First one - $10k or so. Complete waste of money!
Last one (highly reccomended):
Justice of the peace - $50 donation to the local elementary school
buffalo wings, bottle of champagne, cake - $20 or so
Our wedding was cheap if you count the basics, moderate if you add in the travel costs (we had a small wedding, but had it out-of-town and our parents picked up the travel tab for immediate family members). I had a cheap dress and spent little on photography and flowers, but spend more on food and drink and a nice hotel and subsequent honeymoon. We blew off the whole “reception” idea and instead just took everyone to a nice restaurant for a sit-down meal. They let us bring my own wedding cake in, and printed special menus for us. That made it feel like a special event, but got us completely away from the banquet hall/DJ model.
Manda JO and others took the words out of my mouth–I think at times people spend money because they’re trying to duplicate what they’ve seen done (or others have seen done) at the “typical” wedding. You know, oh, we gotta have the white aisle runner, we must have bows on the pews, we must have the unity candle… the list grows.
You will still be legally & spiritually married even if you throw out convention. So don’t be afraid to follow your own heart. Invest in the stuff you care about, think twice before spending money on stuff that has little meaning to you. Don’t apologize for what you skimp on, but neither should you apologize for what you spend money on. You can’t measure the health or meaningfulness of a marriage, or the character of the bride and groom, by how much or how little they spend on the wedding.
We spent just under $7000 in June of 2003. 50 guests in Las Vegas.
That included plane tickets for 4 to Las Vegas, 2 hotel rooms for 4 nights, our attire/rings, our ‘rehearsal dinner’, gifts for the wedding party, tips/donations/fees, and our ceremony and reception for 50 at this place. And various other expenses - a little gambling, spa services, dining, etc. Our ceremony was in their ‘Victoria’s Chapel’ and the reception was in the ‘Embassy Terrace.’ They were both a bit gaudy, but not too terrible, and considering it was Vegas, it could have been much worse.
The ceremony/reception place made it pretty damn easy. They did everything. We basically just showed up with our clothes, rings, favors, and wedding certificate. (OK, it was a little more work on my part than that, but not much.)
They provided the minister, food, cake, wine and beer, DJ, flowers, photographer, videographer, limo service; everything.
It turned out to be a fun ceremony and reception and a fun mini vacation in Vegas with family and friends.
Between $2000 and $2500, in 1983. We had 30 or 40 people. Flower girl, best man (who rented a suit about 20 sizes too big; dolt), one bridesmaid. A friend took the pictures, another played violin (but we flew her down from NY to do it). We had the reception in our apartment (it was a big one). A guy who ran a wine and cheese shop we frequented donated several hundred dollars worth of cheeses. We didn’t really have a honeymoon. We stayed in a good hotel downtown, while the bridesmaid hired a maid service to clean our place up.
We spent $3000 in July 2002, 50 people. The biggest expense was the venue, $800 from Thursday evening until Saturday night. My dress was $750 (Canadian, it was an Alfred Sung for you Canadians reading) at 75% off. We did the food ourselves, and the cake came from the Safeway bakery. Flowers were around $100.
Our cake was from the Safeway bakery, too - it was damned good. Not a single piece left at the end of the evening.
I think the best advice you’ll get here is to make your wedding your own. Not your parents’ wedding, not your friends’ wedding, but the wedding that you and your fiancé have picked out and made happen together. For example, my husband and I are huge music fans, so something we did for months before the wedding was put together a song list of songs we wanted played at our wedding (with no “Every Breath You Take” by The Police or “The Wedding Song” by Joey Zamboni or whatever his name is. Okay, I looked it up - the song is “Together” by Joey Gregorach. Didn’t play it.) I still have those cds.
I would like to deeply thank everyone who contributed to this thread. Your input and your advice/suggestions/congratulations have really touched me and I am so appreciative of all of your help. When I started this thread, TonyF warned me that I could be in for some flaming, but I wanted to get a good consensus from people who weren’t our family or close friends. I’m so glad I started this thread because I have developed such a different and more accepting perspective on our wedding.
After reading all of your replies multiple times and discussing it with Tony, we’re deciding on having a wedding that’s us and one that we’ll look back on and laugh because we had so much fun - not because we were able to pull off a nice, albeit expensive project.
We’re seriously taking into consideration NajaNivea’s idea of having our ‘reception’ in an old rented theater. We want to serve finger foods, cotton candy, have a sundae bar and candy bar. You know why? Because when we started dating, we were young and spent a lot of time going to movies where we could be alone. He said he knew he loved me after a good conversation we had over ice cream at Ghirardelli (where I mixed my cotton candy and ice cream which produced fabulous sugar high results, I gotta tell you). We want to show Love Actually because it’s a movie we discovered together and although it’s raunchy, it gives a beautiful message.
