The same wedding costs wildly different things to wildly different households. The dollar bill itself moves only modestly across states -- about a 14% spread from cheapest to most expensive in our federal price-level model. What varies sharply is what that bill represents. The American wedding eats 39% of median household income in Washington D.C. and 70% in Mississippi -- and the states where weddings are cheapest in dollars are often the ones where they hurt most as a share of the paycheck. In nearly every state, the 20% down payment on a median home now costs more than the wedding it precedes, up to 3.9× more in Hawaii. The dollar flatness itself is a finding worth a careful read -- see the methodology note above the data table for what it does and doesn’t mean.
D.C. (low) to Mississippi (high)
by 3.9× in Hawaii (worst case)
down payment outweighs the wedding
2015 → 2025
tracked at 2015, 2020 and 2025
each tracked individually
The headline finding. As a share of median household income, the same wedding is wildly unequal: 39% in Washington D.C., 70% in Mississippi. Because state incomes vary far more than state service prices, this is where the real geography of the American wedding lives.
The 20% home down payment is the bigger savings goal in 48 of 51 jurisdictions. In Hawaii the down payment is 3.9× the wedding, in D.C. 3.5×, in California 3.4×. Only in Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia does the wedding still cost more than the down payment.
In federal services-price terms the dollar bill is flat: about $36,600 in North Dakota to $41,800 in New York. This is a price-level model, not a survey of real spending -- see the methodology note above the data table. Industry surveys of actual weddings show wider state spreads, but skew affluent.
Every cost. Every state. Three years.
Median totals for a 100-guest wedding in each state. Sort any column. Pick one year for a snapshot, or pick any two to see the % change between them (the change column appears automatically). Defaults to the full-decade 2015–2025 view.
About these dollar figures
The dollars below come from a federal price-level model, not a survey of real wedding budgets. The base is a national 100-guest wedding built from BLS CPI and PPI subcomponents (rings, catering, florals, music, transport, apparel, decor, photography, venue). That base is then scaled to each state using the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities, "Services: Other" line, which measures the average state price level of consumer services excluding rent and utilities.
That is why the dollar spread is only about 14% end to end: statewide service-price levels are themselves narrow. The BEA basket averages LA together with rural California, NYC with rural New York, and weights by typical consumer services -- not by wedding-specific markets where high-demand venues, top photographers and planners in luxury cities command outsized premiums.
Industry surveys of actual weddings (The Knot, WeddingWire) report wider state spreads, often two- or three-fold from cheapest to most expensive. Those surveys are self-selected, skew affluent, and oversample high-cost metros, so they paint a different (also imperfect) picture. The honest take: treat the dollar column as a price-level benchmark, and the income-share and down-payment-ratio columns as the geographic story. For metro-level dollars with more variation (San Jose vs. Cleveland is a 1.5× gap, not 1.14×), see the US Wedding Cost Index 2026 companion report.
Compare two states
Pick any two states and a year to see the gap. The buttons below switch all data (cost, income, home value, ratios) in sync with the main table.
| State ↕ | Wedding Cost Components | Economic Context | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ΣTotal↕ | ⌂Venue↕ | 🍽Cater- ing↕ |
◌Rings↕ | ◫Photo & Video↕ |
✿Florals↕ | ✦Dress & Suit↕ |
♫Music / DJ↕ |
✧Decor↕ | ⇄Trans- port↕ |
$Med. Income↕ |
%Wedding % Income↕ |
⌂Med. Home Value↕ |
⇣20% Down Payment↕ |
↔Down Pay- ment / Wedding↕ |
|
Rings = engagement ring + 2 wedding bands · Other items (cake, officiant, stationery, hair and makeup) included in Total but not shown separately
Where the money actually goes
National median figures for a 100-guest wedding. Toggle year to see how spending has shifted since 2015.
The same wedding, a very different burden.
Because the dollar cost of a wedding hardly changes between states, the real story is on the income side. Where households earn less, the identical wedding swallows a far larger share of the paycheck -- and almost everywhere, the home down payment is the steeper climb.
How this index was built
This is the state-level companion to the Peter Norman US Wedding Cost Index. It is built to be reproducible: every figure has a named federal source and the construction is documented below. Journalists and researchers are welcome to contact Peter Norman for the underlying spreadsheets.
Last updated: May 2026.
