Wedding Cost Statistics (2026)

The average US wedding cost $34,200, according to The Knot 2026 Real Weddings Study, which surveyed 10,474 US couples who married between January 1 and December 31, 2025. That figure covers the ceremony and reception and leaves out the engagement ring. The Knot is a wedding-planning company and its study is an industry survey of couples recruited through The Knot and WeddingWire, so it is a useful benchmark rather than an official statistic.

The same study puts the total size of the market at around 2 million couples and more than $100 billion in wedding spending in 2025. Couples were engaged for an average of 14 months, hired about 13 vendors, and were 32 years old on average.

The average overstates what a typical couple spends. The Knot's full report gives a median wedding cost of $24,000 for 2025, roughly $10,000 below the average. A quarter of couples spent about $12,000 or less, the middle half spent between $12,000 and $41,000, and the top quarter spent more than $41,000. Thirteen percent of weddings cost $60,000 or more.

The Knot also groups couples by budget bracket. Couples with budgets of $0 to $15,000 spent $8,900 on average, those budgeting $15,001 to $40,000 spent $26,400, and those budgeting over $40,000 spent $70,300.

The report describes the split as K-shaped. Couples spending over $41,000 averaged 141 guests, often at historical buildings or country clubs, with family covering 62% of the bill. Couples spending under $12,000 averaged 92 guests, often in parks or a family home, and 44% did their own decor while 67% had a friend officiate.

Wedding spending dropped sharply in 2020, when the average fell to $19,000 and guest lists shrank to 66, then recovered quickly. The average reached $28,000 in 2021, $30,000 in 2022 and a peak of $35,000 in 2023 before settling at $33,000 in 2024 and $34,200 in 2025 (see the chart and table below).

Cost per guest has risen faster than the total. It was $214 in 2019 and $292 in 2025, a 36% increase, while the average guest count went from 131 to 117. In other words, couples are inviting somewhat fewer people and spending more on each of them. The share of destination weddings slipped to 17% in 2025 from 21% in 2019.

Where a couple marries changes the bill sharply. In The Knot's state breakdown, New Jersey was the most expensive state at $57,000, followed by Rhode Island ($51,000), New York ($49,000), Vermont ($47,000) and Massachusetts ($45,000).

The least expensive states were Wyoming ($17,000), Idaho and Utah ($18,000 each), and Alaska, Arkansas, Oklahoma and West Virginia ($19,000 each). The gap between the top and bottom state is more than three to one. California averaged $39,000, Florida $33,000 and Texas $31,000.

By region, the Mid-Atlantic ($48,400) and New England/Northeast ($46,600) were the most expensive. The South/Southeast and the West averaged $31,300 each, the Southwest $30,800 and the Midwest $29,000.

City averages spread even wider. A New York City wedding averaged $88,000, more than four times El Paso ($20,000). Chicago ($54,000), San Francisco and Boston ($51,000 each) and Los Angeles ($45,000) followed. Among large Sun Belt cities, Phoenix ($27,000), San Antonio ($26,000) and Las Vegas ($22,000) came in well under the national average (see the table below).

The average 2025 wedding had 117 guests and cost $292 per guest. Guest count is one of the clearest drivers of the total: weddings with 1 to 50 guests averaged $17,100, those with 51 to 100 guests averaged $27,200, and those with more than 100 guests averaged $43,300 (see the chart below).

Not every cost scales with headcount. Catering, cake, rentals and favors rise with each guest, while a photographer or DJ usually charges the same for 80 guests as for 180. The average wedding party has held at 8 people since 2021, down from 10 in 2019.

The venue is the single largest line item. Couples who booked one (89%) spent $12,900 on average, with the top quarter spending $24,800 or more. Photographers averaged $3,000 and were hired by 88% of couples, and catering averaged $80 per person (The Knot Real Weddings Study 2026).

Other average costs from the same survey: a live band $4,500, a DJ $1,800, flowers $2,800, alcohol $2,800, a videographer $2,300, a planner $2,100, the wedding dress $2,100, event rentals $2,000, lighting and decor $1,900, non-musical entertainment $1,500 and transportation $1,100. Smaller items included invitations and stationery ($510), favors ($480), additional jewelry ($390), the officiant ($260), and hair and makeup at $150 each for one person.

The report lists the cake at $530 on its vendor chart and $540 in the article, a rounding difference. The table below shows the spread for each major vendor.

The headline average leaves out several costs most couples pay. The Knot puts the average engagement ring at $4,600, the honeymoon at $5,500 and the rehearsal dinner at $2,800. Wedding rings averaged $3,000. Seventy-one percent of 2025 couples took a honeymoon.

Adding the ring and honeymoon to the $34,200 wedding-day average brings a typical all-in figure to roughly $44,300, before any rehearsal dinner or travel for the couple. Zola's separate cost index gives similar numbers: $5,200 for the ring, $5,300 for the honeymoon and $2,700 for the rehearsal dinner (see the table below).

Nearly 9 in 10 proposers had a ring in hand, and 96% of couples exchanged rings at their engagement. The average ring cost $4,600 with an average carat weight of 1.9, according to The Knot's 2026 study.

Lab-grown center stones have taken over the market. They made up 61% of engagement ring purchases among 2025 couples, a 239% increase since 2020, and 40% of couples said it mattered to them specifically that their stone be lab-grown. The price gap explains much of it: the typical natural-stone ring cost $7,000 at 1.6 carats, while the typical lab-grown ring cost $4,300 at 2.0 carats.

