057 | The Wedding Hive Collective Launch

We’re launching the Wedding Hive Collective so you can stop running in circles and start planning with clear tools, checklists, and real guidance. We walk through a pre-planning checklist that builds a strong foundation so your wedding decisions feel calmer and more confident. 
• announcing the Wedding Hive Collective and what it adds beyond the podcast 
• keeping wedding planning simple with printable and digital resources 
• protecting your engagement announcement and avoiding the spiral 
• choosing top three wedding priorities with your fiancé 
• picking a wedding date or season based on real-life factors 
• setting a realistic wedding budget and payment plan 
• clarifying who is paying for what and setting expectations early 
• building an A list and B list guest list 
• defining wedding style as feelings and keywords, not just photos 
• creating inspiration with Pinterest brain dumps or AI prompts 
• setting up a dedicated wedding email to stay organized and reduce spam 
Click the link in the bio, you will see the drop down for the resource tab 
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Transcript

Fourth Of July Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey Queens, welcome to today's episode of the Wedding Hive podcast. First off, I hope everybody here in the United States had an amazing Fourth of July and got to celebrate America's birthday. I know that 4th of July is always fun for us. It actually falls right around my husband's birthday. His birthday is the third. And so we always get to celebrate his birthday on the third and then turn around and have fireworks on the fourth. Great barbecue, hanging out with family, maybe getting a little bit of sunburns, but we have a lot of fun. I hope you did as well, because engagements sometimes happen when those fireworks go off. So to all of our newly engaged brides, welcome to the wedding hive. And for all of our girlies that have been hanging out with me for a while, thank you for coming back. So when we started the wedding hive podcast, the goal was simply to help couples with their weddings and to have honest conversations and real advice. That was the whole premise of the wedding hive podcast. It was built around the idea of I sat in meeting after meeting with vendors, with bridal or brides, yes, with brides. I also sat with wedding professionals and the same thing kept coming up. It was, this is overwhelming. What does that mean? How do I make that decision? There was just so many pieces that I went, if I could put everything on a hard drive and hand it to you and say, here is the crash course of how to plan your wedding, I would. That is when then the producer came to me and said, I think we need to start a podcast. This is my vision for it. And I went, Oh my gosh, I think we're kind of in the same boat because we were thinking the same things. So that is what caused the wedding hive to essentially blossom or dig roots over 18 months ago.

Why The Podcast Exists

SPEAKER_00 1:56

And over the last year, something has happened that I did not expect. So brides started reaching out asking for more. Um, they asked for worksheets, they asked for tools, I have been asked for vendor recommendations, things that help brides navigate through the process more than just a podcast.

Introducing The Wedding Hive Collective

SPEAKER_00 2:20

So today I am excited to officially announce and introduce the wedding hive collective. So before you freak out, the podcast is not going anywhere. The wedding hive podcast is still live, it's popping, it's happening, but the podcast is just one piece of the big picture. So wedding planning can feel lonely. Pinterest gives inspiration, TikTok gives opinions, Facebook lordy, the conflicts that happen in Facebook groups over wedding planning. I keep telling myself I'm gonna leave some Facebook groups, but I don't because sometimes I just can't believe the bad advice that I see. And so maybe that's just my thing. Um, Google, you Google a question and you will end up with 400 results. So I have made the decision. Our team has made the decision that we want the wedding hive collective to be the place that you can get those resources, have those checklists, look at those timelines, build your wedding with confidence, clarity, and peace of mind without feeling like you were running in circles with a million directions. So it is going to continue to be the real conversations. It is still going to be honest advice. There is not any fluff. I don't think that we have ever fluffed you when it comes to giving you wedding advice. Uh, I try really hard not to be opinionated because I think that every wedding deserves it to be the way that couples want it to be. I will not come out and say that is a terrible idea or that is so ugly. I will be honest and tell you if I think something is tacky. Um, but outside of that, everybody's wedding is everybody's wedding. And honestly, sometimes the tacky things at weddings are kind of cute because they're so out of the ordinary because it matches the vision. So I'm not saying the whole wedding is tacky. I'm saying if it matches the vision, we can make it happen.

