13K weddings last year cost over $1M

[MatureDJ]

The Fake Poor Bride

Confessions of a wedding planner

www.theatlantic.com

https://www.textise.net/showText.as...0616&utm_term=The Atlantic Daily#main-content

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Last year, approximately 13,000 weddings in America cost $1 million or more, according to the consulting firm Think Splendid.

At one of Marcy Blum’s recent weddings, on a private estate in Palm Beach, Florida, she built her clients a miniature golf course.

Blum declined to tell me how much the mini golf added to the budget. But some of her clients spend $2 million or $3 million on their wedding—about $8,000 a head.

The day of the wedding, her clients will fly in professional dressers like the ones who work for the stylist Julie Sabatino’s company, The Stylish Bride. Sabatino’s website refers to her dressers as “ladies in waiting” and shows them wearing white gloves and little aprons. The starting rate for just one is $2,450; a luxury wedding sometimes has 10. They sew and they press and they “do the bow ties,” Blum told me; they’ll pin garments into place and follow the bride around with a water bottle with a straw in it so she can drink without ruining her lipstick.

We did Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? a couple more times, but as I got better at my job, I had a harder time pretending to be overwhelmed or anxious about things I could do in my sleep. Our last foray into television came in 2014. It was a chance to star in a new show whose concept was extreme weddings. We were assigned a ceremony for 70 guests at the base of a dormant volcano in Hawaii. The shoot involved the bride entering by helicopter and six hours of setup and taping under the hot sun on black lava with no restroom. The entire thing went off smoothly. But reality TV doesn’t appreciate expertise—we knew they’d never pick up the show.

I once worked with a bride who had all of her wedding gifts sent to our office. I was confused until I realized that it gave her an excuse to keep stopping by. She knew that her fiancé was cheating on her, and she needed someone to talk with about it. They still got married, though, and had a resplendent wedding brunch. (I love a wedding brunch.)

When the weddings were over, many of our couples would take us out for a reunion meal, where they would spend hours reminiscing and reliving their favorite moments. Sometimes these nights were fun; sometimes, less so. I got divorced right before one of these dinners, and over appetizers the bride asked me what had gone wrong. “I guess I just felt dead inside,” I said. Later, she followed me to the ladies’ room. When I came out of the stall, she was waiting for me. “I feel dead inside too,” she said.

 

[RazorRambo24]

I'm Italian and in our culture the wedding is a huge deal.. I know people who spent ~100k-200k on their wedding before.

Weddings are pricey though if you have alotof guests. YOu can easily spend 20k on catering if you want your guests to have good quality food and have about 250 guests. (One of my longstanding plates is an event planner and the bulk of their events are weddings). A nice banquet hall/venue can cost 10-20k just for the night. That'd be already 40k just for food and venue. Some banquet halls might cover decor and other costs but.. more oftne than not people pay designers and stuff to design sht,--these days "boquet walls" orthese huge flower walls are the trend and cost hella money because they require a very large amount of fresh flowers that aren't cheap, then theres a buncha labor that goes into designing them.

1 mill is insane though lol. But some people just got it like that.. can't knock it.

I been to an Indian wedding before where the groom and his best mates came out on horses and sht.. and the chick came out in like some Cinderalla style carriage .. whole thing was a spectacle.

 

[SW15]

When the majority of my friends got married in the mid to late 2010s, it seemed like all of their weddings were overpriced. Their weddings didn't cost anywhere close to $1 million.

 

[RazorRambo24]

When the majority of my friends got married in the mid to late 2010s, it seemed like all of their weddings were overpriced. Their weddings didn't cost anywhere close to $1 million.

I'm willing to bet that the bulk of that spend for those $1 million dollar weddings was either a very over the top spectacular venue with immaculate catering/food or a B or C list celebrity/artist performing live. SOme people choose to have a wedding somewhere fancy like on an Island and thus cover the cost of all their guests air faire or hotel stay.. which is quite alot of $

 

[BeExcellent]

I guess I’m just cheap. I get heartburn at the idea of spending 10K on a wedding. Serious heartburn. But weddings are big business. We are looking at around 10K, and it’s whack to me that it might cost us that. It’s ridiculous really.

But I’d like to have nice photos and create a nice event for his family, who have never had a wedding yet in their family as neither son has ever married.

 

[I_have_BDE]

When the majority of my friends got married in the mid to late 2010s, it seemed like all of their weddings were overpriced. Their weddings didn't cost anywhere close to $1 million.

Note the article. Palm beach. Lots of multi millionaires and billionaires live there. Not the typical demographics of most places. Lots of rich jewish people live there as well.

 

[corrector]

About $20k was spent on mine, I paid about $5k on my end as I has less guests than my ex wife. Declared bankruptcy, chapter 13/cp, after the divorce so in the end my creditors paid for my share. Also spend near $2k on engagement. Should have eloped in hindsight. Too much exposure and expectations from other people just killed everything and caused the divorce.

 

[corrector]

@Pierce.Manhammer how much did your wedding cost? You said you were married before.

 

[Fortune_favors_the_bold]

A wedding is the closest thing to a nightmare for an introvert that checks his finances.

 

[Von]

15k with us doing 95% of all the work (we bookes Catering, rent the car, rent equipment,rent suit, made the dress, we set Up the rented venue etc.) If we include the honeymoon... 23k Alone!

We did it cheap. The guest list was 150peoples and their gift covered 99% of it.

Oh all the people Who married before and after us that had expensiveals one (100k the venue etc)... Are all divorced

 

[SW15]

Note the article. Palm beach. Lots of multi millionaires and billionaires live there. Not the typical demographics of most places. Lots of rich jewish people live there as well.

Good point on Palm Beach. Palm Beach is a super wealthy enclave.

When the majority of my friends got married in the mid to late 2010s, it seemed like all of their weddings were overpriced.

I think some of my local area friends/acquaintances had weddings that cost over $30,000 during that mid to late 2010s era. I have some stats below that are more updated on wedding costs. If any of my friends had weddings that cost $30,000 during that time, it would have been above average and above median. A $30,000 wedding in the 2015-2019 era might have been in the 75th-80th percentile of weddings in terms of costs.

The Average Cost of a Wedding | The Motley Fool

The average cost of a wedding in 2023 was $33,000 to $35,000. Read on for a wedding budget breakdown.

www.fool.com

Average Cost of A Wedding

There’s a lot of preparation needed before saying “I do”. MoneyGeek explores the average and median costs of a wedding and the top expenses to expect.

www.moneygeek.com

 

[We_ArE_VeNOM]

Coulda saved the money for the wedding and put it on the looming divorce.