Ring buying is now largely a joint decision. Seventy-nine percent of recipients took part in choosing the ring, 64% of purchases were made in person and one-third online, and 63% of proposers bought the ring within two months of proposing.

Summer weddings cost the most. Weddings held July to September averaged $35,400, April to June $34,300, and January to March and October to December $33,200 each. Seventy-six percent of couples married between May and October, with fall the most popular season.

Destination weddings cost more even though they tend to be smaller: $41,700 for a domestic destination and $43,700 for an international one, against $32,600 for a hometown wedding. By generation, millennials spent the most ($39,600), then Gen Z ($30,000) and Gen X ($23,000). Gen Z made up 41% of couples in the 2025 study.

Parents and family covered 52% of total wedding costs in 2025 and couples covered 48%, according to The Knot's report. Slightly more than half of couples had all or most of their wedding paid for by their parents. The Knot's who-pays breakdown splits the family share further: 38% came from the respondent's own family and 14% from their partner's family.

Who pays is tied to how much is spent. When couples paid only a minority of the cost, the average wedding came to $39,600. When they paid the majority it was $29,700, and when they paid for all of it, $25,500. Zola's 2026 Wedding Spend Survey found the same pattern: couples paying 70% or more themselves spent 23% less in total, and families covered 63% of the cost of weddings over $100,000.

In Zola's survey data, 88% of couples put their own money toward the wedding, 29% paying for all of it and 59% for part. Forty-seven percent relied on a mix of long-term savings and monthly income, 31% used credit cards to manage expenses, and 25% added cash funds to their registry (Zola, an industry survey).

The Knot found that 31% of 2025 couples sought additional financial support, including help from family or the use of credit cards and loans. Zola's 2026 First Look Report found that 59% of couples said they were delaying buying a home to pay for their wedding and 52% were pausing other major life milestones. Neither source reports how much wedding debt couples carry afterward, so this page does not estimate it.

Staying inside a budget is the most common wedding problem. Among 2025 couples, 41% went over budget, 34% stayed on track, 4% came in under and 21% did not set a budget at all. Roughly 1 in 2 said their initial budget was lower than what a wedding actually costs.

The economy played a part. More than 85% of couples said the economy affected their planning, nearly 55% reworked parts of their original plan, and about a quarter adjusted their budget. Of that quarter, 77% raised it and 16% cut it. One in three couples marrying later in 2025 said tariffs affected their planning. Even so, three in four said the wedding was financially worth it.

Zola's 2026 Wedding Spend Survey of 720 recently married couples found that hidden costs, meaning unexpected fees and miscellaneous items, added an average of $3,314, about 9% of total spend (Zola). Ninety-eight percent of couples bought miscellaneous extras such as accessories (81%), the marriage license (79%), signage and guest books (69%) and wedding party gifts (58%).

Three in four couples hit at least one surprise fee, most often postage (29%), alterations (29%), trial appointments (21%) and service charges (17%). Fifty-seven percent faced a mandatory venue service fee, and those couples averaged double the unexpected fees of couples whose venue did not charge one.

Zola, another wedding-planning company, puts the average wedding at $36,000 in its 2026 First Look Report, unchanged for a second year. Its cost index blends couple budgets, spending tracked in Zola's budget tool and vendor pricing, so it measures something slightly different from The Knot's survey of what married couples reported spending.

Zola's vendor averages differ from The Knot's in places: venue $8,573, catering $6,927, flowers and decor $6,345, bar services $5,542, photography $4,400, planning $4,047 and videography $3,993. Zola also reports that 69% of couples exceed their initial budget and that 78% worry the economy or tariffs will push their final bill higher. When two industry surveys disagree by a few thousand dollars, the safest reading is a typical average in the mid-$30,000s with a median well below it.

For context on the size of the market, the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics counted 2,041,926 marriages in 2023, its latest provisional national figure, for a rate of 6.1 per 1,000 people. That lines up with The Knot's estimate of around 2 million couples marrying in 2025.

The marriage rate has drifted down from 8.2 per 1,000 in 2000 to 6.8 in 2010 and 6.1 in 2019. It fell to 5.1 in 2020, when 1,676,911 marriages were recorded, then recovered to 6.0 in 2021 and 6.2 in 2022 (see the chart below). Divorce trends are covered on a separate page.

People are marrying later, which changes who pays. The Census Bureau's Table MS-2 puts the estimated median age at first marriage at 30.8 for men and 28.4 for women in 2025, up from 26.8 and 25.1 in 2000 and 22.8 and 20.3 in 1950.

The Knot's couples were older still, 32 on average in 2025. The Knot's who-pays guide links later marriage to couples being more able to cover the bill themselves, and 48% of 2025 wedding costs came from the couples.

Engagements last 14 months on average, so most of a $34,200 wedding is saved, borrowed or gifted over a little more than a year. The data shows three patterns: couples who pay their own way spend less, couples who skip a budget are common (21%), and about 4 in 10 end up spending more than planned.

For couples who keep savings in a brokerage account, Walnut, an AI investing app, can read a connected account to show how that money is doing. The statistics on this page describe what couples spent; they are not a recommendation on what anyone should spend.