It depends on a lot of variables- time of year (winter weddings are the least expensive, as long as you're not in the last half of November or any of December, because of Christmas parties....Summer weddings are the most expensive because EVERYONE gets married in the summer), location (the Palliser is going to be more expensive than a community hall), the flowers, the attire, the transportation, cash bar vs. toonie bar vs open bar...it goes on and on.
As for tradition in splitting up costs...originally, the groom's family pays for the rehersal dinner. The Bride's family pays for everything else.
Now, it's much more common for the couple and both sets of parents to get together and decide how things are going to be split- some groups end up splitting everything down the middle, some split it in thirds, etc. By far the easiest option is to decide how much you are willing to contribute, and just give a cheque to the bride and groom to spend on what they deem appropriate.
You can have nice weddings for 10K, but it depends on if you want "all the trimmings"....when I got married, I didn't want anyone in my family to be "working"- so none of my relatives decorated or took stuff down, we hired out the cake and all the food and all the flowers- and I also didn't want to end up looking back in a year or whatever and going "Oh, I wish we had THAT!".
So, with getting everything we wanted, and getting married in the summer, our wedding probably cost about $65,000 to $70,000. We will be paying for it FOREVER....but it was totally worth it.
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