Surviving The Wedding Season Masterfully And With Finesse

 

Most of the time, people use work as an excuse for the lack of self-care they give themselves. Working on that key factor may be the answer to surviving this wedding season. In this episode, Jamie Wolfer and Heather Loree Fier give out some amazing tips on how you can improve your work efficiency and improve your lifestyle in one go. They emphasize the fact that preparation still determines how well you’ll do when the wedding season begins. If you are an engaged couple diving into your planning journey or a vendor ready to work at full speed for the coming months of the wedding season, your life might be feeling a little over-packed very soon. Jamie and Heather are dishing out wisdom on how to handle the coming months without burning yourself out. Learn the basic foundations you need to work on if you want to reach success.

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Surviving The Wedding Season Masterfully And With Finesse

Jamie: As wedding season approaches, I know all of us are excited. For the rookies here to the group, welcome to your first wedding season. For those of you who are seasoned pros, you know what you’re about to get into. What we want to focus on is six keys to make this wedding season the best one yet, and they’re not the tips that you think they’re going to be. We’re going to talk about balancing our life, scheduling things out, making sure maybe every once in a while you go on a walk, those kinds of things so you can survive this season masterfully.

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Jamie: Party people. Heather made me say that.

Heather: You went with it.

Jamie: In this episode, we are going to be talking about how to take care of yourself and get ready gearing up for this wedding season. It is almost time, the time is nigh, near, coming, up and coming, all of the terms and synonyms that go along with that.

Heather: It’s going to be that time where things get a little bit crazy. We wanted to talk about some different strategies to help you set up a strong foundation to make it through the wedding season healthy, sane and one piece.

Jamie: Weddings are dangerous, you could lose a limb. Let’s make sure we take the steps to keep everything intact.

Heather: Also, make sure you have your insurance up to date because if life and limb are at stake here, be prepared.

Jamie: Everyone’s like, “I don’t know what kind of events Jamie’s been working, but I don’t think I want to be a preferred vendor of hers right now.” I’m just saying, we get in there.

Heather: I’ve got a story for this about how crazy things can get as a wedding planner about life and limb. We’ll touch on that.

Jamie: Teaser. Stay to the end, people. One thing that we talk about all the time on this show is boundaries. How do you set boundaries and why they’re good? One of the reasons is because you need to give yourself room to live your life. You have to have time to brush your teeth every day and even if there’s time, maybe twice.

Weddings are dangerous, you can lose a limb. Click To Tweet

Heather: Ideally twice, that’s the correct number.

Jamie: Ideally, that would be the best situation. You need to add in time for your personal stuff because when you’re looking into a heavy wedding season and you’re looking to see every single weekend booked up until September or October, some people are even scheduled all the way to November, you’re about to take on a long, joyful but exhaustive season. Be sure to schedule that time. Set aside a night for family dinners where everyone puts their phones away, you don’t turn on the TV and you hang out with one another. Plan those girl nights or be aware of them moving forward so you can carve out time to spend with the people that mean the most to you so you can make it through this wedding season.

Heather: You are working to afford your life. You’re not living to work. Build your life into your schedule. Go ahead. As Jamie said, schedule in a family dinner night that you do not have flexibility on and if someone needs to talk to you about their wedding, go and have a meeting or a consultation. That time is not available. The same thing with those girl’s nights. Maybe if you’re into massages, you schedule one of those every other month. Something like that that gives you a chance to refresh and feel good and feel like you’re living a good life and not running yourself ragged, taking care of all the weddings going on around you.

Jamie: We’re in such a service-based business and it’s such a big deal. We’re planning someone’s wedding. We’re a part of one of the most epic days of someone’s life, we tend to get caught up in that and it can be consuming. There are elements of that that’s great and then there are elements of that that’s not great. Definitely rewarding yourself for those kinds of things from hitting certain milestones. Did you guys know that you could have a massage therapist come to your house? I need to do that. Have you done that?

Heather: I grew up with parents who did this so I knew about this. The bougie people over at the Hemingway household, they did all that. I did not even know this was a weird, unusual thing. Also, they developed a friendship with that massage therapist. It was a family friend who would come over. Every couple of months they’d get a massage.

Jamie: I need to make this a thing in my life, for sure.

Heather: This is not in my life but I’m listening to this as we’re talking and going, “Why are you not doing this?” The reason for that is to be like my parents, there’s always like, “I’m turning into my mother.” I’m like, “I’m okay with that.” This is a good thing.

Jamie: I would love to turn into your mother. That would be great.

