This is pod Populi Podcast for the People, the Great Love Debate. It's
the Great Love Debate, the Great Love Debate. It's a Great Love Debate.
Hi again everyone, It's Brian Howie. Welcome to the Great Love Debate,
the world's number one dating and relationship podcasts since two thousand and fifteen.
I am here in the very fine studios of pod Populi Podcast for the People.
I am at the one in Boca Raton, Florida. Uh. The
weather is deep, jungle, humid, Jurassic Park disgusting, but you know,
brighter, brighter days ahead, I suppose. Thank you for all the
feedback, the people who gave me the show, the feedback on the show
we did in London, which I really enjoyed doing. I know, I'm
gonna talk about that for a long time, how much I like London.
But I'm back in Boca, which most of the year is very very nice.
Now is I always say two things on this show. One is we
are always trying to sell hope, and we've done a lot of podcasts in
the last year that we're a little less than hopeful. We did some divorce
stuff, we did some breakup staff, we did some the world is hard
staff or whatever. So I wanted to do something that I think is a
little more hopeful. Today. I'm bringing my guest in a second. My
longtime producer of this show, the two time Emery Award winning Kiko, used
to always say to me, everybody thinks they can do my job, and
I was always like, yeah, people say that to me too. You
know. There was a point where when we were on the Great Love Debate
tour about the second year in we were trying to find different people to host
the show and have this going on all over the place in the country at
the same time, because it was really hard on me to get to every
city and host it. And so we actually spent a summer sort of in
Chicago auditioning people to do what I do, and we couldn't find them,
and I wanted to find them. And my manager at the time said,
Okay, it's no longer the Great Love Debate, It's now the Great Love
Debate with Brian Howie. And I was like, good, fuck, Now
I have to do it the whole time. You know, you kind of
have to really be curious about this stuff, and you really kind of have
to want to have these conversations. So why I bring that up? Everybody
can do my job, which she said, and she's a big time reality
television producer, is that my guest here is currently has a job that I
think is one of the most challenging jobs that you could possibly have because the
risk reward on it so much can go wrong, and if it goes right,
it's almost like there's disaster or relief. There's a very few and I
say that a lot. When I used to do live theater, people used
to be like, oh my god, are you so excited it's opening night.
I'm like, no, it's disaster or relief. You sort of get
through it anyway. She is the host of the Wedding Buzz podcast, which
you should check out. She has a lot the thing of things to say
about sort of the philosophy about what we're trying to do on our wedding day
and beyond, especially from the bride's point of view. She's a fairly recent
bride herself. I believe Sidney Wyden, how are you hi, I'm good.
Thank you for having me on. Everybody always thinks that, oh my
god, I could plan weddings. No you couldn't. It's the most important
day of or at least in the conversation for the most important day of at
least one, maybe both of their lives. It's such a high wire act,
filled with stress, filled with visions that are hard to pull off,
filled with You're trying to capture a feeling that is tough for her to even
eloquently enunciated, to plan it out. What made you even want to get
into a racket like this? You know? I kind of fell into it.
I was at Einstein Bagel's freshman year of college, sitting with my friend
who was engaged, and we were talking about her wedding and she was in
that like, oh, we could do this, and I could do that
and like this stuff. And I was asking questions, well, how is
this going to happen? And how is this going to happen? And she
looked at me and was like, you should be a wedding planner. And
at eighteen, I didn't even know that that was a career people had,
right, And so I looked into it and realized that at my college the
hospitality program had an event management concentration. And I got a job with a
wedding planner and switched my nature and just kind of dove into it. So
I kind of she was like, you should do this, and then I
realized maybe I really should do And so your impression of what that was versus
the reality of what it is? What is the what is the difference?
If there's anything A lot of people think it's like, oh, I could
pick flowers and colors and patterns, and it's you know what's funny is that?
Like I remember, like the first wedding, I was like, oh,
like this is a production. Like yeah, you're a producer. Yeah,
that's exactly yeah. And like now I'm a bit older, I have
been married a lot of my friends, I've been married, I've been abroad,
I've been on every goal of weddings. So I understand it. But
back then I it was I remember the first wedding, I was just like
whoa, Like it's a production, but I also loved it. I didn't
have a concrete thing of what I wanted to do when I grow up.
