A few weeks ago, I shared how long-term planning can lead to a stress-free wedding week. If you haven’t read that post yet, go check it out before reading on! The truth is, without effective long-term planning, any tips I share today about shorter-term, wedding week preparation won’t be very helpful.

As designers, we put so much thought and energy into designing beautiful weddings and florals for our clients, that sometimes we can run out of steam by the time the wedding rolls around. We start to dread wedding weeks, especially if we know they’re going to be filled with late nights, little sleep, shirking all other responsibilities and being strangers to our families. Maybe you’ve been stuck in that rut for years. But let me tell you something: it doesn’t have to be this way. And the trick to turning it all around? It’s simple. Planning.

I’ll never forget that sick-to-my-stomach feeling. It was the week of a big wedding and as I went to prep some floral foam, I realized we were totally out. I did the only thing I could do, and I scavenged any store in our small town and all the neighboring towns that might have some foam. No luck.

I ended up having to rig together a solution, wasting mental energy and time worrying and problem-solving. While I ended up delivering on the end result and gave the couple exactly what I promised, I knew I never wanted to feel like that again. Frustrated, out of control, and behind.

Ever since that wedding, long-term planning remains one of the most important components to our wedding day success and client satisfaction. It’s funny-- one on the best ways I can serve my clients is by perfecting a process they never see, and should never know about.

Let’s talk about why your team should start preparing for a wedding the day the contract is signed, and why this long-range preparation will completely transform your wedding experience, putting the fun back into the wedding week.