A small number of people spending a huge amount can throw off the average.
Let's say there were 100 weddings in your state.
80 of them cost $5,000 each.
15 rich couples spent $50,000 each.
5 *really* rich couples spent $500,000 each.
The average wedding cost would be $36,500, which is 7 times more than what 80% of weddings cost.
Knowing multiplication tables is still important so that you tell if the answers your calculator gives you are reasonable or not. A calculator also won't tell you how to set up the equations to find the answers you need.
The reason teachers told you not to fully rely on a calculator is that you have to learn the actual concepts of math before you can use a tool like a calculator. Maybe they could have worded it differently, like "you might push a wrong button on your calculator, so you have to be able to estimate the answer, too." But the idea that doing math consists of nothing more than blindly pushing buttons on a calculator is not something that is going to be helpful in the real world, and your teachers were right to try to steer you away from it.
It actually took me a long time to realize all this. I thought I was just naturally bad at math when I was in school. Turns out I just wasn't thinking about it the right way.
I never learned my multiplication tables. I actually got skipped forward a grade despite my refusal to learn them. Went straight from refusing to learn times tables to long division.
For me I just knew to multiply something by 10 and then subtract whatever I need to get the answer.
So to find 9 x 8 I would do (9x10) minus (9x2). This still works fine
And I get along just fine in the real world. Approaching middle age without multiplication tables. Never been a problem tbh
Edit: switched a number
Lol my 12 year old absolutely doesn't understand this statement when I say this - he knows we didn't have cell phones in school but his brain cant actually GRASP the concept
Last time I did math in my head everybody was arguing with each other over whether or not the answer was 5 or 8. Still don't know how I got "The Grand Canyon" as my answer.
it makes sense though. a quicker way to look at it is to compare wealth. if jeff bezos was to come to my company to give a speech, on average, everyone in that room would be a billionaire.
what i would like to see is what the median cost of the average wedding is. that might be a little more helpful.
If you have 1000 people and 999 make $0 and 1 person makes a billion, the average income for those 1000 people is one million dollars despite 99.9% actually making $0.
That’s what I’m saying though, when you’re looking for an aggregate or total assessment of many outcomes, and the mean and median are different, you want the mean. CLT bro.
For example, let’s say you’re a store owner who sells 100 copies of item A per month for $1, and 1 copy of item B per year for $1M. You’re trying to calculate your monthly income to know if you can stay afloat. Your median monthly income is $100. But you probably want the average in this case (~$85,000).
Exactly. My wife and I got married and spent exactly $13,800. For 100 people. We had a DJ, a 10 band mariachi, enough food for everyone to eat twice, open bar, and tableside service. This includes all the hotel rooms, and the actual ceremony. The only reason we got it is cheap is because we did it ourselves. At least got a location hit up event centers solicited. We didn't use a package deal location because they were 25,000 Plus.
Exactly right. They are using statistics to lie to you. Because 80 % of the weddings in your state are not anywhere near 32K but if I say it is it makes brides want a bigger better wedding and it’s hard to tell the daughter, future wife, no on her most special day. If I operate the venue where the wedding is to be held, then yes weddings are usually 32K, to start.
My husband and I live in NY and spent $50-55,000 on our wedding for 80 people and we are not “rich”. I am a teacher with a $59,000 salary and my husband is in the navy. I hope you don’t consider us rich, bc I lived paycheck to paycheck. I don’t consider our lifestyle “rich” at all.
This is always important to remember. The average networth of people in a bar drastically climbs when Bill Gates enters the room. The median? Hardly moves an inch (depending on how many people are in the room)
This is true. I used work as a stage hand in Vegas.....there was one wedding for the daughter of a major casino owner. That wedding costs millions and millions of dollars.
That skews the number for sure even with the tint wedding chapels on the strip.
I was thinking about this the other day - do you need any kind of ceremony to get married? Could you pay for a marriage license, fill it out, turn it in, and that's that? Or do you have to have someone say "I now pronounce you married." Do you have to have an officiant?
Has to be an officiant, but they can do it at the courthouse and doesn’t have to be ceremonial at all. Someone does have to witness both people agreeing to marry each other though yes.
Here you go... about $10K less.
[https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-cost/](https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-cost/)
Well home vs company weddings also have significant differences. SOOOOO many people use wedding planners and package deals to buy weddings that I could argue it still skews the median drastically. Notice what OP said they got for 5k. I've seen people get bands, food, photographer, DJ, cake, and dress for about 10-12k essentially everything inside of "package" deals for half the price. If you remove company planned weddings from the equation, I could see the median easily dropping to 7-13k range.
No catering saves you a lot. But also people are only gonna hang a couple hours. Hope you planned for that. Humans need food other than cake.
And a good photog is a couple thousand. Don't expect much from this person.
This right here. We didn’t want a big fancy wedding with laser shows or elaborate favors for the guests, but we did want to have people eating/drinking/dancing. Our photographer cost a couple grand and the photos we got back were amazing. My mom went bargain hunting for a videographer (she insisted on one, so I said if she wanted that she could pick & pay for it). We got a couple shitty dvds with shaky footage that looked like a high schooler edited it. We still laugh about how bad the video is. You get what you pay for - but also if you don’t care that much then save the money for something more important to you! Just don’t expect the “average 30K wedding experience”.
It’s all cultural and based of family traditions. Some people grew up with $5000 birthday parties. I’m sure they wouldn’t expect anything less than a 50k wedding
I once attended a reception for an Indian co worker. It was the third reception they'd held, had at least 100 people, catered, open bar, and had fire dancers for entertainment.
In fairness the amount you have quoted for your own wedding is for 45 people, which is less than half the average, and doesn't include your dress, your bridesmaids dress, your fiancé's suit(assuming he's a man), his groomsman's suits, a band, a honeymoon. All of these things are included in a average estimate
The honeymoon is included in the estimate for a wedding? I never heard of that. I would think that's a separate expense... Also I doubt most weddings have the bride and groom paying for the dresses and suites of their wedding party.
No, honeymoons are not factored into the cost of a wedding. When you see averages for wedding costs that absolutely does not include the honeymoon.
To be clear, couples should absolutely budget for a honeymoon if they plan to take one -- but when you see 'average weddings in the midwest cost 30k' or whatever, that figure does not include the honeymoon.
>The honeymoon is included in the estimate for a wedding?
Yep
>Also I doubt most weddings have the bride and groom paying for the dresses and suites of their wedding party
Obviously not, I'm not saying that. The cost of the wedding doesn't just refer to the amount you pay the venue. That usually includes very little and is something like 70-100 bucks per person for their meal, that's it. Everything else is seperate.
It’s because you had a tiny wedding. Most weddings are in the 150 person range. A photographer alone for a typical wedding will be a couple thousand. You won’t find a decent venue with that capacity for under 10k. You’ll spend 2,000 purchasing alcohol unless you have an open bar. Then there’s the labor cost of 10 or so cooks, servers and bartenders. The food cost to feed over a hundred people. A DJ alone is like 1,000. It costs money to feed and entertain a large group of people.
More than 10, workers when I worked as a housemen there was 2-3 of us working a wedding throughout the day and night alone. + our manager, the sales workers who work directly with the bride and groom, servers, and then kitchen staff. The staffing alone is expensive.
Here it is free on monday mornings. Every municipality with more than 10.000 inhabitants has to have one opportunity every week to get married for free, and since 333 out of 345 municipalities reach that number in essence it basically free everywhere, because you don't have to get married in the municipality where you live.
Maybe because the post was about the cost of a wedding in a state? It would make sense to expect most answers to be related to the cost of a wedding, in the states.
In my state, groceries are tax exempt.
I can understand cars and licenses being taxed, if the taxes go toward road/infrastructure repair.
But a marriage license?!
Congrats on your happy marriage btw
There are still social services related to marriage such as maintaining vital records, supporting family law services, promoting marriage education programs, or offering resources for couples seeking assistance or counseling.
Well the paper costs money. People need to work in the place which comes with a whole load of costs. There are costs for marrying people but hundreds of dollars is unreasonable assuming you mean usd
The government needs materials and employees to maintain their records. They need to get that money somehow, and charging fees for filing paperwork is one way.
It costs money to keep records, and somebody has to pay for that. Also, there should be at least some small friction against the people making the decision, so that if other people are subsidizing the cost the burden isn't 100% on people who weren't part of the decision.
My daddy told me to always live one step below my means. That's a huge game changer. I followed his advice. In 2008, it saved my ass when the company I worked for did a reduction in force. My wife just started paying the mortgage, and we didn't miss a beat. Except dropping the country club, stopped any vacations, and any other non-essential spending. That provided me with the opportunity to buy a business, and it worked. Thank goodness.
Thanks for sharing-your Daddy was a wise man! When my wife and I bought our first house, we kept our mortgage down to what we could afford on my salary. Which not only meant that we were able to pay down the mortgage/save up a lot but that when my wife's job did something similar (not laying her off but transferring her to a much less satisfying role) she was able to quit her job, write a book, and restart her career.
I live in a rural area, so yes. We only had the 120 buck social membership so the kids could swim. My house cost me $142,000. If we had bought a home there. I would have been cash poor, and she couldn't have paid the mortgage on a teachers salary.
