Marcus Prentice

In this episode we discuss wedding stationery such as invitations and anything throughout the reception venue. We also discuss gifts for the guests and bridal party. We also review Emma’s wedding budget to see if she is still on track and some of the issues that you can have with staying on track with your wedding budget.

Marcus Prentice (00:00):

Hi guys, and welcome to the Partyology Experience. You’re here with Marcus and Emma. We’re here today, talking all things to do with Emma’s wedding, which is coming around pretty quick with lots going on, lots of planning, and lots of things to think about. I’m sure is causing you great anxiety and stress along with everything else that’s going on in the world at the moment. But today we’re going to be talking about stationery, if you’re doing any kind of stationery, gifts for the guests, bonbonniere and budget. So whereabouts are you in regards to stationery? I guess you’re not having a sit-down dinner yours is a cocktail style, so you don’t need to do table names and all that sort of stuff. But is there anything that you’re doing along these, these lines.

Emma De Jong (00:42):

So we don’t really need any of those sort of things, but we do need a little bit. I want lots of signage ,so I need signage for the grazing table which I also want really cute little sayings on it and all that sort of things. I want bar menu and some really cute little sayings on the bar. So we will still have lots of stationery in regards to signage. but nothing really, like, I’m not going to have like table one and table two and people’s names and menus and stuff like that, but lots of signage and that sort of respect. I’ll definitely have a welcome sign and stuff like that as well. So still lots of signage just but not your average table numbers etc.

Marcus Prentice (01:19):

And so have you had to do much research for this or is it you knew somebody already.

Emma De Jong (01:23):

In regards to what I wanted, I found on Pinterest, like there’s lots of cute little sayings you can find on Pinterest. For example, like alcohol made me do it or things like that, like just funny little quirky things or no party started with the salad or something. There’s like cute little saying she can have like that. So I found out to those sort of things that I liked. I do have someone that going to be using to do all my invites and signage. So someone that I know personally, so that person will be doing invites and signage across the board, so everything will match. So the invites and everything like that.

Marcus Prentice (01:54):

And it is good to have that consistency with the coloring. It makes planning everything easier. If, you know, once you’ve picked your color scheme, if it’s in ties in with all your invitations and all that sort of stuff, it makes life heaps easy, doesn’t it? So obviously you don’t really need to do a lot, so it’s not causing you a lot of great stress or anything like that and you’ve already found somebody. Has the cost been more than you thought, or it’s, it’s not a great cost to you.

Emma De Jong (02:17):

It’s not a crazy cost in regards to this sort of thing. I didn’t think this was going to be a massive part of the budget. So it’s not something that I budgeted crazy amounts for. I think to save the cost would be like for example for the invite I’ve cut the save the dates and so everyone writes, if they’re coming on, not on our wedding website. Ive tried to cut down the process a bit than what your traditional wedding would do so that will save costs on postage which can sometimes end up being more expensive than most of the other things.

Marcus Prentice (02:49):

Yes we’ve talked about this in previous episodes about doing the wedding website and stuff like that and it’s going to save you a lot of money if you’re not doing a lot of stationery. If you’re doing lots of printed stuff, then obviously it really starts to add up. And just from a, you know, people are time poor these days. So if it’s convenient to go onto a website and send electronic, yes, I’m coming to your wedding rather than have to go get a stamp and posted it.

Emma De Jong (03:14):

People won’t do that. They’ll forget about it. And I will probably end up chasing everyone at the end.

Marcus Prentice (03:19):

Yes and so it ends up being a lot of work for you and it’s work for them. So electronically these days, it is a lot easier and it is nice to get a written invitation in the mail, but at what expense is it the best experience for everybody involved to have to do all that work to send a yes. I’m coming to your wedding sort of thing.

Emma De Jong (03:38):

Yeah. Yeah. So we’ll just send the invite and that’s it. And that will be the only main thing that we’ll be sent.

Marcus Prentice (03:42):

In your case, if we move on to the bonbonniere or guest gifts and gifts for your bridal party and other important people in your wedding. Have you thought much about that because that’s definitely going to cost a lot more than in stationery in your case, I guess.

Emma De Jong (03:59):

Yeah, I will. I’m not quite sure on what I’ll decide to do with this. I want to do something that’s like something that people can use. I don’t want to have something that people will just throw out. I want something that will be useful or they can eat.

Marcus Prentice (04:13):

Yep. Fair enough.

Emma De Jong (04:14):

Because people like to eat things. So I have seen little cute, like little water bottles that people have had with like little Panadol and Nurofen on the front saying take one home with you for tomorrow. Or just like funny little quick things like that. I like things like that. Or, you know, some people put succulents in pots and people take a pot home. I don’t know. I haven’t really thought too much into it yet. I want something not over the top, but just something that people can use. I just hate having to take something that you’re probably not gonna use.

Marcus Prentice (04:43):

So have you looked around much for this?

Emma De Jong (04:45):

I haven’t really done much research on how much it’s going to cost yet. I kind of need to sort of work out what I actually want to do and then work out how much it’s going to cost per person.

Marcus Prentice (04:52):

I guess it can add up pretty quickly if you’ve got a hundred plus guests, if you’re buying a gift for everyone, even if it’s a small gift, even if it’s $5, it still adds up pretty quickly. And I’m sure that most gifts are probably at least $10. I’m guessing fairly minimum. It can add up quickly and some people go all out and some people just give them per couple. So depending on your budget and if you’ve got lots of couples there and it’s something they can both use at the end of the day, it’s a token, isn’t it? Yeah. Like everyone understands that weddings are quite expensive. So yeah. It just depends on how much you want to spend. The next thing which then leads into is budget and we’ve talked about budget before. How are you going with budget? Is it becoming painful yet? Are you really starting to get down to the nitty gritties. So where are you at with your budget at the moment?

