We're talking about "the home stretch" or that final week before the wedding.
When it's the final week before your wedding, your task list should really about 98% completed (or more). But there's still some things you can do in those final days leading up to the big day to set yourself up for a GREAT day – physically, mentally, and emotionally.
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00:00
Hey, ringers, welcome to the Put a Ring on a Podcast. We are all about sharing helpful and practical tips for anyone and everyone that is planning a wedding. I'm Danielle Pasternak, wedding planner of DPNAK Events. And I'm Dan Moyer, photographer of Daniel Moyer Photography. All right, Dan, what are we talking about today? Today, we're talking about the last week before your wedding.
00:36
All right, Dee Bizzle. Has that ever called you that before on any of the past podcasts that we've ever done? No, and I don't think you should going forward either. No, we're not gonna do that, but it just came out. So we're just gonna roll with it and we're recording now. So, all right. So there is lots and lots of articles out there about the things you're supposed to do while planning a wedding and it's broken down by months and all that kind of stuff. And I feel like-
01:02
when you look at wedding planning, a lot of stuff happens in like the first couple months after you're engaged. And then there's like this big lull, generally speaking, we talk about. And then like the last couple of months really ramp up. In future episodes, we're gonna be talking about these specific areas of wedding planning, but I'm really interested to hone in on this like last week or so before your wedding. So let's start by saying, like just checking off a couple of boxes. By this point, just off the top of your head,
01:31
people should have just done what, right? Like heading into the week of the wedding, what, just ramble it off. What things should be sort of done already? The list of a hundred things. Oh boy. This is, I think a hundred is being very slim. I mean, obviously at this point, you want to be inches away from the finish line. Yep. To the...
01:56
the best of your ability and depending on the scale of your event, that's going to look different for different people. But I think the obvious thing is like you have your vendors all booked, you have, you know, the seating chart is done, the best way I can put it is that you're like you're 99.5% of the way there is you're kind of heading into that final week. Now, obviously, for some of us, that's going to be the case. And for others, you're going to be like,
02:24
maybe we're at 92% or maybe we're at 73% because we procrastinated on a few things. Ultimately that's okay. I think you're going to hit that week and realize that there may be certain projects that just aren't going to happen. But there's some things that just need to happen. You know what I mean? Like eventually you have to just finish and put the period at the end of the sentence to get fully over the finish line on the wedding day.
02:54
It's always interesting to see different personality types as they approach that final week and how they approach it and what they kind of did to get there. I feel like in order to talk about the final week of the wedding, you always have to talk about all the other things leading up to it. So I'm restraining myself really hard right now. Okay, let me see if me as the photographer can like get it right. Like you've got all your vendors that are done. You've got your date done. That's all like the big stuff in the beginning. Obviously you've got like the big like couple.
03:23
things, the photographer, DJ, you got your venue, you got your ceremony location, your efficient, all that stuff. Then like that second half of the the planning process, you've gotten your save dates out, you got your invites out, you've got probably do you have a headcount at this point? Yes. Okay. Have you probably gotten the wedding? Yeah, 100% you should Okay, so you've gotten like the headcount over to the venue for like that kind of stuff, probably. So I mean, I can't, it's tough to speak specifics here. But generally speaking, most
03:53
venues, florists, rental companies, anybody that requires a final head count is, I would say minimum due two weeks before the wedding. A lot of things are due three to four weeks now, especially because of so many like supply chain issues, but complications, I guess is the more accurate word. So this will vary from not just region to region, but specifically vendor to vendor. We try to have everything in by about four weeks out to have at least
04:22
most of those pieces finalized, but by two weeks out is usually the hard deadline that I see for for most. Okay, so then you probably have or are making your final payments or have made probably your final payments for pretty much everything, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's some vendors that will have a payment due the day of but I usually recommend having everything kind of squared away so that you're not trying to write out checks that day or figure out how to pay somebody. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that always feels weird to me like
04:50
I've never done that except at a payment on the wedding day. And I was like, actually, one time it happened and I felt icky, I felt weird doing it like it's all squared away. That's just a personal like weird money block thing. But anyway, it's hard. I mean, though, honestly, there are times when a vendor comes to me, he says, Hey, do you have my final payment? And unless the client gives that to me, I don't that's like, I don't interfere with, like, I don't pay any out any vendor type situations. And it's, it is often sticky that then
05:18
the day of getting ready festivities have to pause so that a person can write out a check to another person. Like if you're a vendor listening, please don't have a payment due the day. Yeah, for me it's like, I want the day to be the least about me possible. Exactly. It's like, I don't like, let me just like do the job. Let you be in your zone of wedding, enjoying yourself, people, family party, drinking, dancing, toasting, cheering, all those things. And I don't wanna have to like pause that, but okay. So payments are probably set up and all that stuff.