Why a state cut -- and what it shows
Our metro-area index ranks 50 cities. This state edition covers the whole country -- all 50 states plus D.C. -- and, because every input series is published natively at the state level, it carries fewer caveats than the metro version: there is no PUMA-to-CBSA crosswalk, and the Census estimates are more stable at state level. Specifically:
- State cost multiplier is the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities (RPP), Services: Other sub-index, state table (SARPP, LineCode 5). Pulled for 2015, 2020 and 2024 (the latest RPP year published as of release).
- National base costs are constructed by BLS CPI / PPI roll-forward. A 2015 anchor (calibrated against The Knot Real Weddings Study and the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey) is rolled forward to 2020 and 2025 using a named CPI or PPI subcomponent for each of the ten cost categories. The base is identical to the metro index; only the state multiplier differs.
- Median household income uses ACS Table B19013, 5-year estimates (estimates ending 2015, 2020 and 2023), pulled for all 50 states and D.C.
- Median home values use ACS Table B25077, 5-year estimates (ending 2015, 2020 and 2023).
The headline finding of the state cut: the dollar cost of a wedding is nearly flat across states, but its burden is not. Because the BEA Services: Other RPP ranges only from about 0.91 (North Dakota) to 1.04 (New York), the modelled wedding total moves just ~14% from the cheapest to the most expensive state. Median household income, by contrast, ranges almost two-to-one (roughly $55k in Mississippi to $106k in the District of Columbia), so the wedding-as-share-of-income figure swings from 39% to 70%.
Wedding cost: how the national base is built
We do not take the national wedding cost from any single industry survey. The 2015 base is calibrated to The Knot Real Weddings Study cross-checked against the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX Table 2400: Entertainment and personal care). That anchor is then rolled forward to 2020 and 2025 by applying the BLS CPI or PPI subcomponent growth rate for each of the ten cost categories independently.
The category → BLS series mapping used in this release:
- Catering: CPI Food away from home (CUUR0000SEFV). 2015→2025 = +49.3%
- Rings: CPI Jewelry and watches (CUUR0000SEAG). +27.0%
- Photo and Video: CPI Photographers and photo equipment (CUUR0000SERA02). +41.1%
- Florals: PPI Cut flowers and floriculture (WPU026). +35.6%
- Dress and Suit: CPI Apparel, all (CUUR0000SAA). +4.3%
- Music / DJ: no clean CPI proxy for live wedding music; held to the average of the catering, photo, venue and transport service-CPI factors. +47.2%
- Decor: CPI Household furnishings and operations (CUUR0000SAH3). +23.7%
- Transport: CPI Private transportation services (CUUR0000SETD). +59.4%
- Venue: CPI Admissions (CUUR0000SS62031). +39.1%
- Other (cake, officiant, HMU, stationery, favours, rehearsal dinner): held to historical share, ~11% of named-category sum each year.
National total 2015 = $29,248. 2025 = $40,161. Aggregate decade growth: +37%.
Limitation, named: the 2015 anchor remains derived from The Knot, a commercial survey. If the anchor is wrong, the roll-forward downstream is wrong. The roll-forward method is itself transparent and reproducible from the BLS series above.
Category cost breakdown
The ten cost categories:
- Venue: Ceremony and reception venue hire fees only, excluding catering minimums
- Catering: Food, non-alcoholic beverages, and bar package for 100 guests including service charges; excludes venue hire
- Rings: Engagement ring plus two wedding bands
- Photo and Video: Combined photography and videography packages
- Florals: Ceremony and reception floral arrangements including bridal party flowers
- Dress and Suit: Bridal gown plus accessories; groom/partner formal attire
- Music / DJ: Live band or DJ for the reception; does not include ceremony musicians
- Decor: Non-floral decorative items: linens, lighting, centrepieces, signage
- Transport: Wedding party vehicles (typically 2–4 cars or a limousine)
- Other (in Total only): Cake, officiant, hair and makeup, stationery and invitations, favours, rehearsal dinner contribution
State cost multiplier
National costs are scaled to each state using the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities (RPP), specifically the Services: Other sub-index of the state table (SARPP, LineCode 5). RPP measures the state-level price level for services other than rents and utilities, on a national index of 100, published annually for every US state and D.C. It is constructed from restricted-access BLS CPI price quotes and ACS housing data, and is the dataset the federal government uses to compare real personal income across states.
Each state’s 2015, 2020 and 2025 multiplier is the BEA RPP Services: Other value divided by 100. For the 2025 column we use the 2024 RPP, the most recent year published by BEA at time of release (RPP typically runs ~12 months behind the calendar year).
