Product Management

How Being a Product Manager Helped Me Plan My Wedding

How my professional and personal life grew together

About three and a half years ago, I was starting a new job as a Senior Product Manager. It was the start of 2014 and it was my first big opportunity to own a product. I had relatively little experience as a product manager, so I had my work cut out for me. Around the same time, I met my future wife. Our second date was the day before my first day on the job. I had no idea how my professional and personal life were about to develop over the next few years.

During the formative months in my job and relationship, I went through an unprecedented period of growth. I matured. I learned a lot. I worked extremely hard. As I developed my professional skills, I learned how to be especially organized. My attention to detail as a product manager led me to begin planning my personal life. Sometime near the end of that first year on the job and with my wife, I realized that she was the one. That’s when the planning truly began.

Fast forward to the end of 2015, I had a timeline in place. I had been saving for the ring for almost a year, and I was ready. With my product manager nous spilling into my personal life, I started to employ my market analysis skills. I did a lot of research and interviews to find out the cost of engagement rings and the cost of the kind of wedding we’d want. I did some financial projections to figure out how long we’d need to be saving during our engagement. And I worked backwards from our target “launch” date of a summertime wedding to make sure my timing was correct.

As my career continued to grow, I applied more and more of the skills I had to plan towards my wedding. After months of research, I was armed with the knowledge and conviction to place a big bet on the future. I walked into Tiffany’s on Fifth Avenue and invested in the single most important (and expensive) thing I had ever purchased. Without being able to validate my hypothesis that my wife would love the ring, I tested my assumption with several female friends. From there, I was prepared for a big meeting with “my boss” that would determine if the “project plan” was a go or no-go. I feel extremely fortunate that on March 12, 2016, she said “yes.”

As any product manager knows, once the research is done and a project is approved, the real work begins. It was no different for planning our wedding. In addition to needing to start saving money and planning our finances, we needed to reserve resources well in advance and coordinate multiple teams for our common goal. We started with our vision. We validated some assumptions. We revised parts of the plan that wouldn’t work. And we successfully navigated the wildcards that inevitably showed up (i.e. “the in-laws”). I leveraged all of my product management skills to be flexible, diligent, and passionate about the wedding planning.

Using a series of Excel sheets, Gantt charts, financial projections, and mock-ups, I coordinated the technical aspects of wedding planning. This enabled my wife to focus on the parts of the wedding that were more intangible and aesthetic. Any good product manager will tell you that there are a number of people they rely on (such as designers, technical liaisons, and business sponsors), and throughout this process and in my life, that person for me will always be my wife. Our teamwork was great, but there were of course moments when our points of view differed and we were forced to find compromises with each other.

As the big day approached, we were ahead of schedule. This worked well, since there were a myriad of last-minute unknowns that had to be addressed. Much like a key product release, the pressure mounts as the deadline approaches. Therefore, being conservative with estimates and planning ahead made our lives so much easier. We also had flexibility in our budget, which enabled us to make some last-minute decisions that really enhanced the quality of our project. My day job was paying off on nights and weekends, when I had the time and awareness to keep our wedding planning on schedule.

Sometimes finding meaning in the things you do is difficult. Other times, it’s easy. Regardless of what or why you’re passionate about something, effort will always show up in your work. I feel fortunate and happy that I have had the chance to work on many products that I have been passionate about. But the biggest passion in my life is the reason I worked even harder on my wedding. On July 20, 2017, three and a half years to the day we started dating, my passion was rewarded with the most unbelievable party with the love of my life. Not everything went according to our plans that day, but our wedding was still the most spectacular thing I have ever had a hand in creating. When I look back on our wedding, I think that I’ll enjoy the memories of our hard work just as much as the day itself.

Post Script: Whether you’re a product manager or engaged to be married, here are a few tips I learned along both of my journeys that I’ll share with you:

• Always listen to your “boss.” They may not always be right, but they are the “boss.”
• Plan ahead. Insert whatever your favorite cliche is about taking things one step at a time here. If you want to accomplish something great, start planning for it now.
• Don’t limit your dreams. Your imagination is the only limitation to how amazing your product (or wedding) will be.
• Give yourself some cushion. If you are planning to work right until the deadline, you’re probably going to miss things.
• Don’t forget about the in-laws. When you’re building something big, you aren’t the only one invested in it. Make sure you’re keeping everyone informed and included in your decisions.

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