I am a girly girl. I love glitz, glamor whatever. I also
at the time, like I played guitar and I saying and so I was
like, I want to be Taylor Swift. But that was not going to
happen. So I saw these weddings as like, but I also love business,
and so you're like, well, I could be the music at your
wedding. Maybe not the music, but you know, it's a whole production.
But I also fell in love with it. At the same time,
I was like, whoa, I can you know, bring my business skills
and like my organization and logistics into something that is girly and fun and pretty.
You are every wedding I think you. From a wedding planner's perspective is
you have to solve a puzzle, and this puzzle involves their personality. It
involves a lot of moving parts in terms of friends and family and what you're
doing. It has a lot of to do with venue and certainly cost making
people's dreams happen when no matter how wealthy are, there's budget limitations and you
have to break the news to them like, you know, we probably can't
this is what that will cost. And then there's you don't want to disappoint
them because you're trying to give them the feeling of the dream. That has
to be something that's challenging to learn, no matter how long you've been doing
it. Yeah, it is, it is, and you know, the
budget is never a fun conversation, especially these days. We live in such
a at what's the word comparative, that's not a word, but anyway,
like everyone compares, is it a word? A comparative culture where you're seeing
these weddings on social media and everyone thinks, like I can have that,
And it's a harsh reality of what you think online looks like a forty thousand
dollars wedding is truly over one hundred thousand dollars and beyond like, yeah,
people, what people might think is like an average wedding is so much more
expensive than people think, and it's it is. It is tough because you
don't want to break the bank on a wedding. It's just one day.
It's one big party. You don't want to go into debt and stuff over
it. But on the flip side, it's your one wedding day. So
finding that balance is a little tricky and a lot of times not stereotype,
but that's what we do here at the Great Love Debate. This is the
most important day for the bride A lot of time, this is the destination.
The men are kind of like Okay, I want to start the marriage,
but a lot of times she has dreamt of this day. Yes,
since she was a young girl. Her wedding day is her day, and
I respect that totally. And to not have that day and the way you
wanted, that's what it was. One of the challenges with COVID for a
couple of years, Like people are like, we're engaged, our weddings canceled,
do we half ascet? Do we put people in masks? Do we
not do it? Do we wait two years? Like that had to be
really challenging and blow up a lot of dreams I think for people, right,
Yeah, I mean it is challenging and there's not a perfect like kind
of like what you were saying with theater. I mean I, like I
said, I played guitar, so I've done like shows and it's it's kind
of a make or break. It's either gonna happen great or not. And
if it doesn't go well, it just didn't. That performance didn't go well.
And your job is to try and think of a hundred possible things that
could go wrong, yes, and if you're lucky, you get ninety percent
of them right, and you get just get some luck it's it's preparation and
luck hope it makes it up and a lot of things can happen. I
said on this podcast a few months ago about how my cousin was just hung
over from the rehearsal dinner the night before and he just fainted on the altar
like that, but just put a damper on things. And I remember the
wedding planners there had to leap into action with some quick music and some entertainment,
like you have to be prepared for this happened. You have to be
prepared for the flowers weren't exactly what you wanted. You have to be prepared
for too many people, too few people cancel. All these kind of things
can go wrong, and you're in the eye of the blame. They are
entrusting you with their dream and their money, and you gotta hit that bulls
eye. Yeah, I feel like I'm stressing you out talking about You're like
I'm going to go back into some other job. I quit. No,
you're right, You're right, And I think that it is just our job
to think of all these things. And you know there is no perfect but
there are things that you can do to prepare yourself well. For example,
like the timeline I overestimate everything. I like an hour and a half,
cocktail hour. You know, give people food, They're okay for an hour
and a half. They don't realize as long as they have food and drinks,
they won't realize that it's an hour and a half instead of an hour.
But that gives you some wiggle room. It gives you some time,
you know, like overestimate how long things are going to take. Of course
not too long because you don't want the day to drag, but by giving
yourself that little wiggle room, when something pops up, oh it's you know
what, we have ten minutes in the schedule, so we're okay, We're
okay, let's figure it out because we have this time. I always like
packing, like the way that I suggest people pack pack things for every event
kind of separately, so that you have your little like emergency kits right ready
to go. So it's of course there's always gonna there might be an uh
oh or something, but at least it's not like, oh, and we
have no no supplies, no backup plan. It's hey, we have this
kit, let me go grab it. We're gonna be okay. What is
the proper amount of time you bring up timelines from the time somebody meets with
you. Are most of them like we're getting married in nine months? Or
is it two months? Or is it all over the boys that two years?
