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Mail Order Bride Prices: From Online Dating To Loving Marriage
Love is the most critical component of a mail order relationship. However, when you want to marry a woman who lives thousands of miles away, it can be tough to make your relationship work without spending any money at all.
But how much are mail order brides exactly and why isn’t there a standard price you can pay to get a foreign mail order wife? These are just some of the questions we’ll answer today with our comprehensive guide to mail order brides pricing!
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How the mail order wife cost is calculated
If you think that bride cost works like this: you pay a hefty amount of money, a dating agency selects the most suitable bride for you, convinces her to marry you, and then arranges the marriage, then you are definitely mistaken. This may be how mail order marriages may have worked in the past, but now, men have much more control over the progress, the outcome, and the expenses. As a result, the overall mailorder brides cost consists of almost a dozen smaller expenses, and here they are.
1. Dating site membership
The absolute majority of mail order bride sites tend to charge their male members a monthly membership fee because they tend to take their time on the site more seriously if they pay for it. The membership fee usually includes some advanced features, and you can pay for 1, 3, 6, or 12 months of membership, with each month costing less in each case.
Cost: $10-$50 per month
2. Extra features
A Premium dating site membership comes with certain communication features, but it doesn’t include every single feature you may need on your dating journey. Features like chat, mail, and video chat should be paid for separately using credit or another form of in-site currency. Credits can be usually bought in packages, and the more you buy, the less each credit costs.
Cost: $50-$200 per month
3. Gifts
Naturally, when you begin a new relationship, you want to use every way to impress your bride, and gifts can be very helpful. Many dating sites offer gift and flower delivery services, where you can simply choose a present and have it delivered directly to the bride. Usually, you also get photo proof that she did actually receive your gift.
Cost: $100-$500 per month
4. Plane tickets
After you’ve spent from a few months to a year communicating with your potential mail order wife, the most exciting part comes—the real-life relationship. It starts with the long-distance travel to your bride’s home country, and there is a 99% chance you will take the plane to your destination.
Cost: $600-$2,000
5. Accommodations
Different foreign countries have completely different average hotel prices for foreign tourists. For example, a 2-week stay in India or Thailand is going to cost you considerably less than a 2-week stay in Western Europe or in Japan, South Korea, or China. For this guide, we will use the average hotel prices.
Cost: $800-$1,400
6. Food
Before now, most of your expenses included just your own needs. Here is where you need to start taking your bride into account. You are going to be sharing most of your meals with your lady, whether it’s a real date at a fancy restaurant or simply grabbing a bit in between visiting the most famous sights in her city.
Cost: $500-$1,000
7. Entertainment
When you are visiting a foreign country to meet your bride, you are still a tourist, so you need to experience everything this country has to offer. Sightseeing tours, museums, galleries, souvenir shops, nightclubs, and craft tutorials are just some of the ways for you and your bride to have fun and bond, and they all cost money.
Cost: $400-$800
8. Additional services
As a foreigner in a distant country, you will largely rely on your bride’s help, but she can’t help you with everything. At the very least, you will need to use transportation services and hire a translator if there is a language barrier between you and the bride, and a tour guide may also be needed to make your experience more memorable.
Cost: $500-$1,200
9. Visiting the family
If things go well between you and the woman and you decide to get married, you will probably get to meet her family on your first visit. In most world cultures, you cannot visit your potential in-laws empty-handed, so you will need to bring gifts. The gifts can range from sweets and wine for the table to something much more valuable, depending on your budget and what your bride tells you to bring.
Cost: $200-$1,000
10. Bureaucratic charges
When you are ready to bring your bride to the US to make her your lawful wife, you will need to get her a special type of visa known as K1 visa. The visa itself costs a little over $200, but there are several paid forms you need to file with your application. Plus, if you decide to hire an immigration lawyer instead of doing it all yourself, it’s going to mean additional charges.
Cost: $1,200
Factors influencing the cost of mail order bride
We have just talked about the components making up the cost of a mail order bride, but even when you know how the price is calculated, your own experience can still be different from the experience of other men. The final mail order wife cost depends on several more factors, including:
- How long it takes you to find your future spouse.
