Packaging Small Wedding Offers

There is an art to packaging small wedding offers that sell.

Small weddings are different and couples who choose to do small weddings or elope want different things. We want to think of all of our couples as being the same, but I think there is great value in making sure there is a distinction between the offers you provide for your traditional wedding couples and the ones you may have for your small wedding couples. This will not only help to clarify for couples who you serve and what you do, but it will also help you to attract more small wedding couples because you have something created just for them.

So here are three questions to ask yourself when you are creating your packages that will help you to create something that really appeals to your couples;

“How much does my ideal couple want to spend”? You need to have an awareness of what the couples who are in your target market want to spend. Your pricing cannot be developed without an understanding of the market and simply be based on what you want to make, you need to begin with your customers. To find this out you can look to what other similar vendors are doing in your area and what your couples who maybe have not booked you indicated what they wanted to pay or their budget range.

“Why are they eloping or having a small wedding?” It is so important to understand why your couples are eloping to make sure that the package you are creating and pricing is actually serving them where they are at and not where you think they are at. It will help you to separate yourself from the competition because you are customer focused first, not focused on yourself first.

“What are my couples biggest pain points that I can solve? Or what do they think it is?” If you want to sell you need to say the magic words that your couple wants to hear “I can help you with that”. You can only really do that if you know what they need help with and keep in mind what you know it to be and what they think it is might be different! It helps for you to have an awareness of both.

Curious to know more about packaging, pricing and making sure you are profitable? We just finished a workshop on this very topic and in our workshops we deep dive into topics that will help you move the needle in your biz. If you want to join the next workshop CLICK HERE or if you prefer a 30 mini-audit of your packages CLICK HERE.

Is Your Small Wedding Offering Scaleable?

Here is something that no one seems to really be talking about in the wedding industry; scaleability.

What is scaleabilty? Well, it is creating a business that has the ability to grow. Now, of course your business has the ability to grow, but this is referring to major growth. And major growth is usually not available to wedding pros because we are trading our hours for dollars, which means there is a cap on how much we can grow - since at some point, your hours are finite.

I want to be clear that I find nothing wrong with this business model of being paid hourly and it is well suited for many pros. However, if you are interested in big growth and in spending less time on your business and making more money, then you should probably be aware of your scaleability.

So, how do you determine if your offering is scaleable? Well, the simplest question you need to answer is “can it run without you”? If the answer is yes, than you are on your way to creating something that is scaleable. If the answer is no, than you do not currently have a business model that is scaleable - which is totally OK as long as that is your goal.

I think the best by-product of a scaleable offering is not necessarily the ability to grow; it is the ability to step back. Scalability means more freedom.

The small wedding market really lends itself to scaleability because small wedding offerings tend to have a lower price point than larger offerings and because they are usually simpler offerings which lend themselves to being replicated.

There are three keys to creating a scaleable wedding offering; productizing, systemizing and out-sourcing. If you can do all three of these things with your small wedding offering, you are going to create an offering that is scaleable.

Want to know exactly how you can do this in your business?

I would love to show you. We are going to cover the three keys to scaleability and how you can apply them to your business, along with interactive group coaching in the next live workshop in our series; Creating a Scaleable Small Wedding Offering.

Grab your seat HERE. Oh, and these are intimate workshops, so that everyone gets one-on-one attention, so seats are limited.

Micro-Weddings; Are They a Fad or Here to Stay?

*Unpopular Opinion* I don't think micro-weddings are here to stay...

Bold words right? But, hear me out because I think you might agree.

I think that Micro-Weddings, the way they are currently being defined, are not here for the long haul because they are not sustainable.

Why? The term was birthed out of a need last year to have smaller guest counts at couple's weddings, not because the couples wanted to have smaller weddings. And the very term "micro" implies that they are "less than" weddings - and if they are so much "less than" then they also must cost less.

That means that we have created a term for couples where we lowered the guest count and the perception of value, but not the experience.

See where I am going here? This puts wedding pros in a position where we are going to have to defend our fees if someone has a smaller guest count, but is going to require the same amount of work.

We have also just created an alternative for a couple who originally wanted a larger wedding and so that type of client will go right back to having a larger wedding as soon they can.

