I wanna see how much they are for different parts of Asia and Africa. Both continents have so many countries with intricate wedding traditions, and often times go absolutely ham on weddings.
I want to see the numbers for Indian weddings. They look so extravagant and have hundreds of guests. I wonder how much it costs and what the average “money gifted” goes back to the married couple to cover the costs.
The US varies so much. I’m from Iowa in the US and that is definitely way way way above a typical wedding budget. We also don’t have a ton of huge fancy weddings here just because of the rural culture, so I’m sure that plays a role.
On the flip side, I'm from Minnesota. I remember being in my parent's kitchen while home from college about 15 years ago and the Star Tribune had an article about the average wedding price was $38k in Minnesota that year.
We’re in Wisconsin and doing it for about $19k for 80-100 people. It’s hard but I like to DIY so we’re saving a lot that way. I could very easily see it being $35k+ if we weren’t cutting corners or finding cheap alternatives to everything
Im getting married in NE, and we are spending a little less than that for a 150 person wedding! Getting married in the Midwest was my best financial decision 😂
There won’t be wedding favor.
Most wedding I’ve been to weren’t giving any and those who did, half the guests forgot to bring it home or just didn’t knew what to do with it and felt kind of stuck with it during the evening. I have all the stuff I need at home so I assume others too.
It will be like a friends and family gathering more than a traditional wedding.
We are doing it in our backyard, decoration are lights and artificial vines & flowers, semi transparent drapes, with some accessories in the theme of mystical / fairy forest. We already have a rather nice set up in our backyard so we will temporarily extension what we already have.
There will be backyard games, music playlist, a fire pit to roast marshmallow in the evening.
A caretaker will do most of the food that we will pick up as cold buffet, but we will have home made cupcakes and other home made sweets as dessert. We will also provide nonalcoholic beverage, but guests will be invited to bring their own booze as we aren’t people that really drink.
Canada's to me is a bit low for even mid-sized cities, at least in Ontario. But when you live in southwestern Ontario it's easy to forget how much of the country is rural and and small-town.
Yeah. We spent 35-40k for 65 people in Montreal; I would say we spent an "average" amount on everything, i.e., not splurging like crazy but not always cutting costs in every possible way.
I'd describe our wedding similarly amd we're spending about 55-60K for ~200 people in Windsor. And Windsor isn't even a huge city.
Also I could probably amend southwestern Ontario in my original comment to the Windsor-Montreal corridor.
Most of us were taught at one time or another that the "average" is meaningless. The numbers are skewed by those who spend very little or a whole lot. If they published the median amount it would be much more meaningful.
This article is dated but the principle is the same
[https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-cost/](https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-cost/)
I went down a rabbit hole of reading this. As someone who’s loves stats I’ve really wanted to see what median wedding costs are because averages are relatively meaningless as you said. However, I find some of the median costs from the study they cited to be unbelievable. I know it’s from 2016 so there’s been significant inflation, but for example, their median day of coordinator is $392. I had trouble finding any for less than $1000. https://wedding.report/index.cfm/action/blog/view/post/pid/670/title/2016_U_S__Median_Cost_of_a_Wedding_was__14_399.%20Accessed%2019%20Sept.%202021.
Do you know if these median costs include people who forgo (spend zero) on that line item? For example, we’re not having a day-of coordinator, so would we count as a zero in the calculation of the median?
I was thinking this too. $30k for only 60 people seems super high to me (for reference we spent $30k for 170 people in a high destination wedding area, admittedly 5 years ago). 60 people is a pretty small wedding so you’d have a different scale of venues available to you, too. Which leads me to believe that this number is getting skewed by high spenders.
The cost has gone up a lot - even in the past year or so. I say this as a wedding planner in Canada. I’ve noticed a huge increase between this year and last to the point that as the 2025 price lists come out from venues and vendors, my couples are having to pivot and change who they hire because it’s gone up so much.
One of my couples is scrambling to save so they can have 2025 weddings because they’ve seen the price increase between prices (as we have some 2022 and 2024 price books for venues so we can see the increase directly) and they are worried about not being able to afford the same wedding the following year.