Tools Coming Inside The Collective

SPEAKER_00 4:28

So the things that you are going to be seeing come from the wedding hive collective are things like worksheets, checklists, planning tools. Um, vendors, some of the vendors that have been on in the podcast, are you going to have direct access to them? Um, so you will be able to get their information if you are looking for certain vendors, budgeting tools. Um, everything is going to be printable and digital. So you will have access to all of the items that we are providing. And one day we are looking forward to introducing some really exciting things. Those things include live workshops, wedding planning events, memberships, and live QA's, different things like that. So I don't want the wedding hive to feel like there's followers of the wedding hive. I want it to feel like a safe space where we are able to plan together. So when you hop in on a resource, if something doesn't work for you, let me know. Tell me, send a DM and say, hey, that was confusing. Or can I get clarification on this? Or what did you mean by that part? I promise these resources, I'm not picking them up off Pinterest to add more items to your checklist. These things are being built by wedding professionals that have been in the industry, know the space and know what people are looking for. And the goal is to keep things simplified so you can make the decisions one step at a time, enjoy it and get the clarity because I meet with so many couples. And sometimes, like it breaks my heart how often I will meet with couples and they say things like, I don't know, or I haven't thought about that, or I just hate making that decision. That is not the intention. I I want you to have clarification and be able to really navigate and work through those items without feeling overwhelmed. It is okay to not have an answer. It is okay to not know. Um, but you do want to eventually, right? You want to have an idea of what your guest count's looking like or what wedding season you're interested in getting married. And if you're thinking buffet style, or if you're thinking plated, or if you want to bring in a food truck, like those are those things. And so this, these resources that we are providing you are going to break down the wedding planning steps from beginning to end with printable resources. Again, you can also utilize them digitally to be able to plan your wedding with ease, be confident in the way um in the decisions that you're making, and be able to take a step back and enjoy the rest of the life that you have because life is still going. Just because you're planning a wedding, that does not mean that life stops. You still have a job, you might be in school, you still have family, you have responsibilities and obligations. So let's simplify wedding planning together. Let's put these resources in your pocket. Let's give you a really good tool belt so you can utilize your tools, you can enjoy it, and you can have a lot of fun with it. So it would not be fair of me if I launched and announced this wedding hive collective without giving you your first resource.

The Pre-Planning Checklist Explained

SPEAKER_00 7:56

So for today's episode, we are going to be talking about that pre-planning checklist. So you can either, if you are newly engaged, now is the perfect time to snag this. If you are in the middle of your engagement process and you are checking things off your list, still go check it out and see if there was anything that you might have missed or um wanted to revisit for those foundational pieces. Because this pre-planning checklist, these are the items that are going to help prepare you to build that foundation to be able to make decisions moving forward with clarity because you have decided these items early on. I will note some of these aren't going to be fun, some of these are going to be hard conversations. But the sooner you have them, the sooner you have clarity, the easier it will feel. So the first thing is, and actually, this is one of those items that cannot be placed in your checklist. So here is, let me throw this out there. We have always talked about as soon as you get engaged, you notify family that you want them to know. You tell them, hey, do me a solid, don't put it on social media until you see that we have announced it. Let us announce it before you announce it on social media. And then celebrate, relax, take a breath because your wedding planning journey is about to start, but you are also in your engagement era. So make sure that you embrace it and enjoy it. Allow to have, allow yourself to have good days, allow yourself to breathe easy. Some couples choose to get engaged and get married three months later. Some decide on a 24-month engagement period. Everybody is different. So once you have announced to those that you want them to know you are officially engaged, maybe you've posted on social media or you're holding off until you have a few more answers. Uh, because of course everybody wants to know where's the wedding? When's the wedding? What's the dress cut code? What are we doing for this? When is the bachelor party? And you're just gonna start, it's gonna make you spiral. And my goal is to not make you spiral. So these are the things that I would say are most important when building your foundation. So this first one is create your top three

Protect Your Engagement Era

SPEAKER_00 10:16

priorities. These are your priorities. You and your fiance, you sit down and you have a genuine conversation. What do you want the day to look like? What do you want the day to feel like? What is the most important elements to you? Some, for some couples, it is great music and a lively dance floor. Others, food is the most important. Some, it is, I want to make sure that I get to spend this day with you and nobody comes between us. And we put that in our timeline that you and I get this day. Others are like, snap a photo because I am getting dressed up in this wedding dress once and I want five billion photos. This answer to what are your top three priorities, you might not have figured out as point one on your checklist. You might have it figured out after some of the other ones when you've started to clarify some items. So your top three priorities, I am throwing it out there. That is a bubble in this um checklist, essentially. So make sure that we have an answer by the time we get through the rest of them, but we might not have an answer right away because it's okay to not know what, you know, what is most important because that also kind of feels like a heavy question of, well, I mean, if I have to pick one thing that's most important, like how do I, how do I say it's more important for me to be next to you? And but it's also important to me to have good food. Like, how am I picking food over you? That's

