Pop The Question
Join Kathleen and Camille on their bi-weekly podcast "Pop the Question" as they sip on drinks and dive into the world of wedding planning with style, knowledge, and a whole lot of fun. Say goodbye to wedding shows that leave you none the wiser and hello to the support you need to make your dream wedding a reality. Get ready to be enlightened, entertained, and equipped with the knowledge that will empower you throughout your wedding journey.
Pop The Question
Hands-On Wisdom: Stories from a Wedding Pro
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Behind every flawless wedding is a well-prepared team. Join us on this episode of Pop the Question as we chat with the incredibly talented Mosade Edwards from Love, Confetti Events in Washington, DC. As a Howard University alum and event planner, Mosade brings a wealth of knowledge and a vibrant personality to our show.
Ever wondered how wedding planners transition from corporate events to dream weddings? Mosade shares her journey, starting in the events industry back in 2012 and facing a hurricane during her first wedding in 2017. Her stories showcase the resilience and passion necessary to succeed in this field, emphasizing the unique camaraderie among wedding professionals. Mosade illustrates why hands-on experience often trumps theoretical knowledge, making this episode a must-listen for aspiring planners and curious couples alike.
Discover the critical roles within a wedding planning team and how cross-training and backup staff ensure everything runs smoothly, even when the unexpected happens. From handling emergencies like dress malfunctions to balancing client desires with guest expectations, we highlight the importance of trust, communication, and thorough preparation.
Calling all brides, grooms and wedding enthusiasts welcome to Pop the Question. The podcast that takes the stress out of wedding planning and injects the fun back in. Grab your drink and indulge in expert advice and jaw-dropping stories. We're turning anxiety into anticipation over here because everyone deserves to enjoy their wedding planning process. You're getting married. You should be excited about it. Here are your hosts Kathleen and Camille.
Speaker 2:Let's get started. All right, guys, we are back with another episode of Ooh. I was bad with that one. Pop the question.
Speaker 3:I'm so glad you're always the one that pops the question. Can you pop?
Speaker 2:There you go. You need to start doing it. Forget me doing it. Guys, request her to do it more than.
Speaker 3:I do it. That one where you put your finger in, the hook it out, I can't do that one.
Speaker 2:I was about to say you sure didn't do it. Okay, we need video in here sometimes because the stuff you do is ridiculous. And we are back. We hope you've been enjoying the interview so far. Yeah, that word, okay, I was just going to correct it. But here we go. We you've been enjoying the interview so far. We have someone else for you today. We promised you lots of interviews this season and you will get it. So we're doing something different today. Different in. We're not doing our formal introduction like I generally do. I was told we should try something else, so we're going to let our guest tell you about herself, rather than us giving you this long list of accolades but let's talk about our guests a little bit.
Speaker 3:So you know, most of our listeners are Memphis-based. Because we're Memphis-based and we have friends and followers, it's way easier to get someone up the street. But surprisingly, we have recently learned that we've gone national. We have hit the big time and we're pretty pumped about it. So tell your friends. But we decided that we were going to import a guest.
Speaker 2:Import. They're on the phone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so they're on the phone and really we thought where should we start and we went straight to the Capitol. Guys. We went to where they make all the big decisions. Do they though?
Speaker 2:Okay, never mind, that's a topic for another day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's another day mind, that's a, that's a topic for another. Yeah, that's another day, that's another day, but we have, we have swum up the potomac and we have found she swum.
Speaker 2:I ain't swum swim nothing and I can swim, but she, she's doing this.
Speaker 3:I floated, took a nice nap on the inner tube and we found the it planner for washington dc she's pretty special, pretty indeed. And she has so many accolades that when we tried to do her intro it was just. It was so much that we just decided we would try to do this differently.
Speaker 2:It's because her college is bomb. She started off good yeah.
Speaker 3:She went to Howard, I mean that's fancy.
Speaker 4:I know Howard Howard's so awesome.
Speaker 3:All the black girls, all the black girls, all the black girls.
Speaker 2:All right, Without any further ado, let's get into this episode, which promises to be saucy and without any further ado. We have my buddy, Miss Moshe Day Edwards, with Love Confetti Events. Hey boo, how you doing.
Speaker 4:That intro tickled me to tears. I don't know how much. I figure I swum up the prosomic, but I'm here, and if I could be at Memphis with y'all, I sure would. No, you wouldn't.
Speaker 2:We hate Memphis. I would be in DC a little quicker. Listen, we don't hate it.
Speaker 3:We love the people. Yes, Hate the crime. I mean who?
Speaker 2:doesn't hate crime. Yeah, I hate that. There's not a lot to do here outside of being social and eating.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, our traffic is better than Washington DC, though I've heard traffic in DC is pretty craptastic.