What I DO know is going to stick around are intimate weddings and elopements. These are well defined small wedding offerings that are created outside of an immediate need and with the goal of serving a client who truly values an intimate wedding experience. These offerings have also been created with a defined frame work and not an open-ended custom service proposition which is currently common-place with micro-wedding offerings.

Make no mistake, small weddings are here to stay. They were becoming popular pre-pandemic and will continue to become even more popular now that they have entered into the wedding world vernacular and couple’s know they are an option. But, the difference is that these offerings are created for couples who want small weddings, and with overall sustainability and profitability in mind - not a quick fix solution to a couple who originally wanted a larger wedding and now has a reason to ask for a lower price for their smaller guest count.

What do you think? I would love to hear your thoughts on micro-weddings and where you think the future of the small wedding market is heading. Either leave a comment here or better yet, join me over on Clubhouse (@morganmchilds) where you can chat with me directly every Wednesday at 12pm PST.

Photo Credit: Jenny Haas Photography

I Don't Think Minimonies Are Here To Stay

I am not surprised by what I am hearing about minimonies…

It turns out that many couples who did a minimony last year — with the intent of doing another larger wedding the next year, are cancelling the second big wedding.

Since I have been in the small wedding market for over six years, this didn't surprise me in the least. Because it turns out... the first small wedding was meaningful enough.

Why plan another wedding and go through the expense, time and stress of planning a big wedding when you had a perfectly beautiful small one and now you just kind of want to ... move on?!

Many couples are buying homes and having kids around the time they get married, these things become priorities after they are married and having another wedding just doesn't seem as appealing as they thought that it would be. Not to mention that it is no longer necessary, just optional.

Sure, this doesn't apply to all couples, but I have heard from many colleagues that this is the case and I am guessing that this applies to a majority of couples.

This means that as a wedding pro, should you be pushing minimonies?

Here is my opinion; I think that doing minimonies with the intent of booking another wedding from the same couple, is not a good business model and I would say NO.

But, if you are doing minimonies with the intent on making them beautiful and meaningful options for a couple without the need for them to be booking you again, then I would say YES.

Now I don't say this to ruffle any feathers, because by all means, do what works for you! If you are having great success with text book minimonies and are making a killing with them, then go on with your bad self.

But, if you are seeing couples drop off after their minimony and you have built an offering as a stop-gap solution to last year - then I am guessing you are already wondering when you can get back to doing big weddings.

From my experience, couples under-estimate how important and significant their one wedding day is. This makes total sense seeing as how the majority of our couples have never had a wedding before! So, once they have their day no matter how big or small or fancy or bare-bones - they feel married.

I see this all the time with the elopements we do. And in fact, I would venture to call these weddings elopements rather than minimonies - even if they are doing a second wedding.

To me the very term minimony is problematic because I don't think we should be planning weddings for couples that are just quick-fix solutions. I think that all weddings should be meaningful, and whatever our intent might be as wedding pros, that all weddings are going to be meaningful to the couple regardless -- and that is a great thing!

What do you think about them?

Let me know in the comments below or better yet lets continue the conversation in the Elopement Wedding Pro Community, haven’t joined us yet? Well, what are you waiting for it is free! JOIN HERE

Photo Credit: Jenny Haas Photography

Morgan Childs LIVE on Timeline Genius

For this episode, Eddie had the privilege of sitting down with expert wedding planner Morgan Childs.  A highly-regarded industry speaker and educator, she also runs two successful businesses in her home state of Hawaii.

Morgan is the Partner and Creative Director of Moana Belle Events, a wedding planning and event design firm.  She is also the founder of Modern Elopement, which specializes in elopements and small weddings.

While she’s produced designs for large weddings, celebrity affairs, and corporate events, her recent attention has been on intimate weddings and elopements. Recognizing an industry shift toward small weddings, Morgan is leading the way in creating exceptional alternative wedding options.

Here are some of the important points that Morgan discusses:

• How she listened to and answered the market demand for small weddings

• Why she believes that small weddings are more than a trend—even beyond COVID-19

• The potential in the wedding industry for scalable options, productized services, and new business growth—outside the one-size-fits-all wedding model

• Why it’s important to listen not only to the couples who are hiring you but also to the ones who aren’t—and why you should identify the opportunities being missed in the latter

• Why her small wedding package uses a 5-step process to determine select ceremony and dinner options—rather than being fully customizable

• How small wedding services can provide year-round and diversified income streams

• Her #1 overall piece of advice for wedding professionals

To hear Morgan’s interview, you can press the play button above. And be sure to subscribe to our podcast in iTunes.

