- All right, Mitchell, Meleah, thank you guys for being here.
- Thank you. - Yeah, of course.
- So fun. Okay, engaged. Prepared for the wedding.
How are you feeling?
- Feeling pretty great.
- Feeling pretty good, yeah.
- Just ready for it to be here.
- Yes.
- Definitely.
- That's kind of how I was. I was like, just,
let's just do it, let's just do it.
So, money. Big part of the wedding, right?
The wedding budget, it's a big one, so I always start off
with couples when we talk about wedding budgets is you have to
figure out your total. So it's like, this is what we're going to spend.
So, do you guys have that number?
- We do.
- I think we do. It's $8,000.
- Perfect.
- It's a baby little budget.
- No, it's so great.
- Okay.
- That's the thing. These days, I'm like,
you can pull off anything for any amount of money,
so that's great.
Okay, so I printed off a wedding budget here.
Very easy, very simple.
So, go ahead and write the top number there,
which is $8,000,
on the top of the wedding budget.
And then the next thing I always recommend is to go through the list
and say, okay, what are things that we value as a couple?
Like, here are the things we want to put money towards
because we just, we love it. So do you guys have a
couple of those things, maybe three, four things?
- Definitely the clothing, the dress.
- The dress. All right, put a big circle around that.
- Number one priority.
- She works in fashion, so that's a big--
- So the dress is yes.
- A big thing for her.
- It's just a little important.
- I know, you just appreciate it, right? You want it.
- Exactly.
- I love that.
- And the second thing was a suggestion from family,
and it's the photographer.
- Yeah, that's a good one.
- I've heard that the memories are important.
- Yes, absolutely.
- And it's better to have visual representation.
- Because at the end of it, that's all you really have.
- That's so true.
- Yes.
- Get a good photographer, yeah.
- Okay
- So, off the top of your head, do you have an idea of, okay,
this is how much we wanna spend on the dress.
This is how much we wanna spend on the photographer.
- Well, we kind of already spent it on the photographer.
- All right, so it's done. Perfect. So put that total. What is that?
- So whopping $3,200.
- Beautiful.
- Massive chunk of our budget.
- Part of it, but hey, it's what you value.
It's what you want.
- And clothing, not sure yet, but between us both,
we're budgeting about two . . .
- $2,000, yep.
- $2,000.
- Yep, perfect. All right, go ahead and mark that there.
Okay, so then you've gotta figure out okay, what do we have left to
spend the money on?
And then this is a great place to look to see
okay, what are things that we can cut?
So I even just go down the list.
So do you guys have a venue right now?
- We do.
- Okay, how much is that?
- Total was eight.
- Eight, okay, perfect. Yep, go ahead and add that.
Awesome, okay, marriage license usually is gonna cost--
- I think it's $100.
- Yeah, about 100 bucks.
Have you guys done a pastor's gift yet?
Or you can skip it for right now.
Perfect, no worries. Okay, rings . . .
- We've done some research, and we think that we can,
what would you say, maybe six or seven?
- I think six, yeah.
- $600.
- Perfect, all right, go ahead and add that down.
How about tables, chairs, tablecloths, is this like a . . .
do you know within your venue what they have provided or what they don't?
- They do provide some tables, but--
- Okay.
- We don't know if we want to use them.
We haven't really decided.
- We have yet to decide.
- Perfect, so we can skip on that. How about
chairs, tablecloths, anything there?
- Same situation.
- Okay, perfect. How about table decor?
- I think we budgeted $200 for that actually.
- $200? Perfect. All right, go ahead and put that one down. Flowers?
- Luckily, that's provided by his parents.
- Oh, that's great.
- Yes, my parents have offered to cover the flowers.
- You know the best part of that? You just cross it out.
- Do you want to do it?
- I would love to.
Thank you, Mom and Dad.
- Feel the money, say thank you. What a beautiful . . . oh, that's so good.
So good. Okay, it says, photo of us.
- Yes.
- What is that?
- We would like to have as one of our decorations just
photos of us printed out.
- Oh, yes. All around.
I love it. Okay, how about the music?
Like, do you guys want to DJ or do you know yet?
- We're gonna have a friend manning a Spotify playlist.
- Oh, I love it, you guys.
- However . . .
- String quartets.
- This was his request.
