RALEIGH WEDDING COSTS – LEARN THE TRUTH

Here’s a rough breakdown of what you can expect to pay for wedding services in the Triangle. The North Carolina Average Wedding Costs are between $30,000 to $40,000. The Triangle (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill) is a large and growing metropolitan area with almost 2.5 Million people, and there are almost 6500 weddings each year.

If you’re planning your wedding in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Apex, Garner, Holly Springs, Wakefield, Wake Forest, Morrisville, Cary, or any of the numerous pockets of awesome in between, here’s some potentially harsh news:

The ‘Average’ Wedding cost in the Triangle is listed at around $35,000, but this also includes Courthouse weddings with small afterparties and most coordinators will tell you that the actual spend is closer to $50,000 (tight budget) to $75,000 (more comfortable budget). “Luxury” weddings are anything over $1000 per person (100 ppl, $100,000).

Here’s the Sofi Bank rundown of wedding costs: HERE

How does that price add up and what can you expect to spend on a wedding in the Triangle?

Skip to the How to Keep My Budget Down section

WEDDING VENUE & CATERING – 50% OF YOUR BUDGET

Triangle Wedding Venue Rental – $4,000-$12,000

This doesn’t include your food/beverage, and keep in mind that you can do a lower budget venue but spend a bit on lighting and decor to make it look amazing, but you can’t make a place like the awesome & very affordable Campbell Lodge at Durant Nature Preserve into the Maxwell. If you’re looking to budget, get married on a Thursday. Don’t expect to have a Saturday wedding in May or October and save.

• Bare Bones: $900-$4000 City/County resources, Moose Lodge/Shriners Club/VFW/ Community Center
• Low End: $3000-$5000 (weekday) or some smaller or quirkier options Caffe Luna, Matthews House, Art Museum, Traine, Marbles (and the chronically underpriced Fairview – one of the best deals in any downtown in the Triangle)
• Mid Tier: $7,000-$12,000 Maxwell, Upchurch, Paramount, Chateau Des Fleures, 21C, Bay 7, Cotton Room, Union Station, Sky Room, many hotel ballrooms.
• High End: $14,000 Merrimon Wynne House et al
• Higher End: $30,000 (some ‘inclusive’ options) – Oxbow (RIP) was a good example of the kind of place that was charging for an all-inclusive experience for $30,000.

Your wedding venue needs to hit a few key elements for you. Does it have room/parking for the number of guests you’re expecting? If not, you might want to get some transportation. Venues will often break down into categories. It’ll be pretty obvious which one you like and you’ll be able to narrow down which ones fit your vibe.

• Classic
• Rustic
• Modern
• Post-Industrial
• Banquet
• Natural
• Quirky
• Glamourous/Luxurious

Also check to see if your venue is going to come with extras. Some venues, like the Matthews House, the Upchurch, and the Fairview are going to have tables, chairs, etc… available to you very affordably. Others will have a lower starting price but require you to use in-house options for other things (caterers in particular are a big risk for venues, so they’ll often have their preferred partners)

Wedding Catering Costs: One of the easiest places to spend or save is the catering – depending on your priorities.

• Potluck – $0-$15 per person (you’ll probably want to hire a catering staff to serve/clean up)
• BBQ – $30 per person
• Heavy Hors Doeuvres: $30 – 50 per person
• Buffet: $50-$85 per person
• Full: $95-$150 per person

Wedding Coordinator/Planner Cost Price Range: Average $2,000-$14,000

What does a wedding coordinator do?

There have been two ‘flavors’ of coordinator in many peoples minds over the past decade, “Coordinator” and “Planner”.

Unlike a full-service wedding planner who is involved in every aspect of the planning process, a coordinator steps in closer to the wedding day to tie up loose ends and ensure the event runs smoothly.

What makes this very hard for that average wedding coordinator is that the client has essentially thrown a lot of random ingredients into a pot and then said, “You’re the chef! Make delicious soup!” Sometimes the struggle is real.

A Coordinator will help you develop the timeline (we prefer it when we get to help clients with their timelines as well since we’re focused on FLOW), oversee vendor communication, and handle last-minute challenges so couples can focus on enjoying their celebration. By acting as the main point of contact for everyone involved, a wedding coordinator alleviates the stress of juggling countless moving parts.

The value of a wedding coordinator lies in their expertise, organization, and ability to troubleshoot on the spot. They ensure that the vision couples have been dreaming of becomes a reality, without the couple needing to worry about logistics. From keeping the ceremony on schedule to making sure the reception flows effortlessly, a coordinator allows couples to be fully present in their moment, surrounded by family and friends. By taking the weight of the day off their shoulders, a wedding coordinator provides peace of mind and the freedom to savor every joyful memory.

Wedding planners are a coordinator plus all the up front work. Looking to remove even more stress? Hire a planner.

Low End: ‘Day Of Planning’ Coordination – $2500 – $10,000 (usually covers a bit of prep in the month leading up, a bit more or less depending on who you’re working with and how efficient they are). Don’t misinterpret all coordinators as ‘low end’, I’m just using this as a method to explore the amount of resources you’ll need to devote.

High End: Full Planning – $15,000 to $100,000 (percentage based on your total spend) Some may charges 12%, Some charge 18%. 15% is a good average.