Emma De Jong (05:46):

Well, I’m the budget queen on the budget queen when it comes to anything. I do, we are a household budget. I do every budget of every single thing that I have in our lives. So I locked doing a budget. It’s just sometimes I don’t like what the end number is.

Marcus Prentice (05:59):

So obviously you’ve done more research in the past weeks and you’re starting to realize what the things are going to cost more than you thought.

Emma De Jong (06:06):

I think in my head, I already knew. And I think I already knew that it was going to be over what I thought originally we would spend. And it’s not until you put things down on a piece of paper or we’ve got an actually I’ve actually got now a full organized wedding budget so I can put in all the pricing and everything like that. So the lady who’s doing our stationery has actually put this together from her own wedding. So it’s a really good thing to use. It’s a great template. So I’m using that at the moment. So I have budgeted what I think most things will cost. I think are gone overboard on some things but I do know that some things may be more. Currently I’m spending about 5,000 over the budget, so that’s not too bad. I had already sort of gauged that was what was going to happen.

Marcus Prentice (06:49):

Have you factored in every cost at this point, or are there still more to go?

Emma De Jong (06:53):

No.

Marcus Prentice (06:53):

So it could be potentially a lot more then.

Emma De Jong (06:55):

Its all the little things that I haven’t accounted for that I need to account for. Like, I haven’t done, you know, presents for the bridal party, like little things that I know that they’ll end up being thousands by the time I’ve added them all together. So I’m trying to cut back on a couple of things. Instead of spending 15 hundred dollars the duo, I spend a thousand, so that saves me 500, just little things like that. Just trying to cut costs on some of the other things. Still not skimming on those things though. I really want to make sure I get what I need for those particular points. Making sure that I don’t spend the top budget I put in there at the moment because I will be going way over.

Marcus Prentice (07:29):

I guess again comes down to what sort of wedding do you want what’s most important to you. Spending the money on the things that are going to make the difference on the day. So as we talked about before entertainment and dancing and all that sort of thing, if that’s super important to you, you got to make sure your budget goes in on that. If florals are your thing and you want it to look really nice in regards to flowers and smells and all that sorts of thing. Then you’ve got to spend the money on important things like that. I know a wedding I did, we did a few years ago for a couple, and they were big on the party side of things. They were having it in a big mansion down on the Mornington Perninsula, and they had hired a great space which had a tennis court, big pool, and the bride wanted to be super fun.

Marcus Prentice (08:13):

She came and saw us and at the time when she happened to come into the showroom, we had a light up dance floor set up and we were just playing around with it. She loved the look of it straightaway. She hadn’t thought of a lot of a light up dancefloor for her wedding and most people don’t. For whatever reason she, she saw it and she got it in her head that she wanted it, but it was whether she could fit it in with her budget. We then talked about different things to do with their wedding and she said at the venue that there was a pool there and she wanted to put flowers in the pool and she’d being quoted, I think couple of grand for flowers, just to float in the pool, which most people wouldn’t really see once it got dark anyway.

Marcus Prentice (08:47):

The bride ended up spending less on the flowers and more on the dance floor. And that’s where everyone was for most of the night and all the photos were people dancing and having fun. The flowers I’m sure would have looked nice, but was it the best spend for her budget, probably not. Speak to her after the wedding, she was so glad she had spent money on that because she wanted that party to be a bit of fun and different at the end of the night for the party side of things. Not taking away from flowers, I think flowers look great but if your budget doesn’t allow for that, then you need to spend the money on the things that are gonna make the difference. So is budget then causing you a lot of anxiety?

Emma De Jong (09:26):

It doesn’t cause me anxiety. I just think I’ll just re shuffle costs. Because I do all the budgets for everything else. I’ll just shuffle costs.

Marcus Prentice (09:34):

Hit your boss up for a raise or something like that or steal from mum and dad or something like that.

Emma De Jong (09:39):

So I think I am not one of those people where I’m not going to be like, this is my budget and I’m not going to go over it and I’m only going to stick to that. I think at the end of the day, if you’re going to spend a large portion of money like we are and I think most people do 5,000, 10,000 over isnt the end of the world. I know that sounds like a lot, but I don’t think in 10 years time, I’m not going to be looking back saying, Oh my God, I spent five or 10,000 over budget. I’ll be like, how awesome was our wedding? And I’m so happy I spent that extra money. So in my headspace its is like that but my partners its not . We’ve decided that we’ve made the decision that we don’t talk budget.

Marcus Prentice (10:16):

So is this how you make it to the wedding.

Emma De Jong (10:18):

Yes. That’s how, that’s how you stay married. I think more for the fact that, because I had more of a reallistic idea on how much things cost I understand. Where because he has no idea how much things cost he freaks out. I tell him how much things cost and he’s like, you’ve gotta be joking. It’s like, it’s one of those things. Like he loves cars and he tells me he’s buying a car part and I’m like, how much? Like, how are you spending that much money on a car part? And he’s like, well, you know how much it is. So, you know, unless you understand how much things cost you cant see the value . It’s not that the wedding’s not important to him, but those things are not important to him in the scheme of things at the moment. I think for our lives and making sure we going to get married, we just don’t talk about budget. I think a lot of people do this. I know girlfriends have done this in the past where they’ve told the partner it’s 15 thousand and it’s ended up being like 18 thousand and you know what? They didn’t know any different. They had a great time and it is what it is.

