Tuesday, 13 February 2024
by Rose White
Planning a wedding can be joyful, hectic, and sometimes stressful, and one reason for wedding stress is the strain it can put on your personal finances. Celebrating your new life as a married couple is not cheap. According to the wedding site Zola, the average cost of a wedding in 2024 is set to hit $33,000, up from $29,000 last year. The cost of a wedding venue is often the single biggest expense, with average price ranges of $6,500-$12,000.
If you want to save money on wedding costs, one of the smartest moves you can make is to try to minimize the cost of your wedding venue. Choosing a less popular, less expensive, creative, or otherwise underrated wedding venue could help you save thousands of dollars.
Let’s look at a few little-known perks of choosing a low-cost wedding venue for your big day.
When I got married, my wife and I were paying for most of the wedding costs ourselves, and we knew that we had to prioritize our spending. We decided to go with a lower-cost wedding venue and spend that extra budget on catering from our favorite Thai restaurant.
If there’s one piece of advice this grizzled veteran of marriage can offer to young couples, it is this: You’re not going to remember most of the details of your wedding. Try to focus on the things that are really most important to you and your spouse. If you want to treat your guests to a special experience, don’t feel as if you have to spend big money on every aspect of the wedding. Instead, splurge on the things that really matter — and save money on the rest.
You’re not limited to the usual (high-priced) events centers and banquet halls. Choosing a lesser-known, lower-cost wedding venue might help you get more creative with your wedding, and have a ceremony and celebration that really suits your personality as a couple.
A few low-cost wedding venue options might include:
Another lesson from a longtime married person: Try to save money on your wedding, so you can spend more money on your honeymoon. Because my wife and I had such a low-cost wedding with an underrated wedding venue, we were able to save money for an amazing honeymoon trip to Tokyo.
And more importantly, we didn’t have any credit card debt or other lingering bills from our wedding. Because our wedding was so affordable (and fully paid for), we could start working toward our other important financial goals as a couple — saving for retirement, maintaining our house, building a life. Think ahead to what you really want in life together as a married couple: Do you want an expensive wedding, or do you want a down payment on a house, a well-funded retirement account, and other savings for long-term goals?
Bottom line: Your wedding day should be a fun, hopeful commemoration of love. It’s an occasion to fully welcome your spouse into your family, reconnect with loved ones, and thank the people who helped inspire and guide you in life. But don’t let the romance and excitement of a wedding derail your personal finances. Long after your wedding is over, you and your spouse are a financial team. Choosing a lower-cost, underrated wedding venue can help set you up for a healthier bank account balance, and put you on track to make smarter investments for a long married life of love, peace, and financial success.
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