Set Your Top Three Priorities

SPEAKER_00 11:51

okay. I give you permission to take some time on it. You don't have to have an answer right away. We will want to have an answer as we are laying this foundation for you to continue through the wedding planning process because that is what we're doing right now. We are building a foundation.

Choose Your Date Or Season

SPEAKER_00 12:08

So, first thing is wedding date. We are going to look at choosing your wedding date or season. It is really difficult. Historically, people would say we want to get married on this day, and that day was available and it booked, and that was your wedding day. In today's modern world, venues book up and dates become unavailable. And so sit down with your fiance. This is one of those conversations. This is one of those first of many conversations that you're going to have is hey, when do we want to get married? And there can be a lot of contributing factors in this. What is our budget, which we will get into next? However, what is how much money do we want to save? How much money do we have saved? Like what is realistic for the season? Um, how much time do we need between now and booking our wedding? The other thing is, is there any work or school reasons? I meet with so many brides and they're saying, you know, I finish up nursing school next spring and by next spring, then I want to get into wedding planning. All right, cool. Then that means that we're planning for the following fall. Um, sometimes it is military, military will impact it. We, where I am at, we have a lot of uh major league baseball players. And so when we talk to um the different baseball players, we have to plan a wedding around their season because that is what makes sense. So look at all of the different things, throw it on the drawing board. What are some times? Do we want to get married near holiday? Do we want to stay out of the holiday season? If you don't want to get married between Thanksgiving and New Year's, there you go. You just took six weeks off your calendar for an option. The other thing with dates and seasons is depending on where you want to get married will depend on that season. Because you do not want to get married in Phoenix, Arizona in July. Outside, you will burn, melt, and I mean turn into ashes by the time you say I do. And in New York, it would be beautiful, right? Chicago, you can get married in some gorgeous places around the country in the summertime. Um, flip the table. November, January, February, March weddings here in Arizona are gorgeous. So you have some decisions to make when it comes to those seasons. Is there certain colors? Do you want those deep dark colors of fall? Do you want those bright wildflowers of spring? Those are your conversations you can have around your wedding date and season. So that is number one. Number two is your budget.

Build A Real Wedding Budget

SPEAKER_00 14:47

We will be real about our budget. Ooh, every time I say the word budget, I swear I get heartburned because I have been destroyed on social media over talking about the budget. Don't come at me. I'm not the one that's all about debt. I'm just saying there are so many ways that people pay for their wedding. So be realistic with your budget. Do you have money set aside for the wedding? Do you have family members that are have set money aside for the wedding? Are you planning on paying for it with getting a second job? Are you looking at streamlining your income, maybe cutting back a little? Are you looking at maybe getting a credit card? I am not advocating for debt. Please hear me say that. I am not advocating for debt. However, something that I do advocate for is points on credit cards. Points on credit cards. They I have seen them pay for so many honeymoons, but couples are paying them off every month. So, but they are putting all of their wedding expenses on the credit card at the end of the month, they pay it off. Or they have a family, like a parent, pay it off. Okay. I'm not telling you to go into debt. I'm saying if you get a credit card, plan it early to get the credit card. Don't do it six weeks before the wedding to then skyrocket your debt because you had a budget and you had a plan. And now that is in the sinkhole and you're spending money left and right. I'm just saying. The other piece with that budget is have this is actually point number

