The Union Podcast – Episode One: Together We Wed

 

Wedding planning can be one of the most stressful things about the wedding once you’ve committed to it. Finalizing dates, gathering vendors, making sure everything is in place for the big day all falls into place if you can just start right. Wedding planners Jamie Wolfer and Heather Loree Fier help you get started right on the path towards your big day. In the wedding planning industry, there are good, bad, and absolutely beautiful things, and Jamie and Heather take you through all of them in detail. Your path to the big day begins here!

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Listen to the podcast here:

Important Links:

• YouTube – Jamie Wolfer’s YouTube channel
• Wedding Hacker Expo
• The Master Plan
• The Knot
• WeddingWire

The Union Podcast – Episode One: Together We Wed

An Introduction To A Podcast For Those In The Wedding Planning Trenches

Jamie: Heather, we’re here in the moment that we’ve dreamed of for a long time. It’s our first. We’re doing this and it is going to be awesome. I am not going to lie. We have so much faith in this.

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Jamie: If you are new here, my name is Jamie Wolfer.

Heather: I’m Heather Loree Fier. I’m excited to be here with Jamie to share some major wedding wisdom with you guys and also that behind the scenes angle of what’s going on for vendors and empower vendors, couples, all of you to have an amazing time planning weddings.

Jamie: Weddings are epic, they’re wonderful experiences. For those of us who are in the industry, there’s a lot of fun. I can’t picture a wedding that I didn’t cry at. You get invested in these humans that you get to partner with and finding ways to celebrate that and then grow our businesses within that and serve our clients best. With that in mind, we love a good budget resource both for ourselves and for clients. How do we all collectively save money on things? I don’t necessarily want to blow a lot of money on both for our business. How do we help our clients do that? We want to build a community.

There’s so much power in networking. There’s so much power in hearing the behind the scenes of other vendors, how they operate, how they do what they do. Every time I can connect with a photographer or a videographer in here, how does this help your process? What can I do with my timeline that can help your process? It makes me a better wedding planner. To develop this community is one of the most powerful things that we can do for each other because then we can all become better on what we do and we can make our lives easier. I don’t know about you, Heather, but that is my jam.

Heather: That is what we’re here for. I cannot believe how divided this community feels. This is where we’re going to build some bridges. We’re going to bring some people together who maybe didn’t even think they could work together and they’re going to end up loving each other. I’m talking about budget-minded resources and traditional vendors who maybe thought they weren’t even going to be able to be friends. We’re going to figure out a way through this to bring those folks together and have them cuddling and loving each other.

Jamie: This is something that Heather and I firmly believe in, not every budget or every couple can afford a professional vendor in every single category. At what point do we swallow our big kid pride as vendors and go, “You can’t afford $5,000 for florals. I get it.” Here are seven different resources that you can go to or here’s a couple of different videos we found online on how you can DIY your florals and finding a way to serve clients where they’re at instead of telling them where they should be.

Heather: Stopping with any budget shaming because as vendors, we are missing a huge piece of the pie by not serving the folks who maybe can’t afford us. Figuring out a way to restructure your business or develop some bridges that give you ways to direct those folks to a resource that does work for them but still benefits you as the business, it is key. It’s going to help everyone involved. It’s going to help the couples. It’s going to help the vendors. That’s what this is all about.

In wedding planning, you get very invested in all the humans that you get to partner with. Click To Tweet

Jamie: It’s important to note that you don’t have to take on all the budget clients. Something that I have learned is just because someone only has $1,000 for their wedding coordinating budget, it doesn’t mean I have to go and take that cost because my costs are higher than that. We’re not saying book all the clients, no matter what their budget is. No, absolutely not because there is a bunch of clients out there that I don’t want. It may not be their budget. It could be because our personalities don’t mesh.

