Guests LYING About Weddings? | Wedding Planner REACTS

So are your guests lying to you or what?

My biggest wedding pet peeve is when brides are like, everybody loved the food at my venue, everybody loved the favors I gave, everybody loved like whatever, insert thing here. And they're like telling that thing that people are raving about it. No one is going to tell you that they don't like the thing that you spent money on. Like, you are the bride, you are— it's your day, it's your day, it's your celebration. And you think that the people that are attending your wedding are going to tell you the things they did and didn't like? Like, they're not doing that. You're you're under a delusion. Every bride I know was like, everybody loved the food at my venue. Yeah, baby, I actually went to the wedding and the food was trash, and I would never tell you that. I'm like, scrumptious. Like, why? What are you talking about? My biggest wedding pet peeve—

okay, well, I don't agree necessarily with the full, like, strength within which she said this. The sentiment's not wrong. It's not wrong. So what are your guess actually care about. Hi, if you're new here, my name is Jamie Wolfer. I'm your online wedding planner and I help you plan easy, stress less, because you deserve to have a stress-free wedding day. And we talk a lot about the guest experience, like what do the guests want, what do they not want. And then we see something like this where it's like, no, they're just lying to you, like they hated the food. Which, as an Enneagram 3, would like keep me up at night. It would keep me up at night if I didn't already know how weddings worked. So in today's video, we're gonna do a little breakdown of what guests actually care about, they don't care about, and what they do care about. Okay? Because if you come across content like this on the internet, I just want you to feel confident in the decisions that you're making. Okay? Speaking of which, you should probably jump on down there and subscribe so I can help you feel even more confident and empowered when making these wedding planning decisions. Because it's a lot. There's a lot happening. Okay? And, and it's, it's made increasingly worse by the social media. It's made work— it's made worse. Better in a lot of ways because you get so many ideas, but worse because you're like, oh, I have a new fear unlocked. I didn't realize I had to worry about my guests lying to me. Okay, so let's, let's go ahead and just break it down. What's important? What's not important? What do you have to hyperfocus on? And should you stay up at night wondering if your guests are lying? So without further ado, let's just jump right on into it.

Okay, I kind of want to read the comments of this.

Unfortunately, people did tell me things they didn't like. I was about to be like, you know, there are some people who are not shy in communicating their likes and dislikes with people that they should be shy communicating their likes and dislikes with. Okay, this person goes, that's a weird pet peeve. That's weird. This one goes, can we also talk about all wedding food is gross? False. As someone who works a lot of weddings, who's worked a lot of weddings in my history, some wedding food is gross, not all. A lot of it's really good, okay? And a lot of it just gets the job done. All I care about is, is the temperature correct, is the cook correct, and is there enough for me to eat some? Okay, okay. But as a guest, I do genuinely like getting door namens. That's— No, you don't! It's fossilized. Okay, I can't. To each his own. I'm usually done eating them before dinner even begins. Perfect wedding favor. Girl, I'm Mexican. All of our tías on both sides were ready to criticize. We got a full report the following day on likes and dislikes. This person said I had a plus one tell me the chicken was dry. Excuse me? Excuse you! Who do you think you are? Kate's planning out what guests are going to like or what they're not going to like or what they're going to comment on or what they're not going to comment on. I do think that we have to spend a little bit of time kind of focusing on making sure it's an event that people enjoy. I don't think we need to go as far as being concerned that everyone's going to like it. Your identity is not your wedding day and your wedding day is not your identity. Who you are as a person can never be fully encapsulated in a single event. In a single day, in a single dress, in a single meal, in a single floral display. Ooh, we're getting deep really fast on this one, folks. It cannot be perfectly encapsulated, but we can do a good enough job that people enjoy themselves thoroughly. Because believe it or not, there are also people who will enjoy your wedding day regardless of what your food tastes like. They're still gonna have a great time. They're just here for vibes. And honestly, I wish this next kind of wedding guest on everybody.

