By: Looking at all kinds of web sites can really mess with your head when planning your wedding day. Especially when you look at the cost of the wedding. We went to CostOfWedding.com and looked at a few of the areas in the Washington DC metropolitan area when it came to expenses on a wedding.
In Fairfax County, the average cost of a wedding is just shy of $40,000 with an average attendance of 289. Entertainment accounts for $2,080 of that. The one item that scares a lot of people is the $40,000 number. Most weddings, however, don’t have 300 people in attendance. The majority of weddings that we provide a wedding DJ for usually have around 150-175 people, so cut those costs in half. Decoration, which accounts for $2,270 of the inflated value, can come down to just $1,135 with facility, catering and rentals accounting for $18,030 of the inflated amount, and just about $9,000 after realistic values.
When breaking down the digits, we look at entertainment (DJ and music) and decoration (uplights and gobos) while in some cases the final number for facility, catering and rentals would cover the ceremony sound system and coordination to find that we’re right in line with the numbers throughout the area. However, one area that we would differ is the larger weddings. When you get bigger, the cost of your DJ doesn’t go up with us unless you add hours, more uplights, additional gobos or additional sound systems.
The numbers are similar in Fairfax City (which boasts a lot of beautiful facilities, click here for more) and Prince William County in Virginia which has a few facilities that we’ve enjoyed including Harbour View in Occoquan. In Maryland, Anne Arundel, Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties also support similar numbers though numbers for Washington DC weren’t available.
Don’t let the numbers scare you. Take a calculator and figure your numbers. There are many couples out there who are doing it themselves when it comes to the wedding, we’ve done it ourselves.
If you have the ability to save money by choosing someone cheap or free, consider how much you want something for your wedding day that you got on a huge discount. Always check credentials because choosing a fast food restaurant to provide the food for your wedding will not be the same as a professional caterer. The catering company works many weddings, where the fast food restaurant may not quite understand the intricacies of someone’s wedding day.
