Playing Battleships with Wedding Photographers

Film photography is overrated, organic carrots don’t make a good wedding, and Kiera Ryan from Creative Weddings Byron Bay chooses the three wedding photographers she would get if she was getting married this afternoon as she joins the first episode of my new podcast, For those of you who don’t know me…

Links from the episode:

Transcript

Josh (00:02) For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Josh Withers and joining me on this podcast is my friend Kiera from Creative Weddings Byron Bay. Hey K.

Kiera (00:09) Hey.

Josh (00:09) Welcome to the, actually take this the right way. Welcome to the worst episode of this podcast ever. And what I mean by that, that it’s not a reflection on you at all. But it’s the first one. It’s like from here, I’ll get more confidence and better and people will listen to it and give us ideas. So not that this is bad, but just I hope this is the worst one ever. There’s like, we’re just upwards from here.

Kiera (00:19) Alright.

happy to be your first.

I’ll be gentle.

Josh (00:35) Yeah, second woman in the world to tell

me that. gosh. I thought it’d be worth for everyone listening, watching to just kind of give a bit of a synopsis on what this podcast is because I’ve been very deliberate in wanting to do it and also very deliberate and not wanting to do it. It’s actually been a bit of a thing for me to get over that. I’m like, literally I texted a friend who’s like a well-known wedding photographer.

He’s like, just for the world needs another two white blokes on a podcast talking. actually do hear you that’s why I haven’t done this in years. And like I’ve tried a few podcasts and I’ve always have felt a bit discouraged. But I’m not doing it today to be another white guy on a podcast talking. The reason this podcast exists is because I just want to have conversations around weddings that aren’t necessarily controversial or.

about, oh gosh, weddings, screw them, like they’re horrible, they’re the worst. But also, because I feel that’s a lot of the mainstream media conversation around weddings. Like I always, I probably get a phone call once a month from Daily Mail or something like that. And I want to know about the crazy wedding story or the wedding disaster. I’m like, not every wedding is crazy or a disaster. So yeah, so I wanted to…

try and bring just like a normalization to the fact that weddings are awesome. And I know a bunch of people that also believe weddings are awesome. That people getting married is good and that a wedding can be and should be meaningful and honest and awesome and just true. it can also be something, I’m gonna struggle with the right word here, because I don’t wanna kind of shoehorn ourselves, but it can be, when I say awesome, not just awesome in vibe and feel, but it can be this awesome event.

which is why I’ve always appreciated working with you at weddings because the fact that you’re gathering, say, 100 odd of your favorite humans can be kind of elegant and beautiful and cool and like fancy, but it can also, in that same realm, be honest and not plain dress up. You know what I mean? Some weddings are like plain dress up.

Kiera (02:23) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s kind of a bit showy for some people.

Josh (02:26) Yeah,

I feel, I actually like to hear if you’ve got like a brand kind of ethos or like a, do these kind of weddings because I feel that the weddings I’ve done with you are, they’re good, like they’re cool and cool venues and they got cool, you know, cutlery, don’t know, whatever. It’s like cool, but it’s also, it’s not this, it’s not wanky and it’s not showy and it’s not stupid. It’s not the kind of weddings they talk about in.

in media on news.com.au

Kiera (02:52) You’re giving me good taglines. Cool. Cool and not wanky. That’s me.

Josh (02:58) I’ll

jump on to your website and edit it while you’re talking, okay?

Kiera (03:00) Yeah I mean I’ve always had their vision of my weddings being personal.

and not showy, like they’re beautiful and all the elements look lovely, but I pride myself on the whole experience. So you could have the best wedding day and the most awful experience. And every time you think of your wedding, you’re going to be like, the day was great, but the planning was stressful, yada yada, all of that.

Josh (03:07) ⁓ That’s the word. Yeah.

Kiera (03:28) And I think as soon as I’m on board, I want to keep them in that newly engaged bubble right up until the day. Take the stress off them, make it a really nice and easy process. You know, build their dream team based on their vision and their budget and just have an awesome and epic day. And so I don’t know what tagline that is, but I’ll go cool and not wanky. Yeah, yeah, let’s do it.

Josh (03:49) I could probably get the domain name if you want.

