How to Meet Other Wedding Vendors and Connect | Wedding Planning Q&A

Hi and welcome to Union Podcast. My name is Jamie Wolfer and I'm a wedding planner who absolutely loves to share how I got started and scale my business to above six figures in this amazing and occasionally extremely competitive industry. In this podcast, I share the tech, tactics, mindset and mistakes that got me to where I am today. No gatekeeping, no cloak and dagger, just full disclosure and a little humor along the way. So whether you're a planner or a solopreneur, my goal is for you to be a better business person than I ever could have been and support you on this journey. I let's dive into this week's episode. Today's episode is one of my favorite things in the entire world, and that is a live Q and A from one of our Union mastermind calls. I know you're going to love it. Take a listen. How to Make Vendor Friends as an introvert in a rural area, I often cannot make weekday meetups in dfw. And I'm wondering, oh, I think it's the same person. I'm wondering if it's weird. Just slide into people's DMs and be like, hi, do you do pretty things and are fun and are funny? Well, let's try that again from the top. And I'm wondering if it's weird to slide into people's DMs and be like, hi, you do pretty things that are funny. Online friends do that. Absolutely, 100% do that. One of my dearest friends on the Internet is someone who I've never met in real life before. She's another hobby farmer in Michigan and we talk all the time. All the time. And it's simply because one of us said something to the other one time and we're like, hey, you're funny, I like you. Let's. I don't think we led with that necessarily to be friends part, but the friendship developed over time. That's a beautiful way to make friends. That's a beautiful way to make these connections. And I highly recommend that Facebook Groups is another great way of doing that. 10 out of 10 recommend doing that one because then you can really develop these sustained relationships, right? And then the only other question I have for that is what is the point of the vendor friends? Is it to build out a preferred vendors network, right, of people who you'd like to work with? Is it to go to somebody for advice? Is it to have someone to commiserate with, kind of really think through, like, what's the point of this relationship and why are we trying to feed into it. If it's just that you want friends in the industry, that's totally fine. But if you are trying to be a lot more specific about making sure you are building up your vendor base, then maybe try a mixer closer to home. Especially if you're in East Texas and you don't want to go all the way to DFW because that's far. Or, and you also can make your own mixer, which as an introvert you're like, that's dumb. I don't want to do that. I'm aware, I'm aware. But yeah, I don't think it's weird if you slide into people's DMs and you're like, hey, you're really good at what you do and I admire the heck out of you. Can you tell me a little bit about it or would you be willing to meet up for a cup of coffee? I think that's sweet. I'm only mildly embarrassed to admit that in the beginning I printed out every single piece of paper, every single contract. I took handwritten notes and created a binder for every single one of my wedding planning clients. Now, in theory, that sounds really cool and I thought I would look really cool showing up to these meetings with these binders that are full of all of these contracts with handwritten notes. But let me tell you, the chaos that ensued when I tried to stay organized on my own and got over five events at a time. It was a nightmare. Enter Honeybook. I am telling you guys, Honeybook was literally exactly how my brain was processing wedding planning, but just in digital form. It's so easy to go in there and make any sort of customizations that you want, from adjusting your contracts to adjusting your packages, maintaining conversations back and forth that not only pop up in the app on the website, but also in your inbox as well. It's a great way to stay organized. So get out of the paper and get onto the Digital. Head to wolferenco.com HB and use code Union at checkout to get the best deal we interrupt this podcast because there is something extremely special that I want to share with you guys. I don't know about you, but for the last who knows how many years I have been using a frankensteined, googled, copied and pasted contract. And while that is extremely embarrassing to admit to all of our listeners, I know that there are people out there who feel the same as I do. And there were a couple things that kept me from actually getting an attorney drafted contract. Actually, no, there was One thing it was, it was so expensive and it seemed so out of reach. That's when I learned about Legally Set. You see, Coon Bee with Legally Set has created industry specific contracts for people like you and me working in the wedding industry. They're easy to customize, they're drafted by an actual attorney and not googled. Can you imagine that? And last but not least, they are so extremely affordable. So if you were like me and maybe using a less than appropriate and or legal contract, it's time to step up your game. You have no more excuses. Head over to theunionpodcast.com legally set to check them out. Use code union for 20% off your contracts. What