Weddings are so expensive! According to Canada Buzz, “a typical Canadian wedding costs C$42,400. This figure includes the bride and groom attire, ceremony and reception, honeymoon, and other expenses.”
We tried to keep our wedding costs under $15,000 and we succeeded! It was closer to $10,000 depending on if you include our wedding rings or not. I will provide the full breakdown below.
How to avoid getting into debt for your wedding
As a personal finance coach, I work with Canadians who are trying to manage their money better or pay off debt. A few times, the debt piled up because of wedding costs and I can understand why.
There is pressure to “live it up” because you only get married once.
There is pressure from family to invite guests, some you don’t even know!
There is cultural pressure to follow traditions.
Then there is the wedding tax, which is a cost of a good or service that costs more because it’s for a wedding.
Weddings are expensive and my partner and I didn’t want to fall into societal, familial, or cultural pressures to have a big wedding. In fact, we wanted to elope! But with a young baby and a pandemic, we changed our plans. My now husband proposed in early 2021 and we were keeping an eye on government lock downs and venues. It was clear that getting married in 2021 was like navigating landmines; you never knew when a new lockdown would be imposed so we decided to wait until 2022. It was difficult to plan anything because COVID cases were still high and usually you have to book a venue months in advance. However, with the pandemic there were so many unknowns.
We decided that we would have a small guest list for a these reasons
- We wanted to reduce the number of people in a room because of the pandemic
- We wanted to keep the experience small and intimate for our mental health
- We wanted to keep the cost low since we are redoing the kitchen, and a handful of other home improvement projects
We knew some people may be hurt or offended but we also knew that we can’t please everyone. Our guest list was immediate family only, and a dozen close friends that are part of our day-to-day life. These are friends we see often and that my husband and I both know. We did not have plus ones that we had not met before so our total guest list was 14 immediate family members and 10 close friends.
We were extremely fortunate and received financial support from our parents so the entire wedding was covered by their gifts. On top of that, the majority of our guests gave cash gifts so we did not spend any of our own money getting married.
In addition to all of that, family made the bouquets, a family friend made the cake so we got a special price, and many of our vendors were new to the wedding industry so we got better rates as they build their portfolios.
The main way we saved money is by having a brunch wedding and a small guest list.
We did have an open bar, but it was downstairs at the main bar so people had to go out of their way to get a drink. We did offer bottomless mimosas at the reception though so that’s where the drink costs add up.
Another thing we did to save money was use what we had and buy second-hand. My husband wore a suit he used as a groomsmen at another wedding and I bought a pre-loved dress and got alterations done with a local seamstress. We knew we didn’t want to spend too much money on things we’d only wear or use once! We both bought shoes we could wear again and most of the decorations were bought at thrift stores.
Since the venue was already beautiful, we didn’t feel the need to buy too many decorations and kept the vibe very minimal with some simple frames for the signs that we could use again in our house.
Our venue did not have a booking fee so we just had to pay for the meals and drinks after the event.
I guessed on the cost of flowers and the cake because my mother-in-law and my mom took care of those items for us.
Our total cost for the wedding day was $7810.25 (excluding our rings and gifts to our bridal party and parents)
Here is the breakdown of how much everything cost:
| Totals | $12,210.25 |
| Ceremony | $200.00 |
| Printed materials | $30.00 |
| Gifts | $900.00 |
| Attire & Alterations | $854.00 |
| Jewlery | $3,500.00 |
| Hair & makeup | $400.00 |
| Accessories | $100.00 |
| Misc. | $115.00 |
| Cake | $200.00 |
| Meals + Coffee | $1,467.00 |
| Drinks | $1,323.00 |
| Gratuity | $298.00 |
| Photography | $1,581.25 |
| Videography | $575.00 |
| Hair cuts and beauty treatments | $300.00 |
| Flowers and Decorations | $367.00 |