Here are the things I do care about at weddings as someone who's 29 and therefore very much in her wedding guest era. I care that there is easily and readily accessible water like everywhere at all times. My favorite thing is when there's water that's refilled like on every table or water stations around the reception, because no one wants to leave the dance floor to go wait in a long-ass bar line to break up their vodka soda crayons with a glass of water, so they're not going to. And then you're going to have dehydrated drunk idiots on the dance floor. And I can promise you that. I care that there is at least one slow dance song on the playlist because every single time I've ever been to a wedding, I see that there are people who aren't dancing for like the entire reception that do get up for the slow song. And like, maybe they're not comfortable with dancing, or they're older and don't want to put their body in harm's way on the dance floor. I prefer that it's not couples only because that excludes people, and you don't want to isolate anyone on your wedding day. Niche, but I really, really care that there are flip-flops available. Like, to the point where for my brother's wedding, my sister and I got them the flip-flops as a wedding gift because I don't think they were gonna have them. And I was like, it's actually essential, it's actually a necessity. If you want people to be dancing their asses off on the dance floor, the girls got to get out of their heels. It's like a requirement. Like, I'm not gonna be throwing down in my heels. Not with these bunions, not in this economy.

Are you kidding me?

I need the flip-flops, and I'm not gonna bring my own flip-flops in my tiny little clutch that I'm bringing to your wedding. That the centerpieces are at an appropriate height where you can see people across the table from you. Like, I don't want to have to lean side to side or not see or talk to the people across from me at all because the centerpieces are directly in the way. I would rather the centerpieces be small and unremarkable than huge and obstructive. Good word. This one is completely non-essential but just like a personal preference for me. I love the matchbooks.

I do, I do.

Sue me, I'm taking 2 to 3. Okay, next video I'm going back to things that I don't care about because that list is honestly much longer.

