Subhan Dashti and his fiancee, Nadia Sabzi, had booked their wedding for Nowruz 1405, the Iranian New Year on March 20 to 21, and started buying items for a shared home. Prices jumped while Dashti’s family fled Tehran for the north during the fighting, and on their return ordinary purchases cost far more than planned. A television Dashti had priced at 70 million tomans ($302) approached 100 million tomans ($432). Earning about 100 million tomans a month ($432) left him concluding that marrying at once no longer made sense. “We decided to postpone the wedding for at least a few more months,” Dashti, 35, said.
Safety concerns have amplified the financial squeeze. A United States strike in early September struck a house in Kuhestak in Sirik County during a wedding celebration, and Iranian authorities said several people were killed and dozens wounded, including women and children. Sabzi, 34, said she fears the war could resume during a ceremony: “For the past two weeks, I have been asking Subhan at night: what if the war starts again when we are getting married?”
The economic arithmetic is stark. The statutory minimum wage is about 16 million tomans per month, less than $68 on open market rates, while average monthly wages run near 25 million tomans, roughly $105. Bridal businesses report demand has fallen. Makeup artist Simin Nouri said her salon, which once handled two or three brides a day in peak season, now serves two or three a week, and clients choose cheaper packages or drop add-ons.
Housing costs have surged alongside consumer prices. Pejman and Sanaz, who married in July after last year’s 12-day war, say their rent and deposit for the same Tehran apartment rose from roughly 34 million tomans ($144) a year ago to about 58 million tomans ($246), a 71 percent increase. Pejman, 30, earns 56 million tomans a month ($242); the new rent would consume about 82 percent of his pay. The couple sold 13 grams of the bride’s gold to cover start-up costs, but gold itself has leapt in price, with 18-carat gold moving from about 6.48 million tomans a gram ($28) in June 2025 to more than 23 million tomans ($99) by mid-September 2026.
Economist Amir Hossein Mohaddes frames the problem as twofold: the cost of launching a household and the cost of maintaining one. “A couple can make the wedding smaller. They can remove parts of the ceremony. But they cannot remove housing,” Mohaddes said. He warned that rapid, unpredictable price rises mean even a ceasefire is unlikely to restore earlier affordability, because durable goods and rents rarely return to previous levels.
The result is a visible change in how young Iranians plan their futures: smaller ceremonies, delayed marriages and greater difficulty finding affordable housing. That mix is likely to postpone family formation for many and add lasting uncertainty to life decisions that extend well beyond the cost of a single celebration.