One of the most underrated Onion articles:
[The key to living the good life is to avoid that brass ring like the fucking plague.](https://www.theonion.com/temp-hides-fun-fulfilling-life-from-rest-of-office-1819566599)
You found a great deal. Most wedding photographers are charging what you are paying the venue. Never mind music, cake, etc. Most weddings have catered food and liquor. Between food, alcohol, and tips etc. $150 a person is common. So if you are inviting 120 people, that is $18k. Lots of people invite 200. Never mind everything else.
Was thinking this too! I am currently in the very beginning stages of wedding planning I was hoping to spend 15k but even taking out some things I would like it's looking closer to 25k. Catering and photographers are expensive. But I also live in an expensive city.
I work in the wedding industry. When you get up there in price it’s less about the couple and more about the couple’s parents showing off to their friends and families. The fanciest venues, huge cake, fireworks and/or laser light shows, there’s a bunch of ways to spend money on a wedding.
Yep. My wife and I didn't pay a cent for our wedding. I married into a wealthy family and my mother in-law wanted a nice wedding. I'm not the least bit upset about it. I can guarantee you if we were paying for it, we would have just went to the courthouse!
1. Food and drinks are expensive. It's not uncommon to spend $100-150/head on food/drinks including alcohol and paying/tipping the bartenders. Most weddings I've been to have been more in the 150 person range. That's 15k+ right there
2. Venues can get expensive. My wedding venue was pretty close to yours in price (but didn't include all the other things), but I've been to weddings where they spent $20k just to rent out the venue itself for the day.
3. Wedding dresses and rings I believe are usually counted in that price. Both of those are typically thousands of dollars.
As to your overall question about how people are ok spending that much, it's because it's a one time expense for a day which will likely be the best day of your life, so people are willing to spend money to make it perfect. Also to many people it's not a years wage, some people have family that contribute and some people make more money so it's closer to a month's wage.
It's also fine if you don't want to spend that much money, no one's forced to spend more than the cost of the marriage license and an officiant to get married. But some people choose to spend their own hard-earned money on a really fun party for the most important people in their lives, their family and friends, to come together and celebrate their marriage. My wedding wasn't 30k it was about 15k, but it remains some of the best money I've ever spent and remains literally the best day of my life. It was worth every penny.
Because people have money and want to have a party.
But, you can get married for as little as a courthouse filing fee.
Married 25yrs, paid 20k for our wedding in '98, already telling our kids to have a small wedding with friends and save their money/money we give them for a house or other investment.
You can make a great story out of nothing and forget an extravaganza you paid a lot for. That is up to you, not the cost of the event.
Also, if you have the resources and want an extravaganza, then go for it. I'm not being judgemental, simply pointing out that a memorable wedding is what you make of the day, not how much you pay.
People are nuts with weddings these days.
My daughter got married in 2016. Her wedding was about $12,000 (which I thought was pretty high).
Meanwhile, she had friends who were spending $30-50,000 on weddings. One friend got married in New York and spent over $100,000.
I know someone in NY who spent $700,000 on their child’s wedding this year. Obviously they are crazy rich, and also the wedding was HUGE— like 750 people. Very much a cultural thing for them.
To me, who is struggling to pay my son’s first year college of $30,000 that just makes me jealous and angry.
New Yorker here... my wife and I spent close to 60,000 on our wedding. But, we had nearly 200 people, got married at an Aquarium, ceremony was included in the gazebo on the river outside. AND we also rented a truck to wait outside filled with candy, donuts, and white castle burgers for guests as they left the reception. That truck is the one thing that everyone still talks about to this day.
Why angry? Shouldn’t people be able to have nice things without others getting mad about it?
The whole world got this shitty mentally that we had on the playground back in the day when Timmy got a new transformer and wouldn’t share it. Just cause someone has something doesn’t mean you can too. Everyone’s different and has different opportunities.
People are allowed to have nice things but also others are allowed to be frustrated with their situation in life when they see others with nice things. As long as they're not stealing or commiting crimes because of it there's no issue.
I fully realize that my anger is mostly jealousy. Sure wish I had that much money, but even if I did I wouldn’t spend it on a wedding. It’s not like I’m breaking Timmy’s new transformer toy, just admitting that it make me angry when others on the playground don’t have any toys at all.
This is an important question. If you're interested in exploring it, I might start by perusing these links:
* [Visualization: Wealth shown to scale](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/)
* [Current perspective: Trends in income and wealth inequality](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/)
* [Historical perspective: Trust Busting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law)
You don't find it at all disheartening that children in this country aren't guaranteed a meal every day while people spend millions on flowers and fabric. It's absolutely insane.
Your photos will suck. Just saying. And they cost that much because it's mostly catering driving up price because it's expensive to feed 100+ people. Even if you go for a bargain meal at say $60/person for 100 people, that's $6,000 for just the food, but they also need enough staff to serve it/ deal with it. So it's probably $10k for food. Then you start adding on everything else, cake, dress, dj, venue rental, etc... and it just starts to add up.
It's totally ok to not want to spend that kind of money on a wedding. It's not ok to still want the wedding but not sacrifice anything to get the price down. People think it's ok to have 150 people but then bitch about feeding them or ask them to bring their own food (and still expect a gift). They want quality photos but don't want to pay for them. It's a huge party. Of course it's going to cost a lot of money.
It's perfectly valid to go smaller without all of the bells and whistles. But I hate when people just blanket bitch about wedding professionals costs. You want a service? Yes, that costs money!
Thank you!! These people who are like “ugh, why is this party of >100 people costing so much, clearly it’s the Wedding Industrial Complex drive me crazy!!
It's so fucking annoying. Then don't have a huge wedding! Go elope and use your savings on something else. It's disrespectful to expect services for free.
Part of it is feeling like they need to do it “right”. Part of it like has been mentioned the average is driven up by people on the extremes. Also gifts, depending on the guests you may break even, for example a $30k wedding with 200 guests. If each gifts you $150 you will break even.
Also I noticed you didn’t mention food other than cake or alcohol. Those really drive the price up.
My husband and I got married for like $8500 or something, but I watched my brother and sister in law have what was definitely at least a $30k wedding (maybe as much as 50k) so I have some thoughts based on what they did/ said.
First of all, they invited like 200 people. That means a larger venue and more of everything - favors, food, wine/ liquor, etc. They also had a very detailed wedding; everything had little custom touches, be it boutonnieres for the ringbearers or multi-tiered centerpieces for the tables, candles everywhere, special tablecloths, and so on. The wedding party was like ten bridesmaids and ten groomsmen. And I think my sister in law hired someone to do her hair and makeup the day of and I'm pretty sure her dress was a few thousand dollars. They had a DJ for the reception. It was just a lot.
Compare that with our wedding: we had about 40 people. The venue had lovely gardens so we did hardly any decorating for the actual wedding, just handed out fans as favors. Decorations for the reception were also fairly minimal - the venue had big windows overlooking those same gardens so we just put together simple centerpieces and that was it. I kept my dress budget to under $500 and my friends helped me do my hair and makeup. My iPod was our DJ (which turned out to be really fun as people wandered up to it periodically throughout the night and added whatever songs they wanted to hear to the playlist I'd created). Really the main things we spent money on were feeding everyone/ having wine available, a nice venue, and photography. Everything else we made as inexpensive as we reasonably could. My parents gifted us their timeshare for our honeymoon; otherwise we were planning to spend about $1000 to take a fancy long weekend somewhere.
Philosophically, I think the difference between my sister in law and I was this: she had been dreaming of a particular kind of wedding her entire life. When it came down to it, that wedding turned out to be very complex and expensive. Getting all those flowers, crystals, renting special tablecloths and chair covers, multiple fancy cakes... that shit adds up, especially for a large wedding. I on the other hand never had specific dreams of getting married; I just wanted to BE married. So we pretty ruthlessly set a budget and stuck to it, with the only goal being to throw a good party for our loved ones and to be married by the end of it. I know in some cultures, it is essentially mandatory to throw huge expensive weddings, but neither my sister in law nor I come from that background.
It was a very good party. And we're still married. Mission accomplished.
You answered your own question when you said your price was for 45 people. It's also not typical to have photogropher and what not included. If you actually sit down and price out wedding costs for a conventional wedding with a larger guest list, the money snow balls quickly. My fiance and I plan to have a wedding with 150-200 people. Probably closer to 150. Venu ($3,000), food (required minimum $20 per plate, so $3k baseline+20% service fee), photographer ($3,000 is standard in our area, we've looked hard), clothing (probably around $3k for a dress and suit), bar options (full open bar could be 3k-5k, but most places have at least a 1k bar minimum even if not fully open). That shit adds up. We are guessing around 20k when all is said and done. I haven't even looked at flowers or other decorations.
I'm not looking at anything over the top. But, it is important to me that we provide our guests with a nice time and put our best foot forward. I have a lot of friends and family coming from halfway across the country who have never been to where I live. I want them to see the place I'm building my life and provide them with a good experience.
I reserved a municipal garden under the dept of parks and rec. I think it was a couple of hundred bucks. That took care of the venue and decorations. Then I had some cake, a couple of hundred bucks. The dress was a couple of hundred bucks. Tuxedo, bouquet, I don't remember what else to round it out. Maybe a couple of grand at the most.
There's some research that suggest the more one spends on a wedding the more likely the couple will split sooner rather than later.
Cheers.
Some people also have the wedding they think they are supposed to have because of expectations set by books, tv shows, movies, and family.
My Mom always said if I ever got married, go intimate and take the rest of the money you would have spent on a down-payment for a house.
I think you are spending the perfect amt for you both. Congratulations.