Speaker 2:I don't really have traffic issues. I just be in the Ubers and I try not to be there during rush hour times. Oh, okay.
Speaker 4:Gotcha, I feel like that is not a lie. Traffic is terrible here.
Speaker 3:I have to ask your company. I have to ask your company is called love confetti, which, from an event standpoint, most people hate confetti in the wedding world. So, like I wonder, like when you were first starting out, did venues go? You're not spreading confetti, are?
Speaker 2:you? I was about to say did venues hate you?
Speaker 4:Confetti. What do you mean?
Speaker 2:You know, I have never cause there's such a hard and fast rule about not having confetti or anything confetti like. I've never gotten that question of like wait, so you're gonna, you're not gonna like throw stuff around. You probably don't like the smart asses like Kathleen.
Speaker 3:She'd be the one to ask. I love confetti, but it's like I hate the cleanup.
Speaker 4:I will never. It's figurative confetti yes.
Speaker 2:Well, tell us a little bit about why you got into weddings, and then we'll break down your long list of experience that you have with coordinating events.
Speaker 4:So I got into weddings because I have done events from top to bottom from the day I started in the working world and you know conferences, meetings and other events make decent amounts of money. It's good for logistics, it's good for planning, but I love weddings for the just personal side of it creating a day that really means a lot to a lot of people. But to people specifically.
Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit about why you got into weddings and how that started. What does that look like for you?
Speaker 4:You know, I started in events probably oh goodness, probably in about 2012, just running around convention floors at hotels and really kind of getting my chops there, and then I started to move into weddings, specifically in about 2017, and been there ever since and kind of balancing both sides of things.
Speaker 2:How did the you started in 2017 specifically with weddings. What? How did someone ask you to do a wedding? What was your first wedding?
Speaker 4:So, one of my really good girlfriends from college asked me to plan her wedding and that had kind of been our agreement from the very beginning, before she even met her husband. And that is really where this was born and bred of, like me, starting Love's Confetti Events, I wanted to have a creative side of the work that I do and really wanted to focus on special events and weddings, and so her wedding was really the catalyst and boy buddy. Was it a lot of fun? Um, but it was also kind of a proving ground because it was a wedding with a decent amount of problems that nobody anticipated, because we got hit with a hurricane in New Orleans right off the bat we had to move the wedding an entire day and we had no choice about it and that was your first wedding, but not your first, literally my first wedding.
Speaker 3:So I got married in New.
Speaker 3:Orleans on 9, 10, 11. And I remember thinking, boy, I'm right in the middle of hurricane season, what the heck am I thinking? And there was a really big storm that blew through like two days before our wedding day and so I was really antsy that like the city was going to be all messed up, but it ended up making it really weirdly cool. It ended up being like 70 degrees in September, which like never happens in New Orleans. You didn't sweat, I didn't sweat. It was great, um, but no so. So, okay, so, were you living in New Orleans at the time? No, no. So your first wedding out the gate was a destination wedding.
Speaker 2:Was a destination wedding With a hurricane.
Speaker 4:Boy With a hurricane, you got balls girl.
Speaker 1:It was a doozy yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, it's a proving ground, not even necessarily like your first wedding, but like people get into the business, they do the stuff and the things and then they're like, okay, I can do this. And then I feel like a little bit further out, something hits them, that they're like, oh wow, do I want to keep doing this?
Speaker 2:but nope, it was the first wedding and I was like, oh, all right, let's keep going. You came back, that should totally be on your website. Why should you hire me? Because my first wedding I ever did was out of state during a hurricane and we pulled it off and the couple was happy. That should literally be on your about or your homepage. I think it's genius.
Speaker 3:I love a good challenge. I'm going to update it immediately. When you are a wedding planner and you have all that anxiety that builds up, and then you master it and you conquer it, and then you go back and you think, yeah, I can do that again. It's a totally, it's a weird mental high truly.
Speaker 4:It is a weird mental high. It's like. It's also like, I think, a glutton for punishment of like yeah, this is. This is wild and crazy, but we're going to keep going. We're having a good time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're secretly masochist.
Speaker 2:I think so Every person in the wedding industry. It's like I have to. I give them the benefit of the doubt that I'm more likely gonna like them because you have to be a special kind of crazy to get into and stay in weddings, so you have to really just be horrible for me not to like you.
Speaker 3:It's like restaurant workers once you're in, you either you're sucked in for life or you're not got the war stories which is why some of my best employees come from restaurants. They stick it out so okay. So so did you like go to school or college with like an events background in mind? Like, tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 4:I did I studied hospitality management at howard university and so just making sure that I'm you know, I'm one of those people that if that's the intention, that's the track that we're going to be on and we're going to stay on it, I love that that's your intention.
