Transcript of Episode

Leah Gervais: So welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Biggest Vision Show. This week is a little bit different than my usual entrepreneurship stuff because this week I am going to talk to you all about my wedding and some behind the scenes about how I planned it, how I planned it around my full time job or my full time business. 

What my priorities were, what we spent the most money on, how we got in shape for it, all these sorts of questions I’ve been getting asked about it. I want to share with you today and I also want to just be here with you guys live and answer any questions you have. So feel free to pipe up and let me know. Um, as a little recap for those of you that don’t know, I got married on Saturday, October 5th in New York City where I live to my now husband, which is still crazy to say, Adam, in front of 90 of our dearest friends and family. And it was, um, a total dream come true. So, we got engaged about a year and two months before we got married. We got engaged in Paris, which was a big blessing. And we started wedding planning pretty much immediately after that. 

And, um, I’m just gonna walk you guys through the first things we did where we decided to spend the most money because I got a lot of questions about our budget and things like that. And, um, just some of the other things that went into it and some of that other things that, um, I think getting messages about. So first things first, we got engaged and the first thing we asked each other was, well, where, where do you want to get married? And I think we had both kind of assumed that we wanted to get married in New York, but we wanted to make sure that we like did our diligence and actually asked about it. Um, because New York is obviously an expensive, expensive place to get married. So we asked each other or we share, we wanted it to be in New York and we both were pretty clear that we did, neither of us are from New York, but New York is a really fun place to travel to. 

It’s a fun place to host people in and it’s obviously the place that we fell in love and that we met and that we wanted to share with our friends and family because we live here, obviously. So it was sort of like sharing our lives with them. Uh, and we knew that it would be sort of like a destination wedding from that point because no one really lives in New York except for most of our friends. A lot of our family members live in different parts of the country. So we wanted it to be a real New York experience and we really wanted them to feel like they were just engulfed in the city for a few days and then, you know, celebrating with us the whole time and like, they really got to see parts of the city. And that was our goal. So we started researching the average price of a New York City wedding, which was, as you can imagine, uh, pretty pricey. 

But we knew that this was what we wanted to do. So we started to work backwards from there. And Adam and I both are, we both work for ourselves. And as you guys know, I very much am of the belief that we all have control over our, our incomes. I don’t think that anyone’s income is finite. That’s why we have side hustling. So we started, you know, thinking about what we needed to do to get our income up to what it needed to be in order to make this happen. Um, and so the first thing we did was trying to figure out what our biggest expenses would be. And for us our biggest priorities were the, the two priorities were the reception venue and obviously, you know, where we’d host everyone and um, our photographer and our videographer because we knew that those would be the only things that we had left to remember that day. 

So we knew that the reception venue would be the most expensive just because that much space in New York is always going to cost a lot of money. And so we thought one thing that would make it simpler is if we had it at a hotel because then the caterer and the equipment and setting up all the furniture and all the things that you sometimes have to look outside for would be included with the hotel. You know, they have their own in house catering, they have their own tables, they have their own setups. A lot of, a lot of hotels even have their own wedding planners with them, our student. But um, we just thought it’d be easier to have that all kind of packaged together. So that was our first order of elimination was hotels in New York. And from there, you know, we knew that the best way to be somewhat cost-effective from here would, would be to have a limit on how many people we could invite. 

So we tried to stay under a hundred people and we really wanted it even smaller than that. We wanted it to be about 90 and it’s crazy enough. Exactly. 90 people were there on Saturday. So that worked out perfectly for us. Um, so we looked for places that could hold about that size, that were hotels in New York and we toured a few and some of them were harder to say no to than others. But when I saw the Dominick, which was where our hotel was at, or where our wedding was at, I knew pretty quickly that that’s exactly what I wanted and it was just perfect for me. Um, let me make sure that you guys can see me on Facebook. I feel like I can’t see your chats, which makes me a little bit concerned. 

