Episode #14 | Wedding Weekend Events | What Weddings are Made Of | The Un-Wedding Podcast

Sydney Spidell 0:11

Welcome to the Un-Wedding Podcast. I'm Sydney

Corina Waldie 0:14

and I'm Corina,

Sydney Spidell 0:15

We're two neurodiverse wedding planners who are committed to empowering nearlyweds to throw out the wedding rulebook, shrink their guest list and create a meaningful, purposeful wedding experience. We're taking the wedding industry by storm and disrupting the status quo. Were The Un-Wedding Planners and we invite you to join our movement.

Corina Waldie 0:33

We record our podcast from Treaty Six Territory, a traditional gathering place for diverse Indigenous peoples including the Cree, Blackfoot, Metis, Nakota Sioux, Iroquois, Dene, Ojibwe, Saulteaux, Anishinaabe, Inuit, and many others, whose histories, languages and cultures continue to influence our vibrant community.

Sydney Spidell 0:58

Welcome to the Un-Wedding Podcast - today is episode two in our series, What Weddings Are Made Of - From Proposal to Honeymoon. We'll be talking about what's typically called in western wedding traditions, the wedding weekend, though, you know, we like a weekday wedding. Yeah, big fans. These are events like a welcome party rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, your wedding brunch or breakfast. So wedding breakfast is a whole other term as well. So we'll talk about that a bit. And we're going to discuss why these events exist and explain why you may or may not want to include them in your wedding planning.

Corina Waldie 1:38

Absolutely. So I think, you know, when we're talking about wedding events, we're talking typically about things that occur within the couple of days before or after, right. So a lot of what we're going to talk about will also shift to depending or may or may not shift, depending on what kind of wedding you're have having. And what I mean by that is if especially if you're having like a destination wedding, whether or not you do these things could be or vary

Sydney Spidell 2:03

A welcome party is one that let's say on the general register of wedding stuff in people's brains, that one isn't necessarily something that pops up, right? But in destination weddings, it's kind of part and parcel to it.

Corina Waldie 2:19

Yeah, especially if you have a group that is coming or traveling for your wedding, a large group if you're doing any kind of destination. So you know, if you're having like a resort wedding, say, for example, and everybody staying together, traveling together, it's having a gathering that evening, it can be formal, it can be like all of these things, they can be casually done, they can be really formally done, or structured. But basically what you're doing with this particular event is well welcoming your guests after they travel, and you know, giving them this opportunity to sort of like connect with the other guests that are here. And as a couple it allows you to really thank your guests. Yeah, now I will point out because it kind of ties a little bit into rehearsal dinners. But this is an event, this idea of a welcome party is actually something that's kind of new. And it really goes part and parcel with the rehearsal dinner, and it's about kind of cutting out a component of the rehearsal dinner. So what I mean by that is traditionally speaking, if you have a rehearsal at your rehearsal dinner, that typically is for people who are in the wedding. So this is your wedding party, this is your immediate family, this might be your officiant, depending on who your officiant is, you know, soloists readers -

Sydney Spidell 3:35

Peope who need to rehearse

Corina Waldie 3:36

Exactly, the people that need to rehearse. Yeah. And traditionally speaking, you are, the intent is that when you have a rehearsal dinner, you should invite guests who are coming, who are out of town, right. So it's kind of a way of thanking them for the additional travel and the additional expense that you've taken on. So this sort of tradition is this idea of completely separating the two, having a welcome party, specifically for that group, and then keeping the rehearsal dinner a separate event that's a little bit more private and focused on the people who actually have a role in the wedding.

