Wedding Blog
This whole series we’re doing on budgets is super exciting because it’s something that you don’t really see in bridal magazines. We’ve already received a bunch of submissions for Real Reader Budgets and will start posting them on Monday, so get yours in today!
Ok now on to the bees’ budgets. We’ve tallied them up and here are the results:
As you can see, most of the bees fall within the 20-30k range.
Some stats:
Median budget: $30,000
Average engaged bee’s budget: $31,850
Average married bee’s budget: $42,167
Average bee’s budget overall: $36,737
The exact numbers are actually a little higher than I expected, but the larger budgets really skewed the numbers up. I also realized that when we first launched weddingbee, we only had NYC brides with higher than average budgets. As we’ve added more bees over time and tried to represent all kinds of budgets, the numbers have evened out closer to the national average of ~$27k.
We’ll continue to strive to bring you a wide representation of budgets on weddingbee! 
. In the meantime, are the budgets around what you expected?
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I still can’t believe the national average is $27k! But all-in-all, I think most of their budgets are about what you’d expect/estimate.
I love getting data like this, btw…aren’t statistics fun? 
Does this include the honeymoon? I can’t remember if you mentioned it before or not.
this was based on the figures the bees reported when applying, but a lot of them are also revised budgets during and post wedding.
i don’t think most standard wedding budgets include honeymoons.
Yup. That’s what I figured. Thanks for the info!
I wouldn’t include the honeymoon in the wedding budget either. Mine will def fall into the “under 10k” category. But, I don’t have final numbers yet…I’ll send them in when I do!
Wow! that’s a LOT more than what I expected, especially with the DIY stuff. Our budget was around $5,000 and now the wedding is 2 weeks away, and we’re right under $7,000 and staying put. I guess if we were paying for it ourselves (which is close to impossible, as I just graduated college and he’s still attending… yikes) we would reconsider where we spend the majority of our cash, but as of right now, with my parents paying, I wouldn’t DREAM of asking them to contribute ANY more than they have. That’s a whole lot of cash!! I have known people whose parents have gone into credit card DEBT for a wedding, which just doesn’t seem ethical. But that’s just me, I suppose…
So are we thinking that the difference of engaged/married is more because the engaged budget isn’t “actual” cost, or because of what Mrs. Bee was saying about the initial bees having higher ny-based budgets?
Our budget included our honeymoon which was booked for under 500 dollars, airfare included, which is pretty darn cheap, but still only three days in Vegas! 
Maybe if the large budgets are skewing your mean, you could look at the median? Isn’t that what people do when looking at “average” income in a particular location?
I agree with Firesong. Median is more accurate because extreme outlyers won’t skew the results.
Btw, this is a lot lower than what I expected! I guess I attributed the beautiful weddings I’ve seen to high cost instead of creativity and resourcefulness. I should’ve known!
The other thing to keep in mind, JessicaMayBe, is that for those of us in cities, the cost of catering and site rental is unbelievably ridiculous. Many of us probably do the DIY projects and hunt for deals to offset the rest of the wedding costs so that a $30K wedding doesn’t become a $40K wedding.
one final note - i think all the current engaged bees live in a major city.
Miss Corn is right… without watching our wedding budget could have easily been up to $50,000… but DIY is more of a fun thing for me than a super cost saver… it just happens to be super awesomely cheap too!
i think what would be cool is if not only would they should us their budget but also show a few pictures of what magic a small or large budget can do for you. i guess we brides to be can see and understand what budget is needed for a certain feel that each bride is trying to do for their own wedding. hmmm does that make any sense. email mrs. bee if this doesn’t make sense. thanks for such a great idea!!!
imlucia- I know what you mean. Different things are important to different people. I live in a big Southern City, and am blessed enough to get my venues for almost free, so that takes a HUGE chunk out. Others don’t have that option and if you don’t want to get married outdoors, you pretty much have to pay.
If the bees are willing, it would be nice to have a post wedding recap with pics and percentages of where the most money went.
andrea - mrs. butterfly and bell pepper posted the exact dollar amounts for their weddings recently, and their wedding pics in separate posts. Are you talking about something along those lines?
That’s a lot more than I expected. Like, HOLY COW that’s a lot. Now I’m really nervous to set up our budget (not engaged yet) and try to figure out how we’re going to pay for this whole shebang.
Wow.
Can I ask for one more statistic? A per head cost? $30K for a guestlist of 100 is obviously a higher spend than $30K for a guestlist of 300 people. Thanx! Great information!!
Mrs. Bee - yeah, something like that, just in one post…doesn’t have to be long. But you know, here are a few pics, this was what was most important to me - I spent 50% on venue 15% flowers etc…I don’t know, maybe it could just be in their profile when we click the icon?
Red - I don’t have those statistics offhand, but a post on that is already in drafts.
Thanks Mrs. Bee! This is great info!
I have to add that a bigger budget DEFINTELY does not automatically equate to a nicer wedding . One of the main reasons that our budget is higher than the national average is the cost of reception catering here in Northern CA (echoing what Miss Corn said). I’d guess that for our budget, the proportion of [food]:[all other wedding expenses] is close to 55/45, which is really pricey.
interesting. i was expecting higher actually. i think red has a great idea…per person cost. looking forward to that bit of data!
very interesting! i have my own budget post in the works right now. i’d have to agree that a bigger budget does not mean a nicer wedding, too — it really depends on the amount of people and where it is. i think i mentioned this somewhere else too, but our budget (which corresponds pretty much right on with the graph) when split among 400+ people, really did not amount to that much per person.
i’m very interested in the per person data as well, as that will be our biggest issue in planning.
I mentioned to Mrs. Bee that our wedding actually came in UNDER budget! Crazy, I know! But we were planning on a 135 person wedding and wound up with a 110 person wedding. Luckily, we had a pretty low minimum head count requirement at our venue so weren’t stuck paying for a lot of extra people. Also, somehow managed to get our NYC June wedding for April prices and bargained down lots of extra cocktail hour food as much as I could. Our guests definately thought we spent more for the reception.
Our wonderful photographer, Leah McCormick was also a steal at the time — the key is to find wonderful vendors before they hit it too big. I didn’t do too much DIY stuff, but did shop around so that we could get a better price for what we wanted. All-in-all, I think we came in around $10K less than my initial budget … although the wedding cost was still insanely high.
Hi, As Wedding Bee have added more bees over time and tried to represent all kinds of budgets, the numbers have evened out closer to the national average of ~$27k.
So this has got something for everyone..
Thanks
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Mrs. Bee, New York
Age and Occupation: 29, Weddingbee Publisher
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 33, Internet
Engagement Date: May 7, 2004
Wedding Date: March 5, 2005
Venue: Westside Loft, New York
About Me: Yes, my name really is Bee! I love my blogging, wikis, and tabasco sauce!
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