Picture this: you're scrolling through your social media, and you stumble upon a stunning wedding cake made by the bride herself. This is what happened to Lily Mendoza, who skyrocketed to viral fame, navigating a deluge of both cheers and jeers from netizens worldwide. Caught in the crosshairs of 'wedding shaming', she turned this into an opportunity to showcase her passion and talent, proving that every cloud indeed has a silver lining. Join us as we delve into Lily's inspiring story and discuss the darker side of the wedding industry.
But it's not all doom and gloom! We pivot to the importance of vendor relationships in ensuring a successful wedding and offering invaluable insights into the significance of these relationships, alongside the detrimental effects of 'ghosting' within the industry. The discussion further extends to the growing trend of wedding content creators and their revolutionary influence on this age-old industry. So, buckle up, grab a cup of coffee, and prepare for a fascinating exploration of the wedding industry's multifaceted world. You might just learn something that'll help you plan your own big day or navigate your career in this ever-evolving industry.
www.cwpsociety.com | info@cwpsociety.com | IG: @cwpsociety | FB: @cwpsociety
Picture this: you're scrolling through your social media, and you stumble upon a stunning wedding cake made by the bride herself. This is what happened to Lily Mendoza, who skyrocketed to viral fame, navigating a deluge of both cheers and jeers from netizens worldwide. Caught in the crosshairs of 'wedding shaming', she turned this into an opportunity to showcase her passion and talent, proving that every cloud indeed has a silver lining. Join us as we delve into Lily's inspiring story and discuss the darker side of the wedding industry.
But it's not all doom and gloom! We pivot to the importance of vendor relationships in ensuring a successful wedding and offering invaluable insights into the significance of these relationships, alongside the detrimental effects of 'ghosting' within the industry. The discussion further extends to the growing trend of wedding content creators and their revolutionary influence on this age-old industry. So, buckle up, grab a cup of coffee, and prepare for a fascinating exploration of the wedding industry's multifaceted world. You might just learn something that'll help you plan your own big day or navigate your career in this ever-evolving industry.
www.cwpsociety.com | info@cwpsociety.com | IG: @cwpsociety | FB: @cwpsociety
Welcome to the Wedding Planner podcast brought to you by the Certified Wedding Planner Society.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Wedding Industry News. It's October 2023 and I'm your host, aisha Garnett, certified Educator and Master Certified Wedding Planner with the Certified Wedding Planner Society, where each episode covers something old, something new, something borrowed and some news. According to KTVB, channel 7 News, in Boise, idaho, many Treasure Valley couples are left with the worries of how their big day will come together when it comes to their wedding decorations, after one of their local wedding vendors stopped communicating with them just days after they paid their final payment. In today's world, the term for this is also known as ghosting. One bride says she booked the vendor in the spring of this year and noticed a few red flags when the communication afterwards wasn't the best, but she didn't expect for the vendor to completely stop responding to all forms of communication just a few days prior to her wedding day. Nearly a dozen brides have experienced the same setback from the same vendor, with some of their wedding dates fast approaching. The wedding vendor posted on social media stating that they've been experiencing some mental health issues and they starting that over. The wedding vendor posted on social media stating oh, my goodness, starting over. The wedding vendor posted on social media stating that they've been experiencing. Why can't I say this. How do you even know such a nice thing about me? Sorry, lori. Starting over, the wedding vendor posted on social media stating that they've experienced some mental health issues and that they reach out to clients soon.
Speaker 2:Speaking specifically to the wedding industry, unfortunately ghosting doesn't just happen between wedding pros and their clients. It also happens between vendors, heavily impacting vendor relationships. Vendor to vendor relationships impact client to vendor relationships as well. If you are a wedding professional and I'll use the term professional lightly in this case but if you are a wedding pro who is ghosting other wedding pros, it wouldn't seem out of the ordinary to ghost your clients. In either case, it's a poor way of doing business. Joining me to weigh in on this topic is Chrissy Thomas, vice President of the Certified Wedding Planner Society. Thank you so much for joining me, chrissy.
