The $28,000 question: Why are we all hypocrites about weddings?

Leave yours...

funny, here in Spain people also do BIG weddings, having 100 guests is like NOTHING... usually between 200 and 400. How do they pay for it? On the lower part of the invititation letter the couple includes their bank account number and you're expected to give about 100-120 Euro (130-150 $). There are even people who make a profit with their wedding. The more people you invite, the more money you make.

Two scary thoughts:

(1) I'm not going to get married in time to meet your 27-year old cutoff. Now I can not only NOT be rich but feel doubly bad on your website sans fiance. Oh, and your publishing a book didn't make me feel any better, either.

(2) $28,000 would be a bargain in comparison to most of the weddings I've been to. I wonder how the average got to 28k, considering I've been to 100k and 250k weddings... yeah, booze, country clubs, and ice sculptures can add up. And if you think that's bad, should we start saving for bat mitzvahs at 6?

Really though, Ramit, I think you've hit upon a very crucial issue. Whether it be that we spend way too much on weddings (god help me if I have to invite all my family and friends or, worse yet, everyone on my facebook account), or that we just generally don't plan for any of life's ridiculously expensive landmarks, we all have a problem. It may cost $1500/month to get by, but that hardly takes into account any sort of down payments, unemployment, engagement rings, graduate degrees, and the like.

Hopefully many people will heed your advice before we all go into terrible credit card debt and find ourselves imprisoned to gruesome 12 hour workdays.

Since I have been recently married (2 weeks, 2 days), I can say that this happens first hand to a lot of people. Here's some tips that we used (our wedding was about 10k for 180 guests):

1. Use your memberships:

Our reception hall came was at the Officer's club on Eglin Air Force Base, which was very inexpensive compared to other places at that location. My parents are ex-mil and still O-club members. We were members of a local country club and got a really good discount for the rehearsal dinner. A lot of memberships offer discounts for limos (AAA) and other things

2. Use your friends (and parent's friends!):

- Our music was done by a pianist and my best man's mp3 player.

- The pianist plays in New Orleans and the cost for him was a hotel room and a bottle of cognac.

- We knew the photographer and the florist, and they were both done at cost.

- My friend's parents did the engraving for my groom's gifts.

- The jewelry my wife and her mom wore were loaned out by Valobra Jewelry. The pieces retail for twice the cost of our wedding.

- I had previously worked for the church wedding planner, and my wife and I both were friends with the pastor.

**Networking has its perks outside of the cubicle.**

3. Sit down and find out what is really important:

If you have a really cool bride-to-be, she probably won't give a crap about a couple things. For example, I don't care what my wedding band looks like because I'll probably lose it in the next year. Also, think about it from another perspective -- your guests. When you go to someone else's wedding, are you going to care whether or not they have a program at the church? We decided no, and didn't bother. Saved a couple hundred bucks.

4. Be creative!

People spending too much money on weddings implies to me that they have no imagination and they have to hire someone to tell them how to make it cool. If you brainstorm a couple hours a weekend, you can find ways to make it work. We went to the beach two days before the wedding to get sand for the centerpieces. We kept two kegs on tap in front of the bar to decrease the service fee for the bartenders. I had enough people renting tuxes from one place that I got mine for free (don't tell them that).

Just a couple quick things that came to mind... hope it helps all you lovebirds.

Steve Place

PS: One more thing, and I don't want to sound sexist... this is just from experience: 3 months before the wedding, block ALL wedding shows on TV (Bridezillas, my super platinum wedding, how to get a bank loan for a ring)... it helps reduce stress as well as compulsive spending.

For the past few months, NPR's "Marketplace Money" has been profiling a couple in the middle of planning their wedding. Here's the comment I sent them:

What I find amazing about this series is the fact that noone questions the sanity of the whole enterprise. Why get married in the first place? The tax laws certainly discourage it. And if you are set on marriage on religious or other grounds, why have a wedding that puts financial strain on the young couple, their parents, and even their friends?

My wife and I went to the city hall to get married. The wedding cost us less than $200. We are not poor--our combined income is well over $200,000/year--but we would much rather take five additional vacations in Europe or Hawaii than donate money to the wedding industry.

I also posted it here for others to agree/disagree with me:

http://www.smargue.com/s/bfdeaaa4f60147fdba0521e278531302/Ruinously_expensive_%28i.e._average%29_weddings_are_dumb%21.html

Your notion that nobody has a simple wedding is a little ... odd, and probably speaks more to the circles you travel in than anything else. I make six figures, but we spent three grand on our wedding, and have equally comfortable friends who spent less. But yes, of course you should spend what you want.

I read another stat that may relate to one of the points you're making recently - something like 75% of Americans think "people are too materialistic" but something like 8% think they personally are.

I get tired of all the commenters on the myriad PF blogs with wedding posts talking about how insane it is to spend 25K for a wedding and how they had a perfect wedding for 3K, etc, etc, so this is a relatively refreshing new take on the matter. Of course it's insane to spend that much money, but the reality is that most people will do it when it comes down to Their Special Day. It's a once in a lifetime event, after all!!!! (Allegedly.) Someone should at least talk about how to try to pay for it somewhat responsibly.

Anyway, Ramit, do you have a special "wedding" savings account? Are you seriously doing this every month? Honestly, I just can't imagine a guy doing this, so I'm curious since you're advocating it.

Great post. Planning for my wedding was one of the big reasons I wound up starting Wesabe. I completely agree about automated savings (automated everything, really).

My best tip for having a reasonable wedding is to find things where you and your partner can agree not to spend. I'm a big dessert person (pun intended), so I insisted on having good (==expensive) cake. She really wanted great pictures, so we spent more on a photographer than the minimum. Unfortunately, we had a lot of categories where one or both of us felt strongly. We saved the most when we could agree that the category didn't have to be a priority (for instance, the flowers were on the cheaper side, and the music was from an iPod).

We didn't do this, but one way to get to a lower cost would be to give each person two or three category choices. If you both choose a category (for us, food was very important), spend a bunch on that. If one of you does, spend on it but not too much. If neither of you does, go for a very inexpensive option. Given the number of things you could potentially spend money on at a wedding, even if there's no overlap, you'll still save money.

But, my friends who went for the Vegas wedding definitely saved a ton. I haven't had a better experience, ever, than our wedding and honeymoon, so I got a lot of value out of what we spent. But Ramit's point, that budget becomes unreal the closer you get to the wedding, is right (forgive me) on the money.

Another thing is that a lot of DIY elements or less expensive items look as good as their pricey counterparts.

* Buying a white prom dress at an end-of-season sale can look better than a dress bought from a bridal boutique. There's also dresses that can be bought for cheap on Ebay, and not all of them are used.

* A simple gold, white gold, platinum, titanium, or silver wedding band that is simply worn next to the engagement ring instead of connecting to it, is a lot less expensive than a bridal set. Engraving the inside is very inexpensive if you want it personalized.

* Few people like DJs, so burning CDs or having a playlist of MP3s set up on your computer or ipod (a friend can even man the music when needed) is cheaper and sure to play only the songs you want.

* There's nothing wrong with having the reception in the church fellowship hall. University student unions, public parks, some museums, friends' backyards are also other less expensive places to hold the festivities.

* Buy an invitation kit for $30 and print them at home or go creative and make your own unique invitations.

* Bring your own alcohol if you can -- much cheaper to buy kegs of beer and cases of wine from a liquor store. Plus you might be able to return the unopened wine.

* Have a small wedding cake for display and a big sheet cake in the kitchen to be used for serving.

*Have a friend do your hair and makeup.

* Borrow jewelry from relatives and friends or wear what you already have.

* Drive your own car -- a friend can even drive it for you.

*Morning celebrations are less expensive than afternoon celebrations are less expensive than evening celebrations.

* A cocktail reception with just some drinks and a lot of appetizers for a couple hours makes for a nice, low-key event.

* The little details don't really matter to guests. They're really happy if they got to see the wedding, had something to eat and drink, and got to see the couple. Centerpieces, matching everything, butterfly releases, bows everywhere, etc, don't get remembered.

That's funny -- my then girlfriend and I always talked about having a big, elegant wedding, but never thought about the costs. When the time finally came to plan it, we were seniors in college and quickly realized we wouldn't be able to afford the "average" wedding! We cut the guests from 200 down to 100 and asked favors from about 2/3 of the guests. We also held the ceremony at a church for a donation of $200 and a $100 gift to the pastor. The reception was done Chinese style at a restaurant at $40 a head. Our friends/guests did everything for us, including making all invitations and decorations from scratch. Ceremony cost: $4000 Reception cost: $5000, including tip and wine. It was still the loveliest day of our lives and we cut costs by at least half.

It would be interesting to see some more useful statistics, such as the median, about wedding costs. You throw a couple of million+ celebrity/ultra-wealthy weddings and the averages quickly get skewed upwards.

People don't think about it, but by simplifying your wedding you can make it greener as well. Supporting local stores and suppliers may end up saving you money, and not having guests fly halfway round the planet to come to your wedding may also save a lot.

