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- Planning a wedding can be extremely expensive.
- Many couples don’t want to sacrifice hiring popular vendors like a wedding photographer, live band, or professional wedding planner — and often end up overspending.
- Couples should expect to set aside the most amount of money for their venue and catering.
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Planning a wedding can be extremely expensive. Before you know it, you’ve dropped tens of thousands of dollars on your venue, cake, photographer, and other expenses.
Wedding Wire reports that, on average, couples expect to pay $16,000 for their wedding, but end up spending roughly $29,000. By knowing the average price of the most popular wedding vendors, couples can plan their budgets more effectively and avoid overspending.
The same study conducted by Wedding Wire analyzed responses from over 18,000 US couples married in 2019 and asked them about their entire wedding journey. The couples reported the average amount they spent on some of the most popular wedding vendors — including their venue, catering, photographer, officiant, wedding planner, and much more.
Here are the average prices of 16 of the most popular wedding vendors:
Officiant: $300
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Officiants serve a vital role when it comes to your wedding. Officiants can be religious figures, close friends, family members, professional celebrants, or anyone that legally has the right to marry a couple. As for the price? Justices of the peace may only cost you $50-$100. However, more experienced priests or professional celebrants could charge you up to $450. On average, expect to pay around $300.
Cake: $550
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Several factors can affect how much you end up spending on this wedding day staple. Things like the size of the cake, the layer count, the experience level of the baker, decorations, number of tiers, and more can greatly affect a cake’s price. A customized wedding cake will most likely end up costing you around $550.
Ceremony music/musician: $600
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For many couples, choosing to hire live music for their ceremony is a no-brainer. This added expense will cost you, however. The average fee for hiring musicians to play during your ceremony or as you walk down the aisle is around $600.
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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Erin McDowell)