05:47
you've gotten like, what else are we thinking of? I mean, ultimately you're really at 99.5% of the way there. Here's what I see happening the last week of the wedding. Okay. Depending on the vendors that you're working with, of course, whether or not you're working with a planner, my job that week is I'm confirming every last detail with every vendor that we have on board, every venues.
06:16
is touch base with, even if it's something that we just talked about it saying, hey, photographer, this is what time you're showing up, this is where, this is the address, this is who your associate is going to be for the day, this is what time you're leaving, this is how many vendor meals we have. All of those things is what me as planner coordinator is going to be confirming. If you don't have that person on your team, I usually recommend doing this as a couple because,
06:43
It's your final checks and balances. It's your final I dotted T crossed to make sure that all the conversations you had, all of those emails and all those meetings and all of those different things, nothing's jumbled. You're nobody's working off of any old piece of information. It's all, this is the final plan. Period. End of sentence. Let's party on the wedding day. So that's one piece of it. Uh, what I was going to say, and I'm thinking now that you said this,
07:13
Um, you know, if you're doing it yourself in terms of like, you're, you're planning, you are the master of ceremonies, you know, by this point you're checking in, but you should have had all your final meetings really with everybody. You should have touched base with pretty much everybody already, right? Sort of. It depends. Every vendor works really differently. There are some that will have that final touch base meeting in the weeks leading up. There are some vendors that like to type, talk to the couple, the week of the wedding.
07:39
It kind of all depends. I see it most commonly with like DJs or bands. I think that's a category that they are so working on just the next event at any given time that, like for example, a DJ in particular, they're doing all those final checks. So that week I see a lot of touching bass between the DJ and the couple, again, depending on the DJ. But sometimes that's kind of coming into play as they're really putting the final touches on. Me personally, I like to have everything a little bit more buttoned up sooner, but everybody has a different.
08:07
style with how they want to work. So sometimes you are having just like, they're often just these quick 10, 15 minute phone calls just to say, hey, we're so excited, wanted to make sure this is all good. Sometimes there's like these little outstanding bits of information like, mm, you were wavering back and forth between this song and this song for your first dance song. Which one did you finally, what is the final choice on that? Those little things is kind of what it's coming down to. Yeah, I feel like the last week,
08:37
And maybe this is just like my personality, but like my thought is like the last week is where like you should start being able to make some of the fun decisions or like, like, like the playlist for the morning or, um, you know, one of the things I've talked about at length on this, and I mentioned millions of times is like when Rachel and I got married, my last wedding was two weeks before our wedding. And the week before our wedding, I knew lots of people were going to start coming in and stuff.
09:04
a reconnection weekend, we went down to the beach, we like hung out and got kind of re excited. So let's start there with like, okay, it's a week out from the wedding, you know, we've talked about all the things you've probably gotten done or mostly gotten done. So as a week out from the wedding, I'm going to say one week out, you should have a like, maybe some kind of a powwow or a date night or something if you have the ability to, to sort of get like re excited about the wedding, because a lot of the heavy lifting
09:32
has hopefully been done already. And maybe those last three months are when couples are most distracted about like what the purpose of the wedding day is, right? It's for sure a good time to kind of reconnect because what's likely happening as you get towards the end of that week is you're going to start having a lot of people either coming in from out of town or really starting to get up in your hair.
09:57
they're gonna be coming closer and closer into your personal space as you get closer to the end of that week and closer to the wedding day. So the more you can, while it's still, it's like that calm, hopefully, and quiet before the storm is your time that I would highly recommend very intentionally planning to reconnect with your partner. Like I think it's a thing like you did with Rachel. You put it on the calendar, you plan it out. So this is why I'm saying like,
10:25
to get to that last week requires going back a few weeks. But if you were more than a few weeks away from your wedding day at this point, look at yourself and say, what do I need most when I am stressed? What do we enjoy most? What do we like doing? What will I personally as an individual need? Like I know if it's me, I'm probably scheduling a few pampering things. Like I'm probably getting my nails done. I'm maybe getting a massage.
