Today we’re going to walk through a really FUN exercise - identifying what wedding stuff you want to SPLURGE on, giving you the clarity to put your money where it matters most.  

I mean, who doesn’t love a great SPLURGE? 

We're also going to discuss "wedding budget shaming", and the notion that what I choose to invest in my wedding experience is none of your business & not for the world of budget wedding planning blogs, social media personalities + thrifty websites to decide.  

This is the 4th year I’ve run this show topic and we keep coming back to it because of the wonderful feedback from couples like you about how helpful it is to approach your wedding budget in terms of your top priorities - and also what you value least, and can therefore scale way back on, or maybe even leave out entirely.  So much more to come on that later in the show!

We’re talking a lot today about money + priorities, and I open today’s show with a candid conversation about weddings, money, and mindset.  I shared a post from Ramit Sethi a couple of weeks back on IG, and it started a really passionate conversation about the ways in which we discuss spending money on weddings. 

Ramit is a New York Times bestselling author & founder of iwillteachyoutoberich.com  and in his original Instagram post he shared this quote:

“If you write money and wedding in the same paragraph, somewhere a wedding bat signal gets activated.  Within minutes 11,000 people arrive & tell you they only spent $6 on their wedding at a barn and loved it and weddings are a waste of money and they’d rather spend $ to buy a home.  @ramit on Twitter

No matter what, the internet wants to tell you that spending money on your wedding is a waste of money.  To them it doesn’t matter how much money you have saved.  Nope, it doesn’t matter what culture you’re a part of.  Nope, it doesn’t matter what your goals are.  To them it’s simple - spending money on a wedding is BAD.  Even worse, in our puritanical society, it’s a - gasp - WASTE OF MONEY.

I HAVE ZERO TOLERANCE FOR THIS BS.  If you want to throw a very small wedding, awesome!  On the other hand, if you want to invite hundreds of people and spend a lot on it - great!  As long as you can afford it, do it.  (No you shouldn’t go into debt.  And no, you shouldn’t ignore future costs, such as building your joint savings.  But this nuance seems to be missed by people shouting about the waste of weddings.) @ramit on Instagram

I was really intrigued by how much Ramit's words stood out, and felt compelled to share (which I did immediately) and got a ton of responses from couples who have felt the burn of being wedding budget shamed, either directly or indirectly, from family, friends, and various blogs and websites that want to encourage couples to be thrifty (which is also totally fine, much more to come …)

Needless to say, I spend a ton of time in “wedding world” throughout the course of researching new shows, interacting with you through emails and messages and comments and such, and the message of SAVING MONEY, SPENDING AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE is everywhere - including, quite a bit, on this very podcast. 

I followed a bit of a rabbit hole, and found a great article on Ramit’s blog titled “How to Save For Your Wedding”.  He summarizes a point that I keep close to heart as I record these shows to share with you, and I’ll quote Ramit here again from the article:

"Despite what society tells you, there’s no right or wrong price for your wedding. You might have a wedding in the high six figures, or you might just have a wedding that ends up costing a couple thousand. Both are perfectly fine. What matters most is that you’re realistic about what you’re going to spend so you know what to save."

Tune in for so much more on setting an intentional wedding budget that highlights YOUR priorities through identifying your "splurge" items!