Speaker 3:I'm excited, thank you for having me, and this is a topic that I'm really excited for us to dive deep into, so bring it on.
Speaker 2:All right, let's jump right into it. As a certified wedding planner, we are typically the first to reach out to other wedding professionals on behalf of our clients, whether it's by phone, email or maybe even in person. We are there to help our clients ask those important questions, and we do our due diligence in making sure we are choosing the right vendors to even work with our clients. So how important, would you say, vendor to vendor relationships are in the wedding industry?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, these are such important relationships. To me, these relationships are essentially the backbone of the wedding day being a success. You know, teamwork is needed to create that amazing experience for our clients and their guests. So without it, a wedding day cannot happen seamlessly. You know, on average, a wedding can have between 15 to 24 wedding professionals. That's not including the number of assistants, the catering team, the delivery team and so on. That's a large amount of people who are relying on each other to be able to do their jobs. So you know, think of it this way your florist cannot set up their gorgeous inner pieces without having tables, which may come from your venue or your rental company. Your venue or your rental company can't set up these tables without a floor plan, and this may come from your wedding planner. Your wedding planner can't create the floor plan without working with the venue and knowing what works within the space, and so on and so on. So, as wedding professionals, we cannot do our job unless we work with each other and have some sort of positive working relationship.
Speaker 2:I completely agree with you, Kristy, 100%. What are some tips you can provide to wedding professionals or clients when it comes to vetting the wedding professionals they eventually want to work with?
Speaker 3:Voting wedding professionals is something that we are so passionate here about. I'm going to start that over. Starting over Voting wedding professionals is something that we are so passionate about here at the CWP society, so much so we have two podcasts dedicated to vetting. So we have a vetting wedding vendor podcast. We'll start that entire sentence over. Voting wedding professionals is something that we are so passionate about here at the CWP Society. We have an entire podcast dedicated all about vetting wedding professionals, and not only wedding professionals. We even have a podcast about vetting your clients, and this is all about the heavy importance of doing your due diligence. Jesus Christ, I was doing so good.
Speaker 2:I think I might start the whole sentence over.
Speaker 3:Okay, starting over, voting wedding professionals is something that we are so passionate about here at the CWP Society, so much so that we have two podcasts dedicated, all about vetting people, whether that's vetting wedding professionals and vetting your clients, and this is all about the heavy importance of doing your due diligence in the people that you recommend and the people that you hire. These were recorded in May and June of 2022, so make sure to get those a listen. But, to answer your questions, vetting your wedding professionals is vital and it's so important. Wedding professionals need to have a network of certified wedding planners they recommend to their clients, so not just your wedding planners having a vendor list. I don't like the way this is going. Let me see. I'm just going to start over with that sentence. Starting over To answer your question, aisha. I used to. Okay, we're going to get this together at some point. All right, starting over To answer your question, aisha, wedding professionals need to have a network of certified wedding planners that they recommend to their clients. As certified wedding planners, we are constantly recommending wedding professionals to our clients. It's a huge part of our job. Each of us have an approvender list and we are the repeat clients for these wedding professionals, but are they recommending us to their clients? So how does recommending wedding planners help engage couples in the vetting process?
Speaker 3:We see wedding professionals in all aspects of wedding planning, not just the highlights of their career they post on social media. We see how well they communicate or if there's no communication at all. We see what their behavior is like at networking events if they're professional or possibly even embarrassing themselves at these events. We see how they handle the pressure or those stresses of the wedding day. We know all about those red flags prior to them even beginning to wave. So it's important that wedding professionals have a team of certified wedding planners they recommend, because we see everything. We see essentially outside the glorified beauty in this, on Instagram and their website. We see a professional for who they truly are and that's going to allow you to recommend.
