How many weddings happen each year?
The United States has about two million weddings a year. The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics recorded 2,041,926 U.S. marriages in 2023, a marriage rate of 6.1 per 1,000 people, which is the latest year it has published (CDC FastStats). For 2025, The Knot Worldwide estimates that about 2 million U.S. couples married (The Knot Worldwide), though it does not publish how that estimate is made. In England and Wales there were 231,949 marriages and civil partnerships in 2023, 8.6% fewer than in 2022, according to the Office for National Statistics.
How much does a wedding cost?
The average U.S. wedding in 2025 cost $34,000 and the median cost $24,000, according to The Knot 2026 Real Weddings Study, a survey of 10,474 couples who married in 2025. Because a few very expensive weddings pull the average up, the median wedding cost 29% less than the average (our calculation). The same study counted 117 guests on average.
Zola's survey of more than 11,500 engaged couples puts the average planned 2026 wedding at $36,000, with 145 guests (Zola 2026 First Look Report). Zola asks couples about weddings they are still planning, while The Knot asks couples who have already married, which helps explain why Zola's figures run higher.
The Knot Worldwide says 2025 weddings contributed to more than $100 billion in wedding-related spending (The Knot data read-out). It does not publish how that total is calculated. In the UK, the average 2025 wedding cost £21,990, according to Hitched.
How much does a wedding videographer cost?
Published averages range from about $1,800 to $4,000, depending on the source.
| Source | Average videographer cost | How it is measured |
|---|
| Zola Wedding Cost Index | $3,993 | Budget-tool entries and vendor prices on Zola, 2026 |
| The Knot | $2,300 | Real Weddings Study survey of couples |
| WeddingWire | $1,799 | Cost guide; method not published |
The highest figure is 2.2 times the lowest (our calculation). All three sites belong to companies that sell wedding services or vendor listings, and they measure prices differently, so quote each figure with its source. Location matters as well: couples in the Mid-Atlantic spend the most on videographers, $3,000 on average, in The Knot's regional data.
As a share of the budget, Zola puts videography at about 8% of the total, while The Knot's budget breakdown groups photography and videography together at 10% (The Knot). In the UK, couples who married in 2022 spent £1,150 on videography, Hitched's most recent published figure.
How many couples hire a videographer?
Far fewer than hire a photographer. The Knot reports that 37% of couples book a wedding videographer (The Knot), while 88% of couples who married in 2025 hired a photographer (The Knot Worldwide). The Knot's videographer page does not say which year's couples the 37% describes.
Couples who skip video sometimes regret it. In The Knot's 2023 Real Weddings Study, 39% of couples hired a videographer, and 19% said not booking one was among their top wedding regrets (The Knot, 2023 study). That is the most recent published version of the figure, so treat it as dated.
Whoever shoots the day, the footage still has to be cut into something a couple will watch. That is the part wedding video editing covers.
Are couples hiring wedding content creators?
A growing minority want fast, phone-shot video for social media alongside or instead of a traditional film. 21% of couples planning 2026 weddings plan to create their own social-first content on the day, according to Zola. Among the 21% of recently married couples who hired a specialty vendor, wedding content creators were the most requested, at 22% of those hires (Zola 2026 Wedding Spend Survey). That is a share of specialty hires, not of all couples.
Content creators cost less than videographers. Over 60% of couples who hired one spent between $500 and $999, according to Zola's survey data (Zola), which does not say how many of its 720 respondents hired a content creator.
How do couples share and use wedding video?
Social media shapes what couples ask for. Among couples planning social-first content, 40% ask their professional photographer or videographer to capture it as part of the shot list, according to Zola's 2026 First Look Report. Gen Z leads: 29% of Gen Z couples plan social-first content, against 18% of Millennial couples. 50% of couples now get wedding inspiration from TikTok, up from 41% a year earlier.
Video is still a lower priority than photos when budgets are tight. Asked what they would splurge on, 11% of couples planning 2025 weddings chose the videographer, against 57% for the photographer (Zola).
Some couples ask guests to put their phones away. 62% of Gen Z couples who married in 2024 had an unplugged ceremony, against 54% of Millennial couples, according to The Knot 2025 Real Weddings Study. That leaves the hired crew's footage as the main record of the ceremony.
Livestreaming has faded since the pandemic. 43% of couples with 2020 wedding dates added a virtual component (The Knot, 2020), and 17% of couples who married in 2021 offered a virtual viewing option (The Knot, 2021). We found no newer published figure. Nostalgic formats are rising instead: Pinterest reports searches for "video guestbook" up 240% in its 2026 wedding trends report (Pinterest).
Which popular wedding video statistics don't hold up?
