Author: Lauren Haugen

Now that I have crossed the threshold, got hitched, and all the other metaphors for married; I reflected on what I wish I knew more about during the wedding process- the registry. I heard from a lot of people that a wedding registry is the only time in our lives that we can get everything new, so we better ask for new items that we already have now. First off, this is not true because Santa can also bring new things…second, I fully believed that what Zach and I had functioned perfectly fine. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’ve heard my mom and other family members say that I needed a bunch of platters, gravy boats, and things I have never heard of for when we have people over. I’ve always replied back “you’re making it sound like I’m going to host a gathering every week, and even if I did, I don’t think I’ll be making gravy, and also, paper plates work just fine. Zach & I are very much minimalists, and like practicality.

As I was trying to piece together what we possibly would even need, I kept catching myself saying to Zach “this would be great for when we have people over!” I now understand why people have an obsession with HomeGoods and Target because they have a whole lot of things that would spruce up a house to make it more than a mismatched bag of my things marrying his things. There are pieces that make gatherings unique from others’ homes. So here is my list of everything I used to mock and say I didn’t need, but now I admittedly use, as well as the epiphanies I have learned along the way:

1. Adult Sheets, Towels, and Comforters

Adult is a key work here, let me explain. Yes, Zach and I have our own towels, sheets, and comforters from the pre married life; but the reason I started to see that these needed to be on the registry is because we both had different colors/quality/quantity. When I was sorting through our sheets and towels post single life, I picked up on the trend that there is such thing as “boy things” and “girl things,” aka Zach has blue towels, and a pair of sheets that probably had the color as “Poop Brown” on the label. The comforter was the classic navy blue with slight stains. My world was all pink or polka dots (no, that is not what I slept in before I married him.) I did not want to sleep on those old brown ones, and I am sure he didn’t want to slowly soak out the manhood in him. It pained my practical side to add gender neutral linens to the registry when all my mine had a lot of life left to live, but I am glad I took the step. I never understood why adult stuff was so dang expensive. Why get expensive sheets when you have the slight chance of sneezing resulting in dumping a cup of coffee on yourself while sitting in bed? (I never had coffee in bed again). I went against my practical mindset, I added the fancy sheets, towels, and a adulty comforter to the registry. The room absolutely transformed as well as my maturity level (I think). I had no idea that $200 sheets could feel like I am getting into bed only to feel like I transported to a 5 star hotel. Although, trying to get the fitted sheet became more difficult, unfortunately. I also didn’t know that adult towels were softer, & larger, since I have been using childhood sets (as a 5 ft. human, they have always been effective.) Don’t get me wrong, everything I owned pre-marriage life did its job (and I still use them from time to time so they don’t feel neglected,) but I now realize that our pre married linens didn’t look like we were united in marriage. I don’t know why matching towels is a symbol to me of being married, or having neutral sheet colors, but I now see the purpose of them because polka dots and my husband together just doesn’t look right. Maybe instead of doing a unity candle, we should have done a unity “sacrificial hand over our old linens ceremony.” Bottom line, your sheets and towels from the single life have served their purpose and can now retire to the “extra stuff closet.”

2. A Cake Dome

The first thing I told my mom once I created a registry was “please don’t get me a cake dome, I don’t need it.” Growing up, I remember my mom’s staple gift she got for someone was either a punch bowl, or a cake dome. Since punch bowls have gone out of style for every generation and have been replaced by fancy drink dispensers, you know, the ones where you put cucumbers or mint leaves in them? The cake dome continues to live on. The reason I thought I didn’t need one is for several reasons. 1. Anyone who knows me, knows that I probably can’t make a cake, even a boxed one, because I can’t even make pre-made tollhouse refrigerated dough cookies..practice does not make perfect in this case, I assure you. 2. Despite my inability to bake, I also have never bought a cake in my life. 3. Cakes look just fine in the container they came in- there’s no need to move it from it’s box home to a remodeled HGTV cake dome home. Well guess what? When moving into the new house, I found my thoughts telling me that would be a great place for a cake dome. It scared me, I didn’t know who I was turning into. Now, I am not about to be an infomercial telling you a cake dome changed my life, but I will tell you that I learned a cake dome is more than just a dome for cake. It can hold many other species of desserts such as cupcakes, donuts, cookies, pastries and so much more! It could even hold non food items if that’s what you’re in to. They can stand alone as a great decor piece which mine is currently, ready to hold all the desserts I will have for hosting people….there, I said it; Mom, you are right again.

3. House Decor

Have you noticed that recently the trend is to buy baskets, throw pillows, fake plants, cute bowls, or stylish serving trays that sit on coffee tables or counters? I told myself I would never get those kind of things or ask for them. But now, they are on my registry, because it hit me that I can actually USE those! A basket is made to hold things! Fancy coasters can save your tables from drinks! A fake plant can make it look like you can take care of plants when really you can’t! A bowl can contain items! A serving tray can be used to put things on as I bring them to all the gatherings I will host! I don’t know if it is just me who thought these things just sat there and looked pretty. A throw pillow doesn’t need to just sit there, it can be used for a nap (hence why 4th of July throw pillows are on our man cave sectional!) There’s been a lot of controversy on the topic of throw pillows. Husbands everywhere argue that there is such thing as too many, when in reality, I catch Zach cuddling up with all of them while watching his soccer games. The different size pillows caters to all your nap needs. Do I have more throw pillows than I always told myself I would? Yes, I have 2, and the ROI on them has been positive. Bottom line, if you are someone who gets these type of things, just remember their real purpose in life.

4. Manly Tools and Lawn Things

I call it lawn and manly stuff because I honestly don’t know the name of half of it or know how to use it. When we bought our house, I forgot that grass grows, leaves fall off the trees, weeds grow in colonies, and we now have a whole yard of grass and trees and weeds that do all that. The worst part is we have no Mike Casey to take care of that or make the grass green & pristine to the point where you can tell which yard is his when looking at an aerial view on Google Earth. Grass either grows, or it doesn’t, and post winter it looked unloved and sad at the Haugen House. Our grass would probably feel self conscious when people are over. Since buying our house, there have been a lot of times when we realized we needed something, but just didn’t have it. I learned that there are these things that are called stud finders, and if you don’t have one, you run the risk of your drywall ripping off when hanging a picture of an alpaca. I have learned that an electric drill is a necessity because a hammer just can’t do it sometimes. I learned that a wrench is handy when putting patio furniture together (there is a reason I leave this to Zach). We now have fertilizer and the thing that spreads it (put that on your registry). We have a lawn mower (add that), heavy duty shovels for snow (add that, and for all y’all that don’t see snow much, you probably will still need one). You will also need a lot of tools that I don’t even know the names of. I hope someone in your marriage does. And I reckon that you add a leaf blower on there too as we yearned for a leaf blower this past fall. Picking out every leaf in the rock beds, or sweeping crab apples off the driveway is time I will never get back.

5. Quality Master Bedroom Furniture

I used to call a Savers TV dinner tray my nightstand. It worked really well for the one thing I put on it being my phone half the time. Before, I thought, eh, I don’t even need a nightstand. I also thought I didn’t need more drawers other than a dresser because I had a closet. Well folks, once again I was wrong, as I remembered I have a husband that also owns shirts that he hangs in half the closet, but that left no room for his pants. Husbands need to wear pants, too, which require drawers. Speaking of drawers, they own those, too, that wouldn’t look great being displayed for everyone to see if there were no space to put them. Because of these new discoveries, we invested in great furniture that matched the vibe of the room – polka dot free. Quality furniture is no joke. We should have paid someone to haul our 230 lb dresser up the weird juxtaposition of stairs. Shoutout to Zach and my sister in law’s brother for getting that up there. Carter, you probably aren’t reading this, but we still owe you that drink. Zach and I hoisted up a lingerie chest that has been used more than I ever thought (don’t let your mind go to the gutter, it is a home to all of my workout clothes). I have started to learn that it is ok to have more space than I need, just in case I have more clothes than I need. Space is a luxury sometimes. Lastly, we carried up two nightstands, in which mine now has two things on it! Investing in quality furniture is so important because it lasts a very long time, which means, it won’t be coming back down those stairs for a very long time, I can assure you, and I dread that day.

6. A Copious Amount of Decent Sponges and Dish Cloths

It may feel extra putting a $15 sponge on your registry, but it is worth it. When I was living alone in my apartment, I had exactly one sponge, and two dish cloths. That’s all I needed! I have sympathy for all stationary objects like they are my children and I took great care of them so I wouldn’t need new ones. My sponges got baths in the dishwasher, and my dish cloths got a rinse after every time they were on the job. But then, I moved in with a man. I moved in with a man that was already pretty clean, but one that does not feel the same way as I do about my dish cloth children. This really changed the game and my anxiety as the food we made started to stick to pans more than the frozen chicken nuggets that I “cooked,” and my Scrub Daddy started to look more like a Scrub Daddy that got back from war. I now have a plethora of sponges and dish cloths to clean all the dried cream cheese off knives, and dish cloths to clean remnants of dinner off the counter tops- or blot the ketchup out of Zach’s white shirts which seems to happen to every Haugen (my Casey genes must protect me from that trait). Trust me on this ladies, load up on these things- you go through them fast if they can’t keep up.

7. A Quality Blanket

When looking at every person’s registries to gather research on what I should put on mine, there was always a blanket. I thought to myself why do I need a blanket to match the color scheme of my house when the neon green and purple zebra with the giant word “gymnast” works just fine? And I also had my Gustavus gold and black tie blanket that I made in high school -fully in tact. But then, I remember one night sitting on the couch before bed and the “this is the time to get new things” quote popped into my head. I scrolled and saw all the pretty and pricey blankets in pictures…then I looked down at my Gustavus colored blanket next to my furniture and realized it was time. It would look a lot more adultish, and matched the color of the handy dandy trendy basket it could go in! I am now sitting under an ombre fluffy weaved blanket and have no regrets. As great as the memories and sentimental moments my gymnast zebra blanket held that I don’t even remember which gymnastics meet I got it at, and probably your tie blanket with soccer balls, flowers, or basketballs on it- go for that upgrade.

