Planning A Wedding Without Going Broke #063

married now? Man? Yeah, so we've been married just over eight years. And you guys double digits right, Yeah, Oh, dude, more than double digits. We're hitting twelve this year. Twelve years man, that's that's amazing. Yeah, that's pretty crazy, right, congrats, what's up? Yeah, if only we knew some of what we know now about wedding and ways to save money. We definitely did our wedding on a budget. But there's certainly some of these tips here that we didn't take

advantage of back when I was a youngster. But yeah, we're looking forward to sharing these with our listeners today. Well, one quick money saving tip, Matt, before we get straight into the weddings. I wanted to let people know that the Sift app that we mentioned in our lesser known credit card benefits episode, just saving another ten bucks. I love how this app working in the background. It's just

kind of lurking trying to save you some money. And so I have a particular card that has price protection on it, and I know a lot of credit card issuers have recently dropped price protection. So you might have had a card that used to have price protection, and you know what, as of the first of the year or last summer, it might not have that anymore. So you'll want to double check and see which credit cards you have in your wallet actually have price protection. Which

one is that, by the way, the City Costco card. Yep, that's the one I use. So I still can't get on board with joining Costco. Man, it's just so far away. All right, we're gonna have to do a whole episode. I think about Big Box. Do you want to do it, Let's do it. Let's do it soon, all right. But to anybody that doesn't have the Sift app, will with a link to it in the show notes. It's really nice how it just works in the background, and it's something that I would have never thought to even look

at it. There. It was these gutter guards that I bought from Costco, and I saved an additional ten bucks just because Sift was looking for me. I never would have looked for myself. So yeah, just an awesome money saving win right there. Okay, so you're talking about gutter guards, like the things that go on top of your gutter to keep the leaf the leaves out right exactly. Okay, I don't want to be cleaning the leaves out all the time. No, that's fine. It took me you said

gutter guards, and I was like, what is he talking about? Context? I need some context. That's all. Sorry about that. I'll go ahead and introduce our beer for today. Man. It is called Juice Back and it is a double dry hot pale ale and this is out of Texas from TUPS Brewery. This is another beer from Jake and Jake, we want to thank you so much for sending us a couple of delicious beers that we're having back to back.

We had that first one on Monday's episode, and yeah, looking forward to this one today and we'll let you know what we think about this spear at the end of the episode. But for now, on to the topic at hand. Weddings are expensive and weddings are super personal. Nobody wants to be told how to do their wedding. Yeah, sort of like that episode we just did on teaching your children about money. Nobody wants us telling them how to raise their kids, but hopefully we did cover some

tips that were helpful. We're gonna step in again, and it's weddings this time, because no one wants to be told how to wedding either, right uh. And and some girls and and some boys too have dreamed about their weddings since they were little kids, and it can be hard to kind of part with those years of dreams that you've had growing up into a reality that includes a strict budget. But just like everything in life, you know, Matt,

I think we think there is a sweet spot. And studies reveal the same thing that the happiest couples don't spend more than on their wedding. And that's at the same time where the average price of a wedding costs over thirty thou dollars. So it just sounds like the happiest couple is just like getting a discount exactly. They're a little bit frugal, right, Yeah, they want to live

like a little differently off of anything. You're pretty happy, right, And it's almost like the same studies to talk about what average income in the United States equates to happiness, and typically most studies say that it's right around seventy thou dollars and if you earn much more than that

that it doesn't really make you appreciably more happy. Well, the same thing when it comes to weddings, actually spending more than on your wedding will in all likelihood make you less happy if you put too much pressure on the day and spend too much money on this one special day trying to blow it out. Sadly, the chances of divorce go up in tandem with how much more you spend over that amount. So luckily for us today, Jill, I have a good amount of experience when it comes

to weddings. I've shot weddings for over ten years now, over three d weddings. Can you believe that that's incredible? Dude, that's a lot um and everything from like smaller backyard brunch weddings too, like super high end weddings that costs like two to three thousand dollars. You ever shot one on like a yacht? No, I've never shot a wedding on a yacht, but I have a shot before on acadam Ran. They had a happy hour at sunset on a giant catamar Ran. That's pretty cool, too, pretty dope, right,