It’s such a fine line to walk. I submit myself to enough wedding Facebook groups and like Reddit subreddits and everyone’s talking about a budget and we’re on a budget and affordable. And I find those words really funny because what you get two people. I’m not even new.

like two, just two different people, their version of a cheap, say wedding photographer, they’re two different numbers. Like they’re, they’re going to come up with two different numbers and a one end of the scale. So it was like a cheap wedding photographer is definitely like 15, 17 grand. Like that’s on the cheap end. And then you just pull like another person out of the crowd and they’re like cheap wedding photographer. I’m thinking like 350 to $400. so there’s all these kinds of these terms get thrown around, but personal is one that often isn’t fully understood.

because personal is a reflection of who you are as a person and obviously now as a couple, what a wedding’s supposed to be. I’ve always advocated that it’s just the two of you saying this is who we are. And that’s actually a really hard place to get to without a wedding planner,

Kiera (04:52) Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

and going into wedding planning, you don’t know what you don’t know. So when you’re starting to research, it’s like, want this venue and I want this photographer and all of these vendors. And they’re like, I’ve booked my vendors, I’m done. But it’s about making them all work together because they wouldn’t necessarily understand how to fill in those gray areas between the timings of everything and how it all works together as a whole.

Josh (05:18) Yeah, That cohesion, it’s,

I’m thinking of, I think it was MasterChef, they used to do the whole, you could just go into the, like the pantry. Do you remember that part of MasterChef? And like, you could pull whatever you want from the pantry, but you’re gonna make something from it. And like, can just, you can jump onto a local wedding directory.com or whatever and put like, Josh and Kiera. I’m like, cool, I’ve got all the best ingredients. I’ve got the best carrots and I’ve got the best.

Kiera (05:29) yep

Josh (05:44) flour, I don’t know, got the best coriander. Heck, you used to be a chef, so you can probably talk to this better than me. just because you’ve got a kitchen bench full of A-grade ingredients, organic, grain-fed, that’s still not maketh a wedding.

Kiera (05:58) Yeah, yeah, exactly. It’s just the same as like something that I would cook and I give my mum the recipe and then she just butchers it. You know, it’s the same recipe, same ingredients, sorry mum, but same ingredients and it’s just, you know, if you don’t know how to put it all together and how it all works, in what timing, it can really fall apart.

Josh (06:16) You know, I’m something that I always recognize between a wedding planner wedding and a planned by the couple wedding. And here in Australia, like a wedding planner wedding is, I don’t know if you know any stats, I feel it’s probably, it’s under half, I’m guessing. Yeah, maybe 40, 30 % of weddings would be like, we’ve got a wedding planner. So not a wedding coordinator from the venue that the venue, because their job is different to a wedding planner. They might.

play a few wedding planner roles, but their job is more so, hey, please don’t burn our venue down. That’s, we’re going to do our utmost to make sure this place is still intact at the end of the night. But when you’ve got like a dedicated wedding planner like yourself, like that in Australia, it’s less common than say America, where it’s very common to have a wedding planner. So where I was going with this is that when I work a wedding planner wedding, I

always hear back from those couples in the days after the wedding. I’m like, thanks so much. And they leave a review and I make a comment on something that I did. Cause they’re actually in the head space to do that. Whereas, I’m just going to make it and I’m going to say half of the weddings that aren’t wedding plan planned. They, I often feel like they walk away from their wedding. Like, got that done. Like it’s like completing a task. Like I,

Just before we started recording, I had to get my eldest daughter to her job every morning to vacuum the windows because there’s condensation in the windows, we got a window vacuum cleaner. And every morning it’s like pulling teeth. weddings shouldn’t be a chore that you’ve got to complete or this task. Oh gosh, thank God we finished that wedding. And because of that, like a large number of couples that just plan their own weddings. I don’t hear from them afterwards. Like I’ll kind of send…

one email, texts, not to harass, but just like, like we did a really cool, special thing. Just checking in, you know, your marriage certificate, like just, I don’t know, just kind of, are you still alive? Did you make it out of the night alive? And I’ve always put it, thought that you did the wedding coordinator fail. it’s, it’s a really, really strange dichotomy. And I, um, I should put it down to a psychological thing I heard a while ago, which is, uh,

Kiera (08:03) Did the venue burn down?

Josh (08:16) There’s a study done where if they put the person’s hand in hot water, like boiling hot water, they would leave it in there for a minute. then the second part of the study, the back half of the minute, they would cool it a little bit less, like by one degree. You just put like a dash of cold water in there. And I’m not gonna go into the depth of the study, because I can’t remember it all. But the takeaway was that if something ends slightly better,

you walk away with a more positive feeling about the entire thing. So people are like, the boiling water wasn’t that bad. It’s cool, because for the last 15 seconds, it was a little bit cooler. And I often feel like that with weddings that, gosh, because I’m at the start, or not at the start, but I’m at the start of the proceedings. Obviously there’s hair, makeup, et cetera, ahead of me. But I’m kind of first cab off the rank, and then stuff happens through the night.

