When the wedding planner gets married | Part 5: Details + Conclusion
Part 4 of our “when the wedding planner gets married” series. Click here for Part 1: “The Preparations” , Part 2: “The Decisions”, Part 3: “Decor + Timeline”, and Part 4: “The Ceremony”
DETAILS AND CONCLUSION:
With the goal of being incredibly intentional, all the intimate details of the day, whether they were known to the guests or not, were some of my most special and treasured elements of our wedding day. I recommend to all clients - put in those intimate details!
A signature scent. For our wedding I picked out a signature perfume/candle pairing. I had the candle lit all day while getting ready, and I put it at our sweetheart table, so there is an olfactory memory connected with our wedding. The perfume now only comes out on special occasions, including our anniversary.
Jewelry. I was surprised with a charm from my beloved grandma who couldn’t make it to the wedding. My sister-in-law, who is a talented jewelry designer, attached it to one of her own bracelets so I got to wear it on wedding day. I also wore a ring from my other grandmother and carried a handkerchief from my great grandmother.
The music. My late grandfather was the conductor of a big band in the 1950s. We’ve had his tapes for years that hadn’t been able to be listened to. For my wedding, my brother (a musician himself) found someone to transpose them into digital files and my Grandpa’s music was the music at the cocktail hour. It was GOOD! And Swingy! And so lovely. And at the end, you can hear him say “This is Bob Tennant, signing off…” I’m so happy to have had a part of him there.
Ring Warming Dish. This was a hard thing to find. Try to google “Ring Warming Dish”. We wanted our rings visible, but not loose, and then we realized, we could make it ourselves. Tom printed them on his resin printer.
Pittsburgh Cookie Table - It’s a Pittsburgh tradition for folks to bring their favorite cookies or sweets to weddings and we made it happen! Our family tradition of pepperoni rolls (although not cookies) were added to the table. This was probably the biggest DIY haul as I sourced the platters and such but I delegated the cookie arranging to family and the wedding coordinators and it was incredibly rewarding.
I wrapped pearl lining from my moms veil around my bouquet.
Photos. Tom and I didn’t feel we needed to share too many photos, but since we met online, and our profiles were mentioned in the ceremony, we shared the photos that we each said were our first glimpse of our future partner.
In a really dumb inside joke, I made my team move all the chairs from the ceremony to the reception. Normally, our team does not move chairs by ourselves on wedding days (though we are always helping out) as we don’t have the crew size to do so quickly. Normally catering or rentals does this (pending your city!) But I had a SLEW of planners at my wedding. So I saved a little money by not having the rental company come back and we all got a chuckle out of it.
We worked with Text My Guests to send texts to all of our guests throughout the weekend to keep them abreast of information. We used this service to disseminate the after party location and uber code for all our guests and they could in turn, send us photos to this text chain and they were compiled in an a full folder for us!
Tom printed our cake toppers himself!
It is not a Lauren event without sequins and sparkles. So we put my “Flower” girl in said sequins. And since I’m not a flower person, we had her toss sequins as well. Which, I later found out was defined as confetti and I broke a venue rule (BAD, LAUREN!) but in my defense, I thought they were much more sequin than confetti.
The book in our ceremony. For our reader, I placed the copy of his reading in a very handsome book, that was also significant. It’s called “Hoosier Holiday” and my dad gave it to me as a going-away gift when I left for college at Indiana.
Our dog was not present (too complicated #EASY) but she was represented in napkin form.
Family Tradition. Every family gathering, the “Blue Tuxedo” shows up. You never know when, you never know who will be wearing it. My sister-in-law ROCKED it. And I had no idea it would be her. I wore it to her wedding, so it was only appropriate!
Our photobooth sign was “Simply The Best” - our first dance song, and again, created by Tom.
One of the most memorable elements of our wedding were the disco ball heads. I knew our crew would eat them up and I just knew we could make them. Tom 3D printed the bases and I hand glued each of the mirrors. It was a lovely and peaceful DIY to do in the crazy times. And our crew did indeed Eat. Them. Up. HUGE hit. They were placed in front of the DJ stand as decor and then my crew lost their minds when they realized they could pick them up and PUT THEM ON.
PRESERVATION
As a wedding planner, one thing I did feel I had a keen awareness of was the sheer amount of crap that can be gathered with weddings. I kept that in mind throughout the process, trying to be as strategic with our items to limit waste and only use things that we would reuse or things we would want to preserve.
Beyond votive candles, which we burnt to the bottoms, NOTHING from our wedding could be “just tossed” afterwards
Most vases were the florist’s and those I supplemented I sold immediately after the wedding.
Candle vessels were borrowed from our kind fellow wedding planner friends.
Send off items were bought off of Facebook marketplace- leftovers from another wedding.
All the platters from our cookie table were borrowed from friends, thrifted, or given to us as part of our wedding registry.
Our “Goodner Vibes” sign is hanging in our sunroom.
“Simply The Best” is rentalable as are the wall and table numbers!
Basket used for cards is now a basket used for notebooks on my desk.
Frames that held our dating profile photos now house wedding photos, framed on our wall.
Our cake toppers now sit in our plants in our sunroom
Our private letters are framed in our bedroom and our vows we printed on canvas above our bed.
The disco balls heads have been saved - 1 was turned upside and is now a planter in our house and the other is on my shelf in my office, ready to be pulled out for any fun zoom meeting.
Two of each of our pittsburgh cookie table cookies were saved for us and we froze them to eat throughout the year!
I had my bouquet pressed into a frame.
Even our foamboard escort sign is on the wall in our basement, so we can still see the names of all our favorite people in one place.
IN REVIEW
While my wedding day was the absolute best day in the world, and I’m a wedding planner so I know MOST of what’s up, I’ve never been a BRIDE before and so of course there are still things I would do differently -
Things I wish I did different:
Enhance my communication. Because everyone thought I knew what I was doing, most people stayed away from me, or didn’t ask how it was going, which made me feel isolated. I wish I brought people in more.
Hired a second photographer. It was offered and I declined! I’ve always considered a 2nd photographer needed for weddings over a certain size and my wedding wasn’t at that threshold. In all the photos where the camera is pointing at Tom and I, I also want to see what everyone else is doing! FOMO I guess!
Closed my mouth more. Damn. When I’m excited my mouth is OPEN. Endearing maybe but exhausting at photo number 400 of open mouth.
I wish I just hired someone to make our wedding website. I HATED doing this.
Getting married during March madness. Minor but damn, I missed some good games!
I wish I worked with a bridal stylist. All the outfits were so stressful!
I wish we put out the to-go containers for the cookies later and not right way- people hoarded the delish cookies!
WHAT WAS THE WORST PART ABOUT BEING A PLANNER GETTING MARRIED?
Knowing what was coming down the pike early. I was stressed earlier than needed because I was more informed and knew what was coming our way. But in exchange, that made me shockingly calm on wedding day.
WHAT WAS THE BEST?
Not only was our wedding a celebration of our love, it was able to be a celebration of our industry and all the vendor friends I love so much. Also, our private last dance. That was the best- cause that’s what it’s about.
photos courtesy of Madi Flournoy Photography
Lauren Schaefer Goodner is the founder of The Get Together Events Co. your month-of wedding and events coordination company, offering affordable services and peace of mind to New York, Nashville, Chicago and beyond.
More about Month-of Coordination | More about Lauren | Hire The Get Together Events Co.