#124 Planning Education with Whim Events

“Natalie Pinney and Moira Thompson are the co-founders of Whim Events, a full-service wedding planning, design and floral studio in Boston, MA. (We LOVE Boston!) Together over a lot of coffee, crazy ideas and a mutual love for making people’s dreams come true, Moira & Natalie founded Whim Events in 2011. They have designed and planned hundreds of weddings throughout New England, and were named Best Wedding Planner in Boston by Boston Magazine. With over ten years of experience, the two specialize in joyfully and thoughtfully guiding couples through every stage of the engagement, and believe planning should be as joyful and fun as the day itself. In addition to planning and producing weddings all over New England, Moira and Natalie are also active in the Boston small business industry and are passionate about uniting other local creatives in the community to engage in collaboration over competition.” These ladies share their take on wedding planning and wedding flowers, East Coast style, and the retrospective wisdom of hundreds of couples they surveyed after the wedding day. Big Takeaways Whim is a planning company that only does Full Wedding Planning with floral and design. They also offer floral design separately. But if they’re the planner, then they’re doing the flowers. This set-up ensures that the Whim team takes the clients from start to finish and the design is completely cohesive in the actual logistical planning of the event. Moira does utilize pinterest to help create her client’s vision. She still has to sift through things to make sure budget is considered with each and every pin. It’s helpful to see what elements many of the photos have in common, and it’s also helpful for Moira to see pin boards that aren’t necessarily wedding related. Like seeing a client’s home can really inform a designer of their style, and priorities. The biggest thing that came back from the survey Whim did was that people did not know how to budget for the wedding. It’s difficult! It’s overwhelming. Also, it’s expensive. The best thing you can do is to learn as much as possible about the actual costs of wedding vendors and services in your area, educate yourself before you sign contracts and pay deposits. Research ways that you can save money (Friday wedding? Small desserts instead of a huge cake? DIY flowers? Maybe!) and decide what your wedding priorities are. How much time does it take to plan a wedding? For Natalie and Moira - they’ve tracked it and for full planning by professionals, it’s 265 hours in a year. We think you can easily add 100 hours of browsing Pinterest alone. WED. This is an education and inspiration event for wedding planning. There are going to be speakers and panelists from all over the country that are going to have honest conversations about costs, services and processes. Boston, March 31. Not a wedding expo. We’re going to be there and we would love to see you!! Links we referenced https://whimevents.com https://www.experiencewed.com - remember you get a big discount when you buy a ticket for WED, promo code BIGWEDDING The Big Wedding Planning Podcast is... Hosted and produced by Michelle Martinez. Edited by Veronica Gruba Music by Steph Altman of Mophonics 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! Join us and our amazing members. Just search for The Big Wedding Planning Podcast Community on Facebook. Easy to get in touch with. Email us at [email protected] or Call and leave a message at 415-723-1625 and you might hear your voice on an episode On Patreon. Become a member and with as little as $6.99 per month, you get 2 exclusive, ad-free episodes, + Zoom Happy Hour with Michelle and fellow patrons every month! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices