$0.00.
My parents and her relatives paid for everything. A very traditional affair.
WRS
Two tickets to Las Vegas, plus four nights’ stay at hotel: $640
Gambling expenses: $750
Meals: $300
Wedding costs at “Chapel of Your Dreams”: $200
Wedding dress, shoes, veil, alterations: $400
Tuxedo rental: $100
Limo and champagne: $200
Various other crap: $200
The look on my parents’ faces when we handed them a framed picture of Mrs. RickJay and myself in our wedding togs underneath the famous “Fabulous Las Vegas” sign: Priceless
Marriage license: $35
Cash gift for the preacher: $50 (he married us on VERY short notice)
Wedding bands: $400?
4 1/2 years and still going strong: Priceless
Hah! Didn’t see your post, RickJay, above mine before I posted 
Great minds think alike, no?
Not that I need an excuse, but- I have a very large family, as does my husband. ( I’m half-Italian and he’s Chinese) If we invited every relative that we actually know to a party, the guest list would exceed 500. That 225 person wedding I mentioned above- his relatives and our friends accounted for about fifty people. There were about 200 different people at the Chinese banquet that his mother threw. Everyone in my family has a big wedding, with one exception. Those are really the only times we can all get together. I didn’t expect everything to be perfect (because I knew it couldn’t be), and rather than station someone behind the DJ so he didn’t throw in Frank Sinatra, I made sure the DJ has the Jimmy Roselli music that my great-aunts and uncles like .Given the choice between drastically shrinking my guest list (and I do mean drastically-eliminating my mothers first cousins and their spouses would have cut 80 or 90 people) or spending the money to invite who I wanted, I chose to invite who I wanted. And I’d do it again.
Just for the sake of accuracy, the figure given in the OP (regarding a wedding I was rather intimately involved in) is actually off by about $1000–the five nights in our apartment in New Orleans only cost a bit over $1000. So the sum total was a lot more like $3000.
She was worth every penny.
Dr. J
I agree with previous posters that the wedding industry is the spawn of satan, and preys upon people who don’t know how to throw a party, and think they need their wedding to be perfect.
Also, the idea of the wedding is heavily sold in american culture. What a lot of people (most bridezillas among them) miss is that the wedding isn’t nearly as important as the marriage. If the wedding is the happiest day of your life, that’s rather a sad statement about the marriage. People who don’t get that concept tend to place too much emphasis on the wedding.
I don’t remember all the financial details of my wedding, so don’t expect my figures to add up.
Santa Cruz, CA, 50 people.
Site rental: $1000 for a lovely garden setting, complete with ponds and brooks and a cozy room where we spent the night before the wedding and the night after.
Dress: $250, exactly what Mrs. Seng wanted, on final clearance.
Rings: $400 or so.
Tux: $150, and I still have it. Includes a gorgeous silk brocade vest with cavorting chinese dragons that we found the fabric for and had tailored. The tux was bought used from a rental place.
Music: The DJs wanted around $700. We spent $500 instead on a great CD/minidisc player and a whole bunch of CDs we’d always wanted, and made our own mixes for the event.
Catering: $3500, including tip. It was a full dinner and appetizers, and our big expense. Feeding 50 folks great food isn’t cheap.
Drinks: $100 on fruit juice, plus $50 for champagne. (Mrs. Seng had a champagne-tasting party beforehand, where lots of nice champagne was sampled, including some really expensive stuff given as a gift. The tastiest: A $5/bottle variety, available at the local liquor store)
Toasting glasses: $250. My wife had two lovely matching Baccarat champagne flutes. The morning of the wedding, the MotB cracked one of them, so I ended up driving like a madman to the china shop and buying another. Oog.
Cake: $200. We had it made as a ziggurat, and I hand-made Lovecraftian Elder Things (in wedding attire) as the cake toppers. So I guess I should add $20 for the Sculpey.
Invites: $150, including mailing. I did the drawing and calligraphy, then had them photocopied. A lot of work, but turned out both beautiful and unique.
Officiant: $50. We collaborated with a friend to write the ceremony and she performed it wonderfully.
Honeymoon: $5000, which was a month in tropical Australia where we did every fun thing we could think of until we were absolutely exhausted. Happily for us the exchange rate was very good at the time.
No photographers (we have plenty of photo-nut friends and relatives) no videographers (who, by the way, are both expensive and extremely annoying) no wedding party, and since we paid for the whole thing without asking any relatives for monetary assistance, no strings attached.
Total: About $12,000
When I look at that figure, my eyes bulge out of my head, until I realize that a lot of that was a) things I wanted anyway and got to keep (like the minidisc player and the tux, which I’ve used since) or b) the honeymoon, which was a kick-ass vacation that I’d happily do again.
It’s been twenty eight years since I married(a little over twenty four since I divorced), so the exact figures escape me, but it was less than a thousand dollars, and that includes the rings, which must have been 40% of the total.
It was in Monterey, California. I was in the Army there, he came back on leave from El Paso. No tuxes, groom and best man and our service friends who ushered wore their uniforms. My dress was lovely, made by a friend. I payed for the materials, the labor was her gift. Veil purchased in LA. Cake cost about $75-80. Nuts, mints, punch in the church hall after. Organist was the church organist, fee minimal, as was that of the minister. My sister, as maid of honor, had a dress made from the same pattern as my own, with variations. MY uncle in Los Angeles printed the invitations at cost. Flowers were arrangements suitable for the Sunday service the next day, so the florist( a member of the congregation) gave a good deal.
We had about 40 guests and had a wonderful time. I guess the honeymoon may not have been included in the total above. We went to an inexpensive hotel in San Francisco for a week, and used public transportation to see the sights.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money to have a good time. We wanted to pay for it ourselves, because my husband’s family would not be able to attend. Not even all my family could come(I’m from Kansas) but my parents, a sister, and grandparents were there, as many friends, and that’s what counts.
Calgary, Alberta, August 2002 (Wow, dangerously close to our first anniversary. Where did the time go?)
According to my imprecise calculations, featherlou and I dropped about $2500 Canadian on our big day. That includes rings, hall, catering for 25 (we went small and simple), and the honeymoon.
CrazyCatLady: It’s looking to me like the “industry claim” of a $20,000 average is a big, smelly load of BS.
- My wife’s parents said that they had a certain amount (I forget how much) for the wedding, and we could keep anything we didn’t spend on it. We decided that we’d invite our friends, and keep the family to a bare minimum - parents, her aunt who lived with them, my brother. No aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins. We had the ceremony at the Ethical Culture Society on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, and had the reception at a very nice place, then everyone came to a party at her parents’ house.
It worked great. Our friends were from various colleges and graduate schools, and they all had to come a long way to attend, and we decided we wanted to have few enough people so that we could actually talk to them, not to relatives we didn’t like all that much. We even had everyone to a rehearsal dinner the night before. The whole thing couldn’t have been more than $2,000, including a dress for her and a suit for me. Her diamond was one passed down in my family, my ring was passed down in hers. We have never regretted doing it our way. The fact that we both agreed on doing this, immediately, was a good sign.
I believe some women think that their wedding is the most important day of their lives - I feel sorry for them.
First wedding:
Marriage License - $5
Wedding rings - $70
Justice of the peace - $125
Total - $200
Marriage lasted 18 months
Second wedding:
Marriage license - $15
Limo - $250
Singer - $200
Organist - $125
Church - $100
DJ - $1,000
Rings - $1,500
Photograqpher - $1,600
Reception - $11,000
Honeymoon - $2,000
Total - about $18,000
Second marriage has lasted 18 months so far. I’m hoping it’s a you-get-what-you-pay-for kind of thing.
I knew a man who had two daughters, and knew that, if he got sucked into arguments about wedding plans, somebody would probably end up dead.
So, he simply decided upon a fixed amount of money, and said to each daughter: “This is how much I will give you towards your wedding. You can spend all of it on the wedding. If you spend less on the wedding, you can have rest, in cash, to do with as you please - house downpayment, furniture, vacations, whatever.” Then, he simply stepped back and stayed out of it until it was time for him to give away the bride.
Brilliant! Everybody happy, no battles, no tears!
Married Nov. 2002 in St. Louis, MO 150 guests
Wife’s Dress: ~$700
Limo for the day: ~$500
Photographer: ~$1800
Church rental: ~$200
Reception Hall Rental (The Magic House, very cool): ~$800
Honeymoon (7 day cruise): ~ $1800
Invitations: ~$300
Favors: ~ $100
Reception Food: ~$35/person
Cake: ~$250
DJ: ~$250
I think that comes out to about $12,000
If you add the rings, it’d be close to $20,000.
And, on the plus side, I’ll have it paid off eventually.
No chance of that. If it were any more involved the insane mother of the bride (and I mean that quite literally) would have had more opportunity to cause havock. My parents and siblings would have had even more to gripe about (they were pissed because we registered at a fine china store instead of Target).
No, we had a wedding in the first place rather than elope so as not to piss off the families and all we suceeded in doing was making them look harder for something to be pissed off about. That was 11 years ago now and there are still people who are not talking to me. And since they never told me what set them off I still don’t know why.
We really would love to get that money back in exchange for not having to go through that mess.
And I don’t think my situation is unique by any means. I have yet to hear of a wedding where something didn’t spoil “the day”. Either the best man gets drunk or the guys mother calls the bride a slut or the weird uncle makes passes at all the brides maids. Whenever you shake a family tree hard enough to pull off a wedding it shakes all the nuts loose.
Cocktail dress $80
Flowers $40
Shoes $10
License $25
Blood Tests $25
Suit (already had)
Minister $25
Cake $25
Divorce: Priceless
“Music: The DJs wanted around $700. We spent $500 instead on a great CD/minidisc player and a whole bunch of CDs we’d always wanted, and made our own mixes for the event.”
Now THAT is a cool, cool, idea. As long as you have the lead time to make the mixes, it could be a lot of fun. I’ve heard of couples making their own mixes before, but had never thought about taking some of the wedding budget and dedicating it to buying some music which you’ll still have years later.
See, now that’s the way to do it. You want to have your family and friends with you celebrating, and you make the best arrangements you can for them to have a good time. That may be cake and punch and a CD player in the corner, or it may be six tons of roses and a seven course meal and a band–but either way, the priority should be whatever helps you and your guests celebrate, and what you can afford, not what some magazine said was traditional, or what someone told you you had to have. And certainly not whether the day is going to be “perfect,” because chances are it won’t be. In fact, the more worried one is that things be perfect, the more likely it is something will happen. That’s my personal observation.
Cranky, one of the best weddings I went to, they had a CD changer on random play in the corner of the living room.
On a tangent, the Evil Groomsman I mentioned was enforcing the bride and groom’s playlist, presented before the reception and to be played in the order given, nothing else. He spent the entire evening looking over the DJ’s shoulder. The guests were furious, but the best man just told them snottily that it was the couple’s day and they only wanted to hear music they liked. I asked the DJ later why they didn’t just get a boom box and make a tape, but he didn’t know and said he’d never take a gig like that again. Eventually, the groomsman from hell had to hit the men’s room, and Uncle Vinny offered the DJ twenty bucks to play Sinatra. The DJ said no bribe was neccesary at that point. The groomsman came flying out of the restroom looking like thunder when he heard it, but it was Too Late.
I dunno, Jimbo. A lot of the weddings we’re talking about are, um, non-traditional, so we’ve got a pretty non-representative sample. Besides, if you look at the people who went the fairly traditional route in the Northeast, the industry average isn’t that far off.
I think a lot of my issues with bridal magazines and stuff is that they act like the only type of traditional wedding is the bigass dinner/dance. These are by far the most expensive type of traditional wedding (as opposed to the afternoon cake-punch-little pink and green mints wedding I grew up around) and the industry works hard at convincing people that this is what they need to be traditional. It’s progressed to the point that a bride actually asked me once whether it would be tacky to just have a cake and punch reception in the early afternoon instead of shelling out for a big meal and DJ.
Of course, that doesn’t annoy me nearly as much as the huge ripoff that is buying a premade veil, but that’s beside the point, really.
The only music that played on our wedding day was the wedding march.
As soon as the cake was eaten everyone dressed down (except me) and hung out and played croquet! I got some good natured teasing about being the queen of hearts and spent part of the afternoon threatening friends with my croquet mallet and shrieking ‘off with his head’
The weather was beautiful. The memories are precious and we didn’t end up in debt for it either.
I think if more weddings were about the couple and less about the ‘ceremony’ things would flow much nicer. I knew going into it that it would be the only wedding I would ever have and don’t regret one moment.
If you (or your parents) have and really want to blow 20,000+ on a party then more power to you…
I fell for this one! The veil was the last thing I bought and by that time I was so tired of the whole thing I asked myself “Self, would you give someone a hundred bucks to make a veil for you so you wouldn’t have to think about it ever again?” The answer was a resounding “Hell Yeah!” Plus it was really beautifully made. Until my brother sat on it 10 minutes before the ceremony. But he hot-glued it back together so I didn’t have to go Bridezilla on his ass.
Here’s how ours broke down. Oh my. We were supposed to be going cheap, but damn does stuff ever add up. (most of these are approximates)
Married in Boston - March, 2003. 70 guests.
invitations (including extra shipping cost - they were CDs) - 300. (we made them ourselves - apparently not always the cheapest option)
rings - 500.
dress - 300. (should have been less, but I got into a bidding war on eBay)
Hubby’s outfit - 200
JoP - 300.
cake - 350.
reception w/buffet and open bar - 3800.
decorations - 400.
favors - 250.
flowers - 200.
bus to transport guests - 600.
honeymoon - 4000. (week-long cruise including drinks and gambling)
So what is that? 12,000 or so? I’d say everyone had a blast, so it was well worth it. Luckily, my parents and in-laws were very generous and their gifts paid for half of it.