Infographic
Over-the-Top Celebrity Wedding Expenses
We’ve all heard about the extravagance of celebrity weddings and the high costs of all their lavish celebrations. In some cases, it may make us wish we had similarly massive budgets for our own weddings, and in other cases, it helps us realize we have much better ideas on how to spend that money. (A villa in Tuscany, anyone?)
Here’s the breakdown of some big-ticket celebrity wedding expenses and what you could do with that budget.
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The Ring
Sofia Vergara & Joe Manganiello
This stunning engagement ring was a 7-carat cushion cut diamond with a diamond halo encircling the center stone and French-set diamonds covering the platinum band. The estimated cost was an equally stunning half-million dollars.
What you could buy for $500,000: For the cost of Sofia’s gorgeous rock, you could buy beautiful (and normal size) rings for 81 brides.
The Flowers
Prince William & Kate Middleton
Their wedding was blooming with beautiful flowers, and the price tag for all those blooms totaled $800,000. Her bouquet had lily of the valley, sweet William (yes, he is sweet), hyacinth and myrtle. (Did you know it’s royal tradition to carry a sprig of myrtle in the wedding bouquet?)
What $800,000 gets you: Enough flowers for 315 weddings, or nearly a wedding every day for a year. As another option, you could use this flower budget to plant a field of tulips large enough to span 4.1 football fields.
The Dress
Lauren Morelli and Samira Wiley
This couple both wore custom Christian Siriano ensembles with a price tag of about $20,000 each. Samira wanted “her fairytale wedding moment,” according to the designer, who added a modern twist to that concept with a two-piece gown so Samira could change into a simpler skirt for the evening. Lauren “wanted to feel regal and elegant,” the designer added. The result was a tailored pantsuit with a crystal and beaded pearl collar.
What $20,000 could buy you: an extreme amount of fabric. We ran the numbers, and you could buy 2,316 yards of French satin (nine times the height of the Eiffel Tower) or 4,317 yards of chiffon (longer than the Hollywood Walk of Fame). Now that’s a lot of fabric indeed!
Entertainment
Jay Z & Beyonce
The music cost for their wedding was about $60,000 with DJ Cassidy spinning old-school hip hop and R&B. The playlist included classics like The Jackson 5 and Whitney Houston. The couple’s first dance song was “Crazy in Love,” the 2003 song that the couple first collaborated on.
In real life: With $60,000, you could buy 5,454 albums on iTunes. But to make $60,000, Jayoncé would need their music streamed 10 million times on Spotify.
The Favors
Kim Kardashian & Kanye West
This couple had extravagant wedding favors that cost $125,000 per guest. In total, the budget was $25 million just for the favors. Each guest received Bollinger champagne ($500), Creme de la Mer products ($200), Swarovski crystals etched with the couple’s initials, bottles of scents from local perfumeries and a hotel spa voucher ($250).
With $25 million, you could buy: a Caribbean island, a villa in Tuscany, 25 Manhattan parking spots or two dozen orca whales.
The Cake
Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds
The couple’s cake was a centerpiece. Costing about $20 per slice, it was a vanilla-and-sour-cream cake
with peach-apricot preserves, and Earl Grey-milk chocolate buttercream. Yum! But the cake wasn’t the only desert; there was a table of delicious treats including lemon meringue tartlets, blueberry cheesecake bites, mini chocolate bundt cakes filled with chocolate ganache and artisanal popsicles with fun messages like “Ain’t love sweet?”
In real life: Typical cake costs are $1.50 to $12 a slice. Using the celebrity budget, a typical wedding cake would be 28 layers tall or about 9.3 feet high. Now that’s a lot of cake!
The Planner
Anne Hathaway & Adam Shulman
The couple used celebrity wedding planner Stefanie Cove of Yifat Oren & Associates, who took home about $200,000 to plan this event (about 20% of a $1 million wedding). The firm has on staff 10 full-time and 40 part-time employees, but it’s rarely glamorous, she said: “We work 18-hour days for three months straight.” Fighting paparazzi comes with the territory. When Anne learned that her big day was no longer a secret, the planner got an enormous balloon art installation to prevent unwanted photos. But instead of hiding the couple, it made them a paparazzi target. Yikes!
With $200,000, you could: Buy your very own yacht. You could also use it to book a spot on the world’s first commercial passenger spaceship or even pay for 20 years of rent (based on a median rent amount of $800 per month).
The Honeymoon
George Clooney & Amal Alamuddin
The couple celebrated their marriage in Seychelles, an island off the coast of East Africa, with honeymoon costs totaling $74,000. They stayed in a 5,000-square-foot private villa at The North Island resort, which boasts its own plunge pool and many other luxe amenities. Bonus: It’s only accessible by helicopter! Other couples who have honeymooned in Seychelles include Nicky Hilton and James Rothschild, Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, and Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade.
In real life: The Clooney honeymoon could have paid for two couples traveling the world for a year. Alternatively, you could use that money to buy 18 around-the-world plane tickets. On the other hand, you could just buy an airplane.
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