8 Wedding Essentials I Hated Paying For
Weddings are grossly expensive, but there are some checks that you have to force yourself to write. You put your pen to the checkbook and hover over the signature line at the bottom, holding your breath and hoping that the person you’re writing it to will somehow forget you didn’t pay them.
For those of you about to get married, those married folk basking in the bliss that is not planning the wedding anymore, and those who just like making fun of the wedding industry, let’s sit back for a minute and imagine that you’re going to have the average American wedding.
There are websites suggesting the average cost of a wedding is around $24,000. But let’s face it. When a girl thinks of weddings, she thinks of the Knot. According to the website/magazine guru, you’d drop an average of $28,000 depending on where you live. It only goes up from there.
If wedding reality shows are to be believed, the blushing bride would become a passive-aggressive, fire-breathing beauty queen for eleven months. But only until the wedding, and the groom is supposed to tell her if she for real goes all Bridezilla. Because that’s the best way to keep her from tying him to the bed with socks and disappearing for a few days.
But let’s focus on the costs and not the emotional trauma. What the hell kind of day can you get for $28,000? Yes. DAY. These costs don’t even count towards the honeymoon or rehearsal dinner. Those are different beasts.
Just so you know, I used a wedding calculator generously offered by Weddingwire to calculate the average percentage brides are told they should expect to pay per wedding category.
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#8 – Engagement Ring
Let’s start at the beginning. You know that diamonds aren’t super-cheap or anything, and that gold has broken some record for being all-time pricey. Still, the groom saved a few hundred – maybe even a thousand – dollars to go buy that rock his lady pointed out at Tiffany’s. Then he looks at the price tag and decides to go to a pawn shop.
A lot of jewelry stores have credit lines, which is more than what your caterer will offer on the prime rib. Still, the sticker shock hurts. I know this first hand; I worked at a jewelry store for a year and saw it often. At your average diamond store in the mall, the classic 1 carat diamond solitaire ring starts at about $2,500 for a reasonable quality stone. That’s for a 6mm stone, which translates to about 1/3 the size of your pinky nail.
There’s a great cracked article about the origin of the diamond ring tradition, and if you’re a groom trying to get your girl to go with something other than a diamond, you might want to get her to read it.
There are plenty of alternatives to a diamond ring that are growing increasingly popular. My guess is that the real reason for the switch from diamonds involves the husband-to-be saying something along the lines of, “No way in hell are you getting a glittery rock that could be a down payment on a car.”
The best of both worlds.
I’m working on another article on how to pay for a wedding without selling your kidneys. You’re laughing. You won’t be, soon.
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#7 – The Wedding Planner
The suggested average for a wedding planner is 2%, which in our hypothetical $28k scenario translates to about $500. That sounds alright, when you think about how a day-of planner makes sure everything goes smoothly on the wedding day, and lets the bride (and thereby the groom) enjoy herself. After some research, you realize just how freaking expensive planners are. That $500 estimate is complete bull.
Most day-of planners – or, at least, planners who have more than one wedding under their belt – cost much more than that. It all differs by location, but even podunk Tallahassee, the average cost is $700 for day-of. That’s a guess, because most planners (like almost all wedding vendors) don’t actually post their prices.
But let’s say that you want the planner to actually, I don’t know, help you plan.
Planners are good for negotiating better prices and coordinating unique details that set the day apart from your ex’s wedding to that douchebag. They also help you prepare for wedding day drama, which is a benefit if anyone you know drinks heavily.
You know you just thought of like three uncles without pausing for a second.
Getting real planning help and advice from a wedding planner actually costs much more than $500. There are partial- and full-wedding planning services, which can range from the high hundreds to the thousands.
Suddenly that 2% doesn’t sound so reasonable, huh?
Don’t get me wrong. Planners work hard and a good one earns every penny you pay him/her. But skewed averages like this just make you want to bang your head on the wall.
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#6 – The Venue
For those of you who don’t know wedding-speak, the venue(s) is/are the ceremony/reception location(s). You can have the wedding ceremony & reception at the same place. However, if you really want to screw with people you can have the ceremony at a different site from the reception and make them drive from one to the other to get their booze.
The venue is a necessary evil. You have to have the wedding somewhere and there are a variety of venue types to choose from. By that, I mean there are two:
- The venue is just a location and doesn’t offer any additional services, or
- The venue makes you use their caterer.
I’m still not really sure which is worse.
If they are just hosting you, you have to take care of everything and bring it all together. That’s when a planner is helpful, because managing all of those vendors is kind of a pain in the ass. Still, these venues – who, may I remind you, do no more than keep the AC going and let you sit in their reception hall – can charge thousands. Thousands! There’s one garden in town that wanted over $2,000 for the evening. They didn’t even have a paved parking lot.
The second demon venue type can appear cheaper – at first. They show you the venue price, which is usually significantly cheaper than the garden with no parking lot. Then, you see their requirement that you use their kitchen to cater your wedding. When you look at their prices, resist the urge to hurl the menu card at the person trying to get you to book there. They more than compensate themselves for their “discounted” venue cost.
Whatever your choice, it’s recommended that couples-to-be reserve about 10% of their budget to the venue itself. So yeah, that’s $2,600 for the right to get drunk under a roof.
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#5 – Flowers
Between flowers and décor, brides are told to pay an average of 8% on this category. 8%? Doesn’t sound too bad, right?
Dude. They’re flowers. They turn brown in a week.
That 8% translates into over $2,200 ($2,226!) for fragile petals that mask your uncle’s B.O. but wilt in the process. And it goes up if you want precious blooms, like Bird of Paradise.
