Is Your Dream Day Worth Going Into Debt?

Scott:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast where we interview AJ Williams and talk about the actual cost of weddings. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Scott Trench and with me today is my also married co-host Amanda Wolfe. How you doing today, Amanda?

Amanda:
Doing great.

Scott:
Awesome. Amanda and I are here to make financial independence less scary. Less, just for somebody else. To introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you’re starting.

Amanda:
Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate or throw your dream wedding, we’ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself toward your dreams.

Scott:
All right. We have a new segment of the show called The Money Moment, where we share a money hack, tip or trick to help you on your financial journey. Today’s money moment is have a spending buddy. If you are an impulsive spender or are having trouble justifying a large purchase, have a friend, family member or partner you check in with prior to making those large purchases. This sounds silly, but it may help you take a moment of reflection to determine if the purchase is actually worth it. Do you have a money tip for us? Email [email protected].
All right. Before we bring in AJ, I thought it’d be fun to just kind of quickly talk about at a high level our weddings, Amanda.

Amanda:
Yes.

Scott:
I know you recently got married. When was that?

Amanda:
I got married last June, so we just had our one year anniversary like two weeks ago, June 26th. And oh my gosh, I’ve just been daydreaming about that day. It was one of the best, most favorite days of my life ever.

Scott:
Awesome. And where’d you do it? What was it like?

Amanda:
Oh, it was incredible. So we did it in Lake Como, Italy. So we both are very into traveling and outdoors and we’re at a point in our life where we’re like, “We want to go somewhere really beautiful, somewhere with mountains and a lake.” We started exploring and found Lake Como, Italy. And like I said, it was honestly a dream come true. We just made sure that all of our non-negotiables, our best friends and family members could make it. And then we just went from there, pulled the trigger and best time of our entire lives. Yeah, just hit the one year anniversary.

Scott:
Awesome. Yeah.

Amanda:
How long have you been married, Scott?

Scott:
I’ve been married two and a half years. Coming up on three years in November. We got married during Covid and so we got engaged in late 2019 and we were planning kind of that 150 ish odd person wedding here in Colorado, nearby where we live. Then of course the pandemic strikes. So we had to move our wedding back, change venues and get a place where we could do kind of a streaming reception and we had to narrow it to, I think it was close to 20 people. We had a very intimate small wedding locally here with largely a lot of friends and a couple folks flew in. A lot of folks that we were in a community that we were still kind of interacting with to a degree here in Denver during that time. So small intimate wedding. It ended up being beautiful and wonderful, but we definitely were one of those folks that got the plans changed because of the pandemic environment there.

Amanda:
Yeah. So I feel like a lot of people who had Covid weddings ended up having an intimate ceremony like you just mentioned, but then also ended up having a second one post Covid where they had the all out one. Did you guys decide, “You know what? No, we’re done, we’re going to take all that money we saved and invest in some real estate or stocks,” or what have you? Or did you guys plan to have another one? Or how did that conversation go?

Scott:
So we went with a wedding planning company and so we were probably going to be in that median range for weddings, but we ended up being a little cheaper because of the whole guest list shrinking from 150 to like 20 to 30 or something like that. So that definitely made things more affordable. Because we got married in 2020, I feel like a lot of our friends who did what you just described, they were more like 2021, 2022 weddings where they were doing those kinds of things because there was still more of that. But there was just no line of sight, if you recall in 2020, to when that was going to happen. So we never ended up doing the bigger one. I think we were delighted with how our smaller, intimate one turned out, although it would’ve been great to have more of the extended family there.

Amanda:
I think it’s so interesting too because after Covid, everyone had the small intimate weddings and then once we could start going outside again, I feel like the weddings that took place, everybody came. So I know for us, we invited, I think it was like 105 people and 92 came to Italy. I mean it was incredible. Everybody who we wanted there basically ended up getting to come, but I thought that was really surprising because most people, you always hear like, “Oh, 75% of people come.” I think that’s really interesting. So I feel like you probably saved yourself a ton by stripping it down, doing the virtual and just keeping it there because probably everybody would’ve come.

Scott:
Yeah, I bet you it’s a combination with everyone showing up to these weddings of two things. One, people wanting to just get out because they’ve been cooped up for a couple years of the pandemic, and two, nobody had any plans. So you’re probably planning your wedding long enough in advance. Nobody has any plans at that point a year out or whatever, so everyone can come. So I think that’s probably a wonderful thing to have everybody showing up who’s invited to a lot of these weddings.

