S11E11: Where to Get Advice and a Shift Toward Traditional Wedding Celebrations
You're planning a wedding. You start researching online, follow some influencers on social media and suddenly you're inundated with information. Some of it's conflicting, and some of it makes perfect sense.
How do you know what - and who - to listen to?
If this sounds familiar, this episode is for you!
I'm dishing with an incredible DC-based wedding planner about filtering through advice, plus the shift we're seeing toward more "traditional" wedding celebrations for 2025.
Guest: Alyssa Glorioso, Glorious Weddings & Events and The Wedding Planning Playbook
This week on The Wedding Dish podcast, we’re dishing about…
Who couples should listen to when seeking wedding advice (and who not to listen to).
Vendor recommendations.
Wedding jargon.
Sweetheart tables vs. a moment alone.
A shift toward more traditional wedding timelines.
... and more!
Listen to The Wedding Dish on any of your favorite podcast platforms!
Meet Alyssa Glorioso, Glorious Weddings & Events!
Alyssa Glorioso is an event planner, designer, published author and membership host based in Virginia just outside DC. Having started her career in education, she seeks to simplify (and personalize) the planning experience for her clients. She founded her business in 2018 specifically for weddings and has expanded to serve the corporate client - her newest project was for an olive oil distributor for their global gathering! She is excited to bring a more inclusive offering to couples through her online subscription, the wedding planning playbook.
Business Details
What areas do you serve?
DMV, Eastern Shore, Baltimore, and Virginia at large. Through my membership, I can serve anyone who wishes to plan their wedding or event online.
Why did you decide to start your own business?
I have always thrived when I created my own opportunities. Like many entrepreneurs, I didn't quite know what to expect in starting my own business. I calculated risks and decided with the startup costs to being a planner it was worth a shot. I love the pairing of logical and creative in event planning, and I'm proud of myself for betting on myself 7 years ago. Little did I know the crazy stories I forget to tell because they are so "normal".
What's the coolest thing about owning your own business?
A few attributes come to mind: discovery, creativity, and the pure fact that I am my own biggest resource. Entrepreneurship is a huge magnifying glass and it is essential to knowing yourself and being able to be honest with the deepest questions (and the simplest). As an entrepreneur growth and 'success' is a mix of owning your strengths and talents -- where the ease comes in - and ALSO ownership of the things you don't want to look at. The success, peace, or path you crave is THROUGH that pain or weakness you'd rather close the door on or set on the shelf.
What advice could you offer to someone starting a business like yours?
I think so many of us JUMP right in especially if you are a little bit like me (I believe that I can just figure it out as I go). My advice would be to explore and give yourself that freedom to do so without extra pressure. For instance, if you can start your business while you have a job so you're not immediately under the expectation of earning a certain salary from the jump. But more than that, surround with yourself with people who are in a variety of stages. Sometimes we gravitate towards the expert, several steps ahead, and sometimes the guide who teaches us the most is someone just a few steps ahead.
Your Wedding
What was the most important decision you made about your wedding?
To break free of expectation - it is something that we see all of the time when it comes to weddings so we opted to have a surprise wedding. We surprised our families at dinner, threw a surprise engagement party (and pretended my BIL was throwing the party), and then surprised everyone when we walked into the party. It was memorable not just for us but for all our guests, it was so nice to plan a wedding without all the opinions, even if those opinions have the best intention at heart.
How did you choose your wedding vendors?
I was lucky enough to work with many of our vendors for years before the wedding so we had our must-have vendors and some of them we are friends with, they have even seen our son grow up! We were very familiar with their values and knew how they operated so it was an easy decision for us. We also opted to work with vendors that were as close as possible to our venue to help cutdown on our carbon footprint. Most of our items were sourced within 20 kms of our venue/home with the exception of our invitations and wedding outfits.
What, if anything, would you change about your wedding?
I would have tried to keep sustainability more of a focus and asked more questions about where the ingredients for the food we served was being sourced from. At the time the thought never even crossed my mind. I also would have hired security as people were looking for a wake that was at an address close by and walking into our wedding being adamant that they were in the correct location. Yikes!
What advice could you offer to engaged couples planning their wedding - as both a wedding professional and a married human?
1. Take your time to be engaged and enjoy the moment before diving into planning.
2. Get clear on your top 3 priorities (each) and then come together to see where you can compromise. This will help form your budget and the vision for the day
3. Research the going rate for the categories in your budget before settling on a number
4. Take some time with just your partner at some point during the day to let it all soak in
5. Keep the communication open, incorporate your planning into date nights when ever possible
Have something else to share? A funny story? Something crazy that happened?
So our photo/video team was pretending to have dinner at the restaurant where we surprised our families and when all their cameras came out my mom says " are these people with you?" I still can't stop laughing about this, but maybe it's only funny for me.
Did you participate in any family, cultural, or religious traditions into your wedding?
We incorporated both our cultures into the day but not many: - I had henna done with friends a couple nights before, nothing formal just a casual get together - we had incorporated mithai (Indian sweets) into the day + traditional with a modern twists treats for Rob's British background. Our cake was actually decorated with a henna design and was London Fog on the inside - we decorated with tropical flowers to incorporate some of the flowers that would have been part of an Indian wedding - the food that was served was a combination of asian fusion and the food that we enjoyed on our travels to Italy and Greece
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This episode is brought to you by:
Photos from the Harty, internationally acclaimed wedding photography
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