Comparing weddings in Southwestern Virginia

Couples that are entering the wedding industry often have little knowledge of what it takes to make a great wedding and along with that, how much money they’ll be spending at one.

Sure, many websites will give you some general idea, but we wanted to actually compare two couples that got married right here in our part of Virginia to show you what you get for a wedding under $5,000, one that’s about $10,000 and then a $34,000 wedding, which is the national average price.

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Which is the best to choose?

Before we dive into things, we want you to know there is NO right answer or WRONG answer to weddings, it’s based on personal tastes, the wedding budget and what the couple wants.

“We’ve covered backyard BBQ weddings that we’re a lot more fun than ones we covered that cost upwards of $140,000 in Roanoke, it’s not about how much money you spend, it’s about how well things are put together, the flow of your wedding and reception and honestly, how enjoyable you make it.” - Joshua Gabrielson

So if there is no right way or wrong way to have a wedding, why would you compare them?

Well, good question, the answer is simple, to show you want you can afford in these price ranges and to give you an understanding of what weddings cost to start with too.

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The Right Tool for the Right Job

In order to help break down the average amounts of money you’ll be spending, you need a budget. It’s your bible or defense when it comes to overpaying for vendors or spending too much money in one area.

Luckily, Carole and I created a great local resource, a Wedding Budget Tool. You simply plug in the amount of money you plan on spending for your wedding and the application spits out how much you have for each of the major categories.

While many companies don’t want to provide a tool like this because they think it’ll hurt their own business, we think you should have an understanding of what you should be spending before you visit a wedding vendor.

The Antonymy of a $5,000 wedding in Southwestern Virginia

First, we’ll start with a $5,000 wedding budget.

Couples that opt for a smaller budget usually have a much smaller ceremony and reception.

In fact, when we asked couples about their wedding guest list size in 2018, those that had a wedding under $10,000 had an average guest list size of 65 compared to those that had a $40,000 wedding with 122 guests.

$5,000 wedding costs

The biggest expense in a wedding is not the venue, it’s the guests and having to take care of them with food, wedding cakes and alcohol. Even in a $5,000 wedding, couples are going to spend far more in that category than anything else.

In this example, $1,950 is going to be spent on food, booze and wedding cake of some type, using that lower figure of 65 guests, that’s about $30 a head.

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We can further divide that up too with $19 going to catering, about $7 going to beer or wine and the remaining $4 going to a cake of some type.

Typically the costs will be even more if you do it yourself or have a family member make a wedding meal, buying in bulk power, having all the kitchenware, know-how and even delivering everything to the venue hot will all cost money.

For the venue, $750 is something that is achievable in our region but it severely limits your location options.

Within this range, you’re going to be looking at places like Clay Corner Inn in Blacksburg or the Science Museum of Western Virginia. These are great little venues that can have your wedding day and worth looking into, just don’t expect white glove services. (In fact, very few venues locally have white glove services)

We recommend that you look at the Ultimate guide to wedding venues in the Roanoke Valley.

Even with a photographer and a wedding dress, you can still have a pretty good wedding for the cost of about $5,000 and many couples do just that.

Compared to a $10,000 Wedding in the Roanoke Valley

Doubling your wedding budget gives you a much better range of resources in the region.

$5k vs $10k Wedding Budget

Form the chart, you can see that most everything doubled and the catering, cake and alcohol budget shot up from $1,950 to almost $4,000! You need to also take into consideration the number of guests that you’ll have which will be closer to the 100-120 mark than the 60-70 range.

The benefit of doubling your budget is that you have better flexibility on finding a wedding venue that’s more align with pricing and a much better selection for wedding photographer’s too, less amateur’s wanting to go pro.

“The number one benefit of going with a budget of $10,000 rather than $5,000 is that you can easily double your guest list size and it will open up a wider net of vendors for you too.”

Okay, show me the $34,000 cost comparison

This is what the national average range is paying for in terms of wedding vendors, while some couples will be spending in this range in our area, just know that many more are spending less. And yes, a few are spending more than $100,000 in our area.

Now, these numbers are insanely high when you compare them to the other two types of weddings, although, the charts don’t take into effect other categories like wedding DJ’s, videographer’s, your hair/makeup, things like that.

But what it does show you is the priority when it comes to weddings, the guests, the venue, wedding photography, the wedding dress and flowers in that order.



No matter how much you spend on the wedding, this is usually how things take shape under normal conditions. The more you spend, the more options you have generally speaking and the better the wedding vendors will be at what you hire them for too.

Let’s take another look at the catering like we did beforehand.

At $13,260 and 150 wedding guests, that about $88 and some change per guest. You can have some over the top meals, expensive liquor and very fancy cake for that price point and some couples in SWVA spend that kind of money.

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Which wedding budget should we choose?

Honestly that depends on a lot of factors. You need to ask yourself a few questions first before you just plug in with a number and roll with it. Some great questions to ask include:

  • Do we plan to pay for everything or use credit cards/loans?

  • Are we planning to pay for everything over many years or in time for the wedding day?

  • Is it more important to celebrate the day or have an over-the-top wedding with friends and family?

  • Is is worth going into debt over or can you get a second job to help pay for the wedding?

The great thing about weddings is that no two are alike and there is never a wrong way to do things, after all, it’s YOUR wedding day. It shouldn’t matter how much you spend on the wedding day, but rather, having a celebration with loved ones at the wedding day.

Can you give us a Recommended Starting Point for a Wedding Budget?

If you’re looking for a recommendation on where to start, we CAN tell you that most couples spend an average of about $29,200 state wide while in our region that includes Roanoke, Lynchburg and the New River Valley, that number was closer to $27,300.

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