Amanda:
Yeah. It was amazing. It was incredible.

Scott:
All right. Amanda, well should we go ahead and bring AJ in and talk more in depth about weddings?

Amanda:
Let’s do it. Let’s get some insider info.

Scott:
AJ Williams was named a BizBash 500 Most Influential Event Pro in the US. AJ has built a strong track record and has worked with celebrities including Jon Bon Jovi, President Clinton, Queen Latifah, and The Eagles. That’s probably the band, not my Philadelphia Eagles and birds. In addition, she has raised $76 million for nonprofits through her event business. AJ, welcome to BiggerPockets Money Podcast. We are so excited to have you here.

AJ:
Hi. Thank you for having me

Scott:
AJ, to kick things off, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you get started in planning events and weddings?

AJ:
Sure. Sure. So I’ve been in the wedding and event business for over 30 years. I basically started planning events when I was in high school. For those of you that are in my age group or older, my high school yearbook dubbed me as Julie McCoy from The Love Boat. So planning was definitely in my DNA and I got started planning events for the Miss USA and the Miss Teen USA a pageants for four New England states for many years before I started my business.

Amanda:
That is incredible. That is a really long time. I have a question. So generally speaking, since you’ve just been an event planner your entire life basically, how have weddings and events, how have they changed in the past 10 to 15 ish years? Are you seeing couples waiting to get married so they’re a little more financially secure or what does that look like?

AJ:
There are a lot of dynamics that have changed in weddings and events because of social media and then recently with Covid. Because of Covid, people are just thinking a little bit more closely about what they want to do and what’s more important to them rather than rushing through the experience and taking more time in their budgets to plan and planning more intimate events. But over the course of the last 10 years with social media and the help of Instagram, it has really taken events to the next level and a lot of people want all the extras, the extra flowers or the Instagrammable moments that really make their event just very fun and exciting and a little bit over the top for what they like.

Amanda:
Yeah, and what about the actual wedding season? Because we all want those Pinterest worthy weddings, those Instagrammable weddings. Do you feel like the wedding season has changed? Because I think it used to really be summertime, right? I actually got married last summer and for me I’m like, “I can’t imagine not having a warm, nice sunny day.” But do you feel like the wedding season has changed? Are people getting married more throughout the year or is it still primarily summertime?

AJ:
Depending on where you are geographically, you have your two focused months. I’m here in New England, so June and September are hot months, but because of Covid and because people are just getting a little bit more savvy, they’re planning their events all throughout the year. Now they’re going overseas or they’re going to destinations where they can have their events in March in a cool destination that has low peak time that they can celebrate their wedding nuptials there. Or they’re going to the Caribbean or Mexico or Italy in October as opposed to going to the Caribbean in March when the weather is really, really great. Or they’re just going to their family destinations. I do a lot of events in Nantucket, so between the months of June and October, this is really our wedding season here, but we’ve seen more weddings outside of the peak season happen because everybody just wants to plan their event whenever they want to.

Amanda:
Yeah, and I love that you mentioned the destination wedding too because I got married last summer in Italy, so when you called that destination, I was like, “That’s where I got married.” And I believe, didn’t you just get married as well internationally?

AJ:
I did.

Amanda:
Yeah. Yay, congrats.

AJ:
After three years through Covid and building a house, I basically said, “Listen honey, if we don’t get married in March, I’m going to have three weddings. One on Nantucket, one in Boston, and one in the Caribbean.” So he gave me the go ahead to plan the wedding.

Amanda:
Let’s go forward. And let me ask you then, since you are the wedding planner, I felt like when I was looking around at planning my wedding, so I live in Chicago, I actually felt like it was more affordable overseas. Do you think that weddings are more affordable internationally versus having them in the United States?

AJ:
Some aspects of planning events internationally are more affordable, especially when you’re working with local vendors. But in the case of my wedding, I wanted certain things. So I had a 40 foot container with the brandable items and the custom items that I wanted for my event and it was expensive to ship and then it was expensive because of customs, but I got exactly what I wanted for my wedding while using local vendors. That helped bring the cost down overall for the wedding. But yeah, there was a little give and take there.