What is that venue? Specific? Sometimes it like we want to get
married here, and it's like, good luck. I think it's it's something
that I I think it's funny that I can't put a number on it because
it's so different. I think it depends on kind of the budget of the
wedding. Smaller budgets a lot of the time are more quick, casual,
Let's just get it done and okay, we can whip this together in three
four months. Bigger budgets often are aligned with brides who want things to be
a certain way, and that takes time, so it really vary. It's
funny. I did a wedding XBO a couple of weeks ago, and I
ask every bride that comes, when is your wedding and when did you get
engaged? What's your timeline here? And it just I get everything from like,
my wedding is in October, can you help us out to my wedding
is October twenty twenty five? Yeah, well, a lot of people are
waiting on the perfect venue. There's a lot of really fantastic venues in this
part of the world. But then you're dealing with weather at certain times of
the year. You know, you can go get you know, try and
book the breakers up in Palm Beach or Addison here in book Raton or the
Book or Raton Resort or something like that. You got to hit the right
day and the right time and all that. The biggest I don't think negotiation
is the word, but maybe is food? Is the DJ versus band?
Is it? What is the thing that that is the biggest part of negotiation?
Is it? What are we serving cocktail? Our location? What is
it? It's funny because it depends on are you talking to the bride?
Are you talking to the groom? I think I'm talking to the bride.
Maybe I'm talking to the father of the bride. I don't know. I
can tell you father of the bride and groom usually care about food and bar,
and the bride often cares about the pretty of what are the flowers?
What's this going to look like? The aesthetic father is usually budget. I
mean, we're being super stereotypical that's what we do here. Well, I'm
going to be even more stereotypical. I can't tell you how many guys are
upset about fall weddings because it falls on college football Saturdays, which is a
really big deal to a lot of people, especially in this part of the
world. Yeah, for sure. I mean that my husband is one of
those guys that would be devastated if we had to go to a wedding and
then they're watching on their phone or they're in the bar on the TV.
It's like go Buckeyes or whatever their team is, and the bride is like,
this is my day. Yeah. The one thing that like I kind
of suggest to people is like, if your spouse isn't super into the planning,
don't make them be you know, include them in some things and like
ask them like, hey, this means a lot to me, right,
please participate. But like if they're just if it's just not their thing and
they're saying, you're like you know what, honey, Like you pick the
right and and there's a fine line between showing support and showing indifference. Yes,
and you have to be like, what, I support everything you want,
run anything by me. I'll give you my ideas if you want them,
but I want you to have the freedom to create the day that you
want to day. And that's it. I think that's reasonable. A lot
of guys aren't very good at having that conversation, no, and I agree.
There are some guys that are probably not very nice about it. And
then there are some brides that are probably like way overboard of wanting him to
be as excited. And I think just because he's not as excited about the
flowers doesn't mean that he's not excited to marry you, right, because like
I said earlier, he's like, let's get to the honeymoon. My husband
wanted to get married at bass Pro shops and so it's like and he was
serious. I mean, it's a great place. So the one Inn Island
Marada and the Keys actually has like a little beach front and they do weddings
and it is pretty. It is pretty. No hate on bass Pro,
but that was not my vision for the day. And the thing is,
it's like I could have kept asking him like, what do you think?
What do you think? He honestly that's what he wanted and he wanted to
walk down the aisle to the James Bond theme song, and so like,
I couldn't keep asking him what he wanted because that's what he wanted and it
was not going to happen. So but he also at the same time was
like, it's okay, babe, just you you pick what you want,
right how Again another stereotype generally speaking, does the father of the bride write
the check? Often? Yes? Often? Yeah, often yes. Of
course, there's so many other situations. Yeah, it's tough when two young
people are trying to pay for their own wedding. That that is a hard
thing too, because they want to give it and you don't want to just
have a bullet chips like you kind of want to. There's always people who
unfortunately don't have a good relationship with their father or Yeah, they're some people
if they're later in life, they might be more successful than their parents are,
and so they end up paying for their own wedding, like asking their
parents. My dad, who had a fair amount of money, my sister
who had a giant, ridiculous wedding. My dad drew the line at the
champagne toast. He's like, I'm not paying for people to take one sip
and put it down, and that is like fifteen grand worth of champagne or
whatever. He is no, and she freaked out. They had a huge
fight about it. He's like, they can have their they could take a
sip of whatever their beverage is not paying for it. And I thought,
like drawn a line there. Yeah, it's fourigner people at his wedding.