So anyway, a little backstory about the Dominick is that when I was in college, I interned at a nonprofit downtown and I had always loved this building, the Dominick where we got married because it was just like the beautiful downtown feel of New York, but it was, um, what was the downtown location of New York, but it had the glamorous, modern New York City actual architecture. So it was very modern, very high. Um, but in the village, which is in my opinion, the best part of New York. So I had always loved it, but I just had kinda dismissed it. And so then when we toured it, I loved it as much as I thought I remembered doing so. And we signed a contract for that pretty quickly. Then next thing we looked at was our photographer and our videographer. I often think that a videographer is somewhat overlooked when wedding planning. 

And I know that it can seem like it’s sort of an extra or a luxury, but for us it was one of the most important things because we knew that so much of the day would go so quickly. And honestly, one thing I didn’t think about but I really found was that you, you actually as the bride, you, there’s so much of your day you don’t see, like I didn’t see people walking down the aisle. I didn’t see people go into the church. I didn’t see what happened after our wedding. We had a whole, you know, tour of Greenwich village in between our wedding and our reception that I didn’t see also. I didn’t see my bridesmaids and groomsmen going into the reception hall. I didn’t see people come in from the cocktail reception because you know, they have a stage for all of that and we make all the entrances so we don’t see anyone else go into anything. 

So I didn’t realize how much of your wedding you actually don’t see. So I was even happier than before that we really prioritize the videographer. And this was the hardest thing for us to find. We interviewed probably, I don’t know, six or seven photographers that was interviewing them. So that was already after I had gone through rounds of, you know, emailing people and checking people’s profiles out and all of that. Um, and what I found was that a lot of the photographers in New York, I don’t know why, but a lot of have very, very moody, moody photographs like there, I think that that’s a trend right now. A lot of the wedding trends are kind of romantic and dark and you know, just dramatic and they’re pretty, but they just didn’t seem timeless to me. And they also didn’t seem to reflect Adam and I’s relationship. 

Like we just don’t have one of those melodramatic love stories. We have, I think maybe fought like 27 her several years together. So it didn’t feel fitting for us to have a melodramatic capturing of our wedding. We wanted it to be very light and airy and cheerful and optimistic and excited about the future. Um, and crisp and New York. And I couldn’t believe how much I struggled to find that. So what I found, the photographers that I did think might be able to do that, we interviewed all of them and um, we either just didn’t vibe with them. I don’t know why I was so picky, but I actually, I had a good friend whose wedding I was in a few years ago who got her photographs back from her wedding. Um, and she just hated them. She just didn’t think the photographer did a good job. She was super devastated. 

She had to take a Photoshop class just to get herself through. And I’m like, teach her how to edit her photos. So she really, you know, she was like kind of in my corner. She was like, don’t give up. Don’t settle on this. This is the one thing you can’t settle on. And so she helped me even though it was probably driving him crazy by like not making a decision eventually through a recommendation, we found someone that we really liked and we were really excited about him. He was, I did worry that he was still a little bit moody to be honest, but I just had this fixes were so unique and so different and very much how to create an eye. Um, so we liked him. We signed the contract with him. We thought that we were ready to go and less than a year before our wedding last November, we got an email from him that just said, uh, I accidentally double booked your guys date for next year. So I’m so sorry I have to bail. 

And at first I was devastated because I just thought, Oh my God, we’re only 11 months out now. What if we can’t find someone? And I also thought it was really unprofessional to not be able to book yourself correctly. I mean that’s like one of your main jobs as a wedding photographer, is to manage your calendar or hire someone to do it. So because of that, Adam, you know, really helps me realize that we probably dodged a bullet. There’s probably like a lack of organization or something going on here that we wouldn’t want to deal with. We just have to stay positive and hope that this was meant to be. And this was such a theme in our wedding. Like whenever something didn’t work out, it always seemed devastating, but it never was. It was always meant to be. So this was one of those many times eventually. Um, well I had been eyeing Susan Shek who is our photog who was our photographer and our videographer since we got engaged since I started doing research on it because she was constantly rated one of the best wedding photographers in New York. Um, she had glowing reviews. She was always at the top of wedding wire and the knot and everything. But I just thought she was out of our price range. Um, and so long story short, we just went for her when we found out she was available and it was one of the best decisions we made in our wedding. She was the single best vendor that we worked with. So if you are getting married in the Tristate area, I can’t recommend her enough. 