Sydney Spidell 4:08

And it gives you the opportunity to not do a rehearsal dinner, if you're just if you're you have your rehearsal, you don't have to have a party after then to, right? So I think too, with welcome parties, what it gives, especially for a destination wedding, when there has been that traveling or for out of town people. It gives an opportunity to be someplace that isn't home and not make it about the couple. Like you're still hosting an event but it's not a wedding event in the same way that other things are. It is very much about, like you said, it's that thank you. So it's about them. It's about the guests. It's about saying, Okay, let's party and relax. There's nothing that anybody needs to do to get ready for the wedding itself. There's no speeches or toasts or anything that anybody owes anybody else

Corina Waldie 5:01

Unless you want that kind of thing

Sydney Spidell 5:02

If you want to do it go go right on ahead. But again, like do it, maybe maybe if you are doing something like that, that's the kind of place that it would be an excellent opportunity for the hosts, whether that's the couple or family, or the wedding party, you know, whoever is doing a lot of that work to it, to make a toast, thanking the guests, right, which is often one that the couple will do at the reception. But if you are having this wedding party, why not do it that and chop one of the one of the toasts out of your evening too, right?

Corina Waldie 5:37

Yeah, also, you know, it's a great opportunity if you're choosing to do it, is to distribute welcome bags, or welcome gifts. So this idea behind welcome bags, again, goes into this idea of you are granting a gift to your guests, thanking them for traveling. Especially with destination weddings, we're not talking about it being down the street at the hall and your guest has to basically worry about their attire and a gift and they just drive and show up. When we were talking specifically about destination weddings, you know, people are traveling some distance. So it's making sure that people have you know, it's just a way it's just another way of thanking them, kind of in some ways, think of it like a favour on steroids. Yeah.

Sydney Spidell 6:17

So and that's actually a really great point. Because then I want to really sort of in people's mind separate that concept from a wedding favour, though. Especially because, okay, annoying favors are a bane for anybody that has gone to wedding and either left with or left something behind. To get rid of it, right? Like you can do tacky on favors you can do just so pointless on favors. If you are doing something like a welcome gift, do not make it like you would you know waste money on a favour. If you're doing something like that actually make it something that welcomes people to that space. Like you said, if that's for the people that are traveling, because they've traveled, what is useful, what is relaxing after a long flight? What is you know, their favourite chocolate bar? You know, don't make it something that can just be easily chucked out. Because how wasteful and how, you know what? Well, it doesn't make you feel good receiving something like that -

Corina Waldie 7:23

Well, it's junk, right? Yeah, you know, weddings and sustainability. They don't exactly kind of go together.

Sydney Spidell 7:30

Thank you for clutter

Corina Waldie 7:32

So in that sense of, you know, sustainable thinking about things that are actually like a little bit more sustainable, things that are useful. So let's take for example, a destination wedding that's down in a warmer climate. Let's pick on Mexico, for example. Because, you know, Mexico is very common,

Sydney Spidell 7:48

I was just talking about Mexico yesterday, talking about it with some friends too. It's just like the weather. So I'm in a Mexico state of mind as well.

Corina Waldie 7:57

Well it's 5 o'clock somewhere. Anyway, but, you know, in that particular circumstance, you have a bunch of guests flying in, potentially from gateways all over North America, and maybe from Europe, depending where your family is from. And they're arriving after a long flight. Now, what could you put in that welcome bag that would be useful to them? So things that we've, I've seen or heard of in the past are things like, you know, you might maybe have like, cheesy sunglasses, that could be your one cheesy thing. Because sunglasses are useful. You're in a warm climate, maybe somebody forgot their sunglasses. Oh, great. Now they have sunglasses - makes for cute pictures. But we can also look at including things like - so in Mexico for example in many places, you cannot wear traditional sunscreen. So you can have a bottle of eco friendly sunscreen in there.

Sydney Spidell 8:38

Oh such a fan of that anyway guys, mineral sunscreen, let's stop killing fish. Seriously.

Corina Waldie 8:45

And because it is banned in many areas of Mexico, you know that you have to use mineral sunscreen and not conventional sunscreen, you're now making sure that that's not an expense that your guest has. Because it's happened to me I've gone to places in Mexico back before I even realized that this was a thing and I had to actually I'm thinking about Xcaret which is this wonderful kind of eco adventure park and you can get married there and oh my god it's fabulous. But I digress. And they actually take - they will examine your backpack and your bags, they will take any conventional sunscreens and they make you go buy their sunscreen on site because they absolutely will not allow Americanized or North Americanized typical sunscreens in their park because the damage and harm it does to the enviroment.