I also don't get dropping thousands of dollars on a wedding dress. Whatever happened to elegance in simplicity? Why not buy a lower cost dress or a discount dress, and pay a little money to have it beaded or to customize it so it fits your personality better. Not everyone needs a Vera Wang gown.

I don't care if other people think it's tacky, but I would prefer financial gifts in lieu of buying overpriced merchandise off of a bridal registry at some foo foo department store. Then the couple can buy affordable items that they need, and the guests won't resent them for having to buy that $300 mixer because it was the only thing left in the registry that they could find at their local store. I like the idea that Robert from Spain had above where the people invited to the wedding help to pay for it. The last thing a married couple needs is debt from a wedding and honeymoon hanging over them when they return to the real world. If they were given cash they might not have such a deep hole to dig themselves out of, and they could perhaps even make an investment for their future too.

Here's my thoughts:

1. I know my wedding won't be perfect, and I'm happy with that. In fact, my ornery side wants to thumb my nose at $28,000 bridezilla-fests. What I really want is a big party to celebrate with friends and family. And and I don't mind if it rains!

2. I WILL NOT go into debt over my wedding. I've made this clear to the guy, and he definitely understands. The (easy-going) parents have mentioned that they'll chip in, but I'd rather not count on it in the planning stage.

3. We will have all consumer debt paid off (1 cc, 1 student loan, 1 no interest loan) before the wedding occurs, and will only have my (low, fixed rate) student loan, which I'm also prepaying.

4. We currently have about 2 months emergency funds built up, and will have about about 3-4 months by the time the wedding occurs. We're also making the match on our company's 401k.

5. I'm currently saving for the wedding, and also have plans for making a down payment within 5-7 years. and I'm putting in all bonuses towards this.

And on top of all this, I am assuming that the wedding + honeymoon will cost 10,000 MAX (and this is still a very scary cost for me)

How will this happen?

a. I'll most likely be making my own dress (less than $200)

b. We already know we're having Fudgie the Whale from carvel as our wedding cake! ($50)

c. Local "flowers" will be used ($50)

d. The DJ will probably be friends for as gift (0)

e. We'll only be serving beer + wine, in a picnic setting.

We probably won't have limos and some of the standard wedding accessories. I would much rather have everyone hanging out at a lobster bake (most likely our big splurge), than in a reception hall doing the chicken dance. And though we're still at the dreaming stage right now, we have some priorities set down- big group photos are important, a videographer, not.

For anyone that is interested, I'd suggest reading "How to have a big wedding on a small budget" by Diane Warner. She breaks down each major line item and gives various alternatives for cost (from free to pricey) from everything from reception to flowers. I think the most expensive example budget was 15,000, most being under 10,000, and the cheapest being around 1,500.

Well, it's refreshing to read some advice on how to plan financially for weddings even if you're not engaged yet! I write a wedding blog so I thought this was relevant for me to comment on. Though you shouldn't rely on others to come through and pay for your wedding for you, I do feel you have overlooked the fact that it is actually traditional for families to chip and pay large chunks (or the whole cost) of the wedding total, so it's not uncommon for that to happen and therefore not unreasonable to think your family might pay if they have indicated to you that they would help with costs. In my case, my parents are contributing $20,000, my future in-laws are contributing $6000, and my fiance and I are paying for items we think should fall under our own budget (rings, gifts for attendants and parents etc). BUT, if we hadn't had such generous family members, we know we could probably afford about $3000 for our whole wedding if we didn't want to go into debt, so we would have eloped. Or maybe had a 10-guest wedding or something like that.

It's important to remember that you need to live within your means even when planning a major life event like a wedding. "But I deserve it" is not an excuse for buying things you can't afford. You have to be able to afford it.

I'd like to finish with a bunch of great tips to reduce your wedding costs that I've put together over several months:

-buy your wedding dress second-hand or from a sample sale

-book your wedding on a Friday or Sunday or during the low season (Oct - March) for lower rental costs

-consider a lunch reception instead of dinner and dancing

-use your connections, like the commenter above suggested

-the easiest place to cut frivolous costs is details that nobody will notice if they're missing, such as expensive ribbon wrapping bouquets, letterpress vs. thermography printing on invitations, save-the-dates, inner envelopes, ceremony programs, favours, bridesmaid newsletters, and lots of other decor items.

-go the DIY route for details you can't live without that cost too much. Make your own jewelry, invitations, favours, hairpins, out-of-town guest bags, etc.

-send save-the-dates by email instead of printed save-the-dates by snail mail

-let your bridesmaids pick their own jewelry and shoes.

I actually get quite angry at people over wedding budgets.

I was able to pull off an unbelievable affair (my criteria was that it had to be something I'd enjoy going to) for 300 people, for just over $2000.00

It took creativity, and it took a complete 100% shunning of the wedding industry. I used ebay, friends, unusual locations (an antique warplane museum), local connections, and wholesale dealers.

And it was an event to be enjoyed, a day my guests always remember fondly, and a wedding that I'll always hold as a standard when attending other's weddings. Been married 3 years now and haven't attended once since that even compares, even though the money people spend is greatly multiplied.

Spending money on a wedding is stupidity. But having a great wedding that you and all your guests will love is priceless.

I can't watch wedding shows, or "so and so marries so and so" or read articles about how much some asshat in hollywood spent on a wedding...it just makes me furious. I would make the perfect wedding coordinator, except for the part where I tell every stupid bride she's a retarded mindless idiot.

And really, it's true. Brides become retarded mindless idiots. They think it has to be a certain way, and so it's going to cost a certain amount. And the truth is so much more beautiful.

My wedding cost only about $6000. It was very nice, and we didn't spend loads of cash. We did it in our backyard, and put up some nice decorations and had some catering. It was simple and very nice. We didn't need a $30,000 wedding to have fabulous day. Our invitations were like $5 a piece, and we invited about 60 people.

In many chinese wedding, it's encourage to give red envelope (with $$$ inside) as wedding gift. It saves guests headache on what to get for the couple and also help reduce the cost of the wedding.

Ditto Steve, I know people that got so many red envelopes that they made money off the wedding.

I'm in the middle of planning my wedding. In the end it will cost about half the national average, and it will be easier on the guest as well. Here are my suggestions.

Plan the whole wedding on a single line of nice public transit. Most cities have a few lines that are one time, clean, and you get to see the city. pick every location of the wedding within 2 blocks of that.

Ask for help. Do you have a friend who can cook for an army? Higher her. Know a designer? Higher her. A friend with a tent? Give him a call.

The end result -- I hope -- is a great wedding because everyone is involved.

How appropriate. I'm getting married in 8 months.

I really wanted to get married in Mexico, invite anyone who could come, and have one big party, very inexpensively (many places throw in the wedding if you spend a week at their hotel). BUT, my fiance has a big, fat Mexican family, and that just isn't how they do things. Added to that, my grandmother, who I adore and who would want more than anything to be there, would never get on a plane. So, slowly I let go of the original plan, and we're getting married in our city.

Now, I'm not big on the details of planning a huge event like this, but my mom is very Type A, so she's planning. I find out that she has most everything booked, and this wedding has become much more expensive. My parents aren't rich, and the only thing I could convince them to let me pay for was the photographer. My mom doesn't even want to give me an exact figure of what it's costing, and it's really bothering me. So now my fiance and I are thinking of cutting back on our invite list to save them money, but my mom is talking about adding more, such as co-workers. I know she wants this day to be perfect, but I care more about being married than the actual day.

Everything she has planned is absolutely beautiful and exactly what I'd want, but I don't know what their finances look like, and it worries me. I just wish we could have a frank conversation about expenses.

Heh, I knew we were under the average but not that far. And didn't think we were thank unique in how we approached it. When my wife and I got married about 2 years ago the very first thing we did was set a budget goal of 5k. Being the first marriage for either of us, we didn't know how far that would take us. Next step was back of the napkin figures of what our "ouch" point for each item was. 500 for music, 2k for food, etc.

In the end we went over by about 2k. The main reason seemed to be add the word wedding to any rental. People immediately decide to crank up the price. You are just expected to pay it. Also something we had never bought before was just outside of the expected values. But we never strayed from the budget, I think specifically because we were paying it ourselves. Being our own money, we couldn't stand to be so wasteful.

The most common refrain was always "It's your special day, why worry about it!". Besides the fact that we paid of it ourselves, we were determined not to start off in debt. The most important part of it was she, I, and the pastor. The rest could just rot for all we cared. ;)

Interesting... and of course the main part of your article is spot on (plan and save for big expenses rather than heedlessly plunging into debt)... but as for wedding costs...

1. Most of my friends got married much younger than that. I was married at 22. Most of my friends were married around 22-25.

2. Most of these weddings were paid for primarily by the bride's parents. Perhaps that's not so common once the bride and groom are past their early 20's? Sometimes the parents let the bride know how much she has available to spend, and if the couple wants to go beyond that, they can pay for things themselves. (The honeymoon, however, is usually paid for entirely by the couple, unless some family member surprises them with it as a gift.)