Speaker 3:Where am I going with this? I'm going to start over. Where do I want to start over? I'm going to start over with the B. We see how well they communicate or if there's no communication at all. We see what their behavior is like at networking events, if they're professional or possibly even embarrassing themselves. We see how they handle the pressures or stresses of the wedding day. We know all about those red flags prior to those red flags even beginning to wave. So by having a network of certified wedding planners, as a wedding professional you are able to make sure that your clients are being taken care of, because we create and curate and do our due diligence when we're creating our approved vendor list.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Now, just like any other industry, the wedding and event industry was heavily impacted due to the pandemic. However, it is slowly but surely making its way back. Do you think the pandemic created an epidemic of wedding vendors not responding to their clients and or other wedding professionals?
Speaker 3:Yes, I 100% think it did, because what happened is we were kind of flailing.
Speaker 3:We were having to either postpone or reschedule these weddings and what was happening is our calendars were getting so booked and so filled that we were overworking ourselves and we were trying to communicate with all of these clients and these wedding professionals and we were essentially drowning.
Speaker 3:I think we gave each other grace during that time period because we knew that we were all experiencing the same thing. But now that things are getting back to normal, now that we're getting back to your normal set of events that you booked and you're not overly booked, your communication needs to go back to what it was prior to the pandemic. We need to be responding back to emails in a timely manner. We need to be responding back to these couples. This is our job, and what I found with couples is, when their vendors aren't communicating with them, that creates a sense of panic in these engaged couples, and that is the last thing that we want to do is add even more stress to our clients because we, as wedding professionals, are not doing our job by simply responding back to them. That's crucial and we have to get back to the way that things were.
Speaker 2:I completely agree with you, chrissy. It's not a great feeling to be ghosted. When you reach out to someone, you expect a response, and we were just talking about that. You and I both know the importance of keeping the lines of communication open. If there's no communication, there's no relationship. What can wedding professionals do to keep those lines of communication open with other wedding pros, current clients and even potential clients?
Speaker 3:I think this goes to how they run their business. Sometimes I feel like, as wedding pros, we, and entrepreneurs in general we may forget that we are running a business. So you have to have steps and procedures in place to make sure that you are able to do your job and do your job well. One thing that Lori actually taught me to help me post pandemic was time blocking and creating my days to where I knew what I was doing. From this block period to this block period. Having a dedicated time in your day where that is all you're focused on is responding back to emails and messages from your wedding pros and from your clients. That's going to be crucial in making sure that you're actually able to run your business and run your business well, I think.
Speaker 3:Another thing that I'm seeing I feel like this is its own little epidemic is the automatic replies back to every single email. That's creating that disconnect of to me when I get an automatic reply back that says hi, welcome, thank you for reaching out to 7Sparkle Wedding and Event Planning. I will get back to you within 24 to 72 business hours. I'm getting this over and over and over and over again. It is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. As a wedding professional, you naturally should be responding back to me within 24 business hours. That just should be a common thing that you do as a professional, because what's happening with the engaged couples when they get this message is they are feeling that sense of oh, this person is too busy for me. If this is a potential client reaching out to you and they're getting back this reply, that's what I'm going to think as an engaged couple. I'm going to think, oh gosh, they can't be my wedding planner. They're clearly too busy right now. Those are the automatic replies that I'm having a little issue with.
Speaker 3:If you are generally out of the office, if you're going on vacation yes, please set up those out of office replies. That's something that I've noticed is when my professionals don't get back to me and they'll say oh, I'm so sorry, I was out of town on vacation. Great, I'm so glad that you were able to unplug and enjoy your vacation. Why didn't you set up that out of office auto responder? Because all that does is panic me and it panics my couple. If I would have known that you were going to be out of the office, I could have let my client know. Oh, they asked them to email. They're going to be out of town until next week. I'll send them a follow-up then, but not telling me is not going to help. I think what professionals are doing is, instead of having an automatic responder, let's say they're posting it on their Instagram. Not everyone's checking your Instagram stories Not everyone's following you just yet.
