Inspiring Conversations with Stephanie Milosh of Beauty & the Budget Events

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Milosh.

Hi Stephanie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I fell in love with wedding planning as I planned my own wedding in 2017, and I was immediately hooked. Although I’d never considered owning a business before, the idea of Beauty & the Budget Events popped into my head while I was sitting in my corporate cubicle a month after my wedding, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

My husband, Matt, officially joined the team as the day-of muscle, not only handling the major lifting but bringing his eye for detail and design into the mix. It wasn’t the life we expected when we said our vows, but now we can’t imagine doing anything else.

I wasn’t really aware of the wedding industry until I was part of it – even while planning my wedding, I didn’t realize how many vendors were part of the Raleigh market, and it’s the community that’s been a massive part of my joy in this field. Having the opportunity to network, collaborate, create, and grow alongside other business owners has surprisingly become one of my favorite aspects of what I do, especially since relationships are at the heart of weddings.

With so many talented professionals, it can be hard to set oneself apart and finding vendors who have similar goals, styles, and passions have become a monumental part of how we serve our clients. The vendors we work with love taking care of our clients, and being able to refer vendors we trust gives our couples the opportunity to really have the wedding they want.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
When I started Beauty & the Budget Events, I had no clue how to run a business or plan a wedding, other than my own wedding planning experience.

There was something that intrigued me and drove me to explore the wedding industry, and I was dedicated to learning everything I could. My organizational skills made it easy to keep track of wedding details and my professional approachable attitude connected with couples, but I was completely new to design.

Many wedding planners fall in love with the beautiful details first, but that was an important part of planning that I needed to practice. My design skills are still far from perfect, but I love being able to pull inspiration from the couple’s love story, relationships, and personalities. It’s a nice reminder that there is always something new to be learned, a new feeling to evoke, and new couples to challenge me.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Beauty & the Budget Events?
Beauty & the Budget Events is a full-service wedding planning company that values authentic celebrations of love. We work with couples from all backgrounds, ethnicities, religions, abilities, sexualities, and interests to help them have a wedding that reflects their relationship and personalities.

We help couples at all stages of wedding planning, whether that means walking every step of the way together, or the couple plans and we coordinate and bring the final vision to life. Because every relationship is different, we also offer a la carte partial service so a couple can pay for the help they want, and nothing more.

As our name implies, we believe a wedding can be beautiful on any budget, and we work closely with our full-service clients to help design a budget that reflects their desires and the market prices to help avoid sticker shock. We provide assistance and resources every step of the way – even for our coordination clients – so couples feel confident that they’ve considered everything. We can build out month-by-month planning timelines, so a couple can know exactly what they’re working on and when which is great when planning around busy seasons of life.

Our wedding design workshop, which is essentially a date night where the couple gets to talk about themselves, allows me to pull the keywords from their life to create a cohesive aesthetic that represents both partners coming together – most of the time, couples feel like they didn’t tell us anything that would help with design and are shocked to see what we create with together!

Vendor relationships are a fundamental part of what we do – the referrals from and for other vendors allow us to not only continue growing our businesses, but we’re able to work with couples who are a perfect fit because we know vendors who love serving our ideal clients.

When couples ask for help finding a vendor type, we take their date, aesthetic, preferences, and budget, and we present the couple with 3 vendors who would be a great fit – we take away the research time so the couple gets to meet the best candidates in a fraction of the time. And closer to the wedding, we coordinate with all vendors, asking all the questions a couple might not think about. For example, we’ll talk with the DJ about arrival and setup time, logistics, power and space needs, and the order of events, while the couple just needs to provide their song selections!

At the end of the day, my most important role in making sure all the final pieces come together, and that manifests in a Wedding Weekend Packet. We regularly receive compliments from venues that provide the most detailed packets they’ve seen, and we consider that a huge honor.

My goal is to have your entire wedding vision, including timeline, decor setup, and vendor logistics, written down so clearly that if heaven forbid, something happens to me, your wedding plans are written down in such detail that anyone could pick up the packet and bring the day to life.

And of course, on the day of, we’re on-site for up to 12 hours, coordinating all vendors, running your timeline, setting up all decor, and making sure the couple gets to be the stars of their show and can enjoy every moment.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
Working with new businesses is honestly one of my passions.

I was incredibly fortunate to find a small group of vendor friends when I first started my business, and they helped me grow and learn beyond what I could have expected. Networking is by far the most important part of growing a wedding business because so much of what we do is based on relationships and personalities.

If a couple is going to trust us with their day, they have to like us, and having other vendors who work with the same ideal client makes that much easier. Many vendors are happy to chat with newer vendors, whether that’s grabbing a cup of coffee or letting someone assist with a wedding, and you can’t know until you ask.

Pricing:

• Full-Service Wedding Planning $4000
• Partial Service Planning begins at $2,499
• Wedding Coordination $1,999
• Elopement Planning $1,200
• Standalone Wedding Design Workshop $300

Contact Info:

• Email: stephanie@beautybudgetevents.com
• Website: beautybudgetevents.com
• Instagram: @beautybudgetevents
• Facebook: facebook.com/beautybudgetevents
• Other: pinterest.com/beautybudgetevents

Image Credits
Azy Foley Photography, Kasaundra Felder Photography, Destiny McClellen Photography, MKM Photography, Brian Anthony Photography, Kivus & Camera, Ariel Kaitlin Photography, and Walnut Hill