If you’re reading this, you must be wondering “How much does it cost to get married in Vegas?”
Well, that’s like asking “How much is a meal?”. You see, Las Vegas has everything on offer to a bride and groom who are planning their weddings. I want you to look at it like this. You could go to New York and get a $2 hot dog on the street, and further down the same street, you could end up at a 5 star restaurant that takes months to get a reservation where the meals are $300 per head. So what would the answer be to “How much is a meal in New York?”

I’ve seen the best of weddings, I’ve seen the worst of weddings.. Ok I havn’t actually seen the worst of weddings when it comes to my clients, as with my style of photography I attract a very unique and fun bride who wants to remember her wedding day forever with amazing photos and a happy and memorable wedding day experience.. but I can tell you that I have seen some of the trashiest weddings, and some of the trashiest wedding vendors when it comes to the fun city of Las Vegas… Think Britney and Kevin.. Las Vegas is a place that enables the craziest last minute decisions..

You can see more information about wait times, how to get a marriage licence, and other general questions on my “How to get Married in Vegas” post. For this post I’m going to stick to the topic of cost.

As a wedding photographer I have helped plan literally hundreds of wedding timelines, and I’ve had clients who have had $45,000 weddings where I was 10% of their budget, and I’ve had clients with $10,000 budgets where I was 1/3rd of their budget..

It’s all about priorities.. If photographs and video and beautiful memories are not important to you, then you can probably get away with just flying in, getting a free blue shuttle bus from the airport to your hotel, going to the marriage licence center to get your Las Vegas marriage licence, and literally just pay an officiant to marry you anywhere on the strip.. So in essence, you can potentially get married with almost no money in Las Vegas.. There’s also no wait time!

For the couple who prioritize photography, and wants to have a beautiful collection of wedding photographs at various locations on their big day, I personally treat their wedding day no differently than I would treat a big church wedding with a big reception with hundreds of guests.. only the amazing thing is that there aren’t hundreds of guests trying to mob the bride and groom, so there’s a lot more quality time with the photographer. The extra time allows for a more intimate setting for your wedding photographs, and enables you to feel more relaxed and at ease about the day and your photos.

I have experience with both eloping couples with no guests, and eloping couples with 30-50 guests. Either way the cost of photography and video is the same, as the effort and work that goes into your photography should be 100% regardless of whether or not you have wedding guests. However how many guests you have may radically change the costs of the rest of your day.

Many couples in Las Vegas opt to meet their wedding guests at a local restaurant and the guests pay for their own meals. Couples do this to keep the costs down. Some couples don’t like this option as they’re aware that most of their guests have probably flewn to Las Vegas for the wedding day.
Other couples often opt for either a restaurant inside a casino space, or one of the casino buffets. It’s easy to call the casino buffets and ask them for a pricing estimate.
Again as you can imagine the couples who have their guests pay for their own meals have almost zero outlay on food, while couples opting for a 5-7 course meal at a prestigious restaurant may set themselves back several thousand dollars.

Officiants range in cost in Las Vegas from $99 – $300. Do not assume that the cheapest will meet your needs, especially if you’re having a video of your ceremony. A good officiant will stop reading or speaking when a loud plane goes overhead, while a less observant or caring officiant may just keep talking leaving unappealing noise on your video. These are questions to ask your officiant.
There are also permit requirements and location fees to have photographs at certain locations that are popular for weddings in Las Vegas.

When asking “How Much Does it Cost to Get Married in Las Vegas?” there’s a lot to look at… You can sit and look and think for hours!

Red Rock Canyon has a $300 permit fee for photo sessions and weddings. Valley of Fire State Park has a $150 permit fee for photography and weddings, and has a 2 week notice requirement.

Another popular location is The Neon Museum.
The Neon Museum has a $500 per hour fee for photo-shoots. They also have additional fees for wedding ceremonies and wedding receptions and have a strict policy about behaviour on their grounds, which is understandable because they spend a lot of time and money restoring and maintaining the beautiful Las Vegas signs.

One example of the cost of an elopment wedding cost might be
1) Wedding Dress $500
2) Wedding Shoes $50
3) Wedding Bands $1500
4) All day wedding photography and stop motion wedding animation $3700
5) Location Fee for The Neon Museum $500
6) Limo x 2 rides $100
7) Getting a good deal on a nice hotel for 3 nights $500
8) Wedding Cake for photos and memories $150
9) Suit hire $200
10) A nice dinner for 2 at Top of the World Stratosphere revolving restaurant $200
11) Seeing a show together $200
12) Ubers for the 3 days $100
13) Romantic trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower Paris $50
14) Officiant $200
15) Marriage licence fees $100

That’s just a rough idea of what some of my wedding clients budgets have looked like in Las Vegas.
So when it comes to ‘How Much does it cost to get married in Las Vegas?”
That particular elopement, just the bride and groom with a couple of romantic activities, a premiere wedding photography location fee, their ‘no time limit’ wedding photography package, a stop motion wedding animation, their hotel, suit hire, dress rings, the total comes to $8,500
Now keep in mind if they got married anywhere else in the world the average wedding is $35,000. They’ve still got their beautiful dress, photographs, stop motion film for life…
Some couples may opt to spend more or less on the dress, shoes, rings, and so fourth. Perhaps you feel only a short 5 hour photography session is required in which case I have a $1995 option for 5 hours of wedding photography. The majority of my couples have considered this time too short, especially when they start figuring out the locations they would like to go to, and the standard of quality of photographs they want to end up wtih.. Longer timeframe is always better afterall, a bit more effort on the wedding day lasts a lifetime.

Imagine the same couple had 30 guests. Now they’re looking for a reception venue like possibly a buffet that they might be able to do dinners for $60-80 per head. $70 x 30 guests is $2100.. I’ve seen couples opt for $200 per head venues, and other couples opt for guests to buy their own.. That’s going to radically change the cost of things. Organizing a hens party and bucks party? If you have all the bridesmaids going to a show, and all the groomsman going on a tour then that might add up the cost too!

Keep an eye on the tips on the “How to Plan a Vegas Wedding” page and if you need help with any of your planning then absolutely Contact me! I run the Las Vegas Wedding Planning facebook groups and would love to be a part of your wedding day as your photographer. xoxo Sky Simone

How to Get Married in Vegas

How to Plan your Vegas Wedding

Things to do In Vegas

Getting Married in Vegas? 50 Fun things to do in Las Vegas!