There was a time when weddings were not always cost the price of a new car or truck, in fact it’s only been in the last 20 some odd years that weddings have become so expensive.

When I started out in the wedding business back in the 1990’s, high-end weddings cost just under $20,000, but today just basic wedding cost nearly $35,000, now that’s a lot of money!

Today, we’re going to explore why they’ve become expensive, so let’s begin.

From Churches to Wedding Venues

Usually the second most expensive line item on the wedding list is the venue.

Weddings have shifted a lot in recent years from churches to wedding venues or places that are like dedicated wedding venues.

And with that is a huge expense that’s put onto the wedding and the wedding budget.

The national average for a wedding venue in 2019 was just above $5,000 and that’s a big ticket item to fork out, especially when couples of yesteryear would get married in a church which most times were free to members or the community.

In fact, in 2019, of the 15 weddings Carole and I did, just 2 were inside churches, roughly 13%.

In 1999, nearly 89% of all my weddings were inside a church.

Between 2000 and 2012, Church weddings dropped by 40 percent , by 2016, roughly 26% of all weddings were in churches.

That number is low because people want to get married outside the church doors and in return it has created this mental dynamic that they have to wed in a venue instead.

Many places have cashed in on the lack of religious ceremonies in a sanctuary and it comes out of the couples bank account.

When I first started in the wedding industry, there was only a handful of wedding venues in South Western Virginia, today they are the second biggest wedding vendor in the region, photographers being first.

Receptions have Become BIGGER and more elaborate too

Receptions too have become much more elaborate over the years with more décor, more alcohol and more entertainment for the wedding guests.

Guests at a wedding expect more than just music and food, they wants cute little party favors, lights, strobes, bonfires, special food bars, drinks and they want to be entertained.

Today, receptions are more party like than ever before and that also drives the cost of weddings upward.

Couples are looking for venues with lots of amenities, more than just your basic setup.

Demand for More Services

More services means more money.

As a wedding professional, I’ve had to constantly upgrade my gear by adding things like 4K video, drones and sliders to my shots. And even on the horizon is 6K and 8K video, which means larger memory card, faster computers, and a lot more memory, it all costs more money.

Couples no longer want just a basic ceremony or reception video, they want highlights and feature films with cinematic look and feel to them.

The same applies to wedding photographers. 20 years ago if Carole was in the business, she would have only taken a few hundred images because of the constant swap of film in her camera.

Today, she can take an almost unlimited amount of images, but they all have to be processed and that take time.

And time is money, more of it.

My point is that the wedding business had become more demanding in recent years.

While technology has become more affordable, couples want and seek an elevated experience with wedding vendors.

The Truth About Why Couples Have Weddings

This will piss off a lot of wedding vendors.

“The truth of the matter is that you don’t really need a venue, a reception, any of the wedding vendors or all the fancy parts of a wedding.”

In fact, you can get married for less than $100 at a courthouse in most locations within the United States.

Well, if that the case, then why do couples spend gobs of money to have an over-the-top wedding to begin with?

I recently, I asked a simple survey question on Facebook about why have an over the top wedding and not just run to a courthouse to get married?

The most common answer to the question was actually a very common one, they all wanted family (sometimes friends) to be apart of the big day.

The next most common answer was that the bride wanted to simply be apart of something big or pamper herself.

No matter how much brides spent on the day, they all had a similar theme in common when it comes to getting married and that’s having loved ones with them as they celebrate the big day.

Brides and grooms alike want to celebrate the day with their loved ones, they want to feel special as they are going into a new chapter of their lives and they also want in part, that tradition of having a great wedding day.

There is nothing wrong with that at all, in fact, you SHOULD celebrate the day with you friends and family, however, you shouldn’t go into massive amounts of debt to do it.

Other Wedding Day Alternatives

If you’re looking for a smaller, more affordable option than a full-sized wedding, we have a couple options for you.

Elopement

You could elope which is a very cheap way to get married, then have the reception at a later date with your friends and family. Honestly, this is not really a huge money saver because you still need to rent a venue and have food, entertainment and the like too.

Don’t get me wrong, it will save you some money, just not as much as you anticipate.

Micro-Wedding

The other thing you may want to consider is a micro-wedding.

A micro wedding in a nutshell is a full wedding with no more than 50 guests and a quick time frame, usually in half the time as a more traditional wedding.

I suggest that that you read the article that I recently wrote about entitled What is a Micro Wedding to learn more about that.

In either case, if you choose to have a full wedding, you can save money by following some simple guidelines that I also wrote about, the Best ways to Save Money for Your Wedding.