Marcus Prentice (11:08):

That’s right. If it adds to the overall experience, I’m all for spending extra money.

Emma De Jong (11:13):

On stupid things. I think if, if your wedding budget’s 50,000 and you end up spending 70,000, I think then you need to be really thinking about, are you spending the money on the things that you need. If you spend 50 and it’s getting closer to 57 and you really need to have that particular band or that particular thing, that’s really important to you, then spend the extra money.

Marcus Prentice (11:32):

I’ve done so many weddings, some of them 50 grand and some at 30 grand or whatever, and I can tell you just spending more money, doesn’t always mean it’s going to be a better party.

Emma De Jong (11:42):

Make sure you spend it on the right things and the things that mean the most for you because you, you are the one that’s paying for it. And you’re the ones going to enjoy it with all your family and friends. Be smart about too though as there is things that people I think spend money on, that at the end of the day matter.

Marcus Prentice (11:59):

I know people have borrowed money and gone into debt for their wedding and lots have been paying it off 10 years later. The sad thing is the the money that they borrowed to spend on the extra stuff didn’t even make a difference.

Emma De Jong (12:10):

So there’s a fine line and I think don’t get too over the top and stick to what you think you’re comfortable with spending. At the end of the day, it’s not it’s not a massive show. I understand there are lots of different type of brides. There’s brides that want to just do really casual. Some that it’s just a show for them and they have hundreds of hundred family members that they’re going to invite, and this is what they do. So this is the biggest thing they do in their whole lives. It really depends on where you’re in the scale, but you need to be calm and not turn into a bridezilla and this is meant to be happy, not aggressive or nasty.

Marcus Prentice (12:44):

The budget’s usually the thing that causes the most stress. I guess if you can take anything out of all this, it’s doing your research, isn’t it? Because this is where you’re getting the shocks where you’re going, Oh, I didn’t realize that photographer was 10 grand or I didn’t realize that the venue is going to cost me 20. And I thought it was only gonna be 10.

Emma De Jong (13:02):

Dont do your budget unless you have worked out how much, these things cost

Marcus Prentice (13:04):

Do a lot of research first. Work out what’s most important to you be it flowers or photographers or bands or whatever it is. Pick those things first, make sure then you can afford those things and then work out everything else from there. If you don’t do your research, how do you know? We get it from our business at feel good events. We quite often give quotes to people for decor and styling and they just don’t realize the amount of labor and time and equipment. And so they do get a bit of a shock sometimes, and then they cut it back or, or whatever. But yeah, again, it’s, what’s important to them.

Emma De Jong (13:37):

Pinterest kills it. Pinterest and Instagram and stuff like that. It’s, it’s a great resource to find inspiration, but you also need to understand that a lot of those things that they post on there like those grand, set ups, they cost a lot of money and time to install. Don’t get for example I want that particular fairy light installation unti you get quotes. The amount of times we’ve had people send frozen at one particular fairy, lot installation that I want this. And I’m like, that’s probably a $40,000 custom installation. You know, you can do things but scale them back and do something that would be within your budget. You’ve got to be realistic about some of these things as well.

Marcus Prentice (14:12):

So have you worked out then, I mean, you talked about a little bit there about cost cutting. Is there certain things that you would cut out altogether or you’re just not sure at this stage because you’re still doing research.

Emma De Jong (14:21):

There’s nothing I’d cut out at this stage. I think that the thing is, that I’m not going overboard. We’re not spending, hundreds of thousand dollars on our wedding. So I think we’re already doing it on a, quite a decent budget already. I think if I was to start cutting things out, I’d be leaving big chunks out. I’d be taking away things that I really want to spend money on. I don’t want to cut back on florists because I think that the budget I’ve given her is going to get what I need and what I want to achieve for me personally. I would be upset taking budget away from that.

Marcus Prentice (15:02):

And from what you’ve said, to be honest, most of the things you’ve said are at the lower end of the budget.You’re not being excessive or anything, $3,000 say on flowers or something like that is very low. I’m sure that Natalie will tell you from Foxy Evergreen that she would get say six, seven, eight, 10, 20, 30,000 dollars or way more than that. So a few thousand dollars is really quite minimum. Entertainment your not spending crazy amounts. Some people will spend 10 grand on a band depending on what they want.

Emma De Jong (15:31):

Im very low scale compared to what some people are spending. So it’s just moving pricing around. But I think the budget will definitely go over and I’ve accepted the fact. It was more the fact that the other day I was like, I’m already sitting at the budget. I thought it would be over. And I haven’t even done every little thing in there. So I’m like, okay, what am I going to start with?

Marcus Prentice (15:46):

You might have to start selling things from your house or spend less than your renovation. Silly girl trying to do renovations and plan a wedding at the same time. So obviously we’ll be talking a lot more about budget beause I think this is a big thing and as we say can cause a lot of stress for brides and grooms. So we’ll be talking about that in future podcasts, but thanks Emma for sharing all that insight today and thanks everyone for listening and we hope you tune in again soon.

If you would like to hear more about Emma’s wedding journey click here.

If you would like some help from one of our wedding planners and decorators click here to learn more.

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If you would like to hear more about Emma’s Wedding Journey click here.

