Talking with other planners (and creatives) is something that fires me up. So you can imagine how excited I was when Kay of Hayden & Co Events (a long time mutual follow on IG) reached out about a virtual coffee date.

One of the topics she and I discussed is one I’ve seen come up in number of different ways with other planners over the past few months: the planning journey.

Magical Planning Experience AND a Magical Day

While I am a process-nerd, I do feel like too many folks are creating selfish processes.

By that I mean, they aren’t thinking about the wedding planning experience their couple has. They are focused on how to most efficiently do their job time and again, which is important, but might be missing out on the holistic planning journey their couples undertake.

Kay’s home page straight-up says “I believe you deserve to have a magical planning experience and a magical day with the love of your life.”

And I believe her.

Her passion for ensuring her couples are fully supported by her process is evident. While she has core steps and standards of service for every client, she is agile enough to move quickly the identify unique pain points of each individual couple and provide resources when their needs aren’t in her personal wheelhouse.

While there is a lot of great education about creating services that take care of client pain points, I’m very inspired by the idea of imagining how to assist couples when we cannot personally provide the “antidote” to their particular pain point.

We’re Really Lacking in Supporting What Matters: Their Marriage

One of the other conversations I’ve had recently about shaking up the planning experience as we know it was with Amy of Modern Rebel. She’s built a team that helps couples rewrite the rules of weddings… and she’s dreaming of rewriting the industry, too.

As Amy puts it, wedding planning is a test run for how couples will navigate budgeting, high stress, family dynamics, and so much more when they are married.

A hallmark of the Modern Rebel process is requiring couples to create “Marriage Mantras” — a self-determined phrase that can be referenced as a guiding light not only in the planning process but for the many years of marriage to come. While providing this marriage support to couples, it’s become even more clear to Amy how supportive we are, as an industry, of weddings, but we’re really lacking in supporting what matters: their marriage.

What exactly does providing marriage support to couples in the planning process look like? I’m not sure, but I’m excited to see what Amy’s cooking up because her vision is so bright.

People > Cake Tastings (Kinda)

We all know that people who join this industry for the “fun” don’t last very long. While our jobs come with some great perks (hello, cake tastings), if you aren’t passionate about the people you’re serving, it’s hard to imagine some cake tastings outweighing the long hours, sweaty set-ups, and cranky old men who are ticked off their tables weren’t served before the family tables.

Creating truly luxurious experiences (regardless of the actual cost of the service) is about melding passion with process and thinking outside of the box to make those we’re serving feel as if we’re reading their minds by providing for their needs before they even realize what they need.

This is a far less “actionable” post than I usually make for wedding pros, but I want to invite you to this conversation. I’d love to hear what you’re doing to take care of the people we serve both during the planning process and beyond. What are you excited about for our industry moving forward? How can we rally together to ensure our couple’s engagement seasons & marriages are as successful as their wedding days?

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