- It's beautiful. It's beautiful, yes.
- I think we can find this for around $600.
- Okay, yes.
- We may have to cut it.
- Well, go ahead and fill it all out because then
we'll go back and see, okay, what do we have left from the eight grand.
So, nope, that's perfect. Okay, invitations?
- $250 right?
- $250-ish possibly.
- And yeah, okay. So cake?
This is a big one.
Have you guys thought through this one at all?
- We have briefly,
and this is also something that my parents have offered to help cover.
They are Costco proponents.
- Yes, I love them already.
- So they decided that they can get a couple cakes from
Costco and put it together on their own.
- That's so great.
I was gonna say, 'cause that's a great place that you can,
I had a friend, and she actually,
instead of getting like a wedding cake,
she did like a celebration cake is what they called it.
But she just made it white look and made it look wedding-y.
- Exactly
- But it was like half the price. So there's places to cut that,
but Wholesale or like Costco.
Okay, so they're gonna pay for the cake.
- Yeah, so marking that off.
- Cross it out. - Covering that.
- Are they covering most of this, like cocktail, dinner, dessert?
- Any food that they offered to cover.
- So then cross all those out.
- Yay, it's perfect.
- Which is a massive part of the budget.
- Okay, place to go.
- So, that's like the night of the wedding like--
- Oh, yes.
- Are gonna get a hotel?
But we think we're just, hopefully
our apartment or house is ready at that point.
- Okay.
- Go stay there for the first time.
- Skip that.
- Do it!
Okay, and premarital counseling.
Does your pastor do it for free?
I feel like a lot of churches and stuff will do that for free.
- So we're not having our church do the wedding.
- Yes.
- We're having a friend who's a pastor do it,
and he recommended us a few counselors
that we haven't reached out to yet.
But we will soon. - Perfect. I recommend counseling.
It's worth the investment.
You have it in the budget, but--
but there are places, like some churches and stuff,
they'll do it for free for a few sessions, so . . .
- I like that.
- We can leave that blank for right now. Okay.
So let's add up what we have so far.
It's like $7,600.
So with the $400 left,
which you can, I mean, honestly,
like a nice gift card here for like 100 bucks
I think would be very nice.
Your party gifts, I mean, you guys can just write a letter
or something like print out a picture of you guys,
I mean like with you and each bridesmaid or something like,
you can go . . . - DIY something.
- Yes. I would go so simple there.
- Your sister and my best friend.
- Yeah, so I would really, I mean, and then string lights,
people have string lights everywhere. I would ask around.
- That's true. - Friends and stuff,
and you can just like plug them in together.
So the big part I see, you know, the tables, chairs, tablecloths,
all that for the reception, we actually
have a wedding planner coming up next that you'll be joining me, Meleah,
so we'll be talking about all of that reception stuff,
but sometimes venues, I feel like venues can,
they offer some of that stuff for free as part of the venue.
And a big place is the string quartet like you guys said,
so if you do have friends, if you went to Belmont,
everyone's so musical there, so musical,
so maybe you could like cut that down a little
if you needed to for a little wiggle room.
But honestly, you guys are killing it.
Like, this looks great.
Because here's what I love about it.
You did what you wanted, you got your dress,
and the photographer like
those were the big things,
so you make that your starting point,
and then from here, you just figure out, okay,
here are things that we can cut,
here are things we really don't need
and you're able to make decisions based on that.
- Right.
- So, does this feel good? How do you feel?
- Yeah. - It does feel good.
- I actually feel a lot better about it.
- Do you? Good, good!
- Having it all in one place is very helpful.
- So helpful. I know.
Budgeting, whether it's, you know,
regular budgets that you do monthly
or it's a wedding budget for something,
like having a visual is so important.
So it is, it takes everything that's like kind of stressful up here,
puts it right here. So, thank you, guys, so much
for being here, this is so great.
And I'm so glad you feel a little easier.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
- Love it, love it.
And for you guys, think about all the creative things they just did.
I mean, everything from a cake from Costco,
a Spotify playlist.
This stuff works, so go the budget route.
I promise for the long run,
oh, it's so, so worth it.
Now if you guys are looking for an easy way to organize all
of your wedding numbers in one place,
I've created a fun wedding budget printable
so you can work out these numbers together.
So click the link below.