Sydney Spidell 9:29

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what an easy way to destroy an entire livelihood of a people so make sense.

Corina Waldie 9:36

And then you know, in other things to just kind of thinking about other useful things -food, always a win - paying attention, of course to allergies and preferences if you can,

Sydney Spidell 9:46

But like yeah, who doesn't love a post travel snack?

Corina Waldie 9:49

Yeah, you know, maybe some nuts, maybe some things. Now, in terms of distributing these, maybe you've had a welcome bag, you know, maybe you've had that distributed at the welcome party, but sometimes you can also collaborate with the resort to have their welcome bags in their rooms when they check in, they get into the room and oh, look at all these little gifts. Other things, I'm knocking my microphone -

Hey, it's you this time.

But other things that, you know, we can, we can talk about or we can see in these big, usually some kind of a heartfelt note is nice, like, you know, Hey, Aunt Karen and Uncle Chad, I'm just picking on those names, you know, thank you for coming...

Yeah you picked like the annoying Boomer names

I know. But like, hey aunt and uncle, you know, we really appreciate you coming. So some kind of personalized note is great for that, you know, like I said. I think the biggest thing that with these welcome gifts, is as we say, making sure that what you're putting in them is not just kitschy trash. Yeah, maybe do one thing if you want to put something with your wedding date on it or your names on it, like the sunglasses, because that's useful. But like really think about it, conciously about what it is that you're actually providing in these welcome gifts, if you should choose to do them at all.

My personal suggestion is to say that one item, cut it down to zero. But personal taste.

Absolutely. So yeah, so that welcome party, though, isn't like I said, it's really about focusing on the guests. And especially if you're having a wedding weekend or multiple days in a row, it's really kind of the first kind of kickoff event. Yeah, so if we're talking about a traditional weekend wedding takes place on the Saturday, oftentimes, you'll see this welcome party take place either on a Thursday, with the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner taking place on Friday, or it's reversed, where the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner will have already taken place and then you have the welcome party on the Friday with a wedding happening on Saturday.

Yeah, love it. I mean, more reasons to party? Why not? So yeah. Okay, we'll get back into whether you need that or not in a bit. But moving on to that rehearsal. So the point of a rehearsal again, the rehearsal dinner stemmed out of needing to do a rehearsal. So right from the very start, I need to rehearse my wedding. Yeah, you do? Yeah. Like, you want to know what's coming next. You want to have an understanding of how that program and schedule is following through and you want to make sure that you all of your attendants, everybody in your wedding party is aware of it too. Yes. Because you don't need questions or nudges or when's this over -

Exactly. Well, and that's honestly, really and truly the point of rehearsal. People like to know what to expect, right? So especially if you have any kind of a wedding party, and people with different roles to play, let's say you're doing readings, or soloists, or whatever

they need to know, don't run to the bathroom at this point in this schedule, because your reading is next. And that's gonna suck.

And for like myself, for example, when I do rehearsals, with my clients, what I also like to do is piggyback on that meeting and distribute timelines to everybody that because these are all typically VIPs, and also answer

- keep everybody organized

- answer questions, give people my phone number, if they need anything, and really establish myself as the expert and the planner.

If you don't have a planner, it's an awesome last minute touch base for everybody. If you do have a planner, like it's gonna, it's gonna benefit them so much to have that access. And it also is a touch point for any vendors that have time specific needs too, to then be aware, particularly your officiant, any musicians that you might have taking part in the ceremony, all of that knowing where people are going to be. And depending on your space, if you need any sort of audio equipment in there, it gives you an opportunity to test that out too. And that may sound silly to people, but depending on the size of the room that you're getting married in. And it doesn't even have to be that big. It could just be not designed for acoustics. You know, you might have people there for your ceremony who can't hear a word. So that kind of touches on what we talked about ages back. I was like, was that your stomach or mine?

That was my stomach.

But like, we talked back in the peanut gallery, in our drama dynasty series, about knowing the needs of your guests. And the rehearsal is sort of, we're not the rehearsal, but like, an audio system is what I was talking about. Yes, that could be an accessibility thing for people too

Honestly, I'm of the opinion that frankly, you know, there should be some kind of mic if you have guests, unless you're like, it's just the two of you, and you're eloping and you're in the mountains and the only people that need to hear are you guys and the officiant, your witnesses

Context depending.

Whatever. But if you're having any kind of size of group, be that 12, be the 35, be that 70, be that 100, be that 500, you really, really need to have an audio system. Right? So and that is so that people can hear. Because I have attended several weddings, where there has been no audio system and I'm a guest that you know, happen to get sat in the back and I can't hear a gosh darn thing.

And how disappointing to be wanting to be somewhere, to take part in something, and to be physically present, but you're not able to be present in any other way. Or to be a vendor waiting for a cue or to be part of that ceremony waiting for a cue and to not have any idea what's going on.

Absolutely. But yeah, like I said, the good thing to think about with that rehearsal is, it's really just an opportunity to gather everybody involved with the wedding and make sure that everybody is on the same page, because I can tell you, weddings and events in general, they are all about communication, people knowing what they need to do, where they need to go, and when. Even if you're having a smaller wedding, where you might not think that you know all of these communication pieces necessarily as important, I promise you, it's still important, because as people, as humans, we want to know what to expect.

Yeah. And that rehearsal is gonna give you the opportunity to troubleshoot any issues exactly before they do. And so you've done this, you've got these VIPs there. And like we talked about before, traditionally, then if you did a rehearsal dinner, it was to thank those people for being present on that day, as well as provide something for those out of towners who are going to be arriving the day before most likely. So since they're there, do something to gather them and provide them a little bit of entertainment. And yeah, and just sort of set the tone as well.

Very much so. I do want to kind of point out in terms of venue for rehearsal dinner, it does not have to be the same place your wedding is taking place. I have done rehearsals in basements of homes. I've been in backyards, I've done them in parks,

sorry, just specify the venue for your rehearsal, not your rehersal dinner

That's also a really good point then too to say, if you can't do that, find out sooner rather than later so that you can get any of those last minute, this should be figured out in the space questions scheduled to happen another time, so that you can still have that little run through because if you're banking on that for your rehearsal, and then you can't schedule it a couple of days before, you don't want to have to deal with that issue day-of.

And most venues don't even schedule rehearsals until about a month or so, one to two months before weddings for that reason, because usually by that point,

They don't want to lose sales

Exactly. They don't want to lose sales to rehearsals. So that's just something to keep in mind. In fact, honestly, if we're being super realistic here, if you're intending to have a rehearsal, unless it's a private residence, that you're having your wedding at, where you expect, you know, words very likely you'll be able to access that space to rehearse, just plan to rehearse somewhere else.

I plan to book it or plan or plan to book it and pay the fees and everything.

Exactly. set it all up. Now in terms of the rehearsal dinner, the rehearsal dinner is a wonderful opportunity for a couple of things. So as we say, yes, it's about thanking those people who are directly involved in your wedding. But one of the things I think the rehearsal dinner is fabulous for is if you are the type of people that want to offer toasts or offer some kind of like an open mic scenario where the people that you love can get up to the mic. Like, we joke all the time about how with DJs and stuff like "Okay, don't give Uncle Bob the mic, he will never shut up." Right? So and one of the things that I encourage my couples to do, or my clients to do, is that, you know,

Pick a set few, keep it limited

Exactly at the wedding itself we really limit the number of speeches to

and then you can honour those people who want to speak or have something they want to say at the rehearsal dinner without setting off your entire timeline at the wedding. I totally agree with that too. And again, theoretically, if this is just your most important people, they are going to be the people that are most, you know, involved, not involved. It's another word that starts with i. I'm, I don't I'm trying to move on from it and keep talking. But attached essentially to what's going to be said in those and probably the people that you actually want to hear from most too. So what an awesome opportunity to sort of distill it to the people that want to hear it and to the people whose mouths are gonna be open that you're not gonna want to close.