Heather: She does take care of herself.

Jamie: I could parent you well for one. Two, I want to get massages. I’ve toyed with the idea of turning it into an at-home date night because let’s be honest, babysitters are low price gougers. Kidding, they earn every penny. They’re worth it. We don’t have a whole lot of room in the budget to leave our house for anything that’s not work-related. To have a massage therapist come over or have two of them and turn it into a date night where you get a massage and then you waddle to the couch and binge something on the television and then pass out for a while. Let’s put some of that into our lives. Let’s speak that into existence.

 

Heather: I like this idea because the money you would pay for that babysitter, pay it to the massage therapist and you’re getting a much nicer value there. That’s smart, Jamie.

Jamie: I know more than just weddings. I bust out some helpful information every once in a while.

Heather: Other rewards people could book for themselves, maybe fun trips or something like that?

Jamie: Oftentimes, especially if you travel for events. It can feel like work. Whether that means adding on a day before or a day afterward to explore the city that you’re in, that’s something we’ve started doing. Anytime I work out of town, you can bet, I show up a little bit earlier and leave a little bit later because it helps to make it feel less stressful and then I get to explore this new place. Even if you’re in a position where you’re like, “Jamie and Heather, I can’t afford vacations.” Next time you have something that’s out of town, tack on one extra night and maybe write it off as a business expense.

Heather: If you’re there getting ready and organized, you’re out running around picking up supplies. That’s all on the up and up. I do believe. We are not tax advisors here, talk to your CPA.

Jamie: This is not considered real legal advice, in case you haven’t picked up on that.

Heather: Do not pay attention to us on this if you are worried about your taxes being a problem. You’re probably fine. I did want to say with the trips, you can always do a staycation too, even if you can’t get out of town. At least we’re spoiled because we’re both in Southern California. You can do so much amazing stuff right down the road.

Jamie: One thing that we do as a family is we’ll do family movie nights where we’ll move the coffee table and throw a bunch of blankets and pillows on the floor. Daddy can’t sit on the floor with us anymore because he’s a 28-year-old man. Sometimes if it’s cold enough, which is not frequent in Southern California, we will light a fire. We will download a new movie and it’s something that we can create special memories out of nothing and it’s using the supplies that we have on hand and in our home. Most of you are creative in your fields, I’m sure if you thought about it hard enough you could find ways to make each little staycation much more special. Buy yourself a pretty candle, one that smells nice and treat yourself to burning it on these special nights. Maybe that’s just me, maybe I’m candle obsessed.

Heather: No, I’d say that plus a little mini cheeseboard I whip up and make myself feel like I got a gourmet situation going on here, that sounds like a nice little evening to me. Something like that, blocking the time out before the craziness hits that you know that Friday in June, you’re doing that at home. You’re having your cheeseboard. You’re making your little blanket fort and you’re hanging, and that’s going to be something to look forward to and to give you a little energy boost and a little surge of happiness in the midst of what could be crazy.

Jamie: Speaking of energy and special foods, focus on energy building activities. We have some listed out in the notes that Heather has written for us and I’m going to be honest, two out of three are things I’m not good at. She listed out sleep, exercise and nourishing foods. I’m a night owl and I have to wake up early in the morning or early-ish to take my daughters to school. I’m lucky if I get seven hours a night, but I digress. Exercise, what does that word mean? The third one is marathon.

If you travel for events, travel can feel just like work. Click To Tweet

Heather: Do you go on walks?

Jamie: What is that?

Heather: You don’t do air squats at the park where your children play? You’re not that mom?

Jamie: I am not that mom. I didn’t own yoga pants.

Heather: I’m on the opposite end here. I live in yoga pants. I’m probably going to be the mom that does the air squats at the park, but that’s cool.

Jamie: Of course you’re going to be the mom that does air squats in the park. I’m not even a park mom. There’s too much to do. There’s a park a quarter-mile away from our house. Let’s not even touch on the mom guilt with that one. I should probably be exercising more. That’s why I work at weddings.

Heather: You can put all this on your schedule. A wedding does give you a good workout. On my phone the step tracker, one wedding I did, I almost walked a marathon. It was a ridiculously sprawling venue though and my feet hurt real bad.

Jamie: There is one thing on this list that I do relatively well and that’s eating nourishing foods. My husband and I both tried to cut out high-fructose corn syrup, which then morphed into attempting to not have GMOs as much as possible. We’re not strict on it. We make allowances every once in a while, especially because sometimes there are things that the kids love. Focusing on the quality of the ingredients that we put into our body and what they’re made of. We’re not there yet, but that is something that I will say that we are starting to excel at. Be sure to focus on what you put into your body because some of these are practically a marathon and you’re not going to do well if you’re running on donuts. Don’t come at me because I threw donuts under the bus, I was using it as an example.