is the biggest value brides find and expect from a wedding planner? Okay, these are kind of two different questions, right? What's the biggest value brides find and expect? Let's answer the expectation part first. You need to set the expectations. Is that one more time you need to set the expectations. Most couples have no idea what a wedding planner does because the silver screen says one thing, right? Like JLO from the wedding planner. She did literally everything. She scheduled dress fittings, she was at every single appointment. She was probably a $15,000 wedding planner. But that's their only frame of reference. They don't know what it is a wedding planner does, especially one that's maybe working on a more budgeted end or one that's a little bit more high end. They don't know where their money is going. So either you'll run it into people who are asking a lot, right? That's why we talk about boundaries, because they just don't know. It's like with kids, they don't know. They're learning, they're figuring it out, or they're testing the boundaries. So the expectations either usually are like way above what you do for what you charge, or they don't know what to expect. They don't have expectations. They're like, I don't know, I just was told I needed somebody like you. You need to set the expectations. You need to clarify what those expectations are and say, here is what you can expect from me. Right? And that's why I think the sales call podcast is really important. Because it. I think we have actually a couple sales calls now in the Mastermind. It walks you through actual live calls with me and people who did book with us and how to use active listening and then how the expectations work. Here's what I hear from you, here's what I think that you need out of A wedding planner. Here's how we can provide that for you. And there was a season where I would actually read through parts of the contract or the proposal with potential clients and be like, all right, let's talk about this. All right, let's go through this. I want to make sure that you are aware of what all of our services are, because it got me better at doing my sales pitches, and it got me more solidified in what those boundaries are. So what to expect from a wedding planner? Oftentimes it's probably more than what you do unless you're very clear about it. So just. Just kind of be aware that that could be something. And you don't need to say yes for them to book you if they have grandiose expectations. And that's not something you do or want to do. You do not need casual. Now, what's the biggest value that brides find with a wedding planner? Oh, y'. All. How much time do you have? If you can get a hold of a client early and you can start working that budget with them, if you can give them an expectation of what the budget should be for different categories and then release them into the wild with like, hey, your photographer should be no more than $3,000 to stay on budget. Your floral should be $2,500 to stay on budget. Providing a roadmap of, here's everything that you should be doing here. The numbers you should be looking at. Wedding planners take out all of the guesswork, all of it, to the point. To the point where it's like, you know, you should probably go with these chairs. Okay. Instead of those chairs or those chairs. Cool. We've just minimized the decision making. We don't even need to worry about that because those are out of our price range. Whereas without a planner, they're like, well, I don't know what. What I can afford. I don't know what's going to work with my vibe. I don't know what's going to work with the style of what we've got going on. So I don't know how to say no to things because I don't have a baseline and I don't have a framework. And that's a huge value that wedding planners bring to couples is like, here's your framework. Let's live in this and let's stay happy. Right? And I'm going to do my best to make sure that vision becomes a reality. What is the best way to increase engagement and get people to want to reach out and learn more about My company. Ooh, okay. Increase engagement. This makes me think that this is like a social media thing. Yeah, that would be my guess. You want people to engage with your content online. Oh, and if you want to talk about online content, baby, I could do this all day. I mean, you guys know you're here because I create online content, and I'm like, we're floored by how well this has gone and get people to want to reach out and learn more about my company. So I'm going to take this because I actually don't know who. The name of the person that submitted this. So I'm going to take this as, like, I'm assuming we're talking content creation and social media. Okay. You don't need just random people to engage. You need local, committed people to engage. Right. The best way to get more eyeballs on your account is using trending audios, which is cheesy. It's cheesy. It's so, so cheesy. But I will say I had a real go. I don't know if it's sort of viral on my personal brand recently, and it's got over 130,000 views. I got over a hundred new followers from it. Like, there's a lot of power from just picking the right audio and pairing it with what you've got going on. Number two, show up in your stories. If you want people to be engaged and want to book you, they need to know you. They need to know who they're