Yep, same here. I’ve been to some very modest (and lovely!) weddings, but I’d say the average cost of the weddings I’ve attended has been higher than 26K. Hell, I’ve been to backyard wedding for which the bride’s parents installed a sculpture garden in their yard. That alone must have cost more than $26,000.
It actually always surprises and amuses me when this subject comes up here and posters start falling all over one another to brag about how inexpensive their weddings were.
How many of you opted to hire videographers? One camera, or two? How much did you pay?
I was doing wedding videography last year. (Until we started on the film, and my partner later abandoned everything – incuding the film. :mad: ) I saw footage that was shot by ‘friends and relatives’ with a Handicam. Not good. People tend to pan and zoom too much, and they often don’t even use a tripod. And I’ve seen professional single-camera shoots. Good images, but dull. We used two cameras, two tripods, and if space permitted, a jib. By using two cameras we could use footage from one camera while the other was being panned or zoomed, and vice versa. Pard was a whiz at editing. Every shot was colour-corrected. We’d offer full-screen or widescreen. The groom had a wireless Sennheizer lavalier mic. The bride/groom would provide a music CD that we would use in the appropriate places (i.e., the dances, where we would insert the recorded music so as not to have the chatter of the crowd in the finished product). And of course the DVD box and the DVD itself would have artwork on it.
So two camera operators, professional cameras and other equipment, outstanding video and audio editing, and attractive boxes and discs. For $1,500. There are people in town who charge a grand for a single camera shoot.
I’ll tell you though, if I hear Pachelbel’s Canon one more time I may go crazy.
I’d never say it to the brides, but it seems to me that the wedding planners have a format they stick to. It’s The Special Day, and the venues change; but the weddings I shot were all pretty much the same. Although I did like the one where the officiant quoted The Velveteen Rabbit, saying that the couple would love each other until most of their hair was loved off, and their eyes drop out, and they get loose in the joints.
I think it might be regional. My husband is from Wisconsin, where weddings are a BIG DEAL, and you will spend a lot of money regardless of whether you have a lot of money or not. They are major events to be missed at your own peril. I am from Arkansas, where, if you are rich and feel like it, you have a big wedding, and if you are not rich you do something more modest, and are not in debt for the next 10 years. And, hey, you’re still married, and haven’t had any major falling-outs with your mother about inviting her third cousin’s ex-wife. I have never “gotten” the big wedding thing. I find them a tad boring. I say elope and save everyone a lot of money and stress.
Heh, good luck with that. I’m not saying she won’t agree, but just be prepared for nuclear war in case you fall in love with one who has been dreaming about her wedding day for her whole life.
I gave my fiancee a $5000-$7000 budget. She is doing a very good job to try and keep costs down. I simply explained to her that every dollar spent on the wedding is one less dollar we can spend on a new furniture for the living room.
We paid for our own wedding, and it was only a couple of thousand dollars, even with catering, hall, etc. all factored in. I find it hard to believe that 26K is an average.
Friends of mine got married ultra-cheap back in college – wedding in the college chapel, reception in the Studnt Center, catered by the Food Service. Music by their stereo system, decorations were their plants, with the pots covered in colored foil.
We chipped in to get them a hotel room for the honeymoon. It wass the summer, and the dorms had to air conditioning.
Of course, two weeks earlier their friends had the biggest, longest, most overblown wedding I’ve ever attended, which probablt exceeded $26k.
My FIL had a standing offer for his kids – he’d give them $1000 if they eloped. really. My wife’s from a big family. Only one sibling ever took him up on it, though.
When I was engaged I wanted a pirate wedding on Lady Washington. Definitely wouldn’t have been boring. (My then-fiancée wanted to just go to a Justice of the Peace.)
Me, too. (And the loveliest wedding I’ve ever been to, aside from my own, was my best friend’s wedding in West Virginia, at a tiny bed and breakfast with an Irish band playing our school fight song and alma mater. It cost under $4,000.). I don’t think the fact that a less expensive wedding can be beautiful and fun and all of those things negates the fact that a larger wedding can be the same.
We spent just under $30,000 on our wedding almost two years ago. My brother and SIL’s wedding, nearly three years ago, was about the same cost. My cousin’s wedding, eight years ago, was $50K. None of us had elaborate gowns or ice sculptures - in fact, most of the costs for my own wedding went towards catering and alcohol. Our biggest goal, aside from getting married, was to have a good time and for our family and friends to have a good time.
In the area that I’m from, and where the majority of people I know get married, weddings average between $20K and $35K. I’ve known a few that have been smaller, several that have been larger, but I don’t think I’ve been to one where I didn’t have a blast. Maybe that’s just my circle of family and friends, though - we have a good time, especially at weddings.
cazzle, I’m pretty sure I know the site that you’re talking about (I’ve been a member for three years, and hang out in the off-topic forum for the most part now) and I’m pretty well-acquainted with the girl who spent $50K on her Boston wedding. For the most part, it seems like those on that site who spend upwards of $15-20K for their weddings are all from the same general areas, or larger metro areas.