The hard fact is you can’t avoid flowers in a wedding. You need the bridal bouquet and the bridesmaids’ bouquets. You have to have the centerpieces, ceremony décor, and rose petals for that perfect entrance. You can’t leave out the boutonnieres for every father/brother/groomsman/I-kind-of-knew-him-in-pre-K combination, and you’ll be sorry if you forget the corsages for every mother/grandmother/it’s-her-birthday-and-she’ll-throw-a-fit-if-she-doesn’t-get-attention lady in the crowd.
To give you an idea of just how expensive this is, my family made the bridesmaid bouquets & ceremony décor. We even went low-key on the flowers, only splurged on my bouquet ($300!! For FLOWERS), and haggled like we were street vendors. We still paid $1,600 before taxes.
Have I emphasized that these were just flowers?
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#4 – Taxes
Yeah, you didn’t think about that, did you? Uncle Sam gets a cut of everything. That’s fine, when you’re buying groceries. He gets $12.74. Whatever.
But let’s remember our hypothetical wedding’s budget – $28,000. That’s more than some people’s annual salaries.
If you go for the destination wedding (God help you) or you happen to live in a heavy tourist state by accident (because freaking everyone loves Tallahassee), the taxes will make nookie with your checkbook. More than once.
Here, the sales tax is 7.5%. Wait a minute – that’s more than we’re supposed to pay for the officiant, cake, and ceremony music combined. So if we’d had the average wedding, we would have actually paid $30,100. That’s yet another $2,000 thrown on the end.
Thanks, America.
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#3 – Food
The flowers last longer than the food, and we both know how much I loved those. Yet it’s recommended you allocate roughly 40% of your budget to feeding your guests. Wait, 40% of $28,000 is…holy shit. $10,780. For food.
That’s right – almost half of the money reserved to celebrate you and your better half is going right into the belly of the woman who snickered as you walked down the aisle.
Secretly, she has no interest in what you’re saying.
In a buffet setting, you’re only permitted to scour the tables for about an hour, so don’t feel bad when the DJ tells you to eat first. Many couples don’t even eat on their wedding day because of the flurry of pictures, dances, and ceremonies.. You’d better hurry, because Aunt Elise sure is eyeing what’s left of the Prime Rib. Eating at a buffet wedding is a competitive sport.
In terms of cost, it’s the sit-down dinners that really get you. You pay more for the white gloved service. Duh. But what’s funny (in a facepalm kind of way) is that you actually get less food. Think about it: you pay less for a buffet where people can pile a few plates high with food and come back later, but when the waiter sets the plate before you, it’s very carefully-portioned and all you get.
Either way you go, it’ll be the most expensive meal any normal person will ever eat. Savor the lamb, damn it!
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#2 – Gratuity
So you just paid nearly $10,800 for food. Cool. You took a deep breath. You remembered that quote from X-Men First Class about how true understanding lies in the balance between rage and serenity, or something. Whatever you did, you’re zen now.
As you restart your heart and read through the contract, you notice a little section at the bottom about gratuity. 20% is automatically added. You know, to make it easier on you.
Sarcastic flick off
How sweet.
Instead of $10,000, you’re now paying them $12,000. For the same food.
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#1 – Dress
What’s the most expensive piece of clothing that you own? Before I bought my dress (ok, before my Mom bought my dress), it was a pair of Buckle jeans that cost $80. It was the most money I’ve ever thrown down on threads.
But holy hell: the recommended budget for your wedding dress is 9% — almost $2500.
Did your heart skip beats? I’ve been married nearly six months and mine still needed a restart.
There are ranges, of course. Mine was $550 before all the accessories. My aunt treated me to the several hundred dollars’ worth of accessories, including the corset, petticoat, veils, gloves – I will concede that I was layered in white satin awesomeness. But the dress was actually on the LOW range of wedding dresses.
If you want a designer dress, expect to pay $1,000 – $2,000. If you want a custom-tailored dress, obviously expect to pay more: even up to $4,000. Of course, fabric and design play into cost. If you want intricate, hand-sewn beading, you’ll pay for it. If you want silk, oh how you will pay for it.
And then what? You’ll wear the dress once. Yes, you’ll look absolutely stunning, but then it goes in a box. If you choose to have it preserved, you’ll be able to look at it through a plastic screen whenever you want and pass it on to your daughter, who will likely think your style is outdated and tacky.
But damn, you’ll look good on your day! That’s work a few thousand dollars, right? Right? Hello?
Breakdown of wedding estimates, according to WeddingWire:
| Budget |
$ 28,000 |
|
| Cost |
Amount |
Percent |
| Catering |
$ 10,780 |
39% |
| Venue |
$ 2,576 |
9% |
| Dress |
$ 2,492 |
9% |
| Flowers |
$ 2,226 |
8% |
| Photography |
$ 2,100 |
8% |
| Videography |
$ 1,400 |
5% |
| Band |
$ 1,120 |
4% |
| DJ |
$ 840 |
3% |
| Invitations |
$ 840 |
3% |
| Cake |
$ 700 |
3% |
| Jewelry |
$ 560 |
2% |
| Planning |
$ 490 |
2% |
| Wedding Night & gifts |
$ 476 |
2% |
| Beauty |
$ 280 |
1% |
| Ceremony Music |
$ 280 |
1% |
| Favors |
$ 280 |
1% |
| Limo |
$ 280 |
1% |
| Officiant |
$ 280 |
1% |