But honestly, I love weddings. Like people talk about how it's something that like, oh, you get tired of them. I don't really get tired of him. I think they're a ton of fun and honestly, the ones I enjoyed the most though as a photographer are the weddings where they tend to be relaxed and you know they're having

a good time. And that's honestly when they're not overspending and instead they're focusing on putting their money towards the things that matter to them, to the things that they actually value, because deep down, I think they truly know that there money is being well spent. They thought it through and they know that, Okay, this is awesome, this is awesome, this is awesome, and they're not getting sucked into the overspending and feeling like that they have to

do things just because somebody mentioned it in some wedding magazine. Yeah, so if you've listened to our show for very long, you know probably that we're not going to recommend getting married on a yacht or necessarily even a catamar ran. Right, but I don't know. Happy our on academ ran sounds awesome and does that does sound pretty nice? If you were there, you would have liked it, I'm sure, I'm sure.

And we're also going to recommend that you don't completely cheap out, because if you go that route, you could have major regrets. Because a wedding is a really special day, right. It is a fun party. It's a chance to celebrate one of the most meaningful events you'll ever celebrate in your entire life. And so you don't want to look

back and have regrets that you didn't spend enough. So finding that balance is key, and we'll dive into the specific ways that you can save some money on your wedding without having regrets right after the break all right, soul, The first thing that we need to focus on if you are planning a wedding is to consider what is most important to you. You know, before you even start planning a wedding, you want to consider what it is

that is most important to you and your fiance. You need to ask yourself, how do I want to experience this day, or like, what do I want my guests to experience? Those are sort of the big why questions that once you answer those, the rest of the money questions that pop up inevitably when it comes to planning a wedding will become much much easier. I say this

to my couples all the time. If there are aspects and parts of a wedding that you just don't care about and that are not meaningful to you, just skip those right. So, if you don't like cake, well there's no reason for you to have a wedding cake. Instead, maybe food trucks are or what you're all about. Let's say that you're not into big bands or like that kind of music. Well, maybe instead you're really into karaoke,

and instead you can have some awesome karaoke at your reception. Like, the idea is to make sure that it's reflective of you and your personality as a couple. You would infuse as much of that into the wedding as possible, and again hopefully that will direct your decisions when it comes to making purchases for your wedding. Yes, So of course the cheapest way to get married would be to a lope.

Just get married at the courthouse, fly to Vegas right, and go to one of the wedding chapels on the strip. We're talking about sixty bucks, maybe many hundreds of dollars if you're buying a flight, right, that's that's pretty inexpensive. But in all likelihood, for most people, that's not going to meet the requirement of having party with friends and family that they care about, of bringing in people that they haven't seen in years, and just making it a

grand old time. So while eloping might work for some people, and more power to you if if that is the kind of wedding that you want, you're gonna say a lot of money. But this episode is geared towards people trying to throw a wedding with with a guest list, and so Matt, let's get to the main ways that you can save while doing that, all right, man, Let's

talk first about location. So where you get married will likely have the largest impact on your overall budget, not only because of the actual cost of the venue, but there's the secondary costs associated with it. As well. We didn't an entire episode on secondary costs and and why

things end up costing more than you think. Well, on that note, it's tougher to have an affordable wedding at a really, really fancy venue, right Like, if you're getting married in Atlanta at the Swan House, it's the super high end, historical fancy place, sounds like it. It's where a president snows mansion was in the Hunger Games. That house, it is extremely expensive, and they've probably got a smaller list of caterers that you can go with, right and exactly,

everything just gets more expensive based on that initial decision. Yes, it's tough to have an affordable wedding at the Swan House. However, on the opposite end of spectrum, if you're gonna get married, say out a brewery, it's becoming more and more popular to get married out a brewery. They're affordable, there's great beer there obviously, but that would also allow you to not include certain vendors that might be a lot more expensive.

Speaking of breweries and alcohol, Matt, it's worth asking a potential venue that you're looking at getting married in to see if they allow you to bring your own booze, because there's a huge markup when it comes to beer, wine and spirits from a food vendor for a wedding, and so if you can bring your own in and have your buddy manning the keg, I mean, that can

be a major savings for you. I know, my wife and I we got a couple of pony kegs of some cheap beer that was before I was like madly into craft beer and uh, and we saved a lot of money by bringing our own beer in and also having two buck chuck, Like that's literally the only things that people could drink besides water at our wedding, and we saved a lot of money doing it that way.