I’m not going to, but we can, we can spend the rest of the podcast listing the things that happen after. But, but sometimes those things just maybe kind of tank the day a little bit or the execution of the wedding or the planning, or maybe it was, you know, because your uncle was emceeing and he started doing speeches while the videographer was, had a steak in his mouth or whatever it is, you know, just whatever things went on. And like, they kind of walk away from the wedding, not feeling a hundred percent positive. Whereas when they’ve got someone like you, ⁓ it looked like.

you kind of fill that gap a little bit and make it little bit more smooth sailing for the couple.

Kiera (09:40) Yeah, and it’s exhausting afterwards for the couple. It’s decision, fatigue, it’s going, getting through it and just going, my God, like that was exhausting. It was like what I said before, you could have a great day, but if the leader was no good, then it’s hard afterwards to decompress and to, and then they don’t know what to do with themselves afterwards as well because they’re so deep in the planning mode. ⁓

Josh (09:53) Yeah.

Kiera (10:09) that they feel like, you know, what do I do with my life now? And then they just sort of fall flat on their face.

Josh (10:12) Yeah.

Yeah,

crikey, that’s a whole other thing, isn’t it? Like you go from getting married to being married. It’s almost like if you haven’t really thought that through, it’s kind of hard to change trains,

Kiera (10:17) Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, well it’s just so consuming for that time period that you’re organizing all of, you know, and it’s not that people can’t plan a wedding, obviously people plan weddings all the time, but it’s just about how you get there and if it’s intact or not.

Josh (10:41) Yeah, yeah, Gosh, talk about it in tact. I’ve got a topic for you and I find the most qualified people to talk about wedding photography are people that aren’t wedding photographers. So you and I are more than qualified to talk about this. And I’ll allow you to ⁓ save as much of your industry credit as you like. You can bail out if you need to. But there was, I saw a post on threads in the last week.

I’ll just read it verbatim. Another wedding rumored on film with a photographer trying to pass it off as art. I wonder if the bride will see her green photos with developer streaks on them as art. Where was the film purchased and developed? And they named the company, which is apparently a company you shouldn’t go to to get your film developed. And I wasn’t really here to bomb film photographers because so much film photography that is beautiful. Like it’s actually.

It’s a fascinating art because I do photography. I’ve got cameras sitting around my desk and I just love to make photos. But I am so aware of the fact that I am not talented enough to be a film photographer. I have paid enough money to film development labs to know that I suck. Which is why you don’t find film photography on my website or photography at all. I’m aware of my lack of skills, but I wanted to.

get your vibe on film photography as a product at weddings and you’re consulting a couple and they’ve they’ve happened to open up TikTok and they’ve seen the words film photography. What’s your kind of guiding light through that world?

Kiera (12:07) think it’s a personal choice film photography and I’m going to be super controversial but I’m not a massive fan of it. I think it’s a little bit overrated and it just can, if it’s not, if it’s…

If it’s incorrectly, it can make everything look just really washed out. And I think you choose a photographer based on shooting and editing style. And I think it completely changes the way that the end product looks as opposed to what the photographer uses in their equipment. my personal take is I think it’s great if you like it, go for it. But I think it kind of takes away from the talent of the actual photographer.

know how that’s going to sit in the photography world. I think that maybe that’s a bit controversial but if the couple loves it then go for it. I just think it’s a nice little add-on if you like it.

Josh (13:00) Okay, I’m going to prepare you to keep on sinking boats while we’re playing Battleship. You’re getting married this afternoon and you’ve got to choose a wedding photographer now, which was obviously not at all how weddings and wedding photography booking works. But it’s a fantastical world where every wedding photographer is available this afternoon and money is of no interest to you because you’re obviously loaded. You’re getting married this afternoon. Who’s shooting your wedding and why?

Kiera (13:25) I’ve got three that are standouts. gonna have three photographers. I think, I really love editorial style photography. I think it’s really beautiful and clean. And I think when photographers over edit and make it super dark or super pastel, like I’m just not a fan of that. We’re going Bieber style. I go Bayleigh Vedelago love her.

Josh (13:28) Okay, are you gonna Bieber-it?! You’re gonna have three photographers at the same time?

Bayleigh’s

in. Bayleigh’s been going as long as I have. I remember seeing her name when I was first, like she’d be going for at least 15 years now. Legend as well.