We originally wanted to go to Vegas, but by the time we had talked to family and friends, it looked like our Vegas trip was starting to get out of hand (my family is HUGE, and we don’t miss each other’s weddings…so we would’ve had upwards of 60-75 people anyway, even with a Vegas wedding), so we just decided to do the whole shebang in my hometown. Don’t regret a second of it.
E.
My cousin got married in 1992 and she spent $36k in wine country. My other cousin was married in 1999, and she spent $24k in two ceremonies: one in Brazil, and one in Chicago. My other cousin spent $24k in two ceremonies: one in Pennsylvania (some backwater town) and in the Philippines (that was ridiculousy cheap). My little sister is looking to get married this year or next year, and they’re already at $20k for costs. Oh, and two of my best friends got married: $15k (that they paid for themselves), and $35k (though I had a hard time believing that price tag). Each wedding listed here had at least 250 people in it. My cousin in 1992 had 550 (and she made out like a bandit in gifts :), though all couples were floored with the genoristy of their guests.)
Hey, I am right here! Please be kind! 
Years (late 80s, and again in the mid 90s) ago I worked for a guy who did some wedding videography. I was a complete amatuer, and he was a complete idiot. But we did use multiple cameras, plus a steadicam where we’d follow the bride out the door and stuff. I think he charged under $1K for the “big one”.
The guy who did my brother’s first wedding had two cameras and an editting console that he was supposedly using to create real-time wipes and edits etc. He was a total hack and never was able to deliver the fully edited with music and extras, tape that he promised. That was in the late 80s and he charged maybe $600. He got paid much less, of course.
And a couple of times for family and friends I video-ed weddings because I “had experience”, they were on a budget and I worked for food. My SIL got married last year and my kids were in the wedding. They sat next to me in the church and and at the end when the bride and groom were walking out and my kids were supposed to follow, there’s a lovely shot of floor as I grab the kiddoes and push them into the aisle.
They got what they paid for, everyone thought that was funny and the kids looked adorable. No harm, right?
Maybe it IS a Wisconsin thing. My wife and I had about 300 guests at our wedding reception 5 years ago and the cost was probably in the low $20k range and that is a fairly normal size wedding around here. I have noticed that when friends in Arizona and Colorado got married it was a very short and low key reception with only hors d’ouevres. Here you’d better have a sit down dinner, an open bar for a few hours, 3 or 4 kegs, and a DJ or a band until at least midnight or it doesn’t count.
What’s included in that cost? My actual, day-of wedding probably cost $3K. With rings and honeymoon, it was closer to $20K. Might that be slanting the numbers?
It helps that the Bride and Groom were dressed as Indiana Jones and Marion. 
In my experience in the southern US, non-wealthy people don’t usually have sit-down dinners at their wedding receptions. We tend to serve cake, punch and finger foods. That cuts down on the cost.
If you’re Baptist or Methodist or belong to a similarly stuffy denomination, you probably don’t have an open bar at your reception, which also cuts down on the cost.
My mom has offered me 5k. I said that I’d be willing to pay someone else 5k not to have to go through a wedding. I hate parties. And people. And having to dress up special. If the time comes, my partner better not mind eloping, because I’m not having it any other way.
I’m a chick, BTW.
This was me. I’d count it because I think more people do it on the cheap than do the whole big shebang. Lavish weddings aren’t even always off the table because of cost. We wouldn’t have had a big one if we had a million bucks to spend on it because we aren’t “that couple.”
Yep - most of the weddings I went to growing up were at church and if the reception was also at church, no alcohol and no dancing (so no DJ/band costs either). For us, those were not “wrong” as much as church was not the appropriate place for either of those activities for that congregation. Occasionally, people moved the reception to somewhere else, which obviously upped the costs of everything.
As someone who has a fair number of relatives in Wisconsin and is going to a wedding in Wisconsin in a few weeks, I don’t think it’s a Wisconsin thing. Obviously I’m only one person, but all the WI weddings I’ve been to have been casual and inexpensive.
The one I’m going to next week actual says “casual dress” on the invitations. I expect it’s going to be downright rustic. And fun
My wedding was beautiful. I had a wonderful time, and wish I could have a party just like it every weekend. We had the actual ceremony under an arch of flowers on the river bank behind my parent’s home. The reception was on their deck that overlooks the river, and the champagne flowed! The food was exquisite, and the company was great. It was a fabulous time. We rented white wedding chairs, round tables, champagne flutes, silverware, and china for the reception. There were flowers everywhere in sprays, arches, and arrangements. We had an open bar, too, and it was all less than 1000.00- in fact, an impromptu total from memory is around 800 bucks. I don’t think I could have been any happier if I’d have spent a million.
(Of course, it may help that I have family members who cater, arrange flowers, etc, and so forth.)
If Niles and Daphne Crane were part of the study, it would really skew the results…
Most of the weddings that I’ve been to in big cities (NYC, Washington) have been upwards of $30,000. Sometimes WAY upwards.
I think a distinction should be made between people who get married (the JOP then dinner) v. the people who have a big church thing and a reception. Invitations, dresses/tuxes, flowers, favors, meals, it’s just this huge industry now.
I’m eloping. It’s not worth it.