A New Adventure In Weddings - Micro Weddings & Elopements
I am so excited to share the launch of Marriage Accomplished - which will focus on micro weddings & elopements for couples that want to get married Louisiana, as well as wedding destinations across the country! For nearly a year I have been dreaming this idea to life - a desire to celebrate weddings in a way that speaks to me personally. Then 2020 started, COVID became part of our lives and seems to be changing the way we will celebrate weddings for years to come. Enter the explosive idea of the micro wedding! What began as a logistical nightmare and caused so much stress for many of our couples, turned out to be a perfect opportunity for me to build this idea into a real business. Previously micro weddings have been called “intimate weddings” and they have been around for years! Many of my planner friends have had companies planning these style weddings for almost as long as I have been in business with Mise En Place Events. But despite the fact that “its been done before” I still had a strong urge to branch out MEPE into a brand that would focus solely on micro weddings and elopements, keeping the focus on the couple and their marriage, and not the pomp and pageantry that comes with a large wedding.
How It Began
A little history about me: I have been married twice. That’s a scary admission for a wedding planner (there are a few of us though), as we impose the idea upon ourselves to be seen as not only experts on weddings, but also on marriage. But divorce happens, and I obviously don’t talk much about this with my clients, so it’s a vulnerable moment that I am sharing here. My first wedding had all the traditions, many things I never really envisioned for the day, and to this day I joke that it was really my mother’s wedding. After my divorce, I fell in love with my husband Aaron. When we got engaged in October of 2018 we both agreed we wanted to do something more low-key, something more us than the larger, traditional weddings we had both had with our first marriage. Together we planned a 40 person Summer camp themed wedding weekend in the mountains of the Carolina’s. Our main goals for our wedding were to bring together the people that meant the most to us as a couple, to have an adventurous weekend allowing us to spend quality time with our family and friends, and to have our ceremony be extremely personal to us as a couple - we wanted to focus on the importance of our marriage, long after the wedding day had passed.
How It Evolved
After the wedding, I was able to reflect on the wedding planning process from not only from the perspective of a planner, but as a bride. Many of my couples are planning destination weddings in New Orleans. Planning my own destination wedding in a city I had no previous experience in was very enlightening to me. It opened my eyes to the perspective my couples may have during the planning process. I really appreciated the experience from the other side. With the few things that had gone awry from all of my planning, I couldn’t be more thrilled with the final product of our wedding day. And the best part was that I am now married to my best friend!
I have told my clients for years ‘if at the end of the day you’re married: mission accomplished’ and that mentality was something I tried to keep in my perfectionist planner mind with my own wedding plans as well. The plans are just for the day. The color of the flowers can be wrong. The timeline can run behind. Rain might happen. The dinner may not be exactly what you had in mind. You can choose to let the little things make you think the day wasn’t perfect OR you can throw perfect out the window and you can focus on the way you felt, the happiness in your heart and the love you see in your partner’s eyes.
Perfect in a marriage doesn’t really exist (every one has their good days and bad days), and so its only fair to say perfect in a wedding day doesn’t exist either. But if you are in it for the long haul, the little details matter much less than the fact that you married your favorite person. The focus isn’t perfection, it’s on potential and possibility. This attitude is what I want to share with my couples throughout the planning process. We are planning the first day of a great marriage, not just a wedding!
Why It Matters
I’ve seen couples stress over the little details and get consumed by the plans for years. But the reality is that at the end of the day, your guests won’t notice the little details as much as you think they will. They will notice how much fun they had on the dance floor, they will notice how happy you both were, and honestly they will notice if the food was good and the bar was open!
After nearly 7 years and almost 200 weddings, I can tell you that the feedback we get from guests and couples is just that they had so much fun celebrating. They don’t comment on the centerpieces, they don’t comment on the specialty chairs. I don’t point this out to say that they details don’t matter, they do - and believe me, I’m a details girl! My own wedding had ALL the details that no-one else noticed (I’m talking about you matte black flatware).
But overall those details were important to me because I wanted the wedding to look nice, it didn’t affect the overall feeling of how my guests experienced the wedding. And it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference if I hadn’t had those extra details, because the important parts of the day still happened. So when I work with my couples I try to remind them that even though we love these extra details, that I want them to keep in mind that it’s not a deal breaker for the wedding if they can’t have it with their budget, or it doesn’t work out exactly as planned .
How It Works
In the past, we have planned our MEPE couple’s elopements and micro weddings with the same guidelines that we have planned our larger, more traditional weddings. This was fine, but it required a bit more work because we had to scale the pricing and adjust the services to fit the needs of a smaller wedding. Now we have created those services and pricing based on the micro wedding style and packaged the services in ready-to-go options!
For couples that simply just want to get married, without all the fuss, we have created ready-to-go packages. A few simple decisions on colors, vibe, and venue, and your wedding plans are done! We have curated a selection of vendors that are ready to be on your creative team, without you spending hours doing research. Our couples will put their trust in us to personally select their vendor partners and put together a one of a kind team to make magic on their wedding day!
For couples that want to plan a micro wedding with a little more personalization we will have a more thorough approach to getting to know you as a couple, and work to incorporate who you are into your intimate wedding experience! The potential for an amazing wedding day is limitless when you focus on the details that make it unique to your love story.
Join The Adventure
Our ideal couple is mindful of their wedding plans and wants something that feels different from what they have experienced at other weddings. You may be looking to plan a day that celebrates your love for each other, in a uniquely personal way. You may not want to plan a wedding at all, and are just ready to be married to your favorite person. Maybe you love the idea of the details and traditions of a wedding day but a large guest count makes you anxious. If you think a micro wedding or elopement is the right fit for your wedding day, reach out to me! I’d love to hear your love story and share how we can start your marriage off with a wedding that speaks to your hearts. Together we will plan the wedding that you need to start the marriage that you want! #marriageaccomplished
