Be the calm in everyone else’s chaos. Then cry in your car—like a professional. Right? Just kidding. In this episode, I sit down with Julian Leaver, luxury wedding planner and etiquette expert, to talk about what it really takes to stay grounded in a high-pressure, high-image industry. With decades of experience and a client list that spans from Aspen to Paris, Julian is known for delivering elegance with empathy while setting firm boundaries in a world that resists them.
We go deep into sobriety, burnout, boundaries, and why the wedding industry could use a collective breath and a bit more grace. Also, you’ll hear about the wedding trend Julian wants to kill (amenity bags beware), why Murphy Brown would make a great assistant, and what it means to stop comparing and start competing with yourself.
Be the Calm in Everyone Else’s Chaos
When your job is to create once-in-a-lifetime events, there’s no room for error and even less room for rest. Luxury wedding planning isn’t just about precision and polish. It’s about holding emotional space for clients, managing microscopic details, and doing it all with a smile. But what happens when the person holding everything together starts to unravel?
From Burnout to Breakthrough: The Moment Everything Changed
Julian built his business in 2016, but just one month in, he hit a wall. “I always say starting this job was not a sober decision,” he admitted. In an industry where champagne flows like water and 18-hour days are standard, Julian realized that the habits he’d picked up in hospitality weren’t sustainable.
He got sober in June of that same year and that was the beginning of everything.
Sobriety wasn’t just a personal decision. It became the foundation for building a healthier business. One where boundaries could exist. One where burnout wasn’t inevitable.
Why the Wedding Industry Rewards Self-Neglect—and How to Push Back
There’s an unspoken rule in weddings: you can rest after peak season. Or never. Julian and I talked candidly about how the industry encourages self-neglect, rewarding over-functioning while quietly punishing boundaries.
“We thrive on giving,” he said. “It’s in our nature. But we forget to give to ourselves. That’s when burnout sets in.”
Julian’s antidote? Clear boundaries. No late-night meetings. No weekend calls. Not because he doesn’t care, but because he does.
The Power of Saying No (and Yes) at the Right Time
One of the most radical things you can do in business? Say no. Julian has turned down clients that didn’t align. He’s also surprised his team by saying yes to projects that seemed impossible, but felt right.
Saying no doesn’t mean failure, it means alignment. It means making space for the right opportunities and the right energy. In a business driven by emotion, that matters.
How to Stay Grounded in a Glamorous World
In a world where Instagram is the portfolio and perfection is the product, staying grounded is no easy task. For Julian, it’s all about inner work: spirituality, self-awareness, and a commitment to not looking sideways.
The temptation to compare is real. But so is the cost. Julian urges planners to stay in their lane, improve their own work, and ignore the noise.
Toxic Industry Culture: What Needs to Change
Beyond the hustle culture, there’s something else eating away at the wedding industry: negativity. Julian called out the way planners piled on the recent Bezos wedding, not because of real critique, but out of snark and judgment.
That behavior, he says, is hurting more than just the targets.
What if we spent more time building each other up than tearing each other down?
Mentorship, Legacy, and Letting Others In
One of Julian’s biggest hopes? That industry leaders will stop being threatened and start being generous. “We can’t do this forever,” he said. And if that’s true, then it’s time to start nurturing the next generation.
From coaching up-and-coming planners to creating room for new voices, Julian sees mentorship as not just an opportunity, but a responsibility.
Start With the Data, Not the Fear
For planners stuck in burnout but too afraid to slow down, Julian offers one actionable first step: look at your data. How much are you actually making—not just booking? What’s your profit? What does your time cost?
Only with that information can you make informed decisions about what to say yes to, how much to take on, and when to rest.
Connect with Julian
- julianleaver.com
- instagram.com/julianleaver
- julian@julianleaver.com
Review the Transcript
Julie: Welcome back to the System For Everything podcast, today’s system tip. Be the calm in everyone else’s chaos. Then cry in your car, you know. Like a professional. Today’s guest is Julian Liever, a renowned luxury event planner and etiquette expert based in Dallas, Texas. With nearly three decades of experience across hospitality and event production, he is known for orchestrating high end weddings and destination events with precision empathy and polish.