8. Hutches

I don’t even know if that is the correct term for this, I am not quite the expert on furniture as I just learned what a console is. You know those cabinet things that do or don’t have glass doors but aren’t in the kitchen? No, not a china hutch, but similar. It is great to have a place to store miscellaneous things such as extra placemats, cloth napkins, and all the platters for hosting gatherings. Some things just don’t belong in the kitchen cabinets. Remember how I mentioned the extra space in the dresser? Yeah, these are needed because the items that would go in these would not go in the extra dresser space. Imagine someone coming over and needing a paper plate and you respond with “hold on, they’re next to my underwear in the bedroom!” Extra storage for extra pitchers, pieces to display, paper products, and items you don’t use frequently is super helpful! Maybe it truly is a china hutch for all the china you have but probably will never use. Maybe it is a little hutch for the books, and board games that you don’t want sitting in your living room because it would ruin the “vibe.” In my hutch, I have all my leftover Lyme Disease treatment products just in case I get bitten by a tick a third time by a llama instead of an alpaca this time. I have red solo cups from the housewarming party in which I thought would be more like a college party. Turns out, people do mature after graduation. I store a giant pitcher handed down in my family to me (because they probably never used it. Although, it is perfect for cucumber water after my mother in law handed out 3 pack cucumbers like party favors since she severely over shot the amount of cucumbers high schoolers would eat at a grad party- I digress- the cucumber water was great, Holly! I have seasonal themed bowls for the house to use when everything turns to pumpkin shaped in the fall, and most importantly, I have a Kentucky Derby themed salsa and chip platter to match the Kentucky Derby decorative basket which is needed for all things Derby Day.

9. Portable Casserole Dish Holder

Due to my half Kentucky roots, I call it a casserole. Sorry to all my purebred Minnesotans. I grew up seeing time and time again my parents put their casseroles for Thanksgiving in a holder with handles. They were the only ones in my extended family to do that, so I thought it was a little extra because casserole/hot dish pans have handles! Maybe it was due to the fact that my mom’s sweet potato casserole was coveted and needed to be protected at all costs, but in my head I just thought it would be fine throwing some tin foil on it and off you go! Then, I got old enough that I saw my name in the family rotation to bring something. I wrapped my dish in some towels to keep it warm for the road trip to family Thanksgiving. I was so excited to debut my finally edible dish. The trunk slowly opened to reveal half of my casserole sloshed everywhere while my parent’s casserole was perfectly fine in its little casserole tote. This moment led me to put that thing as one of the first items on the registry to preserve my hard work I put in for next Thanksgiving. Bet you didn’t think of putting that one on there, ladies!

10. Patio Furniture

I didn’t even add patio furniture to our registry because I truly did not see it as a necessity starting out. Granted, nothing on a registry is a necessity, if that were the case I’d make my registry my grocery list. I digress- patio furniture was in tier 3 for things we needed. For some reason, I believed that furniture on a patio, which patios and decks are made to house furniture was stupid to ask for. Zach was so adamant about getting patio furniture, even before a grill. Grills and patio furniture went hand in hand in my mind since growing up that is really the only time we went on our deck. The moment my perspective changed was when we had a bonfire and my choice was to pop a squat on the ground, or use the mini tripod looking chair that Zach got somewhere. Zach was a gentleman and gave me the mini chair while he found comfort on the ground. The other time was when it would have been so nice to have dinner outside, but that would mean dinner on the handy dandy TV dinner trays, or shall I say former nightstand, but we were sadly lacking chairs. That would be embarrassing and not functional for hosting in the future. The outside of a house needs to be furnished just as much as the inside. At least get a few chairs to start- it makes a huge difference. Now that we got our outside furniture, we’ve experienced birthday cake sessions, home cooked freezer meals together, and enjoying watching the rabbit we named Peter (real original) in the backyard together. I really wish I caved to putting it on the registry, so now is your chance!

I am a month into being a wife, which does not at all transfer to being an expert married person. But being closer to just getting married and all the trends may give me a leg up until years from now where the trends are TV dinner trays for all tables in the house along with wine glasses being used for vases. I tried to think of something weird, that was hard. If you noticed, hosting & gatherings happened came up in every paragraph-and that is what marriage and life is about; spending it with others and preparing yourself to do so. Maybe this won’t apply in the future if cake domes are out of style, power washing your dishes makes sponges go extinct, or Tesla makes a self mowing lawn mower- but for now as someone who read all the other blogs that were super cliche and didn’t tell me about having a copious amount of dish cloths, I hope this helps a little bit. Congratulations to those who are getting married, or if you’re just really into reading my blogs, or registry blogs; thank you! I wish you good luck with putting on the fitted sheets for the rest of your life!

~Lauren

A lot of girls have been imagining their wedding day since they were little; what ring they wanted, their dream dress, the venue, and even down to what kind of cake they wanted so they could save the top of it in the freezer but never eat it again. Well I am here to tell you, that I myself, am in fact, not one of those girls. The time that most girls spent fawning over Pinterest wedding ideas, I was thinking about trying not to butcher my ankles at my gymnastics meet that afternoon, or getting my current crush to smile at me on campus as he walked through the Lund Center hallway while I was all sweaty on the elliptical (probably why I didn’t meet my future hubby in college if that was my tactic). So here I am in March 2022, sitting at the starting line of the marathon I was about to run entitled “Planning a Wedding,” and I really had no clue where to start since high school/college Lauren didn’t care to help me out at all… but then it hit me! Wedding planning is so similar to a project at work!

