How Many People Are on the Guest List to a Duggar Wedding?
There’s no doubt the Duggars are anything but ordinary, and they quickly attained fame over a decade ago due to their ultra huge family of 19 kids. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have become famous for their TLC program, 19 Kids and Counting, and fans have followed the family as the children have aged, married, and began having kids of their own. Now, many of the middle-aged Duggars are also entering adulthood and considering courtships — and we’re sure that means there are even more weddings for us to watch in upcoming seasons of Counting On.
Fans love watching the Duggars tie the knot, as their weddings seem huge and elaborate (and, of course, that’s when the first kiss happens for the couple, too). So, how many people are invited to the event? Here’s what we know.
A typical Duggar wedding has over 1,000 people
With such a huge family, it makes perfect sense that the Duggars would also have big weddings — but fans never expected each bride- or groom-to-be to have over 1,000 guests each. According to In Touch Weekly, Jessa, Jinger, Joy-Anna, and Joseph all had a guest list of around 1,000 names. Each wedding takes place in their church, of course, and while the number of Duggar family members easily ranges into the triple digits, fans also believe their guest lists are so high because they invite the members of the church to witness the nuptials as well. As one user on Reddit said, “I think they’re just used to weddings being more casual. It seems to be the norm for fundies to have huge weddings with lots of people they’re probably not very close with, kids, babies, and casual receptions without full sit-down meals.”
There was one Duggar who didn’t have a wedding guest list that was over 1,000 people, and that was Josh. Josh married his now-wife, Anna, before the Duggars attained serious fame, so that could be a huge reason as to why he reportedly only had around 300 people in attendance to his wedding.
Jill reportedly may have had over 2,000 guests at her wedding
There’s another Duggar who had way more than her siblings when it came to wedding guests. According to In Touch Weekly, Jill had a whopping 2,000-name guest list when she married Derick Dillard, though that number is up for debate. Allegedly the Duggars projected that she would have upwards of 2,000 guests, but People notes there were actually just “over 1,000” actually in attendance. Either way, the celebration was certainly one for the books, as Derick has become a mainstay in Duggar drama due to his controversial tweets that got him and Jill kicked off of Counting On.
Like her brothers and sisters who’ve also tied the knot, Jill chose to have finger food instead of full courses for her guests — and People reported this meant her wedding included over 600 cupcakes, 3,000 chocolate chip cookies, and 3,000 root beer floats (to no on’e surprise, no alcohol was served). And of course, the most anticipated moment was their first kiss, which Jill said was “worth the wait.”
Here’s how much the weddings cost
The average wedding today costs around $25,000 — but the average wedding also typically doesn’t come with a guest list totaling over 1,000 names. The Duggars are thrifty, though, and they reportedly manage to cut their ultra-huge wedding costs down to around $10,000 to $20,000 each. This is certainly a lot of money — especially with so many children — but all in all, their ceremonies could be much more expensive.
As for how the Duggars get thrifty with their weddings, Reddit users note the family gets a ton of help and free labor from friends, community church members, and other family members. And, because they don’t serve full meals or alcohol, this also deeply cuts the cost. As one Reddit user said, “If these people actually had to pay for their weddings and actually made an effort to make the weddings enjoyable and welcoming to all 1000 of their guests, they would be spending closer to a million dollars than $20k.”
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