As the founder of Julian Lie events, his work has taken him everywhere from Aspen to Paris and earned him recognition as a top planner from multiple outlets and publications. A graduate of the Protocol School of Washington. Julian brings not just style, but substance to every celebration he designs.
Welcome, Julian. Thank you for being here today. Oh my God, thank you for having me. I’m so excited. Woo. I have to give a little transparency, guys. I do work for Julian. I’m his assistant. I’ve worked for you now for two years. Actually, you know what, I think it’s, I think it was two years, maybe in May or April or something like that.
We are gonna go ahead and do our system reboot today. A quick little reset to start our episode with some humor and humanity. What is a wedding trend that you think deserves a swift and merciless end?
Julian: Honestly, the amenity bag. Ooh. Like it’s just, I’m done. This is why I’m done. It’s not because they’re not cute, it’s just because hotels cannot deliver them correctly.
Yeah. So if you can do them at a party and pick them up there, that’s amazing. But hotel delivered amenity bags gotta go.
Julie: Okay. What is a snack that is basically a part of your personality
Julian: diet Coke.
Julie: Somebody else said that the other day too. I love that. I gotta get Diet Coke to sponsor this podcast.
Julian: Uh, yes.
Get at me Diet Coke immediately.
Julie: Okay, so you already have the world’s greatest assistant, AKA E, but what fictional character would you replace me with?
Julian: Ooh.
Julie: And in this, let’s pretend like I died or something, or like something’s, not that you fired me, that would make me too sad.
Julian: Yeah. No, not at all. Um, I would say, Ooh, who would it be?
I kind of think it’s maybe Murphy Brown.
Julie: Oh my God, what a great answer. I love that.
Julian: Like a little Candace Bergen, you know? Yeah. And just like some sass and like get shit done and all the things.
Julie: Okay. That’s amazing. All right everyone. You have met the personality. Now meet the powerhouse. Here is my conversation with Julian on the system for keeping it together when your job is to make it perfect.
Okay, so Julian, you have built a brand around composure and luxury. Was there a moment when the pressure cracked through that surface?
Julian: You know, it cracked in the beginning. Actually, Julie, like when I, so I founded this business in. May, 2016. I was so excited and like everything was going, it was like kind of the end of another era of my working in the hotel space, but it wasn’t like a, a sad ending.
It was a happy ending. It was like, okay, this is like exactly the right next step. All of my friends were kind of going to work off in other hotels and everybody was kind of taking these new next steps. I started getting into this and I realized very quickly that I was gonna need to make some personal changes for myself to be able to get through doing this job where you really have one shot at it and it’s, it’s really such high pressure.
And so I think I broke in that first month. And honestly, I always say starting this job was not a sober decision because I. Alcohol was kind of like at the center of everything that I was doing, especially in my old job very specifically. And so I just realized that I was gonna need to remove that and like go on this other journey to be able to do this job well.
And so I got sober in June of that same year and thank God still been sober by the grace of God. But yeah, it broke then and I realized like, oh shit. Like I better, I better make some changes.
Julie: Besides the alcohol, was there something you were specifically struggling with that nobody else on the outside could see?
Julian: Yeah, I think I was just like, I felt like I had a hole in my heart. I had like just lost myself in this job. So much of this job is about giving, giving, giving, giving, giving of yourself to other people. And I had stopped giving to myself and I had stopped listening to who I really was, you know? And I had stopped connecting with a higher power and, and I needed that back.
And I didn’t know how to get that back. And so this weirdly getting sober helped get me back on that track.
Julie: Do you think that this industry specifically, not even low key, maybe high key. Encourages self neglect like you can rest after peak season or never?
Julian: Yeah, I think a hundred percent. I think we are just go, go, go, go, go, go, go all the time and we, we thrive on that, right?
We thrive on giving, giving, giving, giving. It’s like in our nature, it’s like everyone is leading from like this servant’s heart kind of place, and they want it to be the best experience. They want it to be amazing. They wanna give every single thing that they have. We’re all guilty of it, and we just, we push ourselves so hard.
We push ourselves so hard and we really forget to take care of ourselves. The burnout, it just, it, it’s natural and it happens.
