What a wedding actually costs.

Most wedding cost advice is written by companies that earn money from the vendors they recommend. Ours isn't: Lazo takes nothing per lead and nothing per booking, and rankings can't be bought at any price. These are the ranges we believe couples actually pay.

Pick the line you're working on. Each guide covers what you get at each price, what actually drives the number, when to book, and the questions that change a quote.

How the whole budget usually breaks down

Every wedding is different, but the proportions are surprisingly consistent. For most couples the venue and catering together take roughly half of everything, photography and video take another fifth, and the remaining thirty percent covers everyone else. If one line is running away from you, it is almost always the first one.

Two things are worth knowing before you start allocating:

• Guest count is the real budget lever. Catering, bar, rentals, cake, invitations and transport are all priced per person. Twenty fewer guests usually saves more than any negotiation you will have with any vendor.
• The day of the week is the second lever. A Friday, a Sunday, or an off-season date routinely saves 20–40% at the same venue with the same vendors. Nobody has ever remembered which day of the week a wedding was.

A note on where these numbers come from

These ranges come from real operator pricing — our founder is a working wedding photographer and videographer — combined with broad market norms in the 363 markets we index. They are honest guidance, not quotes, and no vendor paid to appear in them.

The part that is ours alone is the price index underneath each guide: the "starting at" price that 6,166 vendors publish on their own websites or Lazo profiles, read and re-read by us, shown by city wherever enough of them say a number. 236 city pages so far, and a "what were you quoted" line on every guide so couples can add the other half of the picture. Nobody paid to be in it and nobody can pay to be left out.