Range of money

Whatever you can afford. People have amazing civil ceremonies for $35. You should base your wedding off of your budget, not your budget off of your wedding.

View Quoted Comment Great way to explain that ! Thanks , we have been trying to find the perfect place & we’ve narrowed it down to 5 but I was just curious

The cost of a wedding includes many different factors and what your definition of an amazing wedding is as everyone has a different idea of a perfect wedding. Therefore, it is hard to say what the cost would be. For instance we spent over $20,000. We had a summer wedding at a hotel with a ballroom. We had about 90 guests even though we invited over 150. We got married in Scranton, PA not far from a popular resort/casino so it is a more expensive area in Pennsylvania. Our wedding was buffet style. We had all feel flowers which was rather expensive.

View Quoted Comment That’s my range , thanks a lot !

Like pp said, it's what you can afford and are comfortable with paying. i've a friend who spent a fortune on his and he didn't have that money so he had wedding debt - that's not very wise BUT he did have one beautiful wedding, the aesthetics they paid so much for really did look fab

Like PPs have said, it’s really going to depend on where you live and your budget.


The cost of my wedding in California would probably have been a lot more extravagant in lower cost-of-living state. In the same respect, what we spent probably wouldn’t have gotten us as far in Manhattan or Hawaii.

View Quoted Comment

I wouldn't put us in a bad spot financially , but i can see why he would sacrifice

What I did was some research on venues. Came across information that discussed looking for a venue with a lot of inclusive options. So I searched inclusive venues in my area. My venue is the same price no matter the season, had a reasonable fee for drink and food coverage (eliminated search for caterer) .... had tasting and food is good. They offer any color decor you could want, with chair options, chair coverings, table decor. They contract a company for ceiling swags, uprights, etc (eliminated outside rentals search). They provide fresh floral center pieces for each table and the adjoining terrace for the ceremony has beautifu floral landscaping (only needed florist to do flowers for my bouquet and for my small bridal party and our mothers). They have a pastry chef to design our custom wedding cake (no need to search bakeries). And included coordinator for day of. All for just over $8000 including taxes and gratuity for 75ppl, 6 1/2 hrs, summer, Saturday afternoon, Chicago suburb.

As everyone has said, this is totally based on where you want to have the wedding, what you can afford, and what you're willing to do.

Research is your best friend. Check out the "Planning" and "Vendors" tools at the top of the page - they are life savers. Cross-reference them with other wedding sites, google, Yelp, etc. Once you get an idea of what things in your region cost, you can set a budget and a guest list. (Keep in mind, DIYing sometimes costs *more*... depending on where you are and what you are doing.)

We had a lower-than-average budget for our region, but in other regions, it would have been considered a very splashy affair... but we got married in NYC, so prices for everything are inflated. Then again, we also made a bunch of budget decisions others might not make - sample sale dress, fake flowers, and we also planned the wedding in less than 8 months, so we snapped up some vendors for lower rates (they just wanted to book the work).

Also, keep in mind, this is your and your FS' wedding. You do not have to have things other people had, just to have them. A lot of people love photobooths, but we wanted people to dance and enjoy the view from our venue. Other people really want special performances, or aesthetics. Find out what you two really find important, and spend there. Everything else is just... extra.

Depends on your budget! We are spending like $27k for around 150 people

I think the biggest factor is location. For example, I live in the NYC metro area and our budget is about 60,000, not including the honeymoon, and this is considered on the lower end for my area! We are planning an upper-scale reception, but for an extravagant wedding, I've known people to spend upwards of 100k-200k.