That’s not the intent of what we’re saying. What we’re saying is, even if you don’t want them, even if they can’t afford you, even if you don’t want to take a lower cost for what you do, point them in the direction of someone who can. That’s how we build the community. Could you imagine if someone said, “We couldn’t book this photographer because of their cost but they recommended us three different people that were the same style. We can’t speak highly enough about that original photographer.” They book you for their family photos two years down the line because they can now afford you or because that will put a positive taste in someone’s mouth.

Heather: The referrals you’re going to get from that, all of us know the ultimate compliment and the ultimate way to get your business without paying a huge truckload of money for marketing is a referral. Doing anything you can to give a great experience to a couple, even if they aren’t the right couple to work with you, is going to lead to good things. Another aspect of what we want to tap into with this is showing a little bit of the behind the scenes. We think having couples learn about the behind the scenes, isn’t it only helpful for them, it’s also helpful for the vendors. Jamie does an amazing job, I’ll brag about her a little bit, over on her YouTube channel. Showing behind the scenes and educating couples to understand the process and that allows them to build more respect and more clarity on what they’re buying and what the skills are that these vendors have.

Jamie: Honestly, when I first started my YouTube channel, I searched online to see if there were videos out there that had this. There was one and it’s six minutes long. In my opinion as I was watching it, I’m like, “What? This isn’t showing anything of what we do. It’s cute. It’s good promo for this person. Where’s the meat?” It had at the time 13,000 views and I was like, “We’re missing an opportunity here.” The couples that can’t afford to book me will still watch that video and be like, “That’s interesting. I want to make sure that we do that or we don’t do that.” If a photographer was to watch that from my perspective and potentially I would say to the camera, “Photography is taking a little bit longer than we anticipated. We want to give room for their art. However, I do have to also keep in mind that I have 150 guests who are ravenous at cocktail hour.”

A photographer can then have the opportunity to go, “Yes, we need to focus on my art. Yes, I’m glad that the planner is aware of that but also I need to be respectful maybe what the planner needs in this situation too.” Sharing behind the scenes has been one of the best things that I’ve done for my business. I say that with certainty because I didn’t think that it would be powerful before but helps clients, it helps non-clients, it helps other vendors, being genuine behind the scenes. Not to mention it’s fascinating as heck for people who aren’t in the industry.

Heather: There’s an aspect there that you’re not even pointing out that Jamie taught me, is that it also lets you be your authentic self and your potential clients get to know you and hopefully love you and then they’re more apt to hire you. Letting people see behind the curtain, letting them feel comfortable and see what you got going on in your life is powerful for you and your business.

 

Jamie: I spoke with another vendor, a friend of mine and talking about a branding opportunity and helping come up with a brand, one for this, and I was like, “You should do a time lapse of you creating the logo.” She’s like, “I don’t want to share the magic. I don’t want to ruin it.” I went, “No. You don’t watch those time lapses of a baker frosting a cake on Facebook because it’s teaching you how to frost a cake. You watch it because it’s hypnotizing as heck.” As a client or as a customer experience, you watch that and you go, “I wonder if this baker is going to frost my cake for my wedding and put it on their Instagram and I can be like, ‘They’re talking about my wedding.’” They want to buy into that experience. There is an extra element of that, your personality. I have found that giving out free information has brought me more clients than any other form of advertising, hands down. Me giving out free stuff gets me clients.

Heather: That’s what I’m doing too with the Wedding Hacker Expo we had, that brought in many new clients, many folks who are curious about what is this wedding hacking business. It’s the same idea. It’s helping folks, giving them that education so that they can then make decisions that are right for them and there will be times where that decision is not to hire you and that is okay. You don’t want every client in the world. That would be insane and not sustainable. Figuring out a way to service folks who do come to you to draw them in to cast that wide net. Maybe even some ways to automate your business so that you can service more folks at different price points. All of this is what we’re going to be tapping into, which we’re both over the moon thrilled. It’s happening in real life.

Jamie: Honestly, on our log we have over 40 ideas. It’s going to be a ride.