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Marcus (00:00):

Hi and welcome to the Partyology experience. I’m here today with Emma DeJong and we are talking about her wedding and the planning of her wedding over the next few months. In today’s podcast we’re going to talk about budget ,research and guest lists. Now these topics we get asked about all the time ,what should you do, and what order should you do them in? I think for these three things, I’ve put them all together because you sort of need to do them all at the same time. So the first thing you need to work out really is a guest list because once you’ve got your guest list, you’ll know what size venue to look for and you know how many people you’re catering for. So once you’ve done your guest list then it’ll give you a good idea what sort of budget you’re going to need for your reception and for all the other things. So Emma in your research so far or doing your guest list how many have you got coming to your wedding

Emma (00:58):

So around one hundred. It’s sitting at around 112 at the moment, which I think it probably will stay closer to that amount rather than a hundred, but we’ve just told the venue a hundred for now until we work out who’s coming and who’s not coming. The best way that we kind of work this out is we actually did have an engagement party, so we would just use the same list as a guide and took some people off that we thought weren’t going to be invited to the wedding . But that’s probably the best way we did it. So have you struggled then, I guess to hone it back in, because how many did you have in your engagement party? 135. You’ve basically lost say 20 people. Have you found it hard to sort of kull it down a bit?

Emma (01:38):

Not too bad to be honest. Some people I think knew they’ll just come to the engagement party and we’rent going to be invited to the wedding. They were people that were like friends of friends that we knew, but we invited them to the engagement that are not coming to the wedding. So it wasn’t too bad to be honest. I think if I had to kull it down to a hundred it would be more of an issue because I know it’s 12 people that would be very upset. But at the moment, yeah, its around 112 which is not too bad.

Marcus (02:01):

One thing people say they struggle a lot with when it comes to guest lists is how many to invite and how to fit everybody into some sort of budget. I personally have been preaching for years as an unwritten rule and this sort of works but might not work for everyone, but to me I think you should only really invite people to your wedding that you think you’re going to be friends with in five years. Now that sort of makes it hard If you’re working with people and you may have worked with them for a couple of years and you’ve created a great relationship and for whatever reason you left that job you could then ask yourself the question, would I still be friends with this person after I leave this job? Or if they left would I continue being friends with them? So if you don’t think you’re going to be friends with that person in five years time and you follow that rule then you probably will find it easier to cut back on your guest list.

Emma (02:52):

Yes it’s a really good tool to use I think because work is a hard one.I think you work with these people all the time, so you have to face the music do you or don’t you invite them if you are going keep working there. But if you don’t see yourself being friends with them outside of work really like long term, then I don’t think that it’s something you should be looking into. I think you should just not invite them and it is hard, but it is what it is. I find sometimes with guest lists, it’s hard when you’ve got parents that say but I want to have my friends there as well and well we’ll pay for our friends. So it can get into of those sorts of things as well, especially if your parents are sort of paying for some of the wedding as well.

Emma (03:26):

You do get in that sort of sticky situation but I think if you and your partner really talk about it and what you want you kind of work it out. Even speaking to my parents a couple of days ago they said they could of kulled like 40% off their guest list for their wedding they said it was ridiculous. I don’t want to look back and go, I could have invited say 60 people instead.We literally have a hundred people or 112 that are like our closest dearest family and friends. So its really quality over quantity then. A hundred percent, I don’t want to have 200 people to get married in front of 100 is daunting enough.

Marcus (03:56):

Yes I agree .We had 140 at our wedding and a lot of those we don’t see anymore so yes I totally get that. Yeah. So let’s talk the most important thing, budget. Budget’s a big thing for everybody. Obviously budget determines what you’re going to do ,How are you going to do it and all those sorts of things. So have you set a budget and have you worked out how much money to spend on each component of your wedding?

Emma (04:19):

This was a hard one for us I think because we’re both on sort of different terms. I think I have more realistic ideas of how much things cost and BJ has no idea. I think when I told him some of the costs of what it was going to be on the day, I think he nearly had a heart attack and fell on the floor. So I’ve actually decided not to talk to him too much about budgeting. I’ll just go along with the planning and let him know at the end.We,didn’t want to spend crazy amounts of money. We do want to spend more money on renovating our house as we spoke about last time. We have sort of a rough idea of where we’re both sort of happy with budget. I think I’ll be happy to go over it by about 5,000, but that will probably be pushing it with him.

Marcus (04:55):

So yes, as we say, budget is super hard and I guess it really is hard to set a budget when you don’t know costs of anything if you are not in the industry.You have no idea how much it’s going to cost you per head at a function center or how much the photographer costs or the celebrant. So really you can’t set a proper budget until you, research.

Emma (05:15):

I think a little bit for me, because I kind of understood how much things cost it wasn’t like Oh wow, this is going to cost me a fortune. I think some brides go into this saying I want this and that then they realize that’s its going to cost them $10,000 to have that one particular thing. I think that’s when they start to get a bit upset or they turn into a bridezilla because they want what they want but they don’t have the money to afford it, I think what people need to do more is research before they go into these huge grand plans and then let themselves down. I think that’s sort of the one thing I find people really do and it’s, it’s, it’s hard to come back from that when you are that high.

Marcus (05:55):

You know, Instagram and Pinterest make it super hard because you see all these glamorous weddings and you don’t realize that particular setup was a hundred thousand dollars just in the decor alone. Let alone food drinks. and everything else so that’s where it does make it hard. So I would say research, research, research will then give you a better idea for your budget. One resource we have if you are struggling with what you should spend your money on for your wedding is we have on the feel good events website , we’ve got a blog post on, you rough percentages on what you should spend, spend your budget on. That may give you some idea of where you should allocate your money. Now obviously your wedding reception the venue is going to probably take the most of your budget, but you know, at the end of the day it will give you an idea on what you should spend your money on.

