How much did your wedding cost?

[Anonymous]

About $3-4K for a very low-key wedding on Kauai in 2009. Since a PP asked for details, here they are: We found a guest house on a lovely waterfront property and had the wedding on the property (at no extra charge over the cost of renting the guest house). The woman who managed the property helped us out so much for a small additional fee: she cooked Hawaiian food for our wedding (lau lau, kahlua pig) and helped with decorations. We got the rest of our food at a local market - sushi, poi, lomi lomi, etc. Our wedding cakes were an assortment of pies from the local market - coconut haupia pie and chocolate haupia pie. Yum.

We had outdoor tents, I think it cost $100 to rent them. We had about 20 guests. We didn't have music (unless you count my BIL's ipod with low quality outdoor speakers .

Our photographer was a friend of a friend who lived on the Big Island. Her only requirement was that we pay for her travel expenses to Kauai. She was wonderful (and we paid her more than that because she was awesome). She met us during our honeymoon on the Big Island and gave us a disk of all of our pictures.

It was perfect, and exactly what we both wanted.

[Anonymous]

30k in 2000, for a wedding with about 50 guests in Eastern Europe. Most of the cost was airfare for DH's family (10 people). We paid for everything ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Probably too much, but man, was it fun!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are people having weddings for under 10k? We had 200 guests, in DC, sit down dinner and open bar (of course) in 2007. My dress was only $150, flowers and photography were probably $5,000 total. I paid for bridesmaid dresses and tuxes and for the girls' hair, so that was a bit expensive. But seriously, just the space rental and the food and drinks were $35,000. Dinner was amazing - like high end restaurant quality food. I wanted to treat my guests to a fabulous party. Total cost was about $50,000. Anyway, if you had a cheaper wedding, please explain in detail!

I would wager that most of them aren't have 200 guests + an open bar. You sound like you are defending your right to a higher-cost wedding? If you feel great about treating your guests to a fab party, wonderful! Fun and joy can be had for less than $10k, and anywhere in between! We all make different choices for different reasons. FWIW, I was astounded at the actual costs of hosting a wedding in a more expensive city. Here, it is much harder to have cheaper weddings, but it is possible. You just forgo certain things, or DIY, or choose a cheaper mid-range option, or have a state-park wedding, or rent a taco trunk for catering (amazing!), or have a super-intimate wedding...you get the picture...

We spent $5K for 80 guests in Bethesda ten years ago. We had tapas, a sit-down dinner, and wine and beer (not open bar) at a restaurant which is not normally open at lunchtime. The owner was thrilled to have the business, and the room is so gorgeous, with flowers on each table, that we didn't need to do anything to it to make it festive or wedding-worthy.

The only flowers we had were some arrangements on the windowsills of the place where we had the ceremony, for the attendants (little nosegays and for the two guys, lapels) and my bouquet.

We had live music (three musicians) during the reception, with dancing on the smallish dance floor.

My dress was $400 (Nordstrom), I had two attendants who wore what they wished (I gave them my color preferences).

[Anonymous]

PP here - we got married at noon, reception started shortly after 1PM I think, or maybe 2?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How are people having weddings for under 10k? We had 200 guests, in DC, sit down dinner and open bar (of course) in 2007. My dress was only $150, flowers and photography were probably $5,000 total. I paid for bridesmaid dresses and tuxes and for the girls' hair, so that was a bit expensive. But seriously, just the space rental and the food and drinks were $35,000. Dinner was amazing - like high end restaurant quality food. I wanted to treat my guests to a fabulous party. Total cost was about $50,000. Anyway, if you had a cheaper wedding, please explain in detail!

For us it worked like this:

1. Venue/drinks/dinner: We called the venue and told them we wanted to host a "party" for about 50 people, with a open-bar cocktail hour in one room and then a "performance" and buffet dinner in a second room. We did not mention that it was a wedding because most places charge extra for weddings. Note also that a room to fit 50 people is relatively small. Total cost ~$6500. I don't remember how this broke down between food, open bar, and room, but it did include a suite for us (about $300). The food was fantastic.