Kiera (13:52) Yep.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Amazing,

amazing. ⁓ Cassandra Ladru and Megan Kelly. Yep. Yeah, sort of Brisbane, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Byron sort of areas. Yep. No, no, they’re my favorites.

Josh (14:04) yep yep, get Cass in. gosh, you got the squad. They’re all South East Queensland aren’t they? all Northern and New South Wales? Yeah yeah.

You’re showing your bias, you’re not gonna reach out into the, I’m not gonna go across the Pacific. Love it.

Kiera (14:26) Sorry everybody else on my list but you know while we’re playing Battleship.

Josh (14:31) good choices. I would support those choices. It’s funny, Britt has changed her mind quite a few times. She’ll often make a comment like, oh, if we were getting married today, you’d be my, celebrate my photographer relationship. And because she has good taste in wedding stuff. It’s funny, I obviously do have somewhat of a taste because I’ve seen a lot of wedding photos, but I probably am a lot more.

Kiera (14:32) Yeah. Yeah.

Josh (14:54) Well, let’s say emotional. don’t mean like emotional, like, like ⁓ emotion driven in how I see photos and videos. Like, like how I felt in that moment. Like I’ll, I saw a wedding photo yesterday and, and I like my first thought upon seeing it as it was delivered. I’m like, wow. That’s my, that’s a, that’s a photo from the beginning of my third wedding ceremony at this Villa in Umbria in Italy.

And I’m like, how many people in the world have done the same wedding venue in Umbria or Tuscany and this loser from Australia has done it three times. like, I just really, I felt really emotional. I was going to post it. I’m like, a wanky post. I’m not going to post

Kiera (15:36) know, not many

people from Australia can, you know, have that as one of their top places they’ve done. Yeah, I mean, gosh. I say do it.

Josh (15:42) Yeah.

It’s cool. Yeah,

I struggle with social media because everything I go to post, feel like a wanker. Even, you know what, in regards to this podcast

Kiera (15:53) You should own it. You’re like the

world renowned, you know, celebrity. seen the Today Show, right?

Josh (15:58) Celebrity Shaw. always always calling people

Magla guys. I’m going to the coffee shop if you want to send a you want to send a pap I’m wearing I’m wearing slippers and It’s gonna be a fantastic photo

Kiera (16:06) You

start calling it in.

Josh (16:12) Gosh, so the reason I hesitate on social is everyone takes it a different way. Like, even for this podcast, I don’t know if you saw my post, I did a Facebook and Threads post like, hey, who was one of the most interesting voices in the wedding industry at the moment? Because the question I’m asking is like, Oh, I’d like to

talk to interesting people, I know interesting people, also, it’d be cool to open that net a little bit wider, and there’s people just who maybe aren’t on my direct radar, people I maybe already know, or people that are outside of my realm. Like, there’s a lot of weddings happening, like 120,000 people got married in Australia last year. I don’t reckon I know all the people that created those weddings. Anyway, so I asked the question, and indirectly, by a few people, and directly from two people, they’re like,

the basic vibes are that people read it as I was seeking praise and like, hoping people would say me and or, or someone also thought that I was kind of saying, but there’s no one interesting the wedding industry. Like, no, I it’s in black and white words. I asked who was interesting. So I know it’s always for social media. It’s always been taken different ways. And I also wonder like how the couples, like if you’re not getting married in Italian Villa today, you don’t care that I’ve done three weddings in the same Italian Villa. who? No one cares. So anyway, that’s

Kiera (17:19) I care Josh,

I love seeing it.

Josh (17:20) Thank you. If you

see a social media post from me, know that I have spent the last 15 years thinking about that post, editing it. It’s good. It’s blessing to do what I I feel really graceful. was really, sorry, grateful is the word I was looking for to do what I do. It’s kind of cool.

Kiera (17:27) I will live vicariously through you and your travel.

Josh (17:41) Going back to photography styles, I just want to share a funny anecdote from a couple recently, because I want to hear how often you hear word “candid”. You hear the word candid a couple of times per wedding? Yeah. I did want to, I suppose, bring a bit of a not a photographer opinion to it because I was, so I was at a, I did a wedding recently and they,

Kiera (17:52) the time. Yeah.

