Brides are Tightening Purse Strings
As a future bride, I found this AP article on msnbc.com to be of great interest. Not because of what it says about the economy, (looks like we’re experiencing more than just a period of “economic tightening” if even recession-proof industries are feeling the effects), but what it says about the costs of an “average” wedding.
The wedding industry has long been considered one of most recession-proof. Most brides, grooms and their parents see the “big day” as a once-in-a-lifetime event not to be skimped on. But unlike Cinderella and Prince Charming, who didn’t have to worry about a mortgage on the castle, more couples are finding it hard to swallow the average pricetag of items like wedding cakes (about $500), bridal gowns (around $1,300) and flowers (near $2,000).
I was shocked to read that the average bride spends $2000 on flowers. I understand spending $1200 on the dress (but that seems a bit high), and even $500 on a cake (especially if you’re favorite food in all the world is buttercream icing) - but flowers are one of the more forgettable elements of a wedding, unless you’re really doing something spectacular with them. Maybe I just feel this way because I prefer nearly any gift (food, clothes, jewelry) to flowers - why spend so much on something that dies in a day or two? Maybe I’m just not girly enough to understand the allure of freshly cut stems.
According to the Wedding Report Inc., the average cost of a wedding is down $28 over last year - to $28,704.
Many other couples… are cutting some corners as they put their weddings together. Wedding trend tracker The Wedding Report Inc. estimates the average cost of a wedding will dip slightly this year to $28,704, compared with $28,732 in 2007.
That runs counter to the trend of the past 15 years, when wedding spending has nearly doubled, according to Conde Nast data. Tammy Elliot, president of the Perfect Wedding Guide wedding planning Web site, noted that the market is growing quickly due to the children of baby boomers.
Wow.
My heart really goes out to the unfortunate individuals who make a living off the industrial wedding machine. Assuming that this can be correlated to a decrease in profit, their average revenues have be down less than a tenth of a percent - they must really be feeling the pain.
Who are these people that can drop $30,000 on a single day?
The article goes on to explain one way cut some expenses is forgo your dream honeymoon:
Portofino, Italy, had been 30-year-old Kate Witten’s ideal honeymoon destination for four years. Witten, a yoga instructor who lives in Atlanta, and her boyfriend chose the Mediterranean fishing village just a few weeks after they started dating. But when they realized a few months ago how expensive it would be with the euro worth about $1.55, they nixed the idea and decided on South Africa instead.
“Who knows how long the euro is going to stay this way?” said Witten. She noted that their two-and-a-half week trip to South Africa will add up to a relatively hefty $8,000, but they will be able to stay at high-end hotels. “We would’ve had to really pick and choose carefully in Europe.”
Poor Kate Witten - she’s “settling” for an $8000 honeymoon in South Africa. I was feeling guilty about even considering a $3000 trip to the Bahamas (although, I bet that Kate and her fiancé have zero credit card debt or student loan debt, where as we have a lot of both). Maybe I should feel guilty.
Even if I had $100,000 to spend on the “dream” wedding mentioned in the article, there are so many other things I’d rather do with that kind of coin. Paying off debt is at the top of the list, naturally, followed by gifting a percentage to my church or local non-profit. I suppose if you have $100 grand to spend getting hitched; you probably don’t have any debt and are already quite the philanthropist.
Perhaps I’m just jealous. If I had managed my finances better in my 20’s, I’d probably be able to take an $8000 honeymoon, too.
Stumble it!
May 14th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I can’t even imagine spending that kind of money on a wedding. Honestly, as long as I have a pretty dress, I’d just as soon skip the flowers and cake and just have a casual outdoor wedding followed by a barbecue.
I’ve always felt the same way about flowers, too. My boyfriend has been thoroughly warned that the only kind of flowers that I’ll accept are the kind that come potted or ready to plant in the front yard.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
That’s such crap. I’ve read in several places that those “the average wedding costs $30K” findings are based on completely unscientific surveys administered by pricey bridal magazine companies - who not only have an interest in inflating the figures, but whose readers and respondents are a very self-selecting group. It’s like asking Home Depot cardholders how much they spend on home maintenance each year, or Cosmo readers how sexually active they are.
Anyway though, I don’t think $2K is much for flowers, given that all those responding doubtless had large “traditional” receptions. “Flowers” probably encompasses the centerpieces at the reception (plus all decorative flowers plus bouquets and lapel flowers, etc). Centerpieces can be expensive and are often made of all kinds of expensive materials in addition to flowers. I can see how it would add up.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
@Mel
The last two weddings I went to cost $27K and $25K respectively. Those numbers don’t include the rings or the honeymoon. They were both in Southern California. So I believe the $30K number, though it frightens me.
I’m recently engaged and in my mid 20s. Fortunately myself and my future bride agree going into debt over a wedding is silly. Money problems is the #1 cause of disagreement among couples and so starting with a heap of debt seems like the definition of the wrong foot.
Since we’re not religious and already live together, it will probably just end up in a very long engagement.
May 15th, 2008 at 6:03 am
@ Miss Thrifty - “skip the flowers and the cake have have a casual outdoor wedding followed by a barbeque” - that’s exactly what Matt and I will be doing. We are using gourds, pumpkins, and indian corn grown by my dad as centerpieces. Although we will have flowers for bouquets, they will come from my future mother-in-law’s garden and be supplemented from stems purchased at the local farmer’s market.
