This is a podcast episode titled "Do’s and Dont’s for Wedding Grazing Tables | Wedding Q&A" created in July 2025. The content features Jamie Wolfer as the sole speaker, hosting a wedding planning podcast aimed at modern couples. Jamie provides detailed advice on wedding grazing tables, budgeting, vendor booking order, and answers common wedding planning questions. The episode is structured as a monologue with Jamie sharing expertise and promoting her Master Plan course for wedding planning support.
Well, hello lovely humans and welcome to Engage, a wedding planning podcast for the modern day couple. I'm your host, Jamie Wolfer and I truly believe that wedding planning does not need to be complicated or time consuming. I kind of picture these episodes like jumping on a quick phone call with your wedding planner. You get your answers and you go on your merry way. Because sometimes not all of us have an hour to dedicate to listening to super long podcasts or super long intros. So without further ado, let's just jump right on into it. Today's episode is going to admittedly be a little bit all over the place. You see, every single month I sit down with the people over in the master plan course and answer your questions in Lifetime. So if you find yourself struggling and really need to sit down and speak with a real life wedding planner, I would love to be a part of your wedding planning journey. Join us over in the Master plan today to get your questions answered. Until then, take a listen. Have you seen issues with having a grazing table in August heat at a backyard wedding? And does it end up in a lot of waste if people don't eat at all since it can't really be packed up having sat out trying to weigh doing three to four DIY apps versus grazing table. Okay, so it depends on what's on the grazing table. Let's break this down kind of bit by bit. I would say yes, he is definitely a problem. I don't know where you're at, but obviously we're going to want to be aware of that. We had someone do a charcuterie table and they had marble trays that they put things on and underneath them they had crates lined with plastic and put ice in it. So it actually kept the marble chilled. It's a completely extra step like that. That probably isn't very feasible for you diying it yourself. Although it does sound like your day of coordinator had offered to do this. That's kind of cool. But some sort of cooling source would be great waiting till the last minute to set it out and then having it packed up and ready to leave as quickly as possible. Or have little goodie bags or boxes where people can take some with them? Because I agree those are all concerns. So can you keep it in fridge for as long as possible? Can you add a cooling element? Is are there any soft cheeses? Because if there are, I would skip them. So no brie, no camembert, nothing like that. Go for more hard cheeses and yeah, there is potential for having some waste leftover, but if you have those to go containers, then listen, if it were me, I would. I would go and just clear out the entire tray. Like the whole thing. I'd be like, just give me all the cheese. Okay? Because I think cheese is delicious. So if I sought to go boxes for that, I'd be all about it. Now, as far as the DIY apps versus Grazing Table, obviously Grazing Table is stunning. They're very in right now. It does have this connotation of almost like opulence and a little bit of excess and a little bit. But like this feels a little almost borderline wasteful. The way you get around that is having some disorder to go container. Sitting here listening to a podcast is all fine and dandy, right? But sometimes you need an actual person to be asking some of these questions to. And you may be sitting there going, you know what, Jamie? Actually, yeah, that. That makes a lot of sense. I would love to be able to ask you these questions. Guess what? You need to join the master plan. You've heard me talk about it, but do you know why I love it so much? You get over 10 lessons that walk you through planning your wedding with videos and spreadsheets and other detailed resources along the way. Join me and my virtual clients over in the master plan and get all your wedding planning questions answered. Literally thousands of couples have gone on this journey with me, and I'd love for you to be next. Check it out@wolferenco.com tmp that's wolferandco.com tmp Listen, wedding budgets suck. They're just like the actual worst. And the hardest part for me is that weddings are not cookie cutter. They're not one size fits all. And I think it's important to make sure that you're budgeting according to your priorities. Build a budget that works with your vision and you'll be on the path to planning a wedding that you really want. So if you want my recommendations for making your perfect budget for you and your partner, head on over to Wedding priorities dot com. Would you recommend paying for a basic package from a more experienced photographer and pricey photographer or a comprehensive package for more inexpensive photographer? Who do you like more? I think that would be the bigger question to hear that. I would love to hear from you whose personality you dive with more. My basic inclination is gonna go with a better photographer. Go with a photographer who's been doing this longer. Your day is going to be more smooth. It's you're going to feel much more comfortable in front of their camera. Your user experience with A more professional photographer is going to be different than with a newer photographer. However, if it just depends on where you want to prioritize here. So if your priority is let's save as much coin as possible. Although this is probably like my guess is they're going to be pretty neck and neck if we're comparing them at this level. So let's switch that to if your priority is you just. You value photos so much and you want a bunch of them. Yes, a more comprehensive package. That makes sense. I've never, I don't think I've ever had a client book a nicer photographer and or a nicer videographer or videographer at all and say I regret it. I have had vendors or have, have had clients say when they book a cheaper photographer going, I regret this. So yeah, if there's any more that you want to add to this, please feel free to do so. My natural inclination would be go for a more basic package, not only for the quality of what you're going to get back, but for your experience and your fiance's experience as well. And for another camera. What's the best order of booking vendors? Okay, there is no best order. There is a recommended order and we have that in the, the ultimate checklist in the master plan. So let's see if I still got it. I might get them out of order a little bit. I'm not looking at it first. First and foremost, if you're hiring a planner, this is a chicken or the egg situation. You could hire a planner to help you find a venue or you could find a venue and then go hire a planner. Most of the people we work with have a venue already. When they find us, they've already kind of made those first steps and then they're like, wait, wedding planning sucks. This is really hard. Or wait, I really like this, but I want somebody to help me. And that's where we come in. Then typically after that is photography and then potentially videography, if it's really high on your priority list, would come up right now. Following that would be catering because you're going to want a little bit of time to try different things out. Samples, tastings, etc. And then after that would be DJ Florist. Someone's probably looking at this list to see if I'm doing it right. Dj, florist, who am I forgetting? Transportation, hair and makeup should be probably around DJ and Flores. Oh, desserts. Yep. That's all kind of around the like if you're going off a 12 month, that be a 6ish month situation. However, that's not set in stone. So please know as you're looking at this checklist, it's just like they're more like guidelines anyway. Okay. What I would love for, there's a reason that this cadence happens in this direction is because you can't really have a wedding unless you have a place to do it. So then you, you can't really have a wedding. Well, you could, but you photography is like super important for most people and then you're going to want to feed people something. So those are the core ones where a lot of your budget is going to those three things. So you want to make sure that you were booking those when you still have money. Because towards the end people are like, maybe I'm going to DIY my florals because I used more money than I thought I was going to do. Or you know what? I'm going to do a DIY dessert table because I spent so much of it on this big chunk up at the top. That's the only reason that we want those to be a little bit higher up in priority. Unless you're really good with your budget and you're really good at, you know, delegating out where your dollar is going to go and you have that set aside and you feel confident in that. So that's probably the best cadence of booking. If you are struggling with wedding planning and you have questions and you just need someone to listen and to chat with, come join us in the Master plan community over at the Master Plan Wedding. I would love to have you in there. Thanks so much for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe, jump on over to wherever you're listening to this podcast and leave a five star review so we can let the podcast people know that Jamie knows what she's talking about sometimes. And until next time, bye, guys.
