I learned a lot through the process of planning my wedding, like how to walk the line between being a detail-orientated planner and a detail-obsessed bride. But between negotiating contracts and placing orders, sometimes it felt more like a business experience than a personal one. Mass mailings (invitations), website design and writing (wedsite), brand identity (theme/color scheme), and obviously event planning. It even involved writing for the press and video editing when we were selected to be featured in the New York Times (announcement and video here). It all reminded me a lot of the branding process at work.
In branding an organization or a wedding, you want to make sure that there is a cohesive feel to all of the materials without getting matchy-matchy. Open and frequent (but not too frequent) communication with your constituents/guests as well as your partners/vendors is key. Most importantly, you need to have a strong base of knowing who you are as an organization or as a couple to be able to come up with any of this. Our wedding stayed true to who we are: environmentally-friendly, vegan, personal, and just a little silly. I wouldn’t necessarily say we are casually elegant, though that is the feel we were going for.
Alignment. The biggest takeaway from my MBA training is to establish and maintain alignment. If a company can’t, at all levels tell you in a single sentence what they are trying to accomplish, then they’ve got a huge problem. Usually this shows up in a struggling marketing message, quality issues, and even a lack of employee satisfaction (if the larger corporate values aren’t understood/communicated, how can they tell if their own values are aligned).
This is also true (interestingly enough) for weddings. If you’ve got a clear value proposition, a clear understanding of your values, you can bring in the right vendors and attitude to your wedding. Being fortunate enough to be a guest of the Prager wedding, I can say they did an awesome job with their value proposition which resulted in a fantastically enjoyable wedding!