3. My wife has been a bridesmaid in at least a half-dozen weddings, and the bridesmaids have always been expected to purchase their own dresses. It stinks, but it's part of the cost of saying "Yes" when asked.

4. I don't remember how much our rings cost, but they were nowhere near $5,000. And 10 years later, we still like them.

Aside from number 4, these seem so normal to me that it's surprising to see that they are not even considered in your article. When I followed the link, I assumed you'd be talking to parents, not brides- and grooms-to-be...

Your points about being realistic, saving and prioritizing for a wedding (or any other big purchase) are all dead on.

One criticism, though: be careful about bandying about that "average cost of a wedding is $28,000" factoid (mentioned in the book mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article). That figure came from a survey done by the Condé Nast Bridal Group--a survey conducted with readers of Condé Nast's various bridal publications (and thus probably already biased to having an expensive wedding). It also, I believe, includes things like "travel costs" in the price of a wedding, which can inflate the figures quite a bit.

None of that negates the main point of the article, though: it's better to control your wedding (or home or new car purchase) than let it control you.

There was recently an article in yahoo's finance section about the expense of weddings and why we feel the need to spend so much on weddings and the industry as a whole.

http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/moneyhappy/39681

Its an interesting read.

Weddings are extreme emotions mixed with money, family, and fantasy. It's a very dangerous cocktail.

More people should elope. :)

Steve had some very good suggestions. Using a similar approach, our wedding cost only a few thousand dollars, with ~80 guests.

- Our caterer was a family friend who gave us the meal at cost.

- For our open bar, we bought the booze ourselves and had a bartender (a friend) who agreed to work for tips.

- For the ceremony, we had a friend provide music (we have many musician friends!).

- By scheduling in the early afternoon, we could get away with serving a light meal.

- Rather than have a DJ or a band, we hired an accordianist to play during the reception. (This decision sprang in part from our previous decision to schedule in the afternoon.)

- We bought flowers and vases, and decorated the tables ourselves (with the help of family, of course!).

- My mother-in-law made the cake (and it tasted far better than any from a bakery!).

- We held the wedding and reception at a public facility. The wedding was outside in a park, and the reception was in a building adjacent to the park.

We also had an inexpensive honeymoon, by travelling to Canada at a time when the exchange rate was favorable!

I guess your view is distorted by the dual lenses of culture and geography, but not all weddings are anywhere near as expensive as you say. I've been to ten, and of those, only one was above the median (reportedly $80K, so touche). The best ways to cut costs are to reduce the number of participants. Really all you need are a bride, a groom, and a celebrant. Bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls and ring bearers add a lot of cost (unless you pawn those expenses off on the "honored") as well as a lot of room for drama. Get rid of the booze, and don't invite anyone who probably doesn't really care about coming. I truly believe that if people weren't so greedy and self-absorbed, their weddings would be far more affordable.

I forgot to mention, since my reception was Chinese style, we ended up with about $11k in cash gifts which offset the $9k cost of the wedding.

My wife and I had a simple and inexpensive wedding. It was accomplished by utilizing the services of friends for almost everything. Most who contributed were very happy to help and considered it a wedding present (saving them money and us from opening yet another toaster).

I wonder what the distribution curve for the price of weddings looks like. I imagine there are many cheap weddings and many expensive weddings, but few in the middle (once you're going into debt, what's a little more?).

Thank god I'm afraid of commitment!

But in case I ever get over that, I plan on coordinating the shit out of my wedding. Starting with a estimated total cost and an estimated monthly savings at least 3-4 years before the wedding. I'm 24 and really don't see myself getting married in the next 4 years. Yeah... I don't like to rush things and I'm obsessed with being 150% prepared for everything. I plan on being engaged for at least 2 years before I actually tie the knot.

I also don't need the whole world at my wedding, only close family (30 total, both sides) and close friends (26 total, both sides). And the only kind of flowers I like are white daises. AND! I know how to sew, and quite well, so it's highly probable that I'll make my own wedding dress (not a gown, thanks) since I'm incredibly picky and don't like dealing with other people doing things for me. Besides, the only way to truly get what you want is to do it yourself.

But a wedding for me is a long LONG way off. I know this because I haven't even begun to think about any part of it, aside from the fact that I'm going to have white daisies. :)

[...] of us focus on how to cut corners for a wedding,  this gentleman is focusing on the concept of saving money for an ‘average’ wedding–in 2007 those figures are about $28,000–BEFORE you get [...]

Chris above put it best "Weddings are extreme emotions mixed with money, family, and fantasy. It's a very dangerous cocktail."

I just got married this month. The ceremony was on a pier on one of the Finger lakes, the pier was free but we did need permission. Total cost for the reception was $7660 for 170 people on a boat for 3 hours. The open bar was $1660, which is pretty formidable for the short amount of time we were on the boat. But lets break it down some(1st time ive done this since we did the deed):

$7660 Reception. Sunday was key for this. Sat. would have been astronomical

$850 Rings. We don't like bling. :)

$100 200 blank invites which we printed ourselves at home.

$50 100 cd's and labels which we made music favors from.

$5 5 songs on a laptop, the rest were pirated.

$0 DJ, a friend controlled the laptop.

$150 Photographer, 2 friends with DSLR's.

$150 Officiant and Singer.

Total: $8965(although im forgetting something im sure)

The main photographer, officiant and singer were all friends, and to be honest we didn't have to pay for them. In fact they wouldn't allow us, but we did get them rooms. Luckily the officiant and the singer are a couple. :)

My main concerns were going cheap on the photographers and the DJ. Not huge fears, as the photographers were professional and excellent amateur respectively. But lets cut to the chase:

We have over 2000 high quality digital photo's, and a huge number of them are good. Try to get that with a normal wedding photographer. The music went off without a hitch, the people that helped with that are tech geeks like me. No worries.

We easily made back all of our money spent.

Weddings can be really expensive for the guests as well. I know they have been expensive for me with travel expenses such as flights, hotels, eating out, wedding gift, etc. I'm killing my wedding budget just by going to so many lately. (I have 50 first cousins and about 25 of them are at that marriage age).

I agree with the general theme: more people should identify and plan for big expenses, save accordingly, and avoid deluding themselves about the actual cost versus the "wishful thinking" cost.

I disagree however that we're all hypocrites about weddings. (I'm hoping you just titled it that way to grab the eye.) I don't know anyone who falls into these statistics -- but then I've only been to about 4 weddings and I'm dead set on going to the courthouse in a few months myself. Plus, I've identified my big expenses and have saved or am saving for them.

To me, for example, you don't skimp on rings. So my fiance and I saved the money and picked out some very nice rings that we were able to pay off immediately. Also, we want to throw a party to bring our families together, and we've got that money saved already.

You touch on this in your article, but you could easily substitute "weddings" in your post title with "houses" or "cars"... any pricy shiny thing that we feel we *deserve* without actually earning. I guess what's driven me to comment is you touched a nerve; it bothers me when people have attitudes like, I deserve a big wedding or a fancy car but I can't be bothered to save for it. Where does this way of thinking come from? Why do so many people have a hard time planning for the long-term? I just don't understand it at all.

[...] I Will Teach You To Be Rich has an interesting post about how much people spend for their own weddings but declare that everyone else is crazy for spending that much. [...]

I liked how your post was "interactive" because I actually played around with the wedding spending plan numbers. Nice feature. And great article on planning ahead. I'm going to be 21 this year and am a female who has often thought about her wedding day and is trying my best to be financially smart, BUT I actually haven't started saving for my wedding....so I will now! So many things to save for! Home, emergency, retirement, future children, wedding, but I will be so happy I did when the day comes where I need that money.

[...] I realize I’m not like most girls. I’m fine with this, and if we’re together, you better be fine with this too. If that time comes when your mushy heart screams at you, “She’s the one!” here are some sure-fire ways to get me to say yes to the $28,000 Question: [...]

I disagree with the commenter who recommended Friday weddings to save money.

My dad, a part-time professional photographer, has described what a pain in the neck it is to get off work, get home, get ready and back to a 7pm wedding...and he wasn't bringing a spouse and children to the ceremony.

Photographer - got a friend who was a wedding photographer but worked on the cheap.

Rehearsal Dinner - rented out a private University dinner club. Was very nice. Only had to pay by the plate. Everything else was taken care of and it was honestly way cheaper than I could have imagined such a nice evening.

Videographer - traded services with him so it only cost me time

Wedding was in our church and free. Pastor was free minus a tip we gave him

Reception was in an old antebellum mansion (we're in the deep south). Cost only a few hundred dollars and was awesome.

Food was catered by family, including the cake, and we kept it to simple foods that people actually like. It was an evening wedding so it was dinner.

Drove my own car which is plenty nice.

DJ was free and was a friend.

Grand total Including the honeymoon was only around $10,000 which was right on our budget. It was perfect. We didn't spend a lot on flours or decorations because the reception was in a garden.

Big savers were our friends and family. They took amazing care of us.