@ Red - I don’t think I could plan a wedding in SoCal or NYC - everything is rediculously expensive. As you likely know, we’ve had a very long engagement (19 months, by the time we tie the knot) and it’s worked to our advantage, except when it comes to the price of gold. I wish we’d bought our rings when we were engaged in March 2007.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Great post! I think one of the biggest differences is between weddings funded by parents vs. weddings funded by brides and grooms. If my family said, “we’ve saved up $30,000, and we want you to use is on a wedding,” why wouldn’t I say yes? If I do end up with serious money in the bank, I think I’ll tell my kids, “here’s $5,000″ for your wedding. Then, as a wedding gift, give them the $25,000 for a down payment on a house!
May 15th, 2008 at 7:35 am
I agree that spending that much on flowers is insane, even if it does include reception flowers. They were VERY low on my priority list for my wedding and I didn’t spend much at all on them
May 15th, 2008 at 8:11 am
I recommend weddingmoons as in get married and honeymoon at an all inclusive resort. That’s what I did eight months ago for under 10k.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Ahem…spending approx 30k on an October wedding here…I will say that I thought it was ridiculous to spend so much on one day, but that was before I got engaged. Now I realize how much everything adds up, and turns out I don’t really want to skimp on too many things. The most important thing for us is having all of our family and friends with us, which is turning out to be slightly more than 200 people. Here’s our breakdown:
Dress: $750 (bought online for a significant discount)
Photography: $2,000 (high quality photojournalistic style, we bought the cheapest package and will get digital files and print on our own)
Videography: $1,000 (one of the cheapest we could find, but we didn’t want a total amateur; this one will film but we didn’t order the fancy editing to music stuff. We just really want a record of the people there, since our remaining grandparents won’t be around forever)
Flowers: $1,500 (includes centerpieces, some of which will just be candles to save money, plus bouquet, bridesmaid bouquets, boutonnierres, corsages for mothers, etc.)
DJ: $1,500 (great personality, not cheesy like so many others, and still cheaper than a band)
Venue: $2,500 rental
Food: $15,000 (we had to use the venue’s exclusive caterer and they mark up alcohol like crazy)
Day-Of Wedding Coordinator: $850 (I didn’t want to have to worry about details and miss the day)
Rehearsal Dinner: $3,000 (fajita buffet plus alcohol for out-of-town family)
Honeymoon: $2,000 (one week in Arizona, plane tickets generously given to us by my parents’ miles, but we’ll pay for everything else)
Then we’ll have save the dates, invitations, bridesmaid/groomsmen gifts, hair/makeup, out-of-town bags, mandatory valet parking and probably things I’m not even thinking of. It’s crazy, but I don’t feel we’re being overly extravagant.
Most importantly, this is within our budget (generously provided by both sets of parents), we’re still maxing out Roth IRAs and contributing significant amounts to our 401ks, we have a 12-month emergency fund and we live frugally. I figure we’ll continue building wealth after the wedding. We plan to do it only once!!
May 15th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
My daughter got married this past weekend. I don’t know what the total cost was, because she has been planning this for almost two years and paid a lot of it as she went, whether it was to a cancer charity for her gown or yard sales for serving platters for our “self-catered” reception. We paid for most of the food and drinks with MyPoints gift cards and a gift card I got for transferring a prescription (for the third time — this one prescription has earned me $80 in cards so far!).
I detailed some of the other frugal hacks in an essay on the Smart Spending blog. Here’s the link, if anyone’s inclined to cut and paste:
http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/smartspending/archive/2008/05/12/my-daughter-got-married-without-going-broke.aspx
I don’t have anything against a “big” wedding. It just scares me how willing people are to go deeply into debt without really thinking about it. Judging from the comments to the essay, a lot of people feel the same way.
Congratulations on your engagement, and my best wishes for the wedding and, more importantly, the MARRIAGE!
May 16th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Why are people so quick to call someone else’s choices “insane?” I would never say it’s “insane” to have a frugal wedding. Why is it so shocking to spend on flowers if a decorative element is important to the couple? They look nice in photos and sets a certain mood, although you can certainly decorate in other ways. It’s not for everyone, and I reject the “wedding complex” that says everything has to be a certain way, but when people do opt for elements of the traditional package, it’s a calculated choice for many modern couples, a choice made because they genuinely want X or Y.
We spent close to 30k on a wedding in downtown Boston. We had no debt and saved up for it, and we received about 10k from family. We both had professional incomes and low overhead. We fund our retirement accounts and give to charities. I guess we are “who DOES that?” Things cost more in our area, in general, but salaries are also higher. We wanted a once in a lifetime bash, and we were very happy with what we got, and so were our guests. We made some relatively unexpected choices compared to our circle of friends that would even be called frugal. My dress was only $60 plus $20 in alterations, but my shoes were $350, so it balances out (and I dyed the shoes black and still love them, haha). We went big on food, drink, and photography, but we did our own invites and table cards and stickers and so on. We used a family timeshare and went to Arizona for the honeymoon, not somewhere particularly exotic. Anyway, the whole thing did not set us back from other goals, and I think that’s the important bottom line. We were lucky to be able to get what we wanted, but we also planned for it. We could have done it more cheaply with more research. Just avoid anything with the word “wedding” on it, for starters, LOL.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:25 am
[…] looks at the wedding industry’s recession problems. “Problems.” (Read it at […]
May 17th, 2008 at 7:18 am
A friend of mine is getting married next year and she explained that the flowers were a condition at the church- free/cheap wedding, but you have to leave the flowers for the church service the next day.