Speaker 3:So real talk question it really is Did college event planning courses truly teach you what you feel like you needed for on the job experience?
Speaker 2:Or did you learn as you went?
Speaker 4:Immediately no, because it's all you know in school. It's all theory, because it's all you know in school. It's all theory, it's all theory and there's nothing. I won't say there's nothing, but all of the book smarts I think that you get in college are great knowledge background to have, but there's really nothing like being on somebody's convention floor venue, space, I don't't know producing a live event outside, like a concert venue, something like that. That's really going to teach you number one, your resources, but also just what happens during the course of an event and pre pre-planning, post-plan, all of the things that you have to be in the moment.
Speaker 3:It's funny you mentioned concert venues because I've had this conversation with her like three times now. Several, I went to a concert recently and the whole time I didn't give two craps about the show I did.
Speaker 3:I should have but I was so mesmerized by the work that went into the production side of the show, from the lighting and the instrument changes and the outfit changes and the set changes between the performers and it was the first time I think I saw it from a planner perspective and not from like a music fan perspective and I kept thinking how much do these people make? It's got to be crazy money like holy cow, because that is some work.
Speaker 4:I think that as a as an event planner, as an event producer, it doesn't necessarily matter what arena you're in when you get in other spaces and you see, you see and you know and you're aware of what it takes to produce that you're never going to see the world the same way. Like I just got back from Disney World and like watching the evening fireworks and how they literally systematically shut down different places in the park to make sure that people are getting out of the park by the time they're supposed to close, Like my brain just wouldn't function to be like oh, it's time for the park to close, Let me go home. Like it just you never see the world the same way, whether you are a guest, whether you are the person working the event, whether it's something you're watching on TV. It just skews. And I think that's true for all hospitality professionals right.
Speaker 4:Like for you, camille, for you it doesn't matter. Like you're never going to see the world in the same way of like what it takes to put that moment together.
Speaker 3:Do you ever struggle, like when you're at stuff like that and your family or your significant other or friends they don't see it the same way you do, or they think that you're like insane for the stuff that you're like mentally honing in on?
Speaker 3:my husband Every time we go to a wedding, he will like, look me in the eye and be like listen, you're a guest today. Don't, don't do anything. Don't do this. Like my One of my best friends got married recently and I was looking around and I'm like they're not bussing the tables, aren't? They bussing the tables and I went and asked the caterers. I said are y'all getting ready to buss the tables?
Speaker 1:They said that's not something we normally do and I'm like and I went and got a trash can on rollers and I went and bussed every fucking table.
Speaker 3:There was what.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did See. I think it's a thing Like we can't unsee it. I was in South America once. We were sitting on a balcony eating food, chilling, people watching, and I saw all these flower arrangements start coming out of this door and every few minutes here comes another giant arrangement, giant arrangement. And from where I was sitting I was like I know those are hydrangeas. They didn, and from where I was sitting, I was like I know those are hydrangeas they didn't pay for all those flowers.
Speaker 2:There's no way and by the time I counted 20 different tiered flower sets coming out, I was like I'm going to see what it is. So I left, went downstairs, walked two blocks up the street just to go see and look inside, just had to yep what this?
Speaker 4:was wedding addicts see what's being produced. Yeah, it was more than what are they doing?
Speaker 3:I want to hone in the fact she keeps using the word produce. You know, in our industry so many people hate the day of coordination terminology and everybody's like shifting gears into event management. Yeah, or, like you know, planner is kind of an old school term. Like production is a big part of what we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everyone wants to. I feel like they think production is a bad word for weddings, but it's not what you're doing and what people are asking for these days. Even for the bare minimum and 85 and under, it's still a production. There are still logistics. It's still a production. There are still logistics. There's still time schedules. You still have to get all these people lined up and getting their stuff together. It's, it's a production and I feel like that's a bad word, but it's starting to be a little bit better it's not.
Speaker 4:I don't think it's a bad word, but I think that people have traditionally applied it to something you see on tv or something that is like I don't just like super, super mainstream and not necessarily a personal event.
Speaker 4:But I think I think about it from the perspective of you're creating an experience for someone that's not yourself like, and not even your client, necessarily, but but as an event planner, as a meeting kicking in behind the scenes, whatever. And now people are here and they're seeing things, they're experiencing things, like you're on, all the people that are involved with the event are on. So it is a production, it is curtain calls, it is action, like that's just what it is, and I think people don't like using the word production because it makes you feel like, oh well.
Speaker 4:I really have to love, but I think, I guess, but I'm, but but to me from that perspective, that that is what's happening. You're producing an experience for these people, for yourself, that you've been working on for this long. That I don't don't cheapen the the experience by saying oh no, it's just, it's just a thing that, no, you, you've produced a whole day that you want people to engage with. You want people to experience, you want them to walk away with something so okay, I'm just trying to follow my timeline here.