Speaker 3:Exactly Not. Everyone's following you, and not only that, they disappear after 24 hours. So unless you're posting that every single day, how am I supposed to know that you are at the beach with your family? Have an automatic reply when you should and that's going to be when you're actually out of the office.
Speaker 2:I completely agree with you. I even do it on my wedding weekends. We're out celebrating with such and such and we'll be back in the office on such and such a date. That way, couples, clients, potential clients, everyone knows and they're not in the loop and not just thinking that no one else is ever on the other side of that computer when they're reaching out to us Exactly.
Speaker 3:This was such a great topic, thank you, aisha.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, chrissy, for joining me and sharing your insight on this topic. Now on to something borrowed In this segment. We feature information from an alternate source that I feel you would be interested in. For instance, fox News reported the story of how a US Air Force veteran named Lily Mendoza of Washington DC went viral after making her own wedding cake. Not only did her 27-second video on Instagram receive over 7.8 million views and over1 million likes, she also received a few comments. Some viewers were rooting for her, praising her creativity and applauding her on how she saved a pretty coin, and others well, they brought on the wedding shaming. Wedding shaming is making fun of someone else's wedding simply because it doesn't align with your taste or preference. This is clearly not the way to go, but it happens.
Speaker 2:Mendoza noticed how popular her post was becoming while she was on her husband's Starting over. Mendoza noticed how popular her post was becoming while she and her husband were on their honeymoon. Blown away by the many comments, she then shared a few of them with her husband, who suggested that she simply put her phone down. Negative commentators wrote that the cake looked unfinished and they criticized the texture and color choice. Mendoza wrote that she only made her own cake to become famous. However, that wasn't her intention when she initially posted her video.
Speaker 2:Just one month prior to her post, mendoza graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, receiving her bachelor's degree in Applied Food Studies with a focus on baking and pastry Not that she owed anyone an explanation. So getting the chance to celebrate her accomplishment and showcase her talents on her own wedding day seemed more than appropriate. She simply created something that she loved, desired to fit her style, her vision for her wedding. She had no idea it would go viral and, although she enjoyed the many commentators who showed positive vibes, on the flip side, the very ones who felt obligated to share their unsolicited opinions with all the wedding-shaming behavior were the very ones who added to the many likes, shares and views that resulted in leading Mendoza to her viral success.
Speaker 2:Let's face it, the wedding planning Starting over. Let's face it, the wedding-shaming is meant to tear you down, but Mendoza didn't let it get to her. The viral success opened the doors for more exposure to her passion and talent. Here to discuss this with me a bit further is Lori Hartwell, ceo and founder of the Certified Wedding Planner Society. Thanks for joining me, lori.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's so nice to be with you and talk about this amazing topic.
Speaker 2:Thank you, let's get right into it. I want to start by saying that, as one of my mentors, one of the things that I admire about you is how professional you are and how Jesus Starting over.
Speaker 1:No, my name's Lori.
Speaker 2:Starting over All right. So and I want to start by saying that, as one of my mentors, one of the things that I admire about you is how professional you are in doing the right thing and making sure that you are showcasing yourself in a positive light. There's simply no room for negativity in our CWPS community, even on our private forum. So thank you so much, Laurie, for setting the tone in our community. You're welcome, Absolutely. Now, the World Wide Web can be a very scary place. I personally don't quite understand why folks feel the need to weigh in with all the negativity. I know we can't control the opinions of others, but in cases such as this, what advice can you share with other wedding pros that may feel the need to weigh in on certain situations, wedding preferences and the personal decisions of others in a negative light?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, it all comes down to the fact that we I feel like there's a lot of people in this world that assume that they know all of the details, they know everything that there is to know about a certain subject or a certain situation that someone's in, and they feel like they can just place judgment and just start talking, especially behind a screen. A lot of people hide their negative opinions behind a screen. They would never say that to someone's face, though, most of the time. So I feel like people are feeling too free to be negative and very judgmental because it's written in a comment and so it feels less personal. It's personal, though it's always going to be personal, and so I feel like if we could just come at things with less assumptions of the fact that we just think we know everything, we don't know anything about anything. We don't know anything about Mendoza, you know we.
