How Much Would It Cost to Actually Throw a Game of Thrones Wedding?

By Lindy West  |  June 17, 2014 | 2:10pm
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I don’t know why you’d want to replicate one of the weddings from Game of Thrones—seeing as they generally end in something between regular murder and mass murder—but if you did, how much would that actually cost? In real human dollars? Taking into account food for a 40,000-person khalasar, imported poisons made into jewelry, and legal fees for your trial of the century, of course.

Well, the Daily Dot enlisted a high-end wedding planner and tallied it up (a stroke of genius, really)! And they discovered that while Game of Thrones weddings are predictably expensive, they’re not actually that much more pricey than your average celebrity superstar nuptials. Cheaper, in fact, than William and Kate’s Royal Wedding. Compared to that absurd extravagance ($34 million), Joffrey and Margaery’s fete seems like a model of restraint at only $10.3 million. Daenerys and Khal Drogo’s $8.6 million wedding, on the other hand, dwarfs Kim and Kanye’s $2.8 million trifle.

Here are some highlights:

Insurance: $323,599—A Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is considered a dull affair, and that’s the kind of fact that makes insurance brokers jittery. Public Liability Insurance normally comes in at around 1 percent of non-production budget, but if you intend to truly embrace Dothraki customs, you better up that to 5 percent.To this you can add another $37,000, spent on a (presumably ignored) health-and-safety assessment.
Murdering 3,500 people: This is the real kicker. You can’t host a real Red Wedding without the wholesale slaughter of a rebel King’s bannermen, and that doesn’t come cheap. Mafioso hitman get paidaround $1,600 a pop; to make sure you get the job done properly, you’ll want more than 3,000 of them. Excluding any higher-ups trying to take a cut, that’s all in all $5.6 million.
Entertainment: With a total entertainment bill of $1,837,759, this isn’t something done by halves. Notable costs include heralds ($4,500); a choir and choir master ($5,000); a dancing bear ($11,300, including insurance, handling and travel); firebreathers ($4,200); an exotic acrobatic troupe ($11,000), a firework set by “master pyromancers” ($420,000); and, of course, a five-piece performing dwarf act, a steal at just $2,500.
Interestingly, the band playing is actually a cameo by the Icelandic trio Sigur Rós. Their hire is estimated at around $1,100,000, plus a $420,000 rider.

There you have it! (The whole thing is worth a read.)

I don’t know that I can fit horsemeat for $39,000 into my budget, but it’s just good to know that it’s an OPTION.

 
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