Where Your Wedding Money Actually Goes

Roughly 45 cents of every wedding dollar in Canada goes to the room and the food served in it. That figure is remarkably stable across provinces and across budgets, the ballroom and the backyard both find their way to it, because a backyard has to rent everything a ballroom already owns.

The second largest category is the one couples underestimate most consistently: the people who capture the day. Photography and video together typically run 12 per cent, and it is the only spend that is still working for you in 30 years.

Design, florals, rentals, lighting, stationery, is the most elastic category in the budget. It can absorb 2 per cent or 20, and the difference is visible in photographs but rarely in how the evening feels.

What falls outside every category, and off most spreadsheets, is tax and gratuity on the catering line. On a 40-thousand-dollar food and beverage minimum, that is often another 8 thousand dollars. Ask for quotes inclusive, always.

“A backyard has to rent everything a ballroom already owns.”