You Don’t Say?

You Don’t Say?

March 26th, 2010 @ 10:22 am by Mrs. Taco
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Bridepop crunched the numbers and broke down weddings by metro cost, engagement ring/wedding dress cost, who pays for the wedding, and more in a blog here:

You Don’t Say? : wedding san francisco Bridepo1 bridepo

statistics and graphic via Bridepop, check out the article here to see the larger image

Some things to consider:

Parents aren’t paying as much these days, which checks out based on the weddings for which I knew the back story. Your personal tab is inversely proportional to how much guilt you’re allowed, so it makes sense that more people are trying to foot their own bill.

80 percent of wedding ceremonies are religious (i.e. in synagogues or churches), which surprised me a bit. But that is a national average, and I live in Satan’s handbasket, so there you go.
17 months of engagement. We’ll end up weighing in at 15. The time-to-save-money aspect of a long engagement is appealing, but it comes with a lot of “hurry up and wait.” Furthermore, a lot (even little, tiny things) change over 15 months, and, if you’re like me, all of these things will stress you out.
30 percent of honeymooners travel within the United States; I wonder how many of those people go to Hawaii?

Throw any additional thoughts/answers/observations in the comments. Has anything surprised you about Bridepop’s findings?

Tags: san-francisco |

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18 Responses to “You Don’t Say?”

Member

SabrinaR424 (message) 266 posts, Helper bee

Interesting. My FI and I definitely don’t fit the norm. And we’re spending WELL below the average cost for a wedding in our city!

3/26/10 @ 10:47 am (reply)

Member

Champagne Wishes (message) 1,187 posts, Bumble bee

We have been engaged 14 months come wedding day and that is ALL I COULD TAKE! Four more months would have killed me with stress.

3/26/10 @ 10:48 am (reply)

Member

mander411 (message) 735 posts, Busy bee

the average NY wedding is only $26k? I find that hard to believe - does this include the whole state or just NYC? I had to pick a location an hour outside of NYC to keep prices semi-reasonable and it still costs almost double that figure

3/26/10 @ 10:54 am (reply)

Bee

Miss Sewing (message) 2,701 posts, Sugar bee

ooh. i love this type of info. silly sf and it’s ridiculously high averages

im a little bummed the article didn’t include hawaii though, considering it performs the second most weddings overall after vegas.

3/26/10 @ 10:56 am (reply)

Member

alivoo01 (message) 2,622 posts, Sugar bee

17 months of engagement - yikes! That’s seems like an awfully long time! We’ll be engaged for 9 months and be paying for our wedding ourselves. Then again, we’ve been pretty good with saving while we dated. And only $24,000 in Dallas?? Hrm… I’d like to differ!

3/26/10 @ 10:59 am (reply)

Member

peachybride (message) 124 posts, Blushing bee

@mander411: Maybe it counts city hall weddings? I bet NYC has lots!

3/26/10 @ 11:01 am (reply)

Member

SpinningJenny (message) 557 posts, Busy bee

Sigh. And as usual, the Midwest is a great big blank spot. Not even KC, St. Louis or Twin Cities? We’re used to being ignored by coastal peeps when it comes to data gathering, but seriously. It (probably irrationally) irritates me that things like this claim to be a semi-accurate snapshot of bridal trends across America when they leave out metro areas in the middle of the country. The Southeast is pretty underrepresented in things like this, too.

3/26/10 @ 11:27 am (reply)

Member

alohababy28 (message) 466 posts, Helper bee

I too have doubts about the accuracy of this list.. I’d like to know how they came about their numbers. I was surprised by the amount spent on music. We couldn’t find a DJ for less than $1000 (unless it was a guy who owned an ipod and called himself a DJ), nevermind our ceremony musician.

3/26/10 @ 12:20 pm (reply)

Member

pren79 (message) 664 posts, Busy bee

Are they comparing the state of NY or NYC? It’s probably NYC to be consistent. However, it’s shocking that SF seems uber expensive compare to NYC. I would think NYC will be at least comparable or more than SF. It makes me hesitant to believe these numbers. If the #s are indeed true, this makes me feel a little ashamed for SF, which is supposed to be all counter-culture and green. @mander411 and @peachybride, SF city hall has tons of weddings too and that doesn’t seem to have brought the average down.

3/26/10 @ 12:26 pm (reply)

10.

Bee

Miss Taco (message) 950 posts, Busy bee

@pren79: I was also very surprised that NYC was so much cheaper than SF, given how much higher the cost of living is there. No idea why that might be the case.

3/26/10 @ 12:57 pm (reply)

11.

Member

mander411 (message) 735 posts, Busy bee

@Miss Taco - I wonder if it it because New Yorkers have to spend so much money on everything else that there isn’t as much left over for a wedding? Although I still don’t buy that figure. Maybe also because there could be a greater population of lower income that have not as elaborate weddings bringing the average down (keep in mind you basically need to earn 6 figures in NYC to be ‘middle-class’)

3/26/10 @ 2:01 pm (reply)

12.

Bee

Miss Taco (message) 950 posts, Busy bee

@mander411: Good theory; NYC is definitely not solely Sex and the City or Manolos.

3/26/10 @ 5:09 pm (reply)

13.

Member

jordynrose (message) 6,351 posts, Bee Keeper

This is really interesting. I wonder what source they used for this information. Also, it is hard to believe there are 2.5 million weddings every year! Wow!

3/26/10 @ 6:11 pm (reply)

14.

Bee

Mrs. Swan (message) 1,046 posts, Bumble bee

This is fascinating. I love wedding stats! Being from the Caribbean, I would like to remind them that Jamaica is in the Caribbean. I think maybe they could have said “Other Caribbean islands”? Don’t know.

As for NYC weddings, there are many that happen in smaller, less expensive places in the outer boroughs, especially where people spend less.

3/27/10 @ 11:16 am (reply)

15.

Bee

Miss Giraffe (message) 4,216 posts, Honey bee

This was super interesting! thanks!

3/27/10 @ 5:22 pm (reply)

16.

Member

mrspaetz (message) 3,805 posts, Honey bee

Interesting! I too thought NYC would be the top. I guess it could be that SF has a lot of Asian weddings with requisite huuuuge banquets? Hmm.

3/28/10 @ 12:15 am (reply)

17.

Member

Entangled (message) 2,616 posts, Sugar bee

Yet another coast-centric comment, but I’m also surprised San Francisco/San Jose is so much more expensive on average than NY/Boston. Especially since we’re considering changing our plans from the latter to the former.

3/29/10 @ 12:46 pm (reply)

18.