dealing with. They need to know what you're like, what the sound of your voice is, what's important to you. That's why I show up on my wedding planning stories over at Wolfer and Company, and I do Q and A Mondays, and I do unpopular wedding opinions on Thursdays so we can be silly and have fun. And so people know this is the kind of experience that you're going to get from me. And it doesn't have to be daily. You don't have to do daily posts. You don't need to show up daily. But if you are trying to increase this engagement, then you need to show up online. If you want engagement online, you need to show up online now to get people to want to reach out and learn more about your company. You can talk about it in stories. Be like, here is a client problem that we were able to solve. Here is an issue I see couples running into. Here's how we fix it. Because what we're doing here, and if you can't, where is it? I don't have it in front of me if you can get. Oh, I do have it in front of me. Hold on. This book right here, Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller. You need to read this. You need to read this so hard. Okay, here is the whole point of this book. Clarifying your message so your customers will listen. It talks about a hero's journey. When a couple gets married, they are the heroes of the story, right? They're serving main character energy. They are here for it. It's one of the first times in their lives, maybe the only in their life, that it's going to be a giant party all about them. And I mean giant party. So they are serving hero energy. And what we need to do to build a brand that serves them and suits them is we need to be their guide. We need to be the person that says, I see where you're hurting. I see what you're stressed about. Let me guide you through this so you can maintain that main character energy and avoid failure and get success. This is a great exercise for anyone who's getting started in any business at all whatsoever. Obviously, we're here because we're starting wedding planning business, but to get people to want to reach out, you have to acknowledge their pain points. You have to acknowledge what they're worried about and then say how you solve them. Right? One of the main things that I do when I talk about this particular platform, the Mastermind, is I talk about how when I got started, no one wanted to help. It was very much like, oh, I don't want to give you my secrets. I don't want to tell you because then you're going to take my clients. And I know that a lot of people join the Mastermind because that's exactly how they feel and they're worried about it and they're kind of scared. And so they want a safe environment where they can join in and go, I'm not stealing from anybody. Someone's just willing to educate me and I can get everything that I need in one neat package for one affordable rate to start my business. It's like a business in a box, right? I can get the guidance I need. I can learn how to do sales calls. I can learn how to keep clients happy. I can work on my branding and the business basics. All of it's just ready to go for me so I don't have to stumble through this on my own. That sounds awesome. Where do I sign up? That's me taking away all the pain points. That's what got you guys in here. Because I looked at all those pain points that I experienced and went, how do I solve those? So with something like this and wanting people to reach out and learn more about your company, talk about their pain points and talk about how you can solve them, a great way that you can do this is we have the Gram with goals guide. That's a lot of GS, but you know. You know what I mean? And hold on. Sorry. Use those as inspiration for posts, as inspiration for reels, as inspiration for stories to, like, give you something to talk about. Behind the scenes is great. Like, I bet if I was like, hey, do you all want a tour of my office? Like a little behind the scenes sneak peek? It'd be like, oh. I mean, actually, now that you mention it, kind of. I'm not going to do that because it's really messy, but I could. Right? But your clients might want to see what your process looks like. They might want to see, you know, here's Honeybook. Here's what this looks like. Take away the fear of the unknown. I don't know what this new technology looks like, those sorts of things. So to increase engagement, you got to show up to get people to want to reach out for you. You have to tell them how you're going to solve their problems very clearly and very concisely. And you have got to get this book, because if you want people to learn more about your company, or if you want people to want to learn more about your company, then you need to tell them how you're going to fix their problems. Right. Okay. I think I saw a few in the chat over here. I'm going to jump on over. All right. Miranda said, can't turn on my mic because I'm in the car. Yeah, good. On the way to fourth of July vacation. But I'm so overwhelmed and stressed out when getting a business license, I don't understand what I'm doing or what anything means. I just need some encouragement. So a business license is so, so easy. I was very scared by the terminology of this, too. When I was getting started, I literally just went onto my city's website and signed up for a business. And because I was a sole proprietor, I didn't need to sign up for a