Weekender #243

👔 Father’s Day gift guide: practical, memorable, and dad-approved.

🤝 These team-building ideas boost morale without anyone feeling forced into it.

🛏️ The Scandinavian sleep method ends the blanket tug-of-war for good.

🎯 Writing down your goals makes you 42% more successful.

Whether you’re planning a big wedding, a small wedding, something local, or something overseas, the process can get overwhelming fast. So we wanted to give you a mix of real advice, personal lessons, and practical tips from our own wedding planning experiences.

Kristel’s take: I had a small, intimate wedding overseas, and one of the best decisions I made was getting clear early on about how I wanted the day to feel, rather than how it would look on camera or who it would impress. Warm. Meaningful. Joyful. Relaxed. Personal. Once I had that clarity, so many decisions became easier because I had a filter.

If you are planning a smaller wedding, let me reassure you: intimate does not mean less special. In many ways, it can feel even more meaningful. One of my favorite parts was being able to genuinely spend time with the people who were there instead of feeling like I was rushing from conversation to conversation or performing my way through the day.

A huge stress saver is knowing what you like before you start making decisions, especially for dresses, flowers, and décor. A Pinterest board or mood board helps tremendously because it gives you visual clarity and helps vendors understand your taste. But stay flexible. The dress you swore was “the one” online may not be the one that makes you feel amazing in person. Flowers may be out of season. A venue may shift your vision entirely. Inspiration is helpful. Rigidity is stressful.

Delegate more than you think you need to. Even if you are highly organized, you should not be the point person for every vendor question, family update, or timeline issue on your wedding day. Assign trusted people specific roles so you are not managing logistics while trying to be present.

Also, think about guest comfort. This sounds simple, but it matters so much. Are there food allergies or dietary restrictions to consider? Will guests actually enjoy the music, or is the playlist too niche? Is the timeline so packed that no one gets to breathe? Weddings people remember fondly usually feel welcoming, not overproduced.

Most importantly, let go of perfection. Something may shift. A detail may go sideways. It truly does not matter as much as you think. What people remember is the feeling, the love, the laughter, the food, the music, and the moments. Focus on creating that.

Joanna’s take: I got engaged in February 2020, married legally that October, and had our actual wedding in October 2021. I was also maid of honor for my best friend and ran weddings at Severance Hall in Cleveland for work, so I’ve seen the planning spreadsheet from just about every seat. My wedding still goes down as one of the best days of my life, and the parts that made it that way were rarely the expensive ones.

A few things I’d tell any bride: Set a real budget with your partner first; weddings can get expensive fast, but you can shave down costs by choosing your own vendors and bringing your own alcohol if your venue allows it (Costco runs are undefeated). Lock your venue before anything else, because it sets your date, your vibe, and even your dress. And when you go dress shopping, have a friend take video instead of photos; you learn so much more about how a dress actually moves on you.

The weddings I remember most are the ones where the couple’s personality is all over the day. My husband loves magic, so I hired a magician for cocktail hour and people still bring it up. Build a photo shot list ahead of time so the day doesn’t disappear into pictures, and hand the logistics to someone you trust. Your goal is to actually be present at your own wedding, and I can proudly say I was at mine (I didn’t even have my phone on me the entire time).

I got lucky that neither my parents nor my in-laws tried to insert themselves in the planning, but I’ve watched friends spiral over a relative’s opinions. What calmed them every time was a simple reminder: this is your wedding. I know family dynamics are different for everyone and easier said than done, but don’t let anyone bulldoze you on your day. It’s about you, your partner, and everything that got you both to the altar.

Plan it to feel like you, then let the rest go.

P.S. Want more wedding planning tips? My original wedding planning guide has quick tips: a budget breakdown, a venue walkthrough checklist, how to estimate your guest count, even how much alcohol to actually buy.

You already know AI can save you time. The problem is getting it to actually do that.

Most people are stuck in the same loop: vague outputs, frustrating back-and-forth, and results that need more fixing than if you’d just done it yourself. Learning a few high-impact shifts in how you prompt changes everything.

Miss Excel’s free 1-hour session has helped 400,000+ professionals cut the guesswork and get real results from AI, fast.

Here’s what you’ll walk away with:

• A hallucination detector so bad AI output stops slipping through

• Simple prompt frameworks that get you cleaner, more accurate results from the jump

• Practical techniques to cut the back-and-forth and get what you actually asked for

One hour, and you’ll finally feel like AI is working for you instead of the other way around.

👉 Grab your free spot here.

📖 Read: What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall.

As kids, Naomi and her two best friends helped put a serial killer away after Naomi survived his attack. Twenty years later, the testimony they gave starts unraveling, and someone wants the truth to stay buried.

📺 Watch: The Bear on Hulu.

Intense, funny, stressful, and weirdly motivating, it’s a show about food, family, and the insanity of the restaurant grind. The sharp dialogue and relentless pace somehow make you want to work harder by the time the credits roll.

🎧 Listen: Runway by Lady Gaga & Doechii.

A swaggy, ballroom-tinged house-pop track off the Devil Wears Prada 2 soundtrack, built for the kind of morning when every step should feel like an entrance. Self-affirmation has rarely sounded this fun.

You know something is off. Energy is lower, sleep is weirder, workouts hit differently, and the bloodwork keeps coming back “normal.” Most labs weren’t built to catch midlife shifts, so the patterns get missed and the symptoms get explained away.

A clinician at Midi reviews your hormones, cholesterol, thyroid, and inflammation markers, then builds a plan mapped to your biology. Insurance covers it in every state.

Book your virtual visit today and find out what your labs have been missing

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R.C. is a service dog. He is a caring, loving member of the family. R.C. was awarded to his owner (a veteran) in honor of a fallen soldier (Ryan C. Knauss) in Afghanistan in 2021. Although he is a service dog for PTSD/Depression, he is there to help with a loving paw to anyone in need. Those deep brown eyes alone are enough to turn around a bad day. Dogs are healing in their loyalty.

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