I’m a wedding planner in Portland, Oregon, who had a wedding in 2019. At that point, I’d been planning weddings professionally for three years. I used that experience to help plan ours.
A few important details about the wedding budget breakdown below:
My partner and I had 19 people (including the two of us) at our wedding. We opted to do this because a lower guest count is typically the most effective way to save a lot of money quickly. If “only” having 19 people at your wedding simply isn’t possible, don’t wander away just yet. Much of the below can be scaled to whatever your headcount is.
It was important to my partner and I to also host an event related to our marriage where our friends could celebrate with us. We opted to host a “friend reception” a month after our wedding. I’ve included pricing for that below in an “optional” section alongside a few other items. If you include these items, are wedding cost above $10,000.
We got married in November. This is considered the start of the slower season for many wedding vendors in my part of the world (Pacific Northwest), which helped lead to lower prices and better availability.
This pricing is from 2019 and yes, prices are higher post-COVID. I’ve seen this change most in the pricing for the house where we got married (more below).
What my wedding cost
Venue: $3,057.32
This was for the ENTIRE HOLIDAY WEEKEND of our wedding (Thursday evening to Monday morning). We got married at a private home on the Oregon Coast.
The ceremony was hosted in the living room of the house. After the ceremony, the caterer “flipped” the room into the reception space by setting up dinner tables and moving the ceremony chairs. After we ate, the caterer removed the tables and chairs and the living area became our dance floor area.
Before we hired the caterer, I made sure to ask if they would order, pick-up, set-up, and clean-up all rentals as it was important to me that this labor be done by someone who wasn’t a guest. (Though guests did end up helping straighten up the house before and after the wedding.)The venue is where I’ve seen the biggest raise in prices post-pandemic. It’s now closer to $4,500 for the same length of time over the same holiday.
Catering (including rentals and 20 percent tip): $3,314.64
This was our biggest line item because it was also our most important (we wanted really tasty food!). The catering order included:
a salad, roasted veggies, dinner rolls, roasted chicken, and a charcuterie and cheese display ($1,452)
a keg of caterer-made apple cider ($79)
plates, spoons, forks, glasses, gold Chivari chairs, wine glasses, white tablecloths, three folding tables, and gold napkins ($391.20)
three staff members (a chef, a lead server, and a server; $840)
We also elected to do a tasting with six people including us as a thank-you to those people for their support of our wedding. We paid for this separately; I can’t find the cost but know it was under $200. I didn’t include the tasting cost in the total below as it was pretty optional.
Dessert: $119.50
We ordered 10 ice cream pints from our favorite ice cream shop and had one of our guests pick this up on their way to the wedding.
Decor: $51.95
For us, this meant a box of gold votives ($31.98, Amazon) and thank-you notes ($19.97, Amazon). A couple of guests also created a “light curtain” (i.e. a step-and-repeat frame with tulle and fairy lights) to hide the TV that was mounted on the wall in the room where we got married. I don’t have pricing for that but estimate it cost $25 to $35 to make; I didn’t include this number in the total.
Dress: $1,050
This includes the (very minimal) alterations I needed.
Dress accessories: $106.19
This was mainly cute hair stuff and four pairs of shoes for me (two I didn’t use and two I did).
Favors: $64
For favors, we bought individual jars of locally made honey for people to use at dinner. The favors also served as place cards. Each jar had the name of a specific guest, as designed by the business where we bought the honey.
Flowers: $385
We bought our flowers “à la carte,” which is an option many florists offer where you “just” buy the flowers you need. This works best if you don’t need extensive decor flowers and “only” want flowers you wear or carry.For us, that meant:
a bouquet for me ($140)
a boutonnière for my partner ($10)
three bouquets for our wedding party ($150)
some lengths of eucalyptus and long-stem flowers to use as ceremony decor ($85)
The four bouquets became the centerpieces on our long banquet-style dinner table, using the vases that we bought from the florist.
We traveled to our venue the Wednesday before our wedding and picked up our flowers on our way out of town (the wedding was on Saturday). To keep the flowers fresh, I:
told our florist the length of time between pick-up and the wedding so the florist could prioritize using flowers that have a longer shelf life, and
we kept our flowers in a cool area (the garage of the rental home; could also have been a fridge if the weather had been warmer).