Okay, okay, that doesn't help my cause here. One, okay, what was the first point? Water. Okay, yes, we need to make sure that you have an NABev table is what they call it in the biz. In the catering industry. It's a non-alcoholic beverage table, a station where people can go, children and non-imbibers alike, can self-serve drinks. This usually, my biggest recommendation is some sort of dispenser, right? It can be water, iced tea, lemonade. As you guys know, I'm a huge fan of doing that powdered version because then it doesn't have to stay refrigerated. Do I love these powdered version drinks on a normal day-to-day basis? Sure don't. Sure don't. In a capacity like this, when you're running low on fridge space and you've got a lot of other things going on, baby, we love powdered beverages on a day like this. Okay? Okay. So I do agree, I think that's really important. Do not serve water only at your bar, because while you may not have drunk people everywhere, you will have people who are irritated or just thirsty. The second thing I think she brought up was the slow dip. That was cute. That was cute. Also, the older people not want to putting themselves in the way of bodily harm, that was giving the same vibes as like children not being safe on on the dance floor. Who remembers? What video was that from? There was some sort of like commentary of children not being safe, okay, on a dance floor. I was like, what are these people doing? Are they like clomping around? Is this a mosh pit of a dance? I don't understand. The flip-flops, the flip-flops, that's niche. Like, I get it, um, I haven't seen flip-flops at a wedding in a hot minute, in a hot minute. And when you say you bought that as a gift for your, for your brother for his wedding, that's not a gift for him. That was you imposing what you wanted to have happen at his wedding. And I'm so glad that you enjoyed them and that you got a good use out of them. And I'm sure other people did too. But that's like, that's not a gift for him. That's a gift for yourself. And I think people can go barefoot if they really want to. Yeah, I said it. So I care about your toe box, ladies and gentlemen. What else did she say? Centerpieces, centerpieces, centerpieces. What we're really trying to do here is we're trying to cultivate an experience where guests don't notice things. Let's be real, like when we get into what guests like and what they don't like, which we will in just a moment, we want to make sure they are not noticing the size of your centerpiece. We need to be the correct height that's not obtrusive for like making eye contact across the table. I have only been to one wedding where this was an issue. I've never had clients do this, but they had like the really super tall glass hurricanes with the water and then like the florals in them and the floating candles on top, which to be fair Photographs like a dream. Also, to be fair, means you can only talk to the people to the left and the right of you. You can't see anybody else. There's no further conversation. And there are very few things about this event that stick out to me, and those florals are one of them. This was actually a friend of my husband's before we even got married, I think, like forever ago. And I will never forget looking at those centerpieces being like, well, this is awkward. I can't even make eye contact. Thank you for seating me at a table where I know people That's great, I know you probably spent a lot of time working on this, but I can't talk to them. I can't speak with them. I can't even see them. So I could talk to them, but it'd be really weird if we can't use our eyeballs. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Weird phrasing, but you probably know what I mean. And then her last point was the matchbooks. Like, they're cute, they're super super super cute, and you will get people like this who are like, "Oh, I'll take a bajillion of them and I love to have a drawer full of matchbooks." And I really do think matchbooks as favors are making a big ol' comeback. They were real popular back in the day and then they kind of died off a little bit and now they're coming back with a vengeance. Vengeance, and at least it's something practical. At least it's not something that you need to keep alive like a plant or something that people consume, which again is a more popular version. I mean, clearly people like Jordan almonds, whatever that's about, but that's a preferential, that's a taste thing. So even consumable options may not be taken by everybody. Matches are pretty universally pleasing, and I'm with her on this one. If you're gonna do something, do something like this. Like, either make it edible or make it something that if you end up with 100 of them when your wedding's over, you're not mad about it. So let's quickly Let's cover 9 things that are like important to guests and most guests, let's say, not all of them. Some of them might, you know, be a little quirky, a little weird, wouldn't really care. But let's, let's cover the basics that will be the most crowd pleasing so you can sleep tonight and not live in fear of all your guests lying to you. Okay. 1, date, time, and location. Most people want your event to be convenient. There are those travel bug buddies who just like love to go all around the world and will literally follow you wherever you want to go and go to any destination wedding or go to any state, which is still a destination for them, they would have fun with this. They'll drive long distances, or maybe they wouldn't typically do that and they'll do it for you anyway simply because they love you and they're excited about your wedding day. However, I would still argue that most of your guests would prefer if it's convenient day, time, and location. They would prefer if it's a Saturday, not a Friday or a Sunday or a Monday or a Thursday. However, as a gentle aside, I'm also fully aware that Saturdays are the most expensive, so do whatever you need to do and take everything on this list with a grain of salt. Okay? 