Scott:
This will take me a second to frame here, but when I graduated from high school in 2009, we were the largest graduating class of that time period. A lot of my friends and peers got married around the same time I did in 2020, 2021, 2022, the pandemic years. And we did not do this, but some of them did something to the following effect, just what you said, AJ, where they would basically elope. Then they would have a small intimate wedding and then later after things eased up a little bit, they had a big wedding. Did you see a lot of that? And how is that impacting the demand and the need to plan relentlessly years in advance? Is that pressure sort of relenting to some degree? Are you seeing that?

AJ:
That trend is very popular and it was extremely popular last year and it almost killed us. Like everybody in the event industry, whether you were a rental company or you were an audio visual company, an event planner, a florist, 2022 was… You hear about Great Gatsby and everyone was wanting to have all of their events. It was everybody and their mother and daughter and their friend. I mean, everybody wanted to have an event in 2022. But Scott, to your point, there were a lot of weddings where they had small intimate weddings or virtual weddings or they just wanted to elope and have that bigger wedding when it was time. That was in 2022 where everyone was like, “Okay, this is the year we’re going to have our wedding, our big wedding like everybody else.”
2022 was a very, very challenging year for our event industry. We went from 0% to I think 400% and it really maxed us out. I’m really happy that 2023 is more manageable, but I do love that trend. I love the idea of having an intimate ceremony with close friends, your besties or just family and then just having a more full reception event with everybody that you love.

Scott:
Do you think that trend will continue in 2024, will be easier again, 2025 will be easier still, so on and so forth because of that long-term demographic tale I mentioned? I think millennials got married older, but that’s probably starting to wind down a little bit and Gen Z is not quite as big. Or do you think that the pressure’s going to be there for a long time and weddings are going to continue to increase and cost and complexity here?

AJ:
Well, weddings are definitely going to increase in complexity and cost. The supply and demand has definitely gotten better, but I do feel that more people are thinking more closely about how they want to marry and what they want their events to look like. We are seeing more people going back to what weddings used to be just with a lot more flare and fun and customization.

Amanda:
In 2022, we see all the data that says the average cost of a wedding was $30,000, but whenever I see that I’m like, “What is average?” What is an average wedding? What does that entail? What is the average guest count? What is the venue? Where are these averages coming from?

AJ:
I think when you’re thinking about averages, the average really has to do with the entire United States. So if you go to one state, that average might be $8,000 or $10,000, but if you go to another one it might be $75,000. So that’s where the average $30,000 takes into account. So it may not make sense to someone that’s living in New York City, I should say, as opposed to upstate New York. So if that makes sense. But I think average weddings, if you want to look at what an average wedding gets you, it just really gets you a really nice wedding without the customization, without the additional flowers and a pretty focused budget.

Scott:
First of all, we’re talking about average is $30,000. Likely, the ones that you put on, AJ, are bringing that average up in the median cost, that a typical wedding may actually be even less expensive than that $30,000. We’re going to have to look up that stat and see if we can find it. But what is the “average” cost of a wedding with an elite wedding and event planner such as yourself in a Nantucket or similar setting?

AJ:
I would say the average upscale wedding could run you anywhere from $200,000 to half a million dollars and more.

Scott:
And who pays for this wedding? Is your client typically the bride and groom, or are there parents that are involved in these kind of elite weddings that you see that fill up Instagram and social media and these kinds of things?

AJ:
It depends. A lot of my clients are the bride and groom and sometimes they have assistance from parents, or it is the parents that are paying for everything. So it’s a little bit of a mix. It depends on where the bride and groom are in their careers and financially. I think a lot of couples are choosing the independence route when it comes to paying their wedding. They’re being more financially responsible for their event with a little bit of assistance.

Amanda:
I think that that number you just said will shock probably a lot of people. It shocked me. That’s for sure. So where is the majority of that money being spent? I know it can vary, but majority, where is the 200 to half a million dollars being spent?

AJ:
Well, what I usually tell my couples is when we start talking about budgets and what their number is, I always tell them you should plan on 30% higher than that because there might be something that they may want later past this point in time in our conversation that may add to the budget. Or when you’re dealing with destination events, there are things that may be more costly because you have to ship them over to the island or you may need to have a backup plan in regards to weather. There are a lot of factors that come into play other than just a nicety that they may want to add on like a large floral installation with orchids over the dance floor or a dance floor wrap or stage fronts that are infused with beautiful flowers and lighting or they want a headline band to now come and perform at their event.
So sometimes they think, “Okay, I want this band. That’s $30,000.” But they didn’t think that the band would cost another $30,000 because of the cost of the instruments, which is backlined and the cost of shipping it over or the audio visual or set up. It’s those type of expenses that sometimes are not accounted for, but that’s how planners guide their couples alongside with them with the budget.