I don’t know if the guest who paid for this vendor tipped them, which is why I didn’t include that information above.
Hair and/or makeup: est. $150
I can’t find the actual cost but I did a one-hour tutorial with a makeup stylist and then did my own hair and makeup on the wedding day as did all of our wedding VIPs who use makeup and/or wanted to style their hair a certain way. I was very happy with the results!
The number above also includes my rough guess for how much I spent on new makeup I bought especially for the wedding (but also used after the wedding, too).
Photographer: $375
We hired a photographer for their “elopement” package even though we weren’t technically eloping. (You can 100 percent do this as long as you’re honest with your vendors about your guest count, i.e. the main metric they use to decide if your event qualifies for any elopement pricing they offer.)
This choice meant we had the photographer for two hours (vs. the more standard six to 12 hours people hire photographers for on a wedding day).
To make this work, we prioritized having the photographer on-site starting 30 minutes before for the ceremony and leaving once post-ceremony photos were done. This meant skipping a first look and instead seeing each other for the first time in our wedding clothes at the start of the ceremony.
The photographer was also not on-site for any photos of us getting ready or for any reception programming. Instead, if anybody wanted photos of us getting dressed, having dinner, doing toasts, dancing, and/or eating dessert, they took them with their phones. This worked very well for us! We don’t feel that we missed any moments.
I don’t know if the guest who paid for this vendor tipped them, which is why I didn’t include that information above.
Suit: $150
My partner bought a suit at H&M and had it tailored. This price includes those alterations.
Wedding rings: $899
We elected to make our own wedding bands with a local metalsmith who offers this option. This price included the half-day workshop where we made our rings as well as all materials. We had very simple designs and used the most affordable gold with no stones or engraving. This price does not include my engagement ring.
Wedding license: $61.20
I’m fairly sure this includes us electing to buy three certified copies of the license for our own records.
Vow writing workshop: $77.54
This was a fun wedding thing I knew about through my job that we did with a professional officiant.
Total: $9,861.34
Additional add-ons
Premarital counseling: $1,000
It was challenging to find a secular option for premarital counseling but find it we did! This was three to five visits (can’t remember the exact number) with a coach who helped us articulate what we loved about our relationship and wanted to carry into our marriage.
Honeymoon: $288.44
Our honeymoon was two days at a hotel in the town where we got married. This was the cost of the hotel.
Friend reception: $250
We rented the backroom of a local pizza place for four hours at $250. This included pizza, salad, and non-alcoholic drinks (which we paid for) and bartender service (our guests bought their own alcoholic drinks at a bar that was in the same room).
Total including these three items: $11,399.78
Common wedding vendor services that I did NOT hire:
Alcohol
Two of our guests gifted us wine for the wedding as their gift to us (very generous, I know). We didn’t serve beer or hard liquor. The caterer provided apple cider (our non-alcoholic option in addition to water and whatever soft drinks we had from the rest of the weekend).
Ceremony and/or reception music and A/V
For the ceremony, we downloaded our processional and recessional songs onto a phone and had a guest play it through a Bluetooth speaker. For the reception, we downloaded a wedding dance playlist and played it off our phone to the speaker. We didn’t use a mic for the officiant or for toasts (a benefit of having a small group, all indoors).
Invites and other paper goods
We combined a save-the-date and invite into one Paperless Post Flyer. We used a free option so this cost $0. We didn’t have any programs and our caterer printed menus for us as part of their fee.
Officiant
One of our guests was our officiant. We didn’t pay him.
Transportation
We got to the venue using personal vehicles and didn’t travel anywhere outside of the house for the wedding so we didn’t need to pay for transportation on the wedding day.
Videographer
We thought about it but ultimately decided this wasn’t for us.
Wedding coordinator or planner
Perhaps ironically given what I do for a living, I didn’t hire a coordinator or planner. Do I regret this? A little. It would have been nice to have someone who wasn’t a guest help the caterer with set-up and clean-up as well as manage things like the ceremony and photos.