That's where he's like, I'm not paying for that. Maybe the champagne.
No that I mean honestly, when we're talking budget, that is a common
thing of like if you can go, if you're okay with not having the
champagne toast, like just do a toast with whatever drink they had right,
so much champagne gets dumped at the end of it. Does I agree,
all right, Well we have to pay for things like champagne toasts around here.
So I'm he was He wouldn't. She's the host of the wedding buzz.
We're talking about happily ever after, I think, but I gotta take
a quick break and we will be back right after this. And we are
back now. I'm not gonna you know, you have been doing this that
long, you have been doing this for thirty five years, But have you
run into a situation where you're like these people probably shouldn't even be getting married,
or they're just everything is a fight and you're like this doesn't bode well.
Or now of course you have those few they're just like like how is
this gonna go? The one thing that I don't know if they were weren't
meant to be, but it kind of made me sad is we did this.
This moment actually made me decide not to do a first look at my
wedding. I like, in that moment, was like I'm not I'm not
doing a first look. We did the first look and he was, you
know, happy to see her, and then as we're like walking back inside,
he was like, all right, so we did this, like what
do I do at the ceremony? And I was like, what do you
mean? He's like, I don't know, Like I was supposed to look
excited when I saw her. Now I did, and then at the ceremony
like what am I supposed to do? Then I'm like fake it, yeah,
cry again, like be happy like I don't know, and so I
don't. Hopefully they're still together and everything's great, but I just was like,
where do you what's the first thing you you figure out venue, amount
of guests, budget of obviously both. Yeah, so I suggest kind of
two rounds of this of like estimated guest count. It's hard to off the
you get engaged the next week to be like, Okay, this is our
finalized list. But seriously sit down and like, count how many people?
And all those people that you're like, maybe not include them, because it's
easier to go down than up. Like if the venue. If you find
a venue that fits one hundred people and you're like, yeah, we have
eighty people, perfect, well then you keep adding and adding adding. Now
you run into trouble. So figure out your guest list, figure out your
budget a ballpark, realistic ballpark budget. Have the tough conversations with family members
who have said like, oh, we're gonna give to you, like okay,
how how much? Uncomfortable conversations, but like you have to have it.
And then I suggest venue because venue links like the capacity at the venue
is to your guest count, day, time of year, Yeah, is
it available? Is it available the budget. You have to know a budget
to know if the venue is good or bad. And then the venue is
linked to the date. So that's definitely where the building blocks where you got
to start. Food comes where in the in the chain pretty early, pretty
early. Ever, I like finding all your vendors pretty early. A lot
of the food. A lot of venues include food. So if that's the
case, then like it's kind of checked off. If they don't include the
food, then I would pretty quickly find a caterer to at least lock in
your date and you can always pick the menu later. That's a lot of
these A lot of things with vendors is like you need a photographer, you
need to get that date locked in. So people have food truck weddings now,
they do, they do, and people think it's fun, it's creative
and whatever. I mean, you can be I know some super well healthy
people who have weddings like park on the Beach and just the coolest just a
fun band and it was just awesome. And I've had some people who was
like, oh my god, how many mortgages on how many family members houses
did they take out to put this together? And it didn't necessarily make it
more fun. More money doesn't necessarily make it more fun. I mean what
the guests, like you kind of ask what what the bride and the groom
kind of debate over and the father of the bride. What the guests remember
is food and entertainment. Like some of the women might care what it looked
like and whatnot, but what are they truly going to remember is the food?
And are you? Are you on the side of band or DJ depends?
That's a wishy washy answer. I know, I guess I like,
I don't have a I'm a fan of karaoke weddings. Oh yeah, I
want drunk Uncle Joe to be singing Thriller if I if I had to pick,
probably DJ. I think a killer live band can be really cool and
really fun, right, but if the if the band's not good, you
can't be like, hey, can you change the song? So I agree
with that. Somebody told me once that the difference is why the DJ's better.