'Cause the people that want to be there will make the time to be there. But if you want to know what they care about, they want it to be convenient. So if you can't hit all 3 of those, the date, the time, and the location, go for 2. You know, let's go for convenient location on a Friday at a good time, like 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, okay? Instead of 2. Or let's go for a Saturday and maybe you have to start a little bit earlier in the day 'cause you're having a Catholic mass service. For your ceremony. And so, you know, you start at 11, but at least it's a Saturday and the location's a little bit more convenient. Guests also care about weather. Is it too hot or is it too cold outside? If you are going to put guests through an outdoor experience at any point in your event, they care that the weather is nice and then it's comfortable to be in. If it's over a certain temperature or under a certain temperature, guests will be uncomfortable. So if it's under about 65, especially if it dips down below 65 in the evening, we do recommend bringing in heat lamps or those like space heater situations. You know, not heat lamps— why would I say that? No heat heat lamps. Can you tell we have animals? Huh? Because the heat lamp controversy in the homesteading world is hot, pun intended. Or conversely, if it gets too hot outside, like, don't— I don't want to be hearing this, 'Oh, we live in Arizona, everyone's used to it being 115 degrees outside.' Yeah, but that doesn't mean that everyone wants to be exposed to it for 30, 45, 60 minutes of your ceremony followed by your cocktail hour, only to then let inside for your reception. So just because it's something that you might be used to doesn't mean everyone's going to feel great in it. Guests care about parking. Is it convenient? Is it close enough? Do they have to walk half a mile or a mile to get to your location? Actually, I'd probably argue that they care less about the parking and more about the walking from the parking to the venue. So if you have any sort of situation where it could be a little bit more lengthy or a little bit more difficult to get to, be sure to include that in your invitation. Parking, directions, etc., either like a little note in your invitation or on your wedding website as well. So, because guests can take some minor inconveniences, so if the one thing that's a minor inconvenience, or one of a handful of things, is parking is not going to be as convenient as you hoped, let them know ahead of time, and my guess is they'll thank you for it. Next thing guests care about: timeliness. Okay, I want to create the type of event, and I want you to create the type of event where no one is doing this. If that is one of the main takeaways you take from this video and from this channel in general, is to create the kind of event where people just kind of get caught up in conversation and lost in the moment and they don't notice things because it's going so smoothly. That's the kind of thing that guests love. When your wedding starts late, when food takes too long, when your cocktail hour goes an hour overtime, when dinner service takes an extremely long amount of time to make sure everyone gets fed, Those are the sort of things that will stick out in a guest's mind. So we want to make sure that while you could be the most Type B bride out there, and I love that for you, and you could be very unstructured and like, we don't need a timeline, it doesn't matter. Your vendors do. It is still a production and we want to make sure that things are happening on time so you can have that ethereal, like, what is time feeling because other people are managing it for you. So I highly recommend if you haven't done so already, check out perfectweddingtimeline.com. We partner with this software. And it's incredible and it literally gives you the perfect wedding timeline. Starting a little bit late? Fine. Dinner taking a little bit longer than anticipated? Fine. Again, people have capacity for oopsies, okay? They can accommodate and they can flex. We just want to make sure we're not hitting too many negatives on this list. Next thing guests hate: bad entertainment. A cheesy DJ, one that talks too much, um, where the music's too loud or the music's not the right vibe. I truly believe that finding a good DJ— DJs are the most unsung heroes on a wedding day— finding a good DJ is of the utmost importance in my opinion, because it really sets the tone, because that's the person holding the microphone on your wedding day and holding everyone's attention, auditory attention throughout the day. The visual, they can like look around and bounce around and look at different things. The audio though is so impactful. So we want to make sure that we're being intentional with that entertainment. We don't want your guests to get bored and we don't want their patience to be fizzled out because your fedora-wearing DJ is singing Justin Bieber yet again. That actually was also the same wedding with the tall centerpieces. Now that I think about it. Remember I said a few things stuck out? There's another one. Item number 6 that you guys care about is food. And like the first TikTok said, like, there's a chance people aren't going to actually like it. But is there enough of it? Is it warm? Is it cooked well? Is it raw? Like, can we just hit a few basic parameters? And please bear in mind, if you are a foodie, I love food. I love really good food. Sourcing food for 150 people and making sure it's all the right temperature and perfectly seasoned and perfectly flavored is really, really hard. As long as there's enough, and it's warm if it's supposed to be warm and cold if it's supposed to be cold. And no one's going wanting. The serving portions aren't lacking. We haven't run out of food halfway through the event. And what they're tasting is good. It's good enough. It may not be Michelin star, but it's good enough. That's what they care about. That's what's going to please a majority of the guests there. So even if they're like, oh my gosh, we loved it and they're lying, that's on them. Okay? You can't own everyone's honesty around you, but at least you fed them enough and you entertained them and you provided a great experience for them to come attend because you kept things on time. Kept the day and the time, the location convenient. So they'll forgive a chicken that, you know, might have needed a little bit more salt, might not have been their favorite meal in the world. But we are sure as heck going to do our best to serve something that's tasty, the correct temperature and cook, on time, and enough of it. Number 7: booze. We see a lot here on this channel that people care about having alcohol at weddings. You may or may not have that, and that's okay. You're totally entitled to that. That's very cultural. Also, I think in previous iterations of this video I say don't do cash bar. I also learned that I know that's deeply cultural, so