Is it bad taste to charge guests a fee to attend your wedding? Or is this a trend we might see more often in the future?
Inflation drives up wedding costs
A new survey by wedding planning website Zola found that the average ceremony in the U.S. costs more than $30,000 due to inflation.
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How much would you pay to attend a wedding?
That’s right: you’re paying to attend a wedding. I’m not talking about covering the cost of a bridesmaid dress or buying an expensive gift from a registry, but rather paying a fee to attend the wedding to help the couple cover the cost of the event.
Two things keep me busy when it comes to weddings. The first is my own upcoming anniversary. The second is the story of a New York couple (Nova and Reemo Styles) who recently made national headlines when they came up with a creative way to finance their $70,000 wedding: They charged guests $333 each. Guests were given a ticket for a seat on the couple’s rented double-decker bus, which provided a comprehensive 12-hour tour of New York City outside of the wedding festivities.
It’s no big surprise that couples are resorting to such tactics, considering the average cost of a wedding has risen to $33,000 this year, up from $29,000 in 2023. According to The Knot, a popular wedding planner and vendor website, most couples hire an average of 10 wedding professionals or vendors for their special day.
Call me stingy, but I would never pay to attend a wedding.
The Styles’ decision has drawn plenty of criticism and raised questions about appropriateness and changing societal norms. It suggests a growing willingness to break traditional boundaries in favor of personal preference. Wouldn’t it be more practical to have a less expensive wedding rather than spending $70,000?
We got married on a tight budget. The memories are priceless.
My wife Damia and I are celebrating our seventh wedding anniversary in three weeks. I don’t want to score points here, but it was one of the most unforgettable days of my life and we didn’t spend too much money on it.
We celebrated the day with our parents and close friends. It was quick, but everything was perfect. We started preparing for our big day about six months in advance, and to be honest, like most men, I didn’t do much.
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Damia and her friend did most of the planning, but I remember being bombarded with a lot of questions:
How many people did we want to invite?
Did we want to have a wedding at a specific location?
Would we get married in a church or a courthouse?
Where should our reception take place?
Where should we go for our honeymoon?
And how much did we want to spend on photography, food, cake, alcohol and entertainment?
The main question Damia kept asking was: “What is our budget?”
We decided to have a simple wedding. The ceremony was only for close friends and family, and later in the evening there was a reception for about 100 guests.
Judge Derek Mosley made our wedding unforgettable
We were married in the courthouse, with Judge Derek Mosley performing the ceremony. What was particularly striking was when he took a rope, tied our hands together and then returned to his office.
He left us there for about ten minutes and allowed us to look into each other’s eyes and enjoy the moment.
The pause was so long that my father, who was sitting in the front row, said quietly: “What’s taking so long?”
Mosley also took our rings, put them in a bag, and passed them out to all of our guests to pray over. My lifelong friends all served as my witnesses. Two of our friends, Dave Wilkins and Matt Mixon, served as our professional photographers.
The flowers for our reception table came from Trader Joe’s. We spent a total of $200 on flowers and decorations. A buffet for our guests cost almost $900. DJ Vel, my friend from elementary school, cost $400. A friend donated a signature drink. We paid for the champagne, $100. The wedding cake cost $165. Ties and pocket squares for the groomsmen cost $150. Damia let the two women pick out their dresses as long as they were the same color.
We took photos at the beautiful, free lakefront and left for our four-day honeymoon in Minneapolis the next day. We couldn’t go too far since Damia was my parents’ primary caregiver and we wanted to be close enough to them in case we needed to get home quickly.
The total cost of our wedding day, minus our wedding rings, was $2,300.
Before you call me stingy, it was more important to us to invite close friends and family members that we care about than to just throw a big party. I can tell you that I have attended expensive weddings at the war memorial that cost more than $70,000, and I was also best man for my friend Tony Daniels, who got married in his mother’s backyard in Milwaukee.
Both weddings were beautiful.
My grandparents got married for $40. Weddings don’t have to be luxurious.
My grandparents were married for 56 years and were married on March 10, 1943, in the living room of their Mississippi home built by my grandfather, Orelious Pinkney.
The cost was less than $40. He wore his church suit and my grandmother Ruth wore her church dress. Most of the cost was for the food. The main course was a pig that they slaughtered on their farm and put on the grill for the guests.
My favorite aunt and uncle got married in their living room in Chicago while their minister performed the ceremony, and my parents got married in a small ceremony in Chicago. My mom said the cake and her dress were the biggest expenses.
Weddings are a big deal these days. Dozens of reality TV shows showcase just how wild and expensive some weddings can be. The show “Say Yes to the Dress” follows brides as they pick up their dream dress at Kleinfeld’s in New York City. There’s also the reality show “Bridalplasty,” which shows pre-ceremony plastic surgery, and “Bridezillas,” which focuses on very difficult brides.
With so many wedding reality shows on TV, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another show called “How Much Would You Pay to Attend Our Wedding?”
The Styles were actually supposed to get married in June 2023, but news of how they funded the event broke in May of this year. The couple posted their wedding videos on TikTok with the caption, “Did we really sell tickets to our wedding!?”
The Styles were able to have the wedding they wanted, even though some people asked, “Who do you think you are? Jay-Z and Beyoncé?” Nova said. The fact that people still came and filled their double-decker bus proves that their idea of charging for a wedding wasn’t so far-fetched.
As more people challenge societal norms, your guests may also be paying top dollar for your day. The Styles has proven that you can always ask, because weddings aren’t getting cheaper.
A 2020 survey by LendingTree found that about three in 10 engaged couples plan to take on debt to pay for their wedding expenses. Interestingly, one in three divorced Americans cite credit card debt as a factor that contributed to their decision to separate from their spouse.
So it might be wiser to opt for a smaller, less expensive wedding. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be the day of your dreams.
When I think about an anniversary gift for Damia, I’m just glad that almost seven years later, we don’t still have to pay for our big day.
To reach James E. Causey at [email protected]; follow him on X @jecausey.