Wedding DJ – Average Cost Breakdown (average $2000-$3500)

Obviously, we’ve got some pretty strong feelings about how this should be done, but here’s a rough outline of some budgets at different service levels:

• Rent a Sound System (no DJ/no MC) – $450-$1000 depending on how many people and how many systems. You can get your cousin to manage a Spotify playlist. (should you Spotify or DJ?)
• Low End: is going to run $1500-$2000
• Ballin on a Budget: $2500-$4500
• Higher End: $5000-$6000

Your Wedding DJ is doing the most of your event heavy lifting and is the single most consequential vendor you’re probably going to hire. This one vendor will determine more about your wedding than almost any other factor. Take your time and get it right. (How to Hire the #1 Best Wedding DJ In Raleigh)

You can cut costs by cutting the amount of time your DJ is there, cutting the number of guests so you don’t need as big of a sound system, and cutting down on the amount of prep-time your DJ needs (almost half the time we spend on an event happens before we ever play a single song).

Wedding Photographer Cost: $2,000-$10,000

Easiest way to cut down on photography costs is to limit the number of photographers (which will limit the number of finished photos) and limit the time they’re on site. Bear in mind, 3/4 of a photographers work happens after the event, so the easiest place to save is cutting down how expensive their time is by decreasing it at the event and in post-prodution.

• Low End: $2000
• Ballin on a Budget: $4,000-$7000
• High End: $10,000

Wedding Ceremony Officiant Cost: $500-$1200

• $500-$1200 – Not too much variation here – but there are a lot of great officiants. Check out Anne Mckenzie, Kathi Moon, Ed Sansbury, Bekah Rhea, & Oak City Ceremonies.

Wedding Hair & Makeup Cost: $700-$8,000

• Bride Only Low End – $700 (trial & day of)
• Higher End – $1000
• Bridesmaids $125-$250, $600 per additional person

You can cut costs by just doing the bride, but your bridesmaids or mom might feel some type of way.

Wedding Florals Cost: $3500-$8000 average

• Bare Bones – Get some glass vases and throw some hyacinth from the tree out back in.
• Low End: $5500
  • $5500 Minimum for many floral companies because their ordering costs are so high
• Ballin on a Budget – ‘fake’ flowers like Faux Real etc…
• High End: Meristem Floral $12,000 minimum

Wedding Bar Costs: $3000-$8,000 ($5500 average)

• Either part of catering or separate. Usually a range per person
• Low End: $20-$25 person
• High End: $40-$50 per person
• Higher End – sky’s the limit

Wedding Decor Costs: $5500 Average

Low End – $1000-$3000

High End – $7500-$15,000

Linens are going to be $25-$200 each. Napkins can add up. Want a nice backdrop for the ceremony? Like having lots of fun things to make the room feel more amazing? Groups like Themeworks, the Greenhouse Picker Sisters, Party Reflections, Curated Events, and more can make your wedding even more awesome, but it can add up pretty quick.

How to Keep Your Wedding Budget Down

Step 1 – Get married anytime that isn’t Friday, Saturday or Sunday. For the love of everything good in the world – don’t try to have a budget Saturday wedding – It’s going to make it much harder for you to get what you want. Do you have any idea the kind of extras I can throw your way when there aren’t 10 other weddings we have to account for!? I’m happy to throw in extra uplights if I can spare them – we always aim to overdeliver!

Step 2 – Avoid Popular Months. Don’t get married in April, May, September, October, December, or around a Major Holiday. I got married in July because it was the only time I had two weekends in a row I could afford to take off. I also got preferential pricing on our venue because it wasn’t going to be booked anyway and they’d rather just have the money.

Step 3 – Don’t overspend on your venue. Most couples don’t know what they’re doing and can blow their budget on the venue and catering before they ever start trying to pick other vendors. You want to save money? Step down your venue requirements. Durant Nature Preserve Campbell Lodge is $180/hr. You can have a great time at the Shriners Club for $1600-$2200 (15 hours). If you pick a $15,000 spot, don’t ask vendors to cut back on their prices.

• In some cases, we’ll turn down clients who are trying to cut it to the bone because it would make US look bad (i.e. they have 400 ppl but they just want a 2 speaker set-up).

Step 4 – Put your resources into what matters to you. If the food is the most important thing and you’re going to spend five straight hours eating, then dump half your budget into catering. If the party is the most important thing, then dump a bigger part of your budget into your DJ and lighting. If the cake is the most important thing to you – then do a big spend there. Whatever it is – be brutally honest with yourself. For most couples, the entertainment is the biggest bang for their buck.

Step 5 – Cut your guest list. Brutal, I know, but a small venue and a small catering bill will drastically cut your overall spend.

Step 6 – Plastic. No, it’s not a word you’re hoping to see, but here it is. Don’t spend on fancy tablecloths or dining options. Get fake flowers instead of real ones. Get plastic plates for your cake (don’t get a plastic cake – there are too many great cake vendors in Raleigh who will make you a sheet cake).

Step 7 – Rethink the Party. If having a dream wedding is going to destroy you, then don’t. It’s much easier to hire us to come play a regular party since we don’t have to spend 20 hours working with you over the previous 6 months. Not that we don’t like working with you, but that additional time and attention to detail adds up over time, and we have to charge for that.

• Our average investment in a wedding experience is usually around 15-20 hours before we even walk through the door. Then we’ve got another 4 man hours of setup, 6-8 hours of the event (another 12-16 man hours, sometimes more), and then two hours of teardown plus another hour or so of travel back to the warehouse. That grand total is often 40-46 hours of work on our end or higher. If none of that is necessary, your price can be much lower.

Hope this helps you get your head around what some of your options are. This is a tough thing you’re trying to do – people go to school to learn how to do this correctly

You’re spending more money than you’ve ever spent on stuff you’ve never bought before from people you’ve never heard of. This is tough. We’re here to make this easy.

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