How To Organize All Your DIY Decor For Your Wedding | Wedding Q&A

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. How do you run a rehearsal that can't take place at the venue? Who should lead it in place of the venue coordinator? You can do it in a parking lot, which sounds very silly, but we've done it before. Honestly, it's just a matter of communicating a handful of things. And there is a whole section on how to run your own rehearsal in the master plan. That's where you're going to find all of the best details on that. Here's what you need to communicate. Pacing with walking. Spacing for where they stand and what do they do with their hands? So we're in. That's the big thing. How do, how far apart are they walking? Is anyone cueing them? Or they just kind of like figuring it out on their own? Or once the person in front of them gets to the back of the chairs, like the back of the back row of chairs, then the next group goes. That kind of thing. So figure out the pacing of people walking down the aisle and recessing back down the aisle and then also how far apart do people need to stand? And then what do they do with their hands and what do they do with their feet? I also like to remind people that they're on camera the whole time and RBF is real and it ruins photos. So encouraging people to smile, not having things in their front pocket. Sometimes guys will put sunglasses inside their suit pockets and they'll get this like weird tucker. I don't know why they don't realize that they're like, it's like a thing. So. And who should run it in place of the venue coordinator. Honestly, I mean, if it were me and I was the bride in the situation, I mean, I ran my own rehearsal. It just, I knew the information. I. And for you, you watch the rehearsal video so you know how to do this. You can be the person to run it. If that stresses you out and you're like, heck no. Okay, well then maybe you can show someone the rehearsal video in the master plan and have them run it for you. That could be a great idea. And that could be a parent. That could be a talkative bridesmaid, someone who can really project their voice. You could pick. 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 question, 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@wolferandco.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.com how early can you give bridesmaids their gifts? Planning on robes or PJs personalized hangers, then possibly some jewelry and or hard decor they can choose to wear for the wedding. What is hardcore but feel that the rehearsal is cutting it too close? You can do it at Bachelor if you'd like, because usually that's a handful of weeks before the event. That would be a really good call. If there's jewelry that you actually want them to wear on the wedding day, robes and PJs, you can give it to them at the rehearsal. It just Depends on what you're giving them, if you're giving them jewelry. I don't think the rehearsal is too late, to be totally honest, I don't think it's too late for any of this. If you'd like, you just say, hey, I'm going to be giving you things to wear while we're getting ready, so don't stress about it. And or, hey, I'm giving you the jewelry that you're going to wear on your wedding day, so don't worry about that you're gonna wear on my wedding day, so don't worry about it. And then just give it to them at the rehearsal so then you lessen likelihood of people losing it. You tell, I have four children. But if you don't want to do it at the rehearsal, you can always do at the bachelorette or earlier. All right. I am a DIY bride because I love crafting and I love decor. Do you love hard decor? What is the best way to organize everything? For my day of coordinator, she said she can take care of the decor. Morning of my venue is allowing me to come in for two hours the day before to set up. However, I have a lot of decor, so my coordinator will likely have to finish where I leave off. Do I make a spreadsheet? Take pictures, make a floor plan? I don't want her to think I'm too controlling or crazy. I just want to be helpful. Tara, you're so cute. Okay, I do have two things for you if you want to do follow up on previous content I've already created. One, there's a video on how to organize your wedding decor. 10 out of 10 recommend. And then two, there is this download for DIY items checklist that I would recommend taking a look at. You go ahead and pull it up on my end. Rebecca is going to toss this into the chat if you guys want to pull it up and take a look at yourselves. It's literally just a single sheet of things you might possibly be bringing as a diy. You can use this as the sheet that you refer to. And DIY doesn't necessarily mean things I created from scratch. It's things that you are bringing to the venue that no professional vendor is handling for you. So it could be signs that you had professionally done or that you got printed at Kinko's. You might not have made them yourself, but this would still fall under the DIY checklist idea. So for ceremony, we've got signage, florals for your ceremony, any sort of large decor like an arch or an Altar, any sort of stationary could be programs on the seats, your unity portion. So candles, physically tying the knot, communion, planting a tree. And then there's also the section for cocktail hour signs, florals, decor. This is typically cardbox, votives, guestbook, and pens. Occasionally people will do a DIY photo booth. That could be added there. Oh, that's also. That's under miscellaneous. Look at me getting ahead of myself. Reception again. Signs, whatever you have on your tabletops, centerpiece, table numbers, votives, china, glassware, flatware, napkins, favors, large decor, anything that you have behind your sweetheart table or on it. And then stationary menu and or escort cards. And then lastly, miscellaneous, like this. We'll see a little bit of crossover from the most commonly forgotten, right? Cake cutting stuff and then photo booth stuff. So back to your question, because you said you have a lot of core, because this doesn't really answer your question, but I just want to make sure that that resource is available for those that are like, wait, I'm starting to get a little inclined for what this looks like. So, Tara, if I was you, I would honestly, I don't think it's a bad idea to make a floor plan. I don't think it's a bad idea to make a floor plan and make a list of items and their locations that you want them to go. I did this for my wedding. I had a full on legend I would like A, and then A was, you know, backdrop for ceremony B. B was the string lights. And so I had, I broke it down like that. And it made it really, really easy for our setup crew to take care of it. Now I was like, you and I had a lot of decor, so it still took them hours, but it really broke it down to the point that the groomsmen did it and they did a fantastic job because I took all of the guesswork out of it. Right now you're working with a professional, so you don't have to worry about that as much unless you're really specific about your vision. So here's what I would do. Make a list of all the items that you're taking. Okay. Just a master list. Make a floor. And this is only for people who want to go on all out. So if you're hearing this and you're like, oh, shoot, I have to do all that. No, if you trust your coordinator to get this handled for you, you don't have to go this detailed. You can just go based off the video that we shared in the chat and keep it a little bit more low. Key. But if I master list a layout and then mark where things go on the overhead layout, that'd be fantastic. And then on the boxes, mark what's in the box and where they're going. So everything kind of tends to come together really nicely. I like the idea of taking pictures if you would like to, or if your centerpieces look different or even if they all look the same, reset it up and take a photo of it and slap it on the outside of the box. That's also included on the how to organize your wedding decor video if you want to take a look at that. But that way even those who are not design inclined can take a look at that and go, I can copy that, I can do that. So if you are concerned about it, those would be the steps that I would take to make sure that you're, especially if you have a lot of it, that your decor is utilized properly because you spend a lot of time working on this. I want to make sure that people actually get to enjoy it and so do you. And Tara, I don't think that she's going to think you're too controlling or too crazy. I think that's extremely helpful. I would rather be over informed than under informed in a situation like that. And then I can scan through that and be like, I got it, I got it. I see the vision, I know exactly what I need to do. And especially if you communicate, hey, I just did this to be helpful. I'm not married to each and every single one of these or here are the three that are the most important to me. But like, obviously if you could just wrap this stuff up, whatever that happens to be, I think, I think your plan is actually really sweet, so I wouldn't stress about stressing her out. I think this is really helpful. 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@themasterplanwed.com I would love to have you in there. Thanks so much for listening. If you haven't done so already, have a 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.