Julie: What boundaries felt so impossible to set early on that are now non-negotiable for you?
Julian: That’s good. That’s a good question. I think it’s shifted over time, like meetings. Late at night and meetings over the weekend have been the first thing that really, that I did set in the very beginning and have pretty much stuck to like most of the time.
Julie: Yeah. That as the person who protects your calendar, I can say that you do. Yeah.
Julian: I really try to protect that evening time and that, and the weekends and it’s just, it’s helped, you know, because in my old job. I had to work all the, almost all the weekends and people wanted to do tours on weekends and all the things, you know, and, and they’re working through their schedules.
And so with this job, it’s been, it’s been good to be able to kind of put those boundaries in place and, and hold them, you know, and it has helped me be able to like be a better husband and to be a better friend and. To just be better.
Julie: Do you think you’ve ever shocked a client or like another like colleague in the space by saying no to something?
The old view would’ve like eaten alive for breakfast. Yeah.
Julian: I think I shock our colleagues all the time. I think I shock our internal colleagues all the time of like, Nope, we’re not doing that. Or no, we’re not taking that client like, it’s not the right fit. It’s not X, Y, and Z. ’cause like, I think the mentality too, in, in, in our business is like, if the client comes like, you should take it no matter what.
You know? And I think it’s more about like the fit for, is it the right fit for us? Is it the right fit? Are we gonna be able to help them to the best of our ability? Does it fit into the schedule? Does it all work well? And so sometimes. Sometimes I feel like it’s shocking. And then sometimes I shock clients, our internal team by saying like, we are gonna take this one.
And they’re like, you’ve lost your actual freaking mind like this morning. So there’s that.
Julie: I think on our meeting this morning. Yeah.
Julian: But it’s gonna be, but it’s gonna be amazing.
Julie: We’re gonna get it done. How do you try to stay grounded in an industry like this where image is. Everything.
Julian: Mm-hmm. I think it’s all about not worrying about your image, it’s about not looking left, right or center.
It’s about looking inside and I think it’s about like always competing with yourself. Right. Oh my God. I think
Julie: that, and that’s such a hard thing to break past in this industry. I mean, especially ’cause, I mean, I come from, I was nowhere at your level of luxury. I, you know, did wedding planning for almost a decade, and I mean, it is the hardest thing in the world not to look at.
Everyone else is doing on Pinterest, what everyone else is doing in magazines where everyone else is getting published and awards and all those things. It can be really hard.
Julian: Yeah, it is hard and it chips away at you. And so if you can just like create a system where you’re just constantly competing with yourself, where you’re doing better events than you used to do, then that’s all that matters.
If you are just like slowly, slowly, slowly. I always say it’s like it’s. The work. You have to do the work. Right. And if you do the work, then it will come. And, and the work means lots of different things. Right. I think that the, the work is like this nebulous bullshit, but like, it’s like the work of working on your business, right.
It’s the work of making sure your team is all aligned Exactly. Correctly. It’s the work of actually doing the weddings. Right. And then it’s the work of like building the relationships to be able to get, get new clients, to maintain clients too. Put yourself out there in the world, you know? And I think sometimes in this industry, we operate in like a vacuum of where we’re all just like seeing each other and talking to each other.
And so then that, that thing becomes like the reality. Whereas like if you’re stepped outside of that and you’re like doing the work in your own business to do what you need to do to stay in your lane, you’re just like gonna excel in such a more accelerated. Manner, which I know like Excel and accelerated all these, but like you’re just going to move forward so much more quickly if you’re not paying attention to what other people are doing.
Julie: Uh, yes. Okay. I wanna shift a little bit to kind of like the industry culture and what you think needs to change. Like, what do you think the luxury wedding world needs to do to get mentally healthier?
Julian: I think boundaries are super important, right? I think we are not graded boundary setting and that’s all of us, like Pod Kettle.
Okay. Like a hundred percent. Like we’re all trying to do a little bit better I think. Like all of us could go to some therapy, you know? But I also think there is this other culture of negativity that we have kind of gotten ourselves into and, and I’d like to just like hot button this for a minute, I think.