Heather: They are delicious but they are not nutritious. We all know this. That sugar crash is not going to help you get through the event with your brain running at full speed and your body running at full speed. Fuel yourself up, whether or not you want to be the mom at the park or the person at the park doing the squats, it’s all good. Do try to take care of yourself in whatever way works for you. One thing I didn’t list on here that’s important is drinking water. How often do people forget to drink water? You need that. It’s not a secret. It’s important.

Jamie: None of this is a secret. Sometimes you need someone to smack you upside the head while you’re reading to a blog and say, “Take care of your body.” Take the time, eat something good, put something leafy and green in your mouth and eat it.

 

Heather: Eat all your vegetables and try to get some sleep. Stop binge-watching things on Netflix. We know it’s fun but you need your sleep. Try to move your body a little bit. We’re not going to hold you too accountable on this but a little bit here and there, it will pay big dividends. I’m saying this from the background I come from. If I don’t get those things done, I notice I run at a subpar level. I’ve got a newborn in the house. Sleep is tough to come by. I will say that is a priority here that we get sleep as much as we can, bearing that the child lets us sleep. We work at her pace. The next thing we have on our list is to work on getting your systems in place before the craziness hits. I would say don’t procrastinate. Is that how you’re interpreting it, Jamie?

Jamie: It makes me think right before I released the master plan and you were like, “Do you have an email list ready? Do you have this ready?” I was like, “Do I have to have an email list? Do I need to have these things prepped?” You could see the storm coming and I had no idea that there was a storm even on the horizon. That’s how I’m interpreting it, actual, physical systems in place. Make sure you know what your packages look like. Make sure you have a brochure ready to go. Make sure you have your message ready when you’re working events for the weekend. Getting yourself set up for success in that way, do that now before things get crazy instead of not having some of those things in place. Also, dropping the ball with some of your clients or missing out on new inquiries because you didn’t have something set up properly.

Heather: All of this works together. The idea of not waiting to the last minute is important because it’s tempting to go, “I could make a templated email response for new inquiries but I’ll wait until the first person emails and then I’ll make it then.” You get in the bad habit and suddenly you’ve gone through the whole year without building out a system that would have taken 30 minutes and could have saved you twenty hours throughout the whole season. Take the time, invest in getting things organized and set up so that your business is working for you. We mentioned this on other episodes, work on your business instead of in your business and this is on your business aspects. You’re going to get things organized where your business flows smoothly. You’re giving a good customer experience. You’re saving yourself time and effort as you go through the year.

Jamie: This probably applies to a few of you, if not all of you. When I’m behind the ball administratively, I get stressed and then it affects the quality of work that I do. It affects me emotionally and how I deal with my family. It has this ripple effect in my entire life and whether that means that I’m far too married to my business or I’m emotionally invested. If I don’t have systems in place, if I don’t have a game plan in my mind or an out of office message, I feel guilty and that eats away at me or I feel stressed and it starts to affect everything else.

Heather: This is all part of taking care of yourself. The real thing about being able to give yourself self-care is building the systems that allow, on an emotional level, things not to cascade over you. That’s what can happen in your business when things are good or when things are slow because in either of those situations, the emotions can run high. You need to protect yourself, make that plan in advance, build the systems in advance on your marketing side to bring in clients when things are slow. The systems and the customer management side of things for when you’ve got a ton of work coming in. Work on that now before the wild season is upon you.

Jamie: There’s something that you said about self-care. I read something that said, “Self-care is not giving yourself self a pedicure or reading a good book, but it’s paying your bills.” It’s calling your accountant to get things squared away for your account. It’s making sure that your car registration is up to date. It’s calling your landlord about that issue that’s been nagging at you for the last six months in your home and you need to get it taken care of. Before the craziness of wedding season hits, make sure your self-care are those things too, because when you’ve got four weddings a month or six weddings a month, your registration is going to fall behind and then it’s going to be stressful. Make sure that your self-care is not face masks, which I’m a huge fan of. It is multifaceted and that does mean doing the hard things, the adulty normal life things before you don’t have time or brain space to handle them.

Heather: This adulty thing can suck the life right out of you. Sitting at the DMV for hours, it’s not a fun day. You don’t want to do that a few days before you have the biggest event you have all year. Get that all squared away.

