re: Average amount spent on weddings per state

The average couple likely can’t and does not have a traditional wedding reception at all, going by incomes in the US. This is the average of people who did and could host wedding receptions, I’d wager. People who opt to host a standard wedding reception seem to do so because they have the funds to do so.

In which case, it makes sense it skews higher, ya know?

OP didn’t link the data, though.

Plus, you gotta break it down here. Hosting people, wedding or not, costs money if you're not going casual. Going to dinner costs money, right?

My food was $80/head. That's about normal when going to a nice dinner out, is it not?

My top shelf open bar was $45 a head. That's a pretty standard premium cocktail bar tab, right? I think it was $30 a head for mid tier liquor. Again, very normal bar tab.

Etc. Etc.

Weddings are expensive NO DOUBT, but people act like the per-item pricing is unusual when they pay about the same on a small scale level in their own lives regularly. It obviously makes sense that paying the food bill, alcohol bill, the music/entertainment bill, the venue that houses everyone, etc. for 150 people will add up to a lot of money. You're scaling up to a massive degree.

Of course catering where an entire team of people brings their equipment to another location and cooks, serves, and cleans up is going to come at a premium over ordering takeout from Longhorn. Ya know?

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I should've included "celebration " I don't think anyone would disagree that a wedding is a celebration, unless maybe a shotgun is involved.

Your opinion is that it costs too much for the reception, and that it isn't necessary. That's fine.

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And I do want to say, I have absolutely nothing against a nice reception. The ones I’ve been to were amazing…just really expensive.

I agree that a wedding should absolutely be celebratory. I might be biased because our wedding was just immediate family at our small church and the reception was dinner at a restaurant.

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there are definitely people out there going beyond what makes financial sense

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Absolutely 100%, but the comments online are never are prefaced with that specific clause. Just look at the previous pages of this thread.

Never did anyone say "people who go into debt for weddings.." before their statements. They just make assumptions that people who have weddings sacrificed buying a home or saving money for their future.

I'd guess on TD, where it seems education and income skew higher than average, that most users who had big traditional weddings paid for it via Daddy + their own surplus of funds.

I know that's what I damn sure did, and I think our all in was $60k. I don't have a single cent of personal debt. Not a student loan, not a car note, nothing. (Technicality, since my husband has a mortgage, but that was before marriage, so not mine LOL)

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I might be biased because our wedding was just immediate family at our small church and the reception was dinner at a restaurant.

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That's just it. The Venn Diagram of people who criticize big weddings (and you're being super cool/polite, so you're all good dude!) and the people who eloped or had small non-receptions are a perfect circle.

What's interesting is that you seldom see people who had large nice weddings insulting people who didn't.

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The last thing I'm going to do is justify what I spend to a bunch of anonymous internet posters.

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I'm not saying you have to. It's your money, time, and people. It's just that it being a religious sacrament is a separate thing