Who Pays For What

SPEAKER_00 16:15

three. They really do go hand in hand, but who is paying for what? Do you have people that are contributing to your wedding budget? You need to have the most open and raw conversations from the beginning for this one for multiple reasons. One, you want to have clear understanding and expectations. Money can destroy relationships. And I will say it again: money can destroy relationships. So you want to have a very clear understanding. And that understanding includes how much they are contributing, what that timeline looks for like that for them. Some people will say, you know, yeah, I'll give you $20,000 for your wedding. And then you go, all right, I'm ready for the $20,000. And they go, I'm gonna give you $5,000 every quarter because for four quarters, and that's how I'm gonna. Well, now that just messed up your entire budgeting plan because you thought you were gonna get a $20,000 check. The other thing is people, you want to make sure that there are not um stipulations that come with getting that money. It needs to be very clear that, like, this is you and your significant other's day. You are super excited, you are beyond grateful that they are contributing financially, but that doesn't mean that they get to make all of the rules and make those decisions. And before you know it, the wedding is no longer yours, but it is now your mother's. And I am not dogging on mothers, I am just saying you got to have the conversation early on. Um, once you are in a good spot with understanding what your budget looks like and how though that money will be distributed from who, if anybody is contributing, then you can start to go into

Draft The Guest List

SPEAKER_00 17:59

your guest list. So how I typically tell couples to build their guest lists is throw everybody on a list, everybody that you know, your best friend's moms, cousin, whoever it is, put them on the list and then divide it into an A list and a B list. This is going to help you determine these are my VIPs, these are the people I want at my wedding. I could not have my wedding without them being there. It would just shatter my heart if they didn't attend. And here's the B list. Um, going back to the mom, I'm not trying to harp on the moms, um, but like their best friend, the baby sat you when you were three and they moved across the country and now they're getting invited to your wedding, and you're like, I actually haven't seen her since I was three years old and I don't remember her, but she remembers you. So different things like that. Build your guest list in an A category, a B category, your VIPs, you want them there. This is an absolute because this is who I want at my celebration in the B category of if for whatever reason we can't A afford to have them there, B, our venue doesn't accommodate for it, or C, we decided that we wanted to do more of an intimate wedding, you have that option. So that is your guest list. So you have started by picking your wedding date slash season. You have a good idea of what your budget looks like, and now you have built out that guest list. From there, the next one is you are going to want to start figuring out your style.

Define Wedding Style With Feelings

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Now, when I say style, style is different than inspiration. We are going to separate those two ideas. Style is going to be the feelings or the words that are associated with your wedding. So it could be moods and like I want to feel peace and joy and calmness and love at my wedding. This is where you are also going to start tying in those words like modern or boho or romantic or an elegant event. Those style words that are based on feelings are going to be those words that you use to explain your wedding, but not from a Pinterest board, but from an emotional piece. That is what you want your guest to feel. That is what you want it to be for you. You want a really like think about vibes, right? You want this like very modern, elegant, maybe timeless wedding. Those are going to be the key words that you will be able to reference back to when you get really deep into the design aspect of building your um ceremony space, your reception tables, your seating chart. All this is where we will see those drops start to come in. So afterstyle is your inspiration.

Find Inspiration With Pinterest Or AI

SPEAKER_00 20:52

This is where you will start building your ideas, your colors, designs that inspire you. Think of your mood board for this one. This is where you are going to bring in those inspiration elements to really build off of that style that you decided. I have always told brides, get on Pinterest and whatever you like, throw it all on a board. You can do this one of two ways. For my very indecisive brides that haven't really been able to figure it out, this is the method that I have used to help them start to break down what they do like. And the reason this seems to work psychologically is because when you are scrolling through Pinterest and you're like, well, that's cute. Oh, but it doesn't match my vibe. And like you keep scrolling, before you know it, your brain continues to rethink about that one pen that you didn't pin and you think you really liked it, and now it's recreating it in your brain, and you're not back to being focused on what you're actually doing because you're thinking about that pin that's 700 pens up. And then you find yourself looking. For it and then you find it and you go, nope, actually, that's not our vibe. So, one of two ways I tell brides, if we are indecisive, we have no idea, go on Pinterest. You put any and everything that you like, throw it in your inspiration board. I don't care if it matches, I don't care if the colors are off. I don't care if I'm looking at a winter wonderland, and then I turn around and I see a black tie wedding and all in one space because I want us to brain dump. And then from that brain dump, we start to remove the pieces. All right, that doesn't match the style, that doesn't co with the mood. I'm starting because very quickly I can find the trend of what where those Pinterest boards are trending and going, yep, I'm seeing the pattern repeat itself. This photo right here does not match. What did you love about this? And it could be something as simple as like, I liked the way that the napkin was tied on the table. Perfect. Let's notate that specific napkin tie and ditch the rest because it's throwing off what we're envisioning. We can easily replicate that napkin tie to match your the rest of your mood board. So that is one way of doing it. The other way of doing it, again, is to go straight off that style. And you can go into an AI generator, you can ask ChatGBT. Um, you can say, here is the vibe that I am going for for my wedding. I am wanting modern, I am wanting timeless, and I, for whatever reason, am envisioning hundreds of candles. And it can start to generate Jumuod boards that way. It can also very well create color palettes for you, um, depending on your time of year, your season to match what you're looking for. So you can get on Pinterest and you can type in those keywords from your like style part of your checklist. Once you have those style words, those are going to be your keywords to really start building that inspiration.

