What were your average costs for wedding "stuff"?

[cael]

We have a place and date picked out and I have a dress (which was on sale and was cheap!), so now we're looking at all the other things we need to do for the wedding! I've gotten a few referrals from friends who've gotten married recently, but I have some numbers in mind for what we want to spend on each thing. Thing is, I don't know if my numbers are reasonable or not. Wanted to get some ideas? For example - I want to have a good photographer, but I don't want to spend over $1500 - MAYBE $2000 if we really fell in love with someone. Is that reasonable? I'm in no way going to pay thousands of dollars for a photographer, no matter how much the pictures matter to me. Cake - I don't know, we're going with a pricey place but a place that's run by family, so we'll probably get a deal. $700? $800? (we'll be having 75ish guests) DJ - would like to go as cheap as possible, but I don't know what cheap is for a wedding DJ? (the friends I've talked to have used kind of pricey DJs, like $1500, I'm not willing to spend that). I had one friend suggest Stop & Shop for flowers - they used them, it was cheap & they had a great experience (not sure how cheap, but probably super cheap compared to a florist - the flowers matter to me in that they're pretty, but I don't want lots of them or expensive ones).

I don't know. Any recently married folks have any input on what they paid and thought was reasonable? Our goal is to do this without using the credit cards at all, and with the savings rate we've been going at we're accumulating a nice chunk to have available for downpayments for all these things. Oh, and my parents are generously covering the venue and food for us. Thoughts?? Ideas? Shoot anything down if you like!

[Deleted]

I'm not sure there is a reasonable average cost for wedding stuff.. As you can see, you can spend little to nothing, or upwards of tens of thousands of dollars for the same product or service....

[Deleted]

Go to this www.costofwedding.com/ and enter your zip code. It will tell you how much people in your area are spending on those categories.

[cael]

Yeah, I know.... I just wanted to see if anyone thought my ballpark numbers were totally off. I need to start really shopping around for stuff, but the thing is, the wedding's in 5 months, so we can't be too picky - if someone we like enough is available we'll need to snag them, long as the price is right.

[cael]

Ooh thanks Anne, wasn't aware of that website, I'll check it out!

[cael]

"On average, couples that live in or travel to ****, MA spend between $21,299 and $35,498 total for Market Summary" - HOLY CRAP we won't be spending near that, haha. Well then. I don't feel so bad about not being totally cheap as hell!

[phil5185]

Wow - your definitions of 'cheap', on sale', and 'deal' are way different than mine - you just blew past $5000 on peripherals. Not counting the $10k+ that Mom & Dad are covering?

A 'great flower' experience?? Hmm, wonder how a flowerless wedding would work, do flowers provide a lifelong memory imprint? (Actually I know the answer - we were married in 1969 and I have zero recollection about the flowers, LOL.)

For our oldest daughters wedding (16 yrs ago), I recall that the number $350 came up often - every time I turned around someone asked me to sign for $350. Limo - $350. And so on. We had a 3 foot ice sculpture shaped like a heart (and maybe a dove?) - yup, $350. (I remember watching that thing revert to H2O later that nite.)

Congratulations - have fun! And best wishes.

[Deleted]

cael,

I got married 3 years ago.. We spent about $25k-$30k, not inlcuding honeymoon or engagement ring.

We spent around $1500 on our photographer, about $2500 on flowers and around $800 on a DJ, $600 on a cake

[illinicheme]

I cheaped out on most of it because truly memorable food/venue/etc would have been so expensive that it was out of reach. (The only wedding food I distinctly remember is one Indian wedding that had amazing vegetarian Indian cuisine, and one friend who threw an incredibly lavish wedding in downtown Chicago that must have cost at least $100k. Everything else is a blur of similar meat/veggie/starch combos that I'm sure ranged from cheap to pricey.)

We ended up using one of those "does it all" type places. For a flat $6k (Friday night reception) we got a four hour reception for ~100 people that included venue, food, officiant, cake, open bar, and DJ. The photographer was about the only thing that I splurged on, because the photos really mattered to me.

Our budget broke down roughly as:
$6k - wedding/reception
$4k - photographer
$1k - dress/alterations
$1k - remaining incidentals (tux, flowers, invitations, etc.)

[whoisjohngalt]

I can't talk about photographer without getting the shakes, bc I HATE that guy and if I thought I looked good in orange, he would be dead by now. (paid ALOT!!)

Cake - $300 - was very happy with it
Flowers - about $100 for the grocery store - was happy with it
DJ - either $300 or $400 - he was great

Paid A LOT for food, bc we had a cocktail hour and a sit down dinner. But it also included the venue.

Lena

[sesfw]

When we got married I found a photographer that ownership of the negatives was part of the package. Paid $250 for 200 pictures. He was a professional photographer for a local magazine and he did weddings on the side.