Josh (18:03) They told the photographer they were just candid. And then, so my thing when I finish a ceremony is because I’ve already been a voice in the ceremony, somewhat of like a, not an “authority”, but like I had the microphone. I’ll help the photographer lead into the group photos or family photos, whatever is gonna happen. I’ll help them lead into that. I won’t suppose anything, but I’ll talk to the photographer and say, hey, do you wanna do?

a group photo. And honestly, for those of you listening that don’t know or think this, I think a group photo is a good way to segue from the ceremony to family photos because it gets everyone together. Let’s know there’s these photos, family photos happening now. It’s not like the group photo is for anything. If you want a group photo, get it. It’s a great, it’s a fine, photo. But some people are like, oh, we don’t want a group photo. And I just think logistically, sometimes it’s a nice flow. But anyway, I’m not here to force group photos. But yeah, so the photographer said, yeah, we’ll do that. And I said to the couple,

Hey, do you want to do this? And they said, oh, no, no, no, no, no. We just want candids, just candids. I’m like, okay. Okay. So I just kind of communicated to the photographer. He’s like, And then over the next hour, they kept on wanting to have specific photos with different family members. I’m like, that’s what family photos are. Yeah.

Kiera (19:07) Now it’s going to take twice as long to

help gather everyone.

Josh (19:11) But yeah, I find the whole, candids thing, kind of a funny conversation we’re in at the moment and waiting.

Kiera (19:18) Yeah.

Yeah, it’s funny when I see albums back and you can see when they’ve had that conversation and everything’s kind of just like, you know, it’s all candid and it’s, I don’t love the posed looks, but I like intentional photos. And when people, it’s, people can misinterpret what candid is and that could be like somebody in the like half laughing and it’s not the most attractive angle of them.

But that’s candid as opposed to you know having a giggle together But they’re positioned in a way that you would want to hang on your wall like it’s two different views of what candid can be and so I think that when you’re booking a photographer having those conversations about the end product as opposed to

feeling comfortable on the day because most couples hate, you know, they say, ⁓ I’m feeling really uncomfortable in front of the camera, we’re awkward, we’re this and that. And, you know, a good photographer can get those shots without them making them, you know, feel feeling awkward on the day as well. So I think just having that open conversation with them is really important.

Josh (20:27) always think about

and just got to prefix this by saying this is not me flexing, but the first season of Married at First Sight, I was the celebrant on and I hated it by the way. If you ever watch back those videos, just know that I’m just like dying and cringing, not actually from the Married at First Sight thing, just from the being filmed thing. And because I walked into Married at First Sight.

Kiera (20:45) Thank

Josh (20:48) believing, thinking it was like a really awesome, nice, cool thing. And it’s gone in other directions in the seasons that I haven’t been involved in. anyway, the director, God bless her, she was like the best person. She, because obviously she knows she’s directed a show or two before and she’s looking at me and she’s like, this guy’s hating it. And he’s hating being directed. Because what they’re doing is…

If I was holding say a thing in front of me, there’s a whole lot of hold lower and they like move left, move right, like move your left shoulder around swivel. But I went to do the same ceremony four or five times each. And, I just hated every minute of it because I am a few things. human. I’m a 43 year old baby.

And I am just have my varieties of insecurities and anxieties and et cetera. know, just, I think just a normal level like everyone does, but just, you know, just those things where, I reckon maybe the director hates me. That’s why she keeps on telling me to turn around a different way. Anyway, she pulled me aside and she, ⁓ she goes, Hey, I can see, you know, you’re not really enjoying different parts of this. And she goes, I just want you to know that.

We all want you to win. We all want you to look amazing on screen and we want the show to sound great and for the show to be great and for people to watch the show and to love the show and to love you. And that’s why I’m directing you. I’m like, crikey, she doesn’t hate me. She wants me to be awesome. And I wish I could tell couples that. And I know some photographers have conversations to that degree, but.

But I will, without knowing who your photographer is and without knowing the two of you getting married, I’m willing to bet that your photographer probably wants you to look awesome, probably wants you to win and probably wants you to feel comfortable and great. And so if they direct you in some way, it’s in that spirit, yeah?

Kiera (22:33) Yeah, and you know, you’ve booked the photographer based on what you’ve seen online as well. And that might not always be your direction. So when you’re saying I want candid, but then you’ve booked them based on their own style. Like you kind of have to put the trust in the benders and to do what they do best as well. So it’s sort of taking like letting go of the reins a little bit and just, you know, allowing them to do what they do.

Josh (22:58) Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always feel so blessed. Like it’s funny, you’ll see those names of the girls before and like, there are some talented photographers out there. Like there’s some just people that I’m so glad to call friends. I just.