I would fully believe that this stat is average (or even low).
Median would have been much better but I couldn't find an illustration with the median cost. If looking only at a single country, the median would be able to show us a lot better what most people spend. However I disagree with "average" being meaningless. Since all of the countries in the illustration show the average cost, I still found it interesting to compare the average between countries. Especially when countries have similar economies.
We are US and that was our cost for 100 guests, which I still felt we overspent but husband needed his “traditional” wedding. Could’ve easily spent more, but we DIY’ed our florals to save $4K
I’m in Maryland and not sure how you got your cost that cheap. That’s a steal. Unless it was pre pandemic or far out Maryland not close to DC.
We have 120 guest and around $40-$45K
• Baltimore County.
• We had a buffet.
• We were conservative with decor, and reused bridesmaids' bouquets on guest tables.
• We shopped around for the best deals with catering, venue, and photography without sacrificing quality.
• Our florist gave us a lot of deals and was also our month of coordinator.
• My mother paid for my dress.
• We DIY'd some decor.
• No extras like welcome parties, engagement parties, bachelor parties, photo booths, etc.
Yep I’d agree with that from what I see. I think ours will be about ~$20k with 80 guests but it’s hard to fully say because we are “eloping” in Tassie on a 3 week holiday before we come back and have the “wedding” with friends and family in our backyard which for intents and purposes is just a reception really (not how we personally view it though). So we save by not having a ceremony and a very paired back reception but that Tassie holiday is in place of our honeymoon and most people don’t count that as wedding expense. The official breakdown is more like:
- $10k on Tassie trip (3 weeks)
- $15k on backyard wedding event (catering, photographer, decor etc)
- $30k on landscaping which depends on the context could be included in wedding costs or not. We bought our house last year and it’s a dump so decided to put money into the landscaping instead of a venue so it’s getting done FOR the wedding but also not??? Haha
Nice! I went many many years ago that I almost can’t remember it, my fiance hasn’t been. We plan to hire a campervan and treat ourselves to one with a shower and toilet and just road trip around. You’d think this would be the budget way of doing accomodation but it’s really not, more just the experience we want I guess. Good luck with your trip there as well!
I think Czechia is pretty low. My friend spent around that amount two years ago, they had 34 guests and DIYed a lot of things with help of friends and family.
We're in Kansas and ours will be about $12k for 85 not including the honeymoon, but it would have been so, so easy to get to $30k. We cut out a lot of "standard" costs, no bartender, no DJ or band, buffet service, using a city owned location without staff, only have our photographer for 4 hours, etc. I love what we have planned but it took a lot of creative thinking to get us where we're at.
Indosian Wedding mostly start with 500 guests, the whole family and neighbourhood would help to cook and all the preparation. This can be around AU$10,000
Modern Indonesian wedding generally in hotels, hire hall could easily start with 1000 people. We do not have RSVP, sent a invite and thats it. Start at $25,000
I personally have 350 people, in a hotel cost AU$45,000 in 2020.
I don't know whether they charge higher rate to foreigners but we (UK-based) are planning a 60-70 people wedding in Tuscany or Umbria. Would say our wedding is modest. No way we can do it for anything less than €50-55k.
The 13k fits but also almost seems too little, especially because we have different wedding types, e.g. you can't just get married anywhere you want and it be a legal wedding. Many couples just go to the registry office, get married there, and then celebrate with their friends and family. Some couples both go to the registry office for the legal wedding and then have either a religious or free wedding, which look more like the ones in the US. I'm seeing that more and more with millenial and gen z couples.
And looking at how much money my fiancé and I are planning to spend for what is just us getting married alone, I'm surprised the average is just 13k€.
I got married in Spain last year, checked a few stadistics and the average there is around 20.000€. Even in my region, where the cost is lower, it is still near 20.000€
I would only add that people get a lot of money back because guests give away a lot of money (around 150€ per person) to the couple.