Speaker 1:No one knew, when they were putting all of those terrible comments up, that she had her degree, you know, in culinary arts and with a focus on pastry and desserts. No one knew that. They just were very quick to judge this particular person, and that is just so hurtful. So, unless you're willing to say something and very you know, whatever that critique may be to that person's face, you probably should just keep it to yourself. I mean, what are? What did all of the parental figures in our lives teach us when we were younger? They always said if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. I've heard that millions of times. I live my life by that. If I don't have anything constructive to add or it's whatever I'm thinking is not going to inspire or help a situation, I keep my mouth shut because it's just not. My opinion is not important enough to talk about it in a negative way, especially in a way that would shame or make someone feel terrible about themselves.
Speaker 2:I completely agree. Wedding days are special and if you're a couple, you want to see your vision come to life. If you're a wedding professional, you want to help make those visions come to life. So what advice can you share with couples and wedding professionals on how they can ignore that negative?
Speaker 1:noise. There's a lot of negative noise in the wedding industry and I'm always really shocked when I hear wedding professionals shaming their clients whether it's a current client or a past client when it comes to what colors they've chosen or a certain trend that they're just tired of seeing. And, honestly, my couples are going to get whatever they want, as long as what they want doesn't ruin my reputation. So if they want something less than appealing, then maybe I just won't post that particular wedding on social media. However, if what they're wanting is something that's going to ruin my reputation for instance, maybe they want seating for only half of their guests at their seated dinner reception we're going to have to have a chat, but I'm certainly not going to shame them. I'm going to basically talk to them about why that particular idea will probably not work out.
Speaker 1:If they still want to go down that path, then fine, maybe I need to step down as their wedding planner. But if they simply selected colors that I don't love, what does that have anything to do with me at all? And even with that being said, I'm going to take those ugly colors and I'm going to help guide my couples to help bring those colors together in a really beautiful way rather than an ugly way. So my job is to guide and to give advice, but not to control and not to take over, and I think we, as wedding professionals need to remember that we're in a business where people see trends, they love these trends and they want them for their own wedding. We should stop judging everybody for this. I just don't understand what all this judgment is for. Shaming should never, ever happen.
Speaker 2:Now I know the importance of hiring, licensing and insured wedding pros. What advice would you give to wedding planners and clients in similar situations such as this story?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that's a really good question. So, let's say, mendoza was one of my clients and I put myself in this position. Okay, so she comes to me and she says, listen, I got a degree in culinary arts recently and I would really like to provide my own wedding cake. We would have to have a serious discussion, and one that's very much in depth. I have a lot of questions for Ms Mendoza. She's one of my clients, right.
Speaker 1:First and foremost, I would remind her about the contract that she signed that stated that you're only going to be using license and insured professionals. So that's always the forefront of my mind. If she says, though listen, but this is something I deeply want to do, what I would suggest is like either make the cake sometime during the planning process and prove to me that this sucker is not going to fall apart and crumble. Let me make sure that the taste is good. Make sure that I don't die from any food poisoning, like I'll be your taste tester, right, it's amazing how far wedding planners will go in pursuit of our clients' happiness, but I would want to make sure that I can trust the product that's going to be delivered on wedding day, because, again, that's one of those things that can actually affect my reputation If I'm working with someone who's just kind of doing their own thing. So that's first. Now second, if let's say it didn't go so well that first cake that she makes and I'm not, it's not proven that the cake is not going to be at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and things of that nature.
Speaker 1:If we've got this problem, then what I would suggest is maybe she provide the cake for her rehearsal dinner, or maybe her engagement party, or maybe for the brunch after the day after the wedding, or maybe one of her showers, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm just suggesting that maybe she make the cake for something other than the actual wedding day itself. But I can tell you this as a certified wedding planner I usually have it in my contract that you have to be licensed and ensured to even provide product on the wedding day. That includes food, especially food. So I worry a little bit and I would either have to. If she gave me an answer that I wasn't comfortable with, I could always step down as her wedding planner but wish her well and hope for the best, or I could make other suggestions. But we would have a discussion, a discussion where shaming does not come into play at all. It's just a discussion so that she can understand where I'm coming from and that I can understand where she's coming from, and then try to find some common ground. If you can't find that common ground, then we can go our separate ways.
Speaker 2:I agree with everything you just said, Lori.
Speaker 2:Thank you guys, I am one of my mentors, so thank you, you're welcome. Thank you again for weighing in on such an interesting topic. You're welcome. Next up is our old and new segment. This is where I'll be discussing an old trend and what's replacing it Now.
Speaker 2:Speaking of going viral, content creators are taking weddings to a whole new level. When it comes to weddings, it's evident that our couples are hiring photographers and videographers to capture the memories of their special day. On average, it takes those wedding pros anywhere between one to four months to return the finished, edited version of those photos and video files back to their clients, in most cases, the foot Starting over. In most cases, the photo gallery comes with hundreds of photos to review and the videos aren't easily shareable to social media. And, let's face it, with the limited timeframe allowed for most reels and posts, most videos from our wedding pros need to be cut down in order to be shared on social media. Couples want to see their photos and videos immediately. The way they've cut the weight is by hiring wedding content creators for their big day. These social media marketing experts make hundreds and up to thousands of dollars and they spend about six to 12 hours on wedding days capturing footage, taking photos and giving couples the luxury of seeing their wedding day as a guest within a matter of 24 hours.
Speaker 2:In the world of social media, we're wanting everything right away. These couples want to relive their weddings immediately. They want to see the behind the scenes footage of these memories as soon as possible, and what better way to do so than on their honeymoon? With the flexibility that content creators have, the weddings can be booked in as little as one week to a few months out. The editing can be tailored exclusively to what the couples want, because the content creator can share a draft of those 10 seconds to one minute videos with their couples.
Speaker 2:Edit and hit share in a matter of minutes. Wedding content creators are capturing those moments so that your wedding party members aren't tasked with it, taking away their experience of simply enjoying the day with couples as well. These creators are able to go live as they're commenting real time and be as creative as they possibly can From Instagram to TikTok, even adding in the fact that there's a hashtag wedding talk on TikTok with over 8.9 billion views Just sending those quick videos to couples all over the world to gain ideas from and simply enjoy it. It's a game changer. Wedding content creators provide an alternative when it comes to capturing those wedding days, so it's only right to tap into that trend Now.
Speaker 2:Don't get me wrong as a certified wedding and event planner, I love working with your traditional photographers and videographers. I'm definitely not taking away from those wedding pros. I admire what they do. I see how hard they work on wedding days and I can only imagine the work they put into making sure that the final product would be edited to perfection. But to see the wedding content creators on the rise with a tradition that's barking interest for our clients just adds another innovative layer to the wedding day. It has another vendor to our approved vendor list.
Speaker 2:If we can experience the beauty, love, joy and happiness without the weight, why not add those wedding content creators to the mix? I am definitely not saying it's the beginning to the end of hiring wedding photographers or videographers. It's just that the industry is changing and this particular wedding trend is on the rise and this certified wedding planner is here for the elevation. I'm here for the journey in seeing the wedding industry take flight, tapping into new and creative territory. That wraps up our October 2023 wedding industry news. Thank you so much for listening. We look forward to having you join us next month here on the Wedding Planner podcast.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, All right.
Speaker 3:Laurie just kill that.