doing business as a DBA or an llc. I was just Jamie Wolf for coordination. There we go. Boom. Done. So I didn't need to jump through any hoops. It's probably a lot easier than you think. And in fact, you could probably call up your city and be like, hey, how do I Do this, could you tell me and they will help you out tremendously. It is very, very simple. I know it seems and sounds and feels overwhelming, but if you start off as a sole proprietor, it's really not that complicated. So just go on your city's website and if there's a search option, do that. If there's a phone option, do that. Okay. One question I have that came up after seeing a post in my local wedding group today. Someone asked if a local bridal expo was worthwhile and from the course of podcasts I know how important that is. A comment from a vendor caught my attention because she said she has been to this one a couple of times and the first in the fall. She left with no clients, but did one in January, came with five or six clients, contacts and clients. Does the time of year, does the time of year you do an expo help with business? That took me a second. Yes, I personally think so. So let's see. The one that she didn't fall. There wasn't really anything, but in January there was. So engagement season. This is perfect. Engagement season is Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day. Don't believe me? Google it. A majority of engagements happen between Thanksgiving Day and Valentine's Day. That's Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve. And then we'll kind of see the last little remnants of that happening during Valentine's Day. So yeah, you're going to see a heck ton more potential clients in, in January or in, you know, late winter than you would in fall. Now I think that there's still a good, I think it's still a good idea to go to them as long as you can afford it and as long as it's not super, super expensive. Because I have got clients all year round at Expos. However, ours was also a very populated expo at one of the biggest cities in California, San Diego. So a bunch of people would come in from all around the area to come to this expo, which was fantastic. Right. So I never walked away with zero clients. So I wonder if this is more remote or smaller. But if you are going to do and you want to prioritize, maybe just doing one expo a year, I would prioritize in the middle of winter, which basically is January and or February. We're going to say one more if you have time. Oh, we got plenty of time. But we can also wrap it up if we need to. Cool. How do you initiate a styled shoot with other vendors? And what kind of out of pocket expenses should I expect? Do vendors typically donate their services like florals, etc. Or should I expect to pay for those? This. There is not a set rule when it comes to this. If you have some buddies that you're working with, yes, they'll pitch in, but for the most part, it's probably coming out of your pocket here. I've seen it structured a few different ways. I've paid for a venue, but I haven't paid for. Let's see, I paid for venue, I paid for decor items. Hey, with the styled shoot that we did at you and Yours distillery, did we split the cost of the florals? Rebecca? I don't remember. Sometimes people split the cost of the florals because that is literally the only hard cost that you're probably going to have to have if you're doing a styled shoot, like a proper styled shoot. So I've seen photographers where they. I helped you with the golf. See, I need you with. Tell me with the brain. That's literally the only hard cost that you could probably expect. You can usually get a sample dress for free, as long as you return it clean. There might be a small cleaning fee added onto that. You don't have to pay for a venue. You don't have to buy extra decor stuff. But usually the other vendors just donate. Hold on one sec. Nope. But usually the other vendors just donate their time and their skill set. So they don't necessarily. Bakers will donate their stuff. I haven't had to pay for baker stuff. I don't think so. It's all about conversation with them. That's kind of the biggest thing. But the biggest cost is going to be florals specifically because you have to order so many bunches to be able to make that work. Which, Miranda, is a long way of telling you that there is no precise answer there. It's just a matter of, um, what works for you and the group you got going on. So I think what I was saying before I got distracted is there's a style sheet that I know of where the planner, the photographer and the florist all went in on the cost of florals because their location was free and they got everything else for free. So they split the cost of florals to offset that for the florist because they all really wanted to work together and they wanted to see the end result come about. No, that's helpful, thank you. Good, good. I'm so glad Jacqueline said. I am in East Tennessee. This is great to know. Thank you. Oh, fantastic. So, yeah, Tennessee's so long. What's on? What's a big city on the eastern side of Tennessee. That would be something that's worth looking into. If you want to do an expo is to do something that's at a big city. The one that I went to in San Diego was probably an hour and a half away from my house and I did it multiple times a year. That doesn't mean that everyone's getting married in San