We're Engaged! Now What? | First Steps of Wedding Planning

Photo by Blue Rose Photography

YOU’RE ENGAGED!!

You’ve celebrated with your new fiancé(e) and your families, you can’t stop staring at that beautiful new sparkle on your finger, the world is your oyster. Take a moment to really soak in how special this season of your life is.

Okay. Now’s about the time when the questions start - when is your wedding? Where is your wedding? Will the best venues and wedding vendors still be available if you schedule your wedding for this year, or should you push it out until next year? What is your wedding budget, and who is contributing to it? Is cousin Betty invited? How can we help?

Suddenly, this whole engagement thing starts to feel a little overwhelming… and that’s why you’ve landed here with me! Hi! I’m Krisanna, and I’ve been a wedding planner in Seattle for over a decade. I’m here to confirm that this initial feeling of overwhelm is NORMAL, and also offer you my humble advice when it comes to the first steps of planning a wedding!

1. TALK ABOUT YOUR WEDDING BUDGET.

Financial conversations are always delicate, so it may feel daunting to ask family members if they will be contributing to your wedding budget (and, if so, how much they will be contributing). However, in my decade of work as a wedding planner, I’ve found that this conversation is a must before you begin anything else. Your budget serves as the most important parameter when it comes to choosing a venue and selecting your wedding team, so it’s important to not jump the gun before this number is decided. A few questions to think about:

- What does your preliminary guest list look like? Is it a more intimate list of 50-75 guests, or are you planning to invite 250+ people to your celebration? The number of guests invited to your wedding is a huge factor when setting a budget (food and beverage costs, staffing and bartending, rental items, and florals are just a few of the items dictated by your guest count).
- Do you have a set budget, or is it a range? For example: your parents are graciously offering to pay a flat $75,000 vs. your parents are willing to cover $75,000, but you and your partner are also setting aside $25,000, so your total budget ranges from $75,000 - $100,000.
- If your parents (or other loved ones) are contributing to your budget, what does this mean in terms of their say in your decisions? Will they be heavily involved and/or key decision-makers when planning your wedding? Is this something that you are comfortable with? Setting guidelines and boundaries from the beginning may be helpful.

2. FIND YOUR WEDDING VENUE.

You’ve decided on a total budget number and a rough guest count, so now it’s time to start your venue search! This process can be quite long, or you may find the perfect site in a matter of days. My best advice is to not rush it! I know it feels like everyone else is trying to book their weddings during the peak months, and you may lose opportunities if you take the time to carefully explore your options… and while this may be true to some extent, it is much more worth it to book a venue that feels right, than to rush the decision and later regret it. I always tell my clients that you will *know* when you walk into The One. It’s like when you walked into your apartment or house and felt that undeniable “this is it!” feeling. Trust your intuition here! And also consider the following:

- Which dates does the venue have available?
- What is the time frame included? When can vendors arrive? When does music need to be off? When does cleanup begin?
- Does the venue require that you book a caterer from their preferred list? Or maybe they have have in-house catering? Are you okay with this?
- Does the venue provide any rental items or other perks, or will you need to consider the logistics of bringing in all of your preferred rental items? If they do provide rental items, what are they? Do these items fit within your design vision, or will you end up bringing in your own rental items anyway?
- How many bathrooms are onsite? Will you need to bring in additional restroom trailers?

These are just a few of the key items that are important when making your venue decision, but there are so many more nuances… which leads me to the next step:

3. HIRE A WEDDING PLANNER.

*A note that #s 2 and 3 are interchangeable… you may find that you would prefer to hire your wedding planner first, so that they can assist you in finding your dream venue.

Okay sure, I may seem biased here, but I promise that any experienced wedding professional will advise that you hire your wedding planner very early in the process. Why? Because you are very busy and your time is very precious, and your wedding planner is going to save you so. much. time. He or she will drastically cut down your vendor research time with their trusted list of wedding professionals, help you navigate contracts and budget priorities, and give you the best resources for curating the design of your dream wedding… and that’s just the beginning. Place your trust in a planner who has worked in the wedding industry for 5+ years, and, perhaps more importantly, make sure you feel that you can trust this person within the first 10 minutes of your initial consultation. The person you choose will be working alongside you for months AND managing your wedding day! It’s a major decision, so take your time and be sure to interview a handful of planners with a list of any questions you have about their company, process, and/or style.