For those of you that don’t know, my day job is not sitting at Starbucks blogging the day away, but rather, a Senior Process Optimization Project Management Consultant at a company called Turnberry Solutions. In easier terms: I am put on projects at different fortune 500 clients to manage tasks, help change occur, coordinate change, maintain project statuses, find ways to make processes easier, and send memes in the team group chat when I think people could use the addition of a dancing elephant to their afternoon. As I started wedding planning, I kept waiting for the hair pulling stress, dreams of eloping, and fights about what dessert I’d be smashing into my husband’s face to wash over me….but the feeling never came (although I know I still am not done planning yet, I’ll check back with ya on that after it is all said and done). Treating wedding planning like I do my projects at work has made a world of difference, and I realized that the average bride probably isn’t using the tips and methodologies that I have been! It’s all about managing tasks, keeping track of projects, and reviewing backlog items. There are so many parallels between the process of wedding planning, psychology, organizational change management, and IT projects; so why not expose my nerdiness to the world to help prevent future brides and grooms from creating WW3 over whether or not to have wedding favors?

Make a Kanban Board

This has got to be my all time favorite resource, and the greatest thing? All you need is some tape and tacks – no this is not a torture device, if anything it is preventing you from torture. For all my type A list makers and visual people out there, this will be right up your alley. Kanban is a resource often used in the agile methodology space. Agile means managing several ongoing project tasks all at once versus the Waterfall methodology which is completing one task, and then moving on to the next, it is much slower, and just like the song, don’t go chasin’ waterfall methodologies if you want fast paced planning. While a checklist is still a way to keep you organized, it doesn’t show you where you are progress wise. It’s like if a stoplight had only red and green- you’d have absolutely no in between and that just leads to a fast crash and burn. A Kanban board is made by making three sections; to do, doing, done (yes, that is it, not all Project Management nerdy things are complex). From here, you create your backlog items aka all your outstanding tasks. There are online Kanban platforms such as Azure or Jira/Jira Align which I currently am using at my client to manage 2,000+ projects, but I personally like the old fashioned actual board that I can touch and physically move tasks around. Why? Because it is so much more satisfying to take a sticky note off my “done” part of the board, rip it into a million little pieces especially if it was a monster task, and throw it in the trash.

Identify and Prioritize Key Stakeholders

Stakeholders in the wedding world translates mostly to vendors and those involved in the wedding. In project management, just like a wedding, it is important to know what external parties need to be involved, what they are doing, and when to get them involved. The first order of business after getting engaged is to lock down where to get married, because if there is no venue, your other vendors probably won’t accept the answer of “we will be getting married in a building or a barn somewhere” when they ask where the wedding is. And if you can’t secure the other vendors early? Good luck my friend. Because of this anxiety of not finding any available vendors, you bet I booked my venue and officiant within the first week of being engaged. In a project, there needs to be a foundation in which the details can be built off of- the same goes for planning a wedding. It may seem obvious, but with all the vendors involved, it can be hard to know which ones need to be booked first due to the logical order of things, but the hardest part is finding vendors that are available! In project management, it is easy to set a deadline, and you may not think there are actual deadlines in wedding vendor planning, but I can assure you there are unsaid deadlines! I found out real quick which vendors get booked so far in advance that you might as well be committing to them as much as you are your future spouse. While all weddings are different depending on where it takes place, when, and what stakeholders are involved…my advice? Book vendors in order of the number of options you have. Didn’t land your first option photographer? That’s ok, there’s A TON of great photographers out there, so leave that towards the bottom of the list. Want your pastor to marry you? Don’t wait to book them last because you cannot clone your pastor if they are booked already (although mine is an identical twin…I guess that could work in a bind?) Using these agile practices will eliminate the need for a full wedding planner and save you money! (But a partial planner is a must if you have no clue what the heck you’re doing when it comes to small details like me).

Identify Your Budget and Scope

I know, I know, this is never the fun part. Life would be so much easier if we could spend endless amounts of cash on projects at work to get the latest and greatest new hardware to deploy to all employees. Same with weddings- so much stress would be released if we could just get ALL the customized cookies to accompany the custom ice sculpture that would be sitting next to the unicorn in the corner. But the biggest piece of advice here, just like any budget, is to create it first (have a rough idea going into booking the venue). Identify the bare necessities and the scope, then subtract those from the budget to see what you have left over on the “fluff stuff.” For example: wedding dress, suits, food, wedding bands, your grandma on the guest list, music, and venue are necessities. Wedding favors, neon last name signs, butter formed into little hearts, personalized M&Ms, your parents’ old neighbor’s babysitter, and horse drawn carriages are not a necessity. Scope in project management basically translates to a border that shall not be crossed. Just like in wedding planning, it can be super easy to justify just one little thing over budget. But then you do it again. And again. This happens in projects, too- it is called Scope Creep; allowing just one more task to be added to the next sprint. Never ever make your budget after all is said and done because you will then have to spend your time changing everything you already did to make your total wedding cost be less than four years of a college tuition. Whatever your wedding budget may be, follow the golden rule of “thou shall not change thy budget for anything, thou shall change anything to keep the budget.” The budget is more of a decision maker than you think, this also spills over to people. It really makes you dig deep and evaluate all your friendships! Not to put a cost on relationships, but when it comes to weddings, every penny counts especially as a newlywed couple trying to pay for a new house and a honeymoon and probably the new dog you just got together, too. Bottom line? Be ok with sacrificing some things, I promise you will make do and get over it the fact that you didn’t get the dream pair of shoes that no one would see under your dress anyways!