Exactly, you know that you're in a safer space to, you know, because you are with the people that you're closest to. Your wedding party or your immediate families, you know, people with roles. So it's, it's really like I said, that great opportunity, if that's something that you want to do to give those people that you would expect to like, you know, wander up to the mic and trying to get the mic from the DJ at your wedding, that opportunity to speak. That being said, if you do get that relative, that relative or person in your life that does a rambling speech, you can still put boundaries on it. That's totally okay. So like, Okay, thanks, Uncle Bob, that's 10 minutes, you know, and just, you know,

Depending onthe intoxication level of the person to you, you can just turn the microphone off

Exactly!

Solution everywhere.

But honestly, like, say, ultimately, this rehearsal dinner, as all things, you can make it as casual as you want, you can make it as formal as you want. One of the most common things I see most people doing is they'll like either gather at somebody's home, where, you know, I have, I've had one wedding where they rented out an Airbnb for the weekend, and they just made a bunch of food, the mother came, the mother of the bride came and made a whole bunch of food, and everybody just kind of chilled and partied. I've seen restaurant rehearsal dinners, where you'll rent out a private or semi private space at a restaurant, gather everybody around have dinner that way. There's really, really lots of different options.

There's also to, you know, like for that thanking people, let's say you're doing a welcome party, or you don't want to do the welcome party, or the rehearsal dinner. You know, like, order, Uber Eats for people to your rehearsal and give them a little snack or something to say thank you,

Even just a bunch of pizzas

And that can stand in and/or invite the two out of town people to, you know, come over the night before. Now, again, that being said, assume what capacity you have for that, too. So if you do just want to celebrate with the out of town people and there's a limited number of them, maybe like, have them stay over at like your mom's place.

Or wherever, hotel.

And visit for a little bit, there's that you still have your boundaries. But yeah, you don't have to, you don't have to party. Even if you do have elements of these things of people, a wedding party who needs to be present for a rehearsal, or people coming from out of town, you can still step far away from that like rehearsal dinner party concept, and just thank them in whatever way makes sense to.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

And then the wedding breakfast is a term that I said mean something else. So very quickly on breakfast as a concept going back in time again, back to Downton Abbey, going to use that, that example throughout the series. The weddings happened in the morning, and you'd have a wedding breakfast with your, with your family, and then you depart for your new home or your honeymoon or whatever. Because travel time had to be accounted for. So the wedding breakfast is essentially more like a reception. But what we're talking about here is not that we're talking about the day after anybody who's still gathered, maybe there's out of town people, the wedding party, and just doing a little something kind of relaxed to be like, Okay, we made it.

It's also called like a post wedding brunch too. Because you know, you've -

Who wants to wake up early enough for breakfast?

Exactly. Let's be honest, if you partied anytime into the night, I ain't getting up for breakfast. Just saying I'm already a night owl.

We need the carbs and the grease. Get it all in there.

But the wedding breakfast or now you're having me say it - a post-wedding brunch is also a great a great way to sort of kind of last hurrah, especially again for out of town guests, sort of given this opportunity to interact with them one more time. A lot of people will sometimes even combine it with gift openings. If you are receiving a lot of wedding like boxed wedding gifts, not money. I think money if you're if you've just done

Have people sit around while you open envelopes of cash.

Thanks Uncle Bob for $500 While your friend who could give you 50 is sitting in the corner. But yeah, yeah, it's very much an opportunity to just like sit and one last hurrah. Gather all the people together, feed them again, because food and people and gatherings, kind of all are synonymous with each other. And,

you know, it's not a good gathering without food.

