A couple splashed out $80k on a lavish destination wedding in Mexico - spending $28k on food and drink, $4k on flowers and almost $3k on fireworks.
Misaki Hajimirsadeghi, 29, and her husband, Amir, 29, got married on April 2, 2024 - 11years after they met during their first week at college in 2013.
After finishing their courses at the University of California, Misaki moved back home to Los Angeles, California, US, while Amir also headed there for work.
The pair started dating in October 2019 and in December 2022 Amir got on one knee and popped the question the day after Christmas.
Misaki and Amir wanted to pay for the wedding themselves so had saved up $100k in case they went over budget.
With a healthy wedding budget, the couple decided to tie the knot at Nobu Hotel, Los Cabos, Mexico - which was free for the venue as they had 75 guests staying at the hotel.
They spent $28,860 on catering and drinks opting for appetisers and a three-course meal with an open bar, $700 on welcome bags with a handwritten letter, a both bomb, tea bags and sunscreen and $2,800 on fireworks to get the wedding party off with a bang.
In total Misaki and Amir spent $80,230.78 on their wedding and said it was a "perfect day" and "bang for my buck".
Misaki, who works in finance, from Los Angeles, California, US, said: "It was the most perfect day.
"It was the best vacation, I had all my friends and my family with us - when can you ever do that?
"When can you have all the people you love in the same place?
"We wanted to spend our money in a smart way, we wanted it to be a destination wedding.
"When you become an adult it is so hard to plan a vacation with family and friends so the only way to do that was force them through a wedding."
Misaki and Amir met each other through a friend on their first week at the University of California in San Diego.
But they didn't start dating until three years after they left - in October 2019.
Misaki said: "His dorm was down the hall from the girls' dorm, we met that way and then my roommate became very close with him through soccer.
"That is how we kept in touch throughout college.
"After college, he moved to LA for work and that is where we rekindled.
"I would host parties in LA and he would come over and we started hanging out.
"Each date we had kept getting better and better - everything felt natural to us.
"He felt like home, I am the most comfortable when I am with him.
"We share the same sense of humour and we are very alike.
"The number one thing is I respect him as a person and I am always inspired by him."
After a few years of dating, the couple got engaged on December 26, 2022, on a rooftop overlooking LA.
Misaki said: "He told all of my friends and family he was going to propose.
"The actual proposal was on a rooftop in LA, he had set up this beautiful arrangement and he popped the question.
Misaki Hajimirsadeghi, 29, and her husband, Amir, 29, got married on April 2, 2024 - 11years after they met during their first week at college in 2013.
After finishing their courses at the University of California, Misaki moved back home to Los Angeles, California, US, while Amir also headed there for work.
The pair started dating in October 2019 and in December 2022 Amir got on one knee and popped the question the day after Christmas.
Misaki and Amir wanted to pay for the wedding themselves so had saved up $100k in case they went over budget.
With a healthy wedding budget, the couple decided to tie the knot at Nobu Hotel, Los Cabos, Mexico - which was free for the venue as they had 75 guests staying at the hotel.
They spent $28,860 on catering and drinks opting for appetisers and a three-course meal with an open bar, $700 on welcome bags with a handwritten letter, a both bomb, tea bags and sunscreen and $2,800 on fireworks to get the wedding party off with a bang.
In total Misaki and Amir spent $80,230.78 on their wedding and said it was a "perfect day" and "bang for my buck".
Misaki, who works in finance, from Los Angeles, California, US, said: "It was the most perfect day.
"It was the best vacation, I had all my friends and my family with us - when can you ever do that?
"When can you have all the people you love in the same place?
"We wanted to spend our money in a smart way, we wanted it to be a destination wedding.
"When you become an adult it is so hard to plan a vacation with family and friends so the only way to do that was force them through a wedding."
Misaki and Amir met each other through a friend on their first week at the University of California in San Diego.
But they didn't start dating until three years after they left - in October 2019.
Misaki said: "His dorm was down the hall from the girls' dorm, we met that way and then my roommate became very close with him through soccer.
"That is how we kept in touch throughout college.
"After college, he moved to LA for work and that is where we rekindled.
"I would host parties in LA and he would come over and we started hanging out.
"Each date we had kept getting better and better - everything felt natural to us.
"He felt like home, I am the most comfortable when I am with him.
"We share the same sense of humour and we are very alike.
"The number one thing is I respect him as a person and I am always inspired by him."
After a few years of dating, the couple got engaged on December 26, 2022, on a rooftop overlooking LA.
Misaki said: "He told all of my friends and family he was going to propose.