Build an Effective Team

In Project Management, your team makes or breaks a project. This goes for the skills they bring, but also if they are genuinely good people with personalities you like to be around! In a wedding, your team is your bridesmaids/groomsman, and the same stands true here, too. Your team is beside you through all the highs, lows, ages, stages, planning, project sprints, celebrations, and ideally your life long term. Just like a project is sustained by your team, your wedding will forever live on in your memory, so you better build a good team so those memories will be all positive. I have come to find that when it came to choosing team bride, it’s not as simple as I thought it would be since friendships changed so much post high school and college. Choosing a team in project management involves a lot of logic, but so does choosing your wedding team (along with some feelings, too). What if your childhood BFF moved to a different state and is in a very intense year of medical school? Probably not the best choice for either of you to task them with planning a bachelorette weekend when they’d be better off studying on how to cure cancer or Lyme Disease! Are the people you are considering all across the country? Who is actually going to be in your life years down the road? Does the person you have in mind from high school actually consider you as their friend still or is it a one way street now? Who can you trust to manage tasks and hit deadlines? Who knows that you will break out into dance when a certain song is played? There’s a reason that bridesmaids and groomsmen proposals are a thing now, and it’s because you are legit asking them if they are up for the job, not just a cute Instagram story and a way to ice your buddy. I’ve been so blessed in this season of life to have my gal pal beside me, both recent and long time friends, that I know will hold my dress when I have to pee!

Utilize People with Multiple Skills

From my own personal experience, those that have a wide array of skills are the most useful in projects- not just the ones with 10+ years of experience in one area only. When I am presented to a new client, I am portrayed as an IT Process Optimization Consultant…and while that is true, it also is limiting what else I can bring to the table for the client! What goes unseen is the fact that I have been a project coordinator, taught a chat bot the knowledge it would spit out to a whole company, have a personal blog and know WordPress pretty dang well, have been a HR generalist, serve as an IT portfolio delivery coordinator, lead a group of high school girls at church every Wednesday, have an unofficial degree in Lyme Disease and all things gut health because I read books on parasites and spirochetes for fun, or lead the Wellness and Disability employee resource group at my company….all stemming from a Psychology degree which in itself helps me so much in the workplace. A lot of people also have so many hidden talents and skills that go unsaid! All my skills have allowed me to bring new shortcuts to projects, and that is ultimately the goal in wedding planning too; find shortcuts. Find a venue with in house catering. Find a planner that also does florals. Is a friend a videographer? Perfect. Does one person do hair AND makeup? Amazing, less vendors to coordinate! While there is nothing wrong with using people that specialize in one thing, why not make it easier on yourself and use someone with multiple talents? But I will say…while my brother is ordained, I will not be using that shortcut, sorry bro.

Make a Milestone Status Timeline

Repeat after me: “I will make a timeline for tasks/milestones.” If you don’t, that is where the stress will hit you like a ton of bricks when you realize that your dress alterations should have been started 8 months out rather than 3. I currently have a checklist for each month leading up to the wedding with what tasks need to be done 10 months out, 5 months out, 1 week out etc…These checklists are easy to find on Pinterest- but they can still be super overwhelming because checklists are very black and white and don’t tell you where you are at or how you are doing. In project management, we add some color to those tasks- and I mean this literally- because it makes things a lot easier to manage visually. Red= task is past deadline. Yellow= task is at risk of passing deadline. Green= task is on track to hit deadline. Doing it this way makes it easy to see what you need to spend your time on in order to get you back on track again.

Identify Waste

In the project management world, this means identifying things that can be eliminated and everything still runs smoothly, or even more effectively, in the sake of time and cost. Think of it like Jenga- what parts of your wedding can be taken out and the wedding will be more efficient or still function smoothly? Some ideas here could be eliminating giving everyone favors (the favors that end up in the trash half the time- actual waste in this case). Have the bridesmaids do their own makeup, most are really good at it and don’t need the professional help anyways. Rule out the throwing of seed or rice or whatever other food item of your choice you’re going to run through in a tunnel of loved ones at the send off that someone else will spend more time cleaning up than it took for you to run through. Do you really need flowers for the ceremony AND the reception? How about take the flowers from the ceremony and use them at the reception too! Is offering the highest tier of alcohol really necessary or will people be ok with some free Coors since after a few they won’t taste the difference? Do you need 2,527 pictures of just the rings on your hands that don’t ever get used? Save time by taking more shots with your family members. Can your personal attendant or ushers go pick up a sack of bagels for breakfast rather than the fancy catered breakfast at the venue? And finally, as Marie Condo would say, will that overly expensive cake topper bring you joy a few years down the road? You get the idea; some things just aren’t worth it, and find out what those things are to YOU- not your mom, not your mother in law, not your maid of honor, not your groomsman, not your dog, or anyone else.

