064: Organising a wedding

In this episode, we interview Ayla Toyokawa, certified wedding planner and founder of WedSites, about the key steps in planning a wedding.

About Ayla

Ayla Toyokawa is a certified wedding planner and founder of WedSites, an all-in-one project management platform designed for collaboration and streamlining the wedding planning process for modern couples.

There are two types of life admin:

• Everyday life admin -  occurs cyclically or seasonally - daily, weekly, monthly, annually
• Life event admin - occasional life events that trigger life admin.

If your everyday life admin isn't humming then dealing with a major life event can tip you into overdrive.

Weddings have always been a significant life event for people to manage and in the last two years since the pandemic kicked off, planning a wedding takes Olympic-level administration skills. In addition, some life events like getting married have an ongoing impact on your life admin and in our survey 27% of you identified planning a wedding as generating a significant amount of life admin  so we thought we should talk with an expert.

We discuss:

• setting a budget and vision for the day
• selecting a date and contemplating a weekday wedding to save money - in particular because there have been so many weddings delayed over the past two years
• booking a venue as a key first item as it is likely to be one of the biggest expenses.
• booking a photographer, videographer and wedding planner with enough lead time
• that the average couple will spend 200-300 hours planning their wedding 
• selecting a dress which can take 6-9 months to be made or 4 months even if purchased in store
• the overwhelm of so many options and the risk of the comparison trap
• that the pandemic has reduced the expectation to have a large wedding
• being prepared to have a Plan B - like reducing guest numbers or changing the date
• having a wedding website - to provide all the information for guests that can change as things evolve
• using the RSVP process to collect guest information including dietary requirements, assistance with transportation to the venue, song requests, choice of plated meals, travel plans for overseas guests, RSVP to additional events
• using checklists to remember important tasks - checklists that might be helpful include wedding planning checklist, checklist for photographer of photos you want, questions for venue, packing checklist for the actual wedding day
• using checklists to help share the load with your partner and other members of the bridal party and family members
• wedding planning is a marathon so take breaks you as you need 
• plan a regular time when you will talk with your partner about wedding planning.

We also talk about the admin tasks that need to be done after the wedding including:

• thank-you notes for guests and gifts
• cleaning and/or selling wedding dress
• sharing photos with family members
• changing your name on all legal documents if you choose to change your name
• combining your finances if you choose to do that.