There’s some, yeah, just, we were actually surrounded by some great talents in Australia. Like it’s, you go global and, you know, I do a lot of work overseas and people over there name photographers back here. And they’re like, they follow their work. They’re inspired by them. They want to be like them. And obviously we see it every year that different photographers and videographers and celebrants or not. Like we, we have flare in the world. Cause what we do in Australia is really unique and really special. We’re, we’re a real world leader in the wedding industry, which I don’t think people realize here at home.

you

Kiera (23:40) What’s your Bieber list? What’s your top three? If you could have three photographers at your wedding this afternoon.

Josh (23:43) Alright.

Three photographers this afternoon.

See, like I said, I like the emotional, like how I feel. I want to feel really good in the moment. And there’s also obviously types of photography I like. Like my friend James Day, I have, I’ve been shot by him a very small handful of times. He’s done a few weddings, we’ve done a few weddings together and then I think he’s taken photos of Britt and I.

I like his shooting style. Like I think he’s a blessing to the industry. Just his, the vibe that he brings to a shoot is really unique. And so, so I’ll say James Day. I’ve always loved, I’ll say another friend, Harley from Bulb Creative. I love his photos. He’s obviously a nice guy, lovely, like good guy. So, but I’ve loved it when he makes photos of us. I’ve liked them. And third, I feel like I’m just now,

gonna offend some of them not mentioning them because they’re all so many great people. But ⁓ we are playing Battleship. I’ve always enjoyed being shot by our friends Luke and Mallory in Portland in Oregon. They did cool work as well.

Kiera (24:38) Plain battleship, remember that.

Josh (24:49) save them just to a hedge a bet against the 10 million other photographers I love that I haven’t mentioned.

Kiera (24:55) you

So need to say Bulb Creative because I actually haven’t worked with them before and I’ve got on my notes like next to me I came across them, one of my couples said I want a quote from them and I looked them up and wrote their name down to put them on my list immediately and that’s very hard like you know I get approached a lot by different photographers wanting to be recommended and that sort of thing and I have like a private directory on my website that I share with the couples for my handpicked

and I keep that very tight and Bulb Creative was just like, wow, okay, these guys are like awesome. So shout out to them.

Josh (25:34) Harley, Harley,

⁓ offends me in this way that, it really pisses me off that he, he just kind of, he didn’t just glide into photography, but I feel like he just kind of glided into photography. And then he’s just like really talented. and it seems really effortless, which really pisses me off. ⁓ Yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m like,

Kiera (25:53) We hate people like that. We have to bust our arses to like work up the ladder.

Josh (26:00) Yeah, I’m trying really bloody hard here. I’m like watching

YouTube videos. I’m reading things. Like Harley’s just like flippantly being awesome. I’m like, screw you man. Harley’s, Harley’s good people. We are, we love Harley’s. ⁓

Kiera (26:09) So not shout out to Harley, screw you man, you’re off the list.

Yeah.

Josh (26:21) of, you know what, Harley and I, we’ve been to Iceland together, New Zealand 10 million times, we’ve done America together for weddings and elopements 10 million, yeah, it’s an exact number as well. That’s not a made up number. We actually can’t do any more weddings together, because that’s the full quota for how many weddings you can do together as a per, yeah, you can’t do any more.

Kiera (26:24) Ahem.

million.

It’s literally, yeah.

Yep. You’ve reached your

quota.

Josh (26:42) Crikey. I wanted to talk about planning, kind of really hone in on planning. I know you’re talking about that there’s a reality of what planning looks like for couples and how expectations come in, the way that it’s their own. I feel like a lot of people walk into weddings with these expectations of themselves and what their wedding would look like. Actually, side note, not to…

not to bomb an entire gender, but I feel like men sometimes are the harder ones at wedding planning, because they kind of have this expectation of like, when I get married, I’d look like this. And like, I’ll have all my mates from work, they’re all the mates from the footy club, and it’ll be like 4,000 people. they kind of, and they aren’t always fully equipped to talk about what the reality of it. But yeah, so.

Kiera (27:07) you

Josh (27:23) So they bring these expectations and whether it’s Instagram, Pinterest, family, that kind of thing. And trying to navigate that and the feelings around that is not really talked about a whole lot. How do you kind of join that conversation and trying to help people not hate the process?

Kiera (27:40) Well that’s why I’ve started my own podcast about it, speaking with brides specifically because generally the bride’s kind of taking the lead with it and I find that

Brides are usually big picture. So they focus on the aesthetics, the photography, hair and makeup, like how things look and grooms tend to go. Guest entertainment, food, drink, and how much is this thing gonna cost me? And so…

Josh (28:08) “Photography’s how much?”