My brother's wedding was around 50k. I preferred ours. And the only thing anyone talked about on his was what it must have costs. Its all in the planning.

When I was getting married, I tried to keep it simple, and recommended inexpensive but guaranteed-to-be-fun options. I got lots of dismissive hand waving from my fiance and her mother. No, this was a going to be a wedding like all the rest. Fancy entertainment, fancy setting, fancy party favors for all to take home with them. Must impress the guests. Lots of money spent, and the day made "special" by having everything be just right.

M-I-L couldn't help interfering and deciding what had to be. And lots of stress leading up to the magical day. Thirteen years later she was still interfering and suggesting the way things had to be for her daughter. Spend, spend, spend. More things is the key to happiness. We'd have to put the things we had in storage to make room for more things. And if I wasn't providing the things that my M-I-L thought I should, I'd hear about it from her.

After 13-years of marriage, it broke down. We're getting divorced. M-I-L came to my house to read me the riot act and suggest that it was time we got divorced. I was too selfish and even though I never clamped down hard on my wife's spending (hey, she makes good money). The fact that I wanted to save my money, quit my job and start up my dream business with my savings was too much for them to bear. What? And have her support the whole family on her income alone for a year? (she makes $100k).

I think people have it all wrong about weddings. $28k to create a magical day that's over like that... and 50% of them end in divorce anyways. How about a $5000 party in the beginning and then when you make it for 10 years, throw the big party. When you make it 25 years, throw another party. Celebrate the accomplishments that mean something.

I make quite a bit of money. But my wife was totally cool with a zircon ring for $150 (diamonds are the biggest fraud in the word). We got married in Brazil at the Justice of the peace (equivalent) and had all her family and friends at the reception (about 80 people) for about $1000.

It really all depends on the woman you choose.

Here's a strategy: DON'T GET MARRIED!

As someone who has happily lived with her beloved partner for 15 years, I feel obligated to ask this question. When we were younger, we simply couldn't fathom spending our money on the wedding-industrial complex and as time went on, we realized we simply didn't need "marriage" to add legitimacy to our relationship. We certainly don't love each other any less......and now I realize we're $28K (x 10% x 15 years) richer for it.

I got married last year, and did *exactly* what Ramit recommends in this post: we simplified, we budgeted and we prioritised. We came in on budget, had a perfect day, with no debt, and don't regret blowing $10 grand on it, even though it would have been great to put that on our home loan.

The only other suggestion I'd make is to pay for things in their order of importance: if it's extremely important to you, stuff the standard wedding time-lines and do it first before you run out of either money or time.

Anyone who is Serious about planning their wedding on a budget, should check out http://www.weddingplanningonabudget.com

It is a site we put together to help out other couples after we planned our own dream wedding on a budget of just $2,000.

Thanks for the helpful post. Really puts things in perspective in a practical way.

Tim and Lisa Spooner

Authors of Wedding Planning on a Budget

Ha ha, I can't help but to think it's funny that some people have said when they get married it's going to be a very small affair because they don't have a big family. Not that I'm making fun, but that's what I thought, too, until I became engaged to someone who has over 25 aunts and uncles, who all have children who are grown, with children of their own, and on and on. And this is direct family, not distant. So either you make it immediate family only, or you are picking and choosing who gets invited, and feelings will get hurt. My family only takes up 1/4 of the guest list!

I had an amazing wedding for less than $4,000. We got married in the Caribbean (St. Thomas) in a villa on the top of a mountain, overlooking the island and ocean. For us it did not make sense to get married locally and spend 10 - 15 thousand dollars.

Love this post! I guess the next post will be about budget planning for babies ;-)

Ugh, this is why I hate wedding posts on finance blogs. Everybody and their brother can't resist telling the story of how they had the most awesome wedding ever for a super low price and how they did it because they happen to be BFF with a photographer, caterer, jeweler, dress-maker, tent-owner, etc. Not that helpful since most people aren't that lucky and that's not even what this post is about! It's about realistically needing to save for a wedding! Sorry, rant over. It's just every post about weddings turns into this.

Makes me think of what Calvin Coolidge said regarding thrift:

"I am for economy. After that I am for more economy."

It's true - there is an entire wedding 'machine' at work to convince us to spend more than we have.

I didn't read through all the posts, so this might have been said already... I read an article on wedding planning somewhere else and it pointed out that the studies performed on wedding costs are being performed by parties (i.e. Conde Nast Bridal Group) who have an interest in driving up spending on weddings. Therefore, I think it's difficult, if not almost impossible, to say that the numbers are reliable.

How to cut costs?

1)Replace the word "perfect" in your personal mantra. Instead say "My wedding will be fun, funny, poignant, low-key, lighthearted, funky, unique, etc."

2)Make sure that your wedding reflects YOU, as a couple, and not the bridal industry. Anybody can throw money at the bridal industry and have a fairy-tale party. Are you actually a fairy princess? Do you wear a tiara to work to show how glamorous you are? Then why do you think you should even enjoy a wedding straight out of a Disney movie. Grow up and express your own tastes.

3)Have the balls to set a budget. Don't get emotional and say crap like "You can't put a price on our love." If your wedding trappings are the only thing you have to express your love then you're doomed. Set a number, try to come in under it, and spend the rest on the honeymoon/down payment on a house, etc.

My wedding cost just under $4000, for 130 people in 2001. We found a hall that had just been remodeled and needed the bookings. My dress was $400 new, from an outlet (and beautiful). Our caterer was a non-profit that trained women from shelters in restaurant job skills. We only had 3 bridesmaids/groomsmen (siblings and childhood friends).

We had a sleek, modern look which kept cost down on decorations. Tasteful calla lily accents are cheaper than throwing roses everywhere. We made our own centerpieces, favors, and invitations. I even took an art class before hand just for this purpose, and it was money well spent. Everything about the day came from our hearts, not our wallets.

Our wedding had beautiful surroundings, great food, dancing, music, and the love of our friends and family. In my mind the actual day is such a blur that I hardly remember it, but people still tell us it was the best wedding they ever attended.

I agree that planning for a wedding is more realistic than cutting it down. In reality, you're planning the biggest party you'll likely ever throw in your life, while working full-time, and in our case taking courses at university.

We got advice like "make your own cards" or "put together your floral arrangements." Ummm, yeah, I barely have enough time to sleep, what makes you think I have time to print and write cards myself. And on the evening before my wedding day I have other things to do besides playing with flowers.

We did cut back where we could and preferred simple and elegant. For example, we paid a little more for our reception hall but it was the lobby of a concert hall with a rich Italian Rococo architecture. That saved us thousands on decorations, allowed us to get cheaper/simpler linens, etc.

Our wedding had about 110 guests, ended up costing $21,543 and took place in Aug, 2003. That includes the honeymoon and groom's ring. We budgeted for the wedding and projected cash flow so we'd knew what needed to be paid and when.

Here's a link to our cash flow projection that breaks down all the costs so you can see where all the money goes:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkz82X8EXoZQiyWADy9ccRA&gid=0

This article made me want to scream!

28k for a wedding is utterly ridiculous The key is to NOT invite everyone you know. I spent about $2500 TOTAL on my wedding 4 years ago. Yes, you read that right. We only had 8 people there (some of whom we paid hotel and flight expenses for), had it in the courtyard of a B&B in New Orleans (and saved money by having a wedding and honeymoon all in one), and then took everyone out for dinner and bar hopping late until the night afterwards. I can honestly say that it was the most fun night I ever had in my life.

What a complete waste of money to spend 28k on one day! What about saving that money for the rest of your life? We took what we would have spent on the wedding and put it in the bank. Guess what- we paid off our mortgage last December.

Wake up, the wedding industry is a huge machine whose sole purpose is to make you think that you need things that you don't need, and to part you from your money!

What kills me is that you have line items of $1K for the DJ and $4K for the photographer and $750 for the limo, but you allocate exactly ZERO for paying the minister. It's like the poor guy is an afterthought. Since he's the most important "employee" you will have that day, he should be payed at the same level as the other people.

I'm not really all that impressed by people who had awesome weddings with 150 people for 3K or whatever because most of the time they got a bunch of friends/family to donate services (catering, photography, etc). That's not actually free or simple; it's just shifting the cost to someone else, even if it's in time.

I have a photojournalism degree and sometimes shoot weddings as a side business and felt I was guilted into shooting a co-worker's wedding for free. I tried to get out of doing it, but she kept bugging me, and I was very resentful in the end because it was a ton of work and she didn't even write me a thank you note. She did the same kind of things to a lot of her friends and family (ie: asking all the wedding party who was coming from far away to pay for individual hotel rooms at the inn it was held at to make sure all the really expensive rooms were taken, as required by her contract). Now every time I hear her brag about how she had the most awesome wedding ever on a super-low budget, all I can think about is how she did it by taking advantage of people she knows.

Anyone I really know well enough to shoot their wedding for free probably wouldn't ask me to because I'm one of their best friends and they would want me to enjoy their day with them.

