18: “We were setting the foundation of our marriage.”

Hey Bride Wedding Podcast with Susana Rodriguez - Engagements / Weddings / Experts / Tips /

Episode 18

“We were setting the foundation of our marriage.”

After dating long distance for only 6 months, this couple took a leap of faith and decided to relocate to the same city. But hey! When you know, you know. Kelsi and Billi, both die-hard college sports fans, made sure to include their favorite players in their wedding theme.

Find out how Kelsi stuck to a 15k budget and how she managed to spend only $65 on her wedding flowers, on episode 18 of the hey bride podcast.

Podcast Highlights

Funny Story

Kelsi’s very serious sister, found Kelsi in her spanks and a tank top right before getting into her dress. Feeling goofy, Kelsi started dancing towards her sister. Her sister was “freaked out” from seeing Kelsi in such a state so, as sisters will do, Kelsi continued making her sister feel awkward and danced some more!

Stressful moment:

Letting a bridesmaid out of the wedding. – During the planning process Kelsi realized that she and the bridesmaid had gone separate ways and she might regret having her in her pictures later.

Best decision: Hiring an Emcee that made sure everybody was involved and having a great time!

Budget advice: They had a $15k budget and they stuck to it. Any financial help they got they would deduct from what they were going to pay out of pocket instead of increasing the budget. And in the end, they celebrated their marriage and came out debt-free.

Tips:

They used theknot.com for budgeting and it definitely helped finding great vendors. They also did research on finding local markets and sales for décor.

Kelsi spent only $65 in flowers by buying their wedding flowers from a local market!

She bought a small cake for display and a Costco Tier Cake to cut.

These are some of the little things that helped them stick to the budget.

What would you do differently: Find a venue that accepts outside catering.

Vendors: Venue: Lord Hill Farms

Catering: Lord Hill Farms

Bar: Lord Hill Farms

Cake: Mike's Amazing Cakes, Costco

Bride's Dress: Storybook Bridal

Bridesmaid Dresses: David's Bridal

Tuxes: Men's Wearhous

Flower Girl Dresses: Tulle Tutu Boutique

Flowers: Pike's Place Market

Decor: All DIY

DJ: Sounds Unlimited

Make up: Lipstick and Lashes

Planners and apps: Hey Bride & The Knot.

Marriage advice: When you accept and admire the difference in each other, you grow stronger as a couple.

From the bride:

My wedding was October 4, 2014. We worked on planning for 13 months and the way we looked at it was we were not planning for a wedding, we were setting the foundation of our marriage in those months leading up to the day we celebrated finally being husband and wife. My entire decor was done myself and we really wanted it to true to our relationship and reflect us as a couple. We wrote our own ceremony and our own vows. Neither of us saw the other’s vows until we were saying them to each other. One of those surprises was we each talked about the exact same thing in our vows (my love for bad tv lol). It really showed that we think as together that something so simple came up in both our vows.

We wanted our day to be all about family and just being together. We kept things simple because neither of us are extravagant people. And we had an epic dance party! So much so that our emcee's wife who is in the wedding industry in California came up to me after right when we were about to leave and said she had never seen a reception that was so fun and that both my husband and I were obviously genuine in our fun because it was contagious.

We definitely had some trials along the way, but who doesn't when planning a wedding. I am a conference and event planner for non-profit associations so I had to really try not to go all business during my rehearsal. I'm extremely OCD and have horrible anxiety so it was all about just letting go and rolling with things. And I'm proud to say I was about to do that.