Hannah Williams became a TikTok phenomenon with a simple formula. Under her brand Salary Transparent Street, she asks random passersby what their job is and how much they earn. Since April of last year, Williams, 26, has amassed 1.3 million TikTok followers and nearly 32 million likes.she just landed too forbes magazine 30 under 30 list and, per forbes, recorded over $1 million in brand deals. She shares all the credit to her new husband, a photographer who is her only full-time employee and whom she married this year in a mere $11,000 event.
A TikTok video in which Williams created a breakdown of wedding costs was extremely popular among viewers, she said. luck In a recent interview.
The venue was free (the couple married at Gravely Point Park outside Washington, D.C., where people often come to watch planes fly overhead close to the nearby Ronald Reagan Airport). having a picnic). Williams' simple billowing white dress cost $75.65. Her husband's suit cost $752.40. Their rings totaled $2,380. The photographer cost her $2,600. Their reception venue, the Arlington bar, Spider Kelly's, had an open bar and buffet and cost her $4,400. The bouquet Williams carried cost $134.86. She totaled $190.80 for the couple's matching sneakers. The rental Porsche costs her $170, and gas costs her $10. Temporary custom tattoos for guests cost $45.58. Macaron tower instead of cake costs $240. The Polariod guestbook was $180. They used inexpensive Spotify playlists to avoid paying a DJ.
Total: approximately $11,000. (The average American wedding last year cost about $30,000; in the Washington, D.C., area where Williams got married, it cost nearly $60,000.) The entire wedding industry is on the boil. It's worth more than $70 billion in the United States alone.
“I got some very interesting comments. Cheap wedding dresses and expensive tuxedos were definitely a big issue, but I hadn't even thought about it,” Williams said. She simply created the video in alignment with the mission of each of the others: transparency, which is proven to improve equal pay.
$11,000 is significantly less than the average couple spends on their wedding, but even though Williams and her partner have no children and have six-figure incomes, she still doesn't spend more than $5,000 initially. I was going to do it like this. The couple were “not very happy” that they ended up paying more than double the bill.
“People now look at us as some kind of celebrity,” she said. The expectation is that if you make a lot of money, the cost of your wedding should demonstrate your wealth. “I think that's wrong.”
Williams said focusing on her personal spending (and that of any influencer or celebrity) is ultimately unhealthy. “Her husband and I were just thinking about making this day special for us,” she said. As for the very inexpensive wedding dress, which costs $76 compared to the national average of $1,900, Williams said she thinks it's “insane” to spend thousands of dollars on a one-day dress. Told.
“I'm saying that lightly. [because] A lot of brides do it and I don't criticize it at all,” she added. She added, “I think people should spend their money on things that are special to them.'' Additionally, Williams had “a very hard time'' finding a dress she liked, so she bought a $76 dress she found. I was very happy with the dress. “I thought it was amazing, but [and] Money can now be spent on other things [of the day] It was more important to both of us. ”
Another area she didn't spend money on was an engagement ring. She said the ring cost about $2,000. (National average: about $6,000.) Breaking from tradition, she opted for a moissanite ring, a much more affordable lab-grown stone, instead of a diamond. Diamonds, a staple of engagement culture, were less important to Williams than the marriage itself.
“I have a traumatic memory of my mother losing her engagement ring, which was a real diamond, when I was a child,” she added. “I'm very clumsy. I use my hands a lot. So I didn't want to be in a situation where I lost a ring that was worth a lot of money. I felt [$2,000] It was a significant amount of money, so I just hope it won't be lost in 10 years. ”
This article originally appeared on Fortune.com