Speaker 3:So, okay, so you said you started professional career 2012. And then when did? When did love confetti kick off? Love confetti kicked off in 2017. Okay, and, and we're still strictly love confetti full-time.
Speaker 4:We are actually straddling the fence. So Love Confetti is full-time, and then I also work for a nonprofit association producing their events full-time as well.
Speaker 3:That's cool. I straddle the fence too. I've been with my job 18 years and it's hard to leave. My hubby calls it the golden handcuffs because I got the insurance and the good vacay after 18 years. Listen, I love the insurance and the good vacay after 18 years.
Speaker 4:Listen, I love the security blanket. I do.
Speaker 3:And this is a family-owned operation. I've been with them for so long now and I love them and I know my job. It's solid. But I have a big team. I have like 11 people that work for me so we kind of delegate a lot of the admin duties. Here and there. I have have some people that do like my linen appointments and they're more like the design people, and then I have some that are all about the paperwork side of things and then I have more like day of management people Like I've I've got a couple of ladies on my team who they lead like champions and I love it. Um, because it's hard being a business owner and trying to juggle everything. Like when I first started out it was just me and I already knew that wasn't going to work because I had worked for other planners and it had been multi people like dealing with different things in that operation. So I immediately knew what type of people I wanted to hire and and different strengths and weaknesses that I wanted to have as part of my team. Like like I'm not weaknesses Nobody wants weaknesses in their team but I mean I definitely wanted. Yeah, so I want.
Speaker 3:I don't ever I don't think I'm the smartest guy in the room. I think everybody knows more things about that. We're all the same but we're all uniquely different and there are certain things that I may not be knowledgeable on that, casey, who works for me, will definitely know things about. Like Casey, I stole him from a rental company. He was my sales rep here at a rental company and now he's like great, because we can walk into a building and he'll immediately know oh well, you need 20 foot draping for this, you're going to need so many feet of this, you can fit 100 tables in here. And I'm like, really, and he's like oh yeah, no, no problem. Like he just knows things that I would not feel confident saying that I know.
Speaker 4:But I think that's like the purpose, perfect perspective to come from of like. I don't somebody told me once that they liked my leadership because I led from behind. But I think it's coming from that perspective of like. I am not going to make the assumption that I'm the smartest person in the room. Now, if I recognize something that I know I have the expertise on that, I know I have the knowledge about intimately, yeah, I'm going to speak up, but I also want to make room for other people to engage and lead. But I also want to make room for other people to learn and take that opportunity to like, move forth and lead too, and I think that that's it's. I guess it's in my mind. It's a collaborative leadership model Like it. Just, you want to include all the people. You're not, you're making space for them, you're not excluding anybody, but you're making room for for the group to lead versus just one person.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I love that you mentioned leadership, because leadership is something that it's just near and dear to my heart in a way. I had this amazing vice president at my company for a while. I don't mind saying his name, his name's Tom Tom. You're amazing.
Speaker 2:Hi Tom.
Speaker 3:Tom is an ex-Marine. He was like one of those helicopter fighter pilot guys.
Speaker 3:Damn Tom but he was what I would call an in-the-trenches guy. So the company I work for, we do commercial property maintenance and one of the big things is janitorial work and we would have these huge accounts like NASCAR races and stuff, where literally everybody in the company would come and pick up trash out of a parking lot Cause it meant that we got to keep our biggest account once a year for these mega races Right, and I love the fact that the president and the vice president of our company would be out there in t-shirts and jeans picking up trash with everybody else in the company.
Speaker 4:Because you're never, you're never too far gone that you can't. You can't do the lowliest thing within the company.
Speaker 3:So my first, like my first real adult job was with the Peabody hotel, which is the big fancy hotel here, and my first day on the job I was waiting tables on a morning shift at cafe espresso, which was like their coffee house with fancy breakfast, and I walked in and I was trying to figure out who the manager on duty was and it was this Irish guy named Paul Sherlock and he had his.
Speaker 3:He had on like a nice dress shirt and a tiny and he was busing tables and he had his sleeves rolled up like three quarters of the way and I just thought he was like one of those lowly assistant manager types. Turns out he was the director of food and beverage and he was just pitching in because it needed to be done, and I remember that that really impressed me and that way, you know, I was 17 when I got that job, and so I look back now and I see that that sparked something in me that I have continued to value and leaders that I've worked with, and so I hope that with my team, that they look at me and see that I'm out there in the rain, moving chairs in the mud, doing all the same crap. I ask of them. So um, because I mean wedding work.
Speaker 3:People think it's so glamorous, it's always so funny oh you do weddings they just think we live in these, you know, glittered palaces of crystal chandeliers and we just sit around eating chateaubriand every day. Wedding four million dollars and I'll do it.