We want to say a special thank you to Morgan for sharing these insights with our Timeline Genius community.

Please take this information, act on it, and carry on the journey toward fulfilling your dreams!

The Elopement Expert on Need To Know Changes to the Wedding Industry

Big things happened today at Modern Elopement — Morgan Childs, the Elopement Expert, discusses the most current wedding trends.

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“It isn’t about creating a less than wedding; it’s just about a different format.” Listen as Andy and his guest Morgan Childs discuss her growing up in Kauai, how she got into the event industry, and how to make it through the pandemic and beyond, plus much more on this episode of The Wedding Biz.

Morgan first began by founding Moana Events and then created another element by adding Modern Elopement, for which she is the CEO and Creative Director. Morgan has been called the elopement expert by Destination I Do Magazine and is a planner who started in the elopement brand back in 2015 when she saw a trend for smaller weddings happening, and with COVID, the concept has exploded.

Morgan shares when she started seeing the trend for smaller weddings even before the pandemic, why her clients find them more attractive, and the difference between all the different terms of smaller weddings like micro and tiny weddings. She also speaks about where the focus is on the elopement weddings her company does and what they entail.

Listen as Morgan addresses some planners’ concerns with taking time off their calendars for smaller weddings when they can fill those dates with higher-end, more expensive weddings. Post-COVID Morgan believes these smaller, more personal weddings will continue because mindsets around money have changed, and saving money or buying a house is sometimes more appealing than spending huge amounts of money on an extravagant wedding.

CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN

Why Couples Doing Small Weddings, Don't Want Big Price Tags

The ideal wedding senario for wedding pros is usually a small wedding with a big price tag, the ability and the desire of the couple to pay for our top service offering with a guest count of 50 or less. However, this is rarely the case. Even with the rise of micro-weddings, this is going to be the exception to the rule. Curious on why that would that be the case if your couple has the money to spend? Well, that my fellow pro, is what is called “percieved value”.

Couples who are having a smaller wedding, are going to want to spend less - even if they were planning on spending more with a larger wedding. Why is this? It is because once they know they are having a smaller wedding their perception of the wedding changes. It becomes a “simpler” “easier” wedding and there are most likely going to be good trade-offs like spending less because they are having fewer guests. It is simply a mindset that goes along with a smaller wedding and most couples are not going to want to spend the same or more on their micro-wedding when they know the value or cost of a full wedding, the fact of the matter is that they are not doing a full wedding, so there must be a difference in pricing.

While this won’t apply to every couple, in my experience it applies to most of them. I am hearing from planners that they are seeing smaller budgets and this is not surprising to me after doing elopement weddings for over 6 years. The perceived value of a smaller wedding is different for couples and it is only going to help your business if you know this ahead of time.

While the rest of the wedding market is going to try to change couple’s behavior, this knowledge means that you can do something that will better serve and appeal to your couples. Perceived value is hard to change, especially since we already have to spend so much time educating couples about our services and pricing. So, my tip is to understand that spending less with a small wedding is probably a given, so create something that appeals to those couples and provides what you know they need rather than trying to fit them into a larger wedding mold.

Questions? I am hosting a masterclass for wedding planners next week that you should definitely take advantage of! I am going to be sharing the biggest mistakes planners are making right now when planning micro-weddings and elopements and how to avoid them, plus how I came up with our formula for elopements that has our couples raving and resulted in huge growth for our company year over year. It is free! What have you got to lose? Sign up HERE.

Why Planning a Small Wedding Is So Different

Small weddings are wonderful; you have time to get to know your couples better, have time to create something really unique and personal for them and you get to facilitate a really beautiful day-of experience because there is not the typical chaos surrounding a larger affair.

However, not all small weddings are created equally.

The fact of the matter is that not every couple planning an intimate wedding ends up doing what they would do if they had a larger wedding, or spending the same amount of money on it, in fact, most of them don’t.

