Wedding Attendance Can Strain Your Relationship With Your Finances

Most of us know that weddings can get really expensive. Turns out wedding attendance can be costly, too.

A wedding can be a major financial endeavor, costing an average of more than $35,000 last year, according to wedding site TheKnot.com. According to a new survey by LendEDU, a company that markets student-loan products, wedding attendance can get pricey, too, if you’re not mindful of the costs. LendEDU published the results of a recent poll it commissioned of 1,000 Americans who attended a wedding in 2017.

Among the key findings:

• The average wedding attendee spends about $1,386 per wedding. Multiply that by three to five weddings a year, and wedding attendance can take a serious bite out of your budget.
• Within that expenditure, about $529 goes toward travel (including plane tickets, gas, hotel room), about $329 goes toward the wedding gift, nearly $224 goes toward clothing (a suit or dress, dry cleaning), and about $304 goes toward miscellaneous expenses.
• A third of respondents said they purchase a wedding gift off the registry, 32% said they either give cash or check, while 3% said they do not give a gift.

To control spending on wedding attendance, keep these tips in mind:

• Budget for gifts in your annual household spending plan, for weddings, as well as holidays and other occasions. Consider who is likely to get married in the coming year, and which weddings you’ll want to attend, and then save, budget, and plan accordingly.
• Don’t give in to social or familial pressure to attend every wedding you are invited to (especially destination weddings, which may include travel, lodging, and other costs that fall outside of your budget). Save by attending only those most important to you, and sending an affordable gift or just a nice card of congratulations for the others.
• Don’t get caught up in competition with family members or other attendees to buy the most impressive gift. Don’t give anything, including cash, that is more than what you budgeted for.

To learn more survey results, check out “The Average Price of Going to A Wedding in 2017” at LendEDU.com.