Yeah, flowers yeah

Kiera (28:09) Yeah, or flowers, you know, like no, we’re not spending, you

know, and they usually sort of argue around the styling because they’re just like, it’s not necessary and whatever anyway, I’m generalising. the, find that social media plays a huge role in

the expectation versus reality. The industry is such a curated, beautiful looking industry from the outside. You see all these amazing photos and styles and everything online. And people go, I want my wedding to look like that. And they focus on that side of things. But when you get stuck into the planning side and you start having opinions coming at you,

and you know, like family dynamics that you have to work with and the stress factors and doing this full-time job on top of your full-time job and managing two families and all of your normal life stuff. Especially if you don’t have the help, it’s like you’re thrown into this world of hardcore admin, all these questions coming at you, you’re not sure how to navigate it all.

and you can soon, it can pop that engage bubble and you can be like, this is fucked. Like, I’m hating this process. And you know, that’s when people say, just want it to be done. And you know, then they run into, they don’t know how to research properly on what things should be costing, what they can do without, how they can get their vision across without breaking the bank. Like I had a,

meeting with one of my brides the other day and we’re going through a styling and I put together a styling brief initially and she wanted to have a meeting about how she wanted to cut some costs and so I went through with her and I just went you know it’s like line by line and I said this is going to make a huge impact if we change this but this is what we can do to not change the vision like for example she was like ⁓ should we use the included chairs for the ceremony and I said well they’re white

and you’ve got these natural oak chairs and so with your vision that’s going to look very different to the overall vision that you have originally so what we can do is we can tweak these other areas that we can you know and and we brought down the budget for her without sort of changing the overall vision it’s just about understanding how to do all of that and you know you can really just get caught up in

the negative aspect through the planning. can take that joy from it. So it’s so important just to have the right team around you.

Josh (30:43) Yeah,

the joy of planning a wedding is that you’re getting married.

When I say young, don’t mean necessarily age, but like younger relationship, like, cause it’s, that’s generally where a wedding happens. Like it is this, you know, you’ve decided to proceed to the next level. And, ⁓ and so there’s this, this is joy in it, but what often comes with that youthfulness is that you’re still young and maybe decisions around money or budgets or values, even when I say value. mean money value, but like, what do people like us value? Like as a couple, like what are our values? Like do we,

Like is the colour of the chair matching, like is it one of their values? Because it can be, it’s a valid value, but isn’t one of their else. And to know those things, just, it kind of requires the journey, you know, to sit down to actually to go through it. And I’m always glad that people might have a planner like yourself to kind of hold their hand through that, because it can be a bit of a rough ride, even just as a couple, just trying to figure out how do people like us do things like this.

Cause if you talk like some of my favorite clients are ones that are like second marriage and they’re in their fifties and they’re like, we know who we are. We have figured this shit out. Whereas obviously a young couple, like it’s just, it’s not even, it’s not an indictment on any of those people. It’s just like, that’s just where you are in life. You know, you’ve never gotten a hundred people in the same room together. It’s a bit of a daunting task.

Kiera (32:01) Yeah.

And understanding those values right at the beginning helps dictate that budget as well. So when we’re sort of going through the planning side of things, I get the couple to write out what their non-negotiables are, what the most important elements are, the way that they want the wedding to feel. So if you want to walk in and have it feel like a family barbecue, but just fancy, what are the elements that we can incorporate to make it feel like that? Whether that’s music or something

sort of guest entertainment or really cool cocktails or just that vibe and that energy. You know, lot of couples get just like, I just want the ceremony to be done. We’re really nervous. We don’t want to talk about our feelings. But then I explain, you know, that that’s why you’re there. That’s what makes a wedding. That’s like the whole point. Otherwise, it’s just a fancy party. And my favourite part is matchmaking a celebrant with the couple. And that’s why, you know, when we have these discussions, I know immediately who I

Josh (32:45) Yeah.

Kiera (32:57) recommend for them based on their personalities, based on the style of ceremony.

And what I love, and I’ll just give you a little plug here, but what I love about your ceremonies is it’s, it’s not, you’re not reading from a script and you know, it’s so fine for certain celebrants to do that. But I find that it’s, it brings that feeling to the day and you just, you’ve got the gift of the gab and that’s why I love your ceremonies. And you know, you’d be my top list if I getting married this afternoon, it’d be you Bayleigh

Josh (33:14) 100%. Yeah.

The

Kiera (33:28) ⁓ Cassandra, Megan.

Josh (33:30) dream team. So that’s a good segue into how I want to wrap up the podcast today because we’ve ⁓ talked about the well rated three and myself. ⁓ Give us an underrated, just something. I’m not going to, ⁓ it’s an underrated something in the winning entry. can be style, trend, a vendor, a venue, a thing.

