's Wedding book had just come out so we got lots of inspiration from there.


So, 21 years ago, for 110 guest with a full buffet meal, open bar totaling about 4 hours (with music from a DJ) we spent about $5,000. That also included the dress, rehearsal dinner, rings...pretty much everything but the honeymoon.

The best thing was we inspired several weddings similar to ours afterward!

 

[barkley]

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

not entirely for the gifts-but i suspect with many it's definatly a consideration in the planning. i can honestly say that of the invites we've received in recent years there tends to be a direct relationship between the type of gifts a couple registers for and the cost of the wedding (higher end wedding= more expensive registry items). not saying that's always the case but it seems to be a trend.


have a huge blowout if you can afford it, but use some common sense for god's sake. we went to a wedding recently that from all appearances (and all the pre-wedding sharing of information) was obviously VERY costly for the b/g. that's fine-if you can afford it go for it. the thing that just seemed to smack many guests (including me) as lacking in common sense was the fact that on the guest book table there were 2 "money trees"-one with a photo of the very high end honeymoon destination and one with photo of an empty room. the tree with the honeymoon photo had a sign that read "please help us pay for our honeymoon", the one with the empty room read "we have no furniture-please help us furnish our apartment" word around the event was that the b/g had "budgeted" their household furnishings and choice of honeymoon destination based on what they EXPECTED to receive gift and cash wise from each guest. apparantly the gifts they received (which were selected from their own registry) before the wedding were'nt of the level they anticipated ( but to be honest they did'nt send the guests an itemized per attendee cost analysis or what their share of the honeymoon and furniture would cost so most people were left to gift what they felt was appropriate/could afford ) so AT THEIR OWN WEDDING they were left to hope that the guests would pony up some additional gifts $$$ cuz while the air and hotel tickets were booked-they had no $$$ or credit line left, and if they had to cancel they could only look forward to returning to their empty aprartment.

use some common sense folks.

 

[Jeafl]

We got married 23 years ago and spent around $15,000, which was a pretty good amount for back then. We paid for it ourselves, although my parents paid for my dress and the rehearsal dinner.

The week before we got married a co-worker of mine got married and his wedding cost $112,000!!! It was, and still is, the most unbelievable wedding I have ever been to! I shudder to think what that wedding would cost today! I remember him telling me the flowers alone were almost $30,000!

 

[lemondog]

Depending on where you live, $37k could be considered "budget".

That's exactly what I was going to say!

My wedding, which was 10 years ago this spring, cost right at $20,000. For a nighttime wedding in a southern city, with a full orchestra, heavy hordoerves (sp?) and open bar (beer, wine and champagne only), this is about average. Actually, I thought I did pretty good. I used a florist who worked out of her home, so I saved a lot of money there. And we did not do hard liquor on the bars, which also saved a ton of money. However, there was a bar in the club where I had my reception that poeple could go buy a mixed drink if they so desired (although we did not publicize that).

The major expense in my wedding was the reception. It was held at a club on the campus of a local university, and with site rental, food and bars, the total was about $7,000.

All this does not include our honeymoon, which was about $3500 (Jamaica all-inclusive resort).

 

[barkley]

We got married 23 years ago and spent around $15,000, which was a pretty good amount for back then. We paid for it ourselves, although my parents paid for my dress and the rehearsal dinner.

The week before we got married a co-worker of mine got married and his wedding cost $112,000!!! It was, and still is, the most unbelievable wedding I have ever been to! I shudder to think what that wedding would cost today! I remember him telling me the flowers alone were almost $30,000!

i had a co-worker who spent close to $100,000 on her dd's wedding the very sad and scary thing was her husband had no idea. he had put a stop to her draining all their savings early on in the planning so without him knowing she took advantage of a change that was going on with our retirement system. the employer had added a realy crappy additional tier that paid a fraction of the pension to employees in the other tier and severly cut back on med benefits-and made an offer to cash out a large portion of existing employee's contributions if they opted into it. she opted in and cashed out. when i left she had already worked 3 years beyond the age she and her dh had planned for decades for her to retire at (and he had retired a few months prior to that to coincide with hers). her plan was to 'just keep working as long as i can so he won't find out'

 

[Darcy03231]

When DH and I were married it was a second wedding for both of us. There was me, DH, the 4 kids, my mom, dad, sister & BIL and her daughter, my brother & SIL and their daughter, DH's Mom and Dad and a very special friend of the family. We were married in a local chapel ($100) by our minister (we tipped him $50), and then all went out to breakfast at the Crowne Plaza (we were married at 9 am as that was the only time the chapel was available) which my parents paid for. We all wore clothes/shoes that we already had. Spent about $300 on rings.

We did have a big party back at our house that afternoon. Very casual cookout, had the pool open, keg of beer, punch with optional vodka or rum. The whole party ran about $350.00, including a sheet cake.

 

[mom2rb]

Our wedding was around $6000 in 1996. We had the wedding at the Chapel at University of Houston. It was beautiful, inexpensive, and centrally located. The reception was at a nice hotel downtown. I got a deal because my reception started so late. They were able to book more receptions during the day. It was heavy hors d'overs with beer, wine and a champaign toast. A night in the honeymoon suite was included.

My dress was around $500. My godfather was the photographer. I bought the flowers from the flower district instead of a shop. My MIL is a hairdresser so she did all the bridal party's hair. I taught gymnastics at the time and I had a parent that was a make-up artist. I traded private lessons for her son, for her to do my make-up.

Basically anyway I could find to save money, I did. My brother had an almost identical wedding as mine the next year. My SIL's father wasn't as concerned with cost as my dad was. Their wedding was around $15,000.