my nyc wedding was featured in Vogue, here's how much it cost
and not a linen in sight
If you asked me 6 months ago if I thought our wedding would be featured in Vogue, I’d laugh and ask, “what wedding?” because 6 months ago there was no wedding planned. I’m really humbled Vogue reached out to feature us and consider it a huge win for tattooed brides, brides who quiver at the thought of a 6 figure soirée, brides who couldn’t be bothered with custom linens or flowers or inviting every person they’ve ever met. I think in another life I would have opted for the bachelorette party, the elaborate welcome party, and post-wedding brunch, because I truly love attending them as a guest, but when it comes to hosting it’s just not who we are as a couple. When thumbing through Vogue Weddings I’m overwhelmed with beautiful table scapes and flatware and every detail selected with immense care and precision that could rival neurosurgery; essentially the antithesis of my own wedding day. It feels really good to represent all the city hall couples and nontraditional brides out there.
When my husband and I got engaged in August 2022 we attempted to plan a “real” wedding several times. First, a destination affair to Portugal, the country we’ve visited the most as a couple and where my family is from. The Portuguese are not urgent people, and everyone we spoke to about planning were so relaxed it actually made me anxious. I’ve lived in the Northeast my whole life, our only setting is fast-paced, our only speed is urgent, it is honestly comforting to me and the only thing I know. So, after visiting in fall 2023 and hearing “don’t worry about it” one too many times, in addition to experiencing a nasty case of jet-lag sickness (imagining one of our guests coming all that way only to get sick days before the wedding wasn’t something I could stomach) we scratched it.
Next we looked into Brooklyn venues. Everything we liked was an upward of $20,000 and typically that only covered the venue buyout for a couple of hours. Which meant hiring outside vendors to facilitate the most basic things like CHAIRS! FLATWARE! TABLECLOTHS! TOILETS??? I’m not cut out for this, man.
My husband and I simply aren’t planners. The one time I planned a big event was in 2012 when I was living in a Boston show house, and at the time the Boston Police Department were cracking down on DIY show venues. My friends band had a gig scheduled at a show house down the street, but they got shut down a few days earlier. I wanted to be a good friend, and maybe a hero by punk standards, so I volunteered my house as a replacement. We had band practice everyday, and shows 2-3x a week, so it wasn’t super out of the ordinary, however when the day loomed I felt sick to my stomach, I couldn’t regulate my heartbeat and I was in over my head. What if someone gets hurt? What if we get shut down? What if no one has fun? What if we finally burn down the house because everyone smokes cigarettes in this basement with zero ventilation? My solution was to get drunk and hand off my responsibilities to someone else. Not my finest moment. I actually think about it to this day because, after all, I’m an ex-catholic Portuguese woman and enjoy feeling shame, but also it should have been the first sign of my inability to event plan. What was I thinking being responsible for a whole wedding?
We then enlisted help from our dear friend Carrie who event plans for a living. At this point we turned our attention to a restaurant buy-out for ~30 people. Carrie was so beyond gracious and put together a beautiful presentation of 5-6 options for us to choose. While we were mulling it over we learned the hard way that sharing your planning progress with too many people, no matter how much they love you, inevitably leads to someone being unhappy. After so many failed iterations, my husband and I finally had enough. That was the last straw. We threw our hands up and decided to say fuck it and do what we wanted. To throw the wedding we were a) capable of planning and b) would actually enjoy attending.
Sharing the cost of my wedding wasn’t something I considered doing, it feels a little gauche, however when I was trying to find information about how much it costs to get married in the city, I was shocked by how difficult it was to find pricing for nontraditional venue options and cakes and makeup artists. I hope providing some transparency into the process gives any future brides out there some insight, because you don’t have to spend 6 figures to have an amazing day if you don’t want to. I hope it’s helpful, or at least makes somebody feel less intimidated by such an arduous task.
As promised, this is part 2 of my wedding breakdown including the itinerary and cost! Part 1 breaks down everything I wore, if you haven’t already please give it a read. Enjoy!!