Why Every Wedding Planner Needs to Read The Art of Gathering
Here at Planner Life Academy we often find ourselves talking about finding the WHY behind your business because your true purpose is what sets you apart from your competition, attracts ideal clients, and ultimately builds a successful business. But, I never stopped to think about how impactful it could be to make it a part of your planning process to help your couples to figure out their WHY until I read Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering. Now I don’t mean the obvious one (celebrating the marriage of two people and having an epic dance party), I mean the deeper purpose like Elaine Welteroth and Jonathan Singletary found and planned during their COVID wedding. (If you haven’t seen this story yet, you can also check out her interview with Priya Parker to learn more about their special wedding day.) So today, I wanted to talk about some of the biggest takeaways I had from reading the book and ways to incorporate them into your wedding planning process.
It always helps me to have examples so here it goes:
Say you have a couple with a bride from California (and Christian) and a groom from India who came to the United States for college (where they met). The purpose of their wedding might be to have two families from different parts of the world and different cultures bond and get to know one another over a long weekend as well as to share who they both are as a couple and individuals.
Now, you might be asking yourself, “How do you get this out of your couple without sounding too hippie-dippie?” And, the answer is to just ask a few thoughtful questions to get them thinking! Here are some examples:
What do you hope to gain from hosting this wedding?
What are some words that best describe both of your families?
How do you want your guests to feel when they enter your wedding?
How do you want your guests to feel when they walk away from the event?
What does your version of a successful event look like?
Describe one of your most meaningful weddings you have attended
These questions are simple but powerful and will get your clients thinking beyond just the surface level things like colors or Pinterest Boards. If you do this you will “anchor your gathering in a meaningful purpose” as Priya Parker put it so eloquently in her book. And, once you have found your couple’s purpose, you can incorporate it into the planning process in ways that can have a huge impact on the celebration itself.
Guest List - We often get lots of questions about the guest list etiquette. I have always had the mantra that this is your wedding so do what feels right to you (it’s not about obligation). But, one big takeaway from The Art of Gathering is this idea of making your purpose your bouncer—meaning, you don’t invite any guests you know will not compliment your purpose. For example, if your dad wants to invite his best friend from childhood who you are not close with (and tends to drink too much, causing a scene) don’t invite him! By doing this you are consciously making a decision to ensure the guests who are attending enjoy your wedding to the fullest and don’t get sidetracked by drunk Dave.
Venue - Our couples often make decisions around the venue based on location, date, convenience, aesthetic, and price—basically logistics and not the purpose. But, if the purpose of the wedding isn’t taken into consideration when searching for the venue, the overall feeling can be off. Parker talks about the idea of ensuring the venue embodies the purpose, so if your couple’s purpose is to celebrate two cultures coming together and you are planning on a lot of dancing and celebration, you might want to consider a venue that is outside with no ceilings and less formal. Think about it—that fun celebratory feeling would be much different if you were inside a more formal ballroom with low ceilings.
Design - Before reading the book, I would typically start the design process by asking for my couple’s Pinterest page, inspiration photos, and what their ideal color palette would be. Now I am vowing to never start with this question again! Instead of starting off with the tangibles start the design process off with questions about the intangibles. For example, you can ask, “How do you want your guests to feel when they walk into the room?” The reason being, colors evoke emotion, so if you are able to connect the feeling they want their guests to have with their color palette you will blow their minds. (If you want to take a deeper dive into color theory you should definitely check out Color Confidence by Lavenders Flowers.) In addition, think about how you are designing the space in relation to how many guests. Priya talks about the idea of density which is really interesting. “Billy Mac, an event planner, swears by the following parameters for the number of square feet required per quest for different vibes. He suggests dividing the “square feet of your part space by the target number of guests.
Square Feet Per Guest | Sophisticated | Lively | Hot
Dinner party | 20 sq. ft. | 15 sq. ft. | N/ A
Cocktail party | 12 sq. ft. | 10 sq. ft. | 8 sq. ft.
Into the night/ dance party | 8 sq. ft. | 6 sq. ft. | 5 sq. ft.
Ceremony - With more and more couples not getting married in churches they are looking to us to help guide them in what is the most sacred part of the wedding day. This is a huge responsibility and not to be taken lightly which is why we swear by JP Reynolds book, How to Write Your Vows. I often get some push back here with some of my couples saying they just want a quick ceremony and I always encourage them to rethink that. That is because the ceremony is the one time you have all the people you love in one room witnessing something really special— so this is the part where you want to take things slow and incorporate moments of silence so people can truly absorb the moment. This even starts when the bride walks down the aisle. I always tell the bride and whoever she is walking down the aisle with (at the ceremony rehearsal and on the wedding day) to take a deep breath, breathe, and then slowly walk down the aisle looking at everyone to take it all in. Another great idea is to incorporate music! Some of the coolest weddings I have been to had music playing during the ceremony even when nothing was happening, just for all the guests to take in the words and the meaning of the song.
Toasts - Traditionally toasts on the wedding include Father of the Bride, Best Man, and Maid of Honor but, in my 13 years of doing weddings, it has been very few and far between that I have heard a toast that moved me to tears. This isn’t because those people didn’t love the bride and groom. It’s because people get nervous, they aren’t used to talking in front of large crowds, and most importantly—they didn’t have guidance. What is missing here is the intention and thought behind who the couple asks and how they coach or guide the person giving the toast. As a planner, when the conversation of toasts comes up it is your opportunity to bring it back to the purpose of the event to make sure the people giving the toast know the purpose as well. This way their toast will enhance the overall feeling of the evening.
There you have it! My thoughts on how you can incorporate lessons from The Art of Gathering into how you work with couples—and I really do think every wedding planner needs to read this book! I seriously wish I read her book when I first started my business and if you want to pick it up, you can order it here.
And, now that you are thinking about all the ways you can improve your approach to planning weddings, know that we are here to help! Whether you dive deeper into the free content on our blog, pick up a wedding planning template in the shop or invest in your education with our online course for wedding planners, this can be the year that you become the rockstar planner you’ve always wanted to be!
Cheers,
Lindsay