Exactly. And again, like all things, this can be as formal or as casual as you want. You don't have to invite all of your guests. You can limit it to certain people would just kind of bring me a little bit into the next point is like, you know, managing RSVPs and inviting people. Assuming that you're doing all of these different events is how do you actually go about that? So assuming that you are doing a paper invitation of some kind, typically what we'll see is if you are including somebody in a rehearsal dinner, a welcome party or post event brunch, you will add cards. Little cards with the event detail and you'll stuff in, it will be a little RSVP cards. More more now people are doing RSVPs through wedding websites, we can build forms that are beautiful,

You can still send your paper invitation and have that and have it be a keepsake, but then you're getting that response in a way that is usually a lot easier and accessible for people these days. Not because checking a box and putting something in an envelope is difficult. But because generationally we have moved so far from that, that it isn't as as easy as it was once. So it gives people something that is the click of a button. And it also means that you're getting accurate information, you're getting editable information, and you're getting information that is immediately, you're able to sort and run reports, however you want to organize.

And we do lots of this with our own planning systems, you know, with with our intimate wedding packages for the groups that are 40 to 75, we actually do wedding websites for them, we build them for them as part of the package, we manage their RSVPs for them. Just take something else off your plate. Yeah. And in that particular instance, you know, what we do is when we build those forms out, if somebody has been invited to things, we will try to apply. We can do different things, different scenarios, but we can apply passwords to certain things. So if you're only invited to rehearsal dinner, but you're not invited to a brunch, then you know, we can set your form up. We can kind of like there's so much that we can do a technology nowadays. It also especially in that form situation, it allows us to really track allergies and needs and accessibility issues.

Oh man, we love a good spreadsheet,

Right. So you know, you're - you especially good lord, you build spreadsheets.

Spreadsheet nerd! Yeah, they, they can be so pretty people, I tell you. Woo! Yeah, and having data at your fingertips like that. I mean, we know companies want it so badly, clearly has a demand for it. The reason being is because it gives you a whole lot of power to make decisions that don't have negative fallout. That is the whole core behind that; the more information you have, the better you can address a situation. So I mean, just the absolute beauty in being able to click one button and generate like a seating chart.

Exactly. You know, we like that less work for everybody involved. Right? So it's collecting that that data and really, you know, being you know, allowing us to use that data to then make decisions for your wedding that accommodates everybody.

The beauty of electronic RSVP situations too is that you can set automations up however you do that. If you're using a software that helps you with that then great or if you have some other sort of reminder system going, to follow up with the people that you haven't heard about specific things by specific dates because my god, I mean, if you're anything like me, responding to a text message is an uphill battle. So following up with people not RSVP seeing is a nightmare make that as easy as possible on yourself, especially if you have multiple, multiple people involved. I wanted to actually go back really quick to the wedding brunch thing oh, maybe I don't. I did. But I don't know why. You know why you can count like I wanted to go there. And I had something Oh, I got there huh beautiful brain. When obviously if you have a plan to go off to some beautiful hotel the night after of your wedding and stick in a honeymoon suite for a couple of nights whether you're actually going on a honeymoon or not. Or if you immediately just want to escape to the forest or whatever like don't think that you need to stick around the night of the morning after to have a brunch with people. Like again like everything totally optional. So if you're leaving right after your wedding after your reception after whatever, yeah don't don't set up an event that makes you have to come back.

Yeah, no very much so.

You can always thank people another time. You could thank people on your one year anniversary if you wanted. I mean they'll probably be like wow, are they ever gonna thank me?

And honestly you know even if you if you don't have a formal event too, your guests will still break into their separate groups and probably get together for breakfast or brunch, anyway. Right especially if they are at a town like if it's like, you know, relatives with people you might not see very often.

And who knows holding a wedding brunch/breakfast thing may actually make a really difficult for your bridesmaid who just hooked up last night with the bartender and wants to go for breakfast with them, but they feel obligated to come to you. Like, let a girl live, you know? So I mean, people yeah, there's people will find things to do with their time, it doesn't need to be all about the wedding. But if people are gangbusters for that, like why not? It's like making your birthday a week. if people want to celebrate with you and you want to celebrate, do it.

