[00:00:07] Speaker A: This is the EMG podcast.
And welcome back to the EMG podcast in our beautiful podcast studio at the EMG headquarters. Michael, how was your weekend?
[00:00:24] Speaker B: You know, did. Did a few weddings, Mike. It was a typical weekend.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Yeah, typical weekend. Typical weekend. I only did one.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I only did one, too, but I was a guest at another, so, you know, that's the joke, right? It's like, it's an off night. Let me do something different. Let me go to a weding.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Let me go to a weding.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Let me go to a weding.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Well, speaking of your wedding. Well, not your wedding, because you were already married. Actually, check this out. Now we're on video. Mike and I have the same rings end the same. We're not married.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: We're not married. But we did not plan this. We're very matchy matchy today.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Yeah. So we are remixing another episode that we shot back in 2019 is your planning tips on the timeline of where your planning process is. So for this episode, we are going to be doing anywhere between twelve and 18 months out from your wedding date, and we're going to just go through what Maddie and Tom spoke about last time real quickly. Spark notes, action. Like we normally do. And then we're going to be giving our little take on what has changed. And I think out of all the episodes that we've done so far, this one seems to be the biggest change.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Because when this episode was recorded, it was pre Covid, and twelve to 18 months out was your typical time frame of when people were getting engaged and then booking. And since COVID the more normal time frame now is like 18 to 24 months.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: So for whatever reason, the twelve to 18 months is now sort of like a shortened window if you're planning among that time.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Probably the biggest change in terms of the tips or advice that we're going to give will be on sort of being more prudent and more decisive in the twelve to 18 months out than probably in the last episode.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So let's just quickly just rattle these off here. I always like to say this, that last time that they shot that, they were actually at the DJ expo, which is we go there every year now. We're recruiting talent. We're not actually partnering with people anymore.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Industry show for djs.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah. And so Mike had mentioned this before. Some of you actually may have a shorter timeline. So if you're listening to this episode, but, like, Mike, I'm getting married a year from now. We have an episode for that.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Listen to the eight to twelve month out.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Yeah. We'll address all those things in the coming episodes they had mentioned. Announce your engagement on social media. That's a big thing.
Girls posting the rings with their nails done. I know Ashley did that against a Christmas tree. How did Tony do it?
[00:02:53] Speaker B: I don't know. I'm still waiting for my wife to say yes, because when I dropped down to a knee and I said, will you marry me? She just kind of started crying and then put her hand out. But there was. To this day, there was no confirmation of yes.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah, and Mike has it on that.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: I don't remember how she did.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Well, Ashley cursed at me, so we'll let that go.
Budget, they talked about budget, they talked about starting a wedding email to lock down your wedding date, your venue, things like that. We're going to go into all these things in a little bit. When should I book by? That's a question that we get a lot when we're in consultations with couples. I mean, yesterday, book yesterday. Yeah. I mean, the answer is yesterday.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah. So let's come at this with our 2023 updated info, and then we'll kind of back into some of the things that they said.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: So for me, because Mike put this list together, and I think it's spot on, but I think the biggest starting point, right, would be your guest list. And even actually, let me go a step before that would be getting your family involved, because your family members are going to have an input on the guest list.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: They're going to dictate.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Right. Like your parents, friends, things, people you might not be thinking about. That's important for them to invite.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: And so you have to start with your family. Right. And so your family, to me, is a two pronged conversation. It's guest list.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: It's help us put together the guest list. And then it's budget.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Yes. It's finances.
Get out ahead of it. We hear a lot. My mom is paying for this, or my mom has a lot of opinions about this. My dad, he wants a band. I want a dj. You want to really try to work those things out prior to any planning starting. Because once you get the ball rolling, you book the venue, you book your entertainment, and then you're starting to bring family in. You're already halfway done. And now the problems that could have remained, small problems and compromises that could have made now are big fights.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: And I sympathize. Like, I remember you go from Tony and I were together for, I don't know, seven years.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Six.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Seven years. It was a long time so, obviously, I knew her family well, but once you get engaged, I remember about a week or two later, we all got together for dinner. And she has two sets of parents, right, because her parents split when she was young. But all of us sat down and had the budget conversation. And I understand for some people, that doesn't always go according to plan or uncomfortable, but it was the first time that we actually were sitting down, and it was like, it was more than just boyfriend girlfriend at that point, right? You're engaged. These families are coming together. It's an opportunity to kind of just have all of the voices in the room that are going to want a place at the table so far, so to speak, to have an opportunity. And at least for us, it was a very helpful conversation. It was like, who's responsible for what? Let's have an open and honest conversation about who can contribute, who can't contribute. That way, everybody knew the charted course, and I found that to be really helpful.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah. What I did with our families is that Ashley and I decided that we were going to pay for everything by ourselves. Took the pressure off of the family, and they were really receptive to that. And they said, we just want you to have what you guys want to had. When I got engaged, my mom was still alive, and she had just made some questions of, like, who do you invite? That type of stuff. I was like, this is what I'm kind of thinking. We were on the same page, both of us. Now I don't really have a massive extended family anymore. I used to, but we had that conversation right afterwards. I remember I came home with Ashley right away with my parents that night, and we just started talking about it. Right. It was actually kind of organic.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's almost a chicken or the egg thing. Budget and guest list.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Because sometimes your budget can impact your guest list. How many you have to cap out, or, oh, my God, we have this massive guest list, thus we need more budget. So you've got to find the right mix for you. But at least in our estimation, the best place to start is by involving the decision makers, which are typically the couple and the parents.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Right. And so that then will help dictate what type of theme that you want to have for your wedding. And so the reason why this is so important, because that's going to affect the venues that you look at, why the venue needs to be the first thing you booked, you book.
