[00:00:07] Speaker A: This is the EMG podcast.
Welcome back to the EMG podcast, Mike. Now, it's raining today, so I know that the rule is with rain, you're supposed to wear jeans. That's what I learned from Tommy last week.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Wait, that's a what? That's a rule.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Tommy said he. Where he wears jeans when it rains out. Now, to quite honest with you, jeans aren't quite comfortable for that. But I. I follow the rules. Apparently, you follow.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: I don't even know there was a rule.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: We're also wearing the same belt.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: We are in the same ring.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Theme.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Still doing that theme. Funny story.
It wasn't funny at all, actually. I was really angry. I almost lost my ring two weeks ago. Well, you play with it like a child. Yeah. River and Henley, I don't really like. It's not like. I don't like wearing this right now.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Put it on.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: I don't like wearing rings.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Just leave it on.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Yeah, and it's, like, weird. You play with it all the time. I do this all the time. No, no, not play with the ring.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: I mean, do you play the guitar with the ring on?
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Since then, I got used to it after a month. But anyway, today we're talking about. I found it, by the way, so it's. It's all good. We are going to be talking about.
I didn't even do the pre stuff with you because it's going to be super easy.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: I have no idea what we're going.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Do to super easy to chat about. Digital cheating chart. Now, obviously, everybody knows that we do this, but we were. We had a client, an EMG night out last Wednesday, and a lot of clients were bringing up the pros and cons of certain things about the digital team chart. What are the. And you and I usually are on the same side.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: But I can make it, like, I hear the argument on the other side. So we're gonna.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: We're gonna chat.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: We're gonna chat about pros and cons of how it's organized.
So we're gonna chat about that real quick because it's. It's a. It's like a big thing. Apparently, people are chatting about this on TikTok.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: How about our seating chart?
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Not ours, but how it's organized? Okay, so I'll go over the pros and cons of both, but first thing, just explain to people who don't necessarily know how it works with the digital seating chart. Explain how we do it with the monogram and that type of stuff.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: At its core, it's a way to display your table seating digitally.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: But it is a multimedia screen that's in the biz, what we call tvs, turned vertically and mounted, basically like floor mounted and framed by a quite like a literal picture frame.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: So it looks really nice, and it is a digital representation of how you want to do your table seating. Typically, we'll ask clients for ten to 15 high resolution photos of them, maybe an engagement shoot, that sort of thing, turn it into like, a nice looping montage in the background and then overlay in front of it in text. Your table seating that you provide to us via a Google sheets or an Excel spreadsheet.
The biggest pro of this, outside of it, looks really cool and people probably haven't seen it before, is that it gives you the flexibility to update your table seating up until the day of your wedding. When my wife and I got married, we did the traditional cards, which were a pain because you had to print out labels and label each one.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: A lot of couples still do printed signs or mirrors, like painted on mirror. The problem, like for Etsy. Yeah. Those displays leave you zero flexibility should you need to change anything.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: And they got to get shipped. Right. So, like, you're.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Once you have it, you have it.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And you have to ship it pretty early. Right. Because you maybe a month out there in time, month and a half out.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: And inevitably someone will get sick, someone will not show. You will need to move Aunt Betty and Aunt Dottie from table eight to table nine.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: And Dottie. Huh?
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Aunt Dottie.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: We all love Aunt Dottie, but it doesn't allow you the flexibility. So when I meet with my clients, I always talk about the flexibility. Not only is it a cool way to brand your event and make it feel very unique to you, but it gives you that flexibility. It's really a protection of your investment, rather than spending $500 on a sign. And now you're tied to it.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's. You're lucky if it's 500. I mean, the. When I was looking it up at when we were getting married almost five years ago, it was like eight. $900 just for the mirror. Right. And what's great about this one is that it's huge, like, the one that we have. Is it 70? What is it, 75?
[00:04:15] Speaker B: 75?