"The actual proposal was on a rooftop in LA, he had set up this beautiful arrangement and he popped the question.
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FunTranscript
00:00We just got married a couple months ago, and a lot of you guys asked me to do a wedding cost breakdown of our Nobu wedding.
00:06We just did a Business Insider interview about wedding cost transparency,
00:10so I thought I'd go over a little bit more into detail in this video.
00:14I feel like at the beginning of the wedding planning process, I just had no idea how much things cost.
00:18And people were asking me like, what's your budget for a wedding photographer?
00:21And I'm like, how can I know what the budget is for a wedding photographer if I don't know how much like flowers cost?
00:27I just wanted to share the information and create some transparency in case you are planning your own wedding and find this info useful.
00:33Last time I did this, there were so many people who were so upset about how much someone spent on their own wedding.
00:39This is for the brides. If you are not planning a wedding, scroll on.
00:43And I'll probably do a deeper dive on some of the categories, like for example, for florals, like what exactly I had.
00:49So if that's something you're interested in, give me a follow.
00:52Here's a little background of our wedding so you know what the prices of our wedding were based off of.
00:56We had 75 people, it was a Tuesday wedding, and these are 2023 prices.
01:01Starting off with the venue fee, the venue fee was actually waived because at Nobu, if you have over 80% of the guests staying at the hotel, it's actually waived.
01:09This was very clutch because some of the LA venues that we were touring was like literally $40,000 just in venue fee to have your wedding there.
01:17As with most weddings, a lot of our costs went to food and drinks.
01:20We spent $14,000 on food, again for 75 people, and the food included appetizers during cocktail hour and a three-course meal during reception.
01:30We of course had an open bar as well, that was a non-negotiable.
01:33We had it during cocktail hour and reception for a total of 6 hours, and this was $15,000.
01:38I'm Japanese and my husband is Persian, so it meant a lot to us to do a traditional Persian wedding at a Japanese resort.
01:45Here are some of the wedding vendors that I had.
01:48You guys already know how much I love my wedding planner, my content creator, photographer, and DJ.
01:54I'd say these are all very reasonable prices and definitely best bang for your buck.
01:59If you're planning a wedding, you know how crazy some of these vendor prices can get,
02:02but I am of the opinion that you really don't need to be spending tens of thousands of dollars to get good quality.
02:09These people were all local except for the content creator.
02:11The total I spent on florals was $4,600.
02:14I could do a whole separate video on this to kind of show you guys like all the florals that I had and then how much I spent on each.
02:20I had a traditional Persian ceremony, so we kind of rented out the table, the bench, the big mirror, and the two large candles.
02:28All the candles in the front.
02:29The rentals for those were $275.
02:32Everything else on the actual sofa I brought myself.
02:35I did pay for the hair and makeup for the bridesmaids, moms, and grandmas, but I just put what I paid for my own.
02:41Hair and makeup for the wedding day was $310.
02:44Moving on to the shop wall, this is $1,440 for the actual wall and the drink stirrers.
02:50The extra flowers here were done by my amazing wedding planners.
02:53My actual wedding bar stand with the bar back was $300.
02:58The dance floor was $3,300 and the fairy lights were $2,800, which honestly like shocked me.
03:03Like I had to have the fairy lights for this venue, otherwise it'd be pitch black and it'd be weird not to have a dance floor.
03:10But someone tell me why a dance floor costs over $3,000.
03:13The dining tables were $1,500 and the chairs were $1,700.
03:17I actually used the same chairs during the ceremony and just had them move it to the reception area.
03:22I think the relocation fee was like $250.
03:24And then the charger plates, the napkins, the runner, the candles were $2,170 total.
03:31Glasses and the utensils, I used Nobu's.
03:33And all the wedding signage is like the table number or the menu, I DIY'd.
03:38Finally, we have the fireworks, which was the best part of our wedding.
03:42These were $2,800 a minute and the champagne towers were $300, which I know is crazy.
03:48We really wanted to do something unique and entertaining for our guests since they traveled all the way to Kabul and spent three days at Nobu.
03:55And we were under budget, so we were like, ah, screw it.
03:58We had an audio guestbook, which was $400 to rent and we spent $700 on the welcome boxes.
04:04And these adorable wedding newspaper that I gave out to each guest was about $138 for 70 copies.
04:10And a lot of you guys asked me about my wedding newspaper template.
04:13So I actually opened up an Etsy shop and it's linked on my Linktree.
04:18If you guys want to know what I thought was worth it versus not or how we came up with the budget or anything else, please let me know.
04:25And I hope you found this useful.