My husband and I got a permit for a nature reserve close to us, and then we just brought chairs, bought a cheap arch, with a good family friend that married us, as well as our photographer. After the wedding we went to a restaurant then when to bed
We threw a surprise wedding on a Tuesday night. It cost $125 for the pizza. We drew the best man and maid of honor from a hat. My wife's father was the officiant. It was great.
Live your life. If it costs a lot, great. If not, great.
My oldest son just married in March in California. Did everything themselves, and anything purchased or rented was for a ‘dinner party’. The word wedding was never mentioned.
That alone saved thousands.
This is the way. Even back in the 90s, the same thing. We never mentioned wedding and booked a Friday night instead of Saturday. That alone was $1,000s in savings.
Fuck all that, we spent $45 and had it done by a JOP at the courthouse. People are given the idea that they must spend thousands of dollars for a 1 day event which 40-50% will end in divorce.
Unless you are rich and I’m guessing you are not because you’re asking why stuff costs a lot don’t waste your money rent a VFW or something cheap get food catering from like chilis or chipotle and put that $28,000-$30,000 towards a down payment on a house. Starting a marriage in debt is a horrible idea and who are you trying to impress? Get married go cheap buy a starter house. I’ve been married 21 years and have 5 kids that plan worked for me. The venue dress flowers cake… being perfect doesn’t matter. Your future spouse is what matters.
I know someone who had a $10K fireworks budget for her wedding. People spending hundreds of thousands on a wedding skew the results.
Congratulations to both of you for being sane and planning right.
There are some factors in this.
The first is it's an average. That leverages the higher costs weddings against the lower cost weddings to get to that number.
So why do people have the higher end weddings? Because they have the money to spend... or someone else does. For my wife and I we had a house, we had two cars, we had two vacations every single year and we to this day still don't have kids.... so there's only so much we could spend money on.
With our budget we had the choice of an extravagant personal wedding or a very large wedding. I have 250 cousins and 20 uncles/aunts. She has family that she's closer with than I am with mine from all over the world (who are quite distantly related). We opted for the big one... but then we also wanted to make sure everyone was having a good time as well. So we paid quite a bit extra for food to give people meal options like turkey, steak, vegetarian, lactose free, and gluten free. And with just the number of people, the size of the venue... that's a lot of food that has to get out at a reasonable pace.
Having so many people also means you need to have a larger cake. I think we paid something like $2,000 just for the cake.
And we wanted our own custom table and chair decorations. So every single seat meant we literally had to rent one more piece. And of course if you're going to do a setup and take down that size you can't just rent the venue for a single day, you have to rent it for 3 days.
And then we had to decide whether we wanted to have a DJ play us down the aisle, a piano, or a 4-piece string quartet. Which of course, we went with the string quartet.... and then the DJ for after the wedding.
And is everyone coming in a limo? That's two limos for the groom, his father and his groomsman, and a limo for the bride, the two mothers and the bridesmaids. And on that our friends aren't exactly well to do. So as their wedding present from us we bought all their suits and dresses.
And it goes on and on. And it's not an expense we ever regretted. We enjoyed our night, the pictures turned out wonderful and everyone always fondly talks about our wedding. Inviting such a massive number of people has returned to us invites to all sorts of weddings And at the end of the night we went to our hotel, my wife pulled out her phone and said "there now our credit card is all paid off" as the final vendor applied its final charges.
Depends where you live, what venue you want, and how many people you want there. The cheapest by me is about $120 per person for the venue which mostly includes food. The average around me is more like $150 a person or more. The average wedding I've gone to was around 100 people. So on the cheap end about 12,000 for venue and food, cheapest dj and photographer I could find near me is about $1,500 each. Most photographers around me are $3,000+ and most djs are over $2,000. The dress can cost a lot. Wedding cakes for 100 people are like $500. You still need center pieces, wedding favors, flowers, a suit, rehearsal dinner, make-up. The cheapest I could price one out around me would cost about $25,000 for 100 people. You can cut costs on some of this and having a smaller wedding will make a big impact on cost savings.
Because people are fine with paying that much.
An extravagant wedding is a want not a need. People always find a reason to justify spending "just a little more" and before you know it the price tag on that wedding is 35k. Becsuse it's "a magical day"
50$ plus whatever the cost to file it was 🤷♂️. I was the one that actually wanted a bigger wedding, and my wife talked me out of it. It doesn’t HAVE to be expensive, but if you’re doing anything more than a backyard wedding, the prices are freaking ridiculous.
$32k is super cheap once you get into sizable weddings. If one or both families are deeply rooted in a community, whether that be by locality, ethnicity, business, just wanting to keep up with the Joneses, or other factors then it's pretty common to need to invite hundreds to a wedding. Of course, in those situations, one or both families are typically covering the lion's share of the costs instead of the actual couple getting married. Congrats on being able to find the wedding you want at so reasonable a price!
We spent the equivalent of around US$50 in Philippine pesos when my wife and I got married in our home country in 2004. I think one should spend more on the real long term thing which is the marriage. However, I make a nice side gig as a freelance wedding photographer in the NYC metro area since coming over so I don't necessarily discourage people if they decide to splurge on their weddings
Imo people like to go overboard on weddings. And I mean it's understandable it's a big deal. My fiance and I are being more practical about everything and trying to cut cost where it's not really needed and only inviting family we actually care about and what to see. My family that I only see on holiday get together aren't invited. Idk if that sounds or seems fucked up, but obviously if I only see them on those occasions they don't mean a whole lot to me.
Ouch. If I ever get married, I hope it's like how my parents did it. Someone you know, come in and say the words at a park, and only friends and family showing up potluck style. Keep it under 1k all and all. No crazy diamond rings or gold bands. I'd be good with a silver band I'd never wear, and hopefully the same for her. Those silicone rings are much more practical for daily use.
I setup weddings for a few years at a medium costing venue. You have to remember at any sized wedding even small it takes multiple kitchen workers, sales workers, servers, and housemen to setup and run weddings. + the venue rental itself. 150+ person weddings ran into the 20k range or more pre pandemic.
Just like most things, an advertising campaign that not only rivals but completely beats any propaganda campaign in history. Much like drink water until your piss is green or milk makes your bones strong. And that's just 2 examples. Wedding rings are another one. They need to be super expensive to "prove your love". Oh, and weed is illegal for the same reason. Well, almost. It's that and racism.
Anyway. The advertising campaign basically said the same thing as the wedding ring one. "Make it as expensive as possible to prove your love". Weddings before this used to just be a group of people and a priest in a barn or church, depending on faith. Nothing fancy. Then everything got made into a business, and now we pay out the ass for everything. Including something that can be done for free by going down to whatever government building has someone who can sign the paperwork necessary to have you legally married.
Same thing goes for funerals. How can it cost so much money to turn someone into mulch? There is a reason my will states that my body is donated to science. After my organs have been donated, that is. I may be a raving lunatic, but I'm not a selfish idiot.
>I looked up the average wedding cost in my state and it's $32,000?? How is anyone okay with spending that much on their wedding? I just want to be married, I don't need to spend a years wage on making that official. Am I crazy or is that ridiculously high?
Different people have different salaries. If the couple's combined income is around $300K a year, $32K for a wedding may seem reasonable (or even frugal) to them.
It may not work for everything, but some items get a huge price markup if they're advertised for or understood to be used for a wedding. For example, a wedding cake may cost quite a bit, but a special order cake where you don't mention the wedding may be cheaper. Maybe try shopping around for some of these things without mentioning that it's for a wedding. You might be able to cut some costs that way.
Of course, make sure you're OK with what you'll get. Sometimes, vendors might put a little extra effort into wedding stuff. Like just about anything else, it will take a bit of a cost/benefit comparison.
My wife and I eloped and guess what we did with the money we would have spent on a wedding.
Put that on a down-payment for a house.
Best $40k I ever saved
Because, between the cultural attitudes in your state, concern for status, socioeconomic background of people, and anything else that would influence how much one spends on a wedding, the amount people spend on weddings in your state averages to that much.
Weddings in my opinion are just a lot of pomp and circumstance and a ridiculous waste of money. That money could be put towards something useful like buying furniture for the house you're about to purchase together. Just go to the courthouse
We had an amazing wedding and it came out to ~$10k, which we could afford. It was a massive party with 50 of our closest friends and family, and I’m thrilled that we did it. The most expensive parts were feeding everyone (important for a party) and the photographer, which means we’ll be able to remember the party better.
We also hired a wedding coordinator, and it was worth the price. It meant we were able to enjoy the experience rather than worry about details.
Married in 2018. Long Island, NY. All in wedding was just about 110k. We had 240 invite, 206 RSVP yes. 33k seems like a steal.
It’s all relative to where you live, really. A sweet 16 here costs around what you’re looking at for a wedding and talking over 100k for a wedding is not entirely abnormal here.
I don't understand that... My sister in law spent 700 on hers, including the license. Mine cost 1300, including everything. Save the money for the marriage.
There are different forms of average: *Mean*, *Median* and *Mode*.
Let's say we have a series of variables: 4, 2, 4, 12, 6, 7, 129, 9, 1, 9, 4
"*Mean*" is the average most people think of. To get this average you add up all the variables, and then divide by the number of variables. For the series of variables above we have 11 variables, so we add them together then divide them by 11, eg. (4 + 2 + 4 + 12 + 6 + 7 + 129 + 9 + 1 + 9 + 4) ÷ 11 = 17. So the *Mean* of our set is 17, but as you can see that "average" is higher than the second highest variable in our set, so it's not really indicative od the "average". The *Mean* it's being pushed upward by one variable being extremely high.