Speaker 4:It is scarred, marred. They don't realize that we eat leaning.
Speaker 4:We eat cold food in janitor closets no, I mean, I completely see that like when I one of my first jobs um out of college was working at the grand high washington um, like middle of dc, super busy hotel, and I think it it helped me understand what customer service looked like on a convention floor and like really seeing that my catering director maybe even the general manager of the hotel was ready to throw tables, was ready to throw chairs if we needed to turn a room in five minutes because our client hadn't built in enough time to get between you know their I don't know general session and then their gala dinner that was happening an hour later and we needed to turn that room quickly.
Speaker 4:And I think for me, just looking at exactly what you just said having leadership that you see on the floor with you, that are right next to you they're not in the office clocked out, on vacation or anything else, but they are right there next to you, invested in you and the moment and the client makes the difference in terms of people's breeding grounds, of how I think this industry is built to live and breathe I think some of that perspective is changing just post pandemic and a lot of other things it's interesting to see you know, like at least from this conversation, how we've had some of the same spaces and same environments, like even drastically different of industry, but like just the example of leadership and saying, oh okay, I've seen this and I've seen it next to me and working. Now, almost 20 years later, I'm like ooh, like oh, this is, that's not the same thing now, let me, let me throw this.
Speaker 3:We'll throw in this hail, mary, or this moment we'll put a flag on the play, is what I should probably say. Now let's flip it. You're a small business owner and you have boundaries, you know. We live in a we're in a society now where there's that ain't my job is very common. So where do you draw the lines between what you are contractually obligated to do as a business owner Like that ain't on me, that ain't my contract versus pitching in, like if you saw that your caterers were really dropping the ball, you step in and help, even though you're not possibly food, say, certified, maybe you're not insured. What if somebody got sick? Like so therein lies the caveat like because then you know, you know what is the saying, you know um good, no good deed goes unpunished uh-huh absolutely you know, I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to step in and help a bride, but then I think not my job there's a line.
Speaker 2:There is a line, it's, it's hard.
Speaker 4:Definitely a line, but it's I. I may not be the right person to ask this do it, say it no, I'm because because I started my career where I started, and I started at disney, I started at a hotel. My like modus operandi is are?
Speaker 4:you very corporate, it's not my job, but it's my job, like, because I think that the challenge that I always have, looking at things from a client perspective, is that they yes, your intimate client that you work one-on-one with planning this event in and out knows, oh, this is this person, this is that vendor, this belongs to this person, this belongs to that person. That is probably the only person or people in that intimate team that know that delineation of who is who. When it comes to the guests that are experiencing that, when it comes to attendees that are experiencing whatever is going on, they have no differentiation whatsoever of those different groups and, and that part of this is, it's not fair to vendors, because they're not going to make that differentiation of, like the main person that they see it's their fault that this thing didn't happen and as a planner and and I know, like Camille and I've had this conversation, several times
Speaker 4:you. You are the quarterback of what's happening all day, long before it happens, when it happens and after it happens. I think of making sure that you are ensuring that your clients guest experience is the best that it can be. That's that's the thing that I'm always struggling with. Okay, make sure that I'm not stepping too far. Hold on, I gotta pause in that I got something too.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say that just leads to I got something too. I'm going first. That just leads to, like your experience and your empathy. You see these things coming in. In some ways, with your experienced vendors, we can curve those things if we see them coming, because we've seen this happen quite a few times because what I was gonna say is sometimes you have clients that don't care about their guest experience. Oh, absolutely, and they care more than they do.
Speaker 3:And so that's where, like being empathetic, I think that the key thing that that's here in the triangle of microphones here is communication, communication, communication, which I know we saw we talked about contracts and communication on this podcast that we're just going to change the name of the podcast.
Speaker 2:Communication is everything.
Speaker 3:It is changing the name of the podcast communication is everything it is so like and there has to be a way of saying that ain't my job to where it sounds like you're empathetic to the problem, you're going to try to help them find a solution, but they need to understand that you are already going above and beyond your duty, trying to assist them in a way, but like and I think that that is one of the most difficult things to communicate to a client right?
Speaker 4:like to say I understand, I know that this is the result that you want, and also making them accountable for the decisions that they have made, that is very, quite possibly in our minds, going to guarantee them for this adverse result, right?
Speaker 3:do you ever feel like you get like backlash for their bad decisions because you're the planner, or like you feel like their, their guests? Their guests know that they hired you, they see you there. They know it's your company, but you know. But then you, they chose hideous. Whatever it does that reflect on you. And how do you, how do you convey that to the general public, like Like that wasn't my call?