Amanda:
Right, because you don’t know what you don’t know. What percent of couples actually stay within the budget that they set during that initial conversation with you?

AJ:
I would say most people, they usually stay within that budget plus 30%.

Amanda:
Plus 30%. So all of you out there, whatever you have budgeted, add 30% because you don’t know what you don’t know. Okay, interesting.

Scott:
Okay. So my budget is $30,000, I’m making this up, which still it seems incredibly expensive, but my budget’s $30,000 and that’s after the 30%. So I’ve come to you with a $20,000 budget and you said bump it up to $30,000 for contingencies. What are some of the things that you feel are must haves at these events that would give you the best bang for your buck at that level of spend? How would you prioritize the big ticket items there?

AJ:
Entertainment, great sound during your ceremony because you want everyone to hear you and that’s usually something that is missed and not thought of. That’s one of the things we usually have to add on to the budget at the beginning of the process because it’s not normally thought of. But I would say you want to spend your dollars on great entertainment and surprise elements because those are conversational pieces that will last long after the event and what people will remember from your wedding, and honestly the couples take away from the wedding as well. You want to spend more of your dollars where your guests are going to spend the most amount of time at. So that’s really dinner and dancing. So making sure that they’re entertained and they’re having fun as much as possible during the event. So it’s like the accents and the little surprise elements. Maybe it’s adding on three horns that come into the dance floor that add elements of surprise and wow people while they’re dancing. So it’s those elements, I think, that are important to add on to the budget.

Amanda:
Then on the flip side, we have to say what would you cut? So say somebody was a little more budget conscious or there were some of those little extra entertainment pieces that you mentioned that they really want to go all in on, where would you recommend people cut their budget?

AJ:
I would say flowers. We recently had a wedding and we had to cut dollars to make our contingency plan made work. So we just adjusted the ceiling treatments to make sure that they were all greenery instead of basically orchids and roses and different flowers and hydrangeas hanging from the ceiling. So we just went with greenery instead and it was honestly just as beautiful. We added lighting. We basically removed lighting from an area and made the lighting shine onto the hanging centerpiece over the dance floor and it was just as beautiful.

Amanda:
I love that. Okay. Do you have any other suggestions or tips like that where substituting greenery versus flowers since flowers, those can get out of control. When I saw the cost of flowers when I was planning my wedding, I was like, “What?” So are there any other tips like you just mentioned with the greenery and the lights that you could offer up to people?

AJ:
I would say if you really had to cut an item, think about your bar and perhaps a wine service during the cocktail hour instead of doing a full bar during your cocktail hour. That can save you a lot of dollars. If you have a really high energy crowd as well, it can also keep your attendees a little bit more grounded before they get on the dance floor because during dinner, people are still drinking and you can focus that on wine as well, but once they hit the dance floor, you can go back to your full bar. I think you’ll be fine there. People are pretty understanding when it comes to the cocktail hour and not having a full bar.

Scott:
I mentioned earlier how some friends had the multiple weddings. We were planning to have a larger wedding with many extended family members, those kinds of things. And then my wife and I got married in November 2020, so we decided to have a very small intimate wedding with just friends and parents and immediate siblings and those kinds of things. But are you seeing that the guest lists are compressing to a certain degree in weddings at all as a result maybe of the pandemic and the aftermath of those things? Are other folks kind of following suit even in the absence of the full fledged pandemic here?

AJ:
I think people are just going all out right now. I would say the year right after, I would say in 2022, maybe 2021 when weddings were starting to come back, people thought about their weddings a little bit more intimately. Even for our wedding a few months ago, we only thought 40 people were going to come to our wedding and we had just over 80 and people just wanted to come. They wanted to go. They wanted to be there and enjoy that special moment with you. I do feel that people really just want to be with the people that they love and have a great time and party. I don’t really see that congested list anymore. We’re actually having a lot of trouble finding. It’s challenging finding venues that can hold our guest counts because it feels like most of them are 250 to 350 now.

Amanda:
Oh my gosh.

AJ:
Yes.

Amanda:
How do you even know that many people? Wow.

AJ:
Well, it’s not necessarily always the couples, but it’s the parents too that want to invite their friends so they can see how amazing their children are and this beautiful couple is coming together. So it’s like they’re entertaining their friends as well watching their children get married.