Marcus (06:42):

I mean we’ve got a guide on roughly on what you should spend your money on, but you’ve got to think is the money you’re spending on your wedding going to give you the result that you want. I think a lot of the time when people are planning, they’re not necessarily doing that. So they want party of the year, but they’re spending their money on really fancy cars that are costing them $10,000 to hire these fancy cars and you are only in them for five minutes and then you’re in the reception anyway. Even flowers, and I mean obviously everybody has flowers in some degree for their wedding butt some people go over the top but then they say they want their wedding to be really fun and more of a party. In that case are those flowers really adding to that fun party or should they have spent that budget maybe on more entertainment. They then scrimp on the entertainment because they they’ve spent all their money on everything else. The entertainment is what makes it maybe more fun. So really what i am saying is what is going to be most important to you , and what are you going to get best value for money?

Emma (07:39):

Yeah, I’m working a budget around that too. I think a lot of couples should sit down and go, okay, these are the most important points for us. We’re going to spend more money on those things because they’re important to us. And then the things underneath it not so important. Like they might find flowers, not so important for them, but yeah, the duo and the DJ or the band is really important. They spend more on them and I think that’s the best way to do it, to be honest, within reason of course.

Marcus (08:01):

So in doing your research, what have you found to be good and bad? What’s been your experience from your personal point of view? Obviously you deal with venues and all sorts of stuff all the time, so you’re dealing with them on a different level, but when it comes to your own wedding and looking at say venues and that sort of thing and just other suppliers, what, what’s been the good and bad parts of that?

Emma (08:22):

It’s been quite eye opening for me, to be honest. I think because now I have to organize it for myself and I’m very particular and I think because I know so much about the industry and the venues and sort of what I wanted, I had a very sort of tight idea on how I wanted it to go. So for example, an issue that I find a lot is that the actual access times to get into a venue on the day to do your installation of your room is only like two hours. Now for me doing this as a job, I know things take a lot longer than two hours. So I wanted somewhere that would be flexible with me and let me have all day because I knew that was gonna be able to do as much as I possibly could in that day and make it look as how I wanted it to.

Emma (08:58):

I feel people also have these grand plans. Yes, they cost a lot, but they also take a lot of time to install as well. So you might see that floral installation, it’s $10,000, but it takes six hours to install. You don’t have that time, so then you have to pay more on top of your venue costs just to get the extra time, which I think was getting lots of people. And I have lots of brides complain about this all the time. I’m just saying that it’s sort of misleading in the fact that they pay , $20,000 for a venue, but then it’s an extra $5,000 for the extra time. So for me, I was watching out on that pretty quickly going, I want a venue, thats going to give me access times. And also of course the collection as well. Making sure that was a reasonable amount of time, not midnight that night and it had to be out in a half an hour ,that’s not really, realistic for people.

Marcus (09:36):

So have you found suppliers are they getting back to you on time? Is there long wait times for quotes, all those sorts of things?

Emma (09:48):

I think it’s hard the moment we’re actually halfway through a pandemic, so it is a hard one to answer at the moment. I think it’s slightly different. I’m finding it quite frustrating in the fact that a lot of people are taking a lot of time to get back to you and being in this industry, I understand that people are busy and for us at feel good events it sometimes it can take us two days to get back to people and we of course try not to do that. I’m waiting two, three, four, five weeks for quotes and I understand there is a pandemic, but you also feel like you want to be wanted as a bride and that makes me not want to hire from them. I’m like, if this is the hardest process what’s it going to be like on the day for me, I don’t want that extra stress of having to wait five weeks for you to reply. So for me, I sort of just think I’m being lenient. I’m giving them two or three weeks and I think that’s perfectly fine but you know, four or five weeks it’s starting to get like Im really not important to you at all.

Marcus (10:38):

I think there’s something in that that’s a good test if you’re finding you’re dealing with suppliers, whether it be photographer, venue or whatever it might be, and they’re taking weeks to get back to you from the beginning. You’re thinking what’s it going to be like when we do sign up or hand over some money? You are asking yourself are they going to be painful to deal with every time I have a quick question or something like that. Organizing a wedding can be stressfull there’s lots involved in it. So I think that’s a sign that if you’re finding that, a particular supplier is taking a while to get back to you, then maybe they’re not the right choice.

Emma (11:09):

I found a lot in the world of Instagram, especially my age, everyone’s looking for wedding suppliers on Instagram and all the photos look amazing. But I found a lot of these Instagram accounts, they don’t even have websites. And for me it’s sort of a bit of an alarm bell and they’re not that far advanced in the industry to have a website ,do I trust them or not? and that sounds really horrible but for me in the industry, I think a website is something you just have across the board if you’re in business. So I did find it a bit difficult. It was really hard to get in contact with those people because if they’re not checking their Instagram all the time, okay. It was difficult and if they didn’t get their email and I’m trying to chase them all the time. So it was a bit hard.

Marcus (11:51):

So doing research that you have done are you now finding it easier to set the budget.

Emma (11:58):

It is, I think I, I’m a Pinterest lover. I love Pinterest. I have about 400 million boards and everything, like, as Marcus would know at Pinterest, every theme, every single thing and I think I really sickly know where some of these photos that I see that I understand how much it’s going to cost. The budget I think will be workable.

Marcus (12:15):

How much has it blown out so far since you started doing proper planning to where you are now.

Emma (12:20):

I don’t know if it has blown out because I havent worked it out. The hard part is, I kinda, I’m doing any in my head because I kind of know sort of where things are sitting at the moment. I really do need to sit down and actually do the full budget but I know sort of where I’m sitting. I think I was thinking about 20,000 at the moment. I haven’t really done a little nitty gritty things which I know costs the most . So that would be for the venue , and venue takes up a lot of that and I know that of course I’m not doing a big flash bang wedding. So some weddings start off at 20, 30,000 just for the venue ,but I’ve also got, you know, photography and stuff like that in there as well.