if that is your experience, you're like, no, this is literally what we do. It's literally what we do. We do cash bars. Yeah, ignore me because obviously that doesn't apply. But we want to make sure there's plenty of beverages available. Now, please hear me when I say I'm not talking top-shelf liquor. Okay? But if you want to do beer and wine only, great. I do get a lot of feedback of people preferring not cash bars. If that's culturally appropriate, great. At a very bare minimum, let's make sure we've got water available, readily available to everybody, especially if we're already creeping into some of these other categories where it's hot outside. Okay, then we definitely need to make sure that we've got food ready to go, right? It's the correct temperature so the salad's nice and cool and fresh and crisp and we've got plenty of water for them. I feel like it's kind of like a battery of sorts of what guests will put up with, for lack of a better term, and you can dip into that energy supply a little bit. We just want to make sure we're not draining it completely. So if we have a couple moments that kind of dip into it where, you know, the entertainment might be lacking a little bit or the food might not be exactly what they wanted, but at least we're charging them up in other areas, then they're going to be sustained a lot longer. Number 8 kind of really goes hand in hand with a good timeline, but it's the overall flow. Again, we want to make sure people aren't looking at their watches because things flow smoothly. We want it to make sense to go from the ceremony to the cocktail hour to the reception. We don't want screeching or jarring noises. We don't want people being yelled at moving from space to space. We want to make sure that there's plenty of appetizers, so the flow of the cocktail hour makes sense. Sometimes I feel like, or I see especially on the internet with so many ideas floating out there these days, couples trying to like break out of the mold and break out of the norm, and what they end up doing is they're kind of breaking out of the normal flow of events, and it really messes with people's psyches, and they start paying attention to all the other things. Messing with the flow of an event really dips into that guest battery, like super, super dips into that. So if we're going to do that, make sure we're accommodating in other areas. So if you have a situation where you have an earlier ceremony because of whatever religious institution you're a part of, and that's what they require of you, or that's all they have available, you will need to do your best to make sure that all the other items are as on point as possible to fill up that guest battery again. And lastly, but most importantly, guests care about connection. There is another video that I saw where the gal was like, I want to hear your vows. Like, I want to hear them. And that's special and that's cute. And I'm like, all about it. Oh yeah, that's what it was. I was going to play her video, but she used the word like so many times that my eye was twitching. So she was super cute and brought up some great points. So I'm gonna, you know, use them here. I think people care about seeing your love story. I think people care about seeing you. I think people care about having personalized touch points. I think that's important to them. If you don't have capacity emotionally, financially, or time-wise to make some personal elements work, trust me when I say that the vows could be plenty enough. Or stopping by the table to say hello to everyone and doing table visits, that could be really, really good too if you choose to do that. It's about being invited into your love story and being a part of it that I think is really, really special for people. So to have that connection, whether that means intentionally stopping by their table or shaking their hand or giving them a hug or taking a picture with them or whatever that happens to look like, that will refill a guest's battery so, so quickly if you are there and speaking to them with intention and are letting them know that you are excited that they are there. That takes a lot for some introverts to do. It takes a lot for some extroverts to do too. And I've discussed it in plenty of videos here on this channel. So I'm not going to go into it too far here. Just know that like at the end of the day, you are inviting them to experience this portion of your love story. It doesn't have to be perfect as long as it's genuine. Make sure they're fed, make sure they're not too hot or too cold. Try to keep the time and location convenient and make sure DJ's not super annoying and make sure the flow and the timeline makes sense. And if you can, say hi to them and let them know that you're glad that they're there. All these rules sound really stiff and, uh, awkward, but if you look at it from kind of like a basic hosting standpoint, feed them well, make eye contact, make sure the music's right and the vibe's good. No one's passing out from heat exhaustion. You know, just the basics. So that's all we have for today's video, guys. Thank you so much for watching. If you have attended a wedding in the past, what is something that you really, truly care about? For me, I'm going to— I'm not going to lie to you. The first dance gets me every time. I cry. There's one circumstance where it was a couple that I worked with for a really long time, like 18, 20 months or something. And during their first dance, I was not well. Okay, I was not well. I was crying. The photographer got a photo of me crying, like bawling my eyes out. And people were asking the bride like, who's that lady and why is she crying? It's because for me it's like such like a— this moment, we're done, we've made it, we've reached it. Also, we're done. And like, that makes me so sad. Like, I'm so glad we got you to this day, but also I don't get to plan with you anymore. And so this one couple, we'd been together for for so long that I was like, oh, oh, it's over. And, and, and then I had to excuse myself from the room because people were staring. I don't normally do that at every wedding, but I do get emotional at every single one. So what's— what kind of thing do you get super emotional about at weddings? Make me feel better, okay? Make me feel better because I just shared a lot. If you like the video, jump on down there, like the video, and subscribe to this channel for more tips and tricks for the modern-day bride. And until next week, bye guys!