Jamie: Another thing that you can do is line up the help that you need. You know it’s going to get crazy. That can be a support to handle the workload at work or even at home. Before our crazy wedding season, I will assign my husband tasks because he doesn’t listen if I don’t.

Heather: You’ve got to have a system that works. If that works for you guys, write that list, give him his honey-do list.

Jamie: It’s like, “We’ve got four loads of laundry that needs to be done, can you please fold them and put them away?” Those kinds of things, because his job is much more structured to a 9:00 to 5:00, where mine is not. Making sure that I have support on that end is helpful for us and then also to tap into affordable and time-saving resources like Instacart, HelloFresh, some meal delivery service because it’s going to make your life much easier.

Take the time to invest in getting things organized and set up so that your business is working for you. Click To Tweet

Heather: Honestly, I mentioned Instacart a lot because I love it and I haven’t gone to a grocery store in so long and I used to be in grocery stores all the time, which is a big change for me. They calculate how many hours you save on their app and I’ve saved 200 hours. I never would have thought that’s how much time I’m investing in going to the grocery store. Now that I’m seeing it add up, I’m like, “Every single time would have probably been an hour to an hour and a half of driving over there, walking around, packing it up, coming home.” It’s incredible. I’ve used it for parties too.

It’s good and handy to make the flow of your life easier. There are tons of these resources out there. I also get a vegetable delivery box to keep the cart on the tracks here because otherwise if things are busy, all of a sudden I look at my fridge and I’m like, “I have this old jar of mayonnaise. Probably it’s not going to be a good dinner. How about I go out to dinner?” I know that happens along for Jamie too. The takeout is a good little outlet for a last minute meal.

Jamie: It reminds me of that scene from Notting Hill. Have you seen it?

Heather: No. Let me do a yes and yes, I love Notting Hill.

Jamie: You’ve never seen Notting Hill?

Heather: I have not.

Jamie: We’re going to have to break up right here on the show.

Heather: I’ll watch it. Apparently, this is my assigned homework.

Jamie: You’re going to move your coffee table and throw blankets and pillows on the ground. This is going to be your staycation night in. Light that candle and order dinner from Instacart. The main character has a roommate who is quirky and he’s like, “There’s something wrong with his yogurt.” The main character replies with, “That’s because it’s mayonnaise.” The roommate goes, “That explains it,” and takes another bite. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities for some people.

Heather: I could not do that, but that does happen. You end up with the mayonnaise and apparently some people will eat that. For me, I like to eat a little more than that. Sometimes it turns into a quick order of Indian food or drive-through could pop up and those things add up, which is another thing we wanted to talk about is assessing your budget before you get into the wedding season. Setting some reasonable expectations of what these additional expenses might be during the wedding season when you are busy. Also, how your income is going to fluctuate because you’re going to have the beginning of a season where maybe you’re booking all these people and getting a bunch of nice needy deposits. Your bank account is looking good and then a few months later, things can be dwindling as you’re having the expenses during that season and extra travel, extra childcare, and extra take out. As the events pass, you’re getting those final payments. Be prepared for that and be smart, budget your money so that you’re not ending the wedding season in the hole.

 

Jamie: I definitely fall victim to the trap of takeout. We’ve got more kids than I have hands. Between homework, inbox, clients and brushing my teeth apparently twice a day. I’m not going to the grocery store and we do take out, but not as often. We try to be cognizant about it because it is expensive, but that is something that you end up having to work into your budget and that’s okay. There’s an element of be aware. If you know when it’s the thick of wedding season that at least once a week you’re getting a takeout, great, but work that into your budget so you’re not scared or penniless by the time November comes around and then you’re hungry until engagements season strikes.

Heather: That’s not a fun way to be because that’ll go through the holidays too. That’ll be sad.

Jamie: Nobody gets Christmas. Budget your takeout.

Heather: The other thing I’ve been doing, which I don’t know if you do this, Jamie, is food prepping. Do you food prep?

Jamie: Not as often as I should, but yes.

Heather: I tested out something before the baby arrived, which I am instituting all the time, which is this amazing list of instant pot recipes where you do all your food prep at one time. It’s a month’s worth of food that is in your freezer and all you have to do is dump it in your Instapot or Crock-Pot and dinner is ready. We set this up where I had my freezer packed to the brim before the baby arrived and we have run out of food, which was about ten weeks. We ate for ten weeks off of what I prepared in five hours, which is insane.

Jamie: Is this a list that you have?