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Custom frame could be either, like, a goldish wood or, like, a silverish type of frame. Right. And don't forget about the monogram that we make on the top. Oh, the monogram, right.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry, I forgot about that. So if you have a custom monogram that you're using on your invitations. You can give it to us and we can do that. Or we can just create you an interlocking initials or that sort of thing.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm going to provide a tip of the week.
You know what's so funny? If you have the digital seating chart and you also have a photo booth. You know what I'm talking about, right.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Thematically, tie them together.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: We're all by branding here, right. Everything's gotta be the same, right? Brand guidelines. So if you have a monogram on the top of your digital seating chart, you may wanna take that over and put that on your printouts. Very simple.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: And why stop there, folks? Add it to the motion monogram that we can project for you on the ceiling of the room.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's three opportunities to have consistent across the board. And your marketing 101 teacher will be very happy with you.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Exactly. Now, I think we have not discussed this, but I think I know what the con. What the cons are going to be that clients brought up. So hit me with it.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: So we're going to talk about the pros and cons of how it's organized. Number one, you can organize it by table.
Or the second option is that you can organize it alphabetically. Now, when you're saying, well, why alphabetically? Because right next to the name is the table number. Right. Because here are the pros of doing either. Okay? The pros of doing it alphabetically, which is the way that we always suggest to our clients, is that no one knows where they're sitting, but odds are.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: They know the letter their last name begins with.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: Correct. Or you. Nine out of ten times, you could organize it by first name, too. Some people do by first name, you know, doesn't matter.
And then the cons of doing it by the table number, which is what we had, we always say, is that. Again, no one knows what table they're sitting at. Now, here is the pros of doing it by table number. And it's so funny because you can. If you've seen our video, it's like the video that we have of our digital seating chart, I think you do see someone checking this out. You can see who you're sitting with and you check in the vibes. So it's very important for people that I noticed, like, two couples said the same thing that I had two separate conversations with.
A lot of people had arguments with their friends that you have to do it by table number because people want to know who they're sitting with. And it's a vibe check. So I was like, I never thought of it like that. That's a really good point.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: I'm guilty of it. I went to a wedding as a guest three, four weeks ago, and they had a list by last name. So I found my last name. It said table eight or whatever. So now I'm scanning the rest of the list, looking for other table eights. Like, who's it eight.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Well, that's the con of doing it alphabetically. You can't really see it'll take a lot longer.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: I thought there was gonna be another con.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: For what side?
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Alphabetically. Okay, so alphabetically, a lot of our clients will give us individual names. So if you have 215 guests, you have 215 names. Uh uh, kid. Nuh uh. That's what I say. I say, nuh uh. That's the wrong way. Because inevitably, you will not know the name of someone's plus one. Correct? Right. So if you do it alphabetically, it should be Carla, Michael, and guest. It should be by whoever the primary person is.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Or mister and misses Saul, Paul. Or mister and misses if they're married or whatever the case is.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: But some people will say, like, if you're bringing Ashley Johnson as your guest to my wedding, and I don't know your guest, I just invited you.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, no, I know.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: How do I put Ashley's name on the guests? You can't do it.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: And guess that's what I did for some of the people I had. No, you know, I don't know who they were dating or whatever the case may be. And that's a whole nother thing.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Wouldn't it be great if you could date someone and their name was literally end guest?