Note on the narrow range: State Services-Other RPP spans only about 91 (North Dakota) to 104 (New York). Service prices simply do not vary as much between whole states as home prices and incomes do. This is the honest answer for underlying service-price levels, and it is why the modelled wedding total is much flatter across states than the income or down-payment columns. Within-state variation (a Manhattan venue vs an upstate one) is far larger than the state-to-state gap and is not captured at the state median this index reports.
Median household income
State median household income, US Census Bureau American Community Survey Table B19013 (Median Household Income in the Past 12 Months), 5-year estimates. 5-year estimates are used consistently across all three time points (2011–2015, 2016–2020, 2019–2023). At state level the 5-year estimate has a very small margin of error and is published for all 50 states and D.C., so unlike the metro index there is no need to mix vintages or reconcile changing geographic codes.
Income is the variable that drives the most striking finding in this report. State median household income ranges nearly two-to-one across the country, so the wedding-as-share-of-income column — not the dollar cost — is where the geography of wedding affordability actually lives.
Median home values and 20% down payments
State median home values are from ACS Table B25077 (Median Value of Owner-Occupied Housing Units), 5-year estimates ending 2015, 2020 and 2023. This is owner-stated value, not sale price; the two diverge somewhat (owners typically overestimate by 5–10%), but B25077 is the federally-published state-level series and is consistent across the panel.
The 20% down payment figure is a direct calculation: 20% of the ACS B25077 state median. This threshold is used because it is the standard down payment required to avoid Private Mortgage Insurance on conventional loans in the US, making it the most financially meaningful savings target for first-time buyers.
Cross-check: Redfin Data Center and Zillow Research state figures track within roughly 5–10% of B25077 for most states, in both directions. Where you may see a divergence between this index and a Redfin/Zillow figure, it is most often because we report owner-stated value (B25077) while Redfin reports trailing-12-month median sale price. We use B25077 as primary for consistency with the rest of the federally-sourced data.
The 2020 COVID period
The wedding industry was among the most severely disrupted sectors of the US economy in 2020, with mass venue closures, postponements, and average guest counts cut roughly in half. This index does not adjust or smooth the 2020 figures. The 2020 column reflects what couples who married that year paid, with the BLS CPI subcomponents already reflecting any 2020-specific price moves (e.g. food-away-from-home actually rose in 2020 despite the broader disruption).
Readers comparing 2015 to 2020 should be aware that the apparent flat trend conceals a real 2016–2019 increase, a 2020 contraction, and a recovery through 2021–2024 that brought costs above pre-pandemic levels by 2023.
Limitations and caveats
2015 anchor dependency: Our 2020 and 2025 figures are constructed by rolling the 2015 anchor forward via BLS CPI/PPI subcomponent growth. This is a transparent method but assumes wedding-specific inflation tracks the broader subcomponent. Where wedding-specific inflation has diverged (e.g. premium venue hire likely outpacing general admissions CPI), our totals may understate the true increase.
State medians hide enormous internal variation: A state is a coarse unit. The gap between a downstate and an upstate wedding, or a metro and a rural one, dwarfs the gap between two states’ medians. This report is best read as a measure of the typical statewide price level and burden, not a guide to any one couple’s bill.
Guest count standardisation: All figures are normalised to a 100-guest event. Cultural variation in typical guest counts is not captured.
Music category proxy: No clean BLS price series exists for live wedding music. We use the average of the catering, photo, venue and transport CPI growth factors as a proxy. This is disclosed and may overstate or understate true wedding-music inflation.
RPP vintage: The most recent BEA RPP available at release is 2024. The 2025 column therefore uses the 2024 RPP as the multiplier, applied to a 2025 BLS-roll-forward national base.
Reproducibility
Every figure in this index can be reproduced from the federal series listed in the boxes above and the per-category series IDs in the National Base section. The state inputs are available in a single Census API call (B19013 and B25077, for=state:*) and a single BEA call (SARPP, LineCode 5). Researchers may request the full state-by-state spreadsheet and the construction workings by contacting Peter Norman directly.
The index is updated annually alongside the metro edition. The next refresh will add state-level median age at first marriage (ACS Table B12007) and an FHFA House Price Index home-value cross-check.
Peter Norman Jewelers is a Los Angeles-based independent jeweller specialising in engagement rings and wedding jewellery. This index is an independent editorial research project, not sponsored by any of the data providers listed.