Scott:
Okay, so does that mean that the weddings that are paid for by parents typically have the bigger guest counts? Is that accurate?

AJ:
Yes. Absolutely. And those that don’t, when the couple is involved more financially in their wedding budgets and their parents want to invite 20 or 30 people, then that’s when I say, “Well, are they contributing to the dinner?” So that’s how you get the parents involved financially.

Scott:
I want to ask about inflation as well on just like a per person basis. Are we seeing that is affecting the wedding industry along with all the other things in the last couple of years? Are people getting less for more basically?

AJ:
I wouldn’t say that they’re getting less for more, but the budgets are definitely higher. Flowers are more expensive. Rentals. Everything is more expensive. I mean the cost of a linen that was pre 2020 is not the same now. Shipping has increased. Because a lot of people have left the event industry, it has gotten a lot harder and it’s been very, very challenging for our industry to keep really good people involved. And to do that, you have to pay your staff higher fees and that’s also the reason why there’s inflation in our industry.

Amanda:
Speaking of inflation, speaking of cost and just everything is getting more expensive, what are some of the most expensive big ticket items at weddings and what are the non-negotiables would you consider?

AJ:
No matter what event I do, whether it’s a fundraiser, a corporate event or wedding, my non-negotiables are always AV. You have to have really good audio visual and great sound. That’s always my non-negotiable entertainment for sure. Depending on the couple, it’s always the food for me as well. Everything else as far as event flow is important to me, but that’s not really budget related, not necessarily anyway, but audio visual, making sure that you have really good sound, lighting, and great entertainment are I think really the non-negotiables.

Amanda:
So that more so than the, I guess, DJ or band that would be under entertainment. More so than the actual location or the bride’s dress. Over all of that type of stuff.

AJ:
Absolutely.

Amanda:
Okay. Then I want to kind of take us a little bit of a different direction and let’s debunk some myths that we hear out there. Is it true that booking your wedding super far in advance or really I guess any event can help you save the most money?

AJ:
In a lot of situations, absolutely. If you are booking an event at a location far in advance, sometimes you can negotiate concessions early on and different perks when you’re booking early. As supply and demand get harder, that’s when venues can add on a higher rental fee and have less concessions available to you. I would definitely say the first thing that you should do really is book your event planner because they’re the ones that are going to negotiate your contract and sometimes when you’re working with a great event planner that can negotiate your venue in the most proper way, that actually pays for the wedding planner in many cases. I mean you can save $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 on your room rentals, your venue fees, especially if the planner is savvy enough to negotiate what your plate is going to be per person, and you will be able to do that in advance, especially if something is booked early on.

Amanda:
I mean, I think that makes sense, right? Hiring your event planner because you don’t know what you don’t know. Just like I hire an accountant because I am not the tax expert, right? Hire the person who knows more than you. Okay, so that is good to know. The other myth that I want busted to see is it true or false? Are there certain seasons or days of the week that are more cost effective to get married on? I feel like with flights you hear, “Look at prices on Wednesdays, those are better.” Does that translate to the wedding and or event industry? Are there certain days of the week that are more cost effective?

AJ:
Weekdays are always more cost effective than, of course, a Friday or Saturday, but there are also days like Columbus weekend. I feel like those are also good weekends to get married. So not all holidays are the same, but if you’re getting married on a Tuesday, Wednesday, of course you’re going to get a really good bang for your buck there. You may have the same floral fees on a Wednesday than you would on a Saturday, but you could probably waive your room rental at a venue if you have it on a weekday. But then again, there’s always variables there because if you’re booking on a Tuesday, Wednesday in the height of September or October during convention season, then that might not be the best venue for you in order to receive a decreased budget.

Scott:
I think this has been really helpful discussion on thinking through that traditional wedding, which again is average or maybe even closer to median for what most people are going to do. But I wonder if there’s a population of folks that are listening to BiggerPockets Money, for example, who would love to think through how do I get much cheaper than the costs and budgets that we’ve been talking about here? Have you thought about or heard of or can you point anybody to resources on how to do it in order of magnitude cheaper, maybe by getting married in your backyard or at a friend’s house? Or any tips for those types of weddings?