Another tip, when you are bringing in your own alcohol, you want to make sure that you buy it from someplace that will allow you to return unopened bottles, because obviously you want to have enough on hand for the party, but at the same time, you don't want to get stuck with a bunch of unopened cases of bourbon if that's what you happen to have on hand. The same thing with keg's. Obviously you can't return to keg So keep that in mind as well, because well you're just

gonna have to drink it before it goes bad. That's the wedding after party right there. Right. Another important thing when it comes to location, Matt is that a lot of venues will offer better rates during less popular seasons. So for instance, January and February, those are not popular months to get married in, right, and you know that because you have very few requests for your services during those months. So considering getting married then, or also on

alternative days of the week. So everyone gets married on a Saturday pretty much, so if you're willing to get married on a Sunday instead of a Saturday, well you could probably save some substantial money on your venue if you do that too. Also, if you get married outdoors, say just out in nature in the park or maybe at a private residence at a house, that can be a more affordable way to book a venue, but it's not always the case. You know, you need to take

weather into account. If you're willing to risk it, then sure, you know you can save a ton of money. But if you're looking at getting a tint, maybe you need to bring in the dance floor. If the backyards are not perfectly even, you can easily fork out several thousand dollars to kind of get a backyard up to snuff. But I love the idea of just kind of alpening

and being out in nature. I've done that a couple of times, and do that's just like the best because I love hiking and being out in nature, and I love taking pictures, and I also love making a living, and so when I can combine all three of those things together, that's the best. Yeah, And the pictures when you're out in nature are amazing through the best, right.

I mean, Emily and I we got married at the Memphis Zoo because so she's from Memphis and we decided to get married at the zoo there, and so we get this kind of mix of indoor and outdoor shots, photos of us in front of like the lions and the flamingos and stuff like that. So just kind of

really fun memories to think back at those pictures. At the same time, if we had to choose something else, I think we probably totally would have gotten married somewhere in nature, just with some kind of crazy cliff overlooks or something, I don't know, something interesting like that. Yeah, those pictures are super popular these days. You just get like a hundred dollar permit and boom, you're shooting in Yosemite and you're getting married at the same time. That

sounds awesome. Well, you mentioned Tennessee as well, and that's something else to consider, is that geographically, you know, on average, it's more expensive to have a wedding in some cities and states versus others. So, for instance, on average, a wedding in Long Island, New York, it's about sixty dollars versus Texas, where these beers were sent to us from,

it's about thirty thousand dollars, so half as much. So you know, if it's a toss up between a couple of different states, maybe your home state versus your fiance's home state, it's worth, you know, considering what the actual costs are in the state or the city that you're considering getting married in. All right, now we're gonna tackle matth,

the all important issue of guest count. And this one gets touchy because the future in laws and your own parents have their ideas of who they want at this wedding, and to a certain extent, depending on your relationship with your parents or your in laws, you probably need to respect some of their wishes, But it's really important for you as the couple to invite the folks that really matter to you, and to not just invite folks purely

out of obligation, especially because that ramps up the cost. Well, yeah, man, I mean the guests count directly impacts your catering costs. You know, if you can cut back from say a hundred and fifty guests, cut that in half down to seventy five guests, that could save you five thousand dollars. Over five thousand dollars if you're looking at seventy dollars ahead for catering, and you know, if food isn't really

that much of a priority for you. Again, this kind of goes back to the initial question, like the big overall what are our priorities going to be? If food isn't a priority for you, Instead, maybe you can look at some local barbecue or let's say there's some awesome food trucks in your city, and honestly, those are gonna be much much more affordable as well. Yeah, and I think when it comes to food, Matt to going with a daytime wedding is going to be much more cost effective.

