What each wedding vendor costs: venue, photographer, flowers, DJ and the rest

First, the average is not the typical wedding

The Knot's 2026 Real Weddings Study surveyed 10,474 US couples married in 2025. The average wedding cost $34,000. The median, the point where half spent more and half spent less, was $24,000. A small number of very expensive weddings pull the average up.

Average cost by vendor

From the same study. The second column is the share of couples who hired that vendor, where The Knot reports it.

Why the rows do not add up to your budget

• Nobody hires everything. Only 37% booked a videographer and 12% a band.
• Each average counts only the couples who paid for that vendor.
• Some lines overlap. Many venues include things that appear as separate rows.
• The rehearsal dinner ($2,800 on average), the engagement ring ($4,600) and the honeymoon ($5,500) are reported outside the wedding total.

What a venue price usually includes

The venue is the largest line, and it is the hardest to compare, because it covers different things in different places. Among couples in the study:

Planners: three different jobs

The three are different amounts of work, so compare quotes for the same scope. A day-of coordinator runs the schedule you built; a full-service planner builds it with you.

How many stay on budget

In the same study, 41% of couples went over their budget, 34% stayed on track, 4% came in under and 21% never set one. On average couples hired 13 vendors. That is thirteen quotes, thirteen deposits and thirteen payment dates, which is most of what there is to keep track of.

How to use these numbers

• Start from your own total, not from the national one.
• Use the averages to see proportion: the venue and food dominate, and everything else is small next to them.
• Get the final total in every quote, with service charges and tax, before you compare it with anything here.
• Prices differ sharply by state. The average wedding costs $17,000 in one state and $57,000 in another.