Heather: We’re going to be having a lot of chats. It’s going to be great. We have some amazing folks already lined up that want to come on here and share a perspective with you. You’re not just going to be hearing folks who service the budget community as well. I want to point that out that we have some folks lined up who are high-end and do exceptional work and handle clients where the photography packages are in the tens of thousands of dollar range. They know their stuff and they have some tools they’re using behind the scenes that they’re going to talk about, about how they’re getting that business. It’s all stuff that’s going to be juicy for those of you who are wedding vendors. For those of you who are couples, all this is going to help you see what’s happening, how the vendor’s businesses work so that you can hire the right people that suit your needs and your price point, your values, all of that because that matters. In this industry, you have a lot of options. Getting a good perspective on all this and hearing what’s going on in this community can help you make the right decisions.

Jamie: How many clients of yours have you had where they’re like, “I feel personally victimized by wedding planning.” They don’t understand the industry and it’s almost like, “Let’s explain how it works to you, then you can make educated decisions for yourselves.” That is a huge intention of this because we want to explain the industry. We want to do our best to be intentional, if you’re up a couple following this, to open the curtain on what the industry looks like for them too. If they come across a photographer and they hear the same points that we’ve had a photographer on, they’re like, “I know what you’re talking about. I’m now speaking the same language.” It sounds like we have quite a few ideas and quite a few different ways that we want to go with this in general. If we had to get it down to brass tacks, we want insider info, we want business growth, and how can we up our client interactions and how can we serve more people? Did I capture all of those correctly, Heather?

Heather: Empower and serve, that’s what I’m thinking. I love to get couples fired up where they’re feeling positive about their wedding. That’s one of my big pet peeves in this industry is that they scare these poor couples and I’m like, “You will be okay.” For those of us who are on the other side of the wedding, who’ve been married, who are married, we know that the reality is a year down the line, a lot of this stuff fades out of you. It was not that big of a deal. Instead of scaring these poor couples and making them stressed and making this experience a torturous one, I love figuring out a way to empower and guide them and make them feel strong as they go through this and confident. That’s in the hands of the vendors to do that and reiterate that these couples are capable, that they can make it through this process.

Jamie: Now that we’ve dragged on for a little bit, hopefully in an entertaining manner, we should probably say who we are.

The goal is to make couples not scared, but comfortable in what they're about to do. Click To Tweet

Heather: You guys may or may not know us. Jamie, obviously YouTuber hall of fame, she’s right there.

Jamie: You’re kind to say that. Every time this gets brought up, I’m humbled by the experience and I hope I continue to stay humbled. It’s bizarre to me. I started a YouTube channel, January 1st, 2018 because I was dramatic like that and I had been tortured by doing it for a while. I’m a wedding planner by trade. If anyone asks what my job is I lead with that one because saying YouTuber sounds weird. It leads to some weird conversations. I had wanted to start a YouTube channel for a long time. I practiced recording for six months before I even started. I have many videos that will never see the light of day, ever.

I started a YouTube channel and we passed 51,000 subscribers. It’s insanity to me. It shows me that there are some people out there thirsting for knowledge on the wedding industry. It’s been blowing my mind too. The free advice is getting me clients. I didn’t plan that. I didn’t realize it would be the best marketing tool I could have but it is. It’s giving me the opportunity to serve people who otherwise would not be served by the wedding community because of their budgets. I’m a wedding planner by trade. I’m also a YouTuber. That’s who I am. That’s what I do. Seeing this need in the wedding industry I’m like, “More people, let’s get it on this. More people, let’s help these people out because it’s doing good things for business too.”

Heather: What Jamie is being humble about is that she’s also a marketing genius. There’s a lot there that’s behind the scenes, some magic secret sauce that’s happening and we’re going to dig into some of that with other guests we have on here as well as topics we touch upon.

Jamie: That’s a kind thing to say.