When you're talking about providing food for however many guests you have, Right, the per head cost is just gonna go way down if you're providing lunch as opposed to dinner. And folks don't have to drink quite as much wine at lunch either, you know, exactly. And the expectations honestly are just overall lower for a lunch get together than they are for a special, fancy sit down dinner wedding. Yeah, man,

that's so true. That's a good tip. But we should have mentioned that in sort of when we're talking about the venue. But the venue you choose will also indicate sort of the level of fanciness, right, And so you choose a brewery, folks are gonna maybe expect the barbecue option and maybe a food truck, versus if you've got one of the nicest hotels or one of the nicest ballrooms in the city. Yeah, that the bar is raised. They're they're expecting to pull out the tuxedo that they

haven't worn in a couple of years. And if you even want a scale back even more. You know you mentioned eloping, Well you can elope and then throw a party after the fact, and even calling it a party versus a wedding, you get to save on that wedding markup. Just because wedding or a reception is in the name, it's automatically kind of gets fancier. And yeah, like you said, there's a higher bar of what people expect, and it just affects the entire vibe of the wedding day as well.

So the time of day and certainly where you have the wedding has a huge impact on the overall cost. All right, Matt, Let's get into the rings. And I know that wedding rings kind of have a traditional element and not everyone kind of goes with the traditional flare these days. So for instance, I'm wearing a rubber ring. I got three for ninety nine cents on eBay, different colors. Is it because you crossed fit bro? No, trust me, If if I crossed it, all the listeners would have

known that on about twenty episodes so far. Right, anybody that crossed its you hear about it pretty quickly. But if you don't want to go like the nontraditional route like me and have literally a thirty three cent a silicone ring, well we think you can find a really awesome diamond ring for between two and four thousand dollars, and the traditional rule of thumb has always been that you should spend three months of your salary on an

engagement ring. Honestly, to me, Matt, that feels kind of preposterous, that that sounds ludicrous. I never would have done that, and I'm so glad that I had some people talking sense into me that I didn't have to mortgage my future to buy a ring for my wife. And now, with the advent of lab grown diamonds, which are completely indistinguishable from diamonds that you dig up out of the ground,

you can save a huge amount of money. And light box and Brilliant Earth are both great websites to shop four But if you're looking for diamonds that were dug out of the earth, Rare Carrot is the best comparison shopping site for regular diamonds on the internet right now. And so we'll post links to all those in our

show notes. Yeah, what's awesome about lab grown diamonds, man, is that you know there's a savings there of at least thirty percent in these days because the technology is getting better when it comes to growing these diamonds and labs because it's I mean it's it's real work. It takes work. It's not like they can just like run

it through a machine real quick. But the technology is getting better, and what that means is that the supply is increasing, which obviously means it's making it more affordable. And so you know, to you as a consumer, that is only good news. But also consider going vintage and see if there's a family ring or a family stone that's actually the kind of ring I have, which means

obviously that it was free my favorite price tag. But then in addition to that, obviously it has much more meaning than say a ring that you know, Kate were to have purchased, you know, online or somewhere else. I see you staring at my thirty three cent ring saying it doesn't have any meaning. Man, if it has a meaning to you, that's that's all the meaning you need.

And so how much you spend on a ring, and I think this is so important, but keep in mind, right, how much Joel, you spend on a ring isn't representative how much you love someone. But the type of ring you have should be a reflection, you know, of your values and of your interest. We have some friends who they value local artists and the type of ring that they chose doesn't even look like a traditional engagement ring,

but to them it's super special. It means so much to them and it's a unique work of art and there's just really no other ring like that. Yeah, you were just talking about vin to Drinks, Matt, And that's what I went on the hunt for for for Emily. For my wife. It was kind of a fun shopping process, and when I handed her that ring, I just, I mean, I knew that it was the perfect thing for her.

And also it was one of the kind I feel like I kind of hit the trifect though, where I saved some money, I gave her something incredibly unique and something that was meaningful as well. So just know that there are multiple ways to go about ring shopping and maybe you know, one of those Cheapo silicone rings is completely fine for you, that's great, Or maybe a lab grown diamond or a vintage ring. There are all these options. Just make sure you're not bound by convention when you're

choosing what sort of ring to get. Joel, speaking of rings, have I already told you the story about Kate's engagement ring having to get cut off before the wedding. No, that sounds terrible. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's a long story. Well I'll save it for some other time, but remind me next time we talk about personal articles insurance. I sure will. That's a common thing too for people with metal rings. My dad literally just had to get his cut off a couple of weeks ago to save his