Many couples begin thinking that maybe they don’t need to spend quite so much planning time on their wedding or on a wedding planner because it is a smaller and therefore simpler wedding.

They may get to thinking that they surely don’t need to invest as much money on their small wedding as they would do on a larger one with more guests.

And they begin to wonder if, since it is so small, if they really need all the bells and whistles and if that money would be better off spent elsewhere …

When the wedding gets smaller, the expectations around the wedding day experience generally changes and couples are more likely to end up wanting something simpler, that costs less and is easier to plan. It is simply a clear value proposition - since they are not putting as much into it, they don’t expect as much out of it.

What that means to a wedding planner is that the way you approach small weddings, is rarely ever the same way you approach larger ones. Those dream couples with huge budgets and low guest counts are few and far between, and more commonly, you are going to have couples who are looking to spend less on their smaller wedding and are looking for value above full service. So, how do you navigate booking smaller weddings when they either can’t afford your service or when you are not making as much per wedding, but your couples are wanting just as much of your time?

Well, that is exactly the reason why in 2015 we added special elopement offerings to our company, to serve those small weddings with the abbreviated services they wanted, without taking up the precious spots on our calendar that we needed for larger weddings. By creating a special offering tailored for small guest counts we were able to create the value the couples were looking for around their small wedding experience. It also allowed us the ability to re-think our service offering and to streamline our process to the point where we could accept dozens of elopements without it affecting our calendar, in fact it added a lot of revenue and we ended up finding a niche we didn’t know was missing.

If you are trying to fit your small weddings or elopements into the same mold as your larger weddings, I encourage you to really look into your planning process and determine if there is the opportunity for you to create an additional offering in your company geared toward small weddings. Elopements are not just a trend, there are here to stay and you want to be sure your company is well positioned to work with these couples without losing any money or spots on your calendar. Want to learn more about how we did this? We are hosting a free Masterclass for Wedding Planners on how to add elopements and small wedding offerings successfully and profitably to your company and would love for you to join us! If you are a part of our Elopement Wedding Pro community you will receive an invite to sign up via email and if not, then join us now so we can ensure you get an invitation!

6 Ways to Prepare for a Very Different Engagement Season

Engagement season is coming... and this year is likely to look very different from years past. Engagement season takes place over the holidays from Thanksgiving through New Years, and is the time of year when the majority of couples get engaged. Generally this means an uptick of inquiries into your services during this time and by the time you are in January and February you will have some new weddings booked for the upcoming year.

However this is 2020 and since we are in the midst of a very different year (to say the least!), I am forecasting that this engagement season is going to look a lot different as well. I believe there are going to be fewer couples getting engaged overall, and while of course there will be engagements, some of these couples are not going to be ready to make plans for awhile - which will mean less inquiries. The couples that do get engaged and are looking into 2021 may be looking for something different than they may have a year ago. So, how can you best prepare for this new reality and make sure your company is one of the ones getting booked?

Here are my top tips for making the most out of this engagement season and positioning yourself for success: 

1) Make sure your website, social and sales materials look amazing. There is going to be a bit more competition if there are fewer couples getting engaged, so you want to make sure you look your best. Update your website with recent photos, update your sales materials to look as professional as possible and reflect any new pricing you may have and make sure you are staying active on social media so your couples can find you when they start searching.

2) Be sure to stand out. There are many ways to make sure you stand out from the crowd and the best way to do that is to make sure you are highlighting what you are uniquely best at and speaking to your ideal clients - not doing what everyone else is doing. Make sure your website and social presence reflects what your company is known for and that you are taking the time to have a consistent brand and voice so that your ideal clients know right away you are the best fit.

3) Ensure your contracts are updated and cover everything you need them to for another uncertain year ahead. Most vendors have updated and revised their contracts following COVID, but if you have not yet or are not 100% secure with what you have, now is the time to make sure you have this in place before engagement season.

4) Make sure you have a payment plan in place that is clearly outlined in your contract and makes sense for your couples. Many vendors had issues with their refundable or non-refundable deposits this year and had to re-think what they needed from their couples to secure a booking. If you are not performing work for your couples right away ( ie: not a wedding planner  ) then taking a smaller non-refundable deposit upfront not only makes it easier on you in the long run, but makes you more appealing to new couples who want to book you.

5) Make it as easy to book your services as possible! Many people over look this, but you want your whole searching/booking/signing/paying process to be as seamless and easy as possible for your prospective couples, or you risk losing some of them along the way. If you are not using a service like Honeybook where you can do all that in one place, consider doing so! It was one of the best investments we made, and here is a link to 50% off of a whole year if you are interested!

6) Offer small wedding solutions. Couples are going to be doing smaller weddings, not only because of COVID concerns still in place, but for travel and financial reasons as well. This means that you want to have offerings that are going to appeal to couples looking to do smaller weddings. Whether this is an abbreviated package, lessening the minimum time frame on your services or creating a new offering just for smaller weddings, this is the best way to position yourself for couples looking to do smaller weddings and spend less. 

I hope these tips got you thinking about how to best position yourself to make the most of the upcoming engagement season, because it will be here before you know it! We are going to be giving you more info on how to add those small wedding offerings to your biz, so make sure you are a part of the Elopement Wedding Pro community or feel free to email me, I would love to hear from you!

Want to get the Elopement Trend Forecast and stay on top of the small wedding trend? Sign up HERE!

xx MMC

Mini, Micro, Tiny, Pop-Up - How Many Types of Weddings Can You Name?

Do you know the difference between a micro-wedding and a mini-wedding? A sequel-wedding and an elopement? A tiny wedding and a minimony??

There are so many new wedding terms this year that it is hard to know the difference between them all! Do they all mean the same thing? They are all just weddings at the end of the day, right!? 

Well, yes and no. And since we consider ourselves a bit of an expert on small weddings, let us break that down for you below.

Traditional western weddings usually follow a pretty standard format of Ceremony + Cocktail Hour + Reception. They don’t necessarily have to be in that order, cocktail hour may come before the ceremony, but generally the ceremony comes first and it is followed by the reception with a wedding program. The program can, and usually does, include at least a few of the traditional elements likes toasts or speeches, formal dances and cake cutting followed by dancing and celebrating with your guests late into the night.

In the past five years this has been steadily changing, with more and more couples opting out of the traditional wedding and the expense that comes with it. Of course with the complication of a pandemic, the small wedding has become even more popular, and in many cases, a necessity. Small groups naturally lend themselves to alternative wedding formats and don’t follow the traditional wedding program guidelines, as dancing the night away on the dance floor doesn’t quite make as much sense when you only have 15 guests. Every type of wedding has a ceremony, but there are many variations the celebrations can take post-ceremony - if they even choose to include that. Here is an overview of the new wedding formats and what they mean:

The Micro-Wedding: 

The micro-wedding is described as an intimate wedding for up to 50 guests and is essentially a smaller and paired down version of a typical wedding. This is the biggest version of the small weddings and can include some dancing and usually a focus on the decor and having a team of professional vendors.

The Mini-Wedding:

A mini-wedding is a very general term and doesn’t refer to any specific type of wedding, usually it is used by planners to describe their service or it is referring in general to any type of small wedding with less than 40 guests and can range from a proper ceremony and abbreviated reception to a courthouse wedding.

The Tiny Wedding:

A tiny wedding is a small wedding with usually less than 10 guests and with a ceremony only format. These are generally pre-planned packages from venues or planners that include all the elements needed for a ceremony and then maybe cake and champagne following the ceremony. They are very short and sweet and focused on cost savings.

Pop-Up Wedding;

A pop-up wedding is a wedding package usually for the couple only or maybe a handful of guests, no more than 10. The package includes the ceremony only and there are only a few fixed dates the couple can book. During the course of one day multiple couples will come through the ceremony site at set times to get married at one beautiful set up and use the same set of professional vendors. The couple is left on their own for their post-ceremony plans. 

The Minimony:

A minimony is a term for a ceremony only with a guest count of up to 10 that is really borne from the needs of 2020, and for couples to have their weddings in this calendar year. It is a simple ceremony with just the couple or with a few of their closest family and friends that is more for the act of having a ceremony and with the knowledge that there will be a larger wedding later. There may be a few professional vendors or none at all.