She took our engagement photos of us in the snow and central park, which we loved. Um, and she really works with us. When we told her about how much we were willing to spend and you know, we told her we were willing to to go a little bit higher for this because it meant so much but she helped us shave off some things. Like for example, we thought we needed two videographers and she helped us be rest assured that we only needed one. She also helped us, we thought we were going to need what’s called the day after shoe where you get your wedding clothes back on and you’d go back out and you take more wedding pictures and that’s just kind of a way to take pressure off of pictures from the day itself. Excuse me, because you have another chance to do it. She told us that she thinks she thought we could get it all done in one day, and that there’s like a certain magic to having your wedding pictures be actually the day of your wedding. So we shaved those dues off, we booked her and we were really happy that we had those. Okay. I’m gonna take a sip of water. 

From there. Uh, the next thing I did was my dress and that was a really fun experience. It was a pretty average dress by need experience. I would say I had five appointments in one weekend because I had my two sisters and my mom, none of who, well, my one sister lives here, but the other two live far away and they flew here for the weekend. So we really wanted to find it that weekend. And, um, I had my first appointment at Sak’s and then I went in there thinking that I knew the dress I wanted and like I had already been checked that Sachs had it. Um, it was a Mooney Cluley a lace dress I’ll put posted on Instagram sometime. And I thought that that was just the one. Uh, and long story short, it was not, I felt like it did not fit our venue, so they gave me more of a modern one. 

I tried that on. That also wasn’t really my vibe. That was a little too modern for our church. Um, so I didn’t find mine at Saks. The next morning we went to a bridal shop in the city called Mark Ingram. And uh, I tried on maybe six dresses. Um, and then I think it was about the 10th dress total that I tried on between the two shops. It was a Vera Wang gown and I put it on and I knew and so I canceled the rest of my appointments for the weekend and we just had fun like shoe shopping and shopping for their bridesmaids dresses. So that’s kind of what we did last year. We did my dress, we did the wedding photographer and videographer and our reception venue. And from there we felt like we were in pretty good shape until he got to like the six month Mark. And then we started realizing that we felt kind of behind all of the sudden, so we were like, Oh, we need a DJ, which we felt like we didn’t know that we needed to book a DJ that far in advance, but we quickly realized that a lot of the ones we were contacting were booked and everything like that. 

So we needed a DJ, we needed a florist, we needed someone to do hair and makeup, we needed to out transportation, we needed to figure out the logistics of the day. We still hadn’t met with our praise. Things just started to feel chaotic. So that’s when we decided to hire a wedding planner. We had already budgeted to hire someone for the month of to do like month of coordination, but we realized pretty quickly that we needed someone much sooner because I was not willing to take off the gas on my business at all during this time. And neither was Adam and I had talked to a lot of other brides and bytes to be. That said that one of the things they really did was kinda chilled at work. And during the months leading up to it. And I did not want to do that. I did not want to come out of my wedding feeling like I was behind, um, with my own business, which was probably a little bit impossible. 

But all of this is to say we realized we needed a wedding planner sooner. So we hired a wedding planner about five months away and she helped make us realize what we needed to do and when we needed to do it. And, um, from there, you know, it was just about booking the final vendors, uh, and being really organized about everything that needed to get done. Until then, I didn’t really get stressed until about eight weeks out. Um, I didn’t really feel stress. I felt, you know, like I felt pretty, uh, organized and I felt like we had planned things pretty clearly. But I think something at about eight weeks made me realize that we just had so much to do still. So much to do. Um, and I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. So it was sort of like, Oh my God, there’s so much ahead. 

Just so many little things that I don’t really care about, you know, things like centerpieces and um, I don’t know what color cards we’re getting people and like bridesmaids gifts, I mean, I do care about them. I’m not trying to say I didn’t care, but it was just so many little things adding up and um, I couldn’t, like, I still felt like we were so far away and I was just like, Oh my God, is this how the next several months of my life is going to be? But we grabbed, we grinded from about week eight to four. I’d say that the two month out was the most stressful and just the busiest and we had the most to do. Um, but then once we got to the month in like a month out, it got really exciting and there was still a lot to do, but it was overshadowed by how excited we were and we could see the light at the end of the tunnel. And it all felt so surreal and we just felt so grateful that this was happening for us. 

