A wedding is an (ideally) once in a lifetime ceremony and event, celebrating the love and commitment of a couple. As such a special day, people are willing to pay top dollar to make everything beautiful and memorable.
The national average expenditure on a wedding is about $34,000. But in some places, that figure is nearly double — and in one place, the average wedding costs nearly $100,000.
24/7 Wall St. reviewed 2018’s Real Weddings Survey from wedding website The Knot to determine the most expensive places to get married. These locations include specific cities, metro areas, regions, and states.
New trends in marriage, like hiring a wedding planner or having a destination wedding in a tropical paradise far from home, have significantly raised the costs. Even small traditional gestures and practices have been tweaked or removed altogether as a new generation ties the knot in their own way. Here are 26 ways weddings have changed over the last century.
The most expensive places to have a wedding tend to be in major population centers with relatively high incomes. People in these areas, with incomes far exceeding the U.S. median annual household income of nearly $60,000, have more disposable income and savings to spend on big events like weddings. These are the richest cities in America.
25. Houston/East Texas
> Cost: $35,334
> Median household income: $65,394 (Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX Metro Area)
24. South Carolina
> Cost: $35,942
> Median household income: $52,306 (South Carolina)
23. Chicago Suburbs, IL
> Cost: $36,250
> Median household income: $70,760 (Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI Metro Area)
22. Hawaii
> Cost: $37,338
> Median household income: $80,212 (Hawaii)
21. Orange County/Inland Empire, CA
> Cost: $37,760
> Median household income: $81,851 (Orange County, California)
20. Baltimore, MD
> Cost: $39,167
> Median household income: $80,469 (Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD Metro Area)
19. Palm Springs/Desert Communities, CA
> Cost: $39,504
> Median household income: $60,807 (Riverside County, California)
18. Washington DC/Northern VA/Suburban MD
> Cost: $39,801
> Median household income: $102,180 (Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metro Area)
17. New Orleans, LA
> Cost: $40,753
> Median household income: $50,301 (New Orleans-Metairie, LA Metro Area)
16. San Francisco/Bay Area, CA
> Cost: $41,341
> Median household income: $107,898 (San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA Metro Area)
15. Southern Florida
> Cost: $42,596
> Median household income: $55,462 (Florida)
14. Los Angeles, CA
> Cost: $42,638
> Median household income: $72,563 (Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metro Area)
13. Connecticut
> Cost: $42,853
> Median household income: $76,348 (Connecticut)
12. Boston, MA
> Cost: $44,557
> Median household income: $88,711 (Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metro Area)
11. Santa Barbara/Ventura, CA
> Cost: $45,991
> Median household income: $77,472 (Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA Metro Area)
10. Delaware/ Philadelphia, PA
> Cost: $46,640
> Median household income: $70,747 (Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metro Area)
9. South New Jersey
> Cost: $47,148
> Median household income: $81,740 (New Jersey)
8. New York City Outer Boroughs, NY
> Cost: $56,967
> Median household income: $78,478 (New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area)
7. Westchester/Hudson Valley, NY
> Cost: $57,678
> Median household income: $89,968 (Westchester County, New York)
6. North/Central NJ
> Cost: $58,107
> Median household income: $81,740 (New Jersey)
5. Cape Cod, MA
> Cost: $58,425
> Median household income: $68,048 (Barnstable County, Massachusetts)
4. Rhode Island
> Cost: $59,201
> Median household income: $64,340 (Rhode Island)
3. Chicago, IL
> Cost: $60,294
> Median household income: $70,760 (Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI Metro Area)
2. Long Island, NY
> Cost: $66,409
> Median household income: $105,744 (Nassau County, New York)
1. Manhattan, NY
> Cost: $96,910
> Median household income: $79,781 (New York County, New York)
Methodology:
24/7 Wall St. reviewed 2018’s Real Weddings Survey from wedding website The Knot to determine the most expensive places to get married. These locations include specific cities, metro areas, regions, and states.
Median household income figures represent the most recent available data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. We used the geographies for which data was available that best represent the places with the most expensive weddings. For county-level data, we used the 2017 5-year survey. For state and metropolitan statistical area data, we used data from 2018’s 1-year survey.