Heather: It’s true. Having time connecting with Jamie has been such a pleasure. I met her as I was putting together the Wedding Hacker Expo. It was an event that brought together 30 different industry experts to talk about things from personal finance all the way through getting fit for your wedding and all the fun little pretty details of a wedding too. That came together after I wrote a book. Before that I had a blog. There have been a few iterations of this wedding hacker stuff that I’ve been doing. In my skillset, my prior life, I did run a company that grew to a national scale doing event marketing, which is different from weddings, but 99% the same. People don’t understand how they can be similar because the events I ran were all happening in grocery stores, which seems way different than a wedding. The thing that is similar is almost every single event involved about twenty different vendors.

 

Those vendors happen to be different food companies. The company I ran, we orchestrated all of that. We had 3,000 field reps nationally who brought those folks together and kept everything organized. It was a crazy, chaotic mess that we had to develop good systems for. When I looked at the wedding industry and saw folks not getting served, this huge 70% of the couples not being able to have wedding planners, I was like, “There is a situation that needs a good system. How do we build this? How do we help those folks?” That’s where I came into this after selling my prior business. It was exciting and refreshing to jump into something that for me had been a hobby. I had planned about 30 weddings and at a few years because suddenly every friend I knew got married and all of them knew I was the planner of the group.

Jamie: That’s cute that you called 30 weddings a hobby.

Heather: It was an aggressive hobby. A lot of those were not paid. That’s why I say hobby. It started getting to where they were paid and I was like, “This is a side business while I’m running another national business that is a little kooky.” All that stuff opened up this opportunity. I see myself as a spendthrift. I love saving money. I love seeing other people save money and be proud of that. That’s another thing I love that Jamie does is her thrift haul videos and stuff like, “100%, let’s find some deals.”

Jamie: A good thrift store. I’m wearing clothes from a thrift store. If I can take a moment to brag on Heather for a second because she and I have two different approaches to the way we do business and now we’re sharing them with each other. One of the biggest things, Heather, that you’ve spoken about and in fact, before I launched my online wedding planning course, The Master Plan, Heather was like, “Do you have an email list?” I’m like, “What are those words? I don’t know what that means.” Your knowledge of how email lists works and nurture sequences and how I could take my YouTube videos and turn them into a newsletter to serve people.

One thing that you shared with me that I was not touching it all is that the only followers you own, so to speak, are the ones that you can get in their inbox because your Instagram could crash. Your YouTube channel could crash. Your Facebook page could be gone. I’ve personally lost my personal Instagram. Someone hacked it and then it was gone. First of all, I’m heartbroken. Pictures of my kids are gone. Could you imagine if that was your business Instagram and you finally hit 5,000 people and you’re like, “I’ve made it,” and then it crashes. Had Heather encouraged me in that, Heather, you bring so much value there. Imagine if you had 5,000 people on your email list, your Instagram crashes, you send out an email, “It crashed. Click this link to go follow us again.”

Heather: That’s where the power is and what people are not doing. They’re not doing the basics of marketing. A big example of that that I’m sure a lot of you industry folks can relate to are the changes over at The Knot and WeddingWire, that you had a huge backlog of amazing reviews talking about how you are the bomb diggity and suddenly you’re not going to ante up and pay The Knot. Suddenly it’s deleted, no longer exists and that was where you were building your reputation. Taking the power and building your reputation elsewhere is critical. It’s critical because a lot of these big companies, they do not see us little guys as anything at all. You have to make the smart decisions to have a good foundation for yourself and to watch out for yourself.

Jamie: It’s hard to get reviews. It’s already awkward to ask for them, it’s like, “Can you tell me how cool I am? Thanks. Click this link and tell me how cool I am.” It already feels awkward. Many people don’t even respond to that email and you’re like, “I’m not going to nag them.” You finally get to the point where you rack up 5, 10, 15, 20 reviews and then you have to pay to keep them there. You don’t own that audience. You don’t own those reviews, they’re gone.