One final piece of advice? DON’T get too caught up in whether the planner has worked at your specific venue! This would be like asking a surgeon if they are able to operate in Exam Room 2 versus Exam Room 1 - their years of experience, skillset, and tools are still there no matter where the location. This is true for wedding planners too. An experienced planner could take a run-down parking garage, and turn it into a fairytale wedding. When you find a wedding planner that you love, trust that they will learn the ins and outs and execute a beautiful event, regardless of if they’ve worked at your venue previously. This is another blog for another time, but I had to throw it in here!

I hope this helps as you get started on your wedding planning adventure! It’s going to be amazing.

xo, KE

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LOOKING FOR ASSISTANCE IN PLANNING YOUR DREAM WEDDING?

Krisanna Elizabeth Co. is a multifaceted company, offering two distinct services
— artisanal stationery and bespoke wedding planning —
for weddings around the world.

www.krisannaelizabeth.com
krisannaelizabeth@gmail.com
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Becoming a Wedding Planner | My Two Cents After 8 Years of Wedding Planning

I never thought I’d be a wedding planner.

In fact, I never really knew what I wanted to “be”. I wasn’t a kid with dreams of becoming an astronaut, or a doctor, or any career, really… I directed plays with my sister and my friends, pretended to be a fairy in the backyard, read any book I could, wrote my own book, and crafted my little heart out. By the time I started college, I had found a passion for criminal justice (specifically, being a police officer), but the school I went to did not offer that major, so I pursued a major in business administration instead (because that’s the most logical choice, right?). Midway through, I changed my major to psychology. I have always been fascinated with humans, our emotions, and the way our brains work. It was through these studies that I realized that my brain/the way I process things was not suitable for a police officer lifestyle. I also knew I would not thrive as a psychologist.

When I graduated, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do, which made the Type A / planner side of me ridiculously anxious. And then I realized… maybe the Type A / planner side of me was my core strength. Maybe the fact that I was a littttttleee too into aesthetics and tiny details was a strength. Maybe my imagination was a strength. Maybe working best under pressure was a strength. And perhaps my biggest strength was my inherent drive to help and serve people - even if it wasn’t in police officer or psychologist form.

A quick google search of all of these attributes indicated that I should be an event planner. So I figured: sure, why not? I’ll give it a try.

Fast-forward, and here we are: I’ve been a wedding planner for 8 years. EIGHT. YEARS. Oh my goodness, what is even happening! These years have been some of the best of my life. They’ve also taught me a lot - usually by learning the hard way. I’ve never experienced something so simultaneously challenging and rewarding.

While I still have soooo much to learn, I thought I’d share 8 notes about becoming a wedding planner in celebration of 8 years of being one. These are notes that I wish I’d had when I got started, and I hope they are helpful as you go on your own journey!

n o . 1

Decide if you want to be a wedding planner AND a business owner, or if you’d prefer to just focus on the wedding planner part (i.e. work for an already established wedding/event planning firm). I chose the former, and I will tell you that being a wedding planner and being a business owner are two very different learning curves.

n o . 2

While there are certainly some wonderful books, tutorials, and even programs offering courses and certifications for wedding planning, the best way to learn and find out if you are cut out for being a wedding planner is by JUMPING IN. All in. Being hands-on and working a wedding in its entirety will teach you more than you could ever learn elsewhere.