Heather: Yes. It was a random blog that I found that had these recipes and initially came up that my other friend who was pregnant and I were going to do this together. She ended up having her baby early, I made her all her food too, to be nice. I didn’t want to leave her with her new baby and no food. I ended up being economical too because I’d say for your family with five of you, probably it’s a month’s worth of food at least. It was under $300 to prep all of it. It was crazy affordable. Whatever your dietary situation is, because some of you might be vegan or no gluten, there are a lot of interesting kinds out there. I’ve heard about this caveman diet where people just eat meat.

Jamie: No one tells that to my husband because he will then want to go on to that diet. He’s like, “All bacon all the time.”

Heather: It’s healthy somehow is what they sell it as. It sounds questionable to me. You guys can look for this idea that works for your life. I had never food prepped and I was amazed at how easy it was. It’s something to think about.

Jamie: It’s something that I’ve definitely done in the past. I did it before Silas, but I’d never thought to do it before a wedding season. I’m having a light bulb moment before your eyes, I’m like, “This is genius.”

Heather: You don’t need to eat those meals every day. It can be as needed. When you have that night that it’s like, “I’m behind on work. I don’t have time to prep something great.” Dump it in the Instapot, an hour later you can all be eating and you didn’t have to spend any time in the kitchen. It’s nice and it also minimizes your clean up time, which is the secret part of the cooking process that’s evil. You get through the food prep and that part seems fun, and it’s like, “I’m a chef. I’m going to pretend I’m Julia Child.” You get to the end and you’re like, “Now I’m the dishwasher. This sucks. I don’t want to do that.”

Jamie: My mom would always say this to us growing up and I would be annoyed, but she’s always like, “Clean as you cook.” I sound like a parrot. Now as an adult, I’m like, “Clean as you cook. Wash this while that’s boiling.” You get to the end of the meal and you’re like, “Yes. There’s not much left to do.” Somehow this episode is turned into homemaker tips and I’m here for it. Let’s be honest, we both work from home and there are babies. I need cleaning product recommendations as much as I need how to streamline my business. Let’s be real because that’s what mompreneurs do.

Heather: These issues cut into your time to effectively work. It cuts into the time you have to spend with your family. It cuts into everything. As much as anyone loves to cook, no one loves cleaning the dishes. I don’t believe it if someone says they do. Do it efficiently and make it a little easier on yourself. Do all the adult things and give yourself rewards and all the different things we talked about. It makes life a little bit better and allows you to live life to the fullest despite being crazy busy and trying to grow your business.

Jamie: None of this is revolutionary. None of this is groundbreaking. We’re not saying anything that you guys don’t already know. Sometimes you need a voice in your earbud to say, “Do these things. Take the time. Reward yourself. Get your systems in place now.” We all know how crazy the season is about to get and we love every single minute of it, but make sure that you are carving out personal time. You have a healthy balance. Maybe I’ll go on a walk. Probably not, but it could happen. I can’t believe I admitted to all of our audience that I don’t exercise at all.

Heather: It’s okay. You can get started on and if you want, it’s never too late to get out there and learn to walk, Jamie.

Jamie: We all know that I’m not going to go on walks anytime soon.

Heather: What about if we get you ankle weights?

Jamie: That makes it worst. What if you walked like a dog with snow boots on that doesn’t know what he’s doing, would that make walking more appealing? No, Heather.

Heather: What about a tracksuit? Something fashionable.

Jamie: You’re speaking with my Enneagram three.

Heather: That’s fashionable.

Jamie: Fashion is a fashion and I’m here for it. Let’s take a normal thing and make it harder to see if it makes it more alluring.

Heather: I’m thinking maybe you needed a little more challenge. I just want you to push yourself.

Jamie: This episode is getting off the rails.

Heather: That’s what you don’t want your life to do during the wedding season. Readers, pay attention to us. We’ve been here and take care of yourself, set this foundation now. At the end of the wedding season, you’re going to go, “Heather and Jamie, thank you so much. I’m tipping my hat to you for setting me up for success.”

Jamie: You know what we’re going to say? We were right. I say that to my husband all the time when he’s wrong on something, I’m like, “I was right.” What I’m saying is I’m fun to be married to.

Heather: I won’t comment for him. That’s for you two to work out.

Jamie: I’m sharing with the audience.

Heather: It’s okay. It’s beautiful.

Jamie: You’re welcome.

Heather: It’s real life. This has been another excellent episode. We hope you all enjoyed and keep on coming back for more. We are here for you and want your success this wedding season.

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