Emma (12:52):

So, yeah, I found that the most expensive part at this stage is venue, which I knew. But photography and videography has really thrown me a little bit. I know marcus already knows this because I’ve discussed it with him, but I just really didn’t understand how much this costs. We do it for work, but to do it for yourself as well and work out how much this costs. It was sort of a bit daunting for me because I was like, wow, I just realized that I thought I’d have, you know, four or 5,000 would be maximum me, but I’m looking from seven to eight to nine and that’s just a normal amount. So that’s where I think I’ve gotten stuck as a bride going, okay, what do I value? Do I value my photos or do I value the video more? So that’s sort of something I’m weighing up at the moment cost wise.

Marcus (13:30):

And that’s another key thing there too. I know with our wedding you want nice photos and they are really important because that’s going to help you remember. You just can’t remember the day unless you have these triggers and you want someone good too. So it’s like how much money do I want to spend? Do I want to spend $10,000 on a photographer? And I know from personal experience and from speaking to lots of other people that those photos tend to go in the album because I’m old school, I’ve got a photos in an album. Now its all digital. maybe you might look at it more often. Otherwise they go in the photo album in the cupboard and you pull it out. maybe any anniversary, or maybe every 10 years. Or when the kids want to have a laugh at what you used to look like and what you wore to your wedding when you were skinnier and had hair. So that’s what you’ve got to sort of think of.

Emma (14:16):

Yeah, it’s a fine line I think and I want to spend more money on the entertainment and the fun part, as I said, I want it to be fun, but I also want to capture it as well. I want to spend more money on this component than I do that, but I don’t want to skimp on it either. So it’s a very fine line.

Marcus (14:31):

I think if I was to do it again, I would potentially spend it on video, which we didnt get but I would definitely get a video now. Because you can see people’s reactions and what people’s emotions are. I know a photo capture that, but video is just so much more.

Emma (14:48):

One of my girlfriends got married. I watched her video and I cried the whole time and we watched it two or three times and I cry every time. I’m like, I’m not a cryer. Why am I crying? They’re good at their jobs.

Marcus (14:59):

So again, it’s what’s important to you and this helps you decide as we said before, if you’re big into florals and you want it to look like a flower shop, then you spend heaps on flowers and that will make you feel good. Yeah. But you know, at the end of the day as we sort of talk about a lot of feel good events is is that going to create the best experience or is that going to give you the end results you want ? So the research then at this stage is, you were saying your, your only sort of part of the way through it. It’s not too traumatic for you at this stage.

Emma (15:28):

No, not at this stage. I think it’s just more waiting for people to get back to me. But research wise, most of the content, like it’s so easy the digital age these days with Instagram and Pinterest youve got everything at your fingertips. With the pandemic I can, you know zoom suppliers or FaceTime them or any of those sort of things. So it’s definitely been a lot easier. I’m sure it’s a lot easier than when you plan your wedding Having to, you don’t feel so stressed because you can see physically what their work is.

Marcus (15:55):

I mean, when did research we used to have to ring up venues and then they’d send us something in the mail, there was no internet and they’d send you an album of photos that they’ve done at this venue and the price list. With the research and, and finding supplies and all that, it can be very stressful. And you know, one of the key things we find from weddings and any events and clients that we deal with is that you’ve got to have trust in those suppliers,.

Emma (16:29):

100% if you dont trust them then on the day your worrying that if they’re going to show up or not, are they going to do what they said they’re going to do? So finding suppliers, no matter whether it’s photographer or cake people or florist or whatever, you want to feel comfortable. You want to have a connection with those people so you can feel like they’re not gonna let you down more if you, if you don’t connect with them and it’s all about price, then you potentially can run into issues.

Emma (16:55):

It’s not all about price. It’s price comes down to it and in a degree, but it’s not my top one priority. Like it’s always in the back of your mind, but it’s like if I love someone and I click through them so well, I’d probably pay the extra $2,000 and just, you know, call it a day.

Emma (17:08):

That’s right. If you’ve seen, say it’s a photographer, and they’ve been really awesome to deal with and I just thought they’re just so easy. It made it seem so stress-free for me , you will pay extra for that course.

Marcus (17:20):

So we’ve covered the guest lists. You’re all sorted in that. You’ve worked out roughly how many you want to come , you’re in the research path ,so you’re heading down that way and you’ve sort of got a budget at this point, so you’re on the way there. Hopefully you’ll be able to nut out the budget, I guess when you’ve sort of finalized some of the suppliers and stuff, waiting for the quotes to come back.

Emma (17:43):

I think that’s when I will do up my firm budget. But I’m doing the thing that I tell everyone not to do and thats do a firm budget and I haven’t done a firm budget .

Marcus (17:49):

If you’re paying for the wedding yourself, which a lot of couples do these days obviously makes a difference on how much you spend. We know the average spend for a wedding is around the $50,000. It’s getting high now, so that’s a lot of money. So you really want it to be a good fun time.

Emma (18:04):

Well thats a house deposit , you want to make sure you have a good night.

Marcus (18:07):

So you really want it to be good for all the right reasons so it’s a, it is a big decision. If you’re lucky enough to have parents or other family put in money, then that’s great. But it’s tough to work out their budget. But I guess from what you’re saying, research, research, research to find out what supplies you want.

