How Big is the Wedding Industry?

At present, according to data published in a May 2017 blog by Sara Schmidt using The Knot estimates, there are over 300,000 wedding vendors operating across the United States. The reported average cost of a wedding in 2016 based on 13,000 surveys reached an all-time high of $32,329.  But that TheKnot.com estimate increased to $33,391 in 2017. So, with 2.2 million weddings there is no denying that the wedding industry could be huge!

Hmmm, to me, that $33,391 “average”number seems way too high because other websites, like the costofweddings.com reports the average wedding cost in 2017 at $25,764, with 50% of couples spending less than $15,000.  According to their parent theweddingreport.com website they sampled 10,521 couples to estimate the average wedding cost. NOTE:  Those average wedding cost estimates don’t include about $4,000 for the average week long honeymoon.  Why is the average cost of a wedding important? Because it effects the resulting estimates of how big the wedding industry is. Wow, with that said, let’s take a closer look at some other surprising wedding industry statistics and explore just how big the wedding industry could be.

How Many Weddings Are There Every Year?

The Wedding Report study, based on state and federal wedding license records, says that in 2017 there were 2.18 million weddings in the United States. At a glance, that seems like a healthy figure, but as shown below, it does represent a drop compared with recent years. As shown below, the number of weddings by year had been growing steadily since the recessionary low in 2010 probably because of pent up demand, reaching its recent peak in 2015-2016 at 2.2 million per year. However, in my opinion, the dip in 2017 could point to a new trend that could signal a wedding industry decline.

Let’s peel back that onion.  As shown in the graph on the left, this drop in the number of weddings each year certainly fits in with the trends that we have been seeing here at WhereToElope.com. Many millennials are in fact choosing not to get married at all with 2/3rds of them living together instead or by delaying their marriages for 3 to 5 years. One of the biggest reasons for this trend could be the growing cost of a traditional big wedding.

Eloping couples have told us that they are no longer willing to pay the huge prices the wedding industry vendors want, like the florist who demanded $15,000 for just the flowers.  Especially when those engaged couples could be putting that money towards the down payment on a home, or playing off their high student loans. But what these wedding studies don’t seen to be measuring is the growing trend I’m seeing that many millennials are opting for smaller weddings and elopements instead of big weddings that could cost 90% less!

How Big is the Wedding Industry Today?

Well that’s debatable!  Despite the drop in the number of weddings, some sources report that the wedding industry has a fairly bright outlook. The economy in the United States (USA) is getting stronger and people have higher discretionary incomes than before. A recent report by IBISWorld values the wedding industry at around $72 billion in revenue (using an average cost of $33,000 per wedding).  But, we can’t help but wonder if this high valuation of the wedding industry is in part due to the high price tags applied to all things big wedding related!

But, as shown in their graph below, The Wedding Report estimated the 2016 USA wedding industry at $58 billion,. Using their methodology they estimate the 2017 Wedding Industry at $56 billion, $16 billion or 22% less than the IBISWorld estimate. But, we’ve seen estimates of the USA wedding industry as low at $40 billion.  That wedding industry size estimate appears to me to be based on a more realistic $18,348 average cost per wedding.

 

Let’s peel that onion back another layer.  As discussed in a recent blog post, in my opinion, one thing is certain, the wedding industry, as we know it, is changing and undergoing a significant “paradigm shift” toward fewer big weddings. But this trend toward smaller weddings and elopements doesn’t seem to be fully reflected in these recent wedding industry surveys and size estimates. As shown in this graphic, based on what we are seeing on the search engines, using the Google AdWords keyword tool shows an average of 447,140 couples search each month on the keyword “elope” for alternative smaller wedding options including Do It Yourself (DIY) weddings, elopements and small intimate ceremonies.

From my research, those monthly searches for “elope” are up over 400% from the 110,000 monthly searches for “elope” I saw seven years ago.  As shown above, in May 2018, 684,150 couples were searching on the keyword “elope”.  In my estimation, that’s because as many as 25% of engaged couples in 2018 are choosing to “elope” allowing them to save more than 90% or about $23,264 versus those average wedding costs for a traditional big wedding!

So, we agree with the estimate that 50% of couples now spend less than $15,000 on their weddings.  As shown in the table below, every 1% shift away from big weddings toward elopement style weddings should lower the estimate of the total wedding industry by half a billion dollars ($500 million). Just the change in the number of elopements alone since 2011 should reduce the size of the wedding industry estimate by about $8 billion to an estimated $45 billion.

Remember that many couples get married at the Courthouse for less than $100 and some spend nothing.  So, bottom line, we really don’t know how big the wedding industry is!  The only way to know how big it is for sure would be for the States to start asking married couples how much they spent when they file their wedding license after the marriage.  But, the States are probably not going to do that, unless the States could find a way to tax it… What do you think?  Please leave a comment below.  We hope this blog helps bring into focus the divergent opinions on “How big is the wedding industry”.

By Dave Westfall