Um, it was definitely the most expensive month of my life. I cannot believe. Several times we were just like, Oh my God, I cannot believe how many checks we’ve written in the span of one month, but we did it and, um, we made it. So that’s pretty much the planning timeline and everything that went through the logistics of our wedding. Um, let me pull up some of the questions specifically. I got to make sure I didn’t miss anything about that timeline in particular, so, okay. Um, yeah, people asked what our wedding budget is. I’m obviously not going to share the exact numbers, it’s personal, but I hope that this helps you see what we prioritize. It’s the, by far the most expensive thing was our reception and that included food, alcohol, everything. 

We also, excuse me, we also budgeted quite a bit and we’re very grateful that we were able to have a pretty extravagant rehearsal dinner as well as our actual wedding. Um, like I said, we wanted this to feel like a destination wedding even though we have, even though Adam and I live here. Just because so many people don’t and it’s just such an exciting city. So we invited everyone from our wedding to our rehearsal dinner and we had, um, you know, really great toasts and um, we have this great open bar and it was on a beautiful rooftop and it was sort of like a pre-shadow for our wedding so that we prioritized. We spent a lot of money on our wedding reception and food and drinks. We spent a lot of money on, um, our photographer and videographer where a financial priority for us and my dress. 

I did not want to limit myself to a dress. It wasn’t as much as it could have been. I think it’s important to not, I don’t know, I kinda disagree with like having a budget for your wedding dress. I know that there’s some benefit because then you just won’t try on dresses that are out of your price range and you might fall in love with, but I just, I don’t know. Adam and I really believe that I just wanted to find a dress that was perfect for me and we could figure out it out if we needed to, but more than likely it would just be that, you know, we could make it work. And that’s exactly what happened. So those were the big things. 

Flowers. We tried not to spend a huge amount of money on. Our DJ, we didn’t spend a huge amount of money on, like we didn’t have a band because our venue didn’t have the space for it. We didn’t do a huge cake. A cake came with our reception meal. So we really just had a small cake for our, um, our photos. So yeah, I would say that other than those huge things, we did those other few things, you know, in a smaller, um, or we did like a more moderate tier for those. 

Uh, the next question I got was did I lose weight for my wedding? So, uh, kind of, this is kind of an interesting answer. I didn’t lose that much weight, but I didn’t really try to lose that much weight. I just wanted to get more tone for my wedding and be in better shape. And primarily I just wanted to feel like my skin was really clear on the day of and that my arms were really toned because I wore a strapless down. So, um, I would say about four months out, I worked out every single day for four months out. Now, I work out almost every day anyway. So this wasn’t like a huge crash diet or anything like that, but I just really wanted to be serious about it and wanted to feel really good. And honestly working out was like, it’s always such a stress reliever for me. And when wedding planning got really crazy, it was a really great way to just step away and take care of myself. So I worked out every day for about four months. Um, I also, I’m trying to think of some of the other health things that I did. I started drinking, um, a cleansing tea every single morning to clear up my body from everything the night before. 

I already drank a smoothie pretty much every day, but I made sure I did that every day, but not making sure I didn’t eat too much fruit because I know that can really make your face break out cause it’s really sugary. I didn’t eat dinner after like 6:00 PM, so that my stomach had plenty of time to digest it. I really just got a bit more. Um, I really just tightened up some of my already healthy habits. So, um, you know, I didn’t eat shake shack for a few months, which like I don’t need often, but I’ll splurge on every, every few weeks. I didn’t, I didn’t do that at all, but we have shake shack delivered the night of our wedding, which was Epic and I was so happy to eat it and I think I ate it like twice in 24 hours after our wedding. 

It was so good. Um, so long story short, I probably lost about four pounds. Um, and that was, you know, not the priority of what I wanted to do. I wanted to tone my arms and I wanted to have clear skin. And more importantly, I wanted to just feel really healthy when I walked down the aisle. I did not want to be one of those brides that like looked back at their wedding planning time and just felt stressed out of their minds. Um, that’s not how I wanted to remember this. And for me, taking care of myself was a good way to manage that. I will also say on that note with the wedding planner thing that I saw a lot of people that I know in a lot of former brides or a lot of brides to be not higher wedding planners because they said they’re very type A and they like planning everything on their own and they just really wanted to be in charge. 