finger from falling off. No joke, Oh my gosh. Okay, Well, on that note, let's talk now about wedding bands, and not the kind that you wear on your finger, but a musical wedding band. And so a question you need to ask yourself do you even want a full wedding band? And if so, then great, that's awesome. But if not, that's an average right there of four thousand dollars that

you can save. Yes, So if you're googling wedding band and then your city, you're probably gonna pay too much because you're gonna find the bands that specialize at playing at weddings. But if you can keep an eye off for folks who aren't in traditional wedding bands serving the wedding industry, because, like Matt mentioned earlier, everything costs more

money when it has the world wedding attached. Maybe you could scout out events at local breweries and festivals and find bands that are in your area that don't cater specifically to playing at weddings. And if that's the case, if you can find a local band that's pretty solid that's willing to play some of the tunes that you want played at your wedding, you can save a lot of money on a band that way. Yeah. Man, that's

exactly what what Kate and I did. We got this band and they weren't technically a wedding band, but they were sort of this jazzy, kind of nice cocktail all our like band and we were able to request a few songs that we definitely wanted and man, we loved it. We were able to get the vibe that we're looking for and have the band aspect of it, but without paying that big price tag. However, if you're not into a full band, you can get a good DJ, and

they are typically you're going to be more affordable. You can spend arounds for them, and you know, you might be tempted to have a friend run it kind of do the old school iPod thing where they're you know, playing music off their phone, and that can throw a

whole wrenching things, right. Yeah, I would only recommend this if they know their way around a sound system and if they feel comfortable running the show at the reception, because honestly, everything kind of falls to the DJ or the band because there's a microphone and people are going to listen to over has the microphone. Um, so that might be one area that if you're really focused on having just an awesome party. If that's the case, then you definitely want to either spend that money on that

DJ or the band. Yeah, your friend might know how to pull up the right playlist from Spotify, but are they a decent m C. And a decent MC goes a long way in getting people out on the dance floor and just making sure things go smoothly. All right,

Jielso next we're gonna talk about photography. It me, but for it we'll give our thoughts on wedding photography, flowers and some other things right after the break all right, Matt, So I know you're gonna say that we should pay our wedding photographers twenty grand of pop right at the typical going rate. That's like the starting price, right, twenty k I mean, obviously I'm biased, right, this is what

I do. But honestly, man, other professionals that I've talked to in other wedding planners, they all say to wedding photography may not be something you want to cut corners on. I will say, the only real wedding horror stories I've heard from people are from people who did skimp on a wedding photographer. That's what I'm saying, man. And I'm not trying to get people to pay you more money for weddings. That's definitely not what I'm going for, thank

you very much. But people that don't have good pictures or sometimes any pictures to show from their wedding after the fact, that's devastating. Man. Like, we're talking about this all important day and ways that you can save money

on it. And I think that there are ways that you can save money on photography, and we'll talk about that, but ultimately going as cheap as possible in this one area, you know what you're gonna regret more than that extra thousand or two thousand dollars you spent on a wedding photographer. You're gonna regret not having any pictures or having really crummy, grainy pictures, because those are pictures that you're gonna want to look back on for years and years and decades

to come. Yeah. Man, there are ways, though, to save on wedding photography. Oftentimes I'm contacted by a couple that may not have it in their budget to spend as much on wedding photography, and they asked me, like, how can I still get good photos? And I try to point them in the direction of new and up and coming photographers because the fact is they haven't established their business yet. They might have a fantastic eye and really are going to be amazing in a couple of years,

but they just haven't established themselves. And a couple that's looking to get married can lock in those early rates, and as that photograph for gets the experience, they're going to continue to raise their rates. Man. That's exactly what we did. We had a lot of folks that locked us in when we first started, and man, we were

raising our rates three or four times a year. And there are some weddings where we're shooting a year later and a couple of had booked us super early, and you know what, they were getting a heck of a deal because we were charging more than double what we're charging at the time when they booked. So catch them on the ground floor, that's what you're saying. Yeah, yeah,

buying low and sell high. Right. It's hard to know exactly what the trajectory is going to be for a photographer in their career, but look at the work, meet with them. If you connect on a personal level and if you like the images, you just gotta go with your gut. Another main consideration for folks is flowers, and it's definitely worth considering a local flower shop to kind of help d i y your flower situation at your wedding.