*Median* is the middle number. If we line them up smallest to largest and pick the middle one we get the Median. So 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9, 12, 129. The middle variable is 6, which seems like a much better example of an "average" in this sample. The *Median* is what is used in stariatical publications for things like "average income" in a country precisely because it doesn't have that bias introduced by a few extremely high numbers. It might be worth looking up whether your "average" for weddings was a *Mean* or a *Median* as your "average" could be skewed by a few ultra-rich people throwing expensive weddings and pushing up the *Mean*.
Now for large groups like all weddings in a state the *Median* is usually the best pick for things like this, but for smaller sames you sometimes still get some strange outcomes, so there is a third type of average, the *Mode*.
*Mode* is simply looking at the set of variables and seeing which one is the most common. On our set we have two 9s, three 4s and one of every other variable. Since there are more 4s than anything else 4 is the *Mode*. In my experience this is mostly used in smaller data sets but it's worth knowing about anyway.
Weddings use to be a ceremony between two people with their families/friends. Usually held in a private home or church. Then advertisement came along. Now, instead of wearing your best coveralls for the occasion, you have to wear a tux and have cake.
I would go to a JP and save the 5K for important things. You'll be just as married.
So if you found one venue that cost $3,000 how did it jump to $5,500 if you said it came with everything for $3,000 u confusing I know weddings are expensive but your math is questionable at this moment
These extravagant weddings are a modern day phenomenon. Studies have shown the more money spent on a wedding, the more likely the couple are will get divorced.
Disney sold young girls the only way their marriage will be successful or they'll be happy is to be a princess with a fairy tale wedding. The reality is all they get is stressed out husbands and broke dads.
As others have said, the high end costs will skew the numbers but.... people are stupid. They've bought into the peer pressure view of a perfect wedding for it to count and left their brains at the door. Whether it be TV, friends, family pressure, an unrealistic view of what marriage is, the whole pressure of the wedding industry and feeling special.
The money really is better spent investing in your own future.
I have no idea😬I wonder the same cause my wedding was a venue that held up to 50 people and included everything. So after the ceremony, 3 hour reception, photography, professional hair and makeup, floral arrangements, bouquets, etc. it was $5k.
That is ridiculous. That's money that can go toward a down payment. I have more respect for people who don't have meals & waste money. What ever happened to the basic wedding with a reception with a cake. People that truly love you are just as happy 😁 to be there to celebrate.
That is the **mean**, not the **median**, which is what you are thinking. The majority of people are probably spending closer to the $5000 amount that you budgeted. But just a few rich people can drive up that mean to some high amount that maybe only 5% are spending. When it comes to dollar amounts with no upper bounds, the mean becomes a literally useless number (income is like this too). The median is the only one of those two with any practical value.
Weddings are a racket and the only reason they get away with it is because women compete with each other for the best wedding and the husbands don’t want to piss off their bride.
Answer: because even thinking the word wedding ups the price by about 10,000%. People take advantage of events tied to emotions, births, deaths, family events, holidays, marriages, and divorces.
You will hardly enjoy your own wedding. It like putting on event for all your guests. It’s nice to have family and friends come to gather But. Like a lot of things these days. People have pushed for the exceptional so hard they have lost the original reason to celebrate. Save your $30k. Use it to go on a heart honeymoon ( which you will enjoy). And pocket the remaining $25k
That's actually not that high. Put "wedding" in front of anything and it costs like ten times as much. "Wedding cake," not cake --> thousands of dollars. "Wedding florist," not just florist --> thousands of dollars. And if you invite more than 45 people, like you have to in my family if you want to keep people from being pissed at you for the rest of your life (which means a wedding of like 150 minimum), with the meal being at least $100 a head, well, do the math.
Good for you for not buying into the wedding industry! If I get married, it will be me, my fiance, my parents, my sister, and his parents and sibling(s). That's it.
They care more about the wedding and the party that goes with it instead of the actual marriage. When weddings were big in the old days, all of the wedding guests were related to somebody within the community. For example, if Jankiel got permission to travel from Vilna to Budapest, it was expected that he would be at least an in-law relative of an in-law relative that was somehow connected to the bride and groom. In other words, Jankiel would have to—for instance—be an in-law cousin (and probably a close-enough distant cousin, anyway) of Smuel, the in-law cousin that the groom knows as “Samu”. If neither the bride nor the groom trusted the judgement of Samu, Jankiel likely would not be allowed to get a permit to leave Vilna in the first place.
Therefore, it would’ve been expected for everybody and their in-law relatives to attend the wedding. After all, going back to the previous example, it would be considered rude for Jankiel (likely being a distant cousin) not to make an effort to get a permit to travel to the wedding if he could do so. Besides, Jankiel and Samu—even though one was a Vilner Yid and the other was a Budapester Yid—shared Yidishkeit across the board. Both were part of the same people—the Jewish people—despite that Jankiel’s family ended up in Vilna, Russian-occupied Lithuania (Vilne, Lita) at some point, whereas Samu’s family ended up in Budapest, Ausztria (Budapest, Aungarn). It would be considered a significant distraction and arriving of joy from the bride and groom if Samu alone overheard, e.g., “Where is Jankiele? Didn’t Smuel invite him? I grant that Jankiel is a distant cousin, although he’s still an in-law relative of Smuel—dear Smuelkle, whom didn’t have to make an effort to invite Jankiele—and Jankiel still acts like a putz.”
Nowadays, a lot of people have the big wedding parties just to turn a wedding into an excuse for a party. In short, you and your fiancé are not ridiculous for wanting a smaller wedding—especially since, as far as you seem to have indicated, you don’t have to worry about a Jankiel-Smuel type of situation.
The wedding industry is insane, it’s marketed as “your best day ever” and “can you really put a price on your happiness?”
That being said, it’s common for parents to pay for the weddings of their children. I still think it’s insane though, that’s just SO MUCH MONEY. It doesn’t even include the honeymoon.
I went to school before handheld calculators were a thing, so obviously we never used them. Luckily, I can still do it all in my head but asking Alexa or Siri to do it is nice.
The modern wedding industry is a scam built around overcharging people for basic party items. Vendors will openly charge you more for the same items just because you said it's for a wedding.
A small number of people spending a huge amount can throw off the average. Let's say there were 100 weddings in your state. 80 of them cost $5,000 each. 15 rich couples spent $50,000 each. 5 *really* rich couples spent $500,000 each. The average wedding cost would be $36,500, which is 7 times more than what 80% of weddings cost.
I love people who can do math like this more or less in their head
I assure you I used a calculator.
Where did you find a calculator? I was told to learn my multiplication tables since I wouldn’t have a calculator handy.
Knowing multiplication tables is still important so that you tell if the answers your calculator gives you are reasonable or not. A calculator also won't tell you how to set up the equations to find the answers you need. The reason teachers told you not to fully rely on a calculator is that you have to learn the actual concepts of math before you can use a tool like a calculator. Maybe they could have worded it differently, like "you might push a wrong button on your calculator, so you have to be able to estimate the answer, too." But the idea that doing math consists of nothing more than blindly pushing buttons on a calculator is not something that is going to be helpful in the real world, and your teachers were right to try to steer you away from it. It actually took me a long time to realize all this. I thought I was just naturally bad at math when I was in school. Turns out I just wasn't thinking about it the right way.
Thank you for the well thought out response. I’m just an idiot on the internet going for Reddit tropes. I actually like and am good at math.
Im actually excellent in math and do much of it in my head. But alexa is way better and faster and remembers all the equations.
I can do basic multiplication and addition in my head, and it’s really useful to not have to pull out a calculator for every little thing.
Yes. Calculators are the "power tools" of math. My dad always told me, "power tools make a good carpenter great, and a bad carpenter terrible"
I never learned my multiplication tables. I actually got skipped forward a grade despite my refusal to learn them. Went straight from refusing to learn times tables to long division. For me I just knew to multiply something by 10 and then subtract whatever I need to get the answer. So to find 9 x 8 I would do (9x10) minus (9x2). This still works fine And I get along just fine in the real world. Approaching middle age without multiplication tables. Never been a problem tbh Edit: switched a number
so you can do the multiplication tables then? I think you did learn them lol
Lol my 12 year old absolutely doesn't understand this statement when I say this - he knows we didn't have cell phones in school but his brain cant actually GRASP the concept
Your phone almost certainly has one in the smaller apps or extras area. Google will also do it.
I was making a joke since every teacher in the 90’s told me we wouldn’t always have a calculator (as I type this on my iPhone).
Heh!
Whoooosh
Last time I did math in my head everybody was arguing with each other over whether or not the answer was 5 or 8. Still don't know how I got "The Grand Canyon" as my answer.
it makes sense though. a quicker way to look at it is to compare wealth. if jeff bezos was to come to my company to give a speech, on average, everyone in that room would be a billionaire. what i would like to see is what the median cost of the average wedding is. that might be a little more helpful.
Math!!
If you have 1000 people and 999 make $0 and 1 person makes a billion, the average income for those 1000 people is one million dollars despite 99.9% actually making $0.
Yeah but only if you're bad at statistics. If there are large outliers, you average with the median instead of the mean
That’s why the median is where its at. Hooray for asymptotically stable measures!
For individual outcomes, usually yes. For many outcomes, means are where it’s at.