And I get that. I’m kind of like that too. But I also saw so many of those people just get so stressed out and they didn’t even enjoy their wedding cleaning process. So that’s what I wanted to avoid. And so I know that if you are, you know, trying to take into consideration what your budget is for your wedding and it feels like a wedding planner might be out of it. Um, my advice would be to reach out to a few and see if you can do some sort of package that’s not entirely planning, but that just helps you with certain things like specifically communication between all your vendors. Because if you are the go to person for every single person that needs to know the logistics of your wedding, it can very easily suck the fun out of it. And if you just hire someone to really be the correspondent person, hopefully they can to work with you so that they don’t charge you as much as an entire wedding planning package. 

And it can really, you know, make sure that you’re enjoying this time and that you are not just being drilled to the ground with multiple, multiple emails a day from people that are asking you the same questions you are trying to connect people. People are not as competent as they should be. They just never are. That was my biggest frustration during this was how incompetent some of the vendors can be. And uh, it’s just that just shouldn’t be your problem. You’re the bride. Um, you know, you should be enjoying every second of this and have someone else deal with that. So that was my stance on the wedding planner hiring versus not. Um, and yeah, that was obviously we had to extend our budget for that. We did go over budget. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. It was fine. We just realized that this was the only time we’d ever do this. 

So we wanted to do it right. OK. Uh, two I got two questions about my bridesmaids. How many bridesmaids do I have and what did they get them? I had seven bridesmaids total that included my two sisters who were two maids of honor. So I had seven on my side and had him had five on his side. And we knew that that looks a little bit uneven. But I had two sisters and he also had two sisters. Neither of us have brothers. So considering his two sisters were bridesmaids of mine and my two sisters were my maids of honor. Um, the way we looked at it was that we would have three friends and then the recipe family members. So he had his brother-in-law and cousin on his side. I had four sisters. And then from there we each had our three closest friends. So that was kind of like the way we quote even did out. 

It didn’t look even, but we didn’t really care. It, um, worked out fine. And since we got married in a Catholic church, people were sitting down for most of it, you know, the, the, the wedding party doesn’t stand with you the whole time. So, um, it was totally, totally not a big deal that it was uneven and it felt to us better that way. Um, we did not want to get rid of people just for the sake of making it even. And we also didn’t want to be inviting people just for the sake of making it, even. We wanted the people that were closest to us and most important to us in our relationship. So that’s what we did with our wedding party. For my seven bridesmaids, I got them a few things. I got them pajamas to get ready in the morning, which were like they were so cute. 

They were like these pink and purple button upsets. I actually got them for every single girl that was on my bachelor party trip, which was 12 of them. So obviously there was more girls there than more on my wedding or that were in my wedding party. But my bridesmaids got ready in those the morning of my wedding. So that was kind of like a gift to my bachelorette party as well as to my actual wedding party. Um, I also got them each champagne glasses that had their names on them to use the morning of. And this was also, I got those champagne glasses for everyone that came to my bridal shower, which by the way, it was such a good move. I recommend that if you were throwing a party because the whole time, no one that mixed up each other’s glasses, you know, we had water glasses, which were just normal classes and everyone was forgetting whose was, whose everyone was getting new ones. 

There was like water glasses was a disaster of water glasses, but for the champagne glasses because they all have their names on them, that was never an issue. So, um, the girls brought those from the bridal shower to the morning of and used that the morning of as well. So they had their pajamas, the wedding glasses, the champagne glasses with their names on it. And then I also got them each, a little bracelet that had the longitude and latitude of somewhere that was special in our relationship and in our friendships. So they all had to guess them, which I’m sure it was more stressful for them than it was fun. But they all did a great job and they’re just sweet bracelets that are like mementos of special places. So for example, my best friend, uh, Ariana, her and I were randomly roommates at NYU our first year there. 

