The average cost to have a wedding is now $29,000. That’s some serious dough – especially for couples looking to have a beautiful wedding and honeymoon for $5000 or less!
I know getting married is supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime event, but is one night really worth $29,000? Where I live in central Iowa, that’s enough money to put a down payment on a decent house!
Obviously, how much you spend on a wedding should depend on the financial situation of those who are paying for it, but should an average couple really be spending nearly $30,000 for one night of I dos? In our case, we decided that there were better ways for us to use that money.
I recently planned, budgeted, and enjoyed a wonderful wedding with my beautiful bride, Sophie. We’re each in our early twenties, so we had to think outside the box when planning our big day.
Although we did a good job budgeting, we absolutely couldn’t have had the wedding we did without help and donations from our loving families, friends and even small business owners. Our budget went a lot farther than it should have because of them.
Ultimately, our entire wedding and honeymoon ended up costing us less than $5000. I won’t to go into every detail, but here are a few examples of how we were able to stretch our wedding and honeymoon budget as far as we did:
The reception hall. CNN Money notes that the biggest wedding expense is usually the venue. On average, newlyweds spent $12,905 on their reception hall — so we decided to focus on reducing that expense first. Thankfully, we were able to use our church’s sanctuary for both the ceremony and the reception for free — although we gave our church a donation. After the wedding was over, we converted the room into a reception hall.
The rehearsal dinner. We had a local church member cater a pulled pork entree for our rehearsal dinner. We then saved even more by buying all of the side dishes from our local supermarket.
Groomsmen apparel. Instead of asking my groomsmen to rent tuxedos, I had them all wear black dress pants and cream dress shirts.
The groom’s apparel. I found a hand-me-down tux which I got for free. I then paid $40 to have it altered to fit me. What a steal!
Decorations. Sophie did an outstanding job picking decorations that made a big impact for very little cost. She bought old picture frames from Goodwill for our back drop, and big balloons for along the aisle.
Music. We asked a family friend to act as our DJ at the reception. For the songs, he simply installed a free 1-month trial to Spotify on his laptop.
Refreshments. Instead of serving a full-course dinner at the reception, we only served dessert — ice cream catered from Cold Stone Creamery. Yum! (It didn’t hurt that the owner gave us an incredible discount because Sophie had previously worked for him there.)
Photography. Sophie and I hired a professional photographer who was trying to get his business started — and since he had only one other wedding under his belt, we received an amazing deal. That was a real blessing to us. Here are a couple of photos from our wedding (click to enlarge):
One more tip: It also helps to have plenty of willing volunteers out of our loving families and wonderful friends!
By cutting costs on our wedding, we were able to save enough dough to pay for a week-long adventurous honeymoon to Cancun.
So you see, it is possible to have a beautiful wedding on a tight budget — although for some people, that may entail reconsidering their definition of a “perfect” wedding. For us, that meant having a nice, fun evening with our family and friends, where the focus of attention was on our commitment to each other and God’s blessing in our lives.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to argue that expensive weddings are less honorable than financially modest ones. If you can truly afford a lavish wedding, great! However, I do want young people to understand how fast wedding costs can escalate, and show that it is possible to stick to an affordable budget and have both a wedding and honeymoon for $5000 or less.
Your wedding can be a day that you look back on with fondness as the beginning of a wonderful marriage. It can also be an event that you look back on as the beginning of years of debt and financial regret. The choice is yours.
Photo Credit: (bears) Josh Meek; Wedding photos courtesy of Kacy
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(Note: This updated article was originally published on 13 November 2013.)
I am in total agreement with this article. My husband and I married in 1997, and had very little cash at the time. Even though I was a bit older than the norm for a first time bride (39) my parents insisted on paying for the majority of whatever gathering we had. But we still kept it simple: June backyard wedding, flowers bought at wholesale due to a relative’s connections, just one attendant and her young daughter and they got to pick out what they wanted to wear, my dress from a dress shop, not a wedding store ($89 and beautiful), my husband wore a jacket and tie and nice dress pants (no tux!!); no rehearsal dinner; no band, just music I had recorded at home on tapes; a borrowed sound system for the music; family photographers; we bought our alcohol from a large discount store; and enjoyed a beautifully catered outdoor wedding reception after a short justice of the peace ceremony. Thank God the weather cooperated and the day was gorgeous! All told less than $4000. AND more than a few people said it was one of the best weddings they ever attended. I not only enjoyed it as well, but my stress level had to be one of the lowest around! That in and of itself was worth so much.
