What Last Minute Details Look Like | 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 much time should I allow for admin slash planning in the month or two just before the wedding that's supposed to answer that one? I don't know how much you've gotten done. That's entirely dependent on. Yeah, how much you've achieved, how well you've been tracking with the timeline, the checklist and getting things done. If you are following things correctly. I don't, I don't even know how to answer this question honestly. A lot, like a lot of admin is in the last few weeks simply because it's the final details, it's the check in. And that's why this whole module exists, is to be able to have these conversations with your vendors to check that everyone knows the timeline, send out those final emails. So I couldn't put a time frame on it, but I would expect to spend quite a bit of time answering emails, sending out emails, double checking things in that last six, not quite the last eight weeks, but once you hit the last six, it picks up. Once you hit the last four, it picks up even more. Last three to two is probably when you might feel it the most intensely as you're confirming numbers and details with various vendors and whatnot. 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 get over 10 lessons that walk you through planning your wedding with videos and spreadsheets and other detailed resources all 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 wolferenco.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 what are some items that most people forget that I will need on my wedding day? For instance, I know I need pens if I have traditional guest book and cups for the bar, but I know I'm missing some things. Okay, I have whole 25 most commonly forgotten details and a download if you would like to get it for like a checklist. That's super helpful because yeah, let me just click this so I could pull it open because believe it or not, I don't have the 25 things memorized. Weird, right? Okay, I'll read them off right now. Do not feel like you have to take notes. We have a link for it. You can download it, you can go watch the entire video, but I'm just going to read through them really quickly. Okay. So that would be an emergency kit. I have a video on what my emergency kit includes and I talk through what I think you might need and what you don't need. So don't feel totally overwhelmed by that because honestly, most of it as a bride or as a couple, you're not going to need the level of stuff that I have. But if you have one, make sure that you're including that eyelash glue. Eyelash glue is water soluble, so if you cry it will come off. Fun fact. So you might need to reapply. Otherwise you'll have those things flapping in the wind as you are breaking it down on the dance floor. They're just going to be like moving with you. You know what I mean? A Bustle video. If you have a Bustle on your dress, please have someone record what it looks like to get it attached and to make sure that everyone knows or like, somebody knows how it goes. Because most time people be like, oh, it's okay. My mom's there. She watched it happen. She understands she'll be able to find it. Those. Those little buttons are clear, or the hooks are really tiny, or the things are really hard to find. And. And then the person, the only person who knows how to do it is also really hard to find. So if you have a video of it and it's sent to multiple people or it's saved on a drive somewhere that you can access from anyone's phone, trust me when I say this will streamline things astronomically, okay? Astronomically. Eat food and feed your wedding party. I was a bridesmaid in a wedding once, and they. I was pregnant and they did not feed us properly. And I kid you not, you guys might see the video where I talk about this. I had to walk away from the ceremony in the ceremony and go lay down on a bench because I thought I was going to pass out. My knees weren't locked. I mean, I had been doing this for. I was already a wedding planner when I was in this wedding. And I literally had to leave and just go lay down. And I was able to motion to the photographer so she was able to pull in tight and like, basically take the photos up close to not show that I was gone. The couple didn't find out until later, but I was like, they got, I think like a 30 pack of chicken nuggets for like 10 bridesmaids. So eat and feed your wedding party. Please drink water. A lot of times you're going to be nervous and you're going to forget. In fact, I suggest hydrating several days in advance. Like, be really intentional for a week leading up to your wedding to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Get, like, get those toxins moving. Get stuff out. We do not want you dragging by the time it gets to your wedding. And I know it sounds like when drink water. Like, no, like actually drink water, please and thank you. Flats. If your shoes suck. Cash and ID you might get. You might think that you'll remember this, but if you need it for your hotel room, where you're going to afterwards. Marriage license. I've seen that forgotten before. Invitation suite, if you want a picture of them taken. I love invitation photos. I just love them with all the details from your wedding day. Because it's like you planned out your event. You had this vibe, you had this theme in the very beginning, you have this vision and that was captured with your invitations. So to then bring it to your wedding day and have it laid out with florals from your, you know, bouquet, or to have your wedding shoes next to it or your rings. There's just something about that, that detail photo specifically that really gets me. I like that one overnight bag. I forgot mine. So I feel like I. I have to assume that other people are just as gooberous as gooberous. Yep. As I am. Vendor tips ice. Confirm with your venue that they actually have enough ice to cool beverages, not just for drinks. Transportation. Be sure to know how to. How you're getting from point A to point B. A lot of times what we'll end up saying is, hey, who has room in their car to like get us to the ceremony? Let's work that out ahead of time. Shall we go to the last minute? Reserved seating signs for the first two rows. I said this in the sign video that I posted recently. But the reason I like reserved seating signs is less because it tells people not to sit there and more because it almost gives everyone permission to use the third row. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, only the first two rows are reserved. We can sit up here. If not, then people kind of tend to avoid the front. Like socially awkward teenagers in a high school classroom. They'll be like, no, we can't sit up front. We're not supposed to do that. Except for like the special kids, you know what I mean? Photo wrangler. Someone who knows the family members, who can get them in line when their names are called or when the side of the family is called. Ideally it's a cousin, an aunt and uncle who knows everyone on that side. In case Uncle Jim decides to wander off over to the bar, someone knows what he looks like. Vendor overtime. Vendor meals. Just be aware of the vendor overtime, what that could cost. In case you want to increase their time or in case it takes too long to break down, et cetera. You just. That's. This is something just to be aware of. Vendor meals. Make sure that's calculated into your overall headcount for your caterer. Music selection. Make sure you have all that worked out with your DJ if you need to. We do have a caterpillar killer music guide from Honestly. My favorite. Our favorite wedding DJ of all time, Griffin. He's awesome. I'm sorry, DJ Griff, that he gave to us for free. He's like, here's all my best stuff. Go for it. And it lists out all the songs that you need. Because what we don't want is we don't want someone to ring up running up to you and being like what song do you want for the cake cutting? You know, like we want all of that just figured out. We don't need any stressful vibes. Let's get it all handled ahead of time. Cake knife, cake server topper and toasting glasses. These are a very traditional thing to have. A lot of times people get them done custom. If you don't want to do that, that's fine, but you need to have something to cut the cake. You don't necessarily have to have a topper, but if you want a topper, you need to bring it. You know that kind of detail. Guestbook, pens, self explanatory list of personal or DIY items. Anything that you are bringing that needs to be set up and torn down. We need some sort of master list. Someone needs a master list to refer to to make sure all of that also gets put back in boxes to then go back home with you. Point person. This can obviously be a wedding planner or wedding coordinator. Big fan of those. But if you're in this course then probably you are thinking or not having one because I understand Ballin on a budget. So who are we going to have that's paying attention to your timeline? We're going to have, that's going to kind of help to moderate and encourage things to move along if need be. It could be bridesmaid, member of the wedding party. It could be your photographer that you're talking to, your DJ that you're speaking with. Photographer and DJ tend to be the two vendors that run the timeline if there isn't a wedding planner present. So they are the person that would get that timeline to and have that conversation with. But maybe having someone on your end of things would not be a bad idea either. And then a tear down crew because yeah, that's the most overlooked part of the wedding. And then don't forget to pause and breathe and observe, repeat because you worked really hard to get to this day and you honestly deserve it. So that's the most commonly forgotten things. It's just a cool casual 25 things. But my hope is as I'm reading through some of those, you might be like oh, done half of those already taken care of, not a big deal. So all I have to do is focus on like cool things and it could be something like pens, like it could be really minute. So don't stress out. Most people do not forget all of those Things. Most people only forget a handful of them and your wedding will go on without a handful of those things. So good for that. Do I actually need wedding insurance? Okay. I think technically saying yes or no constitutes legal advice. I can't. Sure. I know a lot of people that don't get married without it. I know a lot of people that get it. It's very cheap. It sounds scary because everyone, the terms are million dollar liability insurance. And people are like, what? What's that I don't want to spend a million dollars on? Or like get insurance for a million dollars for my event. You can get it through event helper. Event helper.com is my personal favorite because it's super affordable. But there's also, oh gosh, what's the other one? I'm sure there's a couple different sites, but the cost, at least last I looked it could change because of inflation, was 88 cents a guest. So if you have 100 guests, it's $88. So it is not expensive at all. And it's a really good little CYA should anything pop up. You can also go through your home insurance or renters insurance. Sometimes they have event insurance that you can get through them as well. So check that out if you're interested. Event helper.com my personal favorite. And they make it really easy. And you don't even need to get that until like a couple of weeks before your wedding. Because if you're doing it based on your guest list, then obviously you need to know how many people are attending before you purchase. Unless you're like, you know what, I don't care. I'll pay for 150 people. Even if we're not getting 150 people, then you can buy it earlier. But if you want to make sure that you're getting a little more, a little bit more accurate, saving some cash, I would go that route. 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. Thank you. 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.