Videographer marketing pages repeat several figures about regret and value. We traced them to the earliest source we could find.
| Popular claim | What the original source says | Status |
|---|
| "98% of brides regret not having a wedding video" | The wording first appears, in our search, in a 2013 HuffPost contributor post by the co-founder of a wedding video company, citing no survey. The closest real figure is a 2006 survey commissioned by videographer trade group WEVA International, in which 98% of 500 brides recommended having the wedding filmed (WEVA, 2006). Zola's videographer guide still repeats the 98 percent regret wording (Zola). | Misquoted survey |
| "63% of brides without video regretted it" | From the same 2006 WEVA survey. Among brides with no video, 63% said they would recommend hiring a professional videographer. It measured a recommendation, not regret. | Misquoted survey |
| "Couples regret skipping the videographer" | The earliest survey we found is WEVA's 2003 poll of 453 brides: 60% of those with no video wished they had had their wedding videotaped (WEVA, 2003). The newest large survey figure is The Knot's 19% from its 2023 study. A "35% regret" figure credited to a 2017 Zola survey appears only in news coverage; we found no copy published by Zola. | True, but dated |
| "The average wedding videographer costs $2,300" | Accurate for The Knot's survey, but the same $2,300 appeared for 2024 weddings as well, after $1,900 in 2021 and $2,100 in 2022 (archived Knot page, 2025). Quote it with its year and source, since Zola's index says $3,993. | Needs a year |
| "Couples watch their wedding video 20 or more times" | We found no survey or published data behind any version of this claim, only vendor copy. | No source found |
Most of these figures come from organizations that sell wedding video. That does not make them wrong, but it is worth knowing before repeating them.
How we built this page
We started from the questions people search for about wedding video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 39 figures from 6 publishers.
On September 16, 2026, each figure was re-opened at its source and matched against the recorded wording. Pages that block automated requests, including The Knot, WeddingWire, Hitched and the CDC, were checked against Internet Archive copies captured between April and September 2026. We left out The Wedding Report's estimates because its terms limit citation to a single sentence, and U.S. Census counts we could not re-check.
We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.
Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:
This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.
Limitations
- Wedding surveys are not samples of all couples. The Knot surveys couples recruited from The Knot and WeddingWire; Zola surveys its own users, and its First Look Report asks about weddings still being planned.
- Every major wedding data source sells wedding services. The Knot, WeddingWire, Hitched and Zola run vendor marketplaces or wedding products, and WEVA International represents videographers.
- Prices are averages across very different packages. A videographer average mixes short highlight films with full-day multi-camera coverage.
- Several figures have no stated year. Where a source does not say which couples a figure describes, the page says so.
- Most figures describe the U.S., with UK figures from ONS and Hitched labeled as such.
How to cite this page
For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/wedding-video-statistics#WED-012. To cite the page as a whole:
Mark Studios. "Wedding Video Statistics." Last verified Sep 16, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/wedding-video-statistics
Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.
Sources
Download the evidence table (CSV)
- CDC / National Center for Health Statistics, FastStats - Marriage and Divorce (2025-03-17). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- The Knot Worldwide, The Knot Worldwide Unveils 2026 Real Wedding Study (press release) (2026-02-18). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Office for National Statistics (UK), Marriages and civil partnerships in England and Wales: 2023 (2025-11-18). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- The Knot Worldwide, The Knot Real Weddings Study 2026 (Data Read-Out PDF) (2026-02-17). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Zola, 2026 Wedding Trends: Zola's First Look Report (2026-01-26). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Hitched (The Knot Worldwide), How Much Does a Wedding Cost in 2026? Average UK Wedding Now Costs £21,990 (2026-01-12). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Zola, Wedding Videographer Cost: Average Prices and Packages (2026-03-04). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- The Knot (The Knot Worldwide), The Average Cost of a Wedding Videographer, According to Data (2026-05-11). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- WeddingWire (The Knot Worldwide), Wedding Videographer Cost Guide (undated). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- The Knot (The Knot Worldwide), Wedding Budget Breakdown, Based on Real Couples' Data (2026-07-28). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- The Knot (The Knot Worldwide), Should I Get Wedding Videography? 11 Reasons the Answer Is Yes (2024-06-24). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Zola, Wedding Content Creator: What They Do & How to Hire One (2026-03-04). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Zola, 2025 Wedding Trends: Zola's First Look Report Data Deep Dive (Page last updated 2025-06-11 (2025 First Look Report first published 2024-12)). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- The Knot (The Knot Worldwide), Weddings Shine Bright in 2025: The Knot Study Reveals Couples Prioritize Celebration, Joy and Connection Amid Socioeconomic Instability (2025-02-27). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- The Knot (The Knot Worldwide), The Knot 2020 Real Weddings Study [COVID-19 Edition] Reveals Nearly Half of Couples Who Planned to Wed in 2020 Will Now Celebrate in 2021 and Beyond (2021-02-03). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- The Knot (The Knot Worldwide), 2022 Marks the Height of the Wedding Boom as Couples Confidently Move Forward with Celebrations, According to The Knot Real Weddings Study (2022-02-14). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Pinterest, Pinterest 2026 Wedding Trends Report (Pinterest Newsroom) (2026-04-28). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- WEVA International (Wedding & Event Videographers Association), New Nationwide Survey Reveals Strong Wedding Video Advice From Brides (2006-01-06). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Zola, Demystifying Wedding Videographers (undated). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- WEVA International (Wedding & Event Videographers Association), Nationwide Bridal Survey Reveals Value of Videography (2003-03-05). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- The Knot (The Knot Worldwide), The Average Cost of a Wedding Videographer, According to Data (archived version) (2025-03-26 (page version)). Accessed 2026-09-16.
Update policy and change log
We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is December 2026. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.
- Sep 16, 2026: First published with 39 figures from 6 publishers, each checked against its original source.