Speaker 2:Hold on. I feel like that's a thing for people who just aren't self-aware or aware of the situation in general, not just your client, which I know we're talking about that. But if you aren't a very self-aware person or you aren't very, if it's hard for you to take accountability for what you had your part in the event, I like that.
Speaker 4:That's just a type of person, versus me being your client, I agree because I think, if it's centered around a style choice, I think that most people understand that the event they're walking into is reflective of the client, is reflective of the celebrant. I don't think that as vendors outside of maybe the event designer, maybe the florist who is physically executing what that vision looks like. And again, there's still this like warped understanding perception of who has produced this right, Like you know, the bride, you know the groom did not put those flowers together. You know that.
Speaker 4:But I think that you know, you still know that in that reality, they didn't say tulips and gerber daisies and mom's like they didn't do that, but they, they communicated to their florist I want things that are blah, blah, blah, blah like and gave whatever descriptors that they wanted. Right that this. When it comes to style choices as a guest, if you don't agree with that, I mean honestly, it don't matter it doesn't matter, well, and it's not just style, like so let me.
Speaker 3:Let me give you another example. So I have a buddy that's a dj and he dj'd a friend of mine's party. It was her wedding reception. The songs that she chose for her playlist were songs that she liked like goo goo doll, snow patrol, like it was like all these like kind of like 90s rock bands, and then she was upset because nobody was dancing and having a good time at her wedding and the dj well, you said I couldn't play any of this stuff that people are requesting, and so, like that was all her. But as a DJ, people are going to go back and be like well, don't hire that DJ, he sucks. He just played all these Goo Goo Dolls songs.
Speaker 2:I have no idea what you asked me to do and you were wrong. I like how Anson said he watches the crowd and sees what's happening, how they're responding and pivots accordingly.
Speaker 3:I remember looking at this girl and I said she goes no one's dancing. And I said oh, you wanted them to dance. I said, but you told them you couldn't play all this. Well, she goes. Well, people don't actually like that. I said watch this. And I turned and looked at her DJ and I was like Jimmy Cupid Shuffle next thing. Like you can't play snow patrol all night at a wedding reception.
Speaker 4:It just does not work I mean, you can't curate the, the music list so much that it's only what you want, like I've probably watched way too many weddings lately where, yes, the dj played exactly what you wanted, but that was not the vibe that the guests wanted to be on and you didn't make it to your exit because they left. We're watching that is like my favorite surprise of like we're going home two hours early woo we are not staying till one in the morning. We are tired.
Speaker 3:We are real adults every time I have a bride that books a Sunday wedding. I'm like you do understand this is not gonna be like a party till midnight, right?
Speaker 4:no, we're done at nine right and they're like no, they just don't agree with you, they don't believe you we're partying that party's over by 6 30.
Speaker 2:They had that one finger up and they walked out they got, they got dinner and they got gone oh lord, oh lord. Yes, you have to be really careful with all that so how many events does your company do like annually?
Speaker 4:so we're still necessarily building our client portfolio and I think right now we're maxed out at about probably eight clients a year just in terms of, like the level of service that goes into each and every wedding that we do. So that doesn't necessarily include smaller, more intimate weddings or celebrations, but when it comes to full service clients we're only doing 80 a year Just because of the level that I want in terms of care that goes into each and every single one of my clientele.
Speaker 2:She's very, hands on, very. Can I say mama bear, is that what you do? You feel that I mean mama bear.
Speaker 4:Mama bear sounds about right. And I think that most of my clients will probably appreciate that.
Speaker 2:One thing about me and Mo. We've been. How long have we known each other? How many? Okay, so COVID is when we, I just know COVID 2020,.
Speaker 4:We had a wedding together that was supposed to be in Nashville, but COVID happened and I think that that's the hilarious part that it actually has not been that long, but it feels like forever because it started in.
Speaker 2:COVID, yeah, we started in the trenches. It's like okay, hi, how are you new planner? I've never heard of who we have to, you know, coordinate this event that was supposed to be in Nashville. Now we're going to switch everything up and it's going to be in DC. Okay, so our back and forth was the pivot yeah, it was the pivot. We saw how each other handled the pivot. Oh okay, all right, you didn't fuck it up. Okay, cool, all right, wednesday okay, I like her cool, savvy, fun jokes.
Speaker 3:All right, we good we just gotta keep it up. You figured out who the good, who the good vendors were if they survived the COVID. Oh my gosh, there were a lot of up and coming planners that did not survive COVID screw this, but it was really amazing how you handled the event.
Speaker 2:it really showed me how you take care of your couples, because the anxiety that may have arose throughout the day it was quickly quashed. It really showed me how you take care of your couples because the anxiety that may have arose throughout the day it was quickly quashed, it was taken care of and never heard from again. The day went off seamlessly, even if we were behind here and there we got caught up. I really can't remember any snafus on a South top of my head, even getting them outside to do a special hey how you doing to the people on iPad, because that's what we're doing during COVID.