For the cake, went to a wedding bakery and ordered sheet cakes, and one of them had a small round cake on the top in one corner for us to cut. Each cake was a different flavor and the small round one was the traditional white cake. Decorated each cake with real red roses. They were beautiful. I think the total cost was around $200.

Hubby did the invitations on the computer. My bouquet was 9 long stemmed red roses and 1 white one. I had each rose tied with a ribbon, then all of them tied together. I carried them across my arm. Both hubby and I were widowed so the white rose was in memory of our deceased mates. The reception was a catered BBQ buffet.

Your marriage vows are the most important thing of the whole day, and pictures will record it for you. Don't go into debt for this, not a good way to start the rest of your lives together.

Congrats.

[ugga81]

I think you'll find that prices can be all over the map. We were married about 6 1/2 years ago. At the time, I was trying to go ultra cheap (I think we ended between $5K and $6K for 150 guests). One thing I wish we hadn't skimped on was the photographer. We ended up using a retired photographer that my dad knew... I think he was only about $300. The pictures came out pretty bad. In our "wedding portrait"- the two of us posing at the church- we are both about an inch tall in an 8x10. I know he was trying to get the statue in the background but still. Moral of the story... spend a decent amount on your photographer. I also sometimes wonder if we should have had a videographer, even if it was just a cousin with a camera that we threw $150 at or something.

For flowers, I'm pleased with how they came out. We ordered them from Costco. Ended up getting about 400 roses in a few different colors. The bridesmaids and I made simple bouquets and boutineers (just needed floral tape, wire, and some ribbon), we put some flowers on the table for centerpieces, and then had a bunch left to decordate the cake. The reception venue let us store them in the cooler overnight. Total cost about $250 delivered

For the cake we used my brother's MIL. We opted for something simple, like chocolate and 2 or 3 tiers. She just did white icing and then placed a bunch of roses (those from Costco) on it. It looked great and tasted great. I think overall we paid her about $75 or $100 and she was also a guest.

I also made our invitations. It was in-between grad school and my first "real" job (started 2 weeks after our wedding) so I was able to work on them. I was also set on getting "pocket" invitations where the invite is on one side and then the other side has a pocket with tiered sheets of info about reception, accomodations and the RSVP. I spent about $70 on materials for 225 invites instead of the $1.50 - $2 EACH the invite place wanted to print them. It was much more time intensive than I thought it'd be... but like I said, I was unemployed for a few months.

[cael]

Phil - we could go extremely cheap by not hiring a DJ and doing the music ourselves, or having a super cheap photographer, or getting all flowers from the supermarket (which I may do anyway), or going with a supermarket cake, so that's pretty cheap for me, lol. We aren't doing a limo or any ridiculous centerpieces or anything. Not saying a cheap photographer wouldn't necessarily be good, but the pictures matter just about the most to me. And yeah, my parents are covering the big stuff for us, which is amazing of them - my grandmother passed away at Christmas and they know she would've wanted me to have a nice wedding, and since my mother has ended up with my grandmother's money and estate, they're helping us out.

Lena - I know a few people who've hated their photographers, that is really sad! My fiance's sister's photographer had a heart attack the day of her wedding but STILL worked for her - she wasn't super happy with the pictures, but realized the guy was obviously off his game and was grateful he actually still did her wedding. I have a few referrals from friends I'm going to check out. Seems to me $1500 to $2000 sounds like a reasonable range to find someone within, and I'm willing to pay that for it.

Oh, and for our save the dates and invitations we're going to use Vistaprint, which is nice & cheap. My dress btw was $400, which is pretty much dirt cheap compared to what I've seen. Paid for it in cash.

[wackyaunt]

2 years ago our DD's wedding cost just under $15k for 125 attendees (we had planned for 150 based on RSVP, only 125 showed up, but we still PAID for 150 dinners). That included her dress, all fresh flowers (tables and bouquets), decor, hors d'ovuers, buffet dinner, officient (and his travel), photography, attendants travel, attendants gifts, cake, favors, and all rentals. We are in a Lower COL area tho. We served no liquor...not allowed at venue (saved us major $ and we aren't drinkers so it was fine with us and it saved us the cost of a "bouncer", bartender, and accident insurance that venues with liquor charged.)

[Deleted]

I got married about 8 years ago and probably spent $25K. Most of that was because we had about 250 people at $65/plate. I THINK the expenses were around this much...

Dress--$700
Cake---$500
Photographer--$1200
DJ---$1000
Flowers---No clue.
Invites--No clue.

If you're going to go cheap, then do it on the cake and invite. Don't go cheap on the DJ or Photographers. I wouldn't go too cheap on the flowers either.

The DJ pretty much makes the reception. There is a HUGE difference between a cheeseball DJ and a really good one.