I personally think it's much more honest to acknowledge you really want it this way, and to save up for it, and pay for it yourself. If it REALLY doesn't matter to you, then elope, or have a 10 person ceremony in your parents' back yard.

What fun reading these comments has been. I've been happily married since 2003.

Ramit nailed it on the head in his post by using the word "Prioritize". That's what it comes down to. Our most important priority was the photographer, because we wanted to have good, high-quality pics of ourselves, our family, and our friends to show our kid(s) one day and to look back at when we're old and gray to remind us of the details that our minds forget. To help afford the "perfect" photographer for us, we decided to budget everything else accordingly. We had an early wedding with reception brunch to save cost on food. We got married outdoors at a quaint (but inexpensive) spot and we provided an open bar by buying the liquor ourselves and having a family friend "police" the bar area to make sure the teenagers didn't raid it.

Was it the perfect wedding? In a word, NO. I screwed up my vows and the maid of honor screwed up her toast. Some of the food was too dry. It was by no means perfect. But if I could go back in time, I still wouldn't change a thing.

Point is, it's the memories that should last the longest on a wedding day. The good, the bad, the quirky... they're all memories that make the day unique.

I agree with "smart money" above, don't get married at all. Why does the government need to be involved in my relationship? Marriage is a government contract that says I will lose half my net worth if she decides to shack up with her personal trainer instead. Wow what a deal!

I like that you wrote a sample savings guide for weddings. I think that if people were really saving $300 a month for their wedding, they wouldn't spend so much on it. If you actually had to sacrifice your clothing and going out budget every month for years to pay for the wedding, you would definitely skip that $800 single use dress. It is a relevant point that a lot of the big spenders are getting some parental help.

I'm glad I didn't see your budgeting spreadsheet before planning my wedding (which was this past March). We spent $75 per person on rings, and have gotten a lot of compliments on them. The basic idea is that a wedding ring should be simple, trust me you can get it for much less than $5K. In fact if I had done more research I would have looked into recycled gold, I don't know if that is more or less pricey.

Ultimately, a wedding is an ILLUSION. You do not need one to get married. You WANT one. It's drilled into your head from the time you are a child.

And to Alex's point, a marriage is ultimately a business contract merging two entities (and divorce is just the opposite).

I have been to black-tie, all-out, red-rose petals-on-the-floor insanity weddings. I've been to small gatherings of just family -20 people. You know what? When it's all done, all you have your memories. And they will stay with you (hopefully) for the rest of your life. What more does one need?

[...] @ i will teach you to be rich has written a post about how you should save up for your wedding since it is likely to cost a fortune. Fine, that makes perfect reasonable sense. However, I think [...]

Not everyone is a hypocrite. When my husband and I were married a little over 6 years ago, we paid cash for our wedding of about 100 guests with full buffet and honeymoon, and kept the total costs around $5000. We did go the simple route- we had one attendant each, and one flower girl. While we had a harpist for the ceremony, a friend offered to dj for the reception. We did our invitations at home on our printer using vellum, ribbon, and handmade rose petal paper (I didn't make the paper), and still get people asking me where I purchased them. We also put together our favors. My dress came from an outlet and cost me $350, even though I did visit all the standard stores first. So, not only is it possible to have an inexpensive wedding, people really do have them, perhaps more often than you think.

The point of this post isn't how to have a dirt-cheap wedding. In my opinion, Ramit is asking why people don't consider weddings as a financial goal to plan for, knowing that it's one of the biggest expenditures we'll make in life. Regardless of what I believe a wedding should or shouldn't cost, or the political/social relevence of marriage, I still found this post to be very thought-provoking.

So, I cosign KM. 99.9% of the comments to this post have been severely annoying and completely missed the point.

Two of my friends are teachers and don' t have much money. They planned their wedding at our alma mater and the cost was puny. I think they were charged about $2,000 for the use of the college's largest ballroom.

Ok I'm getting married in a little over three weeks and I can tell you right now that my wedding has not cost me even 2 grand, maybe not even 1 grand yet.

Dress was $300 and it didn't need any alterations (!)

Flowers-200-Dad paid for them as a gift

Photographer-a friend is doing it as a gift/barter for computer work (my Fiance is a computer tech)

No DJ, no catered food, no wine or beer.

Friends and family are making food, and I am going to get two platters of meat and cheese and we'll have sandwiches. The total cost will be below 150.

Church and pastor-refused to take anything from us.

Music-a friend is THRILLED to be playing the piano for us.

Bridesmaids-thrift stores! One dress was $15 and needed a bit of alteration. The other was $5 and needed no alteration.

Wedding party-Brother needed a tux, $145 there. Sisters needed dresses, one already had one (from a thrift store) the other cost $30 off of ebay. Little bro already had a suit, dad has a suit.

Spent $150 on decorations (including pew bows, table coverings, table toppers, ring bearers pillow, flower girl's basket and petals, and guestbook and an engraved knife and server set among other things) on OrientalTrading.com.

Spent $60 on plates, untensils, knives, and bowls. Nice, paper and plastic ones. Pretty, but affordable.

Cake-a friend is giving one to us as a gift. If they had not, I would have opted to make one myself. Not that hard.

Honeymoon will be under $500, using tickets from SkyAuction.com, driving ourselves, bringing mostly our own food, etc. We might spend more. I don't count this as part of the wedding cost.

So there we have something like $1600 WITH the honeymoon. Come on guys, it's possible. I am going to have a beautiful wedding in three weeks and I am going to enjoy it, that's the way it's gonna be.

Fact is, we've taken the other money that we've had and built an extra bathroom in our house, put insulation in the walls, redecorated our room and put new furniture in it, bought a new bed, and bought a new car. I HATE it when people spend too much on their weddings and then complain about it or go into debt because of it :-O

Your post is very insightful. I couldn't agree with it more. There are many people who want to have their dream wedding and go broke, and then there are those who actually plan for their dream wedding accordingly - they do the math and plan it well. It's not about simplifying your wedding at all. It's about knowing how to plan for it in order to have the wedding of your dreams.

Dude, this post totally freaked me out. I'm single, don't even have a prospect of a boyfriend at the moment, and it made me feel like I need to set up a special savings account for my eventual wedding someday!

...which would give the willies to any potential boyfriend. Almost as scary as having a wedding dress waiting in the closet. I think this is one thing that can wait a little while longer for me. But thanks for bringing it to my attention, Ramit!

Ramit is totally correct in this instance. You can say that you'll do it simpler, cheaper, better etc.. but there are so many other factors: family pressure, pressure from spouse especially women, maybe you don't know any Djs, photographers, great chefs, maybe your friends don't want to donate their services (this happens if you're a photographer, for example, and yet another friend asks for your services). Plus there are costs like wedding rings, bands and 'little' things that add up. The truth is you either save and pay or elope. There are no simple weddings. (by the way, I eloped)

Velvet Jones said: "99.9% of the comments to this post have been severely annoying and completely missed the point."

Actually, Ramit makes three points in his post:

1. Be Realistic

2. Save

3. Prioritize

Just because most people choose to discuss his 1st and 3rd point instead of focusing on the 2nd doesn't make them any less significant. If you find them annoying, stop reading them.

For what it's worth we've just released a new product called Wedding Mapper that is designed to lower the cost of your wedding slightly by allowing you to create an online wedding map to share with your guests.

With the online wedding map you can avoid paying a designer to create a map for your wedding or you can use the online wedding map to get a discount from our design partner on a custom design for invitations.

The online wedding map can be included in a wedding website, printed for invitations, or linked to from an email, website, or invitation.

It's a free and easy way to make sure your guests have all the information they need about your wedding. You can check it out at http://www.weddingmapper.com.

Bravo!! If only i would have started reading your articles couple of years back. I got married at 25 - fresh out of college with student loan and nobody to sponsor my VISA (i'm frm India). But i was lucky to have support from my family. My parents came from India and i had about 20 -25 friends who flew in from various parts of US. I thought with that small number, i wouldn't have much expense, but during the wedding week many different customs poped up (i had no idea about 'em) and i ended spending around 20K from my side and i don't even wanna go into my wife's side as she had over 200 guests. I maxed out all my cards....

AFTERWARDS, we lived frugally for sometime and got good jobs and were finally able to pay off all our debts. But i would have been better off if only i was "aware" and had planned to save.

Poor planning leads to poor performance, so please plan.

I work at a "luxury" hotel, 5-star, 5-diamond and all that jazz. We have about 2-3 weddings each weekend and I have seen the full gamut of price range for ceremonies, from a $500,000 this weekend to one that took place right outside a room, with only 7 people and a priest and a nice dinner at the restaurant for everyone afterwards. Guess who the less stressed out and annoying guests were? Yes, it is some peoples' dream day, but the intimacy (and cost efficiency) of a small, unique wedding I think far outweighs the extravagance of a 300-400 person wedding where you it seems to just be a garish display of wealth (or future debt).