10:53
potentially a facial depending on what they're doing to my face, because I don't want to be splotchy. But I'm doing those little things. Maybe I'm scheduling a haircut. Maybe I'm scheduling a Reiki session. All those things, you need to know yourself best. So you need to kind of approach it from both scheduling it from a personal side, and then as well as with your relationship, you have to fill, I think, both of those tanks as you go into that week, because...
11:18
as the week goes on, there's going to be things that will test you and might stress you out. Or you might just be one of those really special unicorns like me where when you don't have anything stressing you out and nothing's going wrong, you start festering and being like, something must be going wrong. Because if nothing's going wrong, that can't possibly be right. I couldn't have done all the things to get to this point and not be stressed about something. And then I start stressing about not stressing. So, you know, just my own special superpower talent of mine.
11:47
Okay, speaking of stressing things, I feel like one one week out or ish, maybe just slightly under one week is the point at which you are finally allowed to open the weather app on your phone and check the weather. Yeah. Gosh, I have such a gripe with weather apps lately. But yeah, I don't. This is super regional as well. Here in Pennsylvania, Mother Nature.
12:14
is so incredibly skilled at just going, she just changes her mind a lot. All the time. Right? Yeah, yeah. I don't know about you, Dan. I, the, like Sunday or Monday before like a Friday or Saturday wedding, the Sunday or Monday before, I am watching the weather for that area for that upcoming date, right? And it will say 40% chance of rain on Monday. And then Tuesday it'll say 12% chance of rain. You're like, great.
12:43
82% chance you're in, you're like, what just happened? Thursday, it goes down to 30%, which I hate 30% chance. Like, ugh, just pick something. And really, it's not until the day before and even the morning of that I can really look at that app and have a slight clue as to what it's going to do. Oh, brutal. Precipitation-wise, I will say temperature range.
13:08
Like if it's saying 70s or 60s or 80s or 40s, whatever it's saying, that is a little bit more reliable. But the percentage- Don't get Danielle started about weather. Goodness gracious. Percentage, yes. The point is, if you wake up the week of your wedding and you start checking the weather, take it with a grain of salt. Say, okay.
13:31
I see you brother nature. Maybe that's when you say, hey, let's pop on Amazon and buy a few extra umbrellas if it's potentially going to rain. Just know that whatever it says on Monday, at least here in Pennsylvania, whatever it says on Monday, it is not definite that that's what it's going to be doing on Friday or Saturday or whatever your day is because she gonna flip flop back and forth quite a few times. Dude, our wedding day was so beautiful. And for like the week before, like maybe we had got there on a Saturday and it was like.
14:00
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, it was supposed to rain. And then it got, then it cleared up and then it was supposed to rain again. And then same exact thing that you were saying and ended up being absolutely beautiful. And there's the amount of times that I've had weddings that were like totally beautiful leading up to it. And then either had rain or the opposite. It happens all the time. We're like stressing out about weather and all that stuff. And then it gets to the like photo time and all of a sudden it's.
14:24
the rain is like pushed back a couple hours or whatever like that. Like we're looking at this, you know, photo time is supposed to be at two o'clock. It's like, oh my gosh, it's gonna rain. Then we get to like one and it's like, oh, the weather's actually supposed to be at, it's supposed to rain at four now or five now or six now. Yeah, all the time. So. Fun fact couples, the amount of apps that all vendors or at least most vendors have on their phone where we are watching, we are comparing app to app and where we are radar experts in seeing where- Weather underground says 30% chance.
14:53
Weather helps us. Okay, around 1.15 PM, it looks like we're gonna get a pocket where there might not be rain. I say we go for it. What's the minute by minute say? What does it say? Look at the radar. Have you looked at the radar or just the hourly? We are- We're stressing just as much as you are. Armchair meteorologist with you, yes, exactly. Armchair meteorologist. But that's where, like I say, getting to the week of the wedding goes into those many weeks beforehand. If you go into the-
15:23
wedding, having a, an extreme weather plan that you feel comfortable with and you know what the plan is, then when you start to see, Ooh, extreme temperatures, you know, maybe it's going to rain, maybe it's going to be super windy. When you start seeing those, you feel calmer going, well, we know what the plan is. If we need to make that plan, that's the way we're going to go versus trying to go into it with the like, you know, rose color goggles on the whole time and just being like, no, no, no, today's going to be perfect. Rose colored.