- How many women you communicate with at once.
- How many times you visit her in her home country.
- How many vacations you take together, if any.
- How generous you are with gifts, and so on.
Should you work with a dating agency?
Even though there are now no dating agencies in the old-fashioned sense of the word, where they will simply match you with the most suitable single woman instead of letting you discover each other naturally, the business of dating agencies still exists. They combine the features of regular dating sites with matchmaking services and can also organize romance tours or plan your trip to meet your bride in person.
To us, working with a dating agency only looks like a good option when you are strapped for time and simply cannot find an hour or two a day to browse a dating site and find someone who excites you. If you are serious about finding a partner for life, it’s always better to have direct control over your potential matches, over the timeline of your relationship, over your spending, and other components of a successful international romance.
The total cost of mail order bride
The overall cost of mail order bride can range from slightly over $6,000 to $18,000 and more. It all depends on the factors we’ve listed above, your dating style, and even pure luck. So while there is no way of knowing the exact price you are going to pay, it’s always good to know the approximate budget.
How can you lower the mail order bride price
Even though looking for a spouse is not really something you should try to save money on, it makes perfect sense to try and spend less on your search. After all, you are getting ready to enjoy a lifetime with your new wife, so you can definitely use the money. Here are some tips on how to cut your expenses, plus some instances where you’d rather pay the full price.
Online
- Talk to fewer women at once, focus on one bride from the start.
- Spend less time talking online, aim to take your relationship offline faster.
- Letters usually cost you less than chat and allow you to say more.
Offline
- Don’t go for the most expensive hotel—you will probably live there alone.
- Try to learn even the basic language of the destination country—it will be harder for you to get scammed by taxi drivers, street vendors, etc.
- Don’t go straight for the most extravagant gifts—try to find the one that fits your bride’s taste and personality, which is not always the most expensive one.
What is worth paying full-price?
- Plane tickets, especially for 8+ hour-long flights—after flying in coach for 12 hours you’ll need an extra day of rest in the hotel.
- Food. This is not true for all foreign countries, but street food may not be of the highest quality and may not agree with your digestion. Opt for more expensive, restaurant-quality meals for you and your bride to avoid digestive issues.
- Transportation. You can take local public transport once or twice for exotic value, but a trip with your bride on a crowded bus isn’t the most romantic thing in the world. Choose Uber or hire a personal driver instead.
Final thoughts
The mail order bride prices are just one aspect of international dating, and while it’s far from being the most important one, it’s always good to know how much you’ll be spending and whether you are paying a fair price. We hope that our guide has answered your questions and squashed your doubts, and you now have even more confidence to find your ideal mail order bride abroad.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can’t I just pay a certain amount of money once and get a mail order wife?
Because the situation where you pay someone money and get a wife in return could be viewed as a form of human trafficking. And modern mail order marriages have come a long way to stop being associated with human trafficking and start being related to pure romance.
Is it legal to get mail order brides?
Of course! When using online dating services, you aren’t doing anything different from what you do on regular dating sites. You meet women, develop a relationship with one of them, and hopefully, this relationship leads to marriage. There is nothing illegal about that.
How long does it take to get a mail order wife?
The exact answer to this question depends on how determined you are to find a wife, how much time you spend on a dating site, and other factors. The average time frame for finding a mail order wife is between 6 and 12 months, but it can sometimes take more.
Are there any guarantees that I will get a wife after spending some money?
No, because you don’t pay money to buy yourself any guarantees of meeting your future spouse. You pay money to improve your online dating experience and impress your potential match, but there cannot be any guarantees, just like in real-life romance.
Are mail order marriages actually successful?
The success of any relationship is not a given, but mail order marriages generally fare better than other types of relationships. According to one study, 80% of mail order marriages make it past the one-year mark, which is not something you can say about every conventional romance.
Terry is our top writer and the person behind most of our site’s content, including guides, reviews, and tips. His career began in 2007 when he was a fresh English graduate with little work experience but a lot of passion for writing. He has worked for several prestigious online publications as a writer and editor before ultimately landing a job at MyHotBride.com. Since then, he has been making an invaluable contribution to our content, making it both interesting to our readers and essential to our strategy.
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