We just got married last November, in Key West. Living in Miami made possible the planning of a Key West wedding without having to enlist the help of one of the many wedding planners there who are more than happy to relieve you of all your money.
Lessee now, off the top of my head… Small wedding, about 40 guests, mostly family (I’m not counting expenses like the hotel, since we would have paid that had we gone to Key West for the weekend, but only money that was specifically spent because we were getting married):
Dress - $350
Shoes - 50
Tux - 60
Rings - 300
Minister - 150
Location (West Martello Tower in Key West, absolutely lovely, highly recommended) - 150
Limo - 240
Catamaran charter for reception (Fury Catamarans, likewise highly recommended, ask for Captain Chuck) - 1800
Food (deli trays from Publix) - 300
Cake (Albertson’s) - 100
Flowers (Albertson’s again, and they did a beautiful job) - 20 for bouquet, headpiece and two boutonnieres
Miscellaneous party and other supplies - 150
Big-ass family dinner in lieu of rehearsal dinner (we didn’t have any attendants and thus no need for a rehearsal) - 1100
Photographer - 400
I’m not sure if we should count the clothes–he got a suit, I got a nice dress, but I’ll include them. We didn’t have much of anything sophisticated. Picture Sonny & Cher without the glamour. So the new clothes were a big plus, but they weren’t really “wedding” costs–they were “look for a job” costs.
License–$15.
Photocopied invitations & stamps–$10
Suit-- $50
Dress for me, including new shoes & stockings–$50
Rings–$200 total
Contribution to potluck in the church basement–$5
Wedding cake baked by “Julia Childs-type” neighbor lady–$15
Gift to pastor, including church “rental”–$100
Gift to friend who played the piano–$25
Gift to friend who sang–$20
Decorating the church basement–$10
Film & Picture developing & copies for people–$50
We honeymooned in our apartment…I mean at 17, who needed anything more?
Total cost $550
I hadn’t done the breakdown before–but I know we spent $550, because we’d budgeted $500 and went over and had to borrow $50 from my dad.
My partner and I had a commitment ceremony in March this year in NZ. While the exchange rate might be 2:1, I think purchasing power is not necessarily the same ratio so I’ll just give prices in NZ dollars.
We had around 110 guests
Clothing hire $120 - we wore our own trousers
Rings $850
Invitations $150, including postage - we had pads and printed the details from my computer
Thank you notes $150, including postage
Flowers and decorations $70
Marquee, tables, chairs, table cloths, glasses, etc $2200 - we had the ceremony and marquee in a friend’s garden
Celebrant $80
Food $1000
Drink $600 - most of the drink was methode champenoise bought on special at a supermarket. I don’t think I could have afforded 7 dozen bottles of any French champagne.
String quartet $400
A gift pack for each guest $120 - homemade chocolates in cellophane
Gifts to our singers, our friends whose garden it was and our makeup artist (did I mention my partner is an actor?) $200
Rehearsal dinner (hah!) $20 - fish and chips in the marquee the night before
A week and a half vacation $800 - a week of which was spent camping at the beach.
1996, 7 years ago. California, Bay Area. We paid for part, and my folks for part. Low-budget and wonderful; we got a lot of compliments on the low-key atmosphere.
Dress: $70 for undyed silk yardage. Mom sewed.
Shoes: $10 at Payless.
Veil: free. Borrowed.
Invitations: I don’t remember, but I think about $100-$150.
Mr. genie’s new suit, also for interviews: $400.
Flowers: $125 (corsages and boutounniers only)
Photographer: my uncle. Free.
Wedding ceremony: free.
Reception location: free.
Cake: $100 (I worked at a wedding cake bakery, and got a $300 cake as a gift)
Jordan almonds and punch: not much.
Lunch stuff for out-of towners: can’t recall.
Honeymoon: I think it was $70/night for 3 nights. Family discount from the photographer uncle, who worked at a fancy hotel.
Neither of us wanted an obscenely large and lavish wedding, and I am allergic to the thought of wearing a meringue.
We had a barbecue for 60 on an island in the middle of a river. The registrar came out for 10 minutes, we said our bit, then popped the corks and on with the crispy pig spit. No distant family members we hardly knew, just good friends and people we loved. No ties required, people just wore summer clothes they were comfortable in. We had CD-mixes of music we’d made up ourselves for the day, and a local magician was a lot of fun.
At the end, so many people told us it was the most relaxed wedding they’d ever been to, and that’s just the way I wanted it.
We went home secretly that night instead of going to some honeymoon suite, because there was a new series of a TV programme we wanted to watch!
Albuquerque, 1996. I can’t even begin to detail the breakout of the costs involved, but suffice it to say that it was a full-on Catholic extravaganza, 200 people and a reception at Tanoan Country Club. Our parents split the costs, and my father’s half came out somewhere in the neighborhood of $13,000.
Ironically, that’s almost exactly what I got back out of our house when we divorced four years later.
The cost seems obscene but was reasonable, relatively speaking. We paid for everyone’s (25) airfare (except Dad, Stepmom and nieces/nephews as they flew out in their own plane) and accommodations. It was a 3 day affair with a lot of activities (fly fishing, golf, horseback riding, etc.) then everyone went home but us. We honeymooned there for about a week. sigh I wish I were there right now.
I was in a class earlier this year and one of my classmates was talking about planning her wedding. I think her budget was $30,000.
How can that be? What possible excuse could anyone have to spend that kind of dough on one day. You could pay 20% down on a house with that. You could have a new Caddy with that. You could invest it and retire in 30 years on that.
