How Wedding Planners Stay Visible and Protected | Wedding 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.

When you're not doing a bunch of events, what and how often is the best thing to post on social media to keep your presence out there? This is a completely personal preference. Do you like social media? If you like it, use it. If you don't, you don't need it. Um, the wedding industry has existed. Well, I should say you don't need to be posting with great frequency. There, let me hedge my commentary just a little bit. You do need to have an Instagram. You probably should have a Facebook page. And I only say that because when we lived in California, no one looked at Facebook pages for wedding vendors. But moving out to Texas, everyone's like, well, what's your Facebook? Well, what's your Facebook? I'm like, wow, the cultural significance between the 2 different places was very unique. And it was like, Facebook is like a thing still out here. And I felt like in California, everyone was like, what's your Instagram? What's your Instagram? I don't know. Maybe it was me, maybe it was the community I was involved in, but go where your audience is the most active as kind of like a first disclaimer. Social media I would see in this context would be actively posting something, right, on Instagram, TikTok, or your Facebook page. YouTube could also be a part of that, but I know that's a really, really specific niche and not everybody does that. Um, so I would say keep it at least every other week, uh, a static post if you can, if you are trying to make sure that you are keeping your social media presence alive and active. And there are seasons where you will not do that, and that's okay. There are seasons where you will stop posting, and that's okay. So if you're in one of those seasons where you're like, I just, I just, you know what, I need, I need a break. Or oops, I let that lapse for a couple months. It is not gonna be the end of your business. And this is why I say social media is very much emotionally charged or preferentially charged because Max Sadik, who I've brought up multiple times, has literally an Instagram with thousands of followers and not a single post. It is his social experiment to prove that you do not need an Instagram to be a successful wedding vendor.

He does hustle pretty hard.

I do think that he is a case study. I don't think that he is the norm, but there is evidence to show that you You do not have to have a super active social media in the terms of Instagram or TikTok, um, to get clients in. So I would think every other week some sort of post on Instagram would be great. I think Instagram is gonna be the main place, the main social media platform that's probably most nationally recognized for us with clients, um, because they're gonna go look at their venue and then they're gonna go look at who's tagged or they'll look at their photographer and look at who's tagged. Tagged, etc. So that's a really good place to stay active, stay a little bit relevant if you can do it every other week. Um, what is the best thing to post? One thing, and we do talk about this in the social media module, is, as you know, when you first get started, it's so difficult to be like, I don't have photos. Like, I have nothing to prove that I'm good at this. I'm not dancing to whatever viral trend is going out right now. What on earth do I do? And so I think I've said this in previous calls. I might have said this in the module, but also, y'all, I got to tell you, sometimes recording these and doing these calls for years, I'm like, I feel like I'm repeating myself like crazy. If you've ever heard me say something and I repeat it, you're just a really good student. Okay? You're just the best mastermind student of all time. Feel free to repost from other creators or other vendors that you vibe with. Give credit, okay? But I think the repost option, it's, it's underused. I would not use it for every single post. I use it every once in a while, just kind of like bolster what you got going on. Um, and that's for static feed posts, um, and/or if you want to share a TikTok and then add your verbal commentary over it, that's something you can do as well. You can always get inspired from other people's pieces of content and either repost it or make it your own. I do prefer making it your own, right? So I don't want someone coming to your Instagram feed and being like, oh my gosh, all this wedding planner does is repost other people's stuff. That's not what we're doing. That's an option of something that you can do. I want to hear your voice. I want to know what your face looks like. I want to know what your voice sounds like. And I don't mean like your branding voice. I mean your actual voice. What do you sound like? It's, uh, have you ever seen Singin' in the Rain? And Lena Lamotte, and like, it has like, and I can't stand him. She has this really grating voice. And it's when they're taking the, the idea of the movie is when they're taking, you know, the silent pictures and turning them into film with voices. And they're like, oh snap, we can't use this leading lady because she sounds like she sucked on helium all day. Like, I, I, uh, I use that as a reference, but like, people want to know what you sound like. You probably don't sound like Lena Lamotte, so don't worry, but it's just a little funny anecdote. Um, is what do you look like? What are you passionate about? Talk to people. What made you start your business? And so if you feel comfortable jumping on stories, those are very easy, low buy-in, low risk, because They go away in 24 hours. You can delete them without messing up your feed. And then you can kind of have fun with it. It's really easy to edit yourself and it's not like putting together a whole TikTok or anything like that. So that's another place that you can stay active. Returning back to— oh, also you could share posts, do a lot of reposting on stories because there it's not like you're trying to steal someone's work. You're just sharing what you're vibing with because even based on what you're sharing, I'm going to know what you're into, you know what I mean? Like, I'm going to know if you're into fine art photography. I'm going to know if you're into pastels. I'm going to know if you're into champagne towers. I'm going to know if you're into nacho bars. Like, what, what are you as a planner drawn to? Because people are going to want to do business with you, not your branding. You know, your branding is good, and we don't want them to be scared or turned away because you don't have good branding, right? We love good branding. We want to hear you. So we can repost main feed, in stories. I want to hear your voice. I want to see your face. You're not gonna sound like Lena Lawton. It's really low buy-in. It's very easy. Returning back to the main feed, if you can do a styled shoot, this is a great use of your time. Just make sure it's also a good use of your finances. Be fiscally wise when putting one of these together. Um, but then you have detail photos you can post, and then you have photos with people ideally if your, uh, styled shoot has models in it. That's a good option. And then occasionally do a carousel with your thoughts. Share your thoughts and ideas. Share your packages. Here's what we offer. Get a vibey little font on Canva and put together a carousel of different things that excite you about wedding planning, unpopular opinions. We do have a, um, a Gram with Goals Download. I don't know if it's— is it available in the main? Um, Becca, do you know where it is? Is it available in the main part of the course, or do they have to request to download it? If you can get the Gram with Goals, it will prompt you with intros for what you can do for your captions, or prompt you with ideas for what you can do with your posts in general. Um, okay. Recap, repost both in feed and in stories. Show up with your face. In feed would be great, but if you only want to do it in stories, also good. Get a styled shoot under your belt. Be fiscally wise about it. Um, and then also post static images or post, um, a reel of you working with some sort of words across the screen, and then feel free to use our Gram with Goals. guide for any sort of inspiration for that as well. So to kind of reiterate, if you love social media, and this is something you want to do, or if you feel called to be a part of it and do social media things, I think at a minimum, you should be posting something on your feed every other week. Just so if someone looks you up, it's not like, oh, they just stopped existing. It's okay if you go through time periods of that, but we don't want to make it a regular thing. And then as far as stories are concerned, honestly, you could show up every single day and it wouldn't be a bad idea, but it is also very exhausting. So if you picked, you know, a couple days a week that you wanted to repost some things or share some TikToks that you found interesting or funny or whatever, feel free to do that. Don't feel, don't feel like you are a slave to social media. If you like it and you want to have fun with it and you really feel like you want to pursue having this be an integral part of your career and an integral part of your business, Do it, but please don't feel beholden to jumping onto this hamster wheel if you're not vibing with it.

