10/10 A successful event manages to keep guests connected to the story being told.

A successful event managed to keep guests connected to the story being told.

Wedding formulas put people to sleep because they know the outcome already. Guest’s wait for the next box to be check. To avoid this you need a point of view. You can’t be everything all at once; classic but not conformist, innovative but still traditional, bright yet subtle…you know who you are. 

Are you the fun couple with doors always open? When friends need a shoulder to lean on, are you the ones they think of first? Are you the trailblazers that inspire others to follow their dreams? Are you the most simple, safe and down to earth of your friends? 

Social media has changed our thinking of events. So many think in terms of whats going to be inside that box rather than what is experienced throughout an evening. 

What are the adjectives that give energy to your intention? What is not your intention with this event? What are some analogies? Is this a journey through a season? A journey to an island? Is this a fabulous ending or an amazing beginning? Give those ideas some more language. 

Keep the night moving. I find that sometimes overtime should only be thirty minutes or not take place at all, if you have a cool after party that is ideally close by. You don’t want guests to lose their steam. You want to have their attention at the end. 

(9/10) Think of the guest's experience as the journey of where they are putting their attention.

Think of the guest’s experience as the journey of where they are putting their attention. 

Nine of ten: Things you need to remember when planning a wedding…the less superficial list. 

Where are their eyes going to go and how long are they going to be there? Where and when should surprises take place? When do guests need to just be and when do they need to be scooped back up into the moment?  

When are the up times and when are the down times? 

Does this crowd know each other? Do we want them to know each other more? Maybe they are content with more time in intimate conversation or maybe they are not. Maybe there is a way to get them to know each other better? Maybe this crowd hates "weddings".

When we can mingle outside our pods, post pandemic, will you seat people with people they don’t know? 

Do we like smaller clusters, covid or not? 

How far to the restroom? Can you move valet to a more convenient location for the end of night? 

The pieces have to line up easily and their attention needs to be captured continually. 

(8/10) Taking care of guests is more important than impressing your guests.

Eight of Ten: Things you need to know when planning a wedding.

Taking care of your guests is more important than impressing your guests.

Eight of Ten: Things to remember when planning a wedding. Taking care of your guests is more important than impressing them. If you don’t think of them as guests in your own home, while they may be at a venue, then everything else you create won’t matter so much.

In example, booking venues with many hotel accommodations on-site or hosting in an area many are familiar with, both take care of guests.

Picking a venue not too far from an airport.

Providing transportation takes care of guests.

Sending a detail email the week prior to the wedding, takes care of guests.

Adding a golf cart or two may be wise at some venues.

Taking care may be some things as simple as heal stoppers or blankets.

Will their hair get caught in a branch or worse, poke their eye out, when they get up to go to the restroom?

(7/10) People will remember how you made them feel, not how much your wedding was like its supposed to be.

Seven of Ten: Things you need to know when planning a wedding.

People will remember how you made them feel, not how much your wedding was like its ‘supposed to be’.

Seven of ten: Things to remember when planning a wedding...the less superficial list.

This is not to say that the ambiance and decor doesn’t evoke a feeling but impressing people is a very different intention than crafting feeling and experience.

To some degree people will feel how you feel about your wedding. They will enter the same headspace, and sense you wanted to impress and judge the same way you are judging yourself, trying to measure up.

If you are going over-budget or spending so much it makes you uncomfortable or you fear you may feel foolish after the wedding, than you have to take a step back and ask yourselves if it’s worth it.

If the answer is no, and spending what you are spending does not make you uncomfortable and spending ABC is necessary for you both to feel like you’ve created a day that truly expresses yourselves, then spend it! ✨

Less can be more and more can be more, just depends upon the song, and songs make you feel something. [Okay I tried too hard there, just couldn’t make a rhyme]

(6/10) What is your wedding for and what is it not for? Get specific

Six of Ten: What is your wedding for and what is it not for? Get specific. 

Adding to five of ten (see our previous instagram post a few days ago).

Maybe your wedding is to celebrate how far you both have come personally and professionally because of one another. 

Maybe your wedding is to thank your community that has supported you and accepted you as you are through the years. 

Maybe your wedding is to celebrate all that you both plan to create and do in the years to come.

Maybe your wedding is to celebrate your family of origin that helped set you up for success in relationships. 

You recognize that it takes a village to create a meaningful life. How has this community supported you? How does this community make you both feel? 

Giving language to your ‘why’ helps maintain perspective and creates energy for the experience you want to have, not just for that weekend but in the months leading up to this special day. ***It directs focus away from the unimportant minutiae that will stress you out.***

What is your wedding not for? We all have anxieties. Let go of the baggage getting in your way and get on with YOUR amazing planning and weekend. What baggage? You know, the performance anxiety that many people carry. 

Your wedding is not to prove your worth. 

Your wedding is not to prove your status.

Your wedding is not a competition with your social sphere. 

Own your own day and be true to yourself.