And we have, we were best friends ever since. And we lived together, you know, up until I moved in with Adam. So I got her a bracelet of back, that dorm we have at NYU. And so it is about our friendship and my wedding, but she also not always has this bracelet of NYU, which she loves. So I tried to have them have double meetings like that. Another example is my sister in law, Adam’s sister. I S I always go to the U S open with her. She loves tennis and that’s like the way that I bonded with her over the years. Um, and she is an amazing tennis player. She went to college for tennis. It’s like our thing. So I got her a bracelet to have the longitude and latitude of the U S open here in New York. So those are my gifts for them. Um, and I think that that’s all to say about my bridesmaids. Okay. The next question is what was the hardest part of wedding planning? 

The hardest, most frustrating part of wedding planning was when vendors didn’t pay enough attention to detail. I’m a very detail oriented person and so is my husband. I was about to say fiance, so it was my husband. And so we felt a lot of times like vendors were just not paying close enough attention to the things that were important to us, which was frustrating and just not what we expected. I mean, when you’re in the wedding planning business, you’d think you’d know a bit better. Um, so I don’t really know why that pattern came up. I don’t know if it’s just because people were really busy or because we’re extra attentive to detail and not everyone is or what really that was all about. But it was hugely frustrating to us and it’s a big reason why we hired a wedding planner earlier. The exceptions to this are Susan Shek my photographer. 

I cannot say enough good things about her. And I actually had her on my podcast earlier in the year. So if you want to check out her amazing advice on how she’s built her incredible wedding photography business, I recommend going and listening to her. But she paid huge attention to detail. She was like partially my wedding planner. She ended up giving me so many great wedding vendor recommendations. We got our delicious cake from her. We got our transportation people from her. She went and scouted out, you know, everything about our wedding, which was kind of a lot of locations. We had a church, we had a place we wanted to take pictures and we had the reception and she went to all of them to check out photos and everything. She paid so much attention to my dress. She was absolutely unreal. 

So there were exceptions to this. Um, our florists was amazing. They really listened to my budget and my division of what I had and they totally made that happen. So she was really great. Um, but just some of the others, our DJ also really listened to everything that I wanted to say. I’d say the biggest frustration was our reception venue. Um, and I dunno, just some of the others along the way that didn’t, Oh, our invitations, we had a little bit of a mishap happen. Um, so those were the only two. But other than that we had amazing, amazing vendors and we couldn’t be more grateful for everything they did to make our day come together. I had a lot of details that were very important to me and um, I appreciate everyone’s patient with me along the way. Those of you listening to this right now might just be like, Oh my God, you need to chill. 

But it was so worth it and so beautiful. Um, so that was one of the hardest parts was just some of the vendors not being as, you know, attentive as I thought that they like for some reason more. Um, and then the second hardest part I think was just juggling family dynamics and all of our families really get along. So we didn’t really have any like butting heads, which is kind of what I thought people meant when they say you have to juggle family at weddings. I think it was more just wanting to take everyone into consideration. And that was a hard thing for Adam and I to balance because everyone, you know, was giving us this advice that it’s your wedding, it’s about you. You need to do what you want. And that’s true, but at the same time, you do want to be respectful of your families. 

And you know, this in a lot of ways for us was about not just us but the joining of our families. And so we wanted to start that off on a really stable place. So we really felt like we needed to think about them. Um, and it was nice having only 90 people at our wedding, but we really, we really did try to take into consideration every single person and maybe almost to a fault because it’s a loser’s game. You just can’t consider every single one. Uh, and I think that maybe that was something self-inflicted stress, um, that I wish I could, you know, have taken away from me or seen. But I really think it’s inevitable. I think if you care about your guests and you want them to have a good time, you’re going to, uh, you know, wonder what they, what they want, what works for them, what they need, et cetera. 

So that was just a lot of opinions to juggle and sometimes it felt more stressful than others. Um, I’m trying to think of some of the other hardest parts. I think just time management was hard. Juggling my business and the wedding at the same time, you know, we don’t get paid time off as entrepreneurs and we don’t get to, um, like even really have, you know, weekends or nights so much to plan it. So I think just juggling the two was a little bit of a challenge, but I wouldn’t have it any other way because I knew that I wanted to get married and still feel like my business was thriving, which it is. I did not want to feel like I had to, you know, pick up the ball again and start from months beforehand. So that was, that was a struggle that was worth it. 