15:53
Potato goggles, I don't know. I'm just going to wear my scuba diving goggles around today. Yes, as love their rose colored. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So what about things like like post wedding stuff that you should start thinking about now? Right? Like maybe honeymoon stuff or packing for that or like, you mean? Yeah, I overall it's rarely my recommendation to go on your honeymoon within a few hours of your wedding ending. Right.
16:23
I mean, unless you're just a real superhuman of an individual, in which case more props to you, but anytime I've taken a trip, there's a few days that I need to like plan and do the things that I know I need to do in order to have a successful trip, whether that's making every list in the world or just, you know, flat out packing. But in order, I think, to have, to be the most present both on your wedding day and then leading into your honeymoon, I think giving yourself a little bit of buffer in time.
16:49
For some couples, that's one day. For others, it's a few days. For others, it's a few weeks or months. You know yourself best here, but keep in mind that planning two major things back to back is really tough, in my opinion. Yeah. And I feel like you gave us this advice like very early on in our planning journey, but I'm a huge fan of the Tuesday leave, the Tuesday peace out to go on a honeymoon, because you get back, you have Sunday to like,
17:19
hang out with people who are still in town, if you still want, if you want to do that, maybe brunch or something like that. Right. Monday is the day you put money in the bank. You've said that before. Yes. I'm for serious about this. Like, you know, you get, people give you gifts on your wedding day and you have checks and all that stuff. And the last thing you want is like, just maybe a couple dozen or a hundred checks or cash or whatever, just laying around your house for a week or two while you're on vacation. So why not take advantage of some of that wedding money, put it in the bank, make sure it's safe.
17:48
And then you go from there. Also, that's really fun too, right? Yeah, yeah. I don't know, you have like a little break to like talk about the wedding and like all that kind of stuff. So anyway, that's also very early on because you're not booking your honeymoon like the week of the wedding. But so that's something you can add to your to-do list for after the wedding, which is deposit money in the bank. So, all right, we've got like a couple of the big things. Now I'm thinking of, we're like,
18:17
a day away, right? What do we do the day before the wedding? Yes, so by the day before the wedding, again, this is gonna vary depending on your venue and all these different things, but the day before your wedding is kind of your day to make sure that anything that needs to be delivered anywhere is definitely delivered at that place. So whether it's welcome bags going to the hotels or any of your like personal decor items that need to go to your venues, by the day before that should all be kind of completed.
18:46
done, good to go. For many couples, you're doing some type of ceremony rehearsal where you're bringing in any wedding party or ceremony participants to kind of go through the moving parts of the ceremony, which I think is always a really fun way to get like, to get excited, to get out some jitters, to start being like, okay, this is really going to happen. We're really doing this thing. That's always the time where it's like, what do I do with my hands during this ceremony?
19:15
You know, just the kiss and like all that stuff. Just the kiss. Okay, y'all, you have to practice the kiss. I say to everybody, every couple has like a weird one at the top of the tank, right? That's just like itching to get out. Where you like, you suddenly. You do. Where you suddenly forget which way, what way do I normally tilt my head and where do our noses go and what am I doing with my hands? Because everybody's looking at you and it's like weird to think about that. Right, and like you're.
19:42
your parents or your grandparents or like your, you know, particular aunt that doesn't like PDA. Like all those things are happening. So your rehearsal is your time to legit practice it. And if it feels funny, that's fine. Get the one that feels funny out at the rehearsal. Like I said, that's the weird one at the top of the tank. Get that one out there so that the ceremony one, you're like, we already did the weird one. We're good. Because we only have one weird one at the top of the tank. So we're lucky. The weird one, the one with too much tongue.
20:11
Yeah, but then usually, usually from the ceremony rehearsal, that's where the rehearsal dinner, that's why it's called a rehearsal dinner is those that were involved in the ceremony rehearsal, then go to that. And honestly, what I've seen a lot more of lately, which I like is the idea of the like welcome event that some couples choose to do where they kind of invite everybody. It's not necessarily though it could be a hosted thing. They say, hey, we're gonna be at this restaurant or bar or hotel lobby on this date at this time.