You can also consider going to Trader Joe's or Kroger even and loading up on some flowers from the flower section and creating your own flower arrangements. One thing that Emily and I did when we got married was we created paper flowers crafty. Yes, so it's kind of crafty. It was unique, it was different, and it was cheap, and so that was kind of a nice fun way to do our center pieces. It created the effect we were going for, and you know, we saved a lot

of money in the process. You know, what, do you guys still have those around. I remember when we first met you guys, y'all had some of those around your house. You use them to decorate your place? Yeah, no, they're all gone out. Our kids probably ate them smashed up. But but yeah, I think for a while it was kind of fun to decorate with some of our wedding stuff. But at this point, man, I don't know where any

of that stuff is. And so, yeah, a local flower shop is is going to be awesome for the personal flowers, so like mutineers and bouquet's and even flower arrangements on on tables and whatnot. However, you're not going to be able to use them though for like large flower installations um or you know, like the arches that go across at the front of the ceremony site, that that sort of thing. If that's the case, you're gonna want to

find an affordable local florists who specializes in weddings. Matt Phillis him on whether you need like a day of coordinator person for your wedding too. Yeah, you may not need, you know, an actual full wedding planner if it's a really small wedding or if it's really simple. You know, if you've got say around fifty guests, and the ceremony and reception are going to be all on the same location.

You may not need a full wedding planner, however, I think almost all weddings should have a day of coordinator. This is the person that's on site making the last minute decisions. They're the person that's normally like being loaded up with all the stress from the day. It's essentially a way to pay somebody for you to be able to enjoy your wedding even more so than you'd be able to. And if you were the one being asked, you know, where do I go? Or how is this

supposed to be set up? These are a lot of questions, uh, and there's just always these last minute things that arise. Yeah, you don't want to be working on your wedding day. That sucks. So that's definitely something worth outsourcing. And whether that means paying for like a big time wedding planner or just kind of finding someone that can be the point of contact and the decision maker on the day of at a more reasonable price point, or even just a type a friend that can handle some of those

basic responsibilities. That's definitely not something you want on your plate on your wedding day, and it's almost worth equating a full wedding planner to someone that's doing your taxes right. Like we've talked before about how you know, the cost of a c p A might be worth it because the savings that they would be able to bring you and your taxes would more than cover their fee. The same thing applies for some planners. I mean, they're pros.

They know are questions to ask, they know how things run, and they know how to get the deals, and so a good planner is well worth it. Matt. Another way that you can plan a wedding without going broke is by communicating well with your partner. And this is honestly probably the most difficult thing to continue to do along

the way. You're starting life together and you've each got ideas of wedding grandeur in your head, and as you move along, you forget to keep those lines of communication open, and so more fights kind of pop up sometimes during

wedding planning. For for couples, if you are the one who tends to be more frugal in the relationship, you might need to compromise just a little bit, because this is a special day, but at the same time, if you want to make sure that you're starting off your life together on the right financial foot, communicating ahead of time before you spend gobs of money on your wedding day, it's a really important conversation to have, not just once, but continue to have as you plan your wedding out.

Another thing to consider is to give yourself actually less time to plan. That might sound weird, but typically the further away you set your wedding date, the longer you have to fret about the details, and the easier it is to spend more money on your wedding. So if you create a shorter window of wedding planning, the likelihood is you're gonna spend less money overall too. And one more thing we would recommend you to consider buying your

wedding decor and other items used. You can buy wedding dresses, decre backdrops, just all sorts of wedding related things that someone else has already paid full price on. So there's different sites like wedding recycle dot Com or Bravo bride Trades as well. You can buy a lot of wedding to core up there, but let somebody else take that hit, right. Yeah, it's gotta be like the equivalent of buying a new car, right, Matt, where you take that huge hit driving off the lot.