You don't need to be the couple where you have to book. Like, there's a band I love. I got to make sure that they're available for any of those dates. What will happen, will happen. Right. But unless you have a wedding date and a weding venue to have your wedding, nothing else should be booked first. And the theme of your wedding is going to dictate, like I said before, where you are going to choose your venue. Mike and I had two completely different themes. Right. I knew Ashley wanted a rustic wedding, but she didn't want a rustic weding. That was a barn. Right. That's kind of hard at the time. In 2019, the barn rustic stuff was very, very popular.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So you ended up at the stone house, which in the lodge fits that bill. But what would have happened had your guest list been 75 people more?
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Correct. I wouldn't be able to have it because the lodge maximum is 175.
If you had 200 people, you are now moving into the ballroom, which is not an industrial rustic look.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: So these twelve to 18 months out tips, it's your mixture. Right. Of family, guest list, theme. It's a bit of an equation to figure all of those things out. And so often we have people that don't listen to the equation, meaning they pick a place because they love it, but it's too small for their guest list.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Or.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Which then creates contention.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: Right. They pick a place that they love that's too big for their guest list. Right. So you've got to try to equate all of these things evenly and then make an informed decision.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: Right, exactly. And I don't even know you had a black tie. Right. Wedding.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: It was black tie optional. Preferred. Yeah.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: What would you call the grove? Like, what style is that?
[00:08:51] Speaker B: I would say it's like traditional, opulent, you know what? Normal. It's the thing that a lot of our couples will roll their eyes on and be like, I don't want that gaudy New Jersey wedding.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: It wasn't gaudy.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: It's not gaudy, but it's definitely more opulent and over the top. You know what I mean? It's a big marble and blown glass and whatever. That's what Tony wanted. And we looked at a couple of different places and there was a place actually, that we saw that I really liked. She just wasn't having.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: It was this one with the bridge. Yes.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: It was cool. But anyway, so you have to figure out what your theme is.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: Go ahead. Sorry, I was going to say, what are themes? Right, so you said opulent, rustic. We have industrial. Now that's like a big one. You have more quaint, which is like that very small kind of restaurant style. Like, I know one of your favorite spaces that you love to eat at in the city.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Brian Park Grill.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Yeah, Brian Park Grill. You have, man, you have like Gatsby, you have art deco, you have all these types of different themes that you can do. But again, you can't choose that theme unless you have guesses that can fit that particular room.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: And then you've got to pick the date.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: Which affects the theme, which is more important to you.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Is it I've got to have a fall wedding or I've got to be at venue x.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Because sometimes those two things don't line up together. So are you willing to sacrifice your season for your venue and vice versa?
It's not rocket science, the tips that we're giving you here, but these are things that you need to consider when you're twelve to 18 months out.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Yeah. All right.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Assuming that you get all of that figured out, the next step is to start looking at vendors. Where is a good place to start?
[00:10:32] Speaker A: I mean, entertainment.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, whether it's entertainment, where are you going to source these people? You've never been married before. You don't know what's out there. How do you source them?
