Budgets, budgets, budgets. All couples have them for their wedding, as they should. This is irrelevant of who is paying for them (i.e. the couple OR the parents OR both).
According to The Knot, a recent nation-wide survey suggests that couples spend about $30,000 on average on a wedding. Now, this is "over the median annual income ins U.S. Households" according to a recent WSJ report (listed below). This figure isn’t really a good indicator, because only 2% of the brides asked answered the questionnaire. I always wonder – ‘does this include the ring and honeymoon – something that the guys usually pays for and is outside of the wedding day?’. I know that for our wedding, I spent quite a bit on the ring and honeymoon (we went to Maui – enough said).
Many magazines also suggest that couples should only budget for 10% of the total cost for photography, which I think is ridiculous. My theory is this (of course I am biased) – what do you have left over from the wedding 30, 60, 90 years from now? The empty wine bottle? The uneaten cake? The huge tent with the cool chinese circular balloons? No. Photographs. Don’t get me wrong, these things are important to some people, and I say go for it if it is what the bride has always dreamed of her wedding to be. I know for our couples, photography is usually over the 10% that many books and planning guides suggest. I always encourage brides (whether they choose us or someone else) to NOT skimp on photography. I have heard too many horror stories about brides who hired friends, or hired someone from Craig’s list for a really cheap price, and they regret it forever.
Here’s a link to the recent WSJ article that got me thinking about this.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118790518546107112.html
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