Reception Photos by Glenn Guiao
Disclaimer: The photo above does not depict the couples mentioned in this article. It is included solely for illustrative purposes, while certain Reddit threads I discovered online have proven useful.
Below is the overall breakdown of my wedding on 10/7/23. My husband and I originally wanted to do immediate family only at city hall but family convinced us to do a larger event. Worth it IMO! City is LCOL (based on google it is 5% lower than the national average) but wedding ended up being well over $100k. My parents paid for the reception and ceremony music which was extremely generous. My husbands parents paid for the welcome party/rehearsal dinner. Forgot about florals - so it was around $142k total wedding. See below.
Attire: $9,000. My dress was around $4,500, alterations with tip $1,000, groom paid for him and his best mans tux: $3,000. Rehearsal dinner and after party dresses about $500. I probs didn’t need to spend that much but oh well.
Welcome party: $10,000 - party for about 100 people, open bar and food, rental space itself was $2,000. This was important bc we had so many out of town guests.
Transportation: $3,000 - this includes shuttles to and from venue for wedding day. Must have in my opinion. Venue was only a 5-10 min drive but important for out of town guests who want to drink, unfamiliar with the area.
Wedding food + drink: $51,000 - my parents paid for this. Plated dinner and premium open bar for 200 people.
Venue Rentals: $42,000 - I had a vision and it was costly but worth it! Includes the tent, tables, chairs, dance floor, stage for the band.
Band: $8,500 - love a live band
String Quartet: $1,000 - played for ceremony and cocktail hour
After Party: $4,000 - we had an open bar and pizza/wings for about 2.5 hours. Worth it and kept the party going!
Hair and makeup: $3,500 - I paid for my sisters, my mom, officiant. and my husbands mom and sister hair and make up. A nice way to say thank you !
Photography: $6,000 - always worth it. Got my preview pictures back by Sunday afternoon and love!
Florals: $4,000 - forgot to add this in!
I didn’t get a videographer but I entrusted my cousin to film the whole ceremony and she did ! As a thank you I got her hair and make up done for the event.
I’m glad you enjoyed it, but I’m flabbergasted at “wanted to do immediate family only at city hall” and ended up with a $142k wedding haha
It is wild how we went from small to big. It was to appease my parents at first but I ended up really happy. My parents thrive on hosting these types of things and opportunity to bring the two families together as well as my friends to meet my family.
It sounds like you had a beautiful wedding op! I really respect that you paid for guest transportation. It’s so, so important.
I would say the tent structure itself. I posted a pic but happy to send you more. It was insane but essentially another building attached to the venue and i think that alone was like $25k for rental and set up, etc. I also paid $5k to get it heated. People thought it was really cool and we were still outside but warm enough.
- no signage at all. I did place the wedding photos of my parents, grandparents, husbands parents and grandparents, great grandparents in the welcome foyer as a way to honor those before us which I liked.
- my mom wrote the place settings, so free expedient for the blank cards
- plain, white linens
I did like a black and white checkered dance floor which I think makes it look fancy.
My twin sister got married at the same location last September and her food/drink ended up being $60k she had about 30 more ppl. It’s expensive but good booze and great food def helps the guest experience. It was important for my parents, as well as myself, to host a great event and people to enjoy themselves! Especially for out of towners who spend money on plane tickets + hotels.
For what it’s worth, according to realtor.com the median listing price for a home per square foot in Des Moines is $192 vs NY, NY’s $774 nearly exactly 4x more. So between the cost of goods sold and labor it’s not unreasonable. A lot of money sure, but still.
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