43k for a wedding . Wow , even 15k. Who in their right mind except a rich privileged person even has that kind of extra cash to just toss on a event for a day. It’s sick shit if you ask me

It’s ridiculous, yeah, but it’s also a big business in parts of RI. Some people have money to blow that’s just life. At least it’s stimulating the local economy with photographers, catering, venues, flowers, etc.?

Absolutely , all I can do is sit on the sidelines and whine but it’s just mind blowing when you think about it lol

Newport marriages skew the average way upwards. If you look at the median I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts it’s much much lower than the mean.

I’d also spend the same amount of money on a boat to go fishing soo lmao

Lol sounds like a better priority anyways

To OP's credit, $15k is low for any wedding and basically pennies on the dollar for 250 people. A cute venue that holds 50 - maybe 70 people in a number of US cities -- cute and cozy, not lavish, is like $7k. Then there's still food, flowers, the dress which is like $500 on the lowest end or used, and alcohol. $15k means OP is probably thrifty (see: weddings under 10k subreddit).

But I agree, the wedding industry is out of control and many people here have large families which is so hard to financially accommodate.

I was an event planner at the time and knew all the vendors but they charged full market price.

The venue we used is well established in Massachusetts and has been in business at least 40 years. We booked during peak season for off peak prices.

We used the Flower exchange in Boston and built our own centerpieces, invitations, and seating chart (I do not recommend taking on these tasks unless you have an art background which we fortunately had).

If I could do it over again I would have also just bought a boat 😂💀.

I did mine under 10k. Didn't use a silly mansion

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Newport drags the average up. We toured one of the places two years ago when I was planning on getting married and to just meet minimums for a wedding under a a hundred people, we were looking at like a 5 hour open bar.

We did the Officers Club in Newport. Food and booze for 180 people was 28k. The band was $10k but well worth it. I know some who were closer to $80k at Rosecliffe ect...

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We had our wedding in warren at the wharf for just 80 people open bar all night and married at a church. I think we did wedding and honeymoon for under 26k in 2020

Glad we got married 13 years ago and didn’t break the bank. We had our event in 2009 at Webb Barn in Wethersfield CT. We max spent $12k total for every last need/embellishment. 115 people, catering by a nearby restaurant. We made back what we put in thanks to wedding gifts. At age 25, we felt pretty good about paying for it ourselves and not even noticing it.

Parents definitely help with some weddings, and even pay for them entirely.
Also you get some of that money back in gifts. So if you can get a credit card with 0% interest for a while that could cover some of it and then you pay it back with the money you got in gifts. But it’s risky

Lmao you must be in the wall street bet sub with that mindset boy

I’ve done it before for non-wedding things. I knew I wanted a different credit card once I learned about reward points and I was ready to buy a fence (and installation) which was $11k. Had the money saved already, found a card that would earn me the most rewards plus bonus cash back for spending a certain amount within the first 3 months, as well as have 0% interest for the first 18 months. Paid for the fence with the CC and saved the money in a high yield savings account. Wish I invested it instead for that 18 months but with the interest, CC rewards and bonus it came out to around several hundred dollars of savings. If I had invested it would have been closer to fifteen hundred (edited bc I definitely think the market did very well in that time) dollars a the time. It’s a fairly common approach if you’re comfortable holding debt.

That’s a down payment for a house 😳 people are crazy

“10 years ago I got a carton of eggs for $.99”

I’d love to know what venue, type of meals, and where you went on your honey moon that it cost $15k.

Simmer down Bridezilla

there is a girl who does surprisingly good decorations for parties and weddings out of cheap materials like balloons - she is an engineer and has this eye for color an shape and how to construct - she is based in MA. i doubt she charges a lot. the results look great. you don't need to go all out and spend too much on a wedding. just rent a place, a caterer or restaurant (probably cheaper), a musician, photographer and decorator.