The wedding invitation asks you to pay to attend. Would you buy a ‘ticket’?

With the average cost of a wedding creeping near $35,000 in 2024, according to The Knot, some couples are taking a different approach to paring back prices. Instead of choosing a cheaper venue or scaling back the refreshments, they’re asking — and in some cases requiring — their guests to chip in.
The New York Times, which dove into the emerging practice, reported that it may be gaining popularity among cash-strapped (or maybe cash savvy?) couples, but it mostly annoys guests, “many of whom have expressed the opinion that it is in poor taste for the couple to put their financial burden onto their guests and that there are more cost-effective ways for couples to have a wedding.”
The article quotes Matthew Shaw, founder of Sauveur, a wedding planning company in London, who said that selling tickets to your special day “introduces a strange relationship between you and your guests, turning your guests into customers. You’re no longer hosting — you’re offering them a paid experience, which introduces a very different narrative in terms of what guests are expecting.”
In a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel column, James E. Causey retold the story of a New York couple who paid for their $70,000 wedding by charging attendees $333 a head. The ticket price included a seat on a rented double-decker bus that took guests on a 12-hour tour of New York City. The wedding was, of course, separate from the bus ride.
Causey wrote that the couple’s decision “has drawn a ton of flack, prompting questions about the appropriateness and shifting societal norms, suggesting a growing willingness to challenge traditional boundaries for personal preferences. Beyond that, wouldn’t it be more practical to have a more budget-friendly wedding instead of spending $70,000?”
People did, in fact, pay the price and fill that double-decker bus.
The biggest wedding expenses are typically the venue and food. There’s a lot of wiggle room there. But your locale matters, too.
Fidelity, which said the average cost of a wedding in 2023 was actually $29,000 based on data from wedding planner Zola, reported that when it comes to cost, it’s location, location, location. Fidelity notes that weddings costs more in New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. It doesn’t say whether the weddings are fancier or the costs are just higher.
“Zola data puts average wedding costs throughout California at $32,369, which is slightly less than places such as Pennsylvania ($32,562) and West Virginia ($33,333), and a big dip from Washington, D.C., which tops the list at $45,400. On the opposite end of the range, a wedding in New Mexico, Vermont, or Alaska can cost you $15,000 or less, Zola finds,” per Fidelity.
According to that list, the lowest average cost was Alaska, at $12,083. The average cost in Utah is $18,409. In Hawaii, the average is $28,000.
It’s not as if the guests aren’t already being asked to pay when you get married.
The Knot separately reported that “based on an internal study of 1,000 guests who attended at least one wedding in person in 2023, the average cost per wedding guest was $580 — an increase of $120 compared to 2021.” That included guests who attended a local wedding (average $250), drove to a wedding (average $680) and those who flew to a wedding ($1,600).
The average spending on a wedding gift, by the way, is $150, down $10 from previous years, The Knot reported. It goes up or down depending on how close you are to the couple. Close friends spend an average of $170 on a gift, family and wedding party members $160, a guest’s date $140 and a casual friend $130.
As for lowering wedding costs, wedding planning sites recommend scaling back the food, choosing a cheaper venue and reducing the size of the guest list.