Our monthly episode of You Ask, We Answer; where we take time to listen to our audiences questions, select top trending picks, and answer them on the show. This month's show has Kelly McWilliams on as a co-host. Kelly is a wedding planner and a podcast host herself. She and Michelle speak each other's language in helping people planning their weddings. You'll get double the expertise as Michelle and Kelly give you answers to everything you're dying to know. Question #1: We are currently planning our wedding for July 2023 in Germany. We are hoping that the Covid situation has settled by then and both of our families will be able to celebrate together. We already rented our venue which is a beautiful mason house in the area where I grew up. My fiancé and I booked it for the entire weekend, which gives us enough time to hang out with all our loved ones. The only thing I am a little worried about is the language barrier. Obviously a lot of the younger generation speaks English, but important people like my mum and grandparents can’t. You had a lot of great episodes on your podcast about multicultural weddings and how to make people feel included, but I was wondering if you have more tips about how to include people that communicate in different languages? One idea we had was to have a screen and projector in the back, so when we are holding speeches, guests will be able to read the translation of the speech. And obviously little cards so they can learn the greetings in each other languages. We will have a bilingual ceremony and I will get some of my friends and family to help with the translating on the day, but I also don’t want to put everyone to work. I have been to so many multicultural weddings where there has been a massive divide between the two families, because they couldn’t communicate properly which each other. We really want everyone to have a great time and get to know each other, that is our biggest priority, so any tips would be really appreciated!! Answer #1: You’re on the right track, but the screen and projector in back feel like a lot of extra work. Unless someone is live translating, they would have to submit their speeches before hand to be translated. It’s definitely an option. It would also be okay to have a translator there. For the most part, people tend to stick to their groups and talk to who they know. Cards with little translations on them is a great idea. Question #2: I am not yet engaged, but will be by summer time! I wanted to create a budget so we knew how much to save and got deep into planning. I love parties and planning, but know that I will need a lot of help. I am considering a full planning (almost certainly getting a month of), but our budget is not huge. We are hoping to stay in $25,000-35,000 for 50 person wedding. Is that too small a budget for a wedding planner around the Washington, DC area? Also if you know any planners in the area, I would love some recommendations. Answer #2: As for pricing of a planner, I can only speak to what I charge and at this time, that is $12,000 for Full Planning and $7,300 for partial. Your budget for that size wedding seems really great. I did some quick research and it seems to me that you should be able to have a really nice wedding for that budget. Even if you spent $12K for a planner, that would leave you over $20K for the wedding. Depending on what your priorities are that is. Keep in mind that really good photographers range from $5 to $10K and of course wedding attire can be really expensive if you go that route, but overall I'm feeling pretty good about your budget, so yay! DC itself is very expensive, but if you are able to look at venues a little outside of the city, you will find better ways to stretch your budget out. Find some planners in the area, and follow them on instagram. Visit theweddingreport.com to find ideas to start with budget. Keep in mind the numbers are for very basic weddings, and you will be building from that number. Question #3: My fiancé and I are getting married on Sunday, July 3rd of this year, in the Hudson Valley area of NY. We are traveling an hour and 20 mins to get to the venue, and most of our guests will have the same travel time (or more). We sent out our Save the Dates last year in November so everyone has basic info that the wedding will be during a holiday weekend, and we have shared details about hotel accommodations on our website (which was included on the Save the Date). My questions are: when do we send out the invites? and when should we make the RSVP by date? We will need to give our final head count to the venue 2 weeks prior to the wedding, but I think some wiggle room would be good since we're doing online RSVPs and anticipating some of the "older" guests to have some issues with this. Also, the last date to reserve within our room block is May 22nd, and I do not want people to forget to book their room or not have enough time to think about if they should reserve a room. Answer #3: Mail them out 8-10 weeks in advance, so maybe send them out on April 30th, so they get to everyone's home that first week of May. Make your RSVP by date: June 5 (so 4 weeks ahead of time), that way you have plenty of time to get in touch with anyone who didn't RSVP and make your deadline of 2 weeks to the venue. Regardless of your RSVP date, you need to send out reminders to people that the last day to book a room under the discounted rate is May 22nd. I would also recommend you reach out to the hotel in early May and ask for a Rooming List so you can see exactly who has booked their rooms already. This helps give you a hint of who you need to remind. Kelly recommends 12 week mail-outs as she works on a lot of destination weddings. This helps with any issues with the post office, and shipping. She also recommends RSVPs at least 6 weeks in advance just so you have extra wiggle room. Especially because having the numbers ahead of time knows how much of certain items to buy and have ready for guests. Question #4: My fiancé and I are planning a kind of a non-traditional wedding. We're