Identify the Most Effective Communication Channel for You and Others

This is for all y’all that have 5 email accounts, 3 computers, 37 group chats, and 100+ documents on your desktop. For my project team, we all know that Microsoft Teams chat or texting each other is the best way to get ahold of each other, not email chains. The same goes for your wedding vendors and wedding party. First, make sure you are using the same email address to contact your vendors, (you may even want to create a brand new email address just for wedding stuff). I can’t imagine the nightmare of trying to remember which email account emailed who. Some vendors are more responsive to texts, so do that if they prefer! Is your wedding party all iPhone users? Make that group message early! But if there is that one Android person….Facebook messenger or GroupMe is your friend, heck even Snapchat group messaging will work if you’ve got a some folks that are too young for Facebook now. Second, make a “Wedding” folder in your email inbox and make sure that any and all emails go into that folder so you can go back and easily find the email from your makeup artist (especially the men, jk..unless you’re into that). Wedding stuff is planned so far in advance, and often times vendors tell you to not contact them again to set up tastings, trials, fittings etc. until a few months before your day. I already have had to go back to the original email my band sent me back in April to add songs to the “absoutely do not play list.” Sorry folks, no YMCA on my day.

Documentation is Everything

I have no big insightful reason to do this, but just like HR documents must be kept several years before shredding; just do that with all your confirmations, documents signed, receipts, etc. You never know when you’re going to need to know how much it costs you to be short, aka, what the cost is to hem a dress or suit because being short costs a lot more than you’d think.

Identify Customers

In project management, clients and customers are who we are trying to please with our product or services. In wedding world, this is all your guests! Luckily, the wedding guest list should be a lot less crabby than work world customers. That being said, who you want there is a lot harder to identify than you’d think, so ask yourself these things to narrow it down. Who do you actually want to receive your end product and who will see the value in it (your celebration and the importance of the day?) Who do you actually want there to build you up? Who still puts in the time for you and will for your day? Identify guests that will be there for you in the future, or have made a lasting impact on you in the past. Wedding planning has opened my eyes so much to who actually values our relationship still, who still puts in effort, and who has made such an impact on me in the past that I want them there. Not everyone can say their Kindergarten teacher is coming to their wedding!

Well folks, there’s a little bit of insight into how my mind and project management world works. You may use some of it, none of it, or all of it, but I hope that this was at least somewhat relatable, and entertaining…as entertaining as kanban boards and methodologies can be right? Wedding planning is not as scary as it looks, it all just takes the right way to prepare and plan. You don’t need to be an expert, and so far it has worked for me which has created room for the season of engagement to be a season of enjoyment with the man I love so much! Remember the reason for a wedding- some can get so caught up in the process of planning that they forget that they even have a fiance!

Happy Tuesday, may your wedding planning, or being in the life of someone planning a wedding, be a little less dreadful!

~Lauren

In case you didn’t know by all the blow up Santas everywhere, it’s Christmas. You’d think that the season of joy and peace would actually bring people joy and peace, but it is quite the opposite for a lot of people! Between having to figure out travel plans, coordinating who is going to bring what to Christmas dinner, figuring out how to wrap a present so it doesn’t look like a Christopher Casey wrap job (it is bad, folks), and getting the string lights to work on the tree that seem to have a strand out every single year….there’s the ginormous task of getting gifts for everyone! I actually enjoy this part and have been told I’m a “good gift giver” (I have no clue what the definition of that is, but I embrace the title), so I thought I’d share my go-to practical gifts for when I ask someone what they want for Christmas and the response is “nothing.” My goal when I give gifts is that it will actually get used, is something unique, or even better, is something unique that will get used. Hopefully this can help you out a bit so you don’t end up like my dad when he got my mom clothes in a size XL for their first Christmas as a married couple (to all the guys out there, I advise against getting your lady clothes that are 4-5 sizes too big, it sends a bad message).

1. Shower Steamers

This is the perfect gift for all the people that shower in your life, which hopefully is everyone. You wouldn’t think that you’d have the need to spice up your shower time at all since it is just one of those tasks you do without even thinking about it, but showers can be turned into more than just an everyday act without the occasional excitement of getting shampoo in your eye. I got these for a gift one time and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would! I have never been much of a bath bomb person, but shower steamers changed the game for me. I love to use these after dumpster fire work days, or when I am so stressed out that I can’t seem to snap out of a bad mood. Adding a little excitement to something so mundane can be a good pick me up, and change in routine. The pack that I like comes with six different scents; each one having a purpose such as relaxation-peonies & pear, immune system support-orange, stress relief- Eucalyptus & mint etc. Do they actually do what they say they do? Maybe, probably not, it is most likely the Placebo Effect which is 100% effective for me in this case and I am ok with that. While they may seem a little girly, I can assure you the men in your life would appreciate these too even though they won’t dare show it upon opening them. A little added bonus is once you take a fizzie out of the container, a hidden message is revealed, because nothing makes you feel better after a terrible day like a piece of cardboard telling you that you are beautiful. Get them here !

