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
And as I got out there, I thought, gosh, this is really beautiful. There's a beautiful trees, a beautiful setting. All the sculptures were lit at night. So we ended up scaling back on our floral budget. I still had panties in my bouquet, but we did greenery down the centers of the table and we ended up hanging some lanterns in some of the trees as opposed to doing some of more of the flowers.
We also scaled back on the idea of a favor. We asked our guests to travel for the wedding and it was a bit of a weekend affair. So we did welcome bags, but at the actual wedding, we didn't do any favors. We served everybody a hot pretzel on the way out the door and we had a photo booth, but we didn't invest in anything tangible for them to take home.
So those were two ways we kind of cut back a little bit or saved a little bit so we could prioritize other things in our spending.
Absolutely. So I chuckle a little because we do, we all have this notion of the perfect day. And I just want to caveat that there's no such thing. Things will go wrong on your wedding day. It never fails. We hung tons and tons of market lights on the beach for our welcome party. And the whole thing got rained out. We had to go to plan B.
So all of my lighting budget on these market lights were never seen or appreciated by my guests. You know, it rained on our wedding day. We had to make a few pivots. We cut into the styrofoam layer of our cake. Our champagne flutes broke. Like at the end of the day, we were still married and it was still an amazing day. So I always say to people, the perfect day is what you make it.
And, you know, priority spending. Yeah. Priority spending on the things that are most important to you. The market lights were not most important to me, but... We did it. And now I'm kind of like, gosh, I wish I maybe would have spent a little less there. There's a lot of little things you stress about and feel like you need to do the extra or the upgrade on, right?
Whether that's like the linens or the china and those things do add up. And at the end of the day, if you were to close your eyes and imagine the best weddings you have gone to, you're probably not thinking about those small upgrades that couples made. You know, you're thinking about the great time you had, the vibe, the energy.
So I love that. And that is. Exactly. That is so it. And I feel like it is cliche, but now that you're on the other side, you know, that there is truth behind the cliche, right? That like, it really is the best day because you're with your person, you're with your people and whatever happens at the end of the day, you made this huge commitment in front of all your loved ones and you're married.
So my biggest piece of advice is don't do what I do. Don't just choose an arbitrary number. Do your research. One of the best things you can do is really set your budget based on real data.
And we know that the budget, the B word, as we like to call it, is so, so tricky to talk about and so tricky to unpack with not only your significant other who you're marrying, but also other people who might be contributing to the wedding spend, right? They might be contributing to money from your parents or their parents. And so it's a tricky conversation.
But I think if you can set your budget by actually researching wedding costs, you're going to be ahead of the game. So we found that 86% of couples go blind like I did, and 78% of vendors feel as though these couples don't really have realistic expectations. They don't understand the value of the service they're providing, and that can lead to a bit of a discrepancy.
So like I said at the top of the podcast, we are trying so hard to solve this for couples because it is such a huge pain point. So we just launched the Not Budget Advisor. I am obsessed with this tool. It is the thing I wish I had when I got married. It's kind of like crowdsourcing all of your friends to be like, wait, how much did you spend on that? What does that cost? It is a digital tool.
And it really provides a real wedding budget estimate based on your location, based on your priorities of what you want to spend. And it really leans into all of the insights we've collected from all of these couples on average costs, things that might be influencing pricing. And it's packed full of some of that really helpful service, right?
Those tips, those tricks, those things you don't want to forget, the things you might want to account for. Our editorial team is really hoping to do this journey hand in hand and leave you at the altar. with totally in budget wedding venue, wedding costs, nothing in the red, everything in the black. That is our goal with this tool. And I think it's been really, really successful.
We have seen so many couples jump in and play around with it and say, oh my gosh, this is so great. Like I didn't know this is how much things cost. So I think you can really utilize it as an early research tool.
So if you're getting married or if you just got engaged, even before you start planning, go in and do a little research, figure out where you might like to have your wedding, do a little research on what it costs to actually get married there. So a wedding in Alabama is going to cost you a lot different than a wedding in Baltimore, Maryland, or then a wedding in San Francisco, California, right?
They're all different. So if you pick your location, you can start to narrow down what things actually cost. And the budget tool is this really cool little wheel. So you can start to break apart those pie charts. Maybe you really love music and you want to have a bigger piece of your pie dedicated to music and your budget.
So you can really start to customize it in a way that makes sense for you as a couple. And ultimately, that will leave you in a really great spot to start wisely spending your funds.
If you go into well research, I think that you can be realistic about what things cost and you can stay within budget. But I would always say about 10% is a safe cushion. Just in case you have unexpected expenses that come up. And what I mean by that is like, let's say...
It's typically warm at the time of year where you're getting married, but a cold front comes through and now you need to like roll in some heaters for your outdoor event, right? Just little things like that that might come up or extra alterations that you need on your dress or turns out you have to... seat a couple extra guests, whatever that cost might be.
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