20:41
in the area, come join us for a drink, easy, simple, and it's a great way to kind of like kick off the whole plan. Would this be a great time, like maybe during that rehearsal or the rehearsal dinner or that welcome event to maybe hand out something like your wedding timelines? Yeah. Pocket timelines. Yes. Okay, friends. So fun story. I make a thing called a pocket timeline. Do you like that set up for you? I was thinking about that. I think so. So I just shot a wedding in New Mexico.
21:10
And that bride found me through this podcast, and she handed out pocket timelines from, I don't know if she purchased them or pretty sure she did. I think she got them from your shop. And I was thinking about them. And so I wanted to bring it up because I know, like, you're too humble to bring it up. Shameless plug. Continue. Continue. So many thoughts. Okay, so a pocket timeline. For those, for those of you that don't know, a pocket timeline is a
21:40
pocket sized version of your wedding timeline. Cause chances are your wedding timeline just has a lot of information that most of your VIPs don't necessarily need. Like on the whole, they need to know what time they need to show up, when they're getting ready, when they're getting dressed, if there's transportation, what time is the, you know, bus shuttle limo, whatever, picking them up from where.
21:59
The important thing is to kind of keep them moving without you having to be the person to answer that question throughout the day. And I found that when you give people too much information, it's just too much to read, especially your wedding party and VIPs where it's not like your vendors where it's kind of their job to be in the know on all those little details. So I've made these pocket timelines. You can obviously make them yourself. I sell a template in my shop, which we could put a link to that in the notes. But...
22:25
just to kind of make it simple and easy and not another thing that you have to figure out, but it's just a pocket version of the important things. I like handing that out at the rehearsal because it's the time when everybody's usually starting to think about all those questions. And like I tell them, this is a cheat sheet for tomorrow. Me as the planner, I put my phone number on there so that if anybody has questions, if anything pops up, then they have direct access to me without having to bother or kind of...
22:53
take the couple away from something that they're doing. Like if a couple is off doing photos, I wanna be the person answering the question with the VIPs versus them having to stop that activity. Yeah, it's just like a highlights version of what's happening, right? Because so many people are like, okay, well, four o'clock is when the family pictures are. And I think on the timeline, you say, okay, 3.30 is when family gets on the shuttle and goes to here. Like just having those like 10 items from 10 a.m. in the morning until 10 p.m. or whatever it is.
23:22
phone numbers or whatever it is. But yeah, that is, um, Danielle gave those out at ours. And it was super helpful because you know, my groomsmen were, they're fine. They had it together. They figured it out. But, you know, everybody's like, just, it's good to get everybody on the same page. And that moment, like the rehearsal dinner is great to be able to do that. Yeah, I think it just helps to have a resource that they all have access to. And it just kind of answers the bulk of the questions without it having to sit because sometimes there's like a one person in the group that's like,
23:51
they're the planner and they're the ones that are gonna like keep steering the ship. And sometimes that's really stressful for that person. So it's just like I said, it's a resource for everybody to get them to where they need to be when they need to be there. Yeah, I feel like the rehearsal is also like a great time for a couple of other things, like, because you've got everybody together. So there's probably, like you've probably gotten gifts and stuff for people that, you know.
24:15
I mean, maybe the week of is also a time to make sure you're finalizing like gifts you get for people and all that kind of stuff, right? Yeah. I mean, everybody's a little bit different. I find most commonly that gifts are exchanged between the in the inner circle of people, the people that you've kind of asked to do something a little bit extra for you throughout the process or on the wedding day. So if you have a traditional wedding party, it's those folks. Sometimes parents are part of that or any type of.
24:44
people that are contributing financially or part of hosting the event. And sometimes you as the couple are exchanging gifts with one another. So I like doing that the day before because I think there's a lot going on the day of to also fit that in, but sometimes it's a gift that makes the more sense to distribute the day of the wedding. So the more, I just, I don't know, the more you can take...
25:08
I don't want to say take off your plate because that sounds like a task that's like, oh, I got to take out the garbage. That's not what it is. But the more you can do leading up to the day, I just think so many couples have really high expectations of themselves for the wedding day that it's really tough to explain that once that day starts moving, time gets really weird. There'll be pockets of time where it is flying.
25:34
And then other pockets of time where it feels like it's just moving so utterly slowly. And utterly slowly is usually like five minutes before the ceremony is about to start. You just want to get things rolling and going. That's when time will slow down to almost a halt. But it's really hard because we don't it's not a day where we suddenly have our phones attached to us like we do maybe with work or personal lives. It's not a day where we're like really sitting in our email inboxes. We're we're very removed from.
