Today on Wedding Secrets Unveiled!, Jesse Reing from Events by Jesse joins us to delve into a crucial aspect of wedding planning: mental health. While your engagement is meant to be a joyous time, it often brings its own set of pressures. From managing your budget to finalizing the guest list and navigating various relationships, nearlyweds frequently face new mental health challenges. Remember, you’re not alone! Take a moment to relax as Jesse guides you through the common stressors of wedding planning. After all, while weddings may only span a day, the foundation of your marriage is what truly matters in the long run!
Meet Jesse.
My name is Jesse Reing and I am the founder and CEO of Events by Jesse. The business is primarily located in the tri-state area and in South Florida – but we work all over the country all over the world. We plan weddings for our awesome funky, sometimes alternative, super cool trendsetting couples. We want people to be brave to be bold. Let’s do things that no one else is doing and have a really good time with it and have people talking about it! We’ve been in business for about nine years now.
Do you have a team?
I do: David and Angelina. David plans alongside me and on his own. Angelina does all of our marketing and I’m very thankful for her if you love our Instagram say thanks, Angelina!
So, let’s just let die like let’s just dive in. Today, we’re talking about mental health when it comes to wedding planning. I hope that we normalize the emotions that we all feel.
Jesse, tell me a little bit about why you are passionate this topic.
So, here’s what here’s what happens. A couple gets engaged. They are very, very happy typically and begin to contact their family and friends. From there, it starts escalating and everyone is calling and texting them. It’s exciting and fun. In fact, it can be the most exciting time in someone’s life. But also many people feel stressed, nervous or scared. Then they start to wonder why they feel all those not good things – and I’m here to say that it’s normal to not feel those good things, too. People always say your wedding will be the best day of your life and I just want to say that I don’t think it should be. Your wedding will be awesome, but it’s not always the best day of your life. So, I’d love to tell your listeners that it’s okay and I want to normalize their feelings of stress, fear, anxiety, expectations, and all of those things. Because the norm is that those things exist.
I have to say that as a photographer, I hop on calls with couples and almost instinctively congratulate them. Like, 99% of the time I hear the same thing – it’s exciting and stressful. I always tell them it’s so normal
Yeah, it is. And the thing is, they want it to feel so sparkly, and flowery, and all of the good things. And there are ways to make sure that through the process, you are feeling that because those feelings come from the feeling that you have for your partner. So, with that in mind, one of the suggestions I make – and we definitely talk about – is to make it a priority to regroup with your partner during the wedding planning process. Wedding planning is a brief time in your relationship and there’s a lot of adjustments. So, coming back together as a couple during that time is really essential.
Let’s talk about the different relationships that you have when planning.
Everyone’s excited. Mom is excited and has visions in her head of what she thinks your day will be. It can be hard, especially if you don’t know what you want from your wedding day. So, when you think about relationships during this time, the number one thing that you should be doing is sitting down with your partner and asking a few questions. We actually have a little postcard for our business with those questions.
Number one is, what does a wedding mean to you? There’s so many ways to do it. Number two is what does marriage mean to you? Weddings are fun but the marriage is what lasts longer. So you need to feel that you’re on the same page about why you’re doing this. Question three is ordering your priority for things like number of guests, geographic location, overall aesthetic and vibe. Because those three are really going to change the first step of your wedding planning process. You can’t continue planning without a venue decision. The last few questions are my favorite! Number four is what you’re most excited about. The last thing is: what are you dreading? It becomes such an awesome opportunity to say to your partner: I’ve got you with that. I’m going to support you and take care of you protect you just like I am for the rest of your life.
I think that is such a wonderful tool! It really helps set up expectations in wedding planning.
Yes, and hopefully setting up a united front. So that when it comes to the outside voices that start giving their opinions, thoughts, and feelings, it helps you feel united no matter who is paying.
How do you navigate those outside voices?
First, to hope and dream and wish that our parents or in laws are not going to give their opinions is not realistic. It’s something that will happen, so it’s a matter of learning how to navigate it. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t please others during this process. What I am saying is that gathering that information and coming back to those people in your life will help you know what really matters the most to you. From there, you can decide what you want their input on because it is an experience of two families joining. But it should be up to the couple how to do that.
Now, here’s the big question, though: Why? Why do we care and why does it make us nervous? Why do we feel that it’s often easier to disappoint ourselves instead of someone else in the process? Every relationship is different. But my guess is that if you can show you’re treating yourself with 100% self-respect, you will gain self-respect…even if it comes with some disappointment, and a bummer and offhanded comments, but that’s okay. Someone’s largely disappointed. But you should learn how to not disappoint yourself in this process.
I hear you talking about self-respect a lot. Can you share about that with some real life examples?
Sure. I’m actually working with a really lovely couple right now who have really lovely parents. There’s no question about that. The mother of the bride was very excited about the wedding and also anxious. Because of that, she’s gone ahead and planned a lot of what is happening with the bride. It’s caused the bride to feel left out in some ways. Or if someone offers to make a sign for a wedding – the bride and groom worry about if it will be what they want because someone is trying to be helpful and volunteer.