not doing things like cutting, we're not doing any dancing. We don't have a bridal party and we're kind of thinking small, like a 50-person wedding. We're having our wedding at an outdoor venue in Washington called McMenamins. And the location is basically like a patio. So because we're not planning on dancing for the reception. I was wondering what type of things we could do to keep our guests entertained. We have a DJ and we're on a pretty tight budget, so we're just kind of planning on having Ambience music and we're hoping to have some like table games. Something fun for our guests to do but we're not really planning on having any of those micro-events that you have talked about before like the cake-cutting and speeches and all of those things. So, what would you suggest that we do to keep our guests entertained and kind of provide structure for the evening? Answer #4: There is nothing wrong with having a dinner party wedding! You don’t have to add to that. Non- traditional is lovely. Micro events are recommend to keep things flowing, but not necessary. Remember a great dinner party you’ve been to in the past, often it’s just snacks, dinner, conversation, and home. Some ideas: People love a good a slide show. You can make it yourself. Buy conversations starters and place them on the tables to promote conversation between guests. Bingo is a lot of fun. And you could rent the ball spinner, and get some little gifts for winners. You could have some cool musicians/performers come in that would be fun to watch. Question #5: My fiancé, Doug, and I are having a weekend style summer camp wedding. Guests will arrive at 5:30pm Friday for a BBQ then leave on Sunday at 11 am after brunch. There is a full day of activities planned on Saturday (lake activities, ropes courses etc) and our ceremony is scheduled for 6:30. The wedding is this June, so it will still be daylight. I do not want to miss many of the daytime activities on Saturday, but I know I need to set some time aside for my hair and make up. My plan is to start getting ready at 3:30 with a close group of friends, then do the first look and pictures at 5:30. I have planned a wine class for the guests that starts at 3:30, that majority of our guests will attend. (I am a professional wine buyer and have lots of wine professional friends, so I have enlisted a few to do the class) I do not mind missing the wine class and intentionally scheduled it at this time to start getting ready. So my question...Is this a reasonable timeline for that portion of events or do I need to allocate more time for hair, make up and pictures? I know many timelines have the bride starting to get ready 6 hours+ before. Side note, I am not planning on hiring a hair and make up artist and mostly because of the tight timeline. Answer #5: There are a lot of factors on time. Are you doing your own hair and make up? Or is someone (a friend) doing it for you? Assuming you are doing your own and your guests are as well, there is no need for 6 hours. A room full of friends can make time fly by really fast, if you are all talking, drinking, etc. If you have two hours, then you will need to make sure everyone is focused. Getting dressed takes a lot of time. After first look, you return to your room and don’t walk straight to the ceremony. So at 6, you need to be tucked away as guests are sitting. If you can, start getting ready at 2:30pm. If you are doing pre-wedding pictures with your wedding party, time needs to be pushed up to 5. Chat with your photographer on timelines. Question #6: The other question is about insurance. We are required to have limited liability insurance and our venue will allow us to add ourselves to their policy for the weekend for $350. Should we get additional insurance in case anything happens to our other vendors or the venue itself? It sounds like the insurance that we are purchasing through the venue just covers if something happens to our guests during the wedding. Answer #6: Be careful with what is included with the insurance. They run the gamut on pricing, and it is important to read the fine details in the policy so you know what it does and does not cover. The venue’s insurance probably only covers the venue. You can get wedding insurance. The venue’s liability insurance probably does not cover your guests. Ask vendors before you book them if they have their own business liability insurance. Links We Referenced https://www.kellymcwilliams.com (https://www.kellymcwilliams.com) https://www.kellymcwilliams.com/blog/this-vs-that-wedding-podcast(This Vs. That Podcast) https://www.bellanottedc.com (https://www.bellanottedc.com) https://bellwetherevents.com (https://bellwetherevents.com) https://wedding.report (https://wedding.report) https://www.theexperientialwedding.com (https://www.theexperientialwedding.com) QR Code Generator (https://www.qr-code-generator.com) We're able to produce this podcast because of YOUR support. If you want to learn more, check out our Patreon Page (https://www.patreon.com/thebigweddingplanningpodcast). If you want to become a Patron (https://www.patreon.com/thebigweddingplanningpodcast), and get exclusive access to our monthly newsletter, bonus episodes, and more, check out our Patreon Page (https://www.patreon.com/thebigweddingplanningpodcast)! A giant thank you to all of our Patrons, who help keep this podcast running! Learn more by checking out our Patreon Page (https://www.patreon.com/thebigweddingplanningpodcast). Plan your wedding using The Big Wedding Planning Master Class (https://www.thebigweddingplanningmasterclass.com/). A self-paced digital course created with love for you by Christy & Michelle. The Big Wedding Planning Podcast is... * Hosted and produced by Michelle Martinez. * Edited by Veronica Gruba. * Music by Steph Altman of Mophonics (https://www.mophonics.com/). * On Instagram @thebigweddingplanningpodcast and be sure to use #planthatwedding when posting, so you can get our attention! * Inviting you to become part of our Facebook Group! 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