Wedding Blog
Spurred by Miss Plum’s post about the $300,000 Wedding, I was wondering what us, um, less extravagant brides are trying to keep our costs at! So let’s try a poll to see how much the average weddingbee-er’s wedding costs!
What is your wedding budget?**
Total Votes: 814
*including ceremony, reception, dress, and all that good stuff, but not including engagement rings, rehearsal dinners, honeymoons, and other tangential expenses.
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According to CNN, the national average cost of a wedding in 2005 was $26,327, but Cost of Wedding can give you an average based on zip code! According to them, the average in the NYC area is $36,560.
Which brings us to another poll!
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The next big question is…where is all that money coming from? According to About.com, the brides’ parents pay for about 30% of weddings these days, 32% of couples pay for it themselves, and 15% of couples share the cost with both sets of parents contributing.
*You know, the majority of it. I’m assuming most people will have smaller contributions from other family members (or contribute themselves), but where is the bulk of it coming from.
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Damn me living in LA!! Our wedding budget is about $20,000 LESS than the city average. Holy crap, we’re po’. Oh well, it’s good enough for us, especially for one P.E. teacher and a bookkeeper!!
Our city’s avg is our wedding budget! That makes me feel a lot better about how much we’re spending. I was wondering how ladies were getting those smaller budget weddings done because that would seriously be a feat in my area!
Wow, my budget ($5000) seems TINY compared to the average. $25,000 on one day seems so excessive. Where do people get that kind of money? I’m not poor, and I didn’t grow up poor, but even so, I can’t imagine being able to afford that kind of event.
These posts have got me thinking about people’s feelings about what’s “acceptable” to spend on a wedding. Clearly people have their opinions about a $300,000 wedding - but what if that family is billionaires and that’s not a lot for them? Is that better or worse than spending $5,000 but putting it all on credit cards? Is an “acceptable” cost based on a common standard or how much the couple/family can afford? Or, maybe it’s about what you get for the money. Is an amazing caterer, space, etc. worth $100,000 or will that always be an outlandish amount to pay?
I personally didn’t mind paying my vendors for the amazing job they did, but I’m sure some people would think we splurged too much while others might be amazed we pulled off an NYC wedding for what we did.
With $60,000 in student loans to pay, only one paycheck coming in (and as a state employee I have to say states don’t pay well) and law school to pay for, we’d have to get married at the courthouse and not have a reception at all if we were expected to pay for this on our own. Since our parents insist on having an event, they are helping as much as is within their means - and for that we are extremely grateful.
i’m curious to know what the average budget is based on who’s paying. for instance are those in the $50-70k bracket most people that are splitting evenly with both set’s of parents? does more people mean that they can have a higher budget? i guess when it comes down to it, i’m most curious to know the range of budgets for couples that are paying all on their own, since that is what me and my fiance are doing.
my planned budget is 10k-25k below the average [in the town i live in and the city i'd plan of having the reception at]. i’m more shocked by the average cost in my home city than anything else.
i do plan on footing most of the bill. partly because then i can have things the way i want [the whole bratty "i'm paying for this!"]. then again, my parents didn’t have a big wedding [they got married at the justice of the peace] nor have planned one before [my older sis eloped] so they have NO CLUE what to do. so that bodes very well for me.
Ours was split between our parents, but my parents contributed three times as much as my husband’s parents.
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Don’t know our budget or anything quite yet, as we’re both still in college, to make the moohlah. Definately know that we’ll be paying for it 100% ourselves, though.
Our initial budget was $150k, but not we’re up to $200k. Our city average was way under our actual budget, which makes me wonder if it’s all worth it. My fiance and I are paying for this wedding by ourselves. Although I’m spending crazy money on this wedding, it’s money that we have. So, as long as I don’t have to loan any money.. I think we’re good. 
My budget is roughly within the average cost of my hometown (though it’s being held in another country - no idea what local averages are here). But, my wedding is much larger (large family), and I think on a per head count, I’m probably well below the average - keeping it strictly below $100/head.
I am so glad this was posted because before I didn’t feel like I could really identify with anyone posting on this site. It was fun to look at, but at the end of the day it made me feel poor and left out. Now I know there are others in the same boat as me on this site, poor and paying their own way. I feel a bit better about my budget, because while I do really want to have a unique and special wedding I’d also like to not spend the rest of my life entirely in debt. No little David we can’t afford to have a house with a yard, but look at how pretty Mommys couture wedding dress was.
I agree with Rebecca. I totally heart weddingbee and all of its cute ideas, but I wasn’t sure how much could be applied to be small budget. Is it possible to see more posts from this kind of perspective? I love all of your finds, but it would be nice to see a spectrum, kinda like how Marie Claire does “Splurge vs. Steal”.
My budget is on par with my city’s average, and the only reason it’s that high to start with is because we are planning on a 2 ceremonies, one korean church buffet style reception that includes all our parents’ friends and their friends of friends… and another more americanized dinner reception at a fabulous venue for roughly 250 people. If we had one reception with about 100 people, our budget would be much much lower.
Thanks for this post!
Since we don’t know yet where we are having the wedding, I tried a few possible locations and our budget is lower than all of them. However, his hometown’s average was considerably less than my hometown’s average, making me wonder about the price variance of vendors in different areas. Maybe we should get married where the vendors cost less..? Even though I think deep down, I would rather get married closer to my home than his. (Unless of course we find an amazing venue, hehe.)
Any other’s out there who have to choose between two different states (yours and his) when planning your wedding? How did you come to a decision and what did you decide?
My city’s average budget is $26,580. Our budget is like $14k, with my parents picking up $2-3k, and us picking up the rest. This is with planning on about 170 people to show up. Once everything’s said and done I plan to provide our info to that website as well! (I’d do it now, but who knows what else could come up, as far as expenses go, in the next 7 weeks)
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Mrs. Bluebell, New York
Age and Occupation in 07: 26, Finance Manager
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Playing with the cat and/or Consulting
Engagement Date: December 25, 2005
Wedding Date: June 2007
Venue: Bride's family summer home in the Adirondacks
About Me: Trying to find the perfect balance between family tradition (marrying at the house everyone else in my family gets married at), making our's modern, interesting and different from everyone else in my family's, and incorporating some Chinese tradition for my Chinese fiance. I really have no idea what it's going to end up looking like!
Also, I picked Miss Bluebell for my name because I have blue eyes and I'm a loser like that.
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