Okay, easier said than done, right? What if you have no experience and don’t even know where to start? You may need to get creative with how you learn in the beginning! I knew nothing about the wedding industry when I decided to take my leap into wedding planning, and didn’t have any luck initially with finding wedding planners who needed assistants or interns, so I decided to get my foot in the door in other ways. I learned about floral design in the floral department of my home town grocery store, I interned for a wedding photographer (huge shout out to Melissa of Aziz Studios for giving me this opportunity!), and I worked as the venue coordinator at the beautiful Lairmont Manor for a summer. Each of these opportunities gave me so much hands-on experience with weddings that has helped me immensely throughout my entire career.

n o . 3

The absolute BEST way to establish yourself as a trusted wedding planner in your industry is by networking. In my first two seasons of wedding planning, I literally sent hundreds of emails to wedding professionals in every category, asking if they would meet me for coffee or cocktails. I received responses to about half of my emails, and some of those responses very nicely turned me down. I’ll always remember when I emailed every single wedding planner in the small town I lived in when I first started my company, and only received a response back from ONE of them. But that one who responded is now one of the most well-known wedding designers in the country, and his willingness to meet with me when I was a “nobody” is something I’ll never forget.

It is important to note that my prerogative was to connect with people in the wedding industry, NOT to grill them, or try to get free tips/information. While I was very eager to learn, I quickly found that best practice was to remain humble and gracious, and work hard to form mutual trust before trying to ask for advice. Building trust with other industry professionals took a lot of time and patience, and also a lot of proving myself via my actions and my work ethic.

n o . 4

Proving yourself and building a portfolio both require a lot of time and a lot of hustle. I started out by offering my wedding planning services for free on Craigslist. I literally had no idea what I was doing, and formed a quick waiver document that my clients signed, acknowledging that they understood as much (and were, in turn, receiving free services so that I could learn). In my first season, I worked 12 weddings for free* and those weddings provided me with a world of experience, thousands of photos for my portfolio, and, most importantly, new connections with the teams I worked with. I am forever grateful to the 12 couples who trusted me to manage their weddings with zero experience. They are a huge part of my story. *(I will note that I do not recommend providing free work for 12 weddings! 2 or 3 is enough to gain the experience you need to start charging for your services, even if it is a very small amount).

n o . 5

Once you start receiving a steady flow of client inquiries (yay!), be prepared for rejection and don’t take it personally. There were many times early in my career when I would ruminate for hours about why I didn’t book a couple I thought I’d connected with. There have been countless times when I’ve spent hours corresponding with someone, only to have them ultimately fall off the face of the earth. I’ve questioned myself, my business, my package offerings, my pricing, even the way I worded a sentence in an email (did I scare them with my use of exclamation points?). Don’t be afraid to send a couple of follow-up notes (sometimes people really do just get busy and forget!), but ultimately, part of being a business owner is being able to say “this wasn’t meant to be” and then promptly shifting your focus and energy back to clients who HAVE chosen to work with you.

n o . 6

Once you have a few weddings under your belt, it’s important to define your mission and purpose as a wedding planner. Who do you want to serve? Where do you excel? What makes you feel accomplished? What can you provide that other planners cannot? Do you have a specialty or a niche? Don’t overthink this stuff. It will come naturally as you gain more experience. Also know that it will likely shift over time. When you first start, it may be a much wider umbrella of target clients than it will be when you’re three or five years in. It took me at least five years to really feel comfortable with how I fit into the industry, and to understand the types of clients I am able to serve well. My purpose is more based in feeling an immediate connection with the people I work with, above all else.

n o . 7

While it’s important to go above and beyond and serve your clients well, setting boundaries and sticking to them is just as important. If you love being a wedding planner (and/or business owner) as much as I do, it may be really difficult to set distinct work hours and personal life hours. You may also feel guilt if you take time for yourself when you have emails waiting, or don’t respond to a client’s 9:00pm SOS text until the next day. It took me a long time to set office hours and (somewhat) stick to them, but the reality is that if you don’t ever take a break, you WILL reach burnout, and that doesn’t serve anyone well. The other reality is that your clients are also humans who take breaks and they will understand you wanting to have a life outside of work / office hours. If you set these boundaries early in your relationships with your clients (I have mine stated in my contract and in my email signature), there will be no confusion about when you are available to assist them, and everyone is happy.

n o . 8

Last, but certainly not least: from start to finish, your team of wedding professionals is your everything. Whether it’s the teenager scraping dishes, or the veteran MC bringing your timeline to life for your couple’s guests - you simply cannot do your job well without every single person on the team, and none of them should be taken for granted. In the hustle and bustle of a wedding day, if you take the time to be kind and respectful to every person you interact with, not only will they feel more motivated and energized to work hard all day, you will also truly stand out. The way you make people feel is memorable - use this as one of your greatest wedding planner tools.