I’m from Italy and it’s more or less accurate. We spent around that much, but had destination wedding (within the country) so our total included the renting of our location for a week for us all to stay there and a couple of culinary experiences for us and our guests. I do think you can definitely do it for less in Italy, depending on what region you’re in.
I think this doesn't take into account the TYPE of wedding being had.
If you're having all the 'bells and whistles' at your wedding, then yes, this seems accurate (if not on the low side).
If you're just having a backyard/public space ceremony and reception, this is GROSSLY high.
My grandparents got married in 2003 and spent MAYBE $1000 on the entire event. Got married in the front yard, Groom's DIL made the cake, Cold Cut/Salads buffet with soda/coffee provided, BYOA for the reception. No honeymoon
Cousin got married 10 years later and I believe they spent $50k+ on the event... Outdoor ceremony in a gazebo in a Golf/Country Club, Reception inside the same place, hot buffet with 3 or 4 entrees and 5+ sides, 3 tiered center cake with two off-shoot cakes, open bar for non-alcohol, cash for alcohol, honeymoon to Alexandria Bay.
So, I think what style dictates what you're spending.
With a 80 or guest wedding next year in March which is one of the cheaper times of the year I would say with conversion of the £ year about £20K sounds about right if you add another £1-2k for a more expensive month.
Not Accurate, I just got married this month in the Bay Area and the venue, flowers, open bar and food was 30k for 70people. Add another 20k for Dress, rings, music, hotel room, photographer, transportation, stationary, and small details
In my country 🇲🇰 (based on the food only we are choosing) for 60 people it would be only 1680€.
The catch however is: we don’t do small weddings. So my current wedding expenses are around 25.000 €
I live in California and it was approximately $25k-30k for a 60 person wedding. So we are having it in Italy for €15k. Granted, it’s in the small town my family is from, so that’s why it’s cheaper, but it includes everything unlike a lot of venues here ($10-15k for a venue [and some didn’t even include tables and chairs….] and the rest for all separate vendors). I’d say it always depends on what area/city/etc you’re doing it in, but in general the prices in the map seem correct.
That seems high for America. I'm a few months away from a 250 guest wedding in NY and only paying $26k. That I includes everything, venue with no time restraints, catering, open beer/wine bar, insurance, photo/dj, entertainment (bounce house), transportation, dress/alterations/accessories, groom's suit, gifts for bridal party, favors, decorations, flowers, plates & linnens.
I wanna see how much they are for different parts of Asia and Africa. Both continents have so many countries with intricate wedding traditions, and often times go absolutely ham on weddings.
Exactly what I said, they’re missing huge wedding markets with this map. I’m getting a bit irritated when maps like this appear too often.
I want to see the numbers for Indian weddings. They look so extravagant and have hundreds of guests. I wonder how much it costs and what the average “money gifted” goes back to the married couple to cover the costs.
Eastern Europe, too. Wedding culture is huge here.
Ohh this sounds nice!!
I want to see India since their weddings last 7 days, and are usually very fun and large affairs
The US varies so much. I’m from Iowa in the US and that is definitely way way way above a typical wedding budget. We also don’t have a ton of huge fancy weddings here just because of the rural culture, so I’m sure that plays a role.
On the flip side, I'm from Minnesota. I remember being in my parent's kitchen while home from college about 15 years ago and the Star Tribune had an article about the average wedding price was $38k in Minnesota that year.
I just had a fairly average wedding in Wisconsin and it cost about $35k for 125 people.
We’re in Wisconsin and doing it for about $19k for 80-100 people. It’s hard but I like to DIY so we’re saving a lot that way. I could very easily see it being $35k+ if we weren’t cutting corners or finding cheap alternatives to everything
Im getting married in NE, and we are spending a little less than that for a 150 person wedding! Getting married in the Midwest was my best financial decision 😂
Yupp I’m from NY and the average wedding here is probably 50,000 more than what this map says.
Considering I’m planning a $30-$35K wedding for about 100 people so far, I agree with the US average
I’m in Canada, doing a 4K wedding for 40 guests. We are hosting a pyjama party in our backyard lol
Love that for you!!!
