How To Show Your Clients Some Love on Their Wedding Day | 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 scaled my business to above 6 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. 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&A from one of our union mastermind calls.

I know you're gonna love it. Take a listen. Do you use your headset only with assistants or do you dish out earpieces to all vendors? Ooh, that's a good question. I only use earpieces with my assistants, but I will oftentimes hand out a walkie-talkie in situations that warrant it. So if a photographer is jumping on a golf cart, and running off with a couple, I would love to send them with a walkie-talkie so that way I don't have to worry if they're going to answer me or not, if their phone's on vibrate in their hands, you know, or in their pocket, or they don't hear it, or it's in their purse or whatever. So at least with the walkie-talkie, if I'm like, hey, just trying to get an ETA, how you guys doing? Everybody hears it. The couple hears it, the photographer hears it, the assistant hears it. Um, and then I'm able to get a lot more quick reactions that way. So that way, you know, obviously the photographer is not going to want to be like pulling out their phone to like go look at things or look at their messages while they're photographing their couple. So the walkie-talkie helps with that a lot. I've also used it for cueing a DJ for a grand entrance or for music. The best case scenario though would be have an assistant nearby with an earpiece in, because obviously the, we don't want the speaker playing the loud request. Speaker, you can have the walkie-talkie turned way down. We just don't want it to be loud and intrusive. The only time I have ever— y'all are gonna get a kick out of this— the only time I ever lent out an earpiece was to this, um, third-party security guard that was hired to work the event. And he was like, hey, do you want, do you want me to be on the comms with you? Let me be on the comms with you. And I was like, Sure, man, like, you're not gonna help us in any way. That we don't need you to be on the comms with us, um, because it's just like, hey, can you go do this? Hey, can you go do this? It's a lot of wedding planner talk. But he was like, yeah, you know, so we can notify each other in case anything happens. And he kind of kept bringing it up, and I was like, oh, I think he just wants to look cool and say comms repeatedly. Um, and so we did, and he said nothing the entire night, but he had it in. And I was like, you just wanted to look cool. That's okay. That's the only reason I wear them too. There's a little bit of workiness to them, but I literally wear them to look like sneakers. Service. Anyways, he gives the— he takes the earpiece out, brings it back to the end of the night, and he's like, I bring it back cleaner than I received it. And I was like, what? Thank you so much for cleaning out the earpiece that you didn't have to have. But okay, so that's the only time I ever did, and I will not be loaning them out ever again. Uh, in fact, my assistant and I that day just like died. She's like, you do clean these, right? I'm like, yes. I even like take the head off of the Q-tip because it's like too small, and I get in there and I clean them all out and I soak them in solution. I clean them. So I don't know what this guy was about. Oh, rude.

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 5 events at a time. It was a nightmare. Enter HoneyBook. I'm 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 outta the paper and get onto the digital. Head to wolferandco.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 wanna 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 of things that kept me from actually getting an attorney drafted contract. Actually, no, there was one thing. It was so expensive and it seemed so out of reach. That's when I learned about LegallySet. You see, Kunbi 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 on over to theunionpodcast.com/legalset. Legally set to check them out. Use code UNION for 20% off your contracts.

Okay, I want to surprise my bride and groom by leaving treats or something in their respective suites to wish them a beautiful day. Have you ever done this? And what are some inexpensive but quick ideas for each couple? Nothing messy or decor, as the place will need to be cleaned by the end of the event. Um, like before they get ready, or something for them to receive afterwards. I don't have any ideas immediately off the top of my head, not to say that there aren't any. What I would typically do in a situation like this, and what I've done in the past, is I will actually bring a wedding card and a gift card to Target, Starbucks, something, pick a place. Um, or maybe they mentioned their favorite coffee shop and I'll try to swing by there and grab a gift card. And I will write a handwritten note in that card and put it with their cards and gifts to be like, thank you so much for hiring me. You've been a delight. I loved this feature. If it was just day of coordination or month of coordination and I didn't work with them for very long, I would oftentimes write it at their event to be like, my favorite moment from today was, or my favorite moment from your wedding was this. So that way when they go to open up all those, they have another one. It doesn't have to be big. It could be $25, but just like a, hey, thank you. I was thinking about you. Um, I appreciate you hiring us and you selecting us. This was awesome and I loved everything about your event or whatever. So that's usually what I like to do. In fact, I still have like 5 or 6 cards left over from the last, last season that I was working. They're very cute. And if you keep a couple of Target gift cards on hand, it makes it really simple and really easy. So that could be a really nice intentional way of, um, giving back to your clients without having to worry about messing something up or putting something in their room. Because that can be a little bit difficult to do, especially because hotels get a little particular about who they let into the suites. So you'd have to get a card from the couple or from the hotel. It's always best to go in with a second person so you never get accused of taking something, that kind of thing. It just gets a little bit more complicated. So the card— after a couple years of doing this, the card was like my go-to.

