Life Update: I'm Engaged!
For those of you that follow me on Instagram and Twitter, this is old news. But to those who have stumbled across my site or blog, I am engaged!
This life moment has nothing to do with marketing, web design, or being an entrepreneur. It’s simply just a bliss moment that occurred in life. February 23rd will make one year since I have been engaged, and I would be lying if I said that engagement didn’t come with a few changes and obstacles.
Layer that on with pursuing a career and managing a consulting business and you start feeling a bit pressed for time. Things felt hectic…but now that I am nearing the end of my wedding planning journey, I want to share a few things I learned so far.
Life doesn’t stop happening
As an entrepreneur, it is easy to want to gain and maintain control of everything. You crave the perfect scenarios to help you achieve the perfect outcomes. But, sometimes things don’t go as planned. Or, surprises occur (hint, hint - like a marriage proposal). You have to be able to take the unexpected with grace and use it to your advantage.
Yes, we talked about marriage so it’s not the perfect example of unexpected. But, I had no idea when it would happen.
After the proposal, I realized I was going to have to add something else to my (what already seemed entirely overpacked) plate. It was time to re-evaluate. What was worth continuing to pursue and what may need to be put on hold or let go of altogether? To be honest, clean up was long overdue. I was stretching myself entirely too thin and didn’t feel like I was putting my best effort into all the things I was trying to pursue.
Life happened and gave me the gut check I needed. It happened at the perfect time.
Wedding Planning is Another Job
For all my future brides, if you hire a wedding planner please give them a hug (and a nice gift/tip). Going into wedding planning, I decided I wanted to handle it all on my (our) own. Finding all the vendors. Deciding the aesthetic. Picking decor elements. I already had experience in managing projects and planning events, so I knew my skills would fit in perfectly in planning our special day.
My skills worked to my advantage, and my wedding vendors love me for it. But, that does not hide the number of hours worth of research, emails, consult calls and conversations with the future hubby. If you have a specific vision in mind, be prepared to sacrifice a lot of time (or the time that your planner will be saving you).
It Reminded Me of What It’s Like to Be a Client
As an entrepreneur, we sometimes get frustrated with our clients for not following what we deem the standard procedures that they should inherently know. But the reality is, how can they unless you teach them or show them what you need for the project to be successful.
I was terrible during our first consultation with a wedding vendor. We didn’t really have a clear vision and the ideas we did have at that point were very disjointed. (Sound familiar). But, the questions the vendor asked did help us start thinking about things in the right way. This may be a bit extreme, but we ended up creating a PowerPoint deck that outlined every element (including inspiration photos) of what we envisioned for the wedding. Can you imagine how much easier it was to communicate with all the other potential vendors when they could see what we were thinking? Added bonus – it helped us weed out the ideas that did not coexist with our vision. We gained clarity, and so did our vendors.
This was a reminder to be patient with clients at all times. You could be the first person they are working with, so they just simply have no idea how things are supposed to go. Don’t be afraid to teach. It will not only benefit you but also the other businesses the client may interact with in the future. It is all a learning process. Just like entrepreneurs have to develop processes around providing stellar customer service, there should be a process to develop stellar clients.
With close to 6 months till the big day, we are officially done with wedding planning! Way ahead of schedule, but with enough time to truly enjoy the engagement. I am sure this is just the first of many of life happening that I will experience on this journey, but it has been one of the best moments to date.
Of course, I wouldn’t end this post without sharing a few engagement photos. Enjoy!