Image Credit (from left to right):
Alexandra Celia | GH Kim Photography | Fengxian

KE Calligraphy Anniversary

May 22nd marked 1 whole year since I added calligraphy design into my little company... aka please stop time because it's moving way too quickly. In celebration of this milestone, I ate a Sweet Petite cookie (thank you, Jenna!) and wrote this blog post about 8 things I've learned since making it official with calligraphy:

1. Two Words: Time. Management. My life was crazy enough with just the wedding planning aspect of things (in case you didn't know, wedding planning was my first love and then calligraphy came into the picture as the purest form of serendipity), so add in career path #2 and suddenly workaholism gets VERY real. I'm the first to admit that I easily get swept up in working late into the night... mostly because my work often doesn't feel like work! But, I am human, and working 24/7 does wear on me, just like with anyone else. Creating daily schedules to stay organized and treating weekdays as 9-5's keeps me from working at midnight and also allows me to maintain a personal life outside of KE.

2. Trust Timing. (Apparently time is a major theme here). There are months when I can barely keep my head above water (I see you, peak wedding season!) and then there are months when the lulls are so long that I question if I'm supposed to be doing this, have a panic attack (or 5), and swear I'm going to give up. But then I don't, because as it turns out, it always works out. Every time. Without fail. If you're doing what you're meant to be doing, everything always falls back into place.

3. Community is Everything. I've never been much of a "competitor", so this whole movement to encourage community is right up my alley! And my industry community/tribe/squad is AMAZING. Without the incredible, ever-encouraging people in the Seattle wedding industry (and beyond! Shout-out to my international IG community), I can honestly say that I'd be 10000000% lost. Thank you to every single one of you who have helped me/inspired me/given me opportunities to create things for you (or your client)/made me want to spend hours learning how to write that "s" the way you did. I'm forever grateful.

4. Know Your Limit. My biggest struggle. I am horrible at saying "no", but I'm slowly learning that I am, in fact, NOT superwoman and I do need down time to de-stress, revamp, and reflect, so that I can be at my absolute best for my clients and couples (hence #1). I'll letcha know if I ever find the perfect balance.

5. Passion > Coffee. But seriously. Nothing energizes me more than working on a project that uses every ounce of my creative energy. Or connecting with a couple who are excited to be in love and excited to celebrate that love and excited to include me in that celebration. I don't think I"ll ever lose that distinct giddy feeling I get when a couple decides they want me to be any part - big or small - of their wedding day.

6. Get a Second Opinion. Sometimes, no matter how many hours I spend, or how many times I write it out, there's just something missing. I tend to want to figure it out on my own, but I'm learning that asking someone else to take a fresh look at a project can be the absolute best decision. BIG thanks to my mama for spending countless hours looking at calligraphy spacing/sizing and for giving me ideas that are often better than I ever would've thought of. I'm sorry if you hate letters because of me... ;)

7. Practice, Practice, Practice. Oh, and Practice. With a Heaping Spoonful of Patience. People always ask "how did you learn to do that!?" Guys. Hours upon hours upon hours of time spent writing out words is how. My patience has been tested multiple times - probably the most difficult aspect of calligraphy for me. There is no quick fix here. There's no such thing as rushing when it comes to calligraphy and nibs can be freaking difficult sometimes (typically when you need them to cooperate the most).I love learning and feel like there's always something to learn in every aspect of life, but this is especially true with calligraphy. I feel like I'm just now recognizing my own unique lettering style... but then that style can be so fluid, depending on the nib I'm using, or the day of the week, or my current mood. It's a never-ending series of creative question marks and that's part of what makes it so challenging & so much fun.

8. Step Forward. (Take the Leap) Even when it's terrifying. If your intuition is screaming "go for it!!!", then do it. I've found that the scariest opportunities are often the ones that force you to learn things you never would've learned otherwise and open your eyes to brand new ideas and strategies for future endeavors. Cliche or not, life is much too short to play it safe.

Here's to Year #2!! If you're even half as good as Year #1, I'm a happy girl.