2. Stasher Bags + Homemade Treat

I don’t know if this is a widespread phenomenon, but whenever I give something environmentally friendly to someone, they seem to love it. Additionally, whenever I give something I made to someone, they seem to love it. So why not put them both together? I present to you, Stasher bag + a homemade treat! If I were to take away the environmentally friendly and homemade part, this would equate to a Ziploc bag filled with store bought Chips Ahoy (maybe I should try that this year as an experiment and see the reaction). I personally have every size Stasher bag and I use them so much! They can be put in the freezer, microwave, fridge, are dishwasher friendly, and have saved me so much money from not buying Ziplocs that I use once and throw away because there’s a single crumb in it. Just like I am sure you know at least one person that showers in your life that might like the shower steamers, I bet you know at least one person that uses Ziploc bags, too. While I could just gift someone a lovely silicone bag, I like to make it a little more exciting by filling it with a homemade treat, and my go to are these “buttons” that people have come to know are my go-to because I can manage not burning them. Practical, easy, and probably won’t sit in their closet for years on end because baked goods don’t belong in there. Get them here !

3. Corn Bags

A bag of corn is the perfect gift for everyone. Yup, that’s right. My mom got me and my brother a therapy corn bag from a local Keep in Touch Massage years ago, and I now have 5 in total, in multiple sizes. Being a gymnast growing up, these were perfect for my sore muscles, but also my injuries since they can be thrown in the freezer and can double as an ice pack. Since then, I probably use them for everything but my injuries. Zach will tell you that I carry my corn bags with me all over the place since I am chronically cold. I love to cuddle up with mine while watching movies, or throw them in bed with me during the winter when blankets just aren’t doing it for me. I don’t know what your mind is imagining right now as to what they look like, hopefully not the freezer corn bags at the grocery store, but these come in all different fabrics, and designs! There are designs for all the dog lovers, sports lovers, beer lovers, and there’s even one for the Packer lovers. Find them at Keep in Touch Massage, or the actual Warm Hugs website here.

4. Useful Things with Your Face on it

As funny as it would be to just not explain what I mean by this one, I will provide an explanation, as it is one of my favorite things to give people. While this may not be the right gift to give for you (it takes the same cheesy sense of humor as me), it is still a viable option! Years ago, my mom gave me socks with my dog’s face on it and I absolutely love them! The socks even made an appearance in the pictures of me getting engaged, Gracie will forever be a part of that moment now. I decided to take it to the next level and gave my dad socks with MY face on them. Soon, I decided that my brother, my mom, and everyone I know needed a pair of Lauren face socks. It has now become a bit of a running joke in the family, and they never know what item with my face on it that they will get next. There are so many things that are used on the daily that now have the capability to be branded with your beautiful face on it; oven mitts, t-shirts, aprons, underwear, pjs, blankets, cups, etc. This is a perfect gift for the person with a sense of humor in your life, but also it could be perfect for your grandma that lives states away and could use a more exciting way to see you than the picture on their fridge that is your Christmas card from 3 years ago. Something like this is perfect for any occasion, and since I am 97% sure none of Zach’s groomsmen actually read my blogs, they will in fact all be wearing Lauren face socks on our wedding day. Start with face socks from my favorite site here !

5. An Infrequent Experience

I did Google to see if infrequent is a word – it is. This gift is perfect for those on a bit of a budget at the moment, as this can be redeemed anytime. This one may also seem a bit cheesy and bring you back to your childhood in more ways than one, but can mean more to someone than you know. Here’s the instructions: get a piece of paper and a pen (or a crayon if you want to embrace the flashback to childhood part), then write down something that you want to do with that person sometime that you haven’t done for a while. That’s it. Growing up, something that I always enjoyed doing and thought was so special is when my mom would take me to meet up with my dad during the work day and we’d have lunch as a family. It is something so simple, but was so rare and that’s the reason why I remember going to Champps and ordering mozzarella sticks 18 years ago. Because of this memory, I gave my mom on her birthday a “coupon” to have lunch with me sometime during the work week. I initially thought it was a bit stupid and not thoughtful to wrap up a piece of paper to gift to her, but I recently went to my parents house and the “Free Lunch with Lauren coupon” was hanging up front and center on the fridge. As we get older, everyday things that we used to do don’t happen as frequently anymore, and getting to experience those things again mean a lot more to someone than you know. But please, for me, don’t do the “free hug” thing like I definitely did when I was ten and gave to my brother.

6. Perfume or Cologne

These are two things that people use probably on the daily, and are socially acceptable and not disappointing to give as a gift unlike other things that people use on the daily to make them smell good such as deodorant, or a bar of soap. Perfume and cologne are on the VIP list while toothpaste and bandaids just didn’t make the cut. There are a few things that I love to get as gifts, but I just don’t buy for myself. My perfume is one of these things (and socks with my dog’s face on them), but perfume/cologne probably aren’t something that comes to someone’s mind when you ask them what they need/want. It is more often than not the neglected item that sits in the corner of your bathroom vanity, fully underrated. I know these can be pricey depending on if you’re going with something like Zach’s Versace cologne, or my Juicy Couture perfume, and that’s why the travel size tubes are perfect gifts to give, too! I would not dare travel with a ginormous bottle of perfume, but I feel naked without my scent on vacations. Does the person you’re buying for not wear any scent? Well this is your opportunity to pick out the scent you like for them and want to smell every time you get within a social distancing distance. It is also a great opportunity to get your teenage son off of the Axe body spray poison,or your daughter off the Victoria’s Secret PINK spray that makes your eyes water.

