Carats & Cake is a wedding platform that helps couples with end-to-end financing and just announced a $10.6 million Series A fundraising round. Jess Levin Conroy, Founder and CEO of Carats & Cake, joins ChedHER to discuss this fundraising round, the average cost of a wedding in 2022, where couples can save for this big day.

The Real Costs of Saying 'I Do' in 2022

wedding season is picking up once again, 2.5 million couples tying the knot this year alone. But we know weddings can be a huge expense for a couple with the cost of venues, food, flowers and so much more rising. So today we're diving deep into how couples are managing their wedding budgets and here to join us, jess, Levin, Conroy, founder and Ceo of carrots and cake, a wedding platform helping couples with end to end financing Jess. Thanks so much for joining us. You came out with a survey on wedding budgets, 96.8% of respondents believe wedding costs have increased in 2022. What are some of the biggest expenses for a wedding this year? And what are people really splurging on? Yes, thank you so much for having me. So Couples are spending on venues overall, 60% of your overall wedding budget can be on your venue, in your catering fee. And over 30% of our respondents said that their venue and catering fee alone can be upwards of $50,000. So it definitely is where the majority of that overall event spend budget, is going. Wow, that's incredible. And we know the cost of these venues. I was just joking with my producer, I'm having these conversations with friends, they can be astronomical. So you mentioned that $50,000 price tag, what is the average cost for wedding in 2022. And how much exactly has it risen over recent years? Yeah, so, 64% of the couples that we surveyed, so that their wedding budget is at least $50,000 and it goes up from there costs are definitely rising almost 100% I think it was 97.8% of our respondents said that they felt that their budgets have increased year over year. Obviously there are rising costs due to inflation due to supply chain issues coming out of the last couple of years. And couples are really feeling that in the pricing that they're receiving back from the vendors are working with where are you seeing couples save the most when it comes to these modern weddings? I've heard little tips on social media, like don't say it's a wedding, say it's a private event, like how are people trying to save money during this time and what areas of the budget can you do that? Yeah, So it's probably not the right way to think about it, but every guest that you have at your event is a massive cost and contribute to your overall budget. And so while the majority of consumers are not willing to sort of cut on their venue spend or cut on their photographer because they want those memories, we did have a large amount of respondents say that they would cut their guest count in order to say That makes good sense. And and it also works out because then everyone who attends the wedding, it's a more intimate atmosphere, they're really getting in on the commitment and the ceremony itself, 22% of couples have turned to credit cards to help fund their weddings as well. So tell us some of the pros and cons here. Yeah. So the majority of couples yearning, you're out are surprised by the cost and event. And what we've learned that carrots and cake is that the single biggest challenge inside this industry, both for businesses were B2B service provider as well as for the end, consumer is on the cost. It's paying for an event, not planning for an event. And so essentially what is the challenge for a lot consumers is that venues for so long, haven't had purpose built technological advancements that allow them to create a better into an experience for the consumers. And so that's what we've been building with carrot cake is an opportunity for the first time ever for venues to have seamless digital payments offer different options for the consumer so that they can be smarter about how they're spending. Just earlier this year. Your company carrots and cake also debuted its own pay overtime program. I feel like we've talked a lot about this just in the general business world. How does this program work for weddings? And what has the feedback been like from users so far? So pain of flexibility is key inside this industry. You know, events are one of the last large expenditures that hasn't had flexibility. And so for us, what we do is we partner directly with venues, we give them access to our software stack. They're then able to give consent. Summer is the flexibility to choose how they want to pay for venues. This has been meaningful, 80% of the properties that we were 80% of the payments that run through the properties that we work with are now on time or early, not just because of payment flexibility, but because of the digital nature of our solution on the consumer side. What's interesting is we only see about 25% of consumers choosing to break up their payments and that's based on their own preference and how they want to manage their cash flow. Just about 30 seconds left, I want to know carrot and cake just announced that 10.6 million series a fundraising round. What are your plans to do with the round? Yes, we were thrilled to announce our series A and we are super excited because we're only just getting started. So we're continuing to invest in our team, especially in our tech and engineering talent because as we continue to work with some of the largest brands and hospitality from Marriott to Hyatt to Hilton. The technological technology we need to build continues to evolve to meet their growing demands. Jess Levin Conroy, founder and Ceo of carrots and cake. Thank you so much for that perspective and for joining us