The average American wedding now costs $34,200, and two in five couples blow their budget getting there. The figure comes from The Knot’s 2026 Real Weddings Study, which surveyed 10,474 couples who married in 2025, and it covers the ceremony and reception only, leaving out the engagement ring and the honeymoon.
The average wedding in 2025 cost $34,200 for 117 guests, or about $292 per guest, according to The Knot, up from $33,000 in 2024 but below the $35,000 peak of 2023. The median was much lower, about $24,000, because a minority of large weddings pulls the average up. A quarter of couples spent $12,000 or less, a quarter spent more than $41,000, and 13 per cent spent $60,000 or more.
Where the money goes
Couples hired about 13 vendors on average, and parents and family covered about 52 per cent of the total bill. The engagement ring averaged $4,600 on top of the wedding itself, the rehearsal dinner $2,800 and the honeymoon $5,500. Budgets slipped for many: 41 per cent of couples went over budget, 34 per cent stayed on track, 4 per cent came in under and 21 per cent had no budget at all.
Zola’s 2026 First Look Report, based on more than 11,500 couples marrying in 2026, puts the average even higher at $36,000, unchanged for a second year at that record level. Zola found 84 per cent of couples believe their 2026 wedding will cost more than the same wedding would have just two years ago, and 88 per cent are contributing financially themselves, either fully or partially.
Hidden costs catch couples out
The surprise bill is the sting. Zola’s 2026 Wedding Spend Survey of 720 recently married couples found 75 per cent were hit by unexpected fees averaging $3,314, about 9 per cent of total spending. Small weddings cost far less: weddings with 1 to 50 guests averaged $17,100, those with 51 to 100 guests averaged $27,200, and weddings with more than 100 guests averaged $43,300.
There are ways to cut the bill. Zola says winter weekends and weekday weddings can save 20 to 30 per cent on most vendor costs, and 43 per cent of Gen Z couples are budgeting under $20,000. Even so, 85 per cent of couples say their wedding will be worth every penny. With homeownership now topping dating wish lists for 40 per cent of US women, the wedding is increasingly competing with a house deposit for the same savings, and mortgage rates at 7.11 per cent make that trade-off sharper still.