I actually have a friend of mine - oh, it's not a birthday week -

Month?

it's a birthday month. Right?

That means they only have to like, wait 12 parts of the year for it to come around again. Most of us have to wait 365 portions. Okay, so you we know how to manage RSVPs. But other huge consideration - duh duh duh - I'm talking about money.

Money and weddings.

Wow. Yeah. Hey, don't think we talked about that last episode. So that was like a major departure for us.

Yeah, no, it's absolutely budgeting for these events. Because events cost money, right? Bottom line. So it's very important to remember that all of these things do cost you money. Generally speaking, you do not want to be charging guests to attend any of these events, because they are adjacent to your wedding. In the same vein that you will not charge somebody to attend your wedding, you are not going to charge them to attend an event. You know, rehearsal dinners, historically, if we want to go back to tradition, have been paid for by the groom's family. But this was assuming that the bride's family was paying for the wedding. So all of these things can be paid for by either family, or the couple, or some combination thereof. Yeah. Right. So that's something else that you can consider. If you're doing something more formal, yes, there's going to be more elements involved; it's going to be more expensive. You just need to make sure that you have allocated event budget for that thing, specifically.

Yeah, because I think a lot of people will come into wedding planning, and they'll come up with this wedding budget. And although they're, especially if they're going for a planner, they're getting support throughout their whole wedding planning process. Unless you're discussing with your planner, all of these extra events, if you're asking them to support in those, and you're including them as part of that budget breakdown with your planner, then they need to be -wake up call - that's totally different money. So I think that's why a lot of people will kind of still rely on or, or sort of feel pressured into showers and stuff like that too, in a way. Because there are still sort of these general mindsets of "Well, that's an event that gets paid for by x person anyway." And when you are a little bit tight on cash, or your and you are sacrificing some of these more traditional events that go throughout this whole process because of that, you don't then have to include other events then because somebody else is paying for it or should be paying for it. Especially, you know, context again, always considering that context. Who are the people and your who is your community? Yeah. And is there that ability?

Well, and it also goes back into intention and purpose. And all we, I know we constantly say this over and over and over again.

We're never going to let you forget it -

But if you if the purpose of, part of the purpose of your wedding is to gather all of these people together. If you have an amazing weekend, and you want to do so by having multiple events, like the rehearsal dinner, like the wedding party, like the full day of wedding, like a post wedding, but if you want to go for gusto, do the whole darn thing, you can absolutely do that.

Well put that under the roof.

Right. And you but you don't also have to do any or all of it, either. Yeah, right? If the purpose of your wedding is to just have the two of you get together and stand up in front of 12 people because these are your closest loved ones and you guys are just having, you know, something far more casual. You don't need all the rigmarole and it can just be as simple as Oh, yeah, we're gonna go to breakfast the next morning, if people want to come join us at 10 o'clock, we're going to be at the restaurant. All right,

It doesn't count as all of those events rolled into one you know, you can make you can make one event be multi purposeful and be like, This is our thank you as well as our Sayanora to this as well as our launch into a new life together, whatever, you know,

Cuz honestly, like I said, it just I think at that point, it just boils down to, you know, you're creating all of these, like special moments and breaks down to the guest experience, if you're doing these things, and doing them in a way that they can celebrate and they can enjoy especially, you know, we've talked about your community, we've talked about your circle and all of those other sorts of things is making sure these people can come and enjoy it and not feel like, "Oh, I got to, you know, I got to buy my dinner at the rehearsal dinner and I've got to buy my breakfast." And then all of a sudden, this wedding weekend becomes that much more expensive.

You don't want your wedding to be immediately popping up big dollar signs in people's minds. Like that's not the visual, you want to conjure

Destination weddings aside. Destination weddings, there's few ways to get around that.

But again, we're hoping that they're seeing that as a, you know, they're getting lots out of that too, because they get to be there and they're they're getting to, you know, be in a luxurious place while celebrating this with you. But, you know, that's again assumed. Think about are people going to be Yeah, what are people going to associate with your wedding? Because I think even with a destination wedding again, if people are prepared for that, if they acknowledge this and they're getting a vacation in there, they're still going to be like associating the shining blue waters with it. Not dollar signs.

