A bride, who says she set out to throw a “low-cost” wedding but ended up spending $40,000, is sharing her tips so others “can avoid making the same mistakes.”
In a video posted on TikTok, Nashville bride Megan Diem Easton — who got married in November 2024 — detailed how she discovered a harsh reality when she delved into planning her nuptials. Despite making “every budget cut I could think of and months and months of searching for low-budget vendors,” she said the total cost of her event quickly soared to $40,000.
“When people hear that, they raise a lot of concerns because they think there’s no way that a wedding where I tried to save could cost [that much],” she noted. “But if you have been to a traditional wedding within the past couple of years, where there is food, alcohol, a venue, a reception and a good amount of people, they were all weddings probably around [$40,000] or more.”
Since this was the first time she had ever planned a wedding, Easton was not expecting to experience such sticker shock. “Weddings costs are so inflated,” she said. “That was my biggest struggle.”
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Looking back, she said she might have forgone a wedding altogether.
“If I had known what I know now, I probably would have eloped to save the money,” Easton admitted. “Unfortunately, once you start planning, you’re kind of in the thick of it before you start to realize how much it’s going to cost you. There are so many hidden costs and there’s not a lot of transparency in the wedding world.”
To help other couples navigating the wedding planning process, Easton created a template — which she is selling in her Etsy shop — that includes “almost every single cost you could possibly run into during wedding planning.”
The idea of the template, she explained, is to provide brides and grooms with a clear estimate of how much their wedding would cost so they can weigh whether “it’s worth it.”
In her video, she shared a look at her own wedding budget breakdown — from the big expenses such as the venue, the florist and her dress to smaller incidentals like an $8 ring sizer she purchased on Amazon. Easton revealed that her original estimate was $25,000, meaning she and her now-husband surpassed their budget by $15,000.
“That sounds like a lot of money and when you’re looking at the individual costs, you’re thinking, ‘How? How? How is this adding up to $40,000?’ ” she continued, explaining, “$500 here and there, every couple of weeks, adds up very quickly.”
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Her advice? Sit down and draw up an estimate of all the costs before you even start booking vendors and making purchases. Her template, she explained, allows couples to see a complete breakdown of every expense and a final tally.
Easton noted that it’s often the miscellaneous costs — which can be difficult to predict and add up to thousands of dollars — that blow the budget. “What happens is there are a lot of things on here, especially down in this miscellaneous section, that you would never be able to think of in a million years that you would need until you’re already doing it and the costs are already adding up,” she explained.
She cited some examples of these unexpected costs, including vendor gratuities, a venue cleaning fee, an alcohol license fee and ring insurance.
In the comments of Easton’s TikTok video, many people shared similar wedding planning experiences. “I feel insane saying this but the weddings people think of when you say I’m planning a wedding are minimum $30K. I’ve spent almost $60K and it’s not fancy at all,” one viewer wrote.
Easton replied to the comment: “Exactly! I had no bells and whistles, nothing crazy, l even skimped out and was cheap and plain in a lot of areas (which worked because l’m very minimal anyways). No splurges were made.”
Another person chimed in, “My budget was $20K and I’m now looking at $60K.”
Someone else pointed out that even when couples are ruthless about cutting costs and scale back significantly on their guest list, the big items are unavoidable and what ultimately drive up the overall budget.
“People don’t understand that small doesn’t cut back that much — the dress, the photographer, the music, all that stuff is still the same price whether it’s 100 or 400 [people],” they wrote.
In response, Easton noted, “Most venues charge the same no matter how many guests you have.”
Despite the steep cost of her wedding, however, the newlywed told Newsweek she “wouldn’t change a thing.”
“The day was beautiful and everything I wished for as a little girl dreaming of her wedding,” Easton said.