Um, I'm always like really curious about like, um, how you actually like organize like paperwork and put together like the hard copy type stuff. Like I'm super nerdy about that.

Yeah. What stuff are you talking about? Like contracts or what are you referring to?

Yeah. Like, do you, um, I know you do most of it through HoneyBook and send it virtually and stuff like that. Do you, um, do like hard copy stuff? Do you give people like packets and all that? Or how does that work?

Great question. I used to because I enjoyed how it felt to have the binders and have everything printed up. And I'm a very tactile person. So I— this is one of two lists sitting right next to me. I love writing physically on papers. So when I first got started, I would print up contracts and write notes on them. I would take notes physically, which I still do to this day. When I'm working with a client, I'll take physical notes. But for me, I have transitioned into being fully digital. When I was doing all paperwork, I didn't really have anything that I would give them other than if I was meeting them for the first time at like an expo and wanted to give them a brief synopsis of what we do, our offerings, that kind of thing. But beyond that, I didn't ever have anything to give, if that makes sense. Is there— what kind of documents are you thinking for this?

I've been seeing people give out like welcome packets and, um, but I kind of assumed like you'd probably just send like the HoneyBook links and all that. Like give the digital forms. Plus, I mean, save the trees or whatever, but I like paper.

I do too. I really like paper. I will, I will save trees in other ways. Okay. I will use a reusable water bottle, which doesn't save trees, but you know, save the planet. I will, I will do other things, but I love the physical act of writing on paper and passing out paper. So, um, I see where you're coming from. I think that if you have an initial meeting with them and you want to present something, Um, I get that. I would think that some sort of bound type situation would be beautiful. I know that I've looked into the, the magazines that you can print through Canva. I mean, not a bad gig. I think they're like $20 each, so it's not cheap. But if you want to have some sort of like, welcome, here's how your process is gonna go, I would, I would invest in that and make sure it's not just like a stapled pack, you know what I mean?

Yeah, gotcha.

Cool. Or I've seen— oh, go ahead.

I was gonna say, that kind of leads me into like, when you're boots on the ground at an event, do you do like, like, like a certain checklist, or is there things like, how do you remember every little detail?

Yeah, that's a great question. So before I move on from the first one, I have also seen planners put together full binders. Like 3-ring binders. You can buy them in bulk, like the 1-inch size, and pass that off to clients as well. Give them a little custom cover. It's got like tabs in it. I know that speaks to a lot of people's hearts. I would ask them first what kind of planner they are, or what kind of, you know, do they like planners, do they want to have that kind of thing, before putting in that level of effort. But that could be another cheaper option, but before, you know, $20 a piece magazines. Um, Okay, wait. Oh, checklist day of on my phone. I have access to Google Drive on my phone. And so if I have a complicated timeline, I will have that saved there. I've also seen, this is genius. Okay. I've seen, I saw another vendor do this and I copied it for a few events and it helped so much having my timeline as my phone background. So of course that's if it's really clean and it's not, it doesn't have a lot going on. And then at a certain point in the night, there's a second page. You switch your background on your phone. To the second page of the timeline. So anytime you needed to, you could look down, see the timeline, and see the time on your phone and where you should be. That was a photographer that did it. So I think that we potentially might have things that are a little more complicated. Again, I've done that on easier ones, but when we had really specific ones or like a lot of things going on, I would put it in a spreadsheet, keep it really clean, but I would access those, the spreadsheet from my phone. On Google Drive.

Perfect, thanks.

I used to try to walk around with an iPad and then I left it everywhere, so I realized that my phone is going to be the best option no matter how much I want to be, you know, like, look, I'm actually using the iPad.

I—

or clipboards, I would set them down all the time and then just be like, oh shoot, where I put my clipboard. So if you like that tactile experience, those are two options that you could use. I would start with a clipboard because you don't want to leave, you know, $1,000 iPad just lying around. I don't even know if they're $1,000, I could be wrong. Um, but in the end, the phone worked out best for me. I— the only thing that I do is I will step out of the space to go on my phone so it doesn't look like I'm just scrolling in the corner because that's, that's weird.

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 going to reshare that one. I hope you guys enjoy this week's episode, and we'll see you in the next one.