And I said to them: this is how you’re setting a precedent for the rest of your life. You think that getting other people’s opinions was an infiltration a stressful wedding? How about when you guys have kids? This is when you could set a precedent. I encourage my clients to think about self-respect. Does that mean that these things are gonna magically happen all in favor of the bride and groom? No. But it means that the conversation can happen where they say: I love you, I appreciate you and here’s what we want to do. So yeah, it might upset some of those people but it will allow you at the end of the day to walk away as a couple who is making decisions together and making their relationship stronger.
Definitely. It’s a time in your life where you’re hearing a lot of noise.
Yes, I think it’s a really great crash course into how you and your fiancé respect and support each other as a couple moving forward. More will happen in your lives. But, this time is hard. You’re doing so many things – and so many new things – tastings, venues, decisions… it can put a strain on a relationship. You’re spending all of this time together with all of these unique stressors, tension, and things like that… plus you’re spending more money on one day than you’ll ever spend at once again (barring a house).
But during this time, it’s such an awesome opportunity to see your partner in one of the more stressful moments of their life and learn how to cope and how to deal. Now, I think it’s jarring for a lot of couples at first as well. But know that it will end, right? The wedding is a big culminating point in your relationship. This is a finite period in your relationship. Use it to learn how to support each other and take the opportunity to learn more about that person.
Tell me a little bit about how you suggest how individuals cultivate their trust within themselves and their desires, especially in an environment of wedding planning.
I’m a big fan of the questions that I give out – and having people answer them separately and share. One of the great things that you see in this process is the couple wanting to please each other. It’s special to watch them figure it out together. I also think that the most important part of being engaged on this fiancé period is to take time for the behavior that you’ve had when you were dating. Plan dates don’t talk about the wedding all the time and compartmentalize this in your life.
Oftentimes, one person in the couple is more gung-ho about things than others. That’s okay, too. Avoid putting pressure on your partner to be as excited about everything as you might be. So set the expectation with each other: I’m excited about this and it’s okay that you’re not. Set those boundaries together. It’s good practice for life.
Let’s talk about those outside opinions again. What do you recommend for couples dealing with a lot of outside input?
Yeah, so like I said earlier, you can’t control if people are going to give you their opinions. Let’s just expect that they are going to. Do not let it shock you or surprise you. It will start to impact your decision making otherwise. We had a couple a few years ago who wanted beef and ahi tuna for their proteins. The caterer and I both said that if that’s what they wanted, that’s what we’d do. But their families said it was too strange for everyone. The couple did what they wanted and it was a great time to simply say, “we’re doing what we want”.
We also hear a lot about friends who either get really involved – wanting to pick the dress or going over the top for the celebrations. But you also have the ones who wonder “what about me? All you talk about is your wedding!”. So, I always recommend compartmentalizing with your family and friends. Say that you can hang out, but you don’t want to talk about the wedding. And that’s 100% okay.
These things happen – and people are always going to have issues. It doesn’t really matter why. They’re losing control, they’re watching their kids grow up. Whatever it is, we have to give them grace.
Also – it’s okay to be honest with your vendors. We know that you have dynamics in your life and they’ll probably last beyond the wedding day (and were probably there before!). So, let your vendors know about those situations.
Absolutely. I have a lot of couples that end up telling me things like that and apologizing too. But there’s no reason to apologize. We’re here to help you with this whole process – not just finding the right photographer or DJ. I want my couples to feel like they have someone advocating for themselves throughout the whole process. Guests (and families) are a big part of that.
What do you recommend to navigate the fear of disappointing yourself or others?
A lot of the time when we make these decisions, we’re worried about disappointing others more than we are disappointing ourselves. This often comes along with people who have been dreaming of their wedding for their whole life. The reality is that the woman planning the wedding is not that little girl anymore. But, we often feel bad or like we’re missing out on something if it isn’t exactly what we always thought it would be. That’s not reality though.
The reality is that we have no idea what life is gonna look like. All we can do is make decisions as who we are in the moment. We should not be making decisions for who we were another time. You do not have to do what you said you were gonna do 20 years ago. You get to be a brand new adult person in a brand new phase of life, seeing things a different way, and wants things to look and reflect as who you are today in a partnership.
Wrap-Up Question
Wat are some key points that couples should be asking themselves or their partner, when they’re planning a wedding to make sure that their wedding day is going to be an absolute perfect event?
Answer those questions together and determine how you’re going to support your person best during this process – and how to keep your vision alive.
Have date nights where you don’t discuss anything related to the wedding!
Come to at least like two or three key points on what the wedding means to you. Only then you can start facilitating planning. It will help you envision what is to come and also help you go to those people in your life, especially the ones that are paying, and share what you’re ready to discuss in the process.
What We Discussed
Meet Jesse (3:04)
Normalize wedding planning emotions (4:26)
Navigating family dynamics (9:08)
Cultivating trust through wedding planning (17:32)
How to navigate sticky situations (38:18)
Wrap-Up Question (45:44)
Links Mentioned in the Episode
Find Events by Jessie at Website | Instagram | Facebook
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