26:02
our normal routine in most cases. So the idea of, well, on a usual day, I know I would X, Y, and Z, suddenly on a wedding day, it's like all of those habits and stuff kind of go out the window and you're flying by the seat of the pants if you're not careful. So the more you can take off of your plate that day, just...
26:25
I think the more you're setting yourself for a more enjoyable day so that if things do come up, you are in the right head space. You are a friend of mine to tackle it versus saying, Oh my gosh, I still have to do X, Y, and Z. But now PQRST popped up on this list. How am I going to deal with all this stuff? So, okay. All right. So let's say your couple hires you to come to the rehearsal and you meet them there and you're doing like all the normal coordinator, replanary stuff that you do on rehearsal.
26:53
And, you know, you talked through all the things that we just talked about. And you're sort of about to like wrap up and the couple's getting ready to leave and like, go do their thing. What are the reminders you give them for that night? And maybe the, the more the next morning before, like after you leave and before you're there, like what are were the things you're like, Hey, remember to do this, this, this, this, this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this.
27:18
Oh, I tell them three things. I tell them be good, be safe and drink lots of water. Or like some version of that. And I think have fun is often also like kind of rolled in there. But I think by that point, me as Danielle, in the planner position, anything that they don't have done by that point, outside of it's a little thing, like sometimes they'll still need to send me their room number at the hotel so I can.
27:46
blast it out to their photographers so they know where they're going, that type of thing. But on the whole, if there's any projects left, I'm just saying, just give it to me, just give it to me. I will figure this out. This is no longer, as long as I can, as long as it's somewhat within my wheelhouse. But like at that point, I don't want them having to still have things to do. Yeah. Again, this goes back to personality. Some folks thrive in that 11th hour. I am...
28:16
I am partnered with one of those people. What are you talking about? Michael is, he is so great at just knocking things out very last minute with no stress really whatsoever that I can see while I'm over here like sweating buckets when I have nothing to do with whatever thing he's working on. Some people thrive in that moment. So I don't want to take that away. If that fills your tank and that's where you shine, sparkle baby. But if that's something that's going to stress you out then just.
28:45
delegate, delegate, delegate at that point, so that it just gets done. Because you truly, it's one day, and we're not the first ones to say it's going to fly by so unbelievably fast. The more you can kind of take off your plate, the better. Yeah, I definitely thrive in that like last minute thing. Like I think the night or two before our wedding, like the day before our wedding, I think we were making the favors, which were like these chocolate dunked pretzels that we like made hundreds of them.
29:11
And we just like we had friends that were in and we just like had a ball of it like several hours or just like microwaving chocolate and dumping dunking these, you know, pretzels into it and then putting colored chocolate over top of that. It was really fun. But then I think that night we were practicing the night before wedding, we were practicing our dance in our driveway with like my phone in my back pocket. And we were just like, we took dance lessons and stuff. So we're trying to remember the dips and everything. But if there's I mean, let me get in the feels for a second.
29:41
I feel like with a day that is so scheduled and like predictable, but unpredictable for the next day, the best thing you could do is like find a little predictability in like your night before. So like just remembering like very basic stuff. Like you were talking about self care sort of prior, you know, a week or so prior, but like just remembering like the real simple things like what if you're staying in a hotel the night before, like what are the things that you need to like bring so you can have a, you know, the best version of yourself the next day.
30:09
know, maybe that's like, obviously remembering, you know, your basic care items, like toiletries and stuff, but also like, making sure you're plugging your phone and yeah, like having a good playlist and like, I don't know, just those like very simple things. So it's like, Oh, yeah, like that, that feels right. And I think most of us are like, if you just remember like what you do at home, you know, maybe it's even you read a book and you have like a little bit of downtime or whatever that is, I feel like it's just like, you don't have to deviate so much.
30:38
from whatever you do the night before. So that way it feels like you're in your normal routine. You know what I mean? Right? Yeah, it's interesting. Because, like you said, it's on one hand, it could be very predictable. On the other hand, it's a very unpredictable day. Whatever it is, it's all a lot of it is going to be new. It's a new routine. And that's not even a routine, because you're not probably not repeating this in any sense of the word. But it's a new day with all these new things happening.