Diego. It's just the closest one that they could go to. So expand your horizon a little bit if you can. When it comes to expos and do something within a two hour radius would be three. Fantastic. And usually I just get a hotel room for the night locally and enjoy my time there because I don't want to be driving back and forth. It is an expense for sure. And I will say the first. Did I get a hotel room the first time I did it? I don't know. I don't know if I did. But my husband and I used it. Each opportunity is a little getaway, which is always pretty sweet. All right, I'm gonna give everyone who's here another minute or so. I really hope my camera is not frozen like it's showing me right now because that is a stuff sweet face. I would give everyone a minute or so to drop any additional questions. If not, then we'll just go ahead and wrap the call early. Totally fine by me. This is why you'll need to be submitting your questions ahead of time though. If you can, there is where you submit them. Add that as a bookmark on your phone and on your computer. So you can obviously keep a running list of questions in your notes app on your phone. But I would recommend depositing them. Depositing them like it's a check. What am I talking about? Directly onto the link so it doesn't come to the last minute. You're like, oh sh. Shoot, I forgot to send in my question. So be sure to save that link as a bookmark on your phone and on your computer. Next call is going to be Wednesday, August 7th at 4pm Pacific Standard Time, which is 6pm My time. Not that that matters. Just factoid. Be sure to get on the Union network if you are a part of this program for at least six months. That's the goal. We want you to be a part of this for six months. We're not throwing newbies on the list. One, it's not fair to you. Two, it's not fair to the people that contact the planners on the list. We want to make sure that you have some experience under your belt and you've got a little bit of practice done. You got some of these modules done. You've made some progress. You put, you got some skin in the game. As much as I would love to be like, hey, this person signed up, you should go hire them, I want to make sure that you guys are going to do all of the people that we have on our email list a great quality service as well. So we want to make sure that you spend a little bit of time working on this. If you have questions about your mastermind, please feel free to email rebecca@supportolferenco.com if you want to submit your styled shoots style shoots. Okay, Miranda, if you want to submit your statue to me, Miranda, here's the link to go ahead and do that because I really have to see it. And I would also love to see your weddings when you do them because sometimes you want to brag to a friend, you know what I mean? When you're like, can I just show you this wedding? And regular friends don't care as much as other vendor planner friends. Oh, can you hear my dog? Sorry. If you feel like leaving a review, we've got options for Google review or you can send a testimonial. Those usually make me cry. Goodness gracious dog. One thing that we do as I'm getting distracted, my dog. One thing that we do in this is we do a lot of business style chats. And what you'll find is in the Q&As like in these calls, of course I'll answer any wedding planning questions you have. But in the meat and potatoes of the course, the prerecorded stuff, all those documents, we don't really talk about how to plan a wedding. Right. And that's because you have access to the master plan. That's literally how I planned weddings. So it didn't make sense to build out a whole extra module or modules on this course to show you what's already pre built. So as long as you're paid in full, active, up to date over here in the union mastermind, you have access to the master plan. Do not sleep on that. That is how you're going to learn the ins and outs and nuances of planning a wedding. And then you can take questions from that of course and bring them here and we can have those questions here. But most of the time I find that most of our students here are a lot more concerned about running the business and they can figure out the wedding planning stuff as they go along. So that's why we tend to focus on that here if we didn't get your question, which is impossible because we're going to be wrapping up early, you can go ahead and submit those to the forums and call schedule and current link is under the introduction module aptly named how to Access the Monthly Q and A Calls. All right, that's it. That's all I got. I adore you. All the pieces. I hope you have fun. I hope you have a safe and exciting Fourth of July tomorrow. I know I will be eating barbecue and then coming back home and putting my baby to bed and putting my pajamas on before the fireworks start. That's what I'm doing. So happy 4th of July. Happy birthday, America. I love you so much. Thank you so much for being here and I'll see you next month. All right, that's all we have for this week's episode, guys. If you enjoyed it, do me a favor, screenshot that episode and share it on socials. Tag me in it. I would love to see Wolfer and Co. On Instagram. Let me know if you're enjoying it. You can also let me know if you didn't enjoy it, but I'm probably not gonna reassure that one. I hope you guys enjoy this week's episode and we'll see you in the next one.