Engaged? Let Us Help Plan The Wedding!

From rings to catering to venues to photographers, see pages A5 and A6 for the Herald’s Wedding Planner.  Above photo by local photographer Nacole Shortt of Homespun Photography. The bride and groom are Chandler and Kelsey Roberts of Ava.

 

by Michael Boyink/ mike@douglascountyheraldcom

$33,931.

Call it $34K. According to Yahoo! Finance, that amount of money could buy:

7.8 years of groceries

Round trip tickets to 21 different countries

$50,226 after 10 years of investing

Your credit card debt — paid off 5.3 times

But that’s not what most people spend $34K on. 

That number?

That’s the average cost of a wedding these days.

The Knot 2018 Real Weddings Study (theknotww.com/press-releases/theknot2018realweddingsstudy/) calculated the average cost of a wedding by surveying more than 14,000 US brides and grooms married in 2018 between the ages of 18 and 65+. 

The other results they found are eye-opening. 

People spend $5K for the average engagement ring. 

They spend $9K on a venue.

$6700 on catering.

And $4500 on a honeymoon.

According to the survey, the average couple expects to spend $16K in total, but they just rough-guess that amount before researching what things really cost. 

But $34K is an average. That means there are more expensive weddings and less expensive weddings. 

How much would it cost to get married here in Ava and Douglas County? 

And how many of the necessaries could be sourced here?  

From venues to photographers to catering to rings, we’ve done the legwork for you. See pages A5 and A6 for the Douglas County Herald’s Wedding Planner.