AJ:
I would definitely say still hire an event planner and you can hire event planner not to fully plan your event, but as a consultancy relationship instead where we work with some couples where we are just their basically go-to for advice and for vendors or contracts or any piece of advice that they want during the planning process and then we’re involved in the execution the month prior to the wedding. That alone can save the couple a lot of dollars because, to Amanda’s point, we know our industry like the back of our hands and we can pass off that information along to the couple. There are also other ways you can do it yourself kind of planning where if you want to spend the time and do it yourself, you could do your own centerpieces and that will save you a good amount of dollars. You could handle some of the decor and do it yourself and save yourself some dollars. But again, I would definitely make sure that you put your dollars to best use with audio visual and entertainment.

Scott:
How would I go about interviewing one of these wedding planners? What are some things to look for? How do I know I’ve going to get good when I go looking and shopping for someone to help me plan this event?

AJ:
Sure. So you can look at reviews and look at their Instagram pages because you can see what their execution is like. That’s really a great way to show. You can look at Pinterest, Instagram for that. So you can see basically the history of the events and the type of events that they plan. It’s also a great way to see which planner has the same kind of style that you like, the type of events that you’d like to execute. That’s a really great way. I don’t like this, but you can also take a lot of ideas from Instagram and Pinterest as well, but the best way to find the best planner, it’s all about chemistry. So interviewing the planners and seeing which planner feels the most connected to you, and then make your decision based off of your interview.

Scott:
In all this time, you’ve never had a problem. The events always run smoothly. There’s never an issue that comes up at the last minute with any of the guests or the bride or the groom or the parents or anything like that. Is that correct?

AJ:
There are always issues. Sometimes our couples never know about it, but this past June, we’ve had a really crazy weather filled month of June on Nantucket. Every weekend we had… The first weekend was a windstorm. I thought I was in the Wizard of Oz and all the ceiling treatments kept going back and forth this all night underneath basically a hundred people on the dance floor. And I was scared and praying at the same time. So you have situations like that and then you have rain. The week after, we were watching the rain forecast like hourly, and we were holding on to our ceremony, which was outside, and one person in the wedding party said, “I think we should just have the party in the restaurant.” Mind you, the restaurant was really, really small. There’s no way we could have fit everybody into that restaurant because that would’ve already been our backup plan. Right?
So looked at the radar again and I basically made an announcement and I said, “Okay, everybody, we’re going to load up the shuttles, we’re going to go to the wedding ceremony site really fast. We’re going to get this beautiful couple married and we’re going to miss the rain.” And I called over the officiant and I said, “We’re going to do this super fast. No half an hour. Let’s try to get it done in 15 minutes.” And he was all on board. We are basically in the shuttles, no lie, the firetruck shuttle that we were in with the bridal party minus the bride, she was in the Mercedes, thank goodness, basically broke down.

Amanda:
Oh my gosh.

AJ:
Yeah, on top of that. And it was starting to drizzle and we were very close to the ceremony site. We just walked up this slight hill to the ceremony site and everybody was huddled underneath this big huge tree. And everyone was still in disbelief that the ceremony was going to go through. And I was like, “Okay, everybody, let’s go to your seats.” And my other planners guided everybody to their seats and we all had our umbrellas for everybody. So the ceremony starts, and I kid you not, the sky just started to open and we had the most gorgeous photos because some of the raindrops as the wedding party was going down the aisle looked like little crystals coming down in the photos because of the way the light was hitting it. It was beautiful. But no rain.

Amanda:
So get yourself a wedding planner who can control the weather is what I’m hearing.

AJ:
Exactly. They actually call me the wedding whisperer.

Amanda:
I love it.

Scott:
Awesome. Well, where can people find out more about you, AJ, “Wedding Whisperer” Williams?

AJ:
Thank you very much. They can find me online at AJWEvents.com. My Instagram also has the same handle @AJWEvents, Facebook and Pinterest also, my handle is @AJWEvents and you can feel free to give me a call or contact me through my website.

Scott:
Well, we really enjoyed having you on the show today. Thank you for sharing all this knowledge about weddings, costs, what to prioritize, what to potentially cut if you’re on a budget, and how to think about a lot of the big ticket items here.

AJ:
My last tip, since you mentioned what to cut, I would say another thing that you could cut too is when you’re doing a tented wedding, if you really needed to, the big budget cost for tents would be the flooring. So you could save anywhere from 20,000 to $30,000 just on the flooring.

Amanda:
That’s a pro tip right there.

AJ:
Yeah.