[whoisjohngalt]

Cael,
we paid $2200 (if i remember correctly) and made sure that we got the CD (or whatever it's called) with all the raw pics.

When I went to the "wedding fair" the avg prices were $3-$4K. That was in MD, so I thought I was getting a good deal. Little did I know that he was a young arrogant prick who didn't deserve a dime.

Lena

[shanendoah]

I guess it depends on what matters to you. I got married not quite 8 years ago. Cost: ~$2k.
I got married in a public garden, so the only flowers I needed were boquets and boutiniers. I got those from a co-worker's wife, and she gave us a discount.
A friend of ours got ordained in order to perform the wedding (he's since done many others) and designed us an ideal service.
His wife filled in as our photographer at the last minute, and they gave us the wedding pictures and an album as a gift. We also gave her permission to use our wedding photos in her portfolio. (My brother was supposed to have been the photographer, but his car engine blew up on his way to the airport and he missed the wedding.) We also had disposable cameras around so that other people could take pictures.
We had the reception in the back yard of our new house. We catered it ourselves. The prime rib from a local butcher shop was divine. We made the soup DH made me for our first date, and a few of our other favorite dishes. We still make them.
Our cake was from CostCo. Not only was it delicious, it froze beautifully, so the piece we had on our first anniversary was almost as good as it was fresh.
I will say, there were only 14 people total at my wedding (including us), but it means that I got to spend time with everyone. My wedding day was actually one of the most fun and relaxing days I've ever had. (It does help that I had the best MOH ever.)

[Clever Username]

Feb 10, 2011 11:11:25 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

A 'great flower' experience?? Hmm, wonder how a flowerless wedding would work, do flowers provide a lifelong memory imprint? (Actually I know the answer - we were married in 1969 and I have zero recollection about the flowers, LOL.)

I think flowers is a great line item to start with.
I still remember back in our wedding planning, our guides gave price ranges for everything with one exclusion.... flowers.

On one hand, you need no flowers.
On the other hand, you could hire that Adaptation guy to deck the hall with Ghost Orchids.

I think it's a great item to actually understand that you are in control.
You first need to understand it's importance to you!

Congrats and good luck.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Prices are going to be everywhere and are dependent on where you live and even what time you are getting married (getting married a "Wedding month" like June is going to be more expensive because everyone jacks up their prices).

Average weddings here according to a calculator I used once are $20k. I spent $3k.

We saved by going outside of approved wedding vendors that you see all the time in local magazines and fairs. We hit the yellow pages and found smaller vendors who have experience with weddings but don't have the funds to rent a booth every year at the fairs.

I got my dress and veil on Ebay which is a risk. Make sure you have plenty of time before the wedding (I did it a year in advance) and it is no more money than you are comfortable losing (I would have ate $110, so I was all right with that). I got my shoes and a purse at Payless for $8 during a BOGO sale.

The moment the word "wedding" flies from your lips vendors eyeballs turn into dollar signs like in the cartoons. They assume you are going to want a "special day" at any price and that if you can't pay perhaps parents will give daughter dear the wedding of her dreams. So you pay thru the nose.

What worked best for me was instead of going in and saying "I am having a wedding what can you do for us?" I said "I got $X to spend, what can you give me for that price". Then the vendors knew I wasn't going to fall in love a with giant ice swan and if they wanted my business they needed to play ball with me.

[Firebird]

Feb 10, 2011 11:14:16 GMT -5 @illinicheme said:

I cheaped out on most of it because truly memorable food/venue/etc would have been so expensive that it was out of reach. (The only wedding food I distinctly remember is one Indian wedding that had amazing vegetarian Indian cuisine, and one friend who threw an incredibly lavish wedding in downtown Chicago that must have cost at least $100k. Everything else is a blur of similar meat/veggie/starch combos that I'm sure ranged from cheap to pricey.)

We ended up using one of those "does it all" type places. For a flat $6k (Friday night reception) we got a four hour reception for ~100 people that included venue, food, officiant, cake, open bar, and DJ. The photographer was about the only thing that I splurged on, because the photos really mattered to me.

Our budget broke down roughly as:
$6k - wedding/reception
$4k - photographer
$1k - dress/alterations
$1k - remaining incidentals (tux, flowers, invitations, etc.)

My budget is going to look almost exactly like this. If anyone who cares wants to put in more money for anything, they're welcome to do so. All I care about is the guy inside the tux, ten or twelve very specific guests attending, looking stunning in my dress, and finding a kickass photographer (this really is extremely important to me, because I don't photograph well as a rule and I don't want to look ugly in my wedding pictures), in that order. We can cheap out on everything else for all I care.

[mcmommy]

"Reasonable" kind of depends on your location. We spent $8000 for wedding/honeymoon.

