How Much Did You Spend on your Wedding?

I don't think it's taboo, but some people are kind of sensative about money so I guess just kind of getting a feel for the person.

For our wedding it's going to cost us about $4500-5k total.

There is no such thing as a taboo question, as long as you start it with, "If you don't mind my asking..." This way, if they feel uncomfortable answering you, they can politely decline. Most family members (especially your mom, aunts, and grandmas) will be happy to share their wedding experiences, cost included. Just remember that most of them got married smewhere between 20 and 50 years ago, so adjust their figures with inflation lol.

I discussed this with my parents and my DH's parents... we worked out how much their weddings would have cost in modern terms.

My parents spent around $1-2k on their wedding, with my mom and friends making the food themselves, holding it in a friend's backyard, and my mom borrowing her dress. It was very simple and their largest expenditures were the church fees and her wedding ring.

On the flip side, DH's parents are Venezuelan and it is tradition to hold two weddings. One, a civil ceremony where close friends and family are invited. Then, a second church wedding where anywhere from 500 - 1000 people are invited... so you can imagine how much that wedding cost.

My FIL, MIL, DH and I spent around $2,500 on our civil ceremony with 40 guests (as per tradition in his family) and we will be holding the Church wedding in June, where the price tag is currently estimated at $15,000 with closer to 100 guests (a good number of whom are the same as attended the civil ceremony).

When I started planning, when I'd run into relatives and friends who were recently married, I asked my them about their vendors (usually just one or two and how they liked their services, etc) and casually asked how affordable they were (never asked for a dollar amount). Most of the time even if I just asked about one vendor, they told me about 4-5 of them, and a couple of people broke down their entire wedding for me and almost always they told me about how much it had cost them!! I think that casually asking them about the vendor rather than flat out asking about their budget was less intrusive and allowed them to tell me what they felt comfortable with sharing. I never felt like the conversations were pressured. I found my cater and amazing cake lady this way!!! Turns out every relative and friend I talked to had used the same cake person (out of like 6 in the area!) and loved her!! The rest I'm pretty much diying so they didn't matter! haha

I've always heard never go over 10% to 20 % of the total income of the couple...for a year. that is the new fashion if all of the money is coming from the couples. If family and friends want to make a gift as a wedding present of paying for dress, hair, anything then you can always budget for less. Right now Tom and I have set the absolutely limit $10,000. We are trying for much less.

Our wedding budget was $10,000, and we came in just below that. Here is a breakdown of our budget.

$26,000-$30,000 if you add in the wedding band, engagement ring, all the usual stuff, and a live Pink Floyd tribute band playing the wedding.

I lucked out because I have a HUGE family. A majority of who is coming to our wedding is family, and we have 120 people coming. We are trying to keep it under 3000. And it looks like it might just work. But, my father is a chef, and is doing the food, my brother is a dj, and my mom and other dad paid for my dress. Our rings together are going to be around 1000, the venue is only 800, and we have to rent chairs, but thats 130. it just depends on what you can afford.

I'm not sure how much would mine is gonna turn to be, but we arent trying to go over 12k... Our tradition is to hold two weddings as well, the civil one which is just very close family, and then the church ceremony and reception. We are hoping we get help from my fh's family since they have that tradition too, which in my side my parents help only.

I don't know if it's taboo or not..but to answer the question we spent just under 2000 for a ceremony and reception for 127 people

Cew2 said it well, don't lead with the "how much did you spend", but lead with questions about their planning. I told a few recent brides I was trying to figure out budget and how to manage it, and they either told me all about their budget or one even showed me the spreadsheet of every single expense engagement ring through honeymoon.

Don't put yourself into debt over the wedding (or anyone else). You don't want to start married life that way. $1,000 and 15 guests and you are just as married as $10,000 and 150 guests.

We spent about $7,000 and 60 guests.

I agree with Genevieve, a wedding just isn't worth going into debt over. We have or will have 2 kids to put through school so a $10K wedding just to please society or guests is out of the question. We are hoping not to spend more than $1k on ours, of course, we aren't following the rules of etiquette or traditional with our wedding either.

I don't think it's apprpriate to ask about money or wedding budget. It is perfectly acceptable, as many said to ask about vendors. You can say we are trying to put together our budget, or we have budgeted $X for a dj- based on your experience, are we too high or too low? I think you will be suprised at how much information people volunteer, but I don't think it's okay to ask unless they have shown they are willing to discuss it.

I think it is acceptable as long as you are close enough with the person you are asking that you know they will not be offended.

I agree with those who say not to just lead by asking people how much they paid. They may be offended even if you start out with "If you don't mind me asking..." (Which doesn't really give them a chance not to be asked, so it doesn't take much of the pressure off to answer, imo.)

Talking to local people and asking about vendors, or talking to Brian since he's worked in the area, is the best way to do it, because there is so much variation in pricing--the absolute best thing, if you can, would be to ask someone who had a wedding similar to what you want, in terms of size and general feel.

This probably doesn't help much, but when all is said and done, we will probably spend around $25,000 for everything, including rings, rehearsal dinner, and honeymoon. Our reception alone will probably be about $12,000 - $14,000 and honestly, that is at the least expensive venue we could find that we loved. We could have saved a little bit of money by choosing a different hotel, but we love this one. And we're actually having our wedding at an airport hotel because it's about 1/2 the price of a downtown hotel. We have a lot of people coming from out of town so the hotel is necessary.

We are also in a high cost area (Baltimore) where the normal starting price per person at a downtown hotel is $120 pp plus service charges and taxes. We found an amazing venue for 1/2 that.

I'm in Bmore and will mostly get married here...and will be damned if I spend $25K at BWI. Sorry, maybe it's 'cause I'm just not inviting as many people or the fact that our parents aren't putting in a dime, or we too have kids and college to consider, or I'm delusional as all hell to think I won't pay that much.

Sorry, didn't even answer the question! lol

It's not taboo, but it's how you ask, and who you ask. I agree with the comment about asking older people too. I would ask newlyweds.