How much should bridesmaids be spending for all wedding festivities?

10 comments

1. It’s going to vary from wedding to wedding, but a bride should know her attendants well enough to not budget more than they can afford, and to be able to have an honest and open discussion about it.

2. Not enough context. Somewhere from eloping and everyone wears their everyday clothes to black tie attire at a destination wedding, zero to tens of thousands of dollars.

3. How much ***should*** they spend? Zero.

   How much ***do*** they spend? Thousands, usually.

4. Every time I’ve agreed to be a bridesmaid I’ve expected to spend between 1000-2000 dollars and that is about what I’ve spent each time

5. It really depends, but it should be something they are able to afford

6. If you’re the bride: you should individually talk to your bridesmaids to ask them what their financial situation is because you want to be mindful and include them/everyone regardless of financial background. And this will help you talk to the entire bridesmaid to keep everything under X amount as they help plan stuff.

   If you are a bridesmaid: talk to the bride if you are starting to spend outside your means. You shouldn’t be struggling to live life at the expense of a wedding activities. If it means dropping out and attending as a guest because the bride wants things a certain way, then so be it. If the bride is willing to make you broke, that’s a bridezilla.

7. I was just a bridesmaid at my sister’s wedding.

   I paid $375 for my dress, $40 for the shoes, $400 for the accomodation at the wedding (we all shared a mansion for 4 days), and about $900 for the bachelorette party where we rented a lakehouse for a week (included the car rental, food, and house rental, decorations, etc).

   I would only spend this much money on my sister or two other friends, not normally.

8. I think mine only paid for their dresses(I let them pick, it just had to be a certain color), their hair, and a hotel room. And my venue was close enough that one bridesmaid went home instead of a hotel.

   We threw our own wedding shower and I skipped a bachelorette.

9. The price of a gift and *maybe* their dress, depending on how expensive of a style the bride picks

10. Totally dependent on the wedding/wedding party, but $1-2k has been pretty typical for my group, which is relatively middle income.