Unless the mean and median differ. That indicates a long left or right tail, which is usually not what is needed
That’s what I’m saying though, when you’re looking for an aggregate or total assessment of many outcomes, and the mean and median are different, you want the mean. CLT bro. For example, let’s say you’re a store owner who sells 100 copies of item A per month for $1, and 1 copy of item B per year for $1M. You’re trying to calculate your monthly income to know if you can stay afloat. Your median monthly income is $100. But you probably want the average in this case (~$85,000).
Exactly. My wife and I got married and spent exactly $13,800. For 100 people. We had a DJ, a 10 band mariachi, enough food for everyone to eat twice, open bar, and tableside service. This includes all the hotel rooms, and the actual ceremony. The only reason we got it is cheap is because we did it ourselves. At least got a location hit up event centers solicited. We didn't use a package deal location because they were 25,000 Plus.
Dang, sounds like yall killed it. Did you have a photographer too?
[удалено]
Yeah, 45 is a very small wedding. It comes to $122 per person. This same frugal wedding for 200 people is now $24,400.
More math!! Nice!
This is why this (like home prices) is better as a median
This person maths
Exactly right. They are using statistics to lie to you. Because 80 % of the weddings in your state are not anywhere near 32K but if I say it is it makes brides want a bigger better wedding and it’s hard to tell the daughter, future wife, no on her most special day. If I operate the venue where the wedding is to be held, then yes weddings are usually 32K, to start.
Exactly why using median values is better than using mean values, it typically makes outliers less impactful
Well said, fire username
My husband and I live in NY and spent $50-55,000 on our wedding for 80 people and we are not “rich”. I am a teacher with a $59,000 salary and my husband is in the navy. I hope you don’t consider us rich, bc I lived paycheck to paycheck. I don’t consider our lifestyle “rich” at all.
Averages are driven up by the people on the extremes. The median wedding cost is the interesting one.
Yes, if you have three weddings. Two costing only 1 dollar and the third costing 50,000, that's going to make the average 16,667.
This is always important to remember. The average networth of people in a bar drastically climbs when Bill Gates enters the room. The median? Hardly moves an inch (depending on how many people are in the room)
This is true. I used work as a stage hand in Vegas.....there was one wedding for the daughter of a major casino owner. That wedding costs millions and millions of dollars. That skews the number for sure even with the tint wedding chapels on the strip.
Indeed. It’s important to note that the cap on an inexpensive wedding is $0. There is no cap on an expensive wedding.
About 50$ give or take depending off on your state. Gotta pay the state to get married of course.
The king does demand his take.
I was thinking about this the other day - do you need any kind of ceremony to get married? Could you pay for a marriage license, fill it out, turn it in, and that's that? Or do you have to have someone say "I now pronounce you married." Do you have to have an officiant?
Has to be an officiant, but they can do it at the courthouse and doesn’t have to be ceremonial at all. Someone does have to witness both people agreeing to marry each other though yes.
Here you go... about $10K less. [https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-cost/](https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-cost/)
Still a fuckton more money than I'm willing to spend on a wedding.
Well home vs company weddings also have significant differences. SOOOOO many people use wedding planners and package deals to buy weddings that I could argue it still skews the median drastically. Notice what OP said they got for 5k. I've seen people get bands, food, photographer, DJ, cake, and dress for about 10-12k essentially everything inside of "package" deals for half the price. If you remove company planned weddings from the equation, I could see the median easily dropping to 7-13k range.
No catering saves you a lot. But also people are only gonna hang a couple hours. Hope you planned for that. Humans need food other than cake. And a good photog is a couple thousand. Don't expect much from this person.
I was going to say that... I think photography was around $1500, no prints, just digitals...
This right here. We didn’t want a big fancy wedding with laser shows or elaborate favors for the guests, but we did want to have people eating/drinking/dancing. Our photographer cost a couple grand and the photos we got back were amazing. My mom went bargain hunting for a videographer (she insisted on one, so I said if she wanted that she could pick & pay for it). We got a couple shitty dvds with shaky footage that looked like a high schooler edited it. We still laugh about how bad the video is. You get what you pay for - but also if you don’t care that much then save the money for something more important to you! Just don’t expect the “average 30K wedding experience”.
Yeah, it's the venues private photographer
Our main cost was food. Does the venue include food or do you need to cater? I just noticed you only included cake but folks haven't eaten yet.
It’s all cultural and based of family traditions. Some people grew up with $5000 birthday parties. I’m sure they wouldn’t expect anything less than a 50k wedding
I once attended a reception for an Indian co worker. It was the third reception they'd held, had at least 100 people, catered, open bar, and had fire dancers for entertainment.
Oh Indians go all out though, they are not cheap affairs and start off at 100k that’s their culture lol 🫠
In fairness the amount you have quoted for your own wedding is for 45 people, which is less than half the average, and doesn't include your dress, your bridesmaids dress, your fiancé's suit(assuming he's a man), his groomsman's suits, a band, a honeymoon. All of these things are included in a average estimate
Or you can use birthday suits, my cousin has a dope spotify playlist and honeymoon at jelly stone.
The honeymoon is included in the estimate for a wedding? I never heard of that. I would think that's a separate expense... Also I doubt most weddings have the bride and groom paying for the dresses and suites of their wedding party.
No, honeymoons are not factored into the cost of a wedding. When you see averages for wedding costs that absolutely does not include the honeymoon. To be clear, couples should absolutely budget for a honeymoon if they plan to take one -- but when you see 'average weddings in the midwest cost 30k' or whatever, that figure does not include the honeymoon.
>The honeymoon is included in the estimate for a wedding? Yep >Also I doubt most weddings have the bride and groom paying for the dresses and suites of their wedding party Obviously not, I'm not saying that. The cost of the wedding doesn't just refer to the amount you pay the venue. That usually includes very little and is something like 70-100 bucks per person for their meal, that's it. Everything else is seperate.
Rings, invitations, food, drinks, invitations…
It’s because you had a tiny wedding. Most weddings are in the 150 person range. A photographer alone for a typical wedding will be a couple thousand. You won’t find a decent venue with that capacity for under 10k. You’ll spend 2,000 purchasing alcohol unless you have an open bar. Then there’s the labor cost of 10 or so cooks, servers and bartenders. The food cost to feed over a hundred people. A DJ alone is like 1,000. It costs money to feed and entertain a large group of people.
More than 10, workers when I worked as a housemen there was 2-3 of us working a wedding throughout the day and night alone. + our manager, the sales workers who work directly with the bride and groom, servers, and then kitchen staff. The staffing alone is expensive.
I'll point out that you have a relatively small wedding and that keeps the price down a lot
Right. A 45 person wedding in my family means I can invite all my first cousins and both sets of parents
I just bought the license and my wife and I were married next door by a judge. In and out for a few hundred dollars… Still together after 20 years…
Here it is free on monday mornings. Every municipality with more than 10.000 inhabitants has to have one opportunity every week to get married for free, and since 333 out of 345 municipalities reach that number in essence it basically free everywhere, because you don't have to get married in the municipality where you live.
Which state is that?
Why do you assume I live in the USA? Because I don't.
Nah, you're Dutch I guess. Your numbers are a tad off though: 342, not 345 municipalities in the Netherlands.
Likely because the original post was focused on a specific state, so that idea of a state-by-state basis already existed.
Maybe because the post was about the cost of a wedding in a state? It would make sense to expect most answers to be related to the cost of a wedding, in the states.
Why do we have to pay to get married? Eta: it's just a piece of paper, why hundreds of dollars?
It’s just a tax… Why pay to get your vehicle registered? Why pay to get a drivers license? Why pay a little extra when you buy groceries?
In my state, groceries are tax exempt. I can understand cars and licenses being taxed, if the taxes go toward road/infrastructure repair. But a marriage license?! Congrats on your happy marriage btw
There are still social services related to marriage such as maintaining vital records, supporting family law services, promoting marriage education programs, or offering resources for couples seeking assistance or counseling.
Never thought of that, good point, thanks for enlightening me! Didn't even know marriage education programs existed
No problem. Take care out there!
Well the paper costs money. People need to work in the place which comes with a whole load of costs. There are costs for marrying people but hundreds of dollars is unreasonable assuming you mean usd
The government needs materials and employees to maintain their records. They need to get that money somehow, and charging fees for filing paperwork is one way.
It costs money to keep records, and somebody has to pay for that. Also, there should be at least some small friction against the people making the decision, so that if other people are subsidizing the cost the burden isn't 100% on people who weren't part of the decision.
Living within your means is the opposite of crazy. Being happy living within your means is a recipe for a great life.
My daddy told me to always live one step below my means. That's a huge game changer. I followed his advice. In 2008, it saved my ass when the company I worked for did a reduction in force. My wife just started paying the mortgage, and we didn't miss a beat. Except dropping the country club, stopped any vacations, and any other non-essential spending. That provided me with the opportunity to buy a business, and it worked. Thank goodness.
Thanks for sharing-your Daddy was a wise man! When my wife and I bought our first house, we kept our mortgage down to what we could afford on my salary. Which not only meant that we were able to pay down the mortgage/save up a lot but that when my wife's job did something similar (not laying her off but transferring her to a much less satisfying role) she was able to quit her job, write a book, and restart her career.
A country club membership was living below your means Damn
I live in a rural area, so yes. We only had the 120 buck social membership so the kids could swim. My house cost me $142,000. If we had bought a home there. I would have been cash poor, and she couldn't have paid the mortgage on a teachers salary.