We can still get married in a nice area and have that be our classical wedding, but we want to rock out during our reception and break loose! I think it just might be possible for us to get married this year with this plan and it feels so good.
Unfortunately, I e-mailed my future SiL (who is also getting married sometime this year as well) and other female confidants pictures of the dresses I tried on, and she said that she may also buy the dress that I love. We’ll see what happens, but I know, at the end of the day, what matters is me and my husband. I’m so glad that I found him and that is what is truly important.
I’m in the industry and, FWIW, the average wedding in the US is around $20K-$30K.
Penchan, I am really freaking happy for you. The theater idea seems way cool and will not doubt be memorable to you and your loved ones!
That really wouldn’t bother me so much if the average person could afford $20-30k. But most people go into debt for weddings. It’s not advisable.
I don’t disagree. I also wonder how much money is made back from weddings. Here, at least, if you’re a guest to dinner, it’s customary to leave a gift of at least your dinner cost. The rare instance I attend a wedding as a guest, I leave $100. I would think that in a 150-200 person wedding, the couple could hope to earn back at least $10,000, although it depends at how strictly people follow this. Around my family and the Polish community, it would be considered incredibly gauche not to leave an envelope with a monetary gift.
I can’t remember the rundown of what my wedding cost, isn’t that terrible? My parents paid for the reception, thank goodness. I bought my wedding dress for $200 at a resale shop and it was just as beautiful as the $1500 ones I tried on. Our band was a jazz group that we’ve been friends with forever and they cut us a super deal, and the DJ was a friend of theirs who also gave us a good rate. The officiant was a relative of a friend, I think we gave her $150. Our photographer was my husband’s partner, he shot the wedding for free as our gift and hubby did the prints and album. Photographer’s wife works in a fancy salon, she did my hair and makeup as a gift. I bought my veil from one of those cheap websites and my MIL added applique and beads to match my dress. Shoes were Mohops, which I’ve worn a dozen times since then. We bought silver bowls from flea markets and garage sales for months beforehand and made arrangements with fake flowers for centerpieces, so the only fresh flowers were the bouquets and corsages. Our limo driver was a friend of the family.
Wow, looking at that list, where did all of our money go? 
We did splurge on the cake, it was organic, vegan, and way more cake than we needed. But it was gorgeous and delicious. (We made the cake topper from Fisher Price Little People, I think it cost $10 in all.) We also bought fairly lavish gifts for our bridal party and the relatives that helped deocrate the hall.
I would highly recommend looking for a second hand dress if you’re going to wear a “traditional” gown and buying a cheap veil. Your seamstress should be able to fix any minor issues when she fits your dress and most likely you’re only going to wear the veil for the ceremony and pics.
Good luck and congratulations!
Reading closer, I see that you found a dress at David’s. (And it’s gorgeous!) Have you dealt with them before? I don’t know what your local store is like, but both of the Michigan locations I’ve dealt with are a huge PITA. If you want MHO, buy the dress there if you love it, but take it elsewhere for alterations unless you know someone who has used that store with good results.
Good for you. Stressing out about weddings, and trying to please other people, equals not as much fun on a day that should be fun.
I think ours (Winter 2002) was about $3000, paid for by my parents. The expensive parts were food and flowers. I made my dress and headpiece, the music was done by a friend, Mr. Lissar’s godfather did the photography (which was cool, no posed photos, he’s an artist, and decided to treat it like an ongoing photo record of the day), and a friend of the family did the catering for afternoon munchy stuff at two-thirds price. One of the bridesmaids already had a dress, the other one had hers made by her Mom.
We had about sixty people, and hugged every single one.
We then took all the friends who’d flown in up to Ottawa with us for the honeymoon. We had a New Year’s party in our room at the Chateau Laurier. It was a fantastic wedding, and a fantastic honeymoon, although in general I don’t recommend going to Ottawa in January, because it’s freaking cold.
Congrats!
Ours was about $13k total, with a guest list of about 115 (so about the same size as yours). We only had around 79 show up as far as I recall.
We got some beer and wine from a local liquor warehouse, and stocked it – I can’t remember exactly how much we spent, but it wasn’t the big ticket item by far (it wasn’t unlimited, but we had plenty).
Just a thought - when picking location keep in mind whether tables, chairs, linens, etc… are included. If they aren’t you will have to rent those, that was a significant part of our expense.
Just remember - it’s about what you and the boy want, make yourselves happy first.
Just wanted to stop in and say “Congratulations”.
Yup - that IS what is important - your husband and you! 