Not only is the DJ then they're usually probably a good MC and all
that kind of stuff that people know if they're going to dance, and a
lot of people dance twice a year that they need to dance to the song
and the way they know the beat is coming, and sometimes the band is
a hair off and it screws up the dance. Like I've heard that.
Yeah, I'm mixed because, like, I have been to weddings with an
amazing band and it was like killer, you know, But I've been to
weddings where the band just sucked and the bride was in tears the entire night,
and it was like there was not much you could Like I didn't know
how to tell the band to not be bad, and like I did try
to, Like I was like, I need your attention, and they kind
of like put on filler music while I talked, and I was like,
the bride gave you a list of songs, like she says, you're not
playing the right songs, and they're like, oh yeah, yeah, we'll
play it, and I'm like, okay, she mentioned this. She mentioned
this, and then they started playing again and they started playing like other stuff,
and it's I was like, I don't I can't be like, yeah,
they're in the middle of the performance, right, is the song their
song first dance the father Daughter? Is that a big part of it or
is that like the last thing that goes in the equation generally for what for
the for the when you're choosing the music, or like the because I'm there's
like this is our song, honey and the grooms like, I don't even
know this song, and then when she dances with her dad, that's usually
a song too. But then you get some of these people really choreographed their
first dances and then they blow it. I mean, there's a lot of
crazy shit that's people remember things that are different, but a lot of people
are stuck with tradition and they grew up thinking about a wedding a certain way
based on what they might have gone to when they were fourteen years old,
and they want to have that old school you know. It depends on the
crowd. Like the younger crowd is definitely more open to like, oh this
is new, this is trendy, she didn't do this traditional thing, And
then you get an older crowd who goes and it's like, how come she's
not doing this and how comes? And it also depends on the part of
the country. If you are in the northeast. I have been to a
lot of Italian weddings where they're passing around the bag of cash and there's like
a one hundred and fifty grand in there at the end of the night,
and they're like, nobody's going to touch that bag with this crowd here nobody,
but they do that and everything is old school, the tossing of the
bouquet, the dance to sit down, all of it. And then sometimes
different parts of the world do different things. Sometimes people want to have weddings
of bass pro shops like the same thing, or they dressed differently, or
the you know, a lot of people want the dark talks and six guys
in a line all like that. And some people are like, where whatever
you want, there should be some imagination in all of this, and your
job is to pull that out of them. Yeah, but people want to
respect tradition of what they leave a wedding looks like in their head. So
I was literally emailing a bride this morning and because she was asking, she
wants to do evites, and I was like, okay, and she's like,
how does this typically work? I was like, okay, well typically
they're not evites and you send to save the date and then this. But
at the end of it, I'm like, but it's your wedding to do
anything you want. That's I mean, the title of my book is Your
Day, Your Way had a plan of perfect wedding without losing sight of what
matters. So let's look at tradition, and then let's look at what you
want to do and how can we kind of meet in the middle here.
How can we find something that fits what you want without pissing off your family
and your guests. The one job that I believe has gotten easier when it
comes to the wedding thing is the photographer because you're too young to remember this.
You know, fifteen years ago he's dropping off a roll of film where
he's developing that he doesn't know if I'm not too young for this. Because
it's become this new trendy thing to do film photography at we and I don't
get it. Why what's the upside of that? I think people just you
know how like it's it was a trendy, it's now trendy for like record
players again, same thing, it's the same thing. They want developed films.
They want developed film. That's stressful because you want to know you got
the shot and it Oh my gosh. It drives me insane because it's like
the some of these photographers, I'm going to piss off all these people,
but that's okay. Some of these photographers that only do film photography, they
literally have to bring an assistant which the bride is paying for that assistant to
be there and hold film ready to swap in the camera. And then I've
been at weddings where the photographers like, hold this genuine moment. Hold wait,
let me swap my film, and I'm like, yeah, we we
progressed in the world. We have a camera. Everybody's got phones, and
like, you can take a digital photo and add a filter to make it
look that grainy filmy look. If that's what you want. Yeah, I
think yeah you can. You can filter and get It's not my style,
but if that's what you want, you can do it. Where do you
stand on kids at the wedding and the wedding, because that's controversial too.
