Some people are suggesting this number is too high. If anything, it seems low to me - at least based on my personal experience. Imagine throwing a big, elaborate party. How much would that cost you? Maybe $3k, including renting a space, maybe a DJ, a bartender, etc? Everything for a wedding is 10x what it should be. So if a reasonable price is $3k, you're paying $30k.
This is without the price of the ring and honeymoon.
Sounds right to me from both me and my friends and we're just barely middle class joes. The UK average is noted to be around £16k (about $25k): http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/jun/18/planningyourwedd... .. Admittedly, most of ours involved taking our extended families to the US for a cheapo Vegas wedding rather than the wedding itself ;-)
My own wedding? Justice of the peace and dinner, less than $1k. The last three weddings I've been to have easily topped the $28k average. One was way over the top, the other two were "average" for the Bay Area. It depends on where you are, number of people, etc. The two aspects of wedding planning I was happy to avoid -- the overall cost and the bickering that comes up in the process.
It seems from their pitch that they're including the entire cost of the wedding party. So even if the couple isn't paying for the expenses of the wedding party, perhaps that figure adds them in. From personal experience, any kind of normal venue used to hosting weddings that would fit 100+ people in NYC is in the ~$10k range alone before you add anything else in.
I really want to find a way to refute this number, but I can't. The only mitigating factor I've found is that it appears to include people's crazy expensive engagement rings.
(Obviously, I'm biased because of how me & Erin got married).
More startups need to use the pricing anchor "How else could three month's salary last forever?" Seriously, phrase your software in terms of man-months and no matter how much you charge it suddenly seems cheap!
That's one of the bridal-industrial complex's best coups ever. (The entire notion of surprise engagements and diamond rings was pretty much created out of whole cloth by De Beers in the 1920s. See this excellent article by Atlantic Magazine -- one of the best pieces of journalism I've ever read, and as relevant today as when it was written nearly 30 years ago. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you... )
My wife and I did catered turkey dinner at a church hall for 130 people. DJ was a guy who owed me a favor. Total cost was about $11k.
If you rent a more expensive place and do a barebones dinner, you're looking at $45/head + a couple grand for the hall, plus dress, band/dj, etc. It adds up!