Emma (18:26):

I think do that first before you really work out your budget. Because I think some people they do, they just have unrealistic ideas on how much things cost. And then I think they fall in love with a look and then they can’t go backwards and then they’re, then they’re becoming stressed because they can’t afford what they want. And I think that, you know, I will go over my budget a little bit and I’d be happy to spend a couple extra thousand dollars because if it’s going to be worth it, it’ll be worth it. But not tens of thousands I think, you know, don’t stretch yourself to the point where you can’t leave. You’re going to be eating rations for the next eight years.

Marcus (18:56):

It’s not worth it eating wedding cake for three months afterwards because you can’t afford the wedding. Well thanks Emma it’s been great talking about budget and research and stay tuned and we’ll be discussing more suppliers and everything tog to do with wedding planning in our next podcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks.

Come on a journey with Partyologist and event planner Emma De Jong as she starts to plan her own wedding. In this episode you will meet Emma and how she is going with her wedding planning. We start to discuss her wedding journey and everything that is involved.Listen to how someone who helps plan weddings and events for a living decides on her own wedding suppliers and her mindset around her wedding.

Marcus (00:00):

Hi guys, welcome to the Partyology Experience podcast. My name’s Marcus. I’m the owner of feel-good events and I’m here today with Emma the general manager of feel good events. Emma’s silly enough to be getting married in about eight, nine months time, I think 10 months time. Not that she’s counting and we thought it would be a great idea to talk about Emmas planning process and everything that she’s going to go through in planning for her wedding and the good and bad points. We will look at the highs and the lows of all her planning and everything, that anxiety that comes around and planning a wedding. Emma does planning weddings and events for our living, but it’s different when you’re doing it from start to finish for yourself. So we thought it’d be a great experience for her to talk about what she’s learned, what she knows based on her own experience. And hopefully you get some tips and ideas on what to do and what not to do. So, welcome Emma. Thank you for joining me on the podcast today. So first of all, we have to ask you why you’re getting married. I mean, why would you want to do that? All the experience, the pain, the anxiety. Why would you want to do that.

Emma (01:02):

Oh, no, no. I’ve been with my partner for a long time and I think, you know, it’s something we’ve always wanted to do. We’ve always wanted to sort of follow the path of, you know, buying our first home, then getting married and having children. So it’s just the way that we decided we wanted to do things. So my partner is Ben, I call him BJ. most people will know him as BJ. He has just finished six years in the Australian army and now is currently working full time renovating our home , we’re very crazy in the fact that we are planning a wedding as well as renovating our home and working. So it’s pretty busy for us at the moment.

Marcus (01:38):

So you must be absolutely crazy to, you know, to do a renovation together and then, spend all this money on a wedding and a renovation all at the same time. You must be one, you must be cashed up and two you must really love each other to put yourselves through this torture. It’ll be a good test to see if you’re going to make it to the wedding.

Emma (01:56):

It’s been a definitely a test for our relationship. We’ve been through a lot of things now, in our long relationship, but this is a whole another ball game. It’s, you know, making decisions on tiles and where rooms are gonna be and we have different sort of thoughts on what we want to do. So yeah, it’s definitely hard. We’re definitely not loaded, I can tell you that, but we’ve worked it out so that we could get married and renovate the same sort of time. So renovations clearly happened by the end of this year and then we’ll get married next year. So it’s all happening. How long have you been engaged for? So we’ve been engaged for a year and a half. I had to think about it cause I actually had forgotten how long it had been. It’s gone so quickly. So you’re a year and a half.

Marcus (02:30):

And how much planning have you done in that time?

Emma (02:32):

Not a huge amount to be honest. Actually, I’ve only sort of just started in the last couple of months. I sort of thought I’ll leave it up until about a year before and then I’ll start getting a bit more serious. Probably in the last two, three weeks I’ve started really getting my head around it. Yeah, it’s, it’s just trying to get what I wanted to do and work out and I sorta saw it probably should get my head into gear and start organizing it.

Marcus (02:55):

So do you think because you work in events and you do this all the time, you’re a bit more relaxed about it and you know that timeframe’s a lot better and, you know potentially who you could use for supplies. Do you think you’ve sort of given it a bit more time because of that reason or you’ve just been busy and haven’t been able to fit it in?

Emma (03:12):

No, it’s not that. I think because I feel a bit more confident in the choices I make because I already know the suppliers. I know what their work is like. I trust them a hundred percent, and I feel like I don’t need to do too much more research. I think being in the field already, you kind of understand how long the lead times are. I think some people think they’re a lot longer than they need to be ,there is lots of suppliers out there. But yeah, it’s, it’s of course we weddings it’s if you want a particular date you really do need to lock the people you want it on for that date , that’s probably the hardest thing. It’s definitely hasnt been stressful for me at this stage ,so yeah, it’s not been too bad.

Marcus (03:49):

And so have you been looking forward to the planning of doing your own wedding or like is this something you’ve been, you know, for years, I can’t wait to plan my wedding because you do it for so many other people or are you sort of just another wedding?

Emma (04:00):

I haven’t, I’m not one of those girls that was like growing up at 10 or 12 and going, Oh, I just want to get married. This is what I’m going to do for my wedding. I’ve never been sort of like that. I guess I was sort of more sort of focusing on trying to find someone to marry first that actually planned the wedding. It’s probably been the last sort of couple of years. I think I sort of waited because we’ve actually been together for 13 years this year, so it’s been a long time in the waiting to get married. So I didn’t want to get too excited and plan it before we even got engaged. So I think, you know, one step at a time. Yeah. So do you know what sort of wedding you want? We’re both pretty relaxed , individuals , we’re pretty low key.