It's great to get to see people save money on their weddings and be proud of that. Click To Tweet

Heather: The power is not in your hands. That’s a lot of what we’re going to talk about is building a smart business in the wedding industry that you take control of, that you have the power in how you’re presenting yourself, how your marketing is handled, all of that. Ultimately, that allows you to steer the ship and that allows you to build out long-term plans, get multiple revenue streams coming in, all sorts of smart things that are going to open up the possibilities for you to succeed for years and years to come.

Jamie: There’s a hole in the industry, there’s a gap. I don’t want to see this lie that we’ve been told as vendors, but it is where we can’t take ownership of those who follow us. There’s marketing gurus out there like Jenna Kutcher who’s straight up slaying the game. She used to be a wedding photographer. She gets the industry and she gives advice that is astounding. In fact, the goal of your podcast is one of the only ones that I binge constantly. How do we make that specifically about the wedding industry? How do we pull those ideas in? There’s many ways you can diversify. There’s many ways that you could get more money and there’s many more ways that you could be marketing. Try one of them. Try one and see how it works. I’m getting fired up.

Heather: That’s why we’re doing this because we are talking and being pumped about all these things we’re seeing. The fact that there’s such a big need for a place for a community to come together because this feels isolating at times and collaboration is key to everyone’s success. That’s huge. Additionally, these amazing resources and tools and approaches to running a business, which have not always been translated into the wedding industry, we can bring in some of those heavy hitters who know how to run and scale amazing businesses. We’ll have them come and talk directly to you guys, the vendors who are out there hustling, doing amazing work and that have your craft on point but to teach you how to run a business better. Ultimately, that’s what you’re doing. You’re not just a florist. You’re not just a baker. You’re not just a DJ. You are a business owner. You need to get your business chops on point.

Jamie: If you want to get from small time to less small time or if you want to save sanity, because the hamster wheel of the wedding industry can be exhausting and you do reach a point where you’re like, “I don’t know if I could do this anymore because I am hustling to get clients to me. I’m hustling to get them in front of me.” Could you imagine if there was a system in place or if you tried a couple of different things where they can be you? Where you had less hustle to do and then you could cultivate making sure you served your clients specifically and then you get to the point where you felt like, “I don’t need all the clients. I want a good amount but I don’t need all of them. I’m going to pass them off to this person who I’ve found in this community.” You got to a place where it’s less stressful and you felt more confident.

Heather: That’s what we’re going to talk about on this. That pretty much sums it up. I don’t know that there’s anything else to say except that we want to shake things up. We want to empower the little guys, the vendors who are out there hustling to come together and collaborate and to be a team in a way that works in alignment with the couples. Some of those big guys out there who haven’t been making moves that support the success of our businesses, to figure out some tools and resources we can use to skate around that because it’s time. The tools are there. The resources are there. The community is there and there are far more of us than there are of these big companies out there. Let’s shake things up. Let’s do it.

Jamie: I, all of a sudden, have the song from Les Mis, “Who you hear the people sing singing the songs of angry men.” The stomping that they do in a circle on the rotating stage, that’s what I feel right now and like, “Let’s take this.” Let’s do it because it’s waiting. It’s here at our fingertips. We can do it. We can collectively come together and help each other out and that is what we want to do with this podcast. We want to Les Mis all of you. I want all of you stomping and singing on a rotating stage. For those of you who don’t enjoy musical theater, I’m sorry that my nerd slipped out a little bit. I apologize but it needed to happen.

 

Heather: It’s going to happen. That’s going to be a part of this.

Jamie: I won’t sing too much, I promise.

Heather: In middle school, I had a teacher write in my yearbook, “You are not a nerd.” My sister says that means I was the biggest nerd ever. That’s what the teacher wrote in my yearbook. There’s going to be some nerdy stuff that happens on this. Be ready for that. Hopefully, you enjoy that sweet nerdiness we offer and a lot of wisdom and a lot of amazing guests. Welcome to The Union Podcast.

Jamie: Together we wed.

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