Episode 3: What to Expect When You Are Wedding Planning

Episode Summary

The wedding planning process a la Julian Leaver Events – step-by-step. This episode is for couples and future couples to understand and feel prepared for what is to come. We will cover: a breakdown of our process from start to finish, wedding budgets, protocol vs. etiquette in weddings, the importance of saying “No” (and finding yeses through nos). And more…

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julianleaver.com | @julianleaver

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Full Episode Transcript

Well, hello friends and welcome back to Mind Over Matrimony, and I hope that you enjoyed last week’s episode about transparency and that you were able to take that and run with it and take some of those lessons and some of those tools and put them into good use. I think the thing that I really have actually loved in doing this podcast is about giving tools, giving you ways that you can actually understand how the process works, understand how the transparency of it all works.

Because what’s really hard, this job from our side when it comes to bringing your vision to life, is that we don’t actually know you. I kind of wanted today to just take you through what the actual process of planning a wedding looks like. I have a little bit of a background in etiquette and protocol, and so I’m gonna talk to you a little bit about that because I think it’s a good way to think about how things happen in a wedding.

So we’re gonna start with the overarching feature, which really is protocol. Protocol is the way that things happen every single time in a ceremony. In almost every single culture in the world, weddings occur the same way. The guests walk in, there’s generally some music playing. Then the guests sit down, some different music starts, then people walk in. Generally the family walks in first. Generally the bridesmaids and groomsmen walk in next. Then the bride usually walks in after that, or then the groom walks in and then the bride actually walks in. And then the ceremony happens, and then everybody walks out.

The etiquette that changes in a wedding ceremony changes for every single wedding ceremony. It changes based on faith. It changes based on the location of the ceremony. Is it in a house of worship? Is it in a ballroom? Who are the people getting married? What do their traditions look like? What do their families look like? All of that changes. Are there readings? Are there not readings? Is there communion? Is there not communion? Is it Catholic? And so there’s gonna be a full mass. Is it not Catholic? And there’s not gonna be a full mass.

So friends, my best advice is just hire a planner and save yourself some mental heartache. I mean, you can see I don’t have any hair. You do not wanna be like me.

Our philosophy has always been that you find the yeses through the nos, and there’s like around 3,000 micro decisions that you actually make in every single wedding. And a lot of those, the answer is no, no, no, no, no. And we feel really comfortable with the word no. It’s totally fine for us because you’re not the only wedding that we’re planning. We get to take that little idea, stick it back in our pocket, pull it out for somebody else who might be interested in it.

It all clearly starts with you getting on the phone with us, right? And we’re gonna have a great conversation. It could be a phone call, it could be a Zoom, it could be a Google meet, whatever kind of works for you. And then from there, we are going to send you a proposal. On our proposal, you can see the pricing. You can see other example events that are similar to the event that you are interested in planning. You can see a very detailed checklist of all of the things that we’re going to do.

The conversation about the budget is actually one of my favorite conversations because it’s the thing that sets the guardrails. Like when we were little and you were going bowling, right, as a little kid, and they put up like those bumper rails on the side so that your ball can’t fall into the little thing on the side and you’re out. We need those. And the budget really is that for us, it’s the bumpers. It allows us to have this conversation about moving the buckets around on the budget. This is the decor bucket. This is the flower bucket. This is the stationery bucket. And then we can move those dollars all around.

And then we love to go into the elements and the vendors who can only do one event a day. So we start with photo and video, and usually entertainment and hair and makeup. They have nothing to do with the decor. They have nothing really to do with the way it’s going to look. But they have everything to do with the way that it’s gonna feel. And so we start with the feelings, right? Because how does the photography make you feel? How does watching all of these wedding videos make you feel?

You can’t forget to feel in this process. You can’t just think about the pretty, you have to be able to understand how it feels.

And so from there then you are ready to jump into like the way that it’s gonna look because you know how it’s gonna feel. And so our process then moves into stationery. And we start that process in Pinterest. Pinterest is a tool for us, for you to show us visually how you feel. Your very first concrete step with us is always gonna start in stationery. Because in stationery it’s the first place you can feel it. You can touch it. You can say, I love that, or I hate that, or that beveled edge is like giving me everything.

And then we move from save the date directly into invitation, and then we get to the overarching design process. And so then when we get to the design board, we are like locked and loaded. We know everybody. We know all the players. We know exactly what to do.

We want you to have this wedding truly, truly feel like you, which is why this process is designed in this way. It really truly allows your guest to show up in a room and walk in and say, oh my God, this is so exactly them. Which is my personal dream for us to be in the background and have executed your vision so much so that your guests are like, yeah, this is exactly it.

And then by the time we get to the wedding, it’s just a freaking party. It’s just a blast. You’ve made all the decisions. Because you made all these amazing decisions in the other 364 days of your planning process, so that the wedding day, it’s a foregone conclusion because you’ve made all the right decisions.

Take these tools, use them. You’re gonna have so much fun. Remember, it’s a joyful process and feel all the feelings. Friends, we’ll be here for when you need a tissue, and we can’t wait to see you next time.