Show Me The Money: Getting Real about Wedding Costs
It’s springtime, which means wedding season 2026 is well on its way. If you are shuffling out your budget to get married later this year, or just starting to look into planning for 2027 and beyond, you are probably discovering one thing: weddings aren’t cheap. Pinterest inspo photos and celebrity weddings splashed online present absolutely gorgeous possibilities, but when you start to look into creating those designs for yourself, the price tags can come with quite the shock. We’re going to take the opportunity to break down some of those costs for you and give some context on why they add up so quickly.
Photo credit: RCC Photo
The average wedding in the United States costs about $36,000, but here in South Dakota, that number looks more like $25,000 - $30,000. And remember, that number is the average wedding, definitely not the top end of what an event can cost. We can tell you from inside the industry that we’re under no illusions about what an investment those numbers are. It can be overwhelming to think about paying that much money for one day, and we want to make sure that cost doesn’t keep you from truly savoring the celebration. There are some excellent wedding budget guides out there like this one from Minted, so we won’t reinvent that wheel here. What I do hope to do is pull back the curtain about where those costs come from so you can go into your planning with open eyes.
Photo credits: Sydney Leigh Photography, Rachel Mikaela Photography
Venues:
Your venue is probably going to be one of the largest costs in considering your wedding budget. If you look at that cost as simply a room rental, it can definitely feel a little steep. However, remember they are paying staff to be on-site the full day of your event, running maintenance both inside and outside the venue, bartending and bussing tables, and making all kinds of behind the scenes adjustments to help your day go smoothly.
When you book, your venue will go over what all is included in their bookings and what you can add and customize. It can be worth asking additional questions about pricing breakdowns if you still feel like you’re looking at a large number without knowing exactly where that money goes. Just remember this is a good way of better understanding your costs, not trying to bargain your price down for the same services.
Photo credits: Tyler Jacobson Photography, Jase Dewald
Stationery:
Once again, Instagram sets big dreams for stationery sets. The invitation suites you see online that have six different pieces of paper and an envelope insert and a custom wax seal are so stunning, don’t get me wrong. They are also not cheap. The word suite is the key to some of this expense - you are paying for multiple different designs and all the materials and time it takes to create them. On top of the design costs, remember to add in postage. Heavier envelopes require more stamps and therefore more cost.
As with everything on this list, the key to finding stationery that fits your vision and budget is to pick your priorities. If the details of your day are important to you, it can definitely be worth splurging for the invitation suite. You can keep an extra set of everything for your photographer to use, or even to frame as decor for your home. If there are other aspects of your wedding that mean more to you than invitations, maybe pare back to something with less moving pieces. You can still have a really beautiful design on a single piece of paper, and that will help bring down your purchasing and mailing costs of your invitations.
Photo credits: Prairie and Wild, IndigoBlue Photography
Flowers:
Florals almost always come with a hearty dose of sticker shock. Flower prices have risen in the past couple of years, and so has the scope of florals showing up on wedding inspo pages. Much as we love the opportunity to design large scale arches and statement pieces, they take a lot of product to make an impact. Most of the flowers in the American industry are grown in Central and South America. They then need to be packed delicately to avoid breakage, shipped quickly and in temperature-controlled environments to prolong their life, and shipped again from local distributors to designers.
This year has added another challenge as the blooms that are trending are almost all high-dollar specialty stems. A single anthurium stem typically costs us about $12-14 wholesale, which means a client can be paying over a hundred dollars for one anthurium centerpiece. We still want to deliver those designs, so we do our best to offset some of these costs by shifting to silk floral or combining silk and fresh, but at the end of the day, more product still costs more money.
Rentals and Linens:
Why does a piece of fabric cost so much? Linen pricing and rental maintenance fees are two costs our clients ask about all the time. The short answer is upkeep. You aren’t buying something brand new, and you also don’t have to deal with bulky items after your wedding is over. However, in order for us to send those items back out to the next client, we need to do all the work to make sure they still look just as good the tenth time as they did the first. Laundering linens is a long process, as is cleaning glass and sorting silk floral.
The truth is, sometimes you can buy these items for a similar price as you would pay to rent them. However, the perk of renting them is that all that labor falls to someone else. You don’t have to clean or store anything you rent, you just get to enjoy it.
Photo credits: Sampson House, Maya B Photography
Planning Services:
We have a whole blog post about what planners do for you, and you can check that out here! But the short explanation is that paying for a planner is outsourcing your time and mental energy. Communicating with vendors, sending invitations, creating a seating chart, none of those tasks disappear when you give them to a planner. Someone is still taking care of those things, it just doesn’t have to be you. If planning is a stressor for you, adding it into your budget is a great way to have peace of mind. If, on the other hand, it’s more stressful to see your budget get higher, consider creating the time and space you need to complete planning for yourself.
Whew, okay! We’ve made it! This is a huge conversation, and one that is never as fun as choosing your color scheme or cake, so thanks for sticking with it! Hopefully these insights help you to see the details behind the costs of your wedding. As always, the most important part of the day happens when you are standing in front of your spouse-to-be and promising to love them. And the good news is, that’s usually the least expensive part! No matter what plans you make for the rest of the celebration, everything else is ultimately icing on the cake.
Photo credit: Sydney Schneider Photography
xoxo, Rebecca
