Quiz: Discovery and Vision

Target: 70% or higher. Answer before opening each disclosure.

Section 1: Multiple Choice (1 point each)

1. The four-stage bridge from a client's vision to a vendor brief is:

  • A) Adjective → budget → vendor → decision
  • B) Feeling → moment → specification → decision
  • C) Image → style → palette → order
  • D) Priority → cost → trade-off → approval
Answer **B) Feeling → moment → specification → decision.** *Why B:* The middle two stages are the work. Planners who jump from feeling to decision are guessing, and the guess surfaces as a wrong proposal in month ten. *Reference:* §4.1

2. The vision interview opens with weddings the couple has attended because:

  • A) It builds rapport before the harder questions
  • B) People describe experiences they have had far more accurately than ones they are imagining
  • C) It reveals their social circle
  • D) It establishes their budget expectations
Answer **B) People describe experiences they have had far more accurately than ones they are imagining.** *Why B:* And negative memories are the most precise of all — "forty minutes standing in the sun" is already a specification. *Why not A:* Rapport is a side effect, not the reason. *Reference:* §4.2

3. "How do you feel?" is asked last in the moments segment because:

  • A) It is too personal to open with
  • B) Asked first it returns an adjective, which is the exact output the interview exists to get past
  • C) Clients need time to relax
  • D) It works better after the board discussion
Answer **B) Asked first it returns an adjective.** *Why B:* Asked after a scene has been described, the feeling labels something concrete rather than replacing it. *Reference:* §4.2

4. The translation table gives three specifications from different categories because:

  • A) Three is easier to remember than five
  • B) A feeling is rarely produced by one lever, and offering different domains is the only reliable way to find which one the client meant
  • C) Vendors expect options
  • D) It makes the budget easier to build
Answer **B) A feeling is rarely produced by one lever.** *Why B:* Three variations within one category presume the answer. Three from different domains let the client identify the domain, which they can do instantly and often cannot state unprompted. *Reference:* §4.3

5. "Protect three" works better than "cut nine" because:

  • A) It is shorter
  • B) The resistance is to abandonment, not to ranking
  • C) Clients prefer positive framing generally
  • D) It reduces the number of categories
Answer **B) The resistance is to abandonment, not to ranking.** *Why B:* The two instructions describe the same operation and produce completely different emotional responses. "Everything else still happens; it just goes in the second group" is the sentence that unlocks it. *Why not C:* True but too general to be the mechanism. *Reference:* §4.4

6. The forced ranking's primary value is that it:

  • A) Documents the client's taste
  • B) Converts future negotiations into notifications
  • C) Establishes the design direction
  • D) Justifies the planner's fee
Answer **B) Converts future negotiations into notifications.** *Why B:* Month seven, caterer $2,400 over: without a ranking, six to nine planner-hours and two weeks. With one, a forty-minute email and one reply. *Reference:* §4.4

7. The chapter says an inspiration board is expensive because of:

  • A) The client's unrealistic expectations
  • B) Vendors inflating prices for weddings
  • C) A selection effect — images circulate because they photographed well, which correlates with having been expensive
  • D) Inflation since the images were published
Answer **C) A selection effect.** *Why C:* This framing is both kinder and more accurate. It moves the cause from the client's judgment to the medium, which is where it belongs. *Why not A:* Blames the client for a structural property of image circulation. *Reference:* §4.5

8. After stating that the board prices at $90,000 against a $42,000 budget, the planner should:

  • A) Immediately explain how they will solve it
  • B) Apologize for the disparity
  • C) Stop talking and let it land
  • D) Ask which images they would cut
Answer **C) Stop talking and let it land.** *Why C:* A planner who rushes past the number teaches the client the number was negotiable. Explanation and demonstration come *after* the client has responded. *Why not D:* Asking them to cut before they understand the mechanism produces arbitrary cuts and grief. *Reference:* §4.5

9. When stated and revealed preference diverge, the chapter says:

  • A) The stated preference governs — it is what the client committed to
  • B) The revealed preference is usually correct and the stated one is usually social
  • C) Split the difference
  • D) Escalate to a formal re-ranking meeting
Answer **B) The revealed preference is usually correct and the stated one is usually social.** *Why B:* A client who ranks flowers fifth and adds forty floral images has not lied; they told you what a reasonable person should prioritize and separately showed you what they care about. *Why not D:* The correct move is one question offering permission, not a process. *Reference:* §4.6