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.

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Um, Jocelyn said, what type of social media? Example content creation, would you recommend for a planner that just started? Oh, look at that. I've done 2 weddings and need more content creation for my page. I honestly don't like being in front of camera, so what tips and tricks would you recommend for posts and promoting my business? Promoting your business on Instagram is very hard. It's not— I see Facebook as a better promotional opportunity, either running Facebook ads or being present in Facebook groups. So if you want to promote and you don't want to show your face, you should absolutely be in Facebook groups for sure. One, a local group. 2, a national group. I recommend that obviously we've got like, um, we've got our group, which is huge. Our Facebook group is massive at this point. And this is for wedding vendors and couples. It's at the point where Facebook is like now encouraging people to join it. It's crazy. It's so cool. Um, but what I want you to do, especially when you're in the beginning, is I need you to be immersed in wedding culture and I need you to start getting used to what are some of these questions. What are some clients saying or potential clients saying, or what are couples saying, even if they'll never be my clients? So that way, at least when you're active on these social media pages or social media groups, uh, you're learning. And then if someone pipes up and asks a question, be helpful, give free information, be like, here's what I would suggest without being like, by the way, you should hire me. You can do that if they're looking for requests, right? But it gets real, that gets real difficult. So I would say if you don't want to show your face, there are a couple options with the Instagram one that I just shared, but it sounds like Facebook might be a really good option for you because right now you just need to figure out what are the questions that people are asking and what are my answers to them. Do I agree with what that planner just said, or do I disagree, or do I not have an opinion yet because I haven't experienced that yet? You were getting used to wedding culture. You're getting used to what is important in weddings. And you're getting used to what's important to you. Or you might be like, oh, I didn't realize I had such a strong opinion about that. Congratulations, I have now defined more of my, more of my wedding planning services simply from reading stuff on this Facebook page. That would be where I would recommend that you go, and that's where I would recommend that you interact. You could also do any of the posting that you do on Instagram Stories to Facebook Stories. Um, any Instagram posts you do can be pushed over to Facebook. So if you're doing those, please feel free to double dip. It's really wise. It's a really good idea. That does mean that you'll need to be active in DMs in multiple locations, unless you have that Meta Business where you can respond in one spot. But that was a lot of me talking really fast. Booked my first official wedding for Day of Coronation on September 20th this year. Yeah, you did. I need all the things, but I'll try to be specific. Okay. I'm so excited for you. And I'm so excited that you're in this call because that means we can talk about it. Okay, um, in the venue contract they require the couple to have liability/event insurance. What do you recommend and where would you get that? There are 3 places that you can— okay, hold on, we just celebrate the fact that you got a DOC client for September 20th. That's insane. And now we're like, what, 3 weeks out? Don't panic, it's gonna be fine. You can choose to either get year-long coverage or you can get event-based coverage, and we're talking about you specifically, if they ask or require that you show a COI, a certificate of insurance. So those are options made available to planners. For couples, the options that you have are you can do a one-time purchase through an event-specific insurance company, or they can get it through their homeowner's insurance, their renter's insurance. There are some options with those through their insurance agent. I don't know if all of them cover this. I don't typically recommend those simply because there are huge gaps in that coverage. I prefer event-specific coverage. My favorite is Brightco. Since before they came on the scene and they were running stuff by wedding planners and by venues saying, what do you need? What do you want? What are you looking for? They have competitive pricing. They offer coverage for not just the day of the wedding, but the day before for the rehearsal if that's happening as well. It could be up to 5 days of coverage. And it's really simple to acquire. The other options that you have that I know that are most prevalent would be eventhelper.com and wedsafe.com. Event Helper and WedSafe have been around longer. Brightco has better offerings. So that's where you would get those. And then I would say my recommendations in order would be Brightco, then Event Helper, then WedSafe, simply based on my experience with all 3 of those companies.

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.