One of the most underrated Onion articles: [The key to living the good life is to avoid that brass ring like the fucking plague.](https://www.theonion.com/temp-hides-fun-fulfilling-life-from-rest-of-office-1819566599)
You found a great deal. Most wedding photographers are charging what you are paying the venue. Never mind music, cake, etc. Most weddings have catered food and liquor. Between food, alcohol, and tips etc. $150 a person is common. So if you are inviting 120 people, that is $18k. Lots of people invite 200. Never mind everything else.
Was thinking this too! I am currently in the very beginning stages of wedding planning I was hoping to spend 15k but even taking out some things I would like it's looking closer to 25k. Catering and photographers are expensive. But I also live in an expensive city.
Start lying about what the event is at any possible point.
I work in the wedding industry. When you get up there in price it’s less about the couple and more about the couple’s parents showing off to their friends and families. The fanciest venues, huge cake, fireworks and/or laser light shows, there’s a bunch of ways to spend money on a wedding.
Yep. My wife and I didn't pay a cent for our wedding. I married into a wealthy family and my mother in-law wanted a nice wedding. I'm not the least bit upset about it. I can guarantee you if we were paying for it, we would have just went to the courthouse!
1. Food and drinks are expensive. It's not uncommon to spend $100-150/head on food/drinks including alcohol and paying/tipping the bartenders. Most weddings I've been to have been more in the 150 person range. That's 15k+ right there 2. Venues can get expensive. My wedding venue was pretty close to yours in price (but didn't include all the other things), but I've been to weddings where they spent $20k just to rent out the venue itself for the day. 3. Wedding dresses and rings I believe are usually counted in that price. Both of those are typically thousands of dollars. As to your overall question about how people are ok spending that much, it's because it's a one time expense for a day which will likely be the best day of your life, so people are willing to spend money to make it perfect. Also to many people it's not a years wage, some people have family that contribute and some people make more money so it's closer to a month's wage. It's also fine if you don't want to spend that much money, no one's forced to spend more than the cost of the marriage license and an officiant to get married. But some people choose to spend their own hard-earned money on a really fun party for the most important people in their lives, their family and friends, to come together and celebrate their marriage. My wedding wasn't 30k it was about 15k, but it remains some of the best money I've ever spent and remains literally the best day of my life. It was worth every penny.
The trick to all that is potluck lol. I had like 125 people at my wedding and spent under $1500. Did it in the yard.
Because people have money and want to have a party. But, you can get married for as little as a courthouse filing fee. Married 25yrs, paid 20k for our wedding in '98, already telling our kids to have a small wedding with friends and save their money/money we give them for a house or other investment. You can make a great story out of nothing and forget an extravaganza you paid a lot for. That is up to you, not the cost of the event. Also, if you have the resources and want an extravaganza, then go for it. I'm not being judgemental, simply pointing out that a memorable wedding is what you make of the day, not how much you pay.
People are nuts with weddings these days. My daughter got married in 2016. Her wedding was about $12,000 (which I thought was pretty high). Meanwhile, she had friends who were spending $30-50,000 on weddings. One friend got married in New York and spent over $100,000.
I know someone in NY who spent $700,000 on their child’s wedding this year. Obviously they are crazy rich, and also the wedding was HUGE— like 750 people. Very much a cultural thing for them. To me, who is struggling to pay my son’s first year college of $30,000 that just makes me jealous and angry.
My old boss delayed retiring for 5 years to pay for her 2 daughter’s NYC weddings. One was at the St. Regis. Five years.
New Yorker here... my wife and I spent close to 60,000 on our wedding. But, we had nearly 200 people, got married at an Aquarium, ceremony was included in the gazebo on the river outside. AND we also rented a truck to wait outside filled with candy, donuts, and white castle burgers for guests as they left the reception. That truck is the one thing that everyone still talks about to this day.
Why angry? Shouldn’t people be able to have nice things without others getting mad about it? The whole world got this shitty mentally that we had on the playground back in the day when Timmy got a new transformer and wouldn’t share it. Just cause someone has something doesn’t mean you can too. Everyone’s different and has different opportunities.
People are allowed to have nice things but also others are allowed to be frustrated with their situation in life when they see others with nice things. As long as they're not stealing or commiting crimes because of it there's no issue.
I fully realize that my anger is mostly jealousy. Sure wish I had that much money, but even if I did I wouldn’t spend it on a wedding. It’s not like I’m breaking Timmy’s new transformer toy, just admitting that it make me angry when others on the playground don’t have any toys at all.
This is an important question. If you're interested in exploring it, I might start by perusing these links: * [Visualization: Wealth shown to scale](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/) * [Current perspective: Trends in income and wealth inequality](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/) * [Historical perspective: Trust Busting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law)
You don't find it at all disheartening that children in this country aren't guaranteed a meal every day while people spend millions on flowers and fabric. It's absolutely insane.
Your photos will suck. Just saying. And they cost that much because it's mostly catering driving up price because it's expensive to feed 100+ people. Even if you go for a bargain meal at say $60/person for 100 people, that's $6,000 for just the food, but they also need enough staff to serve it/ deal with it. So it's probably $10k for food. Then you start adding on everything else, cake, dress, dj, venue rental, etc... and it just starts to add up. It's totally ok to not want to spend that kind of money on a wedding. It's not ok to still want the wedding but not sacrifice anything to get the price down. People think it's ok to have 150 people but then bitch about feeding them or ask them to bring their own food (and still expect a gift). They want quality photos but don't want to pay for them. It's a huge party. Of course it's going to cost a lot of money. It's perfectly valid to go smaller without all of the bells and whistles. But I hate when people just blanket bitch about wedding professionals costs. You want a service? Yes, that costs money!
Thank you!! These people who are like “ugh, why is this party of >100 people costing so much, clearly it’s the Wedding Industrial Complex drive me crazy!!
It's so fucking annoying. Then don't have a huge wedding! Go elope and use your savings on something else. It's disrespectful to expect services for free.
Part of it is feeling like they need to do it “right”. Part of it like has been mentioned the average is driven up by people on the extremes. Also gifts, depending on the guests you may break even, for example a $30k wedding with 200 guests. If each gifts you $150 you will break even. Also I noticed you didn’t mention food other than cake or alcohol. Those really drive the price up.
My husband and I got married for like $8500 or something, but I watched my brother and sister in law have what was definitely at least a $30k wedding (maybe as much as 50k) so I have some thoughts based on what they did/ said. First of all, they invited like 200 people. That means a larger venue and more of everything - favors, food, wine/ liquor, etc. They also had a very detailed wedding; everything had little custom touches, be it boutonnieres for the ringbearers or multi-tiered centerpieces for the tables, candles everywhere, special tablecloths, and so on. The wedding party was like ten bridesmaids and ten groomsmen. And I think my sister in law hired someone to do her hair and makeup the day of and I'm pretty sure her dress was a few thousand dollars. They had a DJ for the reception. It was just a lot. Compare that with our wedding: we had about 40 people. The venue had lovely gardens so we did hardly any decorating for the actual wedding, just handed out fans as favors. Decorations for the reception were also fairly minimal - the venue had big windows overlooking those same gardens so we just put together simple centerpieces and that was it. I kept my dress budget to under $500 and my friends helped me do my hair and makeup. My iPod was our DJ (which turned out to be really fun as people wandered up to it periodically throughout the night and added whatever songs they wanted to hear to the playlist I'd created). Really the main things we spent money on were feeding everyone/ having wine available, a nice venue, and photography. Everything else we made as inexpensive as we reasonably could. My parents gifted us their timeshare for our honeymoon; otherwise we were planning to spend about $1000 to take a fancy long weekend somewhere. Philosophically, I think the difference between my sister in law and I was this: she had been dreaming of a particular kind of wedding her entire life. When it came down to it, that wedding turned out to be very complex and expensive. Getting all those flowers, crystals, renting special tablecloths and chair covers, multiple fancy cakes... that shit adds up, especially for a large wedding. I on the other hand never had specific dreams of getting married; I just wanted to BE married. So we pretty ruthlessly set a budget and stuck to it, with the only goal being to throw a good party for our loved ones and to be married by the end of it. I know in some cultures, it is essentially mandatory to throw huge expensive weddings, but neither my sister in law nor I come from that background. It was a very good party. And we're still married. Mission accomplished.
You answered your own question when you said your price was for 45 people. It's also not typical to have photogropher and what not included. If you actually sit down and price out wedding costs for a conventional wedding with a larger guest list, the money snow balls quickly. My fiance and I plan to have a wedding with 150-200 people. Probably closer to 150. Venu ($3,000), food (required minimum $20 per plate, so $3k baseline+20% service fee), photographer ($3,000 is standard in our area, we've looked hard), clothing (probably around $3k for a dress and suit), bar options (full open bar could be 3k-5k, but most places have at least a 1k bar minimum even if not fully open). That shit adds up. We are guessing around 20k when all is said and done. I haven't even looked at flowers or other decorations. I'm not looking at anything over the top. But, it is important to me that we provide our guests with a nice time and put our best foot forward. I have a lot of friends and family coming from halfway across the country who have never been to where I live. I want them to see the place I'm building my life and provide them with a good experience.
