John Lietz – 20 Years at the Olde Mill Inn
weddings
John Lietz, Banquet Manager & Maitre D’ at the Olde Mill Inn, is celebrating his twentieth year at the Olde Mill Inn, where he has managed hundreds, possibly thousands, of weddings. John can be seen everywhere monitoring everything that goes on before, during and after weddings, and he is our voice of experience for “all things wedding”. He has been a tremendous asset to the Inn because of his meticulous attention to detail, his seemingly bottomless energy, and his passion for what he does.
John has been working in the hospitality industry since 1985 in a variety of departments and positions in the Front Office, Convention Services, Sales and, of course, Banquets. He has always enjoyed the operations side of the business, and he does not remember precisely when he first became involved in weddings. But he knows that it was after he transferred from working in Convention Services in New York City to working in New Jersey. He found that the skills he had acquired in New York were very useful in the wedding industry.
He loves working with a wide variety of people and feels that is absolutely a requirement for doing this type of work. John confirms that someone doing this job must have a love for putting in the long hours required for the profession and must convey that sentiment to clients. He also enjoys meeting new bridal couples to capture how their wedding day will go and then seeing all of the planning become a reality.
And when challenges come along, he said that successful wedding planners must just maintain that deep-down confidence that everything will be fine.
Commenting about current trends in the bridal industry, John says that social media has played a major role in how couples want to set up their weddings, from the cocktail attended stations to Pinterest ideas for setting up the place card table.
His advice to the brides and grooms that he works with is, as the Greyhound Company says, “Sit back and leave the driving to us!”
Post by Sheila Palka