31:04
chances are you don't probably get ready every day with like five to six of your closest pals, right? Or you don't like bring in a glam squad to do, well, maybe you do, but like you don't do glam every morning where you're bringing in hair and makeup people. So it's new and exciting things. And I think so often as we, I especially see this once the rehearsal starts.
31:23
it's almost like they hit that point of like, what's the next thing? Oh, the next thing. Oh, and then we get to go to dinner and oh, and then we're gonna go see everybody. You start looking forward to the next thing, next thing, next thing, as opposed to being really present in the current thing and doing those things like you said, bringing in elements of your regular routine, whether it's like, like for me, it's like I have a very specific thing I do before I go to bed with like brushing my teeth and putting in my super sexy retainer.
31:49
like moisturizing the face. My name is Danielle Pasternak. It's very, very attractive. Let me just tell you. But those are my things that make me feel like, okay, body, we're getting ready to go to bed. This is what we're doing. Sometimes there's meditation involved. Sometimes there's stretching. Anything you can do to kind of ground yourself back in the present moment, I think will help remind you and trigger you to be like,
32:19
what I'm doing right now too. And I can reflect on all these wonderful things that have already happened so far and how wonderful those things are and how wonderful our people are, all those different pieces of the pie. I think finding ways to sneak your routine back in there is a really smart way to plan for it actually. That's really super smart. And drink water, drink the water. And drink water. Drink so much water. So much water.
32:43
Yeah, that's a really good point about just like staying present and in the moment because like you said, you like it's really easy to look forward to the next thing to the next thing and all of a sudden before you know it, it's over. And yeah, that's, I give very similar advice to all my couples, like just, you know, soak it in right? Like you're on top of your mountain. And like, you know, the week of the wedding feels like you are like climbing through some sludge and like really having a difficult time getting up there. But once you're on top of that.
33:10
mountain, it's like you just survey your land and just like soak in the view because there's no more else nothing else to do when you're up there. Just that. Yeah. Can I share something not to do the week of your wedding? Yeah. The week of the wedding is not the week to start any new beauty treatments or workout routines or it's not the week to experiment too much with a new food situation. Like it's just Yeah.
33:40
save that for another week. Maybe it's the weeks leading up. Maybe it's after you've already had the wedding. That's not the time to start saying, you know what, I've never gotten a spray tan before. I am going to spur the moment schedule myself for a spray tan this afternoon. I don't I mean, you do you but I don't recommend it. It's really leads to a lot of stress. In endurance sports. There's a saying nothing old, nothing new, tried and true. Oh, I like that.
34:05
Yeah, so like when you're, you never like try new nutrition, you never like new nutrition. Yeah, that's it. You never try new things. You never eat like new supplements or gels or whatever. Cause when you're out there for a long time, you don't want to like, you have to feed yourself and put goose in your mouth or whatever to get calories in you. And it's like, if you're not used to that and your body's under like extreme stress, bad things happen. You heard it here folks. No new goo in your mouth. Goo is a real thing. Don't give me that. No, I know. But it's like.
34:34
Like it's one thing if you're like going for the W right and you and you like are going for the win and it's like, oh, like, you know, you have like some gastrointestinal things but it's like, like imagine the headline like average dad poops pants while you know, running marathon like you don't want that. Yeah, we're not gonna go there. So nothing old, nothing new, tried and true.
34:58
average. Well, now we know which clip we're pulling out of this episode for the social media. All right. Do you have any final thoughts? Always. I have a billion other thoughts. My friends, be good to yourselves. I think know yourself and know what your limits are. It's okay to set boundaries that week. It's okay to, it's okay to feel stressed. It's okay to feel whatever it is you're feeling. It's okay to be stressed about not being stressed, which only makes you then stressed.
35:27
Whatever it is, just lean into it and remember that you and your partner are doing this really cool exciting thing. It's a really big deal. And it's going to be great. No matter what it is, it's going to be great. And you know, we're cheering for you basically. Yeah. All right, Dee, you're awesome. I'm going to take us out. Okay, go for it. Put it in a podcast is co-hosted by wedding planner, Danielle Pasternak and photographer Daniel Moyer, both based out of the greater Philadelphia area.
35:57
This show is produced by DPNAK Events along with Daniel Moyer Photography. Find us on Instagram at Put A Ring On A Podcast and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Finally, thank you so much for all of your messages, love, and support. We are and have always been cheering for you every step of the way. Until next time, ringers.