The Sequel Wedding:

The sequel wedding is a wedding after the couple is officially married, whether they did an elopement or mini-moon or simply went to the courthouse, they are already married and it is the second wedding for them and one that includes a larger group of family and friends and generally will follow the traditional wedding format. This is also a common type of wedding for couples who have family in very different locations and choose to do two different weddings, or who want to do two different types of cultural weddings or religious weddings.

The Elopement Wedding:

An elopement wedding can be just the couple or up to 25 guests and it can have many different formats, with the main goal being something personalized for the couple and more cost-effective. So, it can be just the couple doing their ceremony-only at a destination with significance. Or it can be a destination wedding with 25 of the couples closest friends and family for a weekend of activities and a beautifully decorated ceremony and dinner experience. There is no set format to an elopement wedding and post-ceremony plans can be nonexistent or very traditional. There are generally at least a few professional vendors involved and many times this is some sort of package experience for the couple.

We hope that helps to clarify all the new wedding terminology and formats. There are many different ways couples are choosing to have small weddings and many unique offerings venues and planners are orchestrating for their couples based on their wants and needs. We love all the new ideas and to see small weddings being totally embraced. Is there anything we forgot to mention?

Let us know over in our FB community so we can hear your thoughts. Not a part of the Elopement Wedding Pro Community yet? Well come join us! Want to get the Elopement Trend Forecast and stay on top of the small wedding trend? Sign up HERE!

Photo Credit: Jana Dillon Photography

Top 10 Tips for Marketing to Elopement Couples

Are you wanting to add elopement weddings to your calendar? We have some great marketing tips to help you book more elopement weddings this year and next, so read on…

Couples looking to elope are not looking for the same experience as your typical wedding couples. So with that in mind, the marketing that you need to do to attract these couples should be different. It is worth it to take the time to attract these couples if you want them to book your services for their wedding day.

Most couples who are planning to elope are looking for a non-traditional wedding experience, so if you are looking to market elopement weddings, you need to understand first and foremost what they are looking for. Typically elopement couples are either looking to book an all-inclusive elopement package where everything is taken care of for them or they want something very simple and are doing everything themselves. 

Because elopement couples are looking for something non-traditional they may not be looking at popular wedding planning resources and will get their information in less mainstream ways. In fact, they may not even be looking for your services since they may be under the impression that they don’t need it. So, in order to get out in front of your ideal elopement couple and let them know that you just may be what they are looking for, you will have to adjust your marketing a bit and make sure you are addressing what they want.

One of our top tips is to create elopement specific marketing materials. Don’t send out the same email as you send to traditional wedding couples, make sure your materials are geared towards elopement weddings. This applies to not only the emails you send out, but your pricing, sales and marketing materials too.

Make sure you outline that these are Elopement Wedding services and have pricing that makes sense for a smaller guest count, smaller budget and/or a shorter time frame. Use images that are going to indicate that you have experience doing these type of smaller weddings and that are going to attract couples looking for a more intimate wedding experience.

The things that elopement couples value are different from a typical wedding couple, there is more of an emphasis on overall experience, making sure their day is personal, the guests who are in attendance (if any) , capturing their day and the ceremony itself. When you market your service to couples with this in mind you are bound to attract the right couples.

Want more tangible tips you can put into practice? We have a freebie we created just for you with nine more tips you can implement right away in your biz and start booking more elopement weddings. Click on the link below and we will send that to you right away…

( 10 ) Tips for Marketing to Elopement Couples

Not a part of the Elopement Wedding Pro Community yet? Well come join us! Want to get the Elopement Trend Forecast and stay on top of the small wedding trend? Sign up HERE!

Get Out of Email Purgatory the ( 10 ) Steps to Email Freedom

I used to be ruled by my inbox, I checked it all day long every day and every time a new email came in I had a compulsive impulse to check it because I just had to know what it said. Inevitably it was a request from a client to do something for them, a vendor who needed something from me, my employee who wanted me to review something or a useless piece of email marketing that I read anyway. None of which was life-changing, yet I continued to check my email as though it was. And I got a lot of email, I was a planner with only destination couples who emailed the majority of the time and vendors who many times did not live where I was either, so my inbox was a beast and I regularly got a couple hundred, or even more, emails a day.

The thing that was even worse than all the time I was wasting on checking and responding to my email was the emotional roller coaster that I was at the beck and call of everyone who was emailing me. I would see a client email pop up letting me know that they were not happy with the pricing of something they wanted, and while I didn’t answer the email immediately, I was mentally composing my response to this email while I was half-working on the project I was supposed to be doing at the time. If I had read something from a member of my team who needed something I felt like I had to respond right away or they would not be able to complete their work and I was holding them up. If it was a vendor, I felt the same way, that they could not do their job unless I did mine. And bit by bit all of these emails weighed on me in the back of my mind with half composed responses and an ever-increasing to-do list until I responded to them. Of course, by then there were new emails notifications and the cycle had started over again.

So, did I break the cycle? I sure did, about 5 years ago I figured out a system that worked for me and I will never go back. I am sure you have heard it said, but it bears repeating because it is so true; email is how other people prioritize your time. Are you curious how I conquered my email and became the master of my own schedule? I am laying out the steps that I took below;

1. Turn off your email notifications. Yes ALL of them, this includes on your phone, your computer and any other device. You can read about it, but basically we are like Pavlov dogs with those notifications and it hinders your focus and your work even if you think it is harmless.

2. Set times to check your email. Check your email only during set times in your day, either two or three times will work depending on how busy your inbox is, for example I do mine at 9am, 12pm and 4pm.

3. Set boundaries. One of the best pieces of biz advice I ever got was to set office hours and put them in my email signature. This is one of the best ways to set expectations for your clients and vendors as to when you will be available to answer their emails and prevents 90% of those follow up “did you get my email” emails.

4. Unsubscribe! I don’t know why people don’t unsubscribe, but unless you absolutely need it and it sparks joy - unsubscribe from it. Remember that if you want or need something most of the time you can find this info on the website when you are looking for it and don’t need an email from them a day. Be protective with your inbox.

5. Practice zero inbox. To be clear I don’t subscribe to the actual ‘having to end your day with zero emails in your inbox’ I have a modified version we practice on our team where we move every email that has been answered or completed out of our inbox and only leave emails that we still need to answer or things we need to do. I usually have between 20-50 emails in my inbox at any given time to give you an idea of what that looks like. I started this over 10 years ago and now I can’t understand why people have thousands of emails in their inbox, it gives me anxiety, and actually chances are it does to you too. You know that whole Marie Kondo thing where having a lot of stuff weighs on your subconsciously? Well, I think logging on every day and seeing 40,0000 emails in your inbox does that to you too. 

6. Use the scan and prioritize method. When I get into my email in the morning I scan through all new emails first without opening any of them, which I can do because I have my set my settings to where it shows me a preview line of each email in my inbox. Then I open what is priority first and answer that and leave the rest for later. This is great for keeping to your time blocks of checking email and also so you don’t have to worry you are missing something important.

7. File your email into folders. There are many opinions on this and the long and short of it is to find a system that works for you. What works for me and my devices is to have folders where it makes searching for the emails I need easier, but the key I believe is the peace of mind only seeing what you need in your inbox and knowing the rest has it’s own place.

8. Don’t respond unnecessarily and don’t require others too. Ok, this is something that dives a bit into the email etiquette category and even from my partners I know is not typical behavior for most women, but hear me out. There are A LOT of emails that you do not need to respond to. If you send an email for a response, get a response with what you need - chances are you don’t need to respond again. I get a lot of polite responses or obligatory emails letting me know people have gotten my emails or thanking me for my emails and while  I know it comes from a good place I think we need to think about these emails as time - you are spending time answer and filing a “Thank You” email 12 times a day every day - is that necessary? I say no. One way to combat this and to train those who are emailing you is to end your email with a “No need to respond!” or something along those lines, so that they don’t need to waste the time writing the email and you don’t need to waste time reading it.

9. Think before you respond. I have been teaching good email communication to my own team for over a decade and this is one of the things I found that not only results in fewer emails, but less frustration with the emails you get. Most people rush to get off an email response and are more concerned with playing whack-a-mole and getting that email out of their inbox then penning the appropriate response. If you are consistently getting emails from your clients or vendors asking you for additional information after you have emailed them - you need to be writing better emails. An excellent question to ask yourself when composing an email is “what information does the person I am emailing need to complete the task I am asking them to do?” I find when I ask myself that I think of something additional I can provide and I prevent them from wasting their time by emailing me back with questions. You also get bonus points for everyone thinking you have your shit together and not rolling their eyes when you leave out important info.