Our main expenses were:
Dress: $700
Photography: $500
Flowers: $500
Food: $1200
Location: $500
Honeymoon: $2500

[cael]

Feb 10, 2011 13:04:45 GMT -5 Firebird said:

and finding a kickass photographer (this really is extremely important to me, because I don't photograph well as a rule and I don't want to look ugly in my wedding pictures), in that order. We can cheap out on everything else for all I care.

This! That's one reason the photographer is important to me, lol. Pictures are just important to me period, but I want to make sure I/we look good too

Honeymoon is another story..... we'd like to do a cruise (never have before) and are looking at dates and prices. We could do one out of Boston to Bermuda & save on plane fare, or we could do something from FL. We have no idea yet but we need to get cracking on that too. I don't want to have to charge the honeymoon, and paying for the wedding is more important than the honeymoon at this moment, so we'll see :/

[jeffreymo]

For us (2007):
DJ - 650
Cake - 550 (200 guests)
Photographer - $2700 - very nice package in lieu of doing both photographer and videographer (some friends helped us with amateur video)
Reception (Food/Alcohol/Service/Gratuity) - $10,000
Priest/Church Helper/Musicians - $700
Honeymoon - $4000 Cancun
Other stuff - $3-5000

[Frugal Nurse]

I got married six years ago. My parents spent about $10K on that.

$1000- Dress, veil ,and shoes
$200- alterations
$2000- venue
$400- cakes (bride's and groom's) - we have a baker that we've used for over a decade, so we kind of got a deal on that.
$600- Photographer (I was a professional photographer and got a discount through a photographer. friend)
$400- Bouquets, corsages, boutonnieres
$600- flowers (we made the arrangements ourselves. I'm very type-A and they turned out way more beautiful than I could've ordered. We got the flowers wholesale through our local floral supplier)
$700- Food (My mom was a caterer and did most of it herself. Fillet Mignon, Jerk Chicken, and a huge buffet of sides, fruits, etc.)
$400 - "helpers"- people to help set up, serve food, clear plates, pour drinks, etc.
$1k - equipment- chairs, table clothes, dishes, buffet servers, fountain rental, etc.
$600 -DJ
$400- invitations
$200- favors
$100- limo
$60- cake topper

There were also Tux rentals for the wedding party, the preacher, vases, decorations, a card cage, the rehearsal dinner, gifts for the wedding party, omg it all adds up so quickly!

One way I wish we'd saved:
I would've rented sound equipment for about $100 and loaded up our ipods with music from Rhapsody ($15), and had family members make announcements like "introducing Mr. and Mrs." and first dance, etc.

I also also wish we'd have thought to hire a violinist for the ceremony. but oh well, it was a wonderful wedding, and I'm still happily married almost 6 years later, even without the violins!

Congrats on your upcoming wedding!

[cael]

I forgot - we're having a string quartet for the ceremony I play violin & a group I play for with my old violin teacher is going to play for me! I am going to pay them, don't know what yet, but it won't probably be too much (they're high school students and my teacher may refuse money even though I'll insist on something, I've known her since I was really little) And we have my church music director coming as a guest, who said he'd play some piano for us at the reception - him & my dad are close like brothers He'll refuse money too but again I'll try to insist.

[whoisjohngalt]

Cael,
test him out - the photographer. May be do a small set of "engagement" photos and see how they come out.

Also, unsolicited advice on the photographer - make sure you tell him if there are any specific shots you want him to take. Our "genius" didn't think it was important to have pic of me with my DH's family and my DH with my family. We didn't have a "set" pic time, so didn't even realize that until after the wedding.
So, if you want to make sure you have a pic of your great-grandma during the ceremony or whatever else, make sure you tell him and not assume that he will use common sense.

Lena

[cael]

Lena - ugh, that's crappy :/ I was going to either make a list of people to make sure he/she gets photos of us with, or even show them pictures of people we want pictures with, I've heard of people doing that! One thing my fiance's sis was really bummed about was that she doesn't have one pic of her and my fiance at her wedding partially because the photographer was so off his game, and partially because my fiance was 15 & snuck off with his cousins to smoke, lol.

[cael]

WHOA I just made senior member there

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Make sure your photographer gets a list of names of important people as well. Our photographer started doing that because the bride would want "grandma" in a photo but not tell her which guest was "grandma" and grandma would already be headed towards the reception because no one informed her either that she was wanted for pictures.

Then the photographer can ask "Is Mr Father of DQ" here?" or say "Mrs DQ's mother please don't leave yet we need you for some photos".

It makes things go a lot smoother when the photographer and you both know who needs to stay for photos.

[swamp]

I got married in 2003, and spent about $13,000 total on a big bash for 200, including rehersal dinner, clothes for the whole wedding party, and all the other little things.

Photographer $600
Flowers $600
Dress, shoes, alterations $400
Invites were cheap.

I spent at least $7k on food and drink.