2. Bride's dress: DW had a beautiful dress custom made. It was not in the traditional wedding style, but was a formal dress. This cost about $1K

3. DW asked her close friends to wear a cocktail/evening dress of their choice in DW's preferred color. Cost to us $0 - cost to friends varied, but I would guess nobody spent more than $100.

4. Best man and I both own tuxedos. Cost - $0

5. Music: We put together two playlists -- one with 2 hours of cocktail music and one with 5 hours of dance music, and moved the iPod/amplifier when the time was right. Cost - $0

6. Ceremony music: A friend plays piano and the venue happened to have a piano, so she played the processional/recessional. Cost $0

7. Flowers: DW and close friends had a night out before the wedding, which started at about 4:30 pm on a Friday. The first event on the schedule was flowers -- DW had scoped out all the cheap flower sellers in the downtown area and bought all of their stock of flowers in DW's preferred color. Total cost of flowers -- less than $200, and there were lots of them. They only had to last one day, which most of them did just fine. DW and friends set them up before the wedding, using the cheap vases everyone has lying around.

8. Cake: We did not plan on a cake, but someone brought us one as a gift. Cost $0.

9. Officiant: Was a judge we know. Cost $0

10. Photography: A friend of a friend is a photojournalist and did the wedding for $300 and access to the open bar.

I don't know what DW and friends' hair and pampering cost, but it was likely under $500 or so.

And that's how we did it for $8500 or so.

[Anonymous]

2000 in northern Minnesota - $10K. About 150 guests. That includes the honeymoon!

[Anonymous]

22:27 - HUH?

Nope. We paid a lot. Ourselves. Totally worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$6000. We eloped and spent 2 weeks in Antigua.

How is antigua? My fiance and I decided we're going there to get married to avoid the drama, but don't know anyone who's been there.

Loved it!

[Anonymous]

$10,000 here. We had 24 guests, basically truly our closest and dearest, immediate family and very close friends. We had a destination wedding in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, in a very nice hotel in the middle of the old city.

Our expenses were as follows:

$1,500 for food and drink, dinner buffet style, hefty appetizers, wine, champagne and beer only.
$2,000 for photographer and photo album (worth every penny)
$1,000 for ceremony flowers and reception room decoration
$1,000 for my dress, including alterations
$1,000 for DH’s suit
$500 for videographers to shoot footage (DH edited video)
$500 for miscellaneous including shoes and veil, makeup and hair for me, maid of honor and my mom, gift to maid of honor, payment to minister, invitations, welcome baskets, etc.
$275 rehearsal dinner at a local restaurant
$2,000 travel expenses including flights, hotel room at wedding hotel for me and DH, rental car, and lodging for our mothers


How we saved: Our cake was provided by our maid of honor. We got married on a Monday to avoid extra charges at the hotel because of Saturday (and to avoid competing with other weddings going happening the same weekend at the hotel.) We played music out of laptop with itunes (we literally dj’d ourselves). But mostly keeping the guest list so small made the biggest difference.

Then we spent $5k to honeymoon in Venice for 8 days.

[Anonymous]

2010 wedding... Almost 45k... Honeymoon and rings not included. 200 guests... This was in Akron,Ohio, about the cheapest place in the world to have a wedding so the money went pretty far!

[Anonymous]

1997 - about 40K all told - 150 guests, black tie - blah, blah - waste of money!

[Anonymous]

I used to be a wedding planner at Four Seasons Hotel - average wedding is close to 100K for 100 - 150 guests (including flowers, entertainment, invitations, etc) not including the higher-end customers who spend $15-20K on dresses or things like that!! Most good photographers start at 10K.....

[Anonymous]

We spent $1,000, my parents chipped in $2000, and my Inlaws about $1000. For 150 guests, no alcohol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here. Having said that, we had the BEST time at our wedding, and everyone still says how much fun our wedding was, and so I don't exactly regret it, but it is a lot of money.

I think I would have taken the money! lol