All of a sudden this past weekend, like Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez got married. Right. And I think that we as the wedding industry, like just all of a sudden piled on these people about like, how. Over the top or how lavish or like how not X, Y, and Z something was about this wedding. And I honestly think like we need to take a step back and do a little like self look at what.
That kind of toxic nature of comparing everything over and over and over and over again is doing to us, because I think it’s hardening, it hardening us. It’s, it’s not creating a situation where we’re like open and saying like, okay, well that’s their choices, and like that’s their taste and that’s what they selected, you know?
For themselves. Yes. It was expensive. Yes, it was over the top. Yes. Let’s, this is not a podcast today about like the disparity between wealth and, and the inequality of all of that in the society in which we live at the moment. But I think like piling onto those things and contributing to those conversations is doing nothing for our mental health.
Julie: And I think too, it, it can speak to the same thing when you’re piling on and it’s like adding to the negativity just ’cause it’s making you feel better. Mm-hmm. And it’s like, wait, why are you having pleasure from, and like, feeling better from this like. It’s not a schaden Freud, that’s not their misfortune, but just, yeah.
And happiness. The misfortune of others. You know, schaden, Freida. But I think sometimes people like try to bond or you know, trauma bond with like venting about a lot of things and it’s like, maybe let’s try not to get stuck in those negativity cycles. And I have been there like, I get it. That is, it is no shame to anyone doing it.
I have been there.
Julian: No, and no shame at all. I just think we need to look at it. We need to look at it, we need to assess it and just say like, does that actually deserve space in my life, in my experience, in my business? And if it doesn’t, then it needs to go.
Julie: What is something you would love to see more of behind the scenes in the industry, especially among leaders?
Julian: Leaders? I think I would love to see more of being less threatened, frankly. I think there are. There are people who are, who are leading the industry and who are like out ahead of the gate and they, they’re not as supportive of new people coming in as as they should be. And this is the thing, we can’t do this forever, right?
We can’t. We’re all gonna get old at some point, you know? And so I think like lifting up, supporting other people, figuring out how to educate the next generation of people and show them the way I think is going to be is hugely important. And I, I think something that we should be doing more of. You know,
Julie: I love that.
For any planners, designers listening who are deep in burnout, but too scared to slow down, scared, the inquiries will stop scared, the bookings will stop. What is the first small system or mindset shift that you would suggest to them?
Julian: I think it’s just about looking at your data. Like I preach this, I feel like all the time.
Um, you just have to look at your data. You have to look at your numbers. You have to look at your budget and say, okay, like, how much money am I actually making? Not how much money am I booking? Oh, here’s pixie. Pixie. Just needs to say hello for a second. Okay. Hello.
Julie: Pixie is our new mascot.
Julian: Pixie is our new mascot.
She’s just gonna be a pain and be, but I think it’s like, look at your data, you know? What are you making and like, what are you actually profiting? And then you can actually then make some decisions about like how much business do you actually need to take? If you don’t know, then you can’t make any logical decisions.
Then I would say that’s the first place to start.
Julie: No, then you’re just gonna be in that cycle of feast and famine. Tell everyone where we can find you online. If you are doing any offerings, perhaps coaching, um, take the time to promote and brag.
Julian: Yeah, so you can find me online@julianlever.com and then also on Instagram at Julian Lever.
And then, yes, I’m kind of always open to new coaching. I’ve really been coaching primarily in the planner space. So obviously you can reach out if you’d like at Julian, at julian lieber.com. It’s all lots of Julian Lieber. You know, if you can’t find it, just type in Julian Lieber and there.
Julie: All right, everyone.
We have talked about boundaries, burnout and being the emotional duct tape of luxury events. So let’s shut down with something a little bit lighter. I just finished overcompensating. It’s on Prime Video, currently. Gave it a solid four out of five. It is an easy breezy watch with short episodes, some genuinely funny moments, and a cast of newcomers, or at least mostly new to me, who totally hold their own.
If you need something low stakes and laugh worthy after a high stress wedding weekend, add it to your queue. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe. Leave a review and come find me on Instagram at Dallas Girl Friday to let me know your favorite fake system tip, or just send me a meme about mental breakdowns and form aware.
I’ll see you next time on the system for everything.
