Wedding Cost

My boyfriend and I are close to getting engaged, and when we do, we want to get married within 6 months. Which means we have to book a hall immediately after getting engaged. How much would it cost to have a deejay, wedding cake, invitations, hire a justice of the peace, etc. for a nice wedding? I know it totally varies and the average is around 25K, but I would like a breakdown of how much each thing costs, if possible. Also, we would have less than 100 people at our wedding.
I should say it would be in Westchester county, which is right outside of NYC. If that helps.

The average price for "food and drink" at a reception is $185 per person in the US . . and if you live in the West Chester County/NYC area you can count on that price and possibly higher.

The reception is ALWAYS fifty percent of your total wedding cost. And it does not make a difference if you are having a breakfast in a hotel or a catered dinner at a banquet hall or a barbecue at your Grandfather’s farm.

Invitations can range from $250 – $1000 (depending the style and paper quality)

DJ can range from $400 – $1000 (you get what you pay for)

Wedding cake can range from $4.00 – $10.00 per slice (if anyone tells you that they can bake you a wedding cake for $1 – $2 per slice RUN the other way)

Officiant can range from $300 to $800 (your going to have an easier time finding a nondenominational minister than a Justice of the Peace)

Professional photographer/Wedding album . . the price can range from $1000 – $5000

The average price for a bride’s bouquet is $185 and in the NYC area the average may be $250

Answered by: A Certified wedding specialist / A Professional bridal consultant / A Wedding ceremony officiant

I know there’s obviously all sorts of different costs for a wedding, but a regular Catholic wedding and a regular reception (open bar of course!) what would that run a person?

It all depends on your culture. Im italian and when I got married 22 years ago, it cost me $60.00 per person and booze was included. It is much more expensive now, I know if I would get married again today, it would cost aprox. $120.00 per person , booze included.

Good Luck…start saving !!

if anyone could please share their stories of finance i would greatly appreciate it. Im looking for a small wedding probly about 50 guests. and to rent a hall. booze, and a small dinner. I have a photographer and ill have to buy a dress too. any tips, suggestions, stories or even numbers would be greatly appreciated. im just afraid that i will never be able to afford this bloody wedding!
oh god. lol im in canada as well. would eloping be cheaper?

2,000 – 3,000 with the help of the family.

Good luck!

I and my boyfriend got engaged lately and planning to have a wedding.
Due to budget, we cannot afford a big wedding; we areplanning to have a small wedding with direct family members and close friends.
The problem is, we live in the middle point of both parents and frinends.
We decided to do so when we sarted to take our relationship seriously for fairness.
So now the question is are we supposed to pay for the traveling costs for the guests coming to our wedding?
If we did, it’s gonna cost more than the wedding itself. It is going to be $400 per guest at least.
Honestly, we cannot afford it.
Should we still manage to pay for those or how can we tell them about tavel costs?
Everybody know we are on tight budget and show understanding,
but some people still asking us if we are paying for the flights.
How to deal with it? Maybe we just shouldn’t have wedding at all?
Any suggestions or ideas appreciated.

I absolutely do not think that you should have to pay for your guests’ transportation to your wedding. I have only really heard of very wealthy families doing that.

I am from IL and come from a mid-class family. None of my family members have ever paid our transportation to a wedding for their son or daughter. My parents have traveled as far as Boston and Idaho for nieces and nephews weddings on their own dime.

Honestly, I think it is a lot to ask for you to pay the travel expenses of others. A lot of people where I am from won’t even pay for an open bar, let alone travel. You should not have to begin your married life with a buttload of debt.

Hopefully, some of them can ride together and share expenses.

hi, i’m getting married in november and a family member has offered to do the buffet at the evening reception for 120 people. Its going to be a cold buffet. the usual, sandwiches, quiche, sausage rolls etc. I need an idea of how much its going to cost please. we have a very low budget so don’t want to be spending hundreds of pounds 🙂 whats the cheapest we could do it?

about £2.50 per head @ the hotel i work at i can do a buffet for 60 people for about £1.50 per head all you have got to do is shop around
farm foods is relay good & b&m bargains if you have one near you.
but what ever you do don’t use cheap bread for your sandwiches, have a great day pc try not to use iceland they are well over priced

The bakery said to save on cost, they can make cake to feed 20 people then for the rest of 30 of them- have a sheet cake… but how do they do it? do they make their cake- and then put the sheet cake underneath so it all looks like together? or do they feed the 20 people, then go get a sheet cake- and serve that up??

They will have the 2-tier wedding cake out in the reception hall for all to see, and keep the sheet cake in the back to simply cut and serve.

like if it was really expensive, what made it that way?

Im just trying to get a ballpark of things for future reference and know how much we need to save.

Thanks!

We are spending about $20,000.
$11000 of that is food and drink. $100pp is the average price where we are so this is about normal. We could have done it a bit cheaper ($9000) at a place that did not allow tastings, or much more expensive at alot of other places. That is for pre dinner drinks and finger food, entree, main (choice), dessert, coffee and chocolates.
Another thing that is expensive is the dress, if you let it be. Unfortunately I fell in love with a 2009 dress, so I can’t find it secondhand or discounted anywhere! My suggestion would be don’t tempt yourself with the brand new dresses, go for one from last season and get it secondhand at a bargain price.
And don;t get sucked into having things just because the wedding industry says you need them.