[00:10:41] Speaker A: The first thing that comes to my mind is always the Internet. And then the second thing is friends and family that have gotten married before. And then also, the third thing is that your venue will also have preferred partners.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Correct. Let's work backward. Venue is important because if you picked a venue, it's typically because you like the way that they work or what they offer. So their list of vendors typically are like minded individuals.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Right. So that's a really good place to start. Your friends and family are a really good option because a lot of them, especially if you are of the age where everybody is getting married, have been to a ton of weddings and seen what works, what doesn't work, what they like, what they don't like. So that's always a really good starting.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Point, especially if you're at the wedding. Yeah.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: And then there is the Internet.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: And so how do you source something that is good off the Internet? Use your gut, number one. Number two, look at reviews. Look at consistency and relevancy, meaning or recency. Not relevancy, but recency and consistency of vendor reviews.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah. I have a question for you. Just because you are the marketing person here, when you're on Google, right, and you're searching, how can you help the listener and the watcher search better from a search engine? Like what keyword should they be using.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: That's a good question. Look for be specific in what you are sourcing. Okay, so don't just say entertainment for wedding. It's too broad. Right. Type in boutique entertainment for wedding or hybrid entertainment. Band, dj, combo photography, light and airy photography for weddings or dark and broody.
Give Google specific keywords that will help you find your vendor. Because one cardinal sin I find sometimes of the Internet search people is they go too broad. Then they reach out to like twelve vendors in every category and now they're buried. And that leads to indecision, which means the stuff that's really good is getting booked up in the time it's taking you. Be specific in your search queues.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: A lot of people will find us. Well, some people, not as much anymore via the knot and wedding wire. And this is not to, I'm not bashing the knot or weding wire. I think they're really good resources in certain ways. But one of the resources that I actually don't like, which is the one that you just mentioned before, is that they have this button called ask all to all the vendors that you might have checked as like a favorite.
It's basically a template email from you that goes out, I'm interested in your services, that type of thing.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: So how it initiates though is let's say you're looking up for a photographer and you find one that you like and you say reach out to photographer ABC. So you do you write a little message as soon as you press send wedding wire or the knot goes, here's 15 other photographers, do you want to send the same message to them? And it makes it so easy for you as the client to just be like, yes, but now you're going to get inundated with 15 other vendors. You're wasting their time, you're wasting your own time. It's not a great feature.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: Right. And I think to put a button in this is definitely start a wedding email. They had mentioned that in the last episode. The wedding email is great because everything will be centralized and for people that use our normal emails, we need to work and be able to see what's going on. So when you get inundated by 1516 vendors, it's going to clog up your inbox. You may be missing other things that actually may be important. So definitely start the wedding email. It could be as simple as a Gmail account. Don't use hotmail or yahoo or anything like that.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: What's it, 1999?
[00:14:08] Speaker A: I know, but people still have, I.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Want to go back to what you said, like saying, what vendor to start with? You said music. Yeah, I would put music on the same level, entertainment on the same level as photo and video.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Because those are like skilled talent, creative positions. And those people get booked up first. So it's always best to start with them. And then after, you could maybe even put flowers in there, too. But I would then back into the dress, the limo, the stuff that is just tangible items or things that you can go and get more readily and easily. So start with the creative vendors.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: So I tend to put entertainment above photo video florists. And the reason is, I wonder why that is. Well, it's not because I'm in the industry. I just know from experience. And now this is just my professional photograph. There are so many good photographers. Right. Justin is one of my favorites. I love Justin Petrick. I also love a lot of other people.
The posed photos to me are great, but the personality of the party, the personality of you as a couple comes out between what Justin always says, the moments between the moments, those moments are created by anybody can do pose photos. Right. Let's just put that aside. But the photos that I keep looking at, that I go back to with our weding, we were actually, because ash and are decorating now our house, since we've got construction, are the candidates are the stuff that happened on the dance floor. And that can't happen.
It can't happen unless you have a dance floor. That's really good. Which in turn means that you have to have entertainment. Good point. That's a really good point. And that's the only reason why. Because I just think that, in my opinion, those candidates are what really makes a great wedding. So the last thing I want to do is tip of the week.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Of the week.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: So hit a mic.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: My tip of the week is that we are now closing out the end of 2023. Okay. We're now in the end of November, right before Thanksgiving. And many people that are now booking their wedding dates in 2025 think that 2025 is still two years away. Right.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: That's a good point, but it's not.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. So my advice is make sure you actually know how far your wedding is away. This is an episode for twelve to 18 months. What may seem 18 months away, that's only 13 months away. Right. Right.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Is not.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Is not. So you may be behind the eight ball with booking vendors or your wedding venue calendar management.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: Very, very important. Lose sight of.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: That is my tip of the week. So make sure you, by months know exactly how far you are from your wedding.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: So next episode, we'll start looking at twelve months out, right? So this was twelve to 18. Now you're inside of a year. What do we do? Where do we go? What are we focusing on? So we will hit you next time back here on the EMG podcast.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: Bye bye.
You can find
[email protected] or on Instagram. At elegantmusicgroup, you.