10. Make it a phone call when it should be. If an email is two pages long - it should probably be a phone call. In fact there are quite a few reasons why it might be better to place a call back in response to an email. Take the time to consider what is going to be the most efficient and appropriate response to an email and when it shouldn’t be an email, just pick up phone and place an old fashioned call. 

I really hope these tips help give you freedom from your email inbox or at least result in a bit less overwhelm when you open up your email. While some of them may seem impossible to begin ( like zero inbox or not opening up your email right when you wake up - seriously don’t do that! ) taking the time to create a system that works for you will be 100% worth it. Remember it isn’t really about the emails, it is about how you are managing your time and your thoughts and making sure that you are the dictator of your day, and not all those voices in your inbox.

I would love to hear your thoughts on these tips or some of your own, so leave a comment below or better yet head on over to our private group and chat with me there.

Let us know over in our FB community so we can hear your thoughts. Not a part of the Elopement Wedding Pro Community yet? Well come join us! Want to get the freeElopement Trend Forecast and stay on top of all the small wedding trends? Sign up HERE!

Elopements Are No Longer Just a Trend

While working as a planner doing full scale and high design weddings, we saw elopements really begin becoming a more popular choice with couples around 2015. We were getting more and more requests for smaller weddings of under 30 guests that still wanted to have the beautiful wedding experience with a planner, but without many of the traditional elements and the large guest count. As a long time wedding planner, this made sense to me as that is how I would get married, go to an amazing destination with 25 of my closest friends and have the epic experience without the headache.

It was interesting the reasons we were seeing for couples embracing this new trend; we saw couples who began planning large weddings and got so overwhelmed that they cancelled their weddings and chose to elope instead. We had multiple couples who had lost one or more of their parents and just didn’t see the need for a big wedding. We had many same sex and inter-racial couples who desired a more intimate and private affair.

However, most commonly we were seeing couples who just didn’t see the need to spend so much money on a big wedding and instead wanted to have a smaller wedding and use the money they would have spent on a down payment for a home or something equally as important to them. Personally I think we were seeing a new generation who just didn’t value the big celebration of a wedding quite as much as their parents generation, coupled with the fact that weddings have never been more expensive - this was the perfect recipe for the normalization of the elopement wedding.

Now with COVID chaos ruining wedding plans left and right, the elopement wedding option is no longer just a trend, it is in many places the only option for getting married in 2020. Couples are becoming familiar with the term elopement wedding and some planners are getting creative and calling them micro-weddings or mini-weddings. In reality, they are all what we define as elopement weddings and are non-traditional in the sense that the couple can keep or discard anything about the wedding day they want.

Want to have a mini wedding in your backyard with lights and dancing? Great! Want to hike to a mountaintop with an officiant and a photographer only? Great! Want to wear an amazing wedding dress? Perfect. Want to wear a non-traditional wedding attire? No problem. Essentially an elopement means the couple can create their own wedding day experience and don’t have to worry about doing any of the traditional things that follow the typical wedding day formula.

We could not be more excited that elopement weddings are becoming so mainstream and mostly because we always want couples to feel as though they have options other than just a traditional wedding day or a courthouse wedding. There are so many ways for couples to come together with their closest family and friends and have a wedding experience they will love and remember forever.

The message we want to get out is that elopements don’t need to be a “less-than” option for couples right now and in fact for many couples it could be an ideal one. For those couples having to re-plan or re-think their original ideas for getting married, it is important to make sure we are doing our best to let them know that elopements are a wonderful option. Even for those couples who elope now and then are planning a big get together later - it is still ideal that they love their wedding day experience and that it was special to them.

What do you think? We know there are many heartbroken couples right now and want to hear from you about why you love elopements and what your couples are going through during this time. Let us know over in our FB community so we can hear your thoughts. Not a part of the Elopement Wedding Pro Community yet? Well come join us! Want to get the Elopement Trend Forecast and stay on top of the small wedding trend? Sign up HERE!