Why are weddings so ridiculously expensive?

“The sticker shock is real, and it's discouraging to find out that the wedding you envisioned is out of reach.”source ↗

“The sticker shock actually floored me. I had a number in my head that felt reasonable, turns out I was off by about 4x.”source ↗

“The vendor calls styled like a magazine shoot, the "your special day" language , it all feels a bit cringe.”source ↗

“I just feel disheartened and a bit jaded by it all, on top of the planning itself already being stressful.”source ↗

“i love my partner and i cant wait until we are married but holy shit do i hate wedding planning. how come no one ever mentions how fucking ridiculous this whole process is i feel like wedding planning is literally a humiliation ritual if you’re not willing to spend $10k plus.”source ↗

“My maximum budget is €20,000 but I didn't realise this means it is a cheap/budget wedding. I consider this a lot of money and thought it could still be quite luxurious. Am I living in a dream world?”source ↗

“I described what I thought was a modest wedding with about 60 guests, and I was told to expect it to cost €60,000.”source ↗

“But now I'm scared it means that what we want from our wedding isn't realistic! That we need to think more along the lines of a "budget" wedding!”source ↗

“So I have 5 bridesmaids and would like them to get their dresses through Birdy Grey in a specific color. If I could, I would just buy them for each of the girls, however that isn’t feasible for me at the moment.”source ↗

“I completely unrealistic apparently. I am sorry this is happening and I have cried about things during this process.”source ↗

“Then my partner’s sisters wanted to be in the bridal party and now Idk if I can afford $500-600 worth of dresses.”source ↗

“We live in a HCOL area and struggle SO much with the cost it would incur to throw the kind of celebration we wanted with our *must attend* guest list size.”source ↗

“Part of me regrets this and wants the whole party part with a dress and feeling pretty but knowing how much *work* it is and what else I could spend that kind of money on makes it hard to justify to myself and here we sit.”source ↗

“Ours is in 9 months and I still have vendors to book but we’ve already spent $7k on the payment towards our venue (still need to pay $9k and that’s just the minimum payment that we have) […] It’s really adding up and taking the fun away from this process.”source ↗

“Our budget is £2-3k because we just don't have any more money to spend. And the "Not Doing It" list gets longer by the day. I feel like we can't afford *anything* and the entire industry is just insane.”source ↗

“I don’t think there’s a difference between $1 or $2. But if you’re already over budget you could also just skip them and nobody would notice”source ↗

“I wouldn’t care about $1 vs $2 but if you’re already over budget I’d skip favors completely.”source ↗

“Keep in mind that backyard weddings are deceptively expensive! You need to bring literally everything in (including bathrooms!) so if you’re trying to do this to save money, it’s got a really big chance of being a logistical nightmare plus more than you might expect.”source ↗

“They don’t bother me much as someone endlessly sticker shocked by wedding planning.”source ↗

“We are already spending around $40k and are way over our original budget as is, so I don’t really want to spend even more if I don’t need to.”source ↗

“I kind of knew things would be expensive but good lord. Here's the total $17,081. Which is 3 times what I thought I'd be spending.”source ↗

“Everything was just so much more expensive than I thought it was going to be.”source ↗

“Just kills me that we are going to be spending so much money before we even start our lives.”source ↗

“Just seems crazy that anyone that wants a wedding will need to spend a crazy amount just to have a simple wedding.”source ↗