Exactly.

If it's not something that people right from the get go or like, "Whoo, that's gonna be money," then you don't want that being their connection in the future.

Yeah. And I think it's also important to thinking about that intention, is thinking about how you want people to feel throughout that weekend. So if you do all four events - so let's say you have your rehearsal dinner on Thursday, your rehearsal/rehearsal dinner on Thursday, you have your welcome party on Friday, you have your wedding on the Saturday, you have a post wedding brunch on a Sunday - That's a lot of socializing and that can be very exhausting for people.

Yeah. For me, like listening to that if, as a picturing myself as a guest or an attendant in there, I Hate it. Hate it. Sounds awful

Yeah, sounds I can I be the exact same, I

I'll be there for the rehersal, we'll make sure it's good. If there's a dinner or speeches, I'm down for it. And then if I can spread out my time seeing people, the more the better.

Yeah, I'm very much in that same category. If I had to do a wedding like that, I would be so tired come the end of the weekend, I would probably need a vacation from the wedding.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, just for myself, especially as somebody with ADHD, somebody with, you know, who really struggles with sometimes getting over sensitized. That is something that you can, you know, are overstimulated, that can be incredibly stimulating. Yeah, if you have to go to all of those different events, I can tell you, I would roll into the brunch on the Sunday, and I would look like probably I got run over by a dump truck.

So I guess final, like, take on that point, then is do as much as you want to do - include it all - but don't, don't expect people to be there for everything. If you have, if they have an important role in something, tell them the places where they do need to be there. And then allow them to make the choice to take part in everything else as much as possible. Because yeah, autonomy rules.

And honestly, as much as possible, you know, especially when we're talking about people involved in the wedding, if you are choosing to do this, I would say really the only events you want to ideally request that they be there, outside the wedding itself, is it rehearsal and the rehearsal, potentially even the rehearsal dinner. And that's simply because that way they know what's going on. But if you were going to be doing a welcome party and the post brunch, maybe leave those as an option, especially if you do know that somebody that you care about is somebody like me, or you who gets overstimulated and will be tired so that they just don't feel obligated to go, right. Because we there's a lot of, we see a lot of obligation and we see a lot of entitlement that happens around weddings, and just being really super conscious about the people that -

Bringing it back to that conversation we had so long ago of no one is as invested in this as you are. People want to support you. But the more you overload you on somebody else, the more disinterested they are going to be in that and if your whole hope is that they're going to be interested and want to be there, then you're screwing yourself.

Yeah, and all things. I think it's awareness, its attention and its purpose. Yeah. All right. Well, so your wedding is already busy. And these events can really honestly make it feel more busy or less so. So choosing what supports your wedding purpose is always the best way to decide if something is worth the effort. And we hope that today's conversation made some of those decisions at least a little bit easier. Now nut week, next week.

Wow.

Nut week, nut week.

It's nut week - that could be so dirty, I'm sorry. Okay, coming back to this.

Next week, because you know, I can't read off a screen sometimes save my life. Next, next week, we're gonna talk about getting ready together because on the day of your wedding, what are the like bits and pieces that you should really include in your timeline, and how, you know, especially when we're starting to talk about hair and makeup and people getting ready and photos, and only other sorts of things. You know, we really want to make sure that, you know, we have a really solid plan for that, because nothing is worse than being a guest at a ceremony that's hours and hours late because this was not planned properly. Right. So, next week, we're going to talk about what can be tossed from all of that planning, and what you may want to include, so we can help you figure all that out. And if you can't wait to next week, find us online at unweddingmovement.com. You can learn more about us and our movement and the work that we do. And you can also follow us on Tik Tok and Instagram @unweddingmovement. And we'll see you next week. Cheers.

You can find us on the Internet at unweddingmovement.com or on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Pinterest @unweddingmovement. Our podcast episodes are released weekly and available wherever you like to stream.