And then the most personal struggle was planning a wedding without my dad. Some of you may know that my dad suddenly passed away about a year and a half ago, a little over. And so he knew my now husband very well and he knew we were probably ready to get married. Um, and so it was really painful at times planning it without him and just knowing he wouldn’t be there for it. It was painful at the beginning because I just couldn’t believe after we got engaged that he wasn’t there. And then it got a bit easier because as we were planning it, you know, I was planning these things from the ground up. So it’s not like I had thought that he would be at the Dominick where we got married or that he would see me in my dress because I knew he never had like right from the second I got my dress, I knew he would never see it. 

So it got a little bit easier. But then I had another breakdown about it, I would say six weeks before because that’s when you start shopping for gifts for your parents and gifts for your friends and writing letters and just all this stuff coming up about, um, you know, uh, like to my father on my wedding day or a frame, um, that I could’ve given him and just notes and thinking about like the toast you would’ve given. It just became really real. So that was very difficult as well. And if you were planning a wedding with the loss of someone, first of all, please accept my condolences because I am so sorry that anyone else would have to go through this. And second of all my biggest advice would just be to feel how you feel and don’t make yourself wrong for feeling any certain way. 

I read a lot of articles when I was planning it about planning a parentless wedding and you know, everyone will process it differently. Some people said they balled the morning of their wedding day, some people said they didn’t even think about their lost parent that day of their wedding. And neither is wrong, it’s just whatever you feel good about. I got some ideas to have a picture of him around my bouquet a or to have a Rose for him at my ceremony on a chair. And for me personally, that all felt like it would really trigger me and upset me. Um, and it also, I don’t think is what he would’ve wanted. I don’t think he would’ve wanted to be the center of attention that way. So I chose not to do those things, but I had him with me in other subtle ways. I had, um, his favorite shirt wrapped around my bouquet and um, I wore, yeah, I just had with him, with me in other subtle ways. 

Like we had some music nods to him. Um, I drank his favorite tequila. We walked down the aisle. So my advice is just to do what works for you. And I did not cry after I got married, um, about my dad. I cried a little on the morning after that. I did not. And I really am happy that I gave myself permission to, to not be sad, to be happy, to be with without them and to be with my family and to feel the love of everyone that was there. So, um, that’s a very personal part of it. That was a challenge and I think, you know, a lot of people will have their own version of that challenge. It is hard to bring up family step, whether it’s a loss or maybe a bad relationship you have with someone in your life or trying to figure out dynamics between two family members that don’t get along or um, maybe a friend even that you’re not friends with. 

There’s just challenges that are presented here during this huge moment in your life when you really have to examine who is and who isn’t in your life. And my biggest piece of advice is to let yourself feel whatever comes up around those things. Um, OK. I don’t see any more questions. Those were, I think the main ones. I think I covered everything I got from you guys. I hope that you found this helpful when it comes to wedding planning. I am by no means a wedding planner. As I mentioned, I highly recommend hiring one, but I hope that it gave you a behind the scenes to what it looks like. I’m planning a New York wedding and planning wedding with my business, my own business and not having a nine to five job while doing it. Um, and if you are a bride to be, I am so happy for you. Congratulations. It is a really, really fun time. I hope that this gets you excited for your big day and if you have any questions, let me know. 

We will share more pictures as we get them. And you know I don’t think I’m going to share too, too many because I want to keep my platform about entrepreneurship, but if you guys do want to see any or if you have any questions about them, please let me know because I am excited to share this really amazing time with you. Alright, you guys, whatever your wedding vision is, whether it’s to not have one, whether you had one, whether you’re about to have one. I hope that this brought a little bit of inspiration into your process. Um, and you know, I think the most exciting part of it all is, is now is that the adventure is just beginning and I’m very happy to be married and happy that I’m married, the best guy that I ever could have dreamed of. 

And that is my biggest vision of all. It always will be. And I’m so grateful that this family is number one and thank you all for your well wishes and for being with me on this journey. And every, every sweet comment and note you guys sent, Adam and I read them all and it just really means a lot to me after having shared so much of my life with you guys that you, um, you know, pass along your well wishes and um, I wish that right back to you. We are all in this together. When one of us succeeds, we all succeed. Thank you guys for lifting me up and I will always be here to do the same for you. Here is your biggest vision. Let’s have an amazing week and I’ll talk to you guys soon. 

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