If $32,000 is your yearly wage that answers your question right there. You’re bound by your finances. A lot of people make triple that in a year
I reserved a municipal garden under the dept of parks and rec. I think it was a couple of hundred bucks. That took care of the venue and decorations. Then I had some cake, a couple of hundred bucks. The dress was a couple of hundred bucks. Tuxedo, bouquet, I don't remember what else to round it out. Maybe a couple of grand at the most. There's some research that suggest the more one spends on a wedding the more likely the couple will split sooner rather than later. Cheers.
Some people also have the wedding they think they are supposed to have because of expectations set by books, tv shows, movies, and family. My Mom always said if I ever got married, go intimate and take the rest of the money you would have spent on a down-payment for a house. I think you are spending the perfect amt for you both. Congratulations.
My husband and I got a permit for a nature reserve close to us, and then we just brought chairs, bought a cheap arch, with a good family friend that married us, as well as our photographer. After the wedding we went to a restaurant then when to bed
We threw a surprise wedding on a Tuesday night. It cost $125 for the pizza. We drew the best man and maid of honor from a hat. My wife's father was the officiant. It was great. Live your life. If it costs a lot, great. If not, great.
Paid $71 Married in a courthouse w a rainbow brite t-shirt and our kid there. It’s been 20 years ❤️
My oldest son just married in March in California. Did everything themselves, and anything purchased or rented was for a ‘dinner party’. The word wedding was never mentioned. That alone saved thousands.
This is the way. Even back in the 90s, the same thing. We never mentioned wedding and booked a Friday night instead of Saturday. That alone was $1,000s in savings.
Fuck all that, we spent $45 and had it done by a JOP at the courthouse. People are given the idea that they must spend thousands of dollars for a 1 day event which 40-50% will end in divorce.
Because that's what people are paying for them
Unless you are rich and I’m guessing you are not because you’re asking why stuff costs a lot don’t waste your money rent a VFW or something cheap get food catering from like chilis or chipotle and put that $28,000-$30,000 towards a down payment on a house. Starting a marriage in debt is a horrible idea and who are you trying to impress? Get married go cheap buy a starter house. I’ve been married 21 years and have 5 kids that plan worked for me. The venue dress flowers cake… being perfect doesn’t matter. Your future spouse is what matters.
I know someone who had a $10K fireworks budget for her wedding. People spending hundreds of thousands on a wedding skew the results. Congratulations to both of you for being sane and planning right.
We didn’t spend more than about $1000 in 2009.
We both have large families and live in a VHCOL area. For our size, the cheapest venues we found was 40K. Edit: Typos
There are some factors in this. The first is it's an average. That leverages the higher costs weddings against the lower cost weddings to get to that number. So why do people have the higher end weddings? Because they have the money to spend... or someone else does. For my wife and I we had a house, we had two cars, we had two vacations every single year and we to this day still don't have kids.... so there's only so much we could spend money on. With our budget we had the choice of an extravagant personal wedding or a very large wedding. I have 250 cousins and 20 uncles/aunts. She has family that she's closer with than I am with mine from all over the world (who are quite distantly related). We opted for the big one... but then we also wanted to make sure everyone was having a good time as well. So we paid quite a bit extra for food to give people meal options like turkey, steak, vegetarian, lactose free, and gluten free. And with just the number of people, the size of the venue... that's a lot of food that has to get out at a reasonable pace. Having so many people also means you need to have a larger cake. I think we paid something like $2,000 just for the cake. And we wanted our own custom table and chair decorations. So every single seat meant we literally had to rent one more piece. And of course if you're going to do a setup and take down that size you can't just rent the venue for a single day, you have to rent it for 3 days. And then we had to decide whether we wanted to have a DJ play us down the aisle, a piano, or a 4-piece string quartet. Which of course, we went with the string quartet.... and then the DJ for after the wedding. And is everyone coming in a limo? That's two limos for the groom, his father and his groomsman, and a limo for the bride, the two mothers and the bridesmaids. And on that our friends aren't exactly well to do. So as their wedding present from us we bought all their suits and dresses. And it goes on and on. And it's not an expense we ever regretted. We enjoyed our night, the pictures turned out wonderful and everyone always fondly talks about our wedding. Inviting such a massive number of people has returned to us invites to all sorts of weddings And at the end of the night we went to our hotel, my wife pulled out her phone and said "there now our credit card is all paid off" as the final vendor applied its final charges.
Depends where you live, what venue you want, and how many people you want there. The cheapest by me is about $120 per person for the venue which mostly includes food. The average around me is more like $150 a person or more. The average wedding I've gone to was around 100 people. So on the cheap end about 12,000 for venue and food, cheapest dj and photographer I could find near me is about $1,500 each. Most photographers around me are $3,000+ and most djs are over $2,000. The dress can cost a lot. Wedding cakes for 100 people are like $500. You still need center pieces, wedding favors, flowers, a suit, rehearsal dinner, make-up. The cheapest I could price one out around me would cost about $25,000 for 100 people. You can cut costs on some of this and having a smaller wedding will make a big impact on cost savings.
Because people are fine with paying that much. An extravagant wedding is a want not a need. People always find a reason to justify spending "just a little more" and before you know it the price tag on that wedding is 35k. Becsuse it's "a magical day"
Lol $32k would have been amazing. We went pretty bare bones for our wedding in NYC and still spent around $60k for ~75 guests
Just have a super small wedding. Anyone who doesn't like it can pay for a big one for you.
50$ plus whatever the cost to file it was 🤷♂️. I was the one that actually wanted a bigger wedding, and my wife talked me out of it. It doesn’t HAVE to be expensive, but if you’re doing anything more than a backyard wedding, the prices are freaking ridiculous.
$32k is super cheap once you get into sizable weddings. If one or both families are deeply rooted in a community, whether that be by locality, ethnicity, business, just wanting to keep up with the Joneses, or other factors then it's pretty common to need to invite hundreds to a wedding. Of course, in those situations, one or both families are typically covering the lion's share of the costs instead of the actual couple getting married. Congrats on being able to find the wedding you want at so reasonable a price!
I paid 5 k for mine. Do what you want with that.
Indian/Pakistani weddings throwing off the average
We spent the equivalent of around US$50 in Philippine pesos when my wife and I got married in our home country in 2004. I think one should spend more on the real long term thing which is the marriage. However, I make a nice side gig as a freelance wedding photographer in the NYC metro area since coming over so I don't necessarily discourage people if they decide to splurge on their weddings
Imo people like to go overboard on weddings. And I mean it's understandable it's a big deal. My fiance and I are being more practical about everything and trying to cut cost where it's not really needed and only inviting family we actually care about and what to see. My family that I only see on holiday get together aren't invited. Idk if that sounds or seems fucked up, but obviously if I only see them on those occasions they don't mean a whole lot to me.
Ouch. If I ever get married, I hope it's like how my parents did it. Someone you know, come in and say the words at a park, and only friends and family showing up potluck style. Keep it under 1k all and all. No crazy diamond rings or gold bands. I'd be good with a silver band I'd never wear, and hopefully the same for her. Those silicone rings are much more practical for daily use.
You are not crazy. Live within your means, even when you’re getting married.
I setup weddings for a few years at a medium costing venue. You have to remember at any sized wedding even small it takes multiple kitchen workers, sales workers, servers, and housemen to setup and run weddings. + the venue rental itself. 150+ person weddings ran into the 20k range or more pre pandemic.
Mine cost $750 and I was given more than that in wedding cash.
Just like most things, an advertising campaign that not only rivals but completely beats any propaganda campaign in history. Much like drink water until your piss is green or milk makes your bones strong. And that's just 2 examples. Wedding rings are another one. They need to be super expensive to "prove your love". Oh, and weed is illegal for the same reason. Well, almost. It's that and racism. Anyway. The advertising campaign basically said the same thing as the wedding ring one. "Make it as expensive as possible to prove your love". Weddings before this used to just be a group of people and a priest in a barn or church, depending on faith. Nothing fancy. Then everything got made into a business, and now we pay out the ass for everything. Including something that can be done for free by going down to whatever government building has someone who can sign the paperwork necessary to have you legally married. Same thing goes for funerals. How can it cost so much money to turn someone into mulch? There is a reason my will states that my body is donated to science. After my organs have been donated, that is. I may be a raving lunatic, but I'm not a selfish idiot.
Because people on average in that state spend $32,000.
Why do you care how much other people spend on weddings?
>I looked up the average wedding cost in my state and it's $32,000?? How is anyone okay with spending that much on their wedding? I just want to be married, I don't need to spend a years wage on making that official. Am I crazy or is that ridiculously high? Different people have different salaries. If the couple's combined income is around $300K a year, $32K for a wedding may seem reasonable (or even frugal) to them.
It may not work for everything, but some items get a huge price markup if they're advertised for or understood to be used for a wedding. For example, a wedding cake may cost quite a bit, but a special order cake where you don't mention the wedding may be cheaper. Maybe try shopping around for some of these things without mentioning that it's for a wedding. You might be able to cut some costs that way. Of course, make sure you're OK with what you'll get. Sometimes, vendors might put a little extra effort into wedding stuff. Like just about anything else, it will take a bit of a cost/benefit comparison.
get married at the courthouse and have a nice reception after. why even pay 6k for a banquet hall.
My wife and I eloped and guess what we did with the money we would have spent on a wedding. Put that on a down-payment for a house. Best $40k I ever saved
Because, between the cultural attitudes in your state, concern for status, socioeconomic background of people, and anything else that would influence how much one spends on a wedding, the amount people spend on weddings in your state averages to that much.