When I was planning my wedding, I hung out on some wedding related message boards and found that many people forget that it is about getting “married” - not getting “weddinged”. Incidentally, my wedding was free. We went to Arlington Trackside (OTB) for the reception lunch - before we had our first round of drinks ordered my husband hit a trifecta - paid for everything. 
Our wedding cost about $12,000 back in 1992. It was on-board the “Sandy Hook Lady”, a paddle wheel boat. We had about 80 guests. I thought it was quite expensive and my wife and I and my Father-in-law to be would have had it out on Sandy Hook for $2000 to 3000 with more guests, but my Mother-in-Law wanted a bigger wedding for her only daughter.
I can’t complain, it was wonderful and she did most of the work and she and my FIL paid for it. Getting married on the river was wonderful and 4 of my old Navy buddies made it in for the wedding plus family and friends from High School.
Getting married can be stressful. Don’t spend more than you can afford and are comfortable spending. If your Mom wants more, you need to tell her, that she needs to pay for it.
Congratulation and best wishes,
Jim
Well, if you want to talk in those terms, our wedding was (shockingly) highly profitable–we could have purchased a nice car (no financing whatsoever) with the money we received. But I never really thought about our wedding in terms of profit. To manage your finances responsibly, I figured you should expect to pay for everything yourselves and receive $0 back (anything beyond is a pleasant and welcome surprise.)
Plus, we had invited 75 people. Two-thirds of our gift money was from a single pair of wealthy relatives. Most of the people attending were not wealthy, and I think that would be the norm in most weddings. I don’t think you can really spend a lot of money on a wedding and expect you’re going to be able to recoup the costs. Besides, there are so many other good things you could do with that money – toward a down payment on a house, for example. It’s not really about debt necessarily, but about whether you want your first decision as a married couple to be spending an obscene amount of money on a single day of your lives. What is considered excessive depends greatly on your resources, of course. But I’ve seen many, many people with the same resources as myself create 2 decades worth of debt on this single day, then take all their wedding money and spend it on a lavish honeymoon–and while that is certainly their option, I don’t think it’s a financially sound decision.
I think those terms should be included somehow in the grand scheme of things. If I go to a wedding at a VFW vs a wedding at, say, Spiaggia (a high-end Italian place), I’d leave a different gift for both, say $50-$100 for the first and $150-$200 for the second. Maybe I’m different in that way, but I’ve always followed the cover the cost of your plate and then some “rule” for weddings. But maybe most people leave exactly the same gift, regardless of venue. I don’t know.
However, I agree that spending the average $30K on a wedding is a bit ridiculous if that puts you in serious debt. If you’ve got the money, go for it. I’m a big fan of smaller weddings, myself, but I have sort of come to see why people do spend that sort of money.
I definitely would not leave a different gift. Actually, I’d probably feel less inclined to leave a bigger gift at a more expensive wedding. I have been to millionaire weddings that were so lavish and thrown by people who were so much more financially established than myself, that it was pointless to give them any money. I gave them a jar of jellybeans and a nice card. I assume if someone is throwing an expensive wedding, they need less, not that they are expecting more.
I wonder if that is a cultural/class thing. I knew when I put on my wedding that my relatives would not be able to afford to give expensive gifts. The fact that some of them did was a lot like winning the lottery. It has taken some real getting used to, learning the social expectations of my husband’s side of the family.
My wedding cost around $4000. We had 110 guests and served an afternoon meal. We held it outdoors at a beautiful farm owned by one of our close family friends, so the venue was free. Because of weather concerns, we rented a large tent along with the tables, table linens, and chairs. I got a 10% discount from the party supply place because I knew a guy.
As for food, I bought a large amount of pulled pork barbeque and different people in my family made side dishes. Mom made baked beans, best friend made mac and cheese, MIL made cole slaw and potato salad. People just went on and on about how great the food was. We also had a keg of beer and I made sangria.
The main expensive thing that we did not have to pay for was the photographer. That was given to us as a very generous wedding gift from a friend of ours. Other costs were the dj, $350, and the officiant, $200, our clothing, $200, and about $300 for flowers and centerpieces. Oh, and the rings, that was the single largest cost, around $1500–luckily my husband’s aunt works at a jewelry store and we got a crazy huge discount.
I can’t fathom spending $30K on a wedding. Even if we had that much to spend I think we’d have put it towards the house or something more tangible than the wedding.
Edited to add: As for gifts, even though we had a large number of people at the wedding, people mostly bought from the registry and we received less than $1K in money gifts (which kind of disappointed me because I paid for the whole wedding and kinda thought I might get a bit to replace what I spent).