A method of assembling an electrical connector that is configured for mounting to a printed circuit board. The method has the steps of providing contact wafers with a plurality of contacts; bending the tail ends of each contact wafer; interleaving the contact wafers to form one or more contact wafer assemblies; loading the contact wafer assemblies into an insert of the electrical connector, such that the one or more contact wafer assemblies form a predetermined arrangement of mating ends of the plurality of contacts at a mating interface of the electrical connector; and inserting the insert into a shell of the electrical connector.