[...] so I’ve been trying really hard not to make a post about finance, but then I read this wonderful article. So, in that spirit, I’ll likely steer clear of the monetary issues involved with having an [...]

you can also get a wedding dress sewn *very* affordably, if you buy the pattern (no more than $20 bucks) and the material yourself. You don't have to go to a dressmaker, hunt around for the undercover seamstress.

Most clothes that are made in the USA are made in a person's home piecemeal. These people are often amazing seamstresses, very accurate, and very cheap. You can save money and rest secure in the knowledge that you're paying the person who is making the dress much more than that person would be receiving if you bought the same dress in a dress shop.

For one thing, statistically speaking (and forgive me if this has already been mentioned - I didn't want to scan through 74 comments) to say that the MEDIAN income is about 28K and the AVERAGE wedding is 28k and, thus, people spend a year's pay on their weddings is a fun statistic, but the Journal isn't being as statistically honest as they can in the presentation of that data. I am sure that the weddings of 4 or 5 ridiculous celebrities every year bump up the average by a measurable amount, and I'd be much more curious about the median wedding espense than the average.

Also, God willing I plan to get married at a county courthouse for $50.

[...] some coin on your wedding day, you know, if that’s your thing? Thoughts in the comments. The $28,000 question: Why are we all hypocrites about weddings? [I Will Teach You To Be [...]

Simplifying ain't easy. Weddings get competitive, but also there's the desire to treat your friends to the same caliber of evening that they have treated you to.

While the savings that everyone seems to be proud of are great, it's not always that easy. My fiancé and I live in a small apartment in a very expensive part of the country. We don't have a back yard, we don't have friends who have back yards, and sadly, we don't have friends who have wedding-useful skills. All we want to do is throw a nice party for our friends and family, almost all of whom will be coming in from (literally) across the country, and we sort of think it would be rude to not feed people dinner who have spent a thousand bucks on airfare + hotel just to show up. And because they are all already spending a lot of time and money to come, we can't really ask them to contribute to the party.

That means we have to rent a place big enough to handle our family, our friends, and their kids (minimum 60 people). We have to hire a caterer or alternatively buy out a restaurant for the night. Just that alone, without any of the other costs (dress, photographer, flowers, cake) costs around $15K for that many people (or more, depending on the venue). And we hate contributing to this industry -- the process of planning this thing is basically designed to suck the joy out of the day.

We're lucky -- we have the cash on hand because we're frugal in almost every other area of our lives. But it's just not always that easy to not spend the money if you don't have the other resources available.

Great post. I am currently engaged, 5 weeks, and my fiance and I quickly came to the conclusion that the list of 120 people we had invited was going to cost quite a bit. Our solution was to have a destination wedding on the same Mexican island where we got engaged. We are able to save a lot of money, can invite everyone on our list, and are looking forward to a really fun time.

As we were trying to figure out what to do, my fiancees mother gave her a great bit of advice. She said that no matter what we do, we'll never please everyone. When you think about it that way, you realize that it's your day and you're inviting everyone you care about to share it with you, not the other way around. With a destination wedding, not everyone will be able to attend. That's ok. My buddy said it best when he told me that people can back out of not going and no one is hurt because they got invited. You have no hard feelings that someone couldn't make it. The people who really love you will do what it takes to get there. Also, you have to remember that most people will have to travel to a wedding anyway, unless everyone you know still lives in the same town.

For my fiancee and me, once we agreed to have a destination wedding, everything fell into place. It takes a lot of stress off because you have a wedding coordinator and you relax because you make some basic choices, but ultimately, you just have to show up. The money you will save is great. All told, we'll probably spend about $15,000 on the wedding where we anticipate about 100 people. For that many people, we were probably looking at around $25,000-$30,000, at least.

For the few that thought the $28,000 number was low ...

I emphatically didn't want my family at my wedding. Not the norm, but since it's usually the bride's family that insists on "over the top" (not always, I know), we had freedom. Also, we were in our 40s, so the societal pressure is less.

License: $25 in Santa Fe, NM (where we live - free "destination")

Officiant: $0 (Justice of Peace in County prohibited from accepting even a tip)

Dress/Tux: $0, by looking in our closets

Dinner afterwards: $150 or so for the 2 of us

Rings: $0 - he didn't want one, and I didn't particularly care one way or the other

Grand total: $175 or so

The local courthouse weddings do keep the average under 30 grand.

Loved the article and the rss plugs (huge fan). Never thought at 21 I would need to start saving for a wedding, but the logic is undeniable. Thanks for the referral, I need to starting saving that 389.00/month....probably more since I; like most, will go over budget.

Thanks to you.. you scared the b'jss out of me !. :D

It's not all the difficult. Break the cycle. Go to the justice of the peace. Get married. Sign the registry. Enjoy a pleasant vacation away from jobs and worries. Return. Merge two already overstuffed households. Send wedding announcements: "share our unbelievable happiness, wish us luck, don't send presents, go to our myspace to see photos from our vacation at St. Tropez." Put the money you might have spent on a wedding into a college fund for your future children.

As I have begun the process of planning my wedding, the first step was establishing a proposed budget and working from there. I know exactly how much my parents will give, and not a cent more (I have 3 sisters), how much my fiance's parents will contribute, and then my fiance and I have worked out how much we plan to spend in total, by getting actual quotes from various places (high end and low end) and deciding how much we will each contribute as a result, leaving extra money for those unexpected expenses that are bound to pop up and don't want to throw on a credit card and deal with it later.

Of course everyone wants their dream wedding, but is it really worth all of the stress that will result when you're sitting at the table 6 months after the wedding and still owe 20,000 towards your wedding? Why not take that extra money that you could have spent and put it towards a down payment on the next big step in your lives together, buying a house.

Wow, I don't know where morons that spend $28K on weddings buy the stuff to do it, but I've got some left over paper plates I can sell you for $100 each.

My wife and I got married 2 years ago in Vermont, It cost a total of around $4500 we had 205 people at the reception. It was catered by a company called the Abbey and held at a very elegant reception hall, we rented for $200, dinner was $14.50 a plate and that let people choose between Chicken, Steak, and some veggie thing I forget what it was.

My wife and her mother made all the decorations for the hall, and bought most of them through iParty a party store change. It was a fall wedding, so we did everything up in fall themes.

We decorated the hall on Thursday for our Saturday wedding and people that worked at the place, were taking pictures of it on Friday saying hands down it was the most beautiful decorations the place ever had.

We went to Ireland for our Honeymoon, stayed for week, stayed in a 5 star castle, two 4 star hotels, and 2 bed and breakfasts all through Air Lingelus for $900 a person

You just need to know where to shop and be willing to put some sweat equity in to your wedding. Don't just expect to waited on hand and foot, if you do you will pay for it and you will be a $28K moron.

The thing that never, ever gets taken into account is this: no matter how determined you are to be frugal, no matter what you swear you won't do, there will be a mother or aunt or SOMEONE who will cause internecine family warfare for three months and cause you to blow your budget. And before you say "my family isn't like that," I want you to look if anyone's been married yet and go and talk to the married couple about who had the freakout. And even then, you'll only cover one side of the family.

Here's another tip: when you call to arrange flowers, catering, cake - DO NOT SAY IT IS FOR A WEDDING. Say it is for a family reunion, an anniversary party - all they honestly need to know is how many people are coming and what you want. The minute you say "wedding" your costs get jacked up 30-50%. I learned this 10 years ago when a friend decided to get married spontaneously, and we called around. One time I just totally forgot to say "it's for a wedding" and got the estimate, but then when my friend called back and mentioned the word wedding, suddenly the price jumped up: "Oh, well, you didn't say it was a WEDDING reception" "but what difference does it make? nothing has changed in my requirements"

Charles: Wow. Morons? That's really sweet. You need to consider that not everyone can get married in an affordable location. I'm from South Florida and thus chose to have my wedding there. Your $14.50/plate is my $100/plate. And my $100 could be California's $200. That is the absolute least expensive option from any vendor in the area. We spent around $30K and do not regret a single dollar of it as we had the time of our lives and continue to receive compliments to this day.

Ramit, Thanks for a great post. It is so important that people realize that saving and planning for a wedding is the most sensible way to go forward. There's something to be said for going the "simple" route, but it's not a terribly realistic path for most to follow. I knew going into mine that I wanted things a certain way, prioritized those things and went from there. Until one actually starts shopping for vendors there is no way to anticipate just how much things start to add up. Even just sales tax and required 20% gratuities are expenses that are often overlooked. You should also plan to spend slightly more than you budget for, because there is always one little expense that manages to sneak its way in there at the end (ours was chair covers that were supposed to be included).

I'm typically fairly frugal, and when I got married (at 27; my husband was 25. I'm 40 now) I was determined to do that frugally, like I did everything else. And we did. We drove to a nice little resort town one state over, I wore a dress I "could wear again" (although I never did, and just recently put it in the box for Goodwill, since it dates from 1994), and we were married at a wedding chapel out in the woods with lovely scenery and no guests. I think the whole thing, including rings (family stone, reset in a simple band, matching band for my husband) cost less than $1500. And you know what? If I had it to do over again...