Speaker 4:Oh my God, it was great. Like that is probably one of my favorite pictures out of that whole wedding. Yeah, like it's such a picture of the moment.
Speaker 2:Very much so.
Speaker 4:But I really think that, looking at all the, I can pick like a top 20 because you're an amazing photographer, but that one alone is probably one of my favorites.
Speaker 2:It was definitely something I will say. I was going to say no.
Speaker 4:I walked away from that wedding with an entire plaque that said worker of miracles. So, yes, yes, we pivoted and we pivoted hard.
Speaker 2:So we've been running our mouth nonstop and I can talk to you forever. We actually did have something laid out to talk to you guys about, and we're going to give you a part two, and I think that's going to be awesome. So is there anything you want to let the girls know about what we've been talking about so far?
Speaker 3:I had so many more questions. Oh really, girl, I could sit here all night. Oh, please, no, do it Girl, go for it. Well, like I was going to, ask so, like on, let's say, you plan from start to finish On the event date, how many people on your team come and like coordinate through the whole day?
Speaker 2:She wants to know the details.
Speaker 4:Well, your team come and like, coordinate through the whole day. She wants to know the details. Well, you know, because I that's what I do. I'm always curious to know what other people do. So, for myself, I think the longer I've worked, the more complex the events have gotten.
Speaker 4:My base is about two people. I want two people at minimum, necessarily being my right and left hand, um, but you know, kind of going back to what I was talking about before, I'm I'm very hands-on. So when it comes to my photographer, when it comes to my caterer, when it comes to the DJ, I want all of those people in line and I think that most planners do. But I definitely look at and approach it from a team perspective of like, you're handling the left flank, you're handling the right flank, and then we're going from there and then we're rolling out. I need you to carry this, I need you to carry that so that, in the natural way of event, an event day, and in terms of wedding day, when something not even necessarily goes wrong, but when something unexpected happens, I know I have a team around me that is going to be able to handle whatever I throw at them, because they have the resources. We have the conversation. We've had the prep time to be like yep, I got it, not a problem. See for me like.
Speaker 3:I feel like I'm always learning, like you should never stop learning, and when I'm able to talk to somebody who's out of our market, who does things a little bit differently or whatever, I like to learn from it because it lets me know if I'm doing things right or wrong for me. And so, like I can tell you, all of my packages come with a minimum of two people, but I secretly staff it with three because I have a guy that comes in in the morning who does all the setup. Like I'll have one guy go in with the linens, drop the linens, get everything ready for the florist, and then he'll set up like all their personal items toasting flutes, cake knives and all that and then stow all their tubs away. And then I'll have a lead that shows up, usually about an hour or so before the photographer. Right, it's like one's exiting the other, one's walking in, and then we have an assistant that comes about an hour and a half before ceremony start time and that's like their wingman.
Speaker 3:And so the lead does the rehearsal and she's kind of like the one that's really bearing the grunt and I pay them and pay them well, and then the assistants are kind of there for, like you know, help lifting, moving gu guinea pig work running back and forth here there, whatever, um. But, and if the venue requires that, you know we'll, we'll mic them up with walkies or whatever we need. And if the event has over 300 people, then that package automatically comes with three or more, and then, and then if you need like a flip team for room resets or whatever, that's another, we just call that additional labor that we tack on, and so I'm curious like from your perspective, do you, how do you think about and how do you translate that trust that you have for your team that's coming in for that day to your clients of somebody that they have not met before, necessarily?
Speaker 3:and so I don't. We always have meetings with them. So, like, whoever the lead person is that will be doing the rehearsal and whatnot, I make sure that they're involved in the meetings, even if it's just like a FaceTime or zoom situation. I want them to know their face and build some rapport. The only time that's really ever happened is if, like once, somebody got sick at the last minute and couldn't work or something. But the previous company I worked with, we did florals and coordination and planning, and if we were doing the florals and something happened and I couldn't coordinate, we were fucked. And so I had a situation once where my father-in-law passed away on a Friday night like I had done a rehearsal, then went and had a dinner date with my husband, came home, got the call.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, my poor husband had to drive to Kansas City crying all night while I went and did some stranger's wedding, and I felt terrible about it. And so I have always made it a point to staff conscientiously, so that if somebody couldn't work at the last minute I would step in, or so-and-so would step in. So I always kind of have like extra people in the wings that are available just in case, because life happens and I don't want to be given no refunds, so um, I try to cross train all my people.
Speaker 3:Hadn't happened yet. So, um no, there was that one, one girl. I couldn't wait to be done with her anyway, so yeah, there's just I.
