Price of a Wedding!

ashleym0706

So my fiance and I have started looking around at venues, and we are planning on paying for basically the whole wedding.  We have found a few places we like, and I told my father about them and he seems to think that its ridiculous we spend this kind of money on a wedding. We have found one place we absolutely love and it is 25,000 for everything included...flowers photography the whole deal, but with everywhere else we looked food and beverage minimums have been 12,000 to 15,000...just wondering what other brides and grooms out there are spending?
Thank you!
p.s. we are looking for an ocean front wedding venue

[Deleted User]

The biggest thing that will affect your bottom line price is how many people you are inviting.  My wedding is going to be about $17000 for 160 people but we are using a non-traditional venue.  If you have over 200 people, $25000 is fairly reasonable (in wedding world) for an event that size.  We are having our ceremony at a hotel that is oceanfront, and then the reception is at a restaurant that is on a marina (so still waterfront, but not oceanfront).

HTH

Karen's MOH

When we were looking for venues, we were estimating everything at about 140-150 people. I found somewhere in the range of $20,000 to be about average for food, drink (open bar), servers, venue or rental fees... basically for everything you need to get people fed and watered at the venue, but not including flowers, cake, photography, DJ, etc.

So, to me, $25,000 for everything seems like a pretty decent deal (depending on your numbers of course). I mean, not cheap by any means, but it doesn't sound unreasonable. The one caveat to that is you won't get to choose your vendors. As long as you like the ones they offer, that's fine, but I know I'm picky about photography and the photographers my venue recommended didn't do it for me.

Hope that helps and good luck!

FutureMrsJGreen

I agree with PP! Our wedding will cost about that altogether and I don't think it's unreasonable (assuming, of course, it's within your budget- I would never recommend going into debt for a wedding)! Good luck and happy planning!

nantucketdarling

that is a very good price. parents are from another generation where weddings i think were less extravagant, but now spending half a year's salary on one day is the norm. one thing you might want to consider is how is your venue's quality on flowers, and photo/video? do you get a choice or you just have to go with what they give you? make sure you still have options on the colour of flowers if you are bound by a contract to use any generic florist a venue decides you have to use. same for the pictures.

CCBelle

PP's are right - guest count plays a huge factor in price.  The other major contenders are time of year and day of the week.  We had our wedding at a pricy venue, but kept our guest list small and had our wedding in May before peak season.  Still pricy, but those things certainly helped!

ashleym0706

Thank you everyone! I feel much better...I was really starting to reconsider cheaper options even though thats not what we originally envisioned! I definetley feel that my father is unaware of what a wedding costs now a days! Afterall, we are paying for most of  the wedding ourselves. We are planning on a hundred people. This venue gives you a few choices for photo/flowers/dj...so there are defintely choices. We are now considering the possibility of a day wedding instead of night to save ourselves some money, but I am not sure yet.

Karen's MOH

If you are the first of your generation to get married, then yeah, your parents are in for a major shock. I was lucky that my sister got married before me, so it seemed more normal. My mom said her father gave them something like $1000 as a wedding gift, and it paid for the entire thing!

I had the same doubts as you, but ultimately I found a balance of cost and location that I'm happy with.

lmw4253

If you are looking on the Cape, or even Boston, things are definitley more expensive. Our food and beverage alone for 180pp is costing 36K and thats in October, after peak seaon. So I think what you are being quoted is reasonable.

lmills730

We are doing ours for about $15K with everything, but that is waterfront for only 88 people, so I would say thats a reasonable estimation.

Knittibell

Did you find an ocean front venue that does everything for 25K? If so, would love to know which one!!

MeaghanandMichael

We did an oceanfront venue on Martha's Vineyard. For the venue, for 125 people it cost us about $40,000 for venue fee, food, booze, tents, linens, tables and chairs.

Flowers, photog, cake, limos, accomodations, dress, hair, accessories, church fee, bm&gm gifts, DJ, OOT bags, RD and all that good stuff were that price over again. I am sure I am forgetting a ton of stuff too.

Knittibell

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_massachusetts-cape-cod_price-of-wedding?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:94Discussion:7767a925-8cb0-41f8-8ae5-ad1c22b76790Post:3e21e08e-199a-44fc-a09d-fb33f022c522">Re: Price of a Wedding!</a>:
[QUOTE]We are doing ours for about $15K with everything, but that is waterfront for only 88 people, so I would say thats a reasonable estimation.
Posted by lmills730[/QUOTE]

That's very reasonable! Where are you getting married? Love your pic, btw!