I'd spend more money and do it UP. Lots of guests, lots of attendants, a fabulous dress, flowers like those huge cabbage roses in Four Weddings and a Funeral, and a great reception. Oh, and a REAL honeymoon.

But, y'know, I'd save up for it first, because just seeing all that on a credit card statement would probably make me sick to my stomach and unable to sleep. This is one of the benefits of a long engagement: it gives you plenty of time to start putting your money away. If you're living together (we weren't, so we had double rent payments, utility payments, etc.) you can really sock away some wedding cash. And if the time comes and you decide that you'd rather use it as a down payment on a house, well, more power to you. Just be warned that you MIGHT wish later on that you'd had those stupid cabbage roses. :-)

Great post, Ramit.

Ramit, despite your comments, it appears some are still stuck on stupid.

Time to start saving.

I initially wondered why you didn't account for compounding interest when figuring out how much to save. Then I did the calcs myself figuring in a conservative interest rate that I receive from ING and then increased the interest rate a bit more for my optimistic self. The monthly contributions do go down a bit but not significantly. I ran some numbers for certain goals for myself, namely a down payment, and was saddened, although not too shocked, to see how much more I would have to save and/or how much longer I would need to wait in order to accumulate my desired amount. I always considered myself fairly good with planning and budgeting but your post definitely pushed me to actually figure out definite numbers for my goals rather than ballpark estimates. Great post!

You are absolutely correct that one laughs at people for spending too much money and then when it becomes "their day" it is amazing how you can find the money to get the stupid centerpieces you want.

My husband and I paid in full for our entire wedding. To this day I can't believe how I let the wedding industry convince me I needed the matching pen and guestbook. Do you know where these are now 5 years later? In my closet. 5 years ago the average cost was 20k. It just goes to show how much the industry has grown.

To have a great wedding follow etiquette (real etiquette, not wedding industry etiquette) and be considerate of your guests. Those two small things ensure a great day for you and your guests.

Oh man. I'm getting married next June and here's my dilemma. My aunt has always said she'd be paying for my wedding. I don't have parents anymore and they never saved for anything. Now, we're planning this thing and she says there is no budget unless she sells an extra house that she has. But since she might be contributing something, she wants veto power of every decision I try to make. Thankfully she's trying to push things into the cheaper realm, but that's because she says she'll cook everything and wants her boyfriend to take the pictures. She's an ok cook, but I've never met her boyfriend. When we told her we'd picked a professional photographer that we know she answered "Well, I don't see why you'd want to pay a photographer when you have one for free!"

So, the pressure doesn't always come from where you expect.

When we got married in 2002 I left my wife do all the planning. She was balanced as she chose things that she wanted to splurge on and other she wanted to conserve on. We had a day wedding/reception because it's cheaper; no one really drinks during the day and older people find it easier to attend. We paid for the wedding $14,000 on our credit card earning miles; our honeymoon trip was free with all the miles and we already had the money to pay off the credit card cause we saved toward the wedding. We made a profit on the wedding and used the money for the downpayment on our house that we moved into the following year.

I remember one episode of Friends where Monica tells Ross that that British girl he married has been thinking of that day her whole life. It made me think and realize that yes as a guy you really don't play "wedding day" as a child or daydream about it. So there needed to be some balance between practical and extravagant. :)

I agree completely with you about the difference between budgeting and planning for a major event. I got married in April of this year, engaged in August '06, and had begun saving for a wedding in January '06, once we'd begun talking about getting married.

So when we got engaged, we each wrote down a must have list for the wedding/reception, and it came to be that we had a great catered BBQ, small wedding party, immediate family and close friends (70 total- sibs, grands/parents, and nieces/nephews totaled close to 40) a budding photographer, our favorite 3-person local band, and our favorite local microbrew's kegs.

Including gifts for wedding party, food/drink, flowers, rentals, officiant, wedding night hotel room, clothing, music, photographer, invites, family dinner the night before (some of our family had not met yet) we came in at $3,100. No debt, tons of fun, and rave reviews from friends and family.

We let our money we ALREADY HAD determine what we would spend, not what people expected or what the industry tells you you should do. Or worst of all, what we could put ona charge card or get out a loan to cover.

The only cost we transfered to other people was some friends setting up the hall the morning of, and friends who delivered outrgifts to our house after the wedding (they were stying at our place for a few nights after the wedding to pet sit and save $$ on a hotel).

[...] by sepial at August 20th, 2007 This time the wedding money-saving is more to do with adopting a smart strategy as early as [...]

It's all very well to go on about how much money you saved on your wedding -- no doubt lots of good ideas there -- but it does start sounding like the Four Yorkshiremen talking about how hard they had it as kids: "You got married under a tarp held up by four sticks? Luxury! We'd have given our eyeteeth to have a tarp, if we hadn't sold our eyeteeth already. We got married in a cardboard box on a traffic island on the Interstate Highway, and thought ourselves lucky..."

Here's the heart of the matter: retail businesses have their pricing structures. Within those structures, there's almost always a level near the top of the scale that's there to catch people who don't ask how much a thing costs. Those people are spending Fool Money. The most expensive thing you can say is "Price is no object." You're really saying "Hello, charge me the Fool Money rate."

It's worse if your fantasies about fairy-princess luxury include the idea that fairy princesses never have to stop and consider how much something costs. In some families, budget discussions are always painful. They're not about the sense of power and reassurance you get from being in control of your own finances. Instead, they're always and forever about not having enough money -- even if the family in question is well off. If you internalize that emotional response to budgeting, the only way to not have that flash of pain when you consider buying something is if you don't consider the cost at all. And how can you have you special, perfect day if all the preparations for it hurt? So the lid comes off the budget.

There is, in fact, a link between overspending at weddings and the incidence of divorce. Money problems are the single biggest source of stress for young couples. Taking on a heavy load of wedding debt may not break every marriage, but it makes things a lot harder than they need to be.

The trick isn't to not have fantasies. You're going to have them. That's good. They nourish the soul. But you have to learn to manage them in non-destructive ways. Loading yourself down with years of debt in order to film an advertisement for the life you wish you were having is not a good plan for happiness.

For instance, I keep hearing young women justify their wedding spending on the grounds that they've been dreaming about this day since they were little girls. Well, so what? Little kids have lots of fantasies, but most kids don't grow up to be firemen or cowgirls or clowns. Why should this little-girl fantasy about the perfect wedding day be so overwhelmingly important that it makes you throw reason and prudence out the window? Learn some new stories! Fantasize about something else!

Besides, the perfect wedding day makes a lousy fantasy. You get ONE DAY of pretending you're the most special girl in the whole wide world. Is that it? Will the rest of your life be an anticlimax? Is getting married the only adventure you can imagine having?

The other reason the perfect wedding day makes a lousy fantasy is that weddings take place in the real world, and they involve other people. All it takes is a freak thunderstorm, case of food poisoning, scheduling mixup, regional blackout, heart attack, decamped caterer, bad fall on a polished floor, et cetera, to bust you back down into the thoroughly imperfect everyday world. And those are just physical mishaps. There's no guarantee that none of your guests are going to be involved in an acrimonious lawsuit with another guest, or grab the mike from the DJ and start exhorting everyone to Come to Jesus, or get drunk and decide to have it out, at the top of her lungs, with the older cousin who sexually abused her as a child and the aunt who (as she sees it) let it happen. If your wedding-day dreams can't encompass the sudden eruption of messy real-world events, you need to re-think them.

The point isn't to have the cheapest wedding possible. The point is to not think of your wedding as something that happens on another plane of reality from the rest of your life, and plan for it like you'd plan for any other major expense.

It's funny how Mr. Setha keeps insisting, "It just isn't *realistic* to cut back and have a simple wedding," even as one reader after another posts to say how he/she did just that. It seems to me that at some point he'd be forced to consider the evidence that simplifying *is* a realistic approach that many people find preferable to saving for years to finance a one-day event.

When my husband and I married three years ago, we had over $40,000 in the bank and could easily have afforded the "average" $28,000 wedding--but to us, it made no sense at all to spend that kind of money on a single day. So we planned a simple, very personal wedding that ended up costing us around $2,500. (I'll spare you the details of how we managed this, since I'm sure you'd consider our very informal outdoor wedding "unrealistic"--but many relatives and friends told us it was the nicest wedding they'd ever been to.) The extra money went toward saving up to buy a house, a goal that was much more important to both of us than having an expensive wedding--and last month, we celebrated our third anniversary in our new home.

My point is simply this: of course, you want your wedding day to be beautiful. But my experience, and that of many other readers of this column, has been that how beautiful it is has little or no correlation to how much money you spend on it. You can have a beautiful, expensive wedding or a beautiful, simple wedding. And for those who can think of things they'd rather save their money for (not to mention those who actually *prefer* a simple wedding), the latter option is perfectly realistic.

In this day and age with divorce rates soaring, some women (and men) get to spend that childhood fantasy over (2nd marriage) and over (3rd marriage) again. :)

I wonder if the costs go up each time. They probably do because of inflation. ;)

[...] some coin on your wedding day, you know, if that’s your thing? Thoughts in the comments. The $28,000 question: Why are we all hypocrites about weddings? [I Will Teach You To Be [...]

