Sylvester Stallone, 80, ‘can’t retire’ over daughter’s wedding bill — says he offered Vegas trip to ‘have Elvis marry you for $5’

“How much is Sylvester Stallone going to pony up for this wedding?” co-host Kelly Ripa asked.

“It’s almost embarrassing to say, but I can’t retire. I can’t retire. I’m serious,” Stallone replied. He added that he offered the couple money to get married in Las Vegas, saying “Have Elvis marry you for five bucks and take what I would have spent.”

The wedding plans — and the bill — have yet to be revealed, but Stallone’s net worth is estimated at around $400 million. Yet the 80-year-old is no stranger to thrifty nuptials.

While he explained in the interview that he and his current wife, Jennifer Flavin, were married “in Vegas by Elvis,” Stallone’s new memoir, “The Steps,” reveals that, pre-“Rocky,” he and first wife Sasha Czack were so cash-strapped that they had to go to extreme lengths just to get their hands on formal clothes for their 1974 wedding.

The cost of saying ‘I do’

Vanity Fair noted that, in “The Steps,” Stallone reveals that, in 1974, all of the money he and Czack had “went to rent, groceries and repairs on the car.”

“We were barely surviving,” he said.

So when the couple wanted to tie the knot, Stallone wrote that “she made her dress out of an old linen curtain from the rental house.”

The struggling actor, meanwhile, “borrowed [the] double-breasted 1920s gangster suit” he wore in the film “Capone,” including “spats, shoes and all.”

“With my greased-back period haircut, I looked like I fell out of a time machine,” he said.

Adjusting for inflation, spending around $5,000 on a wedding in 1974 would equate to roughly the average cost of nuptials today — which, according to popular wedding planning and information platforms The Knot and Zola, can run between roughly $34,200 to $36,000.

Various factors can bump that price tag up or down, however, including location. A Wyoming wedding, for example, runs $17,000 on average, according to The Knot, while a New Jersey wedding would add $40,000 to that total. Destination weddings also push the price higher.

In addition, The Knot added that “their wedding season, their guest count, their age, who’s paying for the wedding and what vendors they choose to hire” all impact pricing while, in theory, “the marriage license cost is the only truly required wedding expense.”

That said, in June the Bank of America found that “wedding-related spending grew 8.5% year-over-year” in 2026 — part of which resulted from tariffs on wedding staples like flowers.

Zola, however, noted that couples are still spending on the big day — even if it means putting off other major financial needs like general savings, home purchases and debt or loan repayments.

However, many couples also routinely tap the Bank of Mom and Dad. According to The Knot, “Slightly more than 50% of couples have all/the majority of their wedding paid for by their parents.” They also noted that, when the couple pays for the majority or entirety of the wedding, the average cost ranges from $25,500 to $29,700. But when the couple only pays for a minority of the wedding expenses, the average cost jumps to $39,600.

To Stallone’s point, however, Las Vegas Compass — a Sin City travel planning site — advises that a “complete Elvis wedding for two, including chapel, officiant, a few photos, a bouquet and two or three songs” runs around $400 to $900, with items like a reception, limo and marriage licence potentially pushing the price into the $2,500 to $3,000 range.

All of which is still much cheaper than taking the traditional route — even when you factor in the extra $50 to $100 in suggested gratuity for the King himself.

How to avoid starting married life in wedding debt

The internet is brimming with great strategies to help you save money on your big day, including setting and sticking to a budget, cutting costs — and the guest list — where you can, getting married in non-peak seasons and hiring a wedding planner to help you navigate pricing pitfalls.

Others recommend daytime receptions, ditching a dinner, DIY-ing as much as possible and considering Friday or Sunday celebrations for a cheaper rate.

Eventually, though, when it comes to paying for it, experts warn about starting married life in a financial hole.