A breakdown of the average wedding cost

Whether you’ve been married yourself or have been invited to enough weddings to have personally witnessed what goes into them, you probably know a thing or two about the financials involved. Just to refresh your memory, here’s the latest cost breakdown by wedding planning website, The Knot, according to data from a survey of 7,600 couples. Heads up: although the prices listed below are the average cost of national wedding vendors, amounts will vary a lot state by state.

• Bride’s dress: $1,600
• Cake: $500
• DJ or band: $1,200 to $3,700
• Fancy invites: $590
• Flora and fauna: $2,000
• Food for 50 guests: $3,500
• Officiant: $280
• Photographer & videographer: $4,200
• Rehearsal dinner: $1,900
• Rings: $5,900
• Transportation: $800
• Tuxedo rental: $280
• Venues (wedding & reception): $10,500
• Wedding planner: $1,500

Once you add all that up, it comes to over $37K! Now, if you’ve always dreamt of paying for your son or daughter’s wedding (or maybe even your dear aunt’s third-time’s-the-charm nuptials), but you don’t have that kinda money laying around, it might be time to look into a personalized life insurance policy.

But hold up, “what about standard wedding insurance?” we hear you say. Well, yes, wedding insurance is insurance for a wedding, but it’s not for the scenario we’re talking about here.

What does wedding insurance cover?

Wedding insurance typically protects against circumstances beyond your control when it comes to your big day. For example, if the horse and carriage you booked get into an accident and you need to rent a limo instead. Or, if your decorative flowers fall out of the truck on the way to the venue and you have to run by the local florist to grab what they have available at 3x the cost. Or, if you’re having a destination wedding and your flights are canceled, and you need to hop on the next, more expensive flight available. As you can see, traditional wedding insurance is a great peace-of-mind provider but it doesn’t actually cover the cost of a wedding if you were to die unexpectedly.

But, before we get into using your life insurance to cover a dream wedding, let’s address the situation where you may have already budgeted for a loved one’s nuptials. Firstly, well done for thinking ahead. But secondly, would those savings be needed elsewhere if you were to die tomorrow? For example, might that money be needed to pay for more pressing matters like a mortgage or your medical bills instead of a big blowout bash some ambiguous number of years from now? Regardless, there is a way that you don’t have to choose between keeping a roof over your family’s head or making a loved one’s big day, and that’s with a personalized life insurance plan.

Using your life insurance benefit to pay for a wedding

With Wysh, you can use our free Wysh Builder tool to add nice-to-have things such as “daughter’s future wedding” to help determine the total coverage, along with the must-haves such as mortgage and car payments. You simply work out the budget and how much you’d like to contribute and voila, your life insurance plan could help pay for that dream wedding! And, if you end up kicking the bucket sooner rather than later, our Wysh Granters (yeah, that’s our kick-ass customer service team) can work with your loved one’s to help pay the venue, florist, DJ, and anyone else involved in the special day.

Bottom line

Planning for the fun stuff along with the serious stuff is possible by getting a tailored life insurance plan. With Wysh life insurance, you can make ultra-personalized Wyshes that not only include covering a loved one’s wedding but also out-of-this-world things such as shooting your ashes to space. (Yep, the sky is not the limit when it comes to leaving a legacy). And it goes without saying that your regular day-to-day stuff can be covered too, from your family home to your kids’ college tuition. Now go and tell your loved ones they need to be extra-nice to you if they want you to have enough coverage to pay for the steak vs. the burger on their big day.