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How much did you guys spend on your wedding?

My wife and I spent around $10K for both the wedding and honeymoon in 2002. My parents covered the rehearsal dinner which was about $1800+ from what I remember and her parents covered some other things like her dress, and some various ceremony costs.

I've been working in the wedding industry for many years as a DJ and doing some photography and video work. People spend varying amounts of money on their weddings depending on their budget. Yes, some people finance the wedding expenses, but many don't. It's all relative based on economic status, family income, etc. If a couple is paying for the event themselves then I would highly recommend not going into debt to do it because of the financial stress that can place on the new couple. The first year of marriage is hard enough without those added complications.
 
We spend a lot but most of it was recovered by people giving us money instead of gifts. Where we are from people give you money at the couple.
I think it cost us $35,000 and we had about 250 guests. We got about $22,000
from the people.
 
mobilehaathi said:
So, people actually yoke themselves to debt just to pay for an extravagant wedding?
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I'm sure that happens. In my case, we spent approximately the cost of a fairly nice car at the time. But we're still going strong after more than 25 years, which is probably a lot more mileage than we would have gotten out of the car. :)
 
Got married about a year and half ago, budgeted about $60-65k, lets just say we went over, think we were at 140 people give or take. But we got married at an awesome hotel in a room that was badass (Biltmore in Miami). Had an incredible band, not a normal wedding band or dj, our song was the punk rock version of stand by me lol and parent dance was simple man. Brought in a ton of craft beer. Its really all the little **** that adds up, the nicer chairs, the flowers... the f'n flowers I'm still mind blown and costed more then the band granted it was a pretty insane cool setup but still... watch the little ****, thats where it adds up. The one thing that stood out, the food, so good, ours and two other weddings are the only ones that had awesome food (been to some high end ones that were awful). Had people that worked at the hotel that said they've been there for X amount of years and had never seen a wedding like that before.

I don't remember what we got in terms of gift money, think it was only like 5 or 6k. But mainly b/c we had a huge registry and literally got every single item and then some, I put stuff on there that I thought nobody would buy but I would/wanted b/c you get like a 20% discount or whatever it was if nobody buys it.

pic of some of the beer lol
 
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tzhu07 said:
I just did a Google search, and it turns out in 2012 the median cost was around ~$18,000 according to a Slate article:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/...rs_on_the_price_of_a_wedding_are_totally.html

WAT :eek:

I hope many of those couples are recouping their costs in the form of gifts from the guests.
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Nothing, I've been to China ( Beijing ), Italy ( Rome ), Spain ( Barcelona ), Egypt ( Cairo ), Greece... and many, many more places with my girl friend for less. Much rather spend the money on the adventure rather than the packaging.
 
2500 for church, wedding, reception and dinner/bar/food. 250 for photographer. Wedding dress was passed down. 200 for tux. All together about 3500 for everything. Got a bunch of envelopes for wedding gifts(Korean). About 7000 worth
 
My live in girlfriend (current wife) and I decided one morning many years ago that it was time to get married, so we went out to buy rings that afternoon, and we married in Lake Tahoe that evening. What a rush of excitement. I was so elated that she was willing to avoid the big wedding thing, which I would have absolutely hated to go through. Total cost less than $250 excluding rings.
 
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About $15,000 all up not including rings, with them it would be another 15-17k on top of that.

Was a nice destination wedding with about 20-25 family and friends.
 
We got married at city hall so all we paid for was the marriage license.

Of course my in-laws insisted on us having a "wedding" so they threw us a reception a few months later. I don't know how much that was though since we paid for none of it. I don't think it was cheap but I don't think it was incredibly expensive either, at least as far as weddings are concerned.
 
SurferMan said:
Got married about a year and half ago, budgeted about $60-65k, lets just say we went over, think we were at 140 people give or take. But we got married at an awesome hotel in a room that was badass (Biltmore in Miami). Had an incredible band, not a normal wedding band or dj, our song was the punk rock version of stand by me lol and parent dance was simple man. Brought in a ton of craft beer. Its really all the little **** that adds up, the nicer chairs, the flowers... the f'n flowers I'm still mind blown and costed more then the band granted it was a pretty insane cool setup but still... watch the little ****, thats where it adds up. The one thing that stood out, the food, so good, ours and two other weddings are the only ones that had awesome food (been to some high end ones that were awful). Had people that worked at the hotel that said they've been there for X amount of years and had never seen a wedding like that before.

I don't remember what we got in terms of gift money, think it was only like 5 or 6k. But mainly b/c we had a huge registry and literally got every single item and then some, I put stuff on there that I thought nobody would buy but I would/wanted b/c you get like a 20% discount or whatever it was if nobody buys it.

pic of some of the beer lol
[url=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r273/Surfer-Chris/beer/20131003_171404_zps2da107e2.jpg]Image[/URL]
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Man, I wish the weddings I've been to had the beer you stocked. ;)
 
Watching some friends get married this summer/fall is giving me a firsthand view of what I want and don't want out of a marriage.

One is a couple totally paying for it themselves out of pocket, but they both have large families they feel obligated to invite. So although they're not splurging on stupid things, they're still spending about $20k on a wedding. I think they're receiving $5-8k in support from parents/grandparents.

Another couple the bride-to-be is incredibly demanding, but luckily has rich parents to pay for it. I believe their budget is $30k - without including her $5-6k dress. Naturally that had to be a separate line item in her budget :rolleyes:

We might seem like awful friends, but some of us are already wondering when the spoiled brat girl will get sick of their more modest lifestyle (buddy is a firefighter/EMT) and break it off.
 
My wedding cost less than 1K$, we did it when we bought the house afer 6 years of living togheter. For the marriage part, we just invited our parents. It was really nice and simple. The only sad thing is that we did not go on a honeymoon. But had much more money, so we could rely on only one income when we got our kid.

Been 9 years now and we are planning our honeymoon next year.
 
maflynn said:
I forget at this point but we didn't spend much, it was a second wedding for both of us. We got married on a boat and then to the local yacht club for the reception. I think it was a probably under 5k for everything including food and photographer. The honeymoon in Hawaii was a bit pricey but that was worth it.
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Pretty much the same for me.
 
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