Scott:
Well, we really appreciate having you on the show. Thanks for that extra tip, and we hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and I’m sure a busy weekend coming up.

AJ:
Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Scott:
All right. That was AJ Williams. Amanda, what did you think?

Amanda:
Oh my gosh, I loved it. That was so interesting. Like I said, all the insider tips and tricks that she had, I feel like is so beneficial to everyone because you don’t know what you don’t know.

Scott:
Yeah. I mean even having been through it all, there’s tons of stuff to learn here. I hope that this helps a lot of people who are planning their wedding or have friends who are going to plan their weddings. We did have our wonderful team pull a couple of stats for us that I thought were interesting and might be fun to share. I’ll read off a couple of them here and we can react to them. But these are stats from The Knot and the biggest items to budget for when it comes to the total cost of wedding are first the venue, which is 37% of the total cost. After that, it’s the catering at 29% of the cost. Then it’s the band or music at 13% of the cost and everything else falls under 10%, which includes the rings, flowers, decoration, photography, so on and so forth. Does that surprise you? What do you think of that?

Amanda:
I feel like that sounds pretty spot on. I’m like sitting here trying to remember the specific details of mine, and I think that sounds pretty right. The venue, especially if you have to pay for the actual space. For us, we did it at a boutique hotel, so as long as we rented out all of the rooms, we didn’t actually have to pay a venue fee. So I think that’s one way you could get around a really huge cost is having people pay for their rooms, doing it someplace like that, but the catering, yeah, absolutely. That ate up a lot of the budget. Food and drink can be expensive. What about you?

Scott:
Yeah, I guess it makes sense and I think it also highlights just an opportunity to what AJ was saying. I wonder if the things that you remember aren’t exactly what she said. The little surprises and wrinkles you pull in. Instead of spending X amount on the catering or the venue, if you bring in the bagpipes in the middle of the dance floor or whatever that fun thing is. Maybe those are ways, if you’re really trying to make a memorable wedding on a budget to remember that you can cut out the 80/20 there and invest more in the 20 and maybe folks will remember more of it. How about this one? 28% of couples take on debt to pay for their weddings according to Business Insider. What do you think about that one?

Amanda:
I find it not surprising, but I find it really sad too because I think your friends and family would not want you going into debt for that day, right? People say, “Oh, it’s one day.” No, it is one very special day, but you don’t need the nicest of everything. I think it’s sitting down with your partner, getting really clear on what your most important things to each of you are and stick into your guns because it can get totally out of control. But it does not surprise me. What about you?

Scott:
I don’t think it surprises me either. And I think 26 year old Scott would’ve said, “This is atrocious, what’s going on here?” But I recently read Die with Zero, and while I still wouldn’t go in to debt for a wedding personally and think that’s really sad, and I agree with you, you shouldn’t do it for friends’ and family’s sake. Some people may prioritize this so much that they want to make sure that this day is a memory that they have burned into them for life. So I think it’s going to be a tough call and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it and hope more people avoid that. But I can see it for some folks who really want this moment in particular to be that perfect memory for the rest of their lives.

Amanda:
Yeah. I think it just comes down to intentional spending. So if you have been dreaming about your wedding since you’ve been five years old and you want to go all out, no judgment. You do you, boo, right? You go all out. But I think rather than taking on debt, I would rather you wait one more year and save for it appropriately because that type of debt, I don’t think it’s worth it. It can really snowball you backwards and derail other plans and it’s one day of your life, so just make it next year.

Scott:
Yeah. I completely agree. That’s exactly what I would do. I’m not surprised by the stat and can maybe empathize with it in a few cases, but certainly not recommend it. This is not the type of debt you want to be carrying for the next couple years and it may even sour the memory of that wedding if you’re still paying off that debt in a few months or years after it happens.

Amanda:
Yeah.

Scott:
All right. Well, thank you so much for being my co-host today, Amanda. It was great to catch up and really appreciate it. Should we get out of here?

Amanda:
Yeah, let’s do it. Thanks for having me.

Scott:
All right. She’s Amanda Wolfe and I am Scott Trench saying, “Hit the road, happy toad.” If you enjoyed today’s episode, please give us a five star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you’re looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at youtube.com/biggerpocketsmoney.

Speaker 4:
BiggerPockets Money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Kailyn Bennett, editing by Exodus Media, Copywriting by Nate Weintraub. Lastly, a big thank you to the BiggerPockets team for making this show possible.