Very early on in the planning, take the list of expense categories (dress, reception, flowers, etc.). Go to your daughter and wife and have them prioritize each item. If the most important item is the reception, then they need to realize that you may have to cut elsewhere to be able to afford it. It is estimated that weddings in the United States for 2006 will be a 60 billion dollar annual industry with 2.3 million weddings with an average wedding cost of $26,800 according to the Wedding Report.
The Father of the Bride will spend more money on his daughter's wedding than any other single one-day event in his life. You need advice. Following is a breakout of who generally pays for what—by both traditional and modern standards. The bride’s family generally pays for everything expensive in both models. If money is an issue then you need to identify what money you have available and then prioritize from there. One more recent trend that has occurred is that many times the groom’s family is willing to pick up additional cost. Also, if your daughter is a fully functional adult, she can help contribute to the cost. Splitting the cost of the reception with the groom’s family where one pays for the food and one pays for the beverages is not unreasonable. Suck it up and talk to them if that’s what you need to do. Also, just because you can afford your part of the wedding, don’t automatically assume that the other parents can also.
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Who Pays for What |
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Traditional |
Modern |
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The Bride
- Groom's wedding ring
- Gifts for the groom and bridal Party.
- Chocolates, wedding favors
The Groom
- Bride's wedding ring.
- A wedding gift for the bride.
- Gifts for the best man and groomsmen.
- Tuxedo/Suit hire for himself
- Bride's & bridesmaid's bouquets, the corsages & boutonnieres.
- Clergy & ceremony fees
- The honeymoon
The Bride's Family
- Newspaper announcement
- The Reception
- Bridal Gown & accessories
- A wedding gift for the bride and groom.
- Wedding invitations
- Ceremony & reception flowers
- Photographer
- Wedding cake
The Groom's Family
- Wedding gift for the bride and groom.
- Any general expenses they may wish to contribute.
The Wedding Party
- Bride's maids dresses
- Bachelorette party given by maid of honor or bridesmaids
- Bachelors Party night given by best man or groomsmen
The Bride and Groom
- Gifts of appreciation for those who helped with your wedding.
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The Bride and Groom
- Bride and Groom's wedding ring
- Gifts for the bridal attendants.
- Gifts for the best man and groomsmen.
- Suit hire for the groom
- Bride's & bridesmaid's bouquets, the corsages & boutonnieres.
- Celebrant & ceremony fees
- Wedding invitations
- Photographer
- Wedding cake
- Gifts of appreciation
- Wedding cars/limousines
- Chocolates, wedding favors
- Bridal Gown & accessories
- The honeymoon
The Bride's Family
- Newspaper announcement
- The Reception Venue and Food
- Ceremony & Reception flowers
The Groom's Family
- Wedding gift for the bride and groom.
- The Reception Beverages
- Any general expenses they may wish to contribute.
The Wedding Party
- Bride’s maids dresses, shoes etc
- Groomsmen’s Suits, shoes etc
- Bachelorette party given by maid of honor or bridesmaids
- Bachelors Party night given by best man or groomsmen
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The people in the wedding industry are professionals who make a very comfortable living off of this industry. You are the mark. You walk through their door proud of your daughter and wanting to make your daughter’s wedding day special. They do too. They see every wedding day as a pay day. This is okay, but you don’t want to lose your shirt in the process.
So, if the average cost of a wedding in the United States is $26,800, then that means for every person going to a justice of the peace for a civil wedding, there is another couple spending $52,000. If you live in a major metropolitan area, the cost goes up. I live in the Washington, D.C. area and our average costs are $39,400. Guess where the vast majority of that money is coming from? Yes, you got it in one, the father of the bride.
On top of everything else, inflation is hitting the wedding industry at a rapid pace. The cost of wedding rings has risen 39 percent over the last six years to an average of $4,146, while photographers have gone up over 100 percent to $2,570. If your daughter is doing a destination wedding as mine did, the cost of fuel is driving transportation costs through the roof. However, for the nine percent of the brides who went for a destination wedding, their cost for their reception was 41 percent less. This is all about making some wise decisions early on, so that you don’t spend beyond your means, making your daughter’s special day a painful memory for you.
To find out what an average wedding will cost in your area, go to www.costofwedding.com, pour yourself a stiff drink, enter your zip code and spin the wheel. In the Wedding Report survey for those couples who created a budget for their weddings, the average budget was $19,000. Believe me, no matter how well you budget, you will have items that exceed your budgeted amounts and you will have unexpected costs. As a for instance, I expected my daughter’s wedding dress to cost around $1,000 to $1,500. What I didn’t realize is that there is actually a mother-of-the-bride dress selection in bridal boutiques that start at $1,000. When my wife explained how she had saved me so much money by selecting a bridesmaid dress instead at $400, I wasn’t sure how to feel. Remember, it’s the wedding industry professionals who set the costs on wedding goods and services. Despite my wife being proud of her savings, it was savings relative to an artificially set standard, not a savings compared to her normal dress shopping costs.
