3 Hidden Costs Of Weddings You Should Know About!
Up Selling Wedding Dresses
Wedding dresses are expensive, the average wedding dress in New York City (and Long Island) brides spent the most money on their gowns ($3,027 and $2,160, respectively), while brides in Alaska and Oklahoma spent far less ($804 and $859, respectively).
For most women their wedding dress is the most expensive garment they will purchase. A wedding dress is an emotional purchase for most women and retailers are counting on your emotions to improve their business' bottom line. If you think the price of the wedding dress, whatever it may be, reflects the total amount you'll be spending on your dress, your wrong! Most wedding dresses will require alterations. Brides can spend hundreds of dollars in alterations, even if they're not making major changes to the original dress design.
Bridal shop retailers will suggest to you that anything you don't like about their dresses or gowns can easily be altered. Bridal shops also suggest accessories, like an embellished veils, belts, jewelry, clutch wedding hair accessories and bridal lingerie & sleepwear during your appointment to help you get a sense of what the whole ensemble would look like. You like the look and before you know it you are hundreds beyond the price of the dress. It all adds up faster than you might think.
- Wedding Budget
Fees and Tips
Administrative fees, clean up fees and gratuities are often not budgeted items for weddings but they should be. Couples can spend $150, $200 or $250 per plate to feed their wedding guest and a gratuity can be several hundreds of dollars. Some gratuities are written into the catering contract, so check the small print. If you look closely at the line items in your contracts, you may be surprised to find a mysterious "administrative fee" of anywhere from 5 to 20% of the total bill from your caterer or venue.
Some wedding venues are known for adding an "administrative fee" of anywhere from 5 to 20%. 5% - 20% is big difference. A $10,000 venue can turn into a $12,000 or more venue once fees are included. The largest expenditure for couples is usually the the venue and catering, the contracts from these service providers should be read completely. Ask the vendor to modify or remove administrative fees before signing anything.
Cake Cutting Cost
I don't know when this became popular but caterers charge for cutting the wedding cake. I can understand a fee to cut and deliver wedding cake to your guest if you have no serve staff. However, couples that are paying per plate and to have wait staff are being taken advantage of, in my opinion.
Engaged couples often pay exorbitant fees for personalized wedding cakes, wedding cakes can cost as much as $2,000 or more. I've seen invoices where couples were charged as much as $7.00 per slice to cut and deliver a piece of cake! An engaged couple may oder a cake to feed around 100 guest only to receive a bill for hundreds of dollars in cake cutting cost. Clearly, this is the most egregious example of how engaged couples are taken advantaged of by wedding service providers.
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