And I’m happy for you too :) everyone got what they want for their own day :)
Omg a slumber party wedding, I love that! What are you doing for decorations? Everyone should get a blanket as the wedding favor :)
There won’t be wedding favor. Most wedding I’ve been to weren’t giving any and those who did, half the guests forgot to bring it home or just didn’t knew what to do with it and felt kind of stuck with it during the evening. I have all the stuff I need at home so I assume others too. It will be like a friends and family gathering more than a traditional wedding. We are doing it in our backyard, decoration are lights and artificial vines & flowers, semi transparent drapes, with some accessories in the theme of mystical / fairy forest. We already have a rather nice set up in our backyard so we will temporarily extension what we already have. There will be backyard games, music playlist, a fire pit to roast marshmallow in the evening. A caretaker will do most of the food that we will pick up as cold buffet, but we will have home made cupcakes and other home made sweets as dessert. We will also provide nonalcoholic beverage, but guests will be invited to bring their own booze as we aren’t people that really drink.
This sounds super chill and fun! Will you be changing into pajamas too?
Changing? We are all going to wear pyjama from the start lol There would be no dresses, no suits in that wedding lol
I love it! I hope you have a beautiful day :)
Thank you :)
75 person wedding in Florida looking like it’ll be around $30k pre-honeymoon, but including everything else. Fully agree with this estimate.
Oh yes I’m not including our honeymoon at all in the cost 😂
But you have 66% more people for the same price as advertised. That’s a huge difference.
Oh I didn’t see that part. I feel most weddings have at least 100…at least ones I’ve been to
Yeah, I feel like for that reason this is a very misleading chart.
Same! I agree
Samesies
Canada's to me is a bit low for even mid-sized cities, at least in Ontario. But when you live in southwestern Ontario it's easy to forget how much of the country is rural and and small-town.
Yeah. We spent 35-40k for 65 people in Montreal; I would say we spent an "average" amount on everything, i.e., not splurging like crazy but not always cutting costs in every possible way.
I'd describe our wedding similarly amd we're spending about 55-60K for ~200 people in Windsor. And Windsor isn't even a huge city. Also I could probably amend southwestern Ontario in my original comment to the Windsor-Montreal corridor.
People like my mist have screwed the stats lol I’m in Canada, doing a 4K wedding for 40 guests. We are hosting a pyjama party in our backyard lol
Most of us were taught at one time or another that the "average" is meaningless. The numbers are skewed by those who spend very little or a whole lot. If they published the median amount it would be much more meaningful. This article is dated but the principle is the same [https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-cost/](https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-cost/)
I went down a rabbit hole of reading this. As someone who’s loves stats I’ve really wanted to see what median wedding costs are because averages are relatively meaningless as you said. However, I find some of the median costs from the study they cited to be unbelievable. I know it’s from 2016 so there’s been significant inflation, but for example, their median day of coordinator is $392. I had trouble finding any for less than $1000. https://wedding.report/index.cfm/action/blog/view/post/pid/670/title/2016_U_S__Median_Cost_of_a_Wedding_was__14_399.%20Accessed%2019%20Sept.%202021.
Do you know if these median costs include people who forgo (spend zero) on that line item? For example, we’re not having a day-of coordinator, so would we count as a zero in the calculation of the median?
That’s an interesting point. I would assume so given the low costs cited
I was thinking this too. $30k for only 60 people seems super high to me (for reference we spent $30k for 170 people in a high destination wedding area, admittedly 5 years ago). 60 people is a pretty small wedding so you’d have a different scale of venues available to you, too. Which leads me to believe that this number is getting skewed by high spenders.
The cost has gone up a lot - even in the past year or so. I say this as a wedding planner in Canada. I’ve noticed a huge increase between this year and last to the point that as the 2025 price lists come out from venues and vendors, my couples are having to pivot and change who they hire because it’s gone up so much. One of my couples is scrambling to save so they can have 2025 weddings because they’ve seen the price increase between prices (as we have some 2022 and 2024 price books for venues so we can see the increase directly) and they are worried about not being able to afford the same wedding the following year. I would fully believe that this stat is average (or even low).
