Lauren Kay
speaker
103 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard May 2025
Lauren Kay’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
So I always say, when you think about your wedding budget, think about the entirety of each expense. But some of the common things that we see people kind of just forget to include or think about are event rentals. So if your venue includes tables and things like that, great, but you might also want to bring in a lounge or a specialty dance floor. Another sneaky cost is wedding insurance.
I got married in an art museum in Florida and I was required to have wedding insurance. And that certainly was not on my early line items of my budget. Also thinking about your vendors. A lot of times there's travel fees associated with them, meals, and then gratuity. So it's just really thinking about the entirety of the expenses. You start to put those in your pie chart.
If you have a wedding planner, should that person do it? Yes. So it's a great question. And we always say that tipping is totally at the sole discretion of the couple. That being said, I think it's such a nice way to recognize the hard work that goes into pulling off a wedding. Your vendors are out there. They're part of the service industry. And I think giving a tip is definitely appreciated.
And I think fairly customary. When we got married, my husband and I did use our wedding planner to deliver all the tips on the wedding day, but we wrote a handwritten note and put them in an envelope. And in most cases we did cash. I think cash is It's still king, but I think it is one of those things where, you know, you have to feel out the services you're getting and make those decisions.
But nowadays, my goodness, you buy a cup of coffee tip, you get groceries delivered. I mean, it's just so part of our culture. I think we will be remiss not to do it to those hardworking vendors.
Yes. Overall, I would say working with vendors is going to save you dollars, save you stress, save you time. So I think partnering with them is so invaluable. Hiring a wedding planner is a definite flex. I hired a wedding planner right away and I was so relieved because at the time I was actually planning my wedding elsewhere.
So having somebody who already knew the industry and knew the niche of where I was getting married was so helpful. She recommended vendors. I who knew my vision or could match my vision, who knew what I wanted to carry out, who'd actually worked at the venue where I got married. So I think a wedding planner can absolutely help you.
But I would say anybody on your vendor team can offer really invaluable advice and can also be a great resource when it comes to the budget. So share your wedding budget, share your costs with these people and let them help you because they are truly an invaluable resource when it comes to planning.
Totally. Yeah. Yes. A couple say that we found it when one of our surveys couple said that 68% of it was managing the stress and 34% of it was aiding in decision-making.
I mean, you do get a bit of decision fatigue with all of these things and having somebody by your side, like a wedding planner who can help advise and they know what you're trying to do and they're helping you bring this vision to life. It is huge.
Yes, absolutely. So there are so many ways to save. So for example, If you hired a wedding planner and you found a venue you love, maybe the Saturday night option is a little out of your budget, but you could pick an off-peak time, whether that's seasonality, whether that's getting married on a Friday. Catering.
This is another easy one where if you're working with a good caterer, you can say, here's what I have to spend. How can I do what I'm wanting to do for a little less money? It might be serving more in-season foods. It might be having just a signature cocktail or two and then having wine and beer at your open bar. So there's lots of creative ways to do that.
I also think that picking a band or a DJ is a great save in music. Sometimes we see couples do both or some people will say, oh, you know, the DJ will save you cash. You're really just better off choosing one and allowing that person to work within your budget. So a band, it might be going from a 20 piece band to an eight piece band or something of that like photography is also a big expense.
And I feel like one of the things I love is hiring somebody who is local to your wedding location. This means you don't have to pay for the travel. You can usually cut back on some of those expenses and wait until a little later to work on all the after effects of like the album and all of those prints. Sometimes you can spend that money later.
So if you don't have it in your budget right away, you could ask for it down the road, which is another great flex. And lastly, flowers. I think that so many people go into it not knowing how much a peony or a ranuncula might cost. So talking to your florist about the look you're after. Sometimes they can choose alternate stems that might be more affordable, also help you repurpose arrangements.
So maybe arrangements you had at your ceremony setting can be repurposed at the reception. It's a great way to make your dollar just go a little further.
Yeah. Oh, I love Elaine. She was, she was on our cover. She had a beautiful super wedding. And I think her advice is so sound, right? You spend all this time planning your wedding. It's so nice to be able to have the memory of that. So I would absolutely agree with capturing that photography is huge. I would also say a videographer,
A lot of people don't think about that until later in their planning and they've already started to spend quite a bit of their budget. But I watch our wedding video all the time. My kids love it. And I think now that we're in this era of video where you've got audio and you're seeing video all the time on social media and websites, you're used to that kind of live action.
And so being able to hire a great videographer who will edit a beautiful vignette of your day is such a wonderful keepsake.
Absolutely. You're so right. You cannot splurge on everything, nor should you. We don't want people going over budget. I think it's super important to pick a couple of things that are a value to you. So we ended up getting married at a museum, an art museum, and we did a lot of our activities outside. So we had our ceremony and a reception outside. And at first I had this really big flower budget.
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