My wedding was a no kid wedding, yeah, which is fair if you
are super casual. It's like a backyard barbecue. Family feel like, okay,
fine. My wedding was a formal wedding, and I was like,
no, no, way, no, because it was all it like a
like a theater, like a performance. It happens once and I don't can't
risk something. Sorry parents and kids. But yeah, the amount of money
that we paid for the video and everything, now, is there one thing
looking back on your own wedding that you're like, now that I know things,
I wish I did this, or I would have done this differently.
I wish my wedding was perfect. No, definitely not the favors I did,
which I had this debate with my parents just the other day. I
did these favors that were like little seedling trees, and I was so focused
on trying to do something different that I did these seedling trees. And then
at the end it was like, this is stupid. Nobody wants a tree
like some which my mom is like, yes they did, like her friend
ed uh Sandy and ed shout out to the cheehis but he has the tree
and he like sends pictures and it's growing and he potted it and all this,
so some people like still have it. But I was like, this
is a lot of trees went to the garbage. Here's my I know that
it was a good idea though, that's that's the kind of thing. On
paper. They looked cute. It was like package cute and had her names
on it. But at the end, watching my I had a planner and
watching her like try to hand out these trees and people who had been drinking
all night, were like, I don't want to tree like one thing that
bothers me about. I love to go to weddings. First of all,
if somebody invites me to a wedding, I'm going. If somebody wants me
there on like the most important day of their life, of course I'm going.
I've been to weddings on the other side of the world because it's people
like I can't believe you're going to that. I'm like, they wanted me
there, so yeah, that's my own need to be wanted. What I
do not want is to be at a singles table. I don't like the
concept of it. I don't like it feels like the loser table. It
feels like, oh, because we put these people next to each other,
they're randomly gonna they're fine, I'm gonna end up to Yeah, I don't
like it. I think it's it's like, oh, hopefully you guys can
be us some days like yeah, so a lot of people do, like
a head table of all the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Yeah. I don't think
it's a bad thing. It's if you want to definitely do it. Something
that I prefer is just like group your people together. Like, for example,
at my wedding, my sister was my maid of honor. Instead of
making her sit like right next to me or at this head table with my
bridesmaids that she wasn't really friends with, I had invited some of her friends
from grad school that she doesn't get to see that often, because I became
friendly with them too, And so I put her at a table with them,
and they were like ecstatic. They haven't seen each other in months,
but they were so so close all grad school. You know, so right,
I put, I put. That's always a weird dynamic at weddings.
You have the college friends, you have, the family, you have the
work friends. You have this weird sort of I like doing. I like
doing tables to a work table. Do you a college table? People are
going to enjoy it the most. They don't want to sit with strangers or
singles table. They want to sit with they now. And if you're giving
a toast out there, it's not for amateurs. Get some help, Like,
get some help. You want to call me. I can write a
really good eulogy, and I can write a really good toast, but you
know, I don't want to hear like the first time I saw those two,
I knew they're I'm not only I'm getting I'm You're not just getting a
husband, I'm getting a brother. Like I don't want to hear that,
Like, think outside of the box yet get a professional to help you.
Here's my most controversial wedding taket. And the women get so mad when I
say this. I will take it to the grave. The way that most
women wear their hair on their wedding day, like tight, lacquered, pulled
up or whatever. You would never wear it that way to a club.
And when you're going to a club, you are trying to look as hot
as you have ever looked. So why on your wedding day are you wearing
your hair in a fashion that you will never wear again in your life and
you have never worn to that point in your life. Seems like the wrong
time to take a risk. Do you know that all the women might hate
me? But I agree with you. This has been my Like you just
like outed me. I've had this like like internally every time I see brides
with these like little buns and yeah, real tight and fear and I'm like,
you kind of look bald from the front, and I don't. I
don't get it, Like, well, I want it out of my face.
Well there's a lot of ways to keep it out of your face,
but who cares If your hair is in your face? You look hot?
Get adamn not that what I did for my wedding was like now I'm like,
oh what I did? But like I put the front back so it
wasn't in my face, but the rest was down so I didn't look bald,
and I looked like myself. Right. A lot of times it's like,
oh, you don't look like that ever before and ever again? Why
are you all the days to gamble or to take a chance on a look
that you don't normally do. I just think it's not a good idea.