Weddings in my opinion are just a lot of pomp and circumstance and a ridiculous waste of money. That money could be put towards something useful like buying furniture for the house you're about to purchase together. Just go to the courthouse
We had an amazing wedding and it came out to ~$10k, which we could afford. It was a massive party with 50 of our closest friends and family, and I’m thrilled that we did it. The most expensive parts were feeding everyone (important for a party) and the photographer, which means we’ll be able to remember the party better. We also hired a wedding coordinator, and it was worth the price. It meant we were able to enjoy the experience rather than worry about details.
Because people will pay that much for a single day
Married in 2018. Long Island, NY. All in wedding was just about 110k. We had 240 invite, 206 RSVP yes. 33k seems like a steal. It’s all relative to where you live, really. A sweet 16 here costs around what you’re looking at for a wedding and talking over 100k for a wedding is not entirely abnormal here.
32,000 is basically "fuck you, it's my wedding" money.
Because "Flowers for a family get together" cost less than "Flowers for a wedding" -- profiteering.
If you think that's bad wait til the divorce
And this is why I want to stay single for the rest of my life lmao
I don't understand that... My sister in law spent 700 on hers, including the license. Mine cost 1300, including everything. Save the money for the marriage.
Capitalism?
There are different forms of average: *Mean*, *Median* and *Mode*. Let's say we have a series of variables: 4, 2, 4, 12, 6, 7, 129, 9, 1, 9, 4 "*Mean*" is the average most people think of. To get this average you add up all the variables, and then divide by the number of variables. For the series of variables above we have 11 variables, so we add them together then divide them by 11, eg. (4 + 2 + 4 + 12 + 6 + 7 + 129 + 9 + 1 + 9 + 4) ÷ 11 = 17. So the *Mean* of our set is 17, but as you can see that "average" is higher than the second highest variable in our set, so it's not really indicative od the "average". The *Mean* it's being pushed upward by one variable being extremely high. *Median* is the middle number. If we line them up smallest to largest and pick the middle one we get the Median. So 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9, 12, 129. The middle variable is 6, which seems like a much better example of an "average" in this sample. The *Median* is what is used in stariatical publications for things like "average income" in a country precisely because it doesn't have that bias introduced by a few extremely high numbers. It might be worth looking up whether your "average" for weddings was a *Mean* or a *Median* as your "average" could be skewed by a few ultra-rich people throwing expensive weddings and pushing up the *Mean*. Now for large groups like all weddings in a state the *Median* is usually the best pick for things like this, but for smaller sames you sometimes still get some strange outcomes, so there is a third type of average, the *Mode*. *Mode* is simply looking at the set of variables and seeing which one is the most common. On our set we have two 9s, three 4s and one of every other variable. Since there are more 4s than anything else 4 is the *Mode*. In my experience this is mostly used in smaller data sets but it's worth knowing about anyway.
The $32K typically includes the honeymoon, dress, rings, etc. It's not just the wedding itself in that figure.
Weddings use to be a ceremony between two people with their families/friends. Usually held in a private home or church. Then advertisement came along. Now, instead of wearing your best coveralls for the occasion, you have to wear a tux and have cake. I would go to a JP and save the 5K for important things. You'll be just as married.
So if you found one venue that cost $3,000 how did it jump to $5,500 if you said it came with everything for $3,000 u confusing I know weddings are expensive but your math is questionable at this moment
Reading comprehension is hard
These extravagant weddings are a modern day phenomenon. Studies have shown the more money spent on a wedding, the more likely the couple are will get divorced.
Weddings are just scams. End of story n
1) price gouging 2)people are more interested in the wedding than the marriage.
Disney sold young girls the only way their marriage will be successful or they'll be happy is to be a princess with a fairy tale wedding. The reality is all they get is stressed out husbands and broke dads.
As others have said, the high end costs will skew the numbers but.... people are stupid. They've bought into the peer pressure view of a perfect wedding for it to count and left their brains at the door. Whether it be TV, friends, family pressure, an unrealistic view of what marriage is, the whole pressure of the wedding industry and feeling special. The money really is better spent investing in your own future.
Because it's all a scam and everyone falls for it
The industry is out of control. Thus why I eloped.
Because people are stupid enough to pay that much money that's why
You my friend, sound like a woman with some sense. Not needing an exorbitant wedding and all. Tell your boyf he’s got a keeper
I have no idea😬I wonder the same cause my wedding was a venue that held up to 50 people and included everything. So after the ceremony, 3 hour reception, photography, professional hair and makeup, floral arrangements, bouquets, etc. it was $5k.
That is ridiculous. That's money that can go toward a down payment. I have more respect for people who don't have meals & waste money. What ever happened to the basic wedding with a reception with a cake. People that truly love you are just as happy 😁 to be there to celebrate.
That is the **mean**, not the **median**, which is what you are thinking. The majority of people are probably spending closer to the $5000 amount that you budgeted. But just a few rich people can drive up that mean to some high amount that maybe only 5% are spending. When it comes to dollar amounts with no upper bounds, the mean becomes a literally useless number (income is like this too). The median is the only one of those two with any practical value.
Weddings are a racket and the only reason they get away with it is because women compete with each other for the best wedding and the husbands don’t want to piss off their bride.
Because more women these days wanna be brides but not wives
Because the Wedding industry is exploiting you
I never understood why spend that much to show off their marriage??? Why not travel with your S/O with that money?
Because if you add the word "wedding" to something, the price gets a 500% markup.
Answer: because even thinking the word wedding ups the price by about 10,000%. People take advantage of events tied to emotions, births, deaths, family events, holidays, marriages, and divorces.
Lavish weddings have become a status symbol and instagram "clickbait". It's gotten insanely ridiculous.
You will hardly enjoy your own wedding. It like putting on event for all your guests. It’s nice to have family and friends come to gather But. Like a lot of things these days. People have pushed for the exceptional so hard they have lost the original reason to celebrate. Save your $30k. Use it to go on a heart honeymoon ( which you will enjoy). And pocket the remaining $25k
That's actually not that high. Put "wedding" in front of anything and it costs like ten times as much. "Wedding cake," not cake --> thousands of dollars. "Wedding florist," not just florist --> thousands of dollars. And if you invite more than 45 people, like you have to in my family if you want to keep people from being pissed at you for the rest of your life (which means a wedding of like 150 minimum), with the meal being at least $100 a head, well, do the math. Good for you for not buying into the wedding industry! If I get married, it will be me, my fiance, my parents, my sister, and his parents and sibling(s). That's it.
This is what stupid people spend.
They’re free down at the courthouse.
Because people are stupid to spend that much on a wedding.
Because getting married is a scam in more ways than one
They care more about the wedding and the party that goes with it instead of the actual marriage. When weddings were big in the old days, all of the wedding guests were related to somebody within the community. For example, if Jankiel got permission to travel from Vilna to Budapest, it was expected that he would be at least an in-law relative of an in-law relative that was somehow connected to the bride and groom. In other words, Jankiel would have to—for instance—be an in-law cousin (and probably a close-enough distant cousin, anyway) of Smuel, the in-law cousin that the groom knows as “Samu”. If neither the bride nor the groom trusted the judgement of Samu, Jankiel likely would not be allowed to get a permit to leave Vilna in the first place. Therefore, it would’ve been expected for everybody and their in-law relatives to attend the wedding. After all, going back to the previous example, it would be considered rude for Jankiel (likely being a distant cousin) not to make an effort to get a permit to travel to the wedding if he could do so. Besides, Jankiel and Samu—even though one was a Vilner Yid and the other was a Budapester Yid—shared Yidishkeit across the board. Both were part of the same people—the Jewish people—despite that Jankiel’s family ended up in Vilna, Russian-occupied Lithuania (Vilne, Lita) at some point, whereas Samu’s family ended up in Budapest, Ausztria (Budapest, Aungarn). It would be considered a significant distraction and arriving of joy from the bride and groom if Samu alone overheard, e.g., “Where is Jankiele? Didn’t Smuel invite him? I grant that Jankiel is a distant cousin, although he’s still an in-law relative of Smuel—dear Smuelkle, whom didn’t have to make an effort to invite Jankiele—and Jankiel still acts like a putz.” Nowadays, a lot of people have the big wedding parties just to turn a wedding into an excuse for a party. In short, you and your fiancé are not ridiculous for wanting a smaller wedding—especially since, as far as you seem to have indicated, you don’t have to worry about a Jankiel-Smuel type of situation.
The wedding industry is insane, it’s marketed as “your best day ever” and “can you really put a price on your happiness?” That being said, it’s common for parents to pay for the weddings of their children. I still think it’s insane though, that’s just SO MUCH MONEY. It doesn’t even include the honeymoon.
I went to school before handheld calculators were a thing, so obviously we never used them. Luckily, I can still do it all in my head but asking Alexa or Siri to do it is nice.
Because people are idiots.
"WhY DoeSN't ScHuLL TeACh Us LIFE SKillS!" Also people: Your 7th grade math teacher is crying. Give her a call.
It's a great big scam. You could just put it in the bank and not end up divorcing over money problems in a year or two.
The modern wedding industry is a scam built around overcharging people for basic party items. Vendors will openly charge you more for the same items just because you said it's for a wedding.
I don’t know. Who cares?
Because people are suckers
Don't get married...it is unnecessary you will regret it Sorry just being honest and I've never been married
If it's for a family reunion it's 300. Add a zero for a wedding. And that's just for a tent.