How Much Should A Wedding Cost?

bill is in Missouri he says my daughter is getting married next year we're completely debt-free with an income of $65,000 how do we decide how much to spend on the wedding well you wouldn't number one you would not spend more than you have in cash now let's say you have $500,000 in cash so you don't have a cash limitation I'll just make that number up okay so there's no cash limitation then the next thing is you can look at it a lot of different ways one way I have looked at it is here's a maximum for you most people overspend on their wedding meaning they spend more than they should in relation to their income not how nice the wedding is some people say we should never spend it with your wedding it doesn't matter if you have ten billion dollars if you spend a hundred grand on a wedding okay it doesn't matter so there's nothing wrong with a hundred it's not illegal it's not immoral to have $100,000 wedding that's not the issue the issue is in relation to your net worth and your income what you should spend so here's your averages the average wedding in America right now is around $27,000 the average household income in America is around 52 thousand dollars so that says that the average wedding is about half of the average income okay and that's too much but I'll give that as a cap you would never spend ever ever more than half your annual income ever that's a lot and that's probably too much but that's the most you would ever consider so you make sixty-five thousand dollars less thirty to five so you know what would I spend if I was in that situation twenty twenty-five thousand max and that's if you have the cash if you don't have the cash then you have a different limitation and the limit you're limited to the cash that you can put up you can have fine wedding for $10,000 a fine wedding I've been to a lot of them that were in the five to ten thousand range and you can you can do all you want to do for that and there is no correlation by the way between the success of the marriage and the size of the wedding there is no correlation between the size of the ring and the success of the marriage as a matter of fact there may be a negative correlation meaning that the more that's spent on the ring than one spent on the wedding the less chance you have staying I mean that that I'm not positive on that one I just made that one up but there is no correlation there's no all of us have good walking around since say what you spend on your wedding is not indicative of whether you have a good marriage and what you spend on the ring is not indicative of whether you have a good marriage if the and if it's that important to you then you probably have other issues so is it okay to have a nice wedding yes both of my daughter's had very luxurious nice weddings there were nowhere near half my annual income not even close and when we wrote the check we didn't even feel it but they were nice and they were expensive but we had the money so I'm not against I'm not mad I'm not saying that their little princesses or some like that or not they was fine I offered that and what I did in both of their cases was I said here's what we're going to spend on the wedding and I'm going to give it to you in a check now the two of you go open a checking account and I want you to do a wedding budget and I want you to figure out what you're going to spend on the flowers and what you're going to spend on the photographer and what you can spit on the church what you can give the preacher and what you can spend on the dress and do a wedding budget and here's a suggestion don't spend all this money keep some of it because there's not any more than this period that's it and then we assisted them in helping them make sure they stayed within that budget to you know that they didn't spend more than that because there's no more money than that don't don't spend more net and that was a lot of money and in both cases they enjoyed it they spent it all on the wedding they did not save any of it and I'm not mad about that now their husbands to be wished that they hadn't spent at all but it's okay they're okay they're fine Rachel and Denise are doing just fine it's okay they're fine it's alright so that's your little wedding speech let me tell you the biggest problem of the wedding is here's your biggest problem you don't do a wedding budget and I know that sounds like it's not romantic will whack call the wambulance okay you need to do a plan because let me tell you how you bust up anything financially is you just wander in with pure emotion and no plan and you talk about pure emotion and no plan a wedding is it baby that's a definition of pure emotion of no plan so lay it out this is how much money we have okay we have twenty two thousand dollars we have seventeen thousand dollars we have twelve thousand dollars whatever it is with seventy eight thousand dollars I don't care what it is how much you can spend on the dress how much you going to be on the reception the catering the event how much you can spend on the preacher the site the the church how much you're going to spend on the photographer and give every dollar a name and make sure it's less than what you have saved for it otherwise you can have a problem and of course you need a contingency fund you need a little bit of a wiggle room in there don't don't you know here's our miscellaneous fund because there's going to be stuff come up you forgot but but you know get a basic wedding budget you can think it through and for those of you that I've never done it before if you do a traditional wedding the reception is half of your cost at least if not more now if you don't do a traditional wedding that's okay I had a friend of mine got married the other day at a very small wedding and I much larger percentage was spent on the reception the reception was a huge party but hardly it was a private wedding very few people went to the wedding we're allowed to go the wedding we're invited the wedding so there's a small wedding big reception some people do destination wedding which is the which is the reception and there's almost no reception cost thing because I want to get married on a beach and wherever Hawaii or whatever they want to do so you just you just have to plan it out that's all I care about just be grown-ups that's the deal hey guys thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video click the subscribe button to get the latest content and check out these other great clips from the show so you have to break the cycle you have to flip this thing on its head and make it behave you've got to get so fired up and wired up that your broke friends think you've lost your mind

Channel: The Ramsey Show Highlights

Views: 346,192

Keywords: how much should a wedding cost?, wedding, cost, much, engagement ring, weddings, wedding cost, florist, budget, dave ramsey, debt, dave, ramsey, dave ramsey baby steps, dave ramsey budgeting, the dave ramsey show, ramsey solutions, dave ramsey financial peace university, dave ramsey live, dave ramsey debt free scream

Id: BfEJNsoq1IE

Length: 6min 47sec (407 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 17 2016