Emma (04:36):

We just loved to spend time with their family and friends. We don’t like to be like overly formal. So it was never going to be a formal affair for us at all. It was always going to be really chilled. And it’s funny because some people I think thought we were going to do this huge, massive wedding and I was going to be out of control. It’s just not us. Like I don’t like being center of attention. That is the worst thing for me. Like even walking down the all gives me anxiety. Like I just, I even think about it. I don’t do this as a job, but I’m always behind the closed doors. I’m never in front of it. So it gives me, that’s my only stress for this is to do with walking down the aisle. Well, depending on how the renovations go, you could be go down the aisle in a coffin because your partner may of killed you by then ,Who knows? So you won’t have to worry. No, I don’t have to worry at all. But yes it is. That’s the only thing that I find, yeah, a bit stressful about, but we’re going to be pretty lucky with this.

Marcus (05:20):

I think that’s pretty common, isn’t it? Like so many. I mean, you know, doing events and parties for so many years, I’ve spoken to so many brides and their stress about being the center of attention and there’s lots of people like that and you know, just because of getting married, there’s going to be that element of being center of attention. But you can, there’s ways around that so you don’t have to be in front of everyone all the time.

Emma (05:41):

We’ve done that. Yeah. And I think most of the day we probably won’t be the center of attention. It will just be for that split second of getting married and that half an hour of the ceremony. And then after that it will just be about spending time with our family and friends and having a good time. That’s really the main goal. Yeah, for sure.

Marcus (05:55):

Okay. So, and how many people have you got in your bridal party?

Emma (05:58):

so we’ve got three, actually, we’ve got three each. So I’ve actually got two little cousins, a different Sydney and they’re too old to be flower girls and they’re too old, sorry too young to be bridesmaids. So we’ve decided to call the mini bridesmaids, which they’ll absolutely love, actually haven’t asked them yet. So I need to do that soon. so there’ll be my three main bridesmaids and then the two mini bridesmaids and then the three groomsmen. So was that, was that a hard decision to choose those people or easy choice? It was hard for me. I’m actually have a very big group of girlfriends from high school. There’s 10 of us in the group and I’ve also got other friends like friendship groups as well , So it was a bit hard. Like I have three girlfriends that I’ve been best friends forever and they’re the ones that I’ve loved forever and , you know, I get along with them the most and that sort of thing.

Emma (06:49):

And it was quite easy to pick those three ,but you do feel bad not picking everyone. Because of course you always do have more that you like while you could have four or five and you’re like, once you get to four or five its like , then we could have 10 and then it is expensive to, you know, have to pay for all those things as well. I don’t want to have a huge crazy bridal party either. It was just sort of our three favorites and lets sort of called a day. It’s true though, like you always do. It is what it is and it is a hard situation. But I think the people that haven’t been chosen understand, and it is what it is. Another way around that is you can some of those other people that you maybe were on the cusp of should or shouldnt I maybe you can get them involved in something else at your wedding you’re wanting to makes them feel special.

Emma (07:33):

Some people, you know, they’re not first, they’re just happy to be there, but of course, you know, they might be happy to do it or do something else that’s important and makes a contribution. And we probably will do that with some of my other family and that sort of thing and getting people involved that we love. Both of us have really good friendships and family members. So yeah, we’ll, we’ll find spots where we can definitely have people involved as well, but just not sure on what they are at the moment. We haven’t really worked that out. So I guess thinking about your overall wedding, you know, you’re in the early stages now. You’ve obviously, you’ve been thinking about it, I’m sure for a little bit of time. What would you say are the three most or couple of the most important things that you really want to happen at your wedding?

Emma (08:15):

Well, three things that stand out to you that you go I definitely got to have that or I definitely want to do that. I want fun to be a really big one. I find that there’s nothing worse than going to a wedding and you do get a bit bored. I want fun in the fact that I want people dancing and I want to have some sort of entertainment. The things that keep people entertained during the night. Were having a cocktail style style wedding , So it’s not a sit down like it’s a formal setting where you know what’s happening. I want to fill some of those spots with things that are gonna make fun , but saying fun. I also want it to be quite relaxed and I don’t want anything to be too formal as such. So we wouldn’t be doing anything crazy in regards to formalities.

Emma (08:51):

Yeah they’re probably the two main things. The third one is I do want things to look nice. I think every bride wants things to look nice. Yeah. I noticed that with so many Instagram posts that people post and accounts and stuff like that, it is all about what it looks like, but I also do really want it to function properly too. That is one of the main sort of highlights for me. Yeah, we will be focusing on that alot. I think coming from events, it’s sort of, I already know that already. So I sort of, it’s easier for me to sort of work out how on a work around that. So yeah. And so, you know, if you were to interview some of your guests in a year, five years, something like that, how would you like them to describe your wedding?

Emma (09:27):

Looking back at it, how would you like to describe your wedding? Looking back at it. And that’s a hard question to be honest. Okay. I want people to say it was really fun. I want people to say it was really us. I don’t want people to go there and go, it wasn’t really like them to do this. It was a bit out of the ordinary for them to do that. I really want people to go there. Oh, this was so Emma and BJ like it’s so, it was so nice. Everyone had a great time and that is the main thing for me. So when all your friends to come from the nudist club, theyll go, that was Emma and BJ. Okay, well that’s good ,So basically with these podcast this is the initial get to know us, and get to know Emma and where she is in her planning. So this is just a general info on when she is getting married, all that sort of stuff. What we’ll be doing over the coming weeks and months is, I guess highlighting some of the more specifics, talking about venues and things like invitations , flowers , decor and entertainment and much more. Lots to discuss to detail. So yeah, stay tuned. We’ll be hopefully having a podcast at least once a week, maybe more because there’s so much to talk about. But thanks for tuning in today and we hope to see you soon. Thank you.