[00:08:04] Speaker A: That would be awesome. Cause it's very easy to spell.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: This is my date. And guest. And guest and guess.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: So what do you think about the. Cause I'm still. I'm still in the alphabetical camp. And I'll tell you why.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: I was never not in the alphabetical camp.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Well, I. But I can. But the argument that you want the vibe, check the vibes. I can make a strong argument for that. But honestly, no offense, it ain't gonna change anything. So just sit down and figure it out, you know.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: Clutters. First of all, there's these. There's the allure and the adventure. Walking from the cocktail hour into table eight, not knowing who you're walking into.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: I love the rush.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Keeps the body guessing.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: But, yeah, you can. I'm a proponent for alphabetical, not individually alphabetical by cup, by couple.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Couple. Yeah, yeah. I. I'm still in the alphabetical camp. Cause, you know, for me, it's more. And it's less about the vibe check. Cause regardless of if you know who it is or not, you're only going to have about a 22nd. I mean, unless you're checking out the digital scene chart prior. Like, you're in cocktail hour and you're kind of just roaming next to it like it's Steven's wedding. It was kind of very apparent. It was in the foyer right before they. You walked in. So you kind of revive him with that. But a lot of times it's right next to the reception space and the cocktail space is not there. Right. So you only have about 15 seconds to kind of judge or figure out what the vibe's going to be.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Well, it's.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: And it's not going to change anything.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: If you. If you have 300 guests at a wedding and they do it by table, you're gonna have a cluster of people standing, trying to figure out where they're trying to figure. It moves too slow.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: So you gotta keep it alphabetical. Keep it moving.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: I also like the look of alphabetical when it's over. I think when it's over 100 guests. I'm still a proponent for alphabetical under 100 guests. I think table is actually okay because it actually looks very nice for my dad's. I did it by table. I was just. And I thought it looked nice.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: I was just gonna say we've. We've got gone a little nuts, personally, with the digital seating chart. Like, we'll have a party of 20 people and we'll be like, I guess we gotta get the seating chart out.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Just any reason to do it.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And it is a lot easier with 50 names on it as opposed to 200.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Right. And if you're only looking through six tables or seven tables, like, it's not. It's not that big of a deal. That's the only thing I don't. No matter what the pro of knowing where you're sitting and what the vibes are doesn't outweigh the fact of how it looks and how long it's gonna take for you to kind of figure out where you're actually sitting.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: As you know, since we've moved in here, I've been very intimidated by the board. Cause I don't know where things are. But what are you looking for? I'm gonna try something. I'm gonna hit you with my own.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Tip of the week. And then that was actually good timing.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: Thank you. I appreciate that. I have my own tip of the week.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: My own tip of the week is.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: If you don't wanna use photos of yourself, you can use graphics, meaning you can use just a solid color. My brother did this. They didn't want pictures of themselves, so they just used a black background. And then we do really nice typography and fonts. You also can use motion video, which is really cool. So let's say that you have a spring wedding. We could find a looping video, a very tasteful video of flowers blooming or something like that, that we can lay in underneath. So all of that is within the realm of possibilities. When it comes to your digital seating chart.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Just talk to us.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: We're happy to get creative about it.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: See, Sammy and Tommy's baby shower had a theme behind it, right?
[00:11:13] Speaker B: No, it was picture. It was her maternity shoot.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Oh, it was?
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Oh, no, no.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: It would have been a stork, though.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: No, it was the other. It was the other tv that they did for the gifts. Yeah. Remember, it was themed.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: I don't remember that.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: Because you made it. So that's good that I don't remember it. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. So that's it. I mean, the arguments still here. Let us know in the comments. Kind of like what you're feeling. We're still in the alphabetical camp. No matter what, it's gonna take too long. And secondly, the vibes aren't gonna change regardless. Like, what are you gonna do? You're gonna go up to the bridegroom and say, hey, I don't like the table I'm sitting at. Like, what are you supposed to do?
[00:11:44] Speaker B: I have a confession to make. I guess we can close on this. Outside of uplighting, the digital seating chart is the only other enhancement that I feel is like an absolute must have.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: I agree.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: I think you could have a great party now. I love intelligent lighting. I love sparklers. I love all that stuff. But the. The digital seating chart feels to me like a must have because it's cost effective, it's flexible, and it really is very dynamic and, uh. And unique.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: Yeah, super unique. And I.
Unique New York, New York. Unique, New York.
You did the first iteration of the digital seating chart. When I got married. You made two tvs.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: That was like the digital seating wall.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it was two of these things. And you did the stones for the stone house and you matched the brick of the lodge. That was really cool. Just kind of reminiscing on that. Anyway, that's it, let us know. We're alphabetical people.
We're not by table number, no matter what the vibe is, because you can't change it.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: So, yeah, you're stuck.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: Table eight. Sorry.
See you later. Bye.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: You can find
[email protected] or on instagram. Elegantmusicgroup.