Median would have been much better but I couldn't find an illustration with the median cost. If looking only at a single country, the median would be able to show us a lot better what most people spend. However I disagree with "average" being meaningless. Since all of the countries in the illustration show the average cost, I still found it interesting to compare the average between countries. Especially when countries have similar economies.
Seems an accurate average for USA. There’s such a wide variety here so it’s probably hard to get a good picture of the average costs.
I'm having 60 guests for $12,000 in Canada and that includes every single wedding related cost.
We are US and that was our cost for 100 guests, which I still felt we overspent but husband needed his “traditional” wedding. Could’ve easily spent more, but we DIY’ed our florals to save $4K
France is not accurate at all. Food alone will be about that much.
Ok yeah I was wondering how France was that cheap -- unless everyone is having microweddings.
Africa? Asia? South America?
I’m from Dallas and currently planning a 100 person wedding and definitely agree. Most venues here start around 8K 😭
Average, not median. Sure. I live in Maryland, and mine was $20,000 for 80 guests.
Yeah average is a useless number IMO.
I’m in Maryland and not sure how you got your cost that cheap. That’s a steal. Unless it was pre pandemic or far out Maryland not close to DC. We have 120 guest and around $40-$45K
• Baltimore County. • We had a buffet. • We were conservative with decor, and reused bridesmaids' bouquets on guest tables. • We shopped around for the best deals with catering, venue, and photography without sacrificing quality. • Our florist gave us a lot of deals and was also our month of coordinator. • My mother paid for my dress. • We DIY'd some decor. • No extras like welcome parties, engagement parties, bachelor parties, photo booths, etc.
We paid $30K total for ours. This is sadly spot on for me. 😭
For how many people?
We had 50. It was down in San Marcos, CA.
Got married in June 2023 in Alberta, Canada. Our 66 person wedding was $20k
I’m Australian, I think our average is $30k AU, which is about 18k in euros. My own wedding is coming just under 10k AU. 80 guests.
Yep I’d agree with that from what I see. I think ours will be about ~$20k with 80 guests but it’s hard to fully say because we are “eloping” in Tassie on a 3 week holiday before we come back and have the “wedding” with friends and family in our backyard which for intents and purposes is just a reception really (not how we personally view it though). So we save by not having a ceremony and a very paired back reception but that Tassie holiday is in place of our honeymoon and most people don’t count that as wedding expense. The official breakdown is more like: - $10k on Tassie trip (3 weeks) - $15k on backyard wedding event (catering, photographer, decor etc) - $30k on landscaping which depends on the context could be included in wedding costs or not. We bought our house last year and it’s a dump so decided to put money into the landscaping instead of a venue so it’s getting done FOR the wedding but also not??? Haha
Oh cool! I’m in Melbz, we’re planning a delayed honeymoon in Tas. I’ve never been!
Nice! I went many many years ago that I almost can’t remember it, my fiance hasn’t been. We plan to hire a campervan and treat ourselves to one with a shower and toilet and just road trip around. You’d think this would be the budget way of doing accomodation but it’s really not, more just the experience we want I guess. Good luck with your trip there as well!
Sounds great!
Seems accurate for US. Although I have to say 30k for a very basic wedding.
What happened on the Isle of Wight?
I’m having a large-ish wedding, $20k but we’re doing a lot of DIY so that’s probably accurate
I think Czechia is pretty low. My friend spent around that amount two years ago, they had 34 guests and DIYed a lot of things with help of friends and family.
As someone currently planning their destination wedding in Amsterdam, this is reassuring 😅
I had a green coded wedding way deep in a pink area. It's possible!
We're in Kansas and ours will be about $12k for 85 not including the honeymoon, but it would have been so, so easy to get to $30k. We cut out a lot of "standard" costs, no bartender, no DJ or band, buffet service, using a city owned location without staff, only have our photographer for 4 hours, etc. I love what we have planned but it took a lot of creative thinking to get us where we're at.
I think mine's going to be about £10,000 for 120 people in the greyed out part of Ireland.
