Hosted by Kai Ryssdal

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This is just one of the stories from our “I’ve Always Wondered” series, where we tackle all of your questions about the world of business, no matter how big or small. Ever wondered if recycling is worth it? Or how store brands stack up against name brands? Check out more from the series here.

Listener Arden Sniderwin asks:

Why do weddings cost so much?

Samantha Duthe, who got married in April 2023, didn’t grow up envisioning what her wedding would look like. There were no scrapbooks. No Pinterest boards. She didn’t care. Or at least she thought she didn’t. 

“Then once you get into the planning, it almost forces you to care about the details,” said Duthe, 31, from Northern Virginia. 

In total, Duthe and her husband spent about $25,000 to $30,000 on their wedding in Buffalo, New York. The couple paid for a majority of the expenses, although family members helped with some costs, like their rehearsal dinner and desserts. 

“We definitely didn’t try to go overboard with it. But at the same time, we still wanted it to be a good experience for all of our family and friends, especially for the people who were traveling from out of state,” Duthe said. 

The high cost of a venue, catering, photography, floral arrangements, bridal dresses, suits and decorations all add up, prompting couples to spend tens of thousands of dollars on their big day. In 2024, the average cost of a wedding reached $33,000, an increase from $29,000 the previous year, according to the wedding registry service Zola. 

When Ellie Nguyen (no relation) started venue shopping with her husband, they estimated their budget would be around $35,000. But then the expenses started rolling in. 

“There were a lot of little things that we didn’t think we would have to spend so much money on,” said Nguyen, 30. Like postage for their invites, which cost $150.

“$1,000 here, $2,000 here, $3,000 here ended up being $60,000,” said Nguyen, who lives in Garden Grove, California, and got married in May 2023.  

Note: Amounts have been rounded and some are rough approximations.

Recent factors have also pushed up the price, like inflation, pent-up demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and couples’ willingness to spend more money since they’re getting married at a later age.

Although inflation is now cooling, consumer prices reached a peak of 9.1% in June 2022, forcing vendors to increase their costs and raise their price. Running a wedding venue was already a costly endeavor, but inflation and rising labor costs made it even more difficult. 

The economic and generational factors affecting the cost

On average, Americans are marrying later, which means they’re able to save more money. As a result, they’re spending more on their wedding, said Vishal Joshi, the CEO and co-founder of Joy, a wedding planning and registry company. In 1950, men married at an average age of 23, and women married at an average of 20. In 2022, the average for men stood at 30, and for women it was 28.

The number of guests at a wedding can also drive up the price. Wedding guest lists reached a peak of 153 people back in 2007. The average guest list was just 66 people in 2020, but now numbers are beginning to bounce back. In 2023, the average size hit 115 guests, according to data from The Knot, a wedding planning website. 

During the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people postponed their weddings, creating a massive backlog, Joshi said.

“You have less venues and the same number of weekends,” Joshi said. It’s simple supply-and-demand economics: prices went up as demand increased, he explained. 

When it comes to vendors, a typical business might provide their services at 30 to 40 weddings a year, Joshi said. So they’re charging as much as the market will bear because they have to make a living from wedding season.

And some of that profit will have to go back into the business to pay for expenses like advertising, Joshi added. 

Some couples have expressed concern over the “wedding tax,” an increase in the cost of goods and services simply because they’re for a wedding. You may very well have to end up paying more as some journalists have discovered. But vendors say there’s a reason for the higher cost. There’s a lot of pre-planning that goes into your special day and more staff may be required to ensure everything goes smoothly. The wedding industry could help remedy this by explaining to their clients why they’re charging more, finance expert Chris Kohler told The Sydney Morning Herald. 

Venues are one of the biggest wedding expenses for a couple. Duthe and her husband paid $12,000 for theirs, while Nguyen and her husband paid $33,000. 

Playa Studios in Culver City, California, charges $15,000 for a Saturday wedding, which includes the space itself, tables, chairs, bars and a stage sound system, said managing partner Adam Harriman. 

If you’re on the westside of Los Angeles like Playa Studios, you might pay $4 a square foot each month, Harriman added. 

A wedding venue owner might not have a lot left over if they’re paying, say, $35,000 a month in rent and millions on construction to beautify the venue, Harriman explained. You also have to pay for maintenance and repairs. 

“The model is very high risk,” Harriman said. 

Ian Chin, a full-time photographer in the San Francisco Bay Area, said he charges couples about $6,000 for an eight-hour day. He photographs, on average, about 12 to 15 weddings a year. 

To run a business, photographers have to spend money on dozens of expenses, including the camera, lenses, tripods, memory cards, websites to host their portfolio, editing software and ads, Chin said. It can cost $3,000 to $4,000 for a camera and a camera lens can cost $1,000 to $2,000, Chin added. 

If he charged $300 for photography – a price point he does see other photographers charge – it would be difficult to make a living. “I try to charge what I feel is appropriate given my experience and the quality I feel I provide,” Chin said. He’s been a full-time photographer for 12 years.

Chin also spends hours combing through thousands of photos, choosing the best ones, and editing them. 

So, in a nutshell, why is photography so expensive? “It is because, hopefully, the person you hire is committed to it,” Chin said. 

Managing the high cost of a wedding

Many couples struggle to afford their wedding because of the high price tag.

Fifty-six percent of newlyweds took on debt to afford their wedding, according to a U.S. News Survey earlier this year. 

To save money, some couples are getting married on a weekday and saving thousands of dollars as a result. 

Some are fortunate and are able to accumulate savings leading up to the event. “My husband and I have been together for 17 years. So we were dating for a long time. Once we graduated college, we both knew that we were going to get married. It was just more of when. So we had been saving up for a really long time,” Nguyen said. 

By the time her husband had proposed in 2021, they already had set aside $12,000. They continued saving money until they got married, and the wedding gifts they received helped cover the rest of their expenses. 

Duthe said she and her husband had “a decent amount of savings” for the wedding, and they made their payments in installments, which helped make the cost manageable. For example, they paid $2,000 to $3,000 every two months for their wedding venue. 

While there are many small expenses you may end up paying for, you shouldn’t feel obligated to buy everything either.  

“I feel like it’s so easy to get caught up in cute wedding ideas that you see on Pinterest. We didn’t do favors and I don’t think anyone cared,” Duthe said. 

What people did comment on is how great of a time they had. Duthe credits the good DJ, the good food, and her decision to go out there and dance the entire night.

“People were saying, ‘We think it was so much fun because you were there with us having fun,’” Duthe said.