Makeup Touch-Ups, Guest Distractions & Cash Gifts | 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 live time. 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. Okay. Do you recommend having a makeup artist stay until the ceremony— sorry, stay until after the ceremony in case of tears during? Um, I think that that is a very nice perk, but it is not necessary at all. A majority— and when I say majority, I mean 95% of the weddings we work— do not have a makeup artist stay. And then of the 5% where the makeup artist stays, oftentimes they're a guest and they just happen to be there. Most makeup artists should be prepared to just do your makeup once and then leave. It depends on the added fee, depends on how much extra it is. And it depends on how you cry, you know, because a couple of glistening tears down your cheek that you're gently blotting with a tissue is one thing, you know, sobbing hysterically is another. So you might find yours— if you're a gentle crier, most of us are, and your makeup is well done to begin with, I think you should be okay. And most makeup artists do a fantastic job. My guess is it's not necessary in your case unless you are like, no, listen, I have Unbelievably oily skin. I've never had it stay. My concern is on top of that, the crying will just cause everything to melt off. If you have extenuating circumstances and you're like, okay, this— I might be the one. I might be the one that needs somebody to stay. Other than that, most people don't. 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 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 get over ten 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 at 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 weddingpriorities.com. I'm getting married September 20th, 2025. At a winery along their private lakeshore— sorry, along the private lakeshore in Oregon. I'm looking for tips on how to reduce the impact on my guests as vendors are setting up during the ceremony and reception. I've already tried to find a workaround so that they wouldn't be setting up during these times, but it would cost me hundreds of extra dollars. We can't afford that. Oh, I hear that. So it is what it is. My caterer will be showing up at the beginning of my ceremony and setting up during my ceremony. The venue is not very big, and the ceremony and reception space are right next to each other. Guests will be able to see them setting up from the ceremony space, although their chairs will be faced the opposite direction, hoping they won't be able to hear it. Also, my photo booth vendor will be setting up in the middle of my reception and will have to drag the photo booth through the area where the guest tables are. I'd love any tips on how to make this work as smooth as I can. This is such an intentional question, and this is something that we oftentimes feel like is going to be a way bigger deal than most guests even care. So yes, I prefer for everything to be set up before the guests get there, because I don't— I like the magic to not be ruined. And I think that's probably where your spirit is in this question as well, where you're like, just don't want them to have to see it. If it's behind your guests, the reception setup with the caterer, my concerns plummet. Absolutely plummet. I would say make sure you send an intentional email to the caterer and say, hey, since you are setting up during our ceremony, I know you're probably already know this, and it's probably just me being one of those brides, but if you want to say that, but could you take extra care to make sure it's not too loud? Because we just want to make sure that the reverence of the ceremony is honored, and you know that everyone's watching us instead of you to do the setup. That could be something that you send off, but the fact that it's behind you is perfectly fine. The photo booth operator dragging that through where the guest tables are is momentary. That is going to be so short in the grand scheme of things. So that concerns me a lot less as well. Um, the only thing that you really can do if, if there is no backdoor, there's no side route, and you're like, I've assessed everything, it's going to cost hundreds of dollars to try to come up with a different option, is if it happens to be notable, awkward, really attention-drawing. Have the DJ and/or the officiant kind of make it silly, right? So some sort of like, oh, don't worry guys, it's just your dinner getting prepped. Sorry, banging around some pots and pans. Something like that to add some levity to the situation, because then everyone's gonna be like, oh yeah, that's right. Okay, what were you saying? Or if it's the photo booth operator, again, it's a very, very, very short window of time. It feels more awkward when you think about it than it actually does in practice. So if it happens to be a situation where, you know, do chairs need to move, do tables need to move, get the photo booth in there, is there any way that he— the operator can like get in from the outside, or do they have to go through the center of tables? So if you have an answer to that, let me know. What you're explaining to me as the planner would not concern me because we've got enough of a workaround that I don't think it should be that big of a deal. Okay, Leah said Is it okay to skip the bridal shower if my fiancé and I have all of the house things that we need? And how/where would we word it to request cash for the honeymoon instead? My family is not very tech savvy, so I'm not sure if I'm doing a website. I would say, um, Leah, that make a website anyways. So even if they're not tech savvy, they can still, um, potentially jump on there. In fact, there's a lot of weddings that have website and have a lot of tech associated with them. If you want to try to figure out a way of communicating that, I would include that in— well, wait, okay, we're talking about bridal shower, so the invitation's not going out yet. It might be one of those situations where people just call you and say, hey, how do I get your— oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what's it called? Registry. It's fine, guys. I do this for a living. Have no fear, we're okay. How do I get your registry link? Where are you registered? Um, because here's how the typical communication would go, right? You'd send out a save the date with some sort of website on it, um, with your web address where people can go look. That typically goes out about 6 months in advance, right? So it has the, the registry link on it, so then people can go look for your bridal shower. If they click on that and/or go to that web address, you can say there will be no bridal shower. In lieu of gifts, we ask that you donate towards our honeymoon. So that would be something that you would put on your website. If you want to include that information on your save the date, etiquette-wise, it might be a little so-so, right? Etiquette-wise, there might be some people who, you know, do this professionally where they say you're not supposed to talk about gifts on the save the date. You know, I personally rarely see anyone do that. If you're like, no, they're not gonna go look. They have to know this ahead of time. That might be the only way that you can communicate that. Other than that, if they're not tech savvy and they're not going to go look at a website, you just have to field the phone calls because that's really kind of your only other option. 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 at 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 5-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!