Many people spend their entire lives planning their wedding day. They feel as though something as special as choosing to spend your life with someone should showcase the same kind of commitment and effort.
However, weddings can be very costly and expensive when you begin to plug away at the numbers. Between venues and bands and ceremony needs , things add up rather quickly.
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There are so many things that go into a wedding.
Until you are actually sitting down to plan one, you never realize how much goes into planning a wedding. And, everything you need always has a price tag attached to it.
If you’re not careful, you can blow through thousands of dollars fast.
Before you know it, you will have racked up a huge bill of 20, 30, or 40 thousand dollars before even realizing you are spending that much on your wedding.
The average cost of a wedding nowadays is extremely high.
According to The Knot, the average cost of a wedding in 2021 happened to be $28,000. Now, if you include the engagement ring and whatnot that happens before, it’s closer to $34,000. For some people, that’s a whole down payment on a house.
If you’re savvy, you can be like this one couple, who only spent $500 on their wedding reception.
Kiara and Joel Brokenbrough are newlyweds who recently went viral on TikTok for their very inexpensive, yet stunning wedding that they only spend $500 on. Yes, you read that right—$500.
Kiara pretty much stole the internet’s heart when she shared she paid next to nothing for her wedding dress.
Sharing with TikTok users online, she shared the $500 bill included her dress, which she ordered for only $47 on Shein. Not to mention, the dress was stunning.
Over 1.4 million people were begging for her to share her budgeting tips.
Obviously, people online wanted to know just how she kept her costs so low when it came to everything wedding related. Since we’re all living through the great economic inflation we could use a helping hand.
A lot of their wedding was inexpensive and low-cost.
As for her husband, his suit was $100 on Boohoo Men—which is very inexpensive for a nice suit. Between their two wedding day outfits, that was only $147 total. The rest, well, they had some help.
Kiara shared that they splurged for other things.
The wedding arch that they used was $230, and they spent $67 to get some rental chairs for their wedding ceremony. However, they didn’t pay for a venue because they had it in a local location that was free to the public.
Kiara said her family helped out a lot too.
Kiara’s family helped out by lending them the runner, the wedding cake, and even the flowers she used to walk down the aisle. She said some of them were “gifted” to them for their wedding day.
After the ceremony, they had their reception at a lounge.
Instead of having an entire reception they paid for, Kiara said her friends and family migrated after their ceremony to a lounge that had music, drinks, and everything they wanted. They just all arrived right when the place opened.
Kiara said they kept it “small.”
Because they had their wedding at a public location, they had to keep their guest list small. Which, of course, allowed them to save more money on things in the long run not having to cater to everyone’s needs.
People online absolutely loved this.
“I love that people are realizing paying the price of a car for a dress you’ll wear once doesn’t make any damn sense. love this,” shared one TikTok user on the video of Kiara’s wedding dress.
Others agreed that small weddings are where it’s at and big weddings are so yesterday.
“Large weddings are overrated. My husband and I got married for free. We just signed paperwork. I hope these small cheap weddings become the new norm,” another TikTok user said.
Some were even jealous of Kiara’s budgeting.
“I thought my wedding was affordable ma’am yours was beyond affordable and I want to do mine over lol just to do it for the low amount lol…,” joked another TikTok user in the comments.
Kiara said she’s happy to help others and inspire them to do what works for them.
“I think there has been this cultural pressure to have a certain type of wedding and entertain and please others. … If you want to spend thousands of dollars on your wedding, that is great. I personally don’t mind it because it doesn’t affect me at all,” she told BuzzFeed .
