05/18/2026
Over the past few weeks, I learned more about customer service from my own wedding experience than I ever expected.
As a financial advisor with Edward Jones, I spend a lot of time talking with clients about trust, communication, and planning ahead. Ironically, going through our wedding planning process showed me exactly how damaging it can be when those things are missing.
Leading up to the wedding:
* Emails often went unanswered unless we followed up 3–4 times.
* Phone calls regularly went to voicemail with no response.
* Meetings required us to repeatedly revisit details we had already covered months, and sometimes days earlier.
* We were never informed there would be five other weddings happening at the same time as ours.
* Most importantly, we were not told that the bathrooms closest to our reception space were under construction, despite them apparently being that way well before the event.
That last point mattered deeply to my family. My father is handicapped, and many of our relatives are older. Instead of having accessible restrooms nearby, some guests had to walk significant distances or return to their hotel rooms simply to use the bathroom.
The wedding itself was still beautiful, and we’re incredibly grateful to everyone who celebrated with us. But the experience reinforced something important:
People rarely remember the PowerPoint presentation, the sales pitch, or the polished marketing materials. They remember how supported they felt when something mattered to them personally.
As a high-net-worth advisor, this experience strengthened several commitments I already try to bring into my practice every day:
* Respond promptly and proactively.
* Keep detailed notes so clients never have to repeat themselves.
* Communicate issues early, not after they become problems.
* Never assume something “small” won’t matter to the client.
* Understand that behind every financial decision is a real family, real emotions, and real life circumstances.
Clients trust us with some of the most important moments in their lives: retirement, business sales, inheritances, caring for aging parents, preparing the next generation, and navigating uncertainty.
Service is not just about being available when things are easy. It’s about being organized, communicative, and dependable before problems arise.
Sometimes the best professional lessons come from personal experiences. This was certainly one of them.