Speaker 3:I feel like having people that are kind of cross-trained people, different strengths, different weaknesses. Um, I've got two or three ladies who have catering backgrounds and they bartend and they you know. So, if so, if they have to step in, they've got their ABC license. They're good to go. Um, that certainly comes in handy, and it's so funny because they're so judgy about other bartenders when they, when they work and watch other people. Um, I've got one girl. She bakes cakes and makes beautiful desserts and so she's really good at like. If a cake starts to look like it's got a wobble or something, she can fix it, no problem.
Speaker 4:Um, I've got you know I like that.
Speaker 3:That's a special talent like I probably am the better seamstress of all of us. Like I, I can whip stitch pretty fast. Like I have fixed many dresses, busted bustles, broken bras, whatever. And I I would say of everybody on my team, I'm probably the the quick draw on the needle.
Speaker 4:I love it. I feel like I have never fixed a client's dress or attire. I'm trying to think no, I've done it once for a client, but it's always for friends that.
Speaker 3:I just happen to be Bridesmaid straps. These are things, yeah.
Speaker 4:Like. These are just things that I have in my purse. Like my best friend calls me mary poppins, quite literally yes, you need everything in my purse every time.
Speaker 3:I looked, listen, we were at a restaurant recently and I noticed the dad was like picking at this little boy's finger and I realized that they, they needed tweezers because he had a splinter. And I was like here, you, here, you go buddy.
Speaker 2:And he's like really yeah here you go, abracadabra, yep so awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks for letting me pick your brain on that, because I'm always kind of curious to see if I could do things better or differently, because, on one hand, I'm watching my bottom line, On the other hand, I've absolutely. So I want to make sure that I'm making profit. I'm also able to cover my you know expenses for my technology and whatever I have in insurance, and and then you know just taxes and licensing and all that fun stuff.
Speaker 3:So you know, you've got all of these variables that you have to take into consideration as a business owner and and I always like to make sure that I don't have any hiccups and one thing that you did mention that I think I also want to talk about I've always liked having extra hands at an event in case some shit goes down. You know more witnesses, more eyes, like you know you got one person there that's on your team. It might turn into a, he said. She said you got four people working in an event that saw some shit go down. That's four witnesses. They're a lot less likely to lie for one another.
Speaker 4:I was about to say I mean, I I've never necessarily had to pull any of my teams to be like, hey, what did you see from this situation? What did you see from this angle? But I just for the post-event, kiki, this happened in this corner and I saw this guest over here drunk and I saw this. That part is so much fun the more people you have and the debrief that you have of taking your team out to go get drinks and or real food oh yeah, whatever terrible food that the venue has, if y'all have the strength.
Speaker 2:That afterwards is hilarious, right? Yeah, it's priceless for us.
Speaker 3:Like sometimes we've had to kind of spill the tea on things that we saw. Like sometimes a bartender might leave with an extra couple of handles of a bourbon. That really actually belonged to the client.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, it got poured. Yeah, that happens a lot actually.
Speaker 3:You know, and sometimes our clients spend money on some high dollar stuff and it's like you know, they're walking out with half gallons of Buffalo Trace and stuff and they just, I don't know, once it adds up to a couple hundred bucks to me, I'm like, yeah, that's, that's more than a tip.
Speaker 2:So I love that this has been like a shoot the shit episode for us. I love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mo, we're definitely stay tuned, guys, because we're going to bring her back. We're actually going to talk about an actual topic. I feel like this could be an episode for the vendors.
Speaker 2:It is this is like the more you know.
Speaker 4:Yes, definitely Like brides.
Speaker 2:there are definitely some gems in here you can take. I feel like this is just If you're thinking about becoming a wedding planner and you. Know this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is what life is going to be like for you. These are the conversations that await you. You say it's.
Speaker 2:This is what life is going to be like for you. It's better than this.
Speaker 3:You'll be. You'll be on Alprazolam.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that's Xanax for those who don't know. So. Mo you hang tight Hope you like coffee, we're going to have you back for the folks and we're going to get down.
Speaker 2:So, our next episode. Tune in tune, in tune in tune, and we are talking about bridesmaids wedding party, these people you decide to have with you and standing up with you, and why you need to have a different perspective of this so we can possibly save you a lot of drama and cussing people out. So make sure you hit us up at Pop the Question Podcast on Instagram. Send us a DM if you click the link in the bio and we can get you on the show. We would love to hear your stories. Thanks, guys, for still listening mo today. We will have you back and let's end this one, guys.
Speaker 1:We'll talk to you later, cannot wait thanks for joining us on this wild ride through the world of weddings. We hope you're inspired, informed and ready to conquer planning like a pro. Remember your wedding day is about your love story, no one else's Break traditions. Embrace your style and have fun along the way. Stay tuned for more episodes of Pop the Question Cheers.