10. For genuinely incompatible visions between partners, the planner should:

  • A) Mediate toward a compromise
  • B) Side with whoever is paying more
  • C) Produce two costed one-pagers and get out of the way
  • D) Recommend they postpone
Answer **C) Produce two costed one-pagers and get out of the way.** *Why C:* It converts an argument about values into a choice between artifacts — people argue endlessly about feelings and decide quickly between documents — and removes you as a party, protecting the relationship you need for twelve more months. *Why not A:* You are not equipped, it is not your relationship, and the loser will associate the loss with you. *Reference:* §4.7

11. The seven sections of a vision document are:

  • A) Palette, style, budget, timeline, vendors, guests, venue
  • B) The sentence, the moments, the ranking, the specifications, the vetoes, the anchor images, and what this is not
  • C) Overview, inspiration, requirements, exclusions, references, contacts, sign-off
  • D) Theme, colors, flowers, food, music, attire, photography
Answer **B).** *Why B:* Note that "what this is not" — the negative definition — is frequently the most clarifying section, and that the anchor images must be *annotated with what specifically is being responded to*, since an unannotated image is worse than useless. *Reference:* §4.8

12. A vendor reads the vision document and pushes back on a specification. This means:

  • A) The document was written badly
  • B) The vendor is difficult
  • C) The document is doing its job
  • D) The client's expectations are unrealistic
Answer **C) The document is doing its job.** *Why C:* A specification concrete enough to argue with is concrete enough to execute. "Warm and intimate" cannot be argued with, which is exactly why it communicates nothing. *Reference:* §4.3.1, §4.8

Section 2: True/False with Justification (1 point each)

13. A parent's presence at the vision interview is undesirable but tolerable.

Answer **False — this is the one meeting where it is genuinely disqualifying.** The interview requires the couple to say what they actually want, including things a parent would object to or be hurt by. The vetoes in particular will not surface. The output is only as honest as the room, and a vision document built from a compromised interview will misdirect eleven vendors for a year.

14. A ranking made in month two should govern decisions for the whole engagement.

Answer **False.** It is a decision-making aid, not an oath. Revisit it twice — around month six and when the budget genuinely fixes, roughly month nine. Two minutes each time. What you must not do is let a month-two ranking silently govern a month-eleven decision the client would now make differently.

15. Telling a client their board is unrealistic is honest and therefore acceptable.

Answer **Mostly false.** It is *inaccurate*, which is the problem, not merely unkind. The board is expensive because of how images are selected for circulation, not because the client's judgment failed. "Unrealistic" locates the cause in the client; the selection-effect explanation locates it correctly and happens to be gentler. Where it is *also* true that the client's expectations exceed their means, the honest version says that plainly — but it says it after establishing what is actually driving the cost.

16. Since the caterer, the florist, and the photographer are all professionals, briefing them all with the same vision document is efficient and sufficient.

Answer **Partly false.** Everyone gets the sentence, the vetoes, the ranking, and the "what this is not" paragraph — those constrain what any vendor might *propose*, and vendors propose across disciplines constantly. But the specifications must be split by discipline: "intimate" means eight-tops to a caterer, 60-inch rounds to a rental company, speech reinforcement to AV, and centerpieces under 14 inches to a florist. A vendor given someone else's specification will translate it into their own and get it wrong.

17. If a couple cannot generate imagined moments, discovery has failed.

Answer **False.** Roughly one client in four cannot imagine forward and can remember instantly. Pivot: "Is there any moment you're actively dreading?" or "anything from another wedding you'd want to steal?" Dread and theft both produce specifics, and often better ones than imagination does.

Section 3: Short Answer (2 points each)

18. A client says "we want it to feel abundant." Give three specifications from different categories and the question that distinguishes them.

Sample Answer **Catering:** more food than anyone can finish, and available for longer — passed canapés that keep coming, late-night food, generous portions rather than a fourth course. **Service:** the bar never has a queue, which is a staffing and positioning decision, not a drinks decision. **Décor/floral:** visible volume — long tables that are full end to end, greenery that runs the length, quantity rather than rarity. **The question:** *"When you say abundant — is that about the food, about nobody ever waiting for anything, or about how full the room looks?"* *Rubric — full credit requires:* three specifications from genuinely different categories (not three food ideas), each concrete enough to purchase, and a question that names the three domains rather than asking them to elaborate.

19. Explain what the forced ranking buys you in month seven, with a concrete example.

Sample Answer It converts a negotiation into a notification. The caterer comes in $2,400 over. Without a ranking: an email, a week of silence, a call, a discussion involving both partners and probably a parent, three candidate cuts each of which someone objects to, a decision in eleven days. Six to nine planner-hours and two weeks of client anxiety. With food ranked second and stationery last: *"Caterer's twenty-four hundred over. Food's second on your list and stationery's last, so unless you say otherwise I'm moving eight hundred from stationery, six hundred from the second photographer we'd discussed, and dropping canapés from four to three — which the caterer suggested and nobody will notice. Say the word."* Forty minutes and one reply. *Rubric:* Must contrast the two paths concretely, must quantify the time saved, and must show the ranking being *used* rather than merely consulted.

