How To Plan A Wedding For Introverts | 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 My fiance is super uncomfortable with large crowds. The UN is very important. My fiance is super uncomfortable with large crowds, particularly family, as my family has not always been the most welcoming to him in the past, although things are better now than they used to. Be. Glad they're better, but oh, that's so hard. He would much rather elope with just the two of us than have a wedding. However, a wedding is very important to me because I want our families and friends to be there to celebrate with us and I've always dreamed about things like walking down the aisle, first dance, etc. He is willing to have a wedding because he knows it's important to me, but he's requested that we keep it as small as possible. The problem is that I have a very large family that I'm close to, aunts, uncles, lots of cousins, many of whom are married with kids, et cetera, and I can't invite some of them without inviting all of them. This means I have a minimum of 43 people I'd want to invite just on my side. Total. We would. With his family and our friends, we would probably have around 80. The best compromise we've come up with so far is having a micro ceremony, immediate family and bridal party only followed by a larger reception, but I would still like to minimize his discomfort as much as possible on such an important day. Do you have any creative ideas for how to make a large reception feel more intimate and casual without removing the parts that make it feel like a wedding? Perfunctory dances, speeches, cutting, cake cutting, etc. Yes. Okay, so you are going to want the least showy DJ you've ever met in your life. Okay? You do not want the guy that's on the microphone going, you know, it's that you don't want that guy. That's not the guy that you want for your wedding. And this is such a hyper specific vendor to call up for this particular situation. You want mellow music, you want low candles, you want vibes, right? You do not want a lot of pomp and circumstance that is going to make him even. My guess would be that's going to make your fiance even more uncomfortable, is to have it be very flashy, very showy. Grand entrance, grand exit, you know, big, like, let's whoop it up for the couple. No, no, ma'. Am. We do not want that in this situation. Like this secondary to that. I literally just talked about it on the video that went live this week. Is carving out alone time so he can go recharge a social battery. So that could be doing a first look, just the two of you. Super important. Some people don't love a first look. I love them for so many reasons. And this I love for introverts because it allows you a moment to have your emotions in private. Yes, there's photographers there, but really it doesn't feel as much like. As opposed to the ceremony where it's photographers and everybody else. So it's about as private of a moment as you can get. Or you can have a first look by yourselves. Just a touch point before the ceremony starts, because that's when things start to feel, like, really anxious, you know, that's when things start to feel a little bit more tense. And I want. I want your fiance to have like breathing room in this moment. In addition to that, carving out more alone time throughout the day. After the ceremony, go eat those appetizers that you spent a bajillion dollars on. Okay. Have a glass of champagne, have your signature drink and go sit in a room by yourselves for just a few minutes and chill the last little alone time that you can have. Actually, there's two more options. You can do dinner by yourselves. My guess is you're not going to want to do that, though, just based on kind of what I'm hearing from you, which makes sense. I wouldn't want to do it at my wedding either, but some people love that idea. And then sunset photos, what these do is, yes, they check off the photo list for a couple of them. We're getting all those pictures out of the way, but they also Provide an opportunity, an excuse for you to be pulled away from the event and. And go breathe for a few minutes. So I want intentional alone time. I want intentional photography alone time, and I want you to have a chill, cool dj, okay? Be very strategic with the music that's played. In fact, I really wish there was like a. An introverted wedding playlist. Know what I mean? Like, no 24 karat magic, okay? We don't need that. We want it. We want it to be like all buble. Maybe or maybe not. If you're not into crooners, 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. 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 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 photo booth versus QR code, photo sharing, not doing wedding favors, kids. People think it's cheugy. I just used chewy in a sentence. Does that make me youthful? But I love a physical photo booth. We actually own one and we've literally only used it for one event because, you know, I had a baby and she's a spicy meatball. I don't leave the house very often these days, but what I found really profound is because usually I'm not paying attention to the photo booth. Yes, I see people over there. Yes, I see people interacting with it. But this time it was mine. It was my husband's best friend's wedding. So I was like, I got to watch this to make sure nothing happens because I technically wasn't working it, but I was working it. I can't, can't be at my husband's best friend's wedding and not be hands on a little bit. And I watching all of his friends, like they're all in their 30s and they're grouping together taking these hysterical photos. You might think that photo booths are dated and that people are over it. They're not. They're obsessed with it. They love it. Especially when it's like centrally located and we didn't even have any props. They didn't care. They just wanted photos together. So I am fan of photo booth specifically because the camaraderie that you can create with these silly photos, it's great. It's golden. So that would be my preference. I haven't seen QR code photo sharing being really heavily utilized, especially with older generations who are like, we're just not into tech. We're like, we don't care. Okay. Which makes sense. So photo booth is a much more interactive experience. Photo sharing with a QR code is just so you can receive the photos. Photo booth serves your audience, your audience, your. I was about to say clients, your guests. QR code kind of more serves you and gets that photo so you can see more of the event. So there is an unexpected setback with the venue that changes how the flow of events will go. We thought there would be cabins available to rent on site for all guests, but our day is too late in the season. They have to close down the cabins in October and our date is in November. We wanted to do late night bonfire after the reception, but the venue coordinator says she's not comfortable serving alcohol for that many hours in a row when people will have to drive after. Okay, options. Shorten the reception to do bonfire. Lose out on dance floor time. Have a bonfire after rehearsal dinner instead. Cut the bonfire entirely or try to find an after party venue. But then we will still have a driving safety issue in play, so. Or you have the bonfire without booze. That could be the other one. I would not shorten the reception. Don't do that. Because people love dance for time. Especially if you enjoy dancing. I would not shorten that. Bonfire after rehearsal dinner. Sounds genius. Very fun. That would probably be my go to and then as far as an after party venue. And I would also double check with the venue coordinator to be like not comfortable with or won't allow. Right. And that feels like a Very direct question, which might be like, you're like, no, no, too direct. Not comfortable asking that. But if you're not comfortable with it, what can we do to reassure you? Because that's. Is that part of the contract? Because this is. Oh, this is the one where you are getting this for like free. 90 free. Right. So my guess is there is a relationship there. So you feel kind of awkward asking if they. If she uses emotional language, like she doesn't feel comfortable. You don't really want to cross a line with that one then, huh? Okay. I would say yes, it's that same one. I would say bonfire after rehearsal and then find if you still have the funds and or desire find a place to go do an after party. I think that'd be very fun. You do. There is a. The thought of like wanting to be cognizant of what people drink, but at a certain point you can't, you can't really own that. And it does help if you pick a bar to go to for like an after party kind of thing and everyone has to pay for their own alcohol, then they slow down or they don't and they have a ride prepared. So try not. I don't usually take too much ownership over what people do after the event. I'm aware if we need to cut somebody off, I'm very aware. But the likely of that happening is so, so, so, so, so slim. So slim. So hopefully that helps you make a decision on that one. 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, 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.