We Set Our Wedding Budget 😬💍

Welcome to a new month! 

It’s September 1st, and it also happens to be Dennis’ birthday - hopefully we can send that birthday celebration joy through this email and into your week, too. 🧁🎉

In other news, we’re back with another issue of Money Convos with Steph & Den, and we have a lot to share this month. So, let’s get into it! 

Here’s what’s up in this copy 🤑🗞 

• How much should a wedding cost? 💍

• $35k spending challenge 🛍️

• We’re hosting a free investing workshop! 💰

• How to become financially compatible 👩🏼‍❤️‍👨🏿

• Let’s reset for a new season 📝

Money Convo Of The Month

How Much Money Should You Spend On A Wedding??

ICYMI, we’re getting married! And we officially have a wedding budget to share with you. 

Dennis and I got engaged last summer, and we took a minute before we really started getting into the wedding planning process… and let me tell you, it’s a process! 

What I mean by that is - in our case at least - a lot of the work really seemed to come at the very beginning, which was simply the initial decision making process. I’m talking do we even want a wedding in the first place; if we do - what do we want our wedding to look like; what do our families want from the process; what’s our potential guest list… things like that. 

Once we figured out 1) That we did want to have a wedding, and 2) What our main priorities were, the next step was confirming our wedding budget. 

We had a general idea in mind of what we wanted our maximum wedding budget to be, based simply on the fact that spending any more money than that amount just felt wrong to us… But we hadn’t done any ‘sense checking’ to see if that budget amount made sense for us. 

BTW, our initial wedding budget = $30,000.

So, we decided to see if there were any guidelines out there for how much money you should spend on a wedding - and we found two different recommended rules of thumb. 

1. You should spend no more than 5-10% of your household net worth; or

2. You should spend no more than 15-25% of your annual household income

In this case, our initial wedding budget did fall within the lower side of both of those ‘rules’. Now, keep in mind that in general, ‘rules of thumb’ aren’t a guideline that’s set in stone, and sometimes they don’t make sense. 

On one hand, if you have a lot of money, it doesn't mean that you ‘should’ spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a wedding (even if you can). And on the other hand, if you’re getting married young or really early on in your career, maybe the math is just unrealistic. 

But we ran some scenarios, and we feel like these ‘rules of thumb’ are an okay sense check for a wedding budget. 

After that, we started getting quotes for different venues and other wedding related expenses, and decided to land on a concrete budget of $35,000. Our plan is to spend slightly less than that amount, but our absolute maximum amount is $35,000. 

So far, we’ve paid a 25% deposit for our venue (which includes the catering and drinks along with the ceremony and dinner spaces), and an initial deposit for our photographer / videographer. 

We’ll be sharing more about our wedding budget, and other steps in our wedding planning process, in our short form series called Planning Our Dream Wedding With A Budget. Episode 1 and episode 2 are already out, and the next episode will be out later this month! 

In the meantime, you can hear us talk more about our wedding budget in our recent YouTube video.

$35,000 Or Less Challenge 💰

I’m back with another $35,000 or less challenge update!

This is my first month officially calling this a $35,000 or less challenge, and it definitely had me re-motivated to reel in my spending. 

On the other hand, I personally find that more unplanned expenses pop up in the summer - mostly from spontaneous things coming up at the last minute - but I’m happy with how my spending went this month (for the most part!). 

So, let’s jump right into… In August I spent $3,578.15, and here’s how it was split out -

That means that I have $10,111.07 left in my annual total to spend for the next 4 months of 2026. 

I would now need to spend an average of $2,527.77/month for the next 4 months in order to hit my goal.

If you want to see us ‘compare’ our spending for August, keep an eye on our Instagram next week!

Free Investing Workshop

We’re back with more free investing workshops this month! 

We’ll break down how you can start investing in the stock market now, and build your confidence with investing - and, if you already have gotten started, we’ll help make sure that you’re doing the right things for you. 

We’ll specifically focus on passive investing, and taking a do-it-yourself approach. 

We have a few sessions available - each one will start with the workshop, and end with a Q&A where we’ll answer all of your money and investing questions. 

• Tuesday, September 8th @ 8:00pm ET 

• Wednesday, September 9th @ 8:00pm ET 

• Saturday, September 12th @ 1:00pm ET 

If you’re looking to start investing - or improve your investing strategy - this fall, then this is for you! Seats are limited, so save your spot ASAP (again, it’s free!). 

Please note: We focus on Canadian specific investment platforms and accounts throughout the session. You’re welcome to join if you live elsewhere, as the general information shared will still apply to you. 

Sign Up Here - Free Investing Workshop 

We can’t wait to see you there! 👋🏿👋🏻

Becoming Financially Compatible 👩🏼‍❤️‍👨🏿

Something we’ve talked about a lot over the 9+ years that we’ve been together is the concept of financial compatibility.

We come from two different backgrounds - two different cultures, two different socioeconomic statuses, and two different types of relationships with money…

…but we are very financially compatible - we just had to do some work to get on the same page. 

Last month, we decided to start a series breaking down what it means to be financially compatible, and sharing some examples from our own relationship journey. 

Here’s what the different episodes were about -

1. Coming from two different financial starting points 

2. Having two different credit scores after graduating 

3. Having a scarcity vs abundance mindset in a relationship 

4. Supporting your family financially (or not) 

5. Helping each other avoid financial scams

6. Enabling each other financially in a relationship 

7. How ‘enough’ money is different for everyone

8. Growing together in life (and with money!)

If you want to check out all of the episodes in order, we’ll link the Becoming Financially Compatible playlist here. 

We plan on sharing more series like this one (we’re in the middle of one called Making Money Work For Two right now!) over the next few months. 

If you have any ideas for what you’d like to see from us, let us know!

Fall Financial Checklist 🍂🍃

September 1st = back to life season, which means that it’s time for a Fall Financial Checklist.

We still have a few weeks of summer ahead of us, but as you start to transition your mind back out of ‘vacation mode’ and into ‘real life’ mode, we want you to be prepared! This is a great time to refocus on your financial goals before the end of the year is suddenly here. 

Here’s a quick checklist that you can use to reset and get back on track.

• Review your money goals: It’s probably been a minute since you looked at your 2026 money goals… but, you still have four months left to refocus and hit them. Pull out your list of goals, and make an action list - and don’t forget that you can remove goals that aren’t relevant anymore. 

• Check in on your budget tracker: If you went a little off track this summer, don’t stress - you can easily get back on track. Take some time to update your budget, reset it for the new month, and get into your best money mindset again. 

• Prep for your work benefits open enrolment period: If you receive benefits through your job, then your open enrolment period (aka when you’re able to change your current benefits plan) is probably coming up in the fall. Review your current coverage, and see if there’s any changes you want to make for the upcoming year based on what’s going on in your life. 

• Plan for any upcoming expenses: Are you ready for holiday spending? That time of year will be here before you know it - make a plan now so your wallet isn’t in shock in a few months. 

• Sign up for Simple Investing (For Canadians): We’re hosting a live kick-off call for our Simple Investing students on September 14th! If you sign up and join our course before then, we’ll get to see you live - and answer all of your questions during the Q&A segment - on the call. You can sign up here!