I want an open bar and I’m trying to convince my fiance that it’s the only way to go if we have alcohol. We’re probably going to have at least 200 guests. We’re on a budget so I believe the most inexpensive way to go is to buy everything wholesale and hire a bartender. Anyone have any experience with this, did it go as planned? I need to have estimated numbers for my fiance when we sit down and talk about this.

We provided our own alcohol for 80 guests. The catering service we used for the buffet dinner included a bartender to serve the drinks so I don’t remember how much that portion cost by itself. We didn’t want to do a cash wedding because I’ve hated it whenever I’ve seen it at weddings.

But we didn’t have a full bar with mixed drinks, we only had beer and wine. It was far cheaper to do that because my father-in-law homebrews beer as a hobby and we bought the wine/champagne in bulk from Costco.

If I had to throw a number at all the alcohol I would say around $600 for about 30 gallons of beer, 2 cases of wine, and a case of champagne. The bartending service (including setup and equipment) was probably another $500 for a 5-6 hour long reception.

So overall, around $1100-$1200 total.

It went great, the bartender had a table (with a tip jar) to serve wine from the bottles and beer from the kegs. The caterer also had coffee, fruit punch, and ice water (late July wedding so it was hot that day).

Just wanted to know how much does it cost to rent a tuxedo, paino player, expo center for reception and dances, flowers, invitations, and more. Does anyone know what the pastor says to all weddings like what to repeat to the pastor? Is everyone nervous on their wedding day? There is a beautiful woman that I have been taking out for awhile and we are talking about getting married hopefully real soon and still madly in love! Just getting ideas on what the average wedding costs.
How much does the marriage license cost and where can we get one?

The average wedding in a metropolitan area costs close to 30,000 dollars but weddings can be done for much much less expensive than that, though you’d be hard pressed to have it all for under 10,000.

I think everyone is nervous on the wedding day.

Among the big expenses is the reception. How many people, open bar versus cash bar. Buffet’s can start at 28/a head, sit down’s can go up to 135/a head. Mine was 42/head 5 hr reception, open bar, with hot hors devours, we had close to 150 people, with the 18 percent gratuity it was 6000 dollars

A tux shouldn’t be much more than 100 dollars

Flowers, depends what you want, we spent 30 dollars the day of the wedding at a flower shop, made four bouquets and tied some ribbon around them. Some people spend 3000 dollars on flowers if you are decorating the church etc.

Invitations-not a major expense, you can print them yourself with card stock for under 1/each. For 100 people you will only need 50 invites. Invitations can go up to 3 even 4 dollars each. We spent 88 dollars, yep 88cents each

A piano player I have no idea, my sister had violin players for her wedding ceremony, it was 350 for two of them for 45 minutes

A photographer costs 1500-4000 dollars

Cake 350 and up, sometimes its included with the reception

The church cost us 1000 dollars. 300 for the church, 275 for the organist, 250 to the deacon, 150 to the pastor

The wedding dress cost 1000 dollars for us. My dress was 399, alterations 60 (no hemming, I am 5’10"), shoes 25 (bargain), slip 100, bustier 60, veil 125, tiara 50, purse 40, jewelery 150, guest book 25, unity candle and pillars 45, cake topper 75, ring bearer pillow 15, flower girl basket 12.

wedding rings, we got plain gold bands 60 each

DJ we had a DJ it was a friend for 250, going rate is 600-900 dollars

a marriage license costs 30 dollars at the courthouse

we spent 400 on wedding favors each were about 3.35

honeymoon we spent 2000

my sister did the centerpieces for 500

The whole shabang was 13,000 including the honeymoon and we cut alot of corners with the DJ, flowers, invites, and wedding bands, our photographer, cake, wedding dress and accessories, and reception were an average amount, we had alot of people, had an expensive church, expensive cake topper

My sister’s wedding hasn’t happened yet, its 82 dollars/a head, 100 guests so 8200 for the reception

Her wedding band is 2700 dollar platinum and diamond ring, his ring 350

Her cake comes with the reception site

The DJ is 800

The photographer is 1500

The dress is 700+ accessories 1500

Invites are 3/ea so 150

the violinists 350

church 500 (including gift to pastor)

tux 100
marriage license 30

flowers 450
favors rock candy swizzle sticks 42cents each two per person 84 dollars
total: 16,714.00
no honeymoon

I want to give her everything she wants but I’m not a millionaire. Were going to have around 150 guests and that alone seems to be $6-8,000. for food and drink. Still being realistic but not over the top, how much is a fair amount to spend on this one day party with out putting me in debt?

Consider this website to give you a general idea and estimate for cost of weddings in your area:

www.costofwedding.com

On an average, for the Bay area, consider approximately 30,000.00 35,000.00 for up to 150 guests (moderately priced budget wedding). Personally, I’d have the reception at a restaurant that can accomodate that many guests (you will avoid the extra headaches of dealing with a rental company for renting linens; silverware; tables; chairs……etc…..) dealing with caterers.

Restaurants and/or hotels (with banquet rooms) may cost a little more (example $65.00 & up per person), but they already have all of the equipment, staffing and accomodations built into their price. It’s less work for you to deal with.

Hope this helps you out.