Why would anyone want to throw away that kind of money on something that is over and done with in less than 24 hours? You could take a cruise a year for the next ten years for that.
My mind is boggling. I know people do this all the time and I know it is a booming industry but I still can’t wrap my mind around dropping that big of a bank roll in one day and having nothing to show for it but a $25 piece of paper from city hall.
My wedding cost $1500 including the dresses, tuxes and reception. Looking back on it now we would both gladly put that money back in our pockets and elope.
We went cheap, mostly because we didn’t like the idea of being the center of attention for 150 people. We wanted it smaller because we’re just not into crowds.
So, let’s see.
$400 for my dress, husband wore a suit.
$80 for flowers
$1500 various expenses covered by my wedding planner (cake, minister, photographer)
$1800 nice dinner for 29 people at a restaurant.
But then we flew somewhere for it, so you should probably add in plane tickets and hotel rooms.
We still spent a lot of money, I guess, and it is a bit shocking, but I did have a wonderful weekend with friends and family. And it was delightful to take people out to a nice restaurant and all sit down together.
I try not to be appalled at the cost of big weddings. People ought to be able to celebrate how they want to, and for some couples that means having a traditional wedding. However, I think about how I’d plan a big party given a typical wedding budget, and I can tell you I’d spend the money much differently. There is something about the wedding “paradigm” that makes people spend money automatically on things, even things they may not care about.
Why should my husband and I need an excuse? We all had blast. It was a very memorable occasion for everyone.
We already have a house (sans mortgage), cars we both like (paid for) and our retirement needs are taken care of.
**
Couldn’t the same thing (“throw away $”) be said about a cruise? I mean once it’s over it’s over, right? Why spend money on anything other than the bare necessities? We chose to because we were able (and no, no one other than my husband and I paid for a thing).
None of your business, really. You spent about twice as much on your wedding as we did on ours, but I’m not going to question your motives. So you wanted to blow 1500 bucks on your wedding. So what? People should be allowed to spend their money on whatever the hell they feel like spending it on.
I totally agree that if you want to spend $20K on a party, by all means do. I wouldn’t, but life would be boring if we were all the same.
You said it, Cranky. This is my problem–not that people spend so much money on a party, but that they do it according to a set of “traditions” endorsed (and to a large extent invented) by the people who are looking to profit by those weddings. The wedding industry pushes the whole idea of the proper and traditional wedding, and people spend all kinds of money on things that won’t really make their party any nicer, and worrying about details that are wholly irrelevant to the entire affair, and the people who are buying don’t usually have much experience with affairs of that size and can only go by what advice they find.
I also think the wedding industry is responsible for a lot of the bridezillas out there, and the whole “It’s my special day” thing. Yeah, it’s a special day for you. But you go to all the trouble to invite people and hold a party so they can share it and enjoy it, not so they can all stand there and applaud your divine perfection. Instead of worrying about whether the bridesmaids hairstyles are perfectly complementing your own, or whether the cake matches the napkins, or (this really happened) stationing a groomsman behind the DJ to make sure he only plays the music you like and doesn’t sneak in some nasty Frank Sinatra that old Uncle George always wants to hear, you’d be better off using your energy thinking of what your guests will enjoy. Otherwise, why have the party?
But someone who doesn’t see dozens of big parties every year doesn’t know where to start, all they have is bridal magazines and wedding co-ordinators and an endless string of cookie-cutter weddings that all assure them that they must] have this or that or it just won’t be right. And that’s where I think the wedding industry is in league with Satan.
I wanted to add that none of the above was directed at any of the posters here–it’s just my general frustration and disgust at many of the weddings I’ve worked over the years. If you had a great time at your wedding, and your guests did to, and you don’t regret what you paid, your wedding wasn’t one of those.
3 hour rental of the American Rover - $1500
Food for 50 to 70 people - $600
Open bar - $13.50 per person, so like another $750
Invitations - hand made messages in a bottle, so with shipping, I want to say around $150 or so. With postcards of the ship as RSVP cards.
DJ - $100
Cake - $80
Photographer - $3000 and worth every penny. The one place I didn’t even think about scrimping.
Minister - $150
Flowers - $300
Limo for the day - $750
Total - $7380 not bad, and we paid for everything ourselves. The only thing that went on credit was the limo and the photographer. We were able to pay for a lot ahead of time, and sort of save up, so it wasn’t that bad during the wedding month.
We didn’t do our honeymoon until the next year, and I think that was around $4000 or so for a 10 day trip through Italy. Including spending money.
Maybe you should have dropped a bit more then and gotten a great memory?
50 people. 2000, Stockholm, Sweden. We spent about 6,000 dollars. That included clothes, reception, photos, hotel for the night, open bar, live band, etc. We didn’t have a honeymoon, but out of that 5k we had enough to buy a new TV.
Doh, forgot to mention, that that included rings.
Was worth every single penny, best day of my life (however cliched that sounds) and I would do it again in a heartbeat (this coming from the chick that resents a 5 dollar cover charge to a nightclub).
Also, just to talk about a few of the points here. I didn’t care what my wedding cost. I wanted to have a good time with my family and friends. We didn’t register, and actually told people when they asked, that we didn’t want gifts, we just wanted them to come and share our moment of happiness with us. What I did want was to do something different. I didn’t want a traditinal wedding. Which is why we made all of our own invitations, and why we did it on the boat. While I’m sure dozens of couples get married on that boat every year, it’s still much less traditional than a hall, or church. As a matter of fact, I actually regret not spending more, and getting a videographer (is that what they’re called?). I would love to have had a professional video of the wedding and reception.