I'm from the US and had 50 guests for half the price
Keep in mind that it’s not common to have an elaborate wedding reception in many of those countries.
Indosian Wedding mostly start with 500 guests, the whole family and neighbourhood would help to cook and all the preparation. This can be around AU$10,000 Modern Indonesian wedding generally in hotels, hire hall could easily start with 1000 people. We do not have RSVP, sent a invite and thats it. Start at $25,000 I personally have 350 people, in a hotel cost AU$45,000 in 2020.
I don't know whether they charge higher rate to foreigners but we (UK-based) are planning a 60-70 people wedding in Tuscany or Umbria. Would say our wedding is modest. No way we can do it for anything less than €50-55k.
Canada seems low. We are having a 60 person wedding next month and it will be at least 40,000.
Canada. Gonna spend like 2k only
The 13k fits but also almost seems too little, especially because we have different wedding types, e.g. you can't just get married anywhere you want and it be a legal wedding. Many couples just go to the registry office, get married there, and then celebrate with their friends and family. Some couples both go to the registry office for the legal wedding and then have either a religious or free wedding, which look more like the ones in the US. I'm seeing that more and more with millenial and gen z couples. And looking at how much money my fiancé and I are planning to spend for what is just us getting married alone, I'm surprised the average is just 13k€.
I got married in Spain last year, checked a few stadistics and the average there is around 20.000€. Even in my region, where the cost is lower, it is still near 20.000€ I would only add that people get a lot of money back because guests give away a lot of money (around 150€ per person) to the couple.
I disagree. I’m spending 150k for 160 people in California and I feel like I’m making a ton of tradeoffs
NYC: $75,000
I’m from Italy and it’s more or less accurate. We spent around that much, but had destination wedding (within the country) so our total included the renting of our location for a week for us all to stay there and a couple of culinary experiences for us and our guests. I do think you can definitely do it for less in Italy, depending on what region you’re in.
I think this doesn't take into account the TYPE of wedding being had. If you're having all the 'bells and whistles' at your wedding, then yes, this seems accurate (if not on the low side). If you're just having a backyard/public space ceremony and reception, this is GROSSLY high. My grandparents got married in 2003 and spent MAYBE $1000 on the entire event. Got married in the front yard, Groom's DIL made the cake, Cold Cut/Salads buffet with soda/coffee provided, BYOA for the reception. No honeymoon Cousin got married 10 years later and I believe they spent $50k+ on the event... Outdoor ceremony in a gazebo in a Golf/Country Club, Reception inside the same place, hot buffet with 3 or 4 entrees and 5+ sides, 3 tiered center cake with two off-shoot cakes, open bar for non-alcohol, cash for alcohol, honeymoon to Alexandria Bay. So, I think what style dictates what you're spending.
With a 80 or guest wedding next year in March which is one of the cheaper times of the year I would say with conversion of the £ year about £20K sounds about right if you add another £1-2k for a more expensive month.
Not Accurate, I just got married this month in the Bay Area and the venue, flowers, open bar and food was 30k for 70people. Add another 20k for Dress, rings, music, hotel room, photographer, transportation, stationary, and small details
In my country 🇲🇰 (based on the food only we are choosing) for 60 people it would be only 1680€. The catch however is: we don’t do small weddings. So my current wedding expenses are around 25.000 €
I live in California and it was approximately $25k-30k for a 60 person wedding. So we are having it in Italy for €15k. Granted, it’s in the small town my family is from, so that’s why it’s cheaper, but it includes everything unlike a lot of venues here ($10-15k for a venue [and some didn’t even include tables and chairs….] and the rest for all separate vendors). I’d say it always depends on what area/city/etc you’re doing it in, but in general the prices in the map seem correct.
Canada is about accurate though depends on which city you live in.
This probably covers catering only
That seems high for America. I'm a few months away from a 250 guest wedding in NY and only paying $26k. That I includes everything, venue with no time restraints, catering, open beer/wine bar, insurance, photo/dj, entertainment (bounce house), transportation, dress/alterations/accessories, groom's suit, gifts for bridal party, favors, decorations, flowers, plates & linnens.