Create A Wedding Email

SPEAKER_00 24:00

So the last thing on the list of building the foundation for your wedding is going to be create your wedding email. I think I have said this on the podcast like 900 times, but creating a wedding email really does help you put all of your wedding thoughts and all of the information and everything that revolves around your wedding in one location. That way you are not constantly looking through your email and you have like, here's your pay sub from work and here's the Home Depot discount. And oh, now here's look, this is what Spotify's come out with. And now you can't find your photos from your wedding because, or your contract from your photographer. Like all of those things, keep everything organized in one spot so you can look at it when you want to, and it doesn't get mixed up with everything else. I I don't even know if I should say this because it sounds mean, but I attended an expo like two months ago, and I cannot believe the amount of spam that I am getting because I was silly. I did not use, I actually didn't use my business email for it. I used my personal email for it because I think my computer just auto-generated an email and I just wanted to make sure that I had a ticket because I wanted to attend this expo. And I am getting all of these emails saying, Have you found your photographer? And what does wedding planning look like for you? And I, so girls, I hear you. I know how that spam can work. And it's interesting, and I don't have the heart. I keep like unsubscribing to all of these emails, but I'm like pulling my hair out because I'm like, oh my gosh, I have 25 emails and 24 of them are spammed from the expo. So I'm just telling you, keep it all in one space because even if you do end up getting spammed, you're getting spammed in your wedding email. Those are easy for you to, you know, delete, archive, unsubscribe, and it is not going to live in your personal email for the rest of your life. So those are the things that I would highly, highly suggest in order to build a very confident and solid foundation before going into the next phase of a wedding planning. Again, those three top priorities, those are you are going to want to have finished by the time you're like building your wedding email. So you have made it through the picking your wedding date, through wedding email. And now we also know what our three top priorities are because that is going to give us the framework going into the next phase. So I am trying to remember where I'm at because now all I can think about is the spam.

Get The Checklist And Send Feedback

SPEAKER_00 26:40

But if you are interested in this pre-planning checklist, you can find it on our Instagram in our bio under link. So just click that link. You will see all of the episodes and then you will see a drop-down where it says resources. Click the resources. You can have access to this checklist. After you have completed it or while you are in the middle of it, I would love to get some feedback from you. Um, you can shoot me a message on Instagram. You can just slide into my DMs on Instagram and let me know which one was the hardest to work through. Is there any that you needed more clarification on? And is there any that you're currently stuck on? If there is a topic in that and you are like, Kelsey, I cannot get over this hill. Help me. I will help you through it. Uh, we can chat through it and yeah, because I'm telling you, laying a solid foundation will make what is to come next easier. And what to come next

Next Week Venue Shopping Preview

SPEAKER_00 27:35

is the space that I know best, and that is venue shopping. So next week we are going to dig in deep into venue shopping. I am going to give you the tools, the resources, the questions, things to ask to pre-qualify your venues before even stepping foot on their property. So you will not want to miss next week's episode if you are early in the planning process. If you are past this stage, like I said, you have your venue, you have your guest list, your save the dates are out. Stick with me, queen, because I promise here in a few weeks, we will have things that are most important to where you are in the planning season. Thank you for being patient with all of our new brides that are in their early engagement season. If there is a resource that you need right now today, feel free to shoot me a DM. I might be able to release it to you earlier. Um, if there is something that you are like, my wedding is in two weeks and I need my wedding day checklist. Like, what items do I need to bring with me? I got you. So that is everything for today's episode. Again, you can find your pre planning checklist over on Instagram in our bio. Click the link in the bio. You will see the drop down for the resource tab. Um, I am so grateful to be part of this journey with you. Be sure if you haven't yet, like this and like this episode and leave us a comment. That's the only way I know if what we're providing is giving you any insight. And yeah, I will see you next week. Bye.