You said it right when people will have to reconsider their definition of perfect wedding. It takes some serious evaluations on wants vs needs. My husband and I got married on New Year’s Eve last year and our budget was the money our parents were going to give us to pay for the wedding, and the total cost of our wedding was about $8,300.
we are now married 46 years total expense for wedding about $150 no honeymoon but we have made up for that.
Great post! We are planning our wedding right now and the costs definitely do add up quickly. Luckily, due to my blog we have received emails from many sponsors who are interested in donating items!
The sheer cost of it almost puts me off, it’s amazing how quickly it all adds up.
It’s great you found a way to have the day you wanted at a price you could afford.
As you say it’s one day and for some like me, that money can be better spent investing on a down payment for a house.
Our wedding was a bit more elaborate than some others, but we still kept it reasonable. Jazz brunch reception, instead of an evening of dinner and dancing; only took still photos, no videos; limited bar service; small wedding party (just my DSis), and his DBros and best friend for groomsmen. The guys wore their best suits, we borrowed a nice car to schlep to the reception, my sister and I found our dresses on clearance at the local bridal shop, and our very plain invitations were ordered through a mail-order place in Idaho (Rexcraft). I didn’t do the formal thank-you notes, etc. — plain paper is just fine, thank you! 30 years on, we are glad we kept the lunacy and the expenses to the minimum.
I so agree with this! I think at most for my wedding we paid around the ballpark of $1,400, and half of that was our location (rented park for $600, only that much cause we wanted to have it at midnight). Took our families to our reservation at our local buffet place which I think cost 300 or less. Got hubby a nice dress shirt and pants for maybe 40, bought a open jacket (15) for me and a multipurpose skirt/shirt (25) for me, so that I would be able to wear my “wedding” garments more than just the one time.
My mother-in-law though went above and beyond by renting hotel rooms so most of the families could be together, and gave as a present train tickets/hotel accommodations/dinner for two as her wedding present to us, basically she paid for our honeymoon.
Now after 2 years, I’m still glad that it turned out the way that it did. 🙂
Your wedding cost less than $5000, not because that’s what it actually cost, ‘but because the expenses were defrayed by the various ‘volunteer’ labor, and the meal you cut out at reception. I don’t care if people spend less or no money at their wedding, but there is a certain etiquette that needs to be followed. Serving only dessert at a reception which presumably ran into lunch or dinner time, is a really tacky thing to do. Have the party you can afford, and if you can’t afford one then scale back until you can or don’t have one. Pressing family and friends into ‘volunteering’ at your wedding is another tacky thing to do. They might have wanted to enjoy the party too, ya know? Your one week honeymoon was essentially paid for by other people.
Dear Aunt Lettie, Years ago when I lived in Tennessee (A long time ago, maybe things have changed!) weddings were held in a church (No charge except a donation to the minister.) and the reception was held in the church hall, catered by the church ladies who were excellent cooks and charged reasonably. Some weddings had a buffet meal and others had a reception with a sparkling wine toast (Unless church was “dry”!), cake, ice cream and punch. Either way a good time was had by all attendees and the bride and groom did not spend a massive amount for the whole thing. I don’t think inviting all one’s friends and relatives to a party the bride and groom can comfortably afford, to celebrate a wedding, is tacky. Tacky and foolish is spending more than one can afford and going into debt to start a marriage.
Well said, Karen. (As usual. 🙂 )
I guess the important thing is for people to do what they want to do and not be stampeded into other’s expectations and/or opinions.
Backyard pool party for us. We rented dishes from a caterer and had them do up salads and buns and come and get the dishes and utensils the next day. We just had to get them into totes and not smash them up. We bought enough food for everyone to have a couple of steaks and some barbecued chicken. Ordered the meat from a local butcher and it was easy peasy. I think we had 4 barbecues going and the guys who didn’t like to dance or swim held court over the grills with a beer on the go. All the beer and wine people could ever drink was on ice plus extra extra and then some as we worked on the supply for weeks after. Good wine and a decent selection. Music, kids running around but out of the way, happy family and community, the sober did the driving home or to the motels for the out of towners. It looked like one of those community weddings in some other country. My older brother was going through a veggie phase at the time and I saw him eat 2 steaks on the sly. A good time was had by all including the bride and groom who had absolutely no stress. It was fun and 24 years later we haven’t had a bad day, since.
I compare our event to some of the ones we have had to attend and it is like night and day. I have vowed to never attend another, but you know how that goes. Probably will….most likely will.
My son is getting married in a year or so. They are planning something similar to ours, but over at the beach. Thank God.