20. Why does the chapter insist the board-pricing demonstration use an image from the client's own board rather than a generic example?

Sample Answer Because the claim being made is about *their specific response*, and it can only be proved on the thing they specifically responded to. The argument is: "most of what you liked in that photograph was not the expensive part." A generic example demonstrates that this is sometimes true of some images. Their own favorite image demonstrates that it is true of the thing they actually love — which is the only version that changes what they believe about their own budget. An abstract promise to "find cheaper ways" is worth nothing; one worked example on their own image is worth the whole conversation. *Rubric:* Must identify that the claim is about the client's specific response, and must note that the demonstration is what converts a demoralizing conversation into a useful one.

Section 4: Applied Scenario (5 points)

21. A couple's vision interview produces this material:

  • Ranking: 1. Guest comfort · 2. Food · 3. Music. Most relaxed about: flowers.
  • Moments: "Everyone's on the lawn and nobody's sitting where they were told to." · "My grandfather can hear the speeches." · "It's late and there's still a queue for the food truck."
  • Feeling-words used: "generous," "easy," "loud in a good way."
  • Vetoes: No formal seating chart after dinner. No speeches longer than three minutes. Nobody gets a corsage.
  • Board: thirty images, twenty-six of which are floral installations.

Produce: (a) the divergence you have spotted and what you would ask; (b) three specifications for "easy," across three categories; (c) which two vendors most need a written brief here and what each must be told; (d) the one-sentence summary for the vision document.

Sample Answer **(a) The divergence.** Flowers are ranked last and 87% of the board is floral. That is the clearest stated-versus-revealed split available. The likely cause is the same as the photography case in §4.6 — floral feels like the frivolous category and ranking it high seems shallow, especially against "my grandfather can hear the speeches," which is a morally weightier priority. **What I would ask:** *"Something I want to check — nearly everything on the board is floral, and flowers are the thing you said you're most relaxed about. Should we move that up? Genuinely no wrong answer; the ranking's a working tool."* **(b) "Easy," three ways:** - **Service:** no queues anywhere. That is a bar-count and staffing decision, and it is expensive. (Also the driver of the food-truck moment, which is a *good* queue in their imagination — worth checking.) - **Timeline:** fewer transitions. No formal receiving line, no announced entrance, no cake-cutting moment. Long unstructured blocks. - **Guest logistics:** no signage needed because everything is visible from where guests arrive; seating available everywhere, not only at dinner tables. **(c) Two vendors most needing a written brief:** **Caterer.** Must be told: guest comfort is ranked first, service style must never produce a queue people mind, food must remain available late (the food-truck moment is a stated desire, not a failure), and portions read as generous. Also: three-minute speech cap means service timing around toasts is tight and predictable. **Florist.** Must be told the *inverse* of what the board implies — or rather, must be told what the board is doing. If the ranking stands at last place, the florist needs to know the budget is small *and* that the couple's visual reference is installation-heavy, so the brief must be "the effect of those images at a tenth of the cost," with the anchor images annotated for what is being responded to. Briefing this florist verbally would produce either an unaffordable proposal or a disappointing one. **(d) The sentence:** > *"A long, loud, unhurried afternoon and evening on a lawn where nobody is directed anywhere, the food never runs out, and an eighty-year-old man can hear every word of the speeches."* *Rubric:* | Criterion | 0 | 1 | 2 | |---|---|---|---| | Divergence (a) | Missed | Spots the floral split | Spots it, offers a plausible social explanation, and gives permission-framed language | | Specifications (b) | Adjectives | Three specs | Three from genuinely different categories, at least one identified as expensive | | Vendor briefs (c) | Names vendors | Names two with generic notes | Names two with *checkable* content, and identifies the floral brief's inversion problem | | Sentence (d) | Generic | Uses their material | Uses their moments verbatim-adjacent, carries the ranking, and is specific enough to be wrong | *Scoring: (a)=1.5, (b)=1, (c)=1.5, (d)=1.*

Scoring and Next Steps

Score Assessment What to do
Under 50% Needs review Re-read §4.3, §4.4, §4.5. Redo Part A.
50–70% Partial Review flagged sections. Do B.1 and B.3.
70–85% Solid Proceed to Chapter 5. Build the translation table (C.1) first.
Over 85% Strong Proceed. Deep Dive: case-study-02.md and exercises E.2–E.3.

Regardless of score: do exercise C.1. Chapter 5 onward assumes you can translate a feeling-word without stopping to think about it.