So what I really suggest that brides do when they go to their trial for
hair and makeup is don't don't go on Pinterest. I mean you can go
on pictures, but like, don't bring a bunch of pictures of other people,
right, find the picture, a few pictures of yourself where you feel
like you look amazing, Right, I love myself in this picture. Bring
that and then say, hey, do an elevated version of this, and
we have so many pictures of ourselves these days, there's just another advantage,
like oh my god, I look great that day where it like that.
A lot of people are like, well, I'm taking advantage of the fact
that I have a hair and makeup crew to give me a look that I've
never always wanted to do. No, that's that's not what you do.
So I feel like like this is not allowed for me to say, but
say it when my hair is in a bun. It's like when I look
like a homeless person around the house. Yeah, you, and you also
look stressed or not happy. It's it's an unhappy it's not a fun look.
If hair is in a bun, it's probably not like we need more
ponytails at weddings. There's not ponytails going on. I agree, it's you're
you should be fun, you should be flirty, you should be sexy,
you should be beautiful. There's a lot of ways to accomplish that. And
sorry, a lot of people are mad at me now for saying this,
but I'm glad you agreed with this. This is what you know, and
he loves you as you are, and this is the day like you are
the one He chose you know, a lot of women get married for a
lot of reasons. She wants the house, the dog, the white picket
fence. He's not even on that list. Do you ever notice that that
he's not even there? He I believe when he asked you to marry him,
it's because he wanted to spend fifty years with you. Like, I
think men are fundamentally more romantic about getting married and the women are more about
the wedding. A lot of that stereotype away. Brian Holley. Stereotypes happen
for one thing that you haven't Is there something that you're like, oh my
god, I can't wait for the to suggest this to the right couple to
have them try it in something that you have not encountered, either being out
a wedding or doing what you do for a living, and are like,
I wish a wedding just had a bunch of hula hoops. I don't know.
Is there something that you're like, somebody needs to take a chance and
do this at a wedding or is that putting you on the spot too much?
No, I mean I don't mind being on the spot. I don't
know if it's like it's definitely been done before, but not something that I've
super experienced. I love like entertainment at weddings. I know that it's like
not budget friendly, like a magician just maybe not. I think a magician
work in the room and the reception is a good thing. I just I
just think kind of going back to what I said, like the guests remember
the food and the entertainment. I just think keeping the night fun. Yea
every third minutes, do something different, add a confetti pop, add co
two cannons, have the magician pop in the room. Yeah, have some
dancers or something like. I just think I wish more people focused on fun.
Fun. People are going to remember, how's that wedding? Oh my
god, it was so much fun, And people don't focus on the fun.
Focus on the fun. The other thing with like today, a lot
of people not wanting to do the traditional like bookay toss, carter toss,
Okay, what are you doing? People get tired of dance? Is that
considered sexist? Snow like a bunch of women fighting over the bookay? Like?
Is that is that the reason like a lot of people are steering away
from it. I think a lot of people it's it's trendy, to not
be traditional. So I think that that's part of it. And then I
do think, especially as you're getting into later twenties, thirties or older,
a lot of your friends are married. So then it's almost like, hey,
let's single out the single people and put them on display. So it's
not I guess that nice. Right, that's true too. So I'm not
like saying you have to do the traditional things, but do something nobody your
your guests cannot just dance from seven thirty to ten o'clock in like they're gonna
get bored. They are. There has to be more than pictures, food,
dance, right, you have to come up with something else. Yeah,
and it's not a waste of money in my opinion, like it not
do the confetti pop, do the ceo two cannons. It makes great pictures.
People remember it. It's so fun. Yeah, be creative. What
was the highlight of your own wedding? What's the thing you remember the most
besides your fantastic hair. I just I was really happy during the ceremony.
Yeah, I just remember the whole day. I was just happy and calm,
and I just was nervous that I would be nervous and I really wasn't,
and so I know that that's not one moment, but I was just
really happy even this ceremony. I was just genuinely happy and like in the
moment, and people can feed off that, like that is a good thing.
If you're happy and you can feel that, it doesn't feel like a
stressful thing. And and did you know everybody at your wedding or are there
people who you met for the first time? I knew there were people I
met for the first time, but I knew about ninety nine percent. Like
there was a couple people on his side that I who is this cousin of
yours? Yeah, yeah, there was a couple of people. And we
got married pretty fast. He'd proposed in seven months and then we got married
a year after, so that's about right. Yeah, yeah, I think
that's that's good. I was not down to be begging for like I don't
know, I know some get this is maybe controversial, but it's called the
great love debate. Yeah, some women just begged for that proposal for like
years and years, and I was like, I don't think I want to
do that, and then he just he proposed, probably earlier than I was
expecting. Right. Was it a surprise? Yeah, good, definitely was.