7. Something That YOU Like and Use Often

This is where you need to stop and reflect about how you live out your life in the most not – deep way possible. I do this often when trying to think about what to get people. What items do I use literally everyday and could not live without now? (Please veto ranch dressing or your favorite condiment). What are favorite outfit staples? Favorite brands? Home decor piece? What gadgets have I discovered that have changed my life such as the Scrub Daddy? If you don’t have a Scrub Daddy, go get one, also a great gift idea to pair with something more fun. If you don’t know what a Scrub Daddy is, this probably just got really weird sounding-there’s no scrubbing of your dad involved…although I guess you could…I digress. Some people don’t know what they need in their life until they get it! There was one year that I was having the hardest time thinking about what to get my mom, and then I looked down at my outfit which I happened to be wearing one of my favorite jackets that day. I thought hey, I think I look pretty hip, might as well give this a go and upgrade Mom’s wardrobe, too. It paid off! The same pattern went for Popsockets, certain cookbooks, my Stasher bag idea, and even went as far as my future mother in law and me bonding over shopping for undies together because I recommended my favorite brand. To all y’all looking to get closer to your in laws, go shopping for your delicates together.

8. Multi Purpose Gift Cards

I don’t know why people are so against getting gift cards or think they are boring. I personally love getting gift cards, especially when I don’t want to use my own money at Target to get toilet paper or laundry detergent! Again, just like giving someone Lubriderm lotion is weird, but giving someone Bath & Body Works lotion is perfectly ok, I have come to find that multi purpose gift cards have a little more ~spice~ and satisfy people’s expectations when it comes to gift cards instead of giving someone your average Target gift card. Maybe your loved one isn’t into getting a gift card to the staple Starbucks, but they may be into a gift card that allows them to use it at multiple places, or more of a niche place. Recently, I was gifted a card the could be used at popular Minneapolis restaurants/cafes owned by the same parent group, and it was great! Other honorable mentions have been the TJ Maxx/HomeGoods/Marshalls/Sierra combo giftcards, or the Noodles & Co/Panera/Chipotle combo! Don’t underestimate the power of simple choices and simple gifting.

9. Fashionable Comfy Clothes

When I think of this, I picture my dad in his baggy gray sweatpants and his sweatshirt from my rec sports days paired with snow boots ready to go snow blow the driveway. Comfy clothes are one of those things that have never thought to be trendy until now, and I know this for a fact because I recently was out shopping and found a $90 pair of gray sweats that could have easily be found for $10 at Walmart. But still, people don’t really ever upgrade their comfy clothes to the point where people are looking at you in public because you’re wearing a cute jogger set, rather than looking at you trying to determine if you’ve showered in the past week. I for one, basically live in my Alo jogger sets and they are one of the best investments I have ever made. Joggers are pretty trendy for both guys and girls in this day and age, and all ages probably will enjoy them. If you know someone that still wears the same graphic/logo sweatshirt from college or high school, or the black elastic waistband sweats with their last time on their thigh, it’s time to upgrade, and they will appreciate you for it.

10. Something They Need but Wont Ask For

As I have been making my wedding registry, so many people have told me “if you need something upgraded, now is the time to do it because you won’t ever get to again.” But that is so wrong! I could easily ask for new pans for Christmas, a new set of towels, or some replacement silverware. This is where a little observation comes in on your part of the things that your loved one or friend could use an upgrade on, but for some reason has an unwritten rule of that a Christmas list can’t look like a registry or super mundane thing. People get so used to their everyday items, that it takes a fresh set of eyes to see that it’s time to get a new one, or that there is a problem. A great example of this is Zach’s socks. He wears those things to death to the point where there are some pairs where the heels do not exist- I wouldn’t even define it as a sock anymore. I’ll tell him that he needs new socks, but he refuses and says they work just fine. No, they don’t! Maybe you’re in your friends bathroom and see their earrings all over the vanity, how about an earring book like I have gotten a few people (find it here ). Is your mom’s baking sheet the lovely rust brown color rather than silver? Time to replace that thing. Thoughtful gift giving actually does take some thought sometimes, you just gotta remember to think about doing it!

Well my friends, that is all the prime wisdom I have for you this time. Gift giving can be so hard sometimes (unless you’re in the Casey family and you all make wish lists with the hyperlinks to the exact item wanted and then create a group email chain to coordinate what has already been bought off the list). But realizing that most families simply don’t have the motive to do that, I hope at least one of these things rings a bell for you, or that you learned what a Scrub Daddy is. Happy Holidays to everyone near and far! I wish you a season of joy, togetherness, and less requests of asking for the gift receipt!

~Lauren