Same thing with wedding items. Yeah, there's a certain amount of depreciation that happens immediately upon use. Yeah. And if you don't want to wear a used wedding dress, there are so many more affordable ways to get a wedding dress these days than there used to be. And the same thing with men's apparel. Oftentimes, lots of guys are wearing suits these days, so their groomsmen can wear those suits again, as opposed to paying a one time kind of exorbitant rental feef for a tuxedo. Yeah, and for

a tuxedo that doesn't fit you well at all. I really dislike the tux rentals. I mean, it's a part of the industry, but it doesn't have to be. And that's what's so good about I think the way that we're approaching weddings is that focus on what's important to you. If say you're really into fashion, man, maybe splurge and get that nicer dress or get that nicer suit, But that might mean that you're spending less money on some of the other aspects of the wedding that aren't important

to you, make it your own. Yeah, I think it's important, Matt for folks not too cheap out, but also not to blow it out either. This is an important day, but it's also not a day worth going into dead over or completely stressing out yourself and your entire family over. That's right, man, you wanna take us back of the beer. So today we drank juice pack double dry hopped pale Ale by Toughs Brewery. They're out of Texas, and this

beer had some nice citrus and fruity notes. It was pretty much exactly as advertised, kind of tasted like hoppy juice pack. Yeah, man, it's been a minute since we've had a pale ale on, especially something double dry hopped. Right. I don't know if you've ever had a double dry hopped pale ale on the show, but easy drinking for me this is it gets me kind of fired up and ramped up for some warmer weather here soon. It certainly had some of that hot presence in that hot punch,

but yeah, enough fruit to make it easy drinking. So if you know you like pale ales, maybe it's time to graduate to some double dry hopped pale ales. Yes, So for folks who don't know what dry hopping is, usually that means that the brewer adds a secondary round of hops later on in the brewing process, and that actually kind of creates a little bit more more than

anything of that aroma that comes off the beer. And so yeah, this beer definitely when we opened it and when we poured it in the glass, it kind of hit us in the nose. And I think that's why it truly felt like a pack. Right, Like the beer commercials where they've got the brewers with their hands and the hops and they're burying their face in it sniffing it, that's kind of how this beer drinks. And I love that. Yeah, So thanks to our listener Jake in Texas for sending

us this beer as well. All right, Joel, it is time now for our final thoughts. And you know, there are so many things that we did not discuss, Like there are just lots of ways, lots of small ways that really add up where you can save money. But we're kind of focusing today on the big things, right, just like in our monthly budgets, we tend to focus on the big things like housing, transportation, food like those are the things that have the largest impact on our budget.

And when it comes to budgeting for a wedding, there's just a few big things that have the largest impact on your wedding budgets, and that's what we talked about on this episode. But before we get to those sort of big ticket items, you need to prioritize with your partner and decide what it is that you want your day to feel like and what you want it to look like. And please keep in mind that you can

skip tradition. You need to focus on the aspects of the wedding that are going to be most important to you. One of the biggest line atoms where that wedding budget is typically going to go is for the location of the wedding. You can make a massive dent in the overall cost of your wedding by picking a more affordable location and also by having the ceremony and the reception in the same event space and don't forget to venue that it will allow you to b y O B

as well, and also man guest counts. Keep in mind that every single person you invite to your wedding you're gonna have to pay for and if you're looking at prices anywhere between fifty and seventy dollars ahead, that really adds up. So make sure that every person who you are actually inviting to your wedding that you actually want them to be there, and that you're not just inviting them they're out of obligation. Sorry, and you just didn't

make the cut. Ultimately, though, your wedding is an incredibly special day and you want to make it feel special, but it doesn't take necessarily a ton of money in order to make that happen. Like we said earlier, don't cheap out, but don't blow it out either. You're gonna look back on this day with fondness byron membering it with your partner and the other people that you enjoyed it with. It's not worth going into debt even for

a day as special as a wedding. And just like we do with our finances every single day, we focus on the aspects that are important to us, the things that we actually care about, and then we find ways to cut back on the areas that we don't care about, the things that don't matter. In the same way, you want your wedding to be a reflection of you and your personality as a couple, and so make sure the

money that you spend reflects that. And before our wrap up, man, I want to do a quick thanks to Bree Owens of chaincy Charm Atlanta. She helped us out with this episode and gave us some great tips. So Brie, thank you so much. And as always, you can find show notes at how to money dot com. For this episode will have links to all those important websites that we

mentioned during the show. And if you've been listening to this podcast and have enjoyed it and have found it helpful, we would be happy for you to leave a review up on Apple Podcasts, you know. But if you feel like we've got some room for improvement, we also want to hear from you, and we want to hear that feedback. You can hit us up at how to money dot com slash do Better. Yeah, constructive criticism is so helpful, all right, Joel? Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.