Your Work vs. Your Wedding (Los Angeles Wedding Coordinator)

FOCUS.

It’s 11am. You’ve been busy since you walked in the door with your Starbucks cup two hours ago. Started out with a meeting with your team, then a couple of phone calls to the other side of the country before lunchtime/as their day starts, round it off with 30 minutes tightening up tomorrow’s presentation. And it’s the presentation that gets you. You’ve been so good all day, but then you have to Google research point #5, and the shiny, shiny new ring on top of your mouse hits your peripheral vision one too many times. Wipeout!
It starts with The Broke-Ass Bride, since there’s always something new here everyday, then you go to your wedding checklist on The Knot or Wedding Wire, which moves you into their forums. Which, sigh, takes you to a reasonably-priced photographer…and her blog…and your twitter feed..which leads to a quick email to your venue about whether you can have candles…and the next thing you know it’s 2pm, and you haven’t even gotten up for lunch. Again.

Don’t think I can’t see you from here.

They say that it takes 40 forty-hour weeks to plan a wedding. That’s like having a second job, which a lot of you are already doing at your first job.  So, how do you stop it from showing? With all you have to do to plan the big day – 160 hours and counting, y’all! – how do you stay focused on what’s actually paying for it?
Wedding planners make it a lot easier. My brides email or call me if they want to check out x, y, and z, I usually get back to them with an answer in  24-48 hours. In the meantime they can continue their quest for world domination. Seriously, that’s like 85% of my work every day. And hey, even I get distracted by Huffingtonpost and Gawker. It happens to us all. And it’s like dieting: If you go cold turkey, you’re never going to make it. Truthfully, it can be hard to get a hold of wedding vendors during the weekends, because, well, we’re all busy, so you’re not completely out of line trying to get some of this stuff done Mon-Fri. But if you’re flying solo, here’s how to successfully integrate your new “job” into your current one:

1. Have a little patience. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your wedding won’t be, either. You do not have to find the perfect veil today, it or its equivalent will still be there tomorrow. Or next week for that matter. That being said…
2. Make two checklists before you go into the office each day. One for what you have to do for work, another for what you want to do wedding-wise. Do the work list first, because, you know, hello!  Keep the wedding list down to four things – two which have to be done during business hours (like phone calls to vendors) and two which don’t (like emails or research). Ask yourself, “do I really need to do this at work right now?” Well, do you?
3. Do not add more things to the wedding list if you finish the four you have for the day. Write a new wedding list for tomorrow, and go back to work. I mean it, you guys.

The Paycheck Motivator

4. Make rules. Just like when we were kids, when you finish your homework, you get to play. When you finish your dinner, you get dessert. So, after you lock down that presentation, you can call your caterer and schedule a tasting. Take 10  minutes (TEN, Dude!)  to surf for pre-owned dresses after you’ve double-checked on the widget inventory. Use the timer on your phone if you have to.
Wow, I sound like my mother. I guess that was inevitable, huh?

5. Think about what cool wedding thing your next paycheck is going to buy. The deposit on your cake? Ten Chiavari chairs? Sadly, your wedding isn’t going to pay for itself, you have to pay for it. Appreciate your job, it’s literally handing you that ribbon-tied black-lily bouquet you’ve been lusting after. Discipline the Pretty – it’s the only way to bridge both worlds.
So, how are you managing to stay focused at work? Or when did you realize that your wedding was taking over your 9-5 brain? Share below, please!

See you at the end of the aisle,

Liz Coopersmith
Silver Charm Events
www.silvercharmevents.com
323-592-9318
liz@silvercharmevents.com