Yeah. He I was surprised. I had like took you down a
bass pro shop and shot it out of a gun. Now he wishes,
he wishes now he did it. He did it on Christmas in front of
my family. And did they know? Yeah, they knew knew. So
I had like weird feelings like I've decided I don't know why. I went
through, like I'm gonna vlog and normally he's like put the camera away,
like don't I don't want it, And that day he was like, here,
babe, I'll help you set up your camera right before we were about
to open presence, and I was like huh. But then I also was
thinking like nope, there's no way he's going to propose, but he did.
All right, all right, I'm gonna let you plug your book,
your business, and your podcast, and then is your time on the podcast.
We play something called worst date or first date. So you have to
either think back to your swinging single days of when you had a really bad
date, or give us the really best date you've ever had, could be
with your husband, could be with somebody else, your choice. So,
first of all, tell everybody about your book, tell everybody about your business,
and tell everybody where they can find your podcast. Okay, Yes,
I have a book. It's called Your Day, Your Way. It's on
Amazon. It is an Amazon bestseller. It's a good title. Yeah,
thank you. So yeah, Your Day Your Way on Amazon. My podcast
is The Wedding Buzz, so that is on Spotify Apple. I do upload
the videos on YouTube as well if you want to watch it. We go.
We talk about all things wedding and all a lot of things of that
new couples are going through. And then I am a wedding planner. I
am in West Palm Beach, Florida. So if you need a wedding planner
or if I offer content creation services, So if you need wedding planning or
content creation in South Florida, I'm your girl. Good for you, all
right, worst date or first date your choice? I don't know. Well,
give me your first date with your husband. Then do you remember that?
Yes? I do fly fishing. No, what was it? He
wishes? He's wishes. You've taken a lot of his wishes away, I
know. Give me that one. That's a good hopeful story to end on.
Okay, uh, we met on Bumble. There you go, old
fashioned met him bumble. Well, okay, so you had to go first.
What was your opening line on I wish I remembered that I was not.
I was not like interesting at all. I just was like, hey,
how are you? Like? Yeah, I didn't. I was really
over the dating and stuff. When I met him. I just was like
kind of trying because I felt like I had to. But so I don't
know, probably something boring, Hey how are you? But we did click
like right away. We met three days later. We went to Elizabetta's in
on Atlantic Avenue for Beach, Florida. Yeah, but we also we met
May of twenty twenty. It was COVID. Everything was closed. Yeah,
it was a little less closed here yeah, South Florida, but it was
still most Yeah, that was a weird time to do it. It was
super weird. So it wasn't like that extravagant or anything, but it was
sweet. We literally sat in the in his truck and just talked for hours.
That's got as good at hours that good anything else. A couple of
hours. Yeah, we just sat and talk because there was nothing else and
the movies were closed. Yeah, like two blocks from the beach. Yeah,
I guess we could have gone there it was raining. Nope, we
just sat in the parking lot in the truck. We did. And here
you are and here we are. Good for you. Thank you. This
was fun. This was a little splash of hope on sort of a negative
series of podcast. I'm sorry about that. We cover all sides. We
were four hundred and something episodes here. We gotta slice this apple a lot
of different ways. Uh. As far as us and the Wedding buzz like
share, follow, please review this podcast and Wedding Buzz. You reviews mean
a lot in the podcasting ecosystem. Shoot us in email Great Love Debate at
gmail dot com if you have some thoughts on wedding hairstyles or anything else that
I said about this or anything else. We have a listener letter a mail
bag episode coming up. I think either the next episode or the episode after
that. I have a fairly big celebrity who I've been trying to get on
for a long long time coming up the week after that. Go to Great
Love Debate dot com. I think there's some live shows to finish out the
year. I don't know. I'm losing my mojo on it only because I'm
tired of traveling, but I do have some obligations to do some live shows.
Like I said, we lost a bunch of our live tour shows to
COVID and got to make them up. Gotta give the people what they want
because, as always at the Great Love Debate, we never stop making love.
See next time the Great Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate,
the great love to face, It's a great love to fath