[...] Sethi has a fascinating article on how to save for a wedding, including excel sheets so you can play with the numbers. Since, as the WSJ points out, the average [...]

jp - Your last comment reminded me of a buddy of mine. His third fiancee was finally the one with whom he actually walked down the aisle. And she had one hell of a nice diamond on her finger. Why?

Fiancee #1 is the type of person that I'd describe as the northern end of a south-moving donkey. She broke off the engagement and was kind enough to give him back the ring (but nothing else). But then he was stuck with a ring.

Financee #2 managed somehow to be even worse than Fiancee #1 and was unwilling to wear the new ring, so he upgraded it to a larger diamond model that had higher quality in each of the 4C's. Fortunately, he had the common sense to end that one.

Fiancee #3 was the keeper. She's a sweetheart and my buddy decided that she deserved her own ring, partially because he didn't want the ring to remind him of the previous women. So he upgraded yet again. Her rock is the size of a dwarf planet.

Kudos to you for saving money on something. You deserve a pat on the back. Unfortunately, having less than 10 people at my wedding isn't realistic. Having someone DJ, take pictures, bake a cake, etc also isn't realistic for me (I don't know anyone that could). Having a bring a dish wedding also isn't realistic. Renting a giant hall at the VFW isn't realistic because my lady loves architecture and wants her wedding to be in a setting that is architecturally beautiful and unique (a big room with tables and chairs is not I've come to find out). Also note we're buying a dress, because she can't sew for shit. If you made your own, awesome. If you'd like to make one for her, for free, I can send you her measurements. Don't hate on me because I'm going to spend some money on my wedding (which we've planned and are saving for - I'm not dropping $30k, but I'm not spending less than $10k either, unless we all stand in a field and catered food rains from the sky). You didn't spend a lot of money. That's great. You're fighting against the "wedding industrial complex", which I'm told is quite the sinister entity (they want you to buy stuff they sell, holy shit, what a concept). I'm sure you had a good time at your wedding and I'm sure your guests did too. But, how you saved money doesn't allow me to save money, since some (most) of them aren't options for various reasons (or maybe I've just been brainwashed by society). We've done research, asked around, determined the things that were important, estimated prices for them based on getting price quotes, and have come up with a cost for the whole deal and are saving for 10% more than that. If it's less, then awesome. If it's more, then shame on me for not planning and saving enough. It's a big deal to us and we want to celebrate it how we want to celebrate it.

I'm sure all the super cheap wedding people that posted before me have something else in their lives that are important to them and they spend money on it, whether it be their child's education, cars, their house, vacations, sports, clothes, technology, charity, whatever. It's great that you wanted to buy a house and saved for it and cut your spending on things that were less important to you (like your wedding). I think that's the point of this article. Plan and save. Spend on what's important to you. Is a wedding as important to some people as a house is to others? Dare I say...yes? Yeah, I know, I'm an idiot because I don't think like you. Hate me.

I don't know if people missed the point. I think trying to pay for the wedding you "have" to have is very in the box thinking. Change the paradigm and convince your parents that if they want a huge wedding for you, that's great if they want to pay for it. Otherwise, they are robbing their children and their grandchildren of a financially sound future.

The trouble is, we have such a strongly ingrained cultural idea of what a wedding is "supposed" to look like, that when we think about a budget wedding, we think, "Okay, where can I get a less expensive DJ?" and don't stop to consider, "Do I need a DJ at all?"

My grandparents and my husband's parents dashed down to the Justice of the Peace to get married, and they were just as married and as happy as any couple today who had a $25,000 wedding. What's happened in between their time and ours is the rise of the giant corporate Wedding Industry, publishing bridal magazines that try to convince us that we're getting cheated out of our SPESHUL day if we don't have a gazillion dollar dress, hundreds of guests, limo, band, fine china, and all the other expensive trimmings.

Not long after I was married the second time around, we were in a store and spotted a giant $500 wedding cake. My husband and I laughed. Our entire wedding hadn't cost that much. We had only the immediate family, used a chapel on the campus where we'd met (which was so pretty that it didn't need flowers), had a friend play guitar, and went to my parents' house for dinner afterwards. And guess what? The second marriage has lasted, while the first, that began with a big church wedding, didn't.

It's the marriage that matters, not the wedding. Keep that firmly in mind when planning.

^haha, I think I said exactly that.

I tallied up what a young lady could spend on important things, all generally occurring before age 30 (give or take a couple years):

(1) Graduate school

(2) Condo down payment

(3) Replace a car

(4) Wedding

I currently have an emergency fund, retirement accounts, a 529 plan & a condo fund. That's a lot! Once I get the cash built up for my b-school application fees ($250 each, generally), I'll move my 2nd job income into a car fund.

I think I told my parents 2 years ago that if they want a wedding, it's their responsibility because I am tapped out trying to cover everything else.

[...] a celebrity wedding, but what about the rest of us? Financial blogger Ramit Sethi has written up an intriguing post on how to avoid potential sticker shock when planning a wedding, entitled “The 28,000 [...]

Thanks, Ramit, for bringing a fresh perspective to the topic and sticking to it. It seems that everyone gets caught up in the wedding competition--even if they're just competing to see who could spend the least.

If eloping or getting married at the courthouse is right for you, hurrah. However, it's not outrageous for people to want to have their friends and relations share one of life's most special occasions. The courthouse or Vegas isn't an answer for everyone--for some, it can be the equivalent of giving friends, family and business contacts the metaphorical finger. (Certainly not worth a savings of a few thousand dollars in those cases...)

A significant portion of most "outrageous" wedding budgets is about simple courtesy and respect--such as feeding guests non-crappy food and having the wedding on a day (usually Saturday) that's convenient for everyone--not just the bride and groom.

Ramit's right on here, as are the commenters who noted that shifting costs onto others is not necessarily worthy of emulation. To each their own--there's nothing wrong with spending money on a wedding, provided it's done responsibly.

[...] Ramit Sethi, personal finance smart cookie at I Will Teach You To Be Rich, has one one of the absolute best posts I’ve read about the reality of wedding finances on this site. Check out:  The $28,000 Question: Why Are We All Hypocrites About Weddings? [...]

There just seems to be something so wrong about moving so much closer into debt the day of your wedding... Like the diamond industry, the wedding industry has found a way to make expensive weddings the norm now....

-Raymond

Money Blue Book

I have been a private jeweler for more than 20 years and I could tell you some stories! One that comes to mind: a young couple came to purchase wedding bands with the father of the bride to be. He joked he was going broke paying for this wedding and told them he would write them a check for $25,000 to forget about a wedding and get married in the preacher's office. They declined such an offer.

Just wanted to point out this article from last week's WSJ about the MEDIAN cost of a wedding (not the mean). According to the article the median cost of a wedding is closer to $15,000.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118790518546107112.html

So, yes, it makes sense that all the commenters above were able to tell their nice stories about how they planned a cheaper wedding than everyone else. They didn't really have a cheaper wedding than the majority of people, they just fell below the average cost of the wedding which is skewed by people who have $800,000 weddings. (no joke see this article from the Wash Post http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/detail.jsp?key=68409&rc=bu )

Totally correct about the saving, I bought a house (and drained all of my ready cash) then found the man I married. We then bought a house together (while renting out my little one) and basically turned to our credit cards to pay for our CHEAP by necessity wedding (5000 for 120 guests, but only because we live in a cheapish part of the country). We then went camping on our honeymoon because we had about $50 left on our visas.

Our wedding was fine, and I feel good about how I spent the money, but it would have been really nice to have had money set aside to spend on a honeymoon, nicer decorations or helped out with my bridesmaids costs. I had to wait 2 months before I could pay off the balance of my photographers bill.

Anyway, saving is good- I wish I'd done it.

Elizabeth: I was going to point out the WSJ article, but you beat me to it!

Ramit, you got suckered on this one like the rest of us. The wedding industry loves the high numbers, but really most people don't spend that kind of money. However, this DOES mean that your quick spreadsheet is terribly flawed.

Here in the UK, if you mention "wedding" to any florist, caterer or marquee company and the price is automatically greater. Many people book for their, erm, "party" to get a competitive quote.

I see weddings as sort of like government expenditure. Since you are invariably locked into a date, and it cannot be cancelled if the price is not competitive, it gives contractors carte blanche to charge over the odds.

It's easy to scoff at expensive weddings when you have no idea how expensive even the simplest of things is. I just had my wedding, and I was shocked at all the things I never thought of that were all of a sudden burning huge holes in our wallet. You never realize how much tradition and etiquette will force you to pay for things you don't think you need to pay for. But the main thing that will get you is the numbers. All of a sudden when you're writing the invites, you start feeling guilty for not inviting people, and start inviting everyone. All of a sudden you have a HUGE number of guests, and it's impossible to do anything semi-cheap. My main advice is for boys and girls who are close to an en