Kiera (33:39) You

Josh (33:50) What’s your opinion, the most underrated thing in the wedding vibe today?

Kiera (33:54) underrated is the way that the staffing on the day doesn’t get looked into when people are planning. So they’ve got all their vendors but then they want a cheap catering company or something like that but that’s like the heart of that’s the manpower on the day that’s how it’s going to make it run really smoothly and on time so like the staffing in the catering team is highly underrated.

Josh (34:07) Yeah

Kiera (34:18) when it comes to, yeah, it’s, people just, it’s not thought of, you know, people just assume that it’s all going to run and you can have one coordinator that will run the whole day. And it’s just like, they need to work alongside the staffing. So I know that’s such a boring answer, but like, it’s real.

Josh (34:18) Staffing is really hard, yeah.

No, it’s real. So real

story, friend of mine took a job managing a venue recently and she’s just quit. Actually got a major old job. The reason being, so it’s a cool venue, cool place. Like it’s good, it’s cool, it’s awesome. Food’s good, beer’s good, everything is good there. But she really had trouble staffing it up and there was a…

a staffing issue that she wasn’t as empowered to work around, aka fire someone. Just politics in business and staffing and people who are sleeping with each other. And that was a impediment to her, not just keeping the staff she had, but hiring more good staff. She would literally post a thing like a local Facebook group, like, looking for people. People would just like laugh, react to it.

No, no, wasn’t that one. ⁓ And so she just couldn’t get staff. And so she didn’t believe she could do what her job was, was to run that venue really well and to bring it up. And so she quit because she’s like, I can’t do this.

Kiera (35:24) They didn’t go to the Coldplay concert, did

Hahaha

Josh (35:40) because it’s all well and good to have four walls and a roof and it’s painted nicely, it’s well styled, it’s got a cool website, cool social, all the things, you know. But she just couldn’t get great staff to run the place, to work. And it was an impediment, because when she was looking at taking the job, I said, yeah, you’ll kill it there, I took the girls there for lunch one hour one day and the staffing really impeded

the lunch experience like lunch was great. It was cool venue. But for example, it was empty. I walked in like we got to we got six year old and a four year old. So we didn’t have lunch at midday. We kind of sometimes have lunch a little bit before midday, you know, and so we walked in like I think they’ve been 11 walks in a quarter past 11 place is empty. There’s not a single person there. The lunch crowds about to pour in and they’re like have you got a reservation? I’m like no, I said, have you got a table free jokingly because like every table’s free like don’t know.

I think it looked like a got a table free I understand these reservations were not, we’ve got two kids. We’ll be out of here in three minutes, you know? But yeah, it was just like the entire flow of staff was just not great. And it really impeded my view of the venue until she started managing it. And then she’s obviously left because she can’t get good staff. staffing, human resources, even at a wedding are valuable and important. know, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter if it’s the best cater in town, if the chef’s an asshole.

Kiera (36:49) Yeah.

And you’re only as good as the team around you as well. You could do an amazing job. so for like your job, you’ve got all the equipment, you’re there, you’re doing your thing. If, you know, the transport company is running late, the bride doesn’t arrive. You know, if something else doesn’t happen, then it impacts on your job. And so you’ve really got to put that trust in the team around you as well. And just, yeah, I think just the staffing on the day, but also like the setup packed down, like all of that. It’s the manpower that is.

Josh (37:19) Yeah.

Kiera (37:19) is not looked at initially so get good staff.

Josh (37:22) Yeah, even, so

it’s not just quality of like, as in friendliness or kind of humanity, but also can they be set up before the guests arrive? Like I’ve seen more and more florists recently still sitting up as like guests are sitting down like, no, mate, that needs to be, happened like an hour ago. Like I was hearing, like my PA system was set up before anyone was here. Like that’s, I don’t want to be setting up my PA system in front of people. that’s.

Kiera (37:42) as it should. Yeah.

And even the movement while guests are there. I was dealing with a photo booth company and I said you have to pay the extra what’s called an idle time that they come in earlier, set up their gear and then leave and come back when it’s about to go live. And so you don’t want to be pulling photo booths in while the guests are having their cocktails. There’s all these moving parts that it impacts the whole experience and you can do it,

Josh (38:09) Yeah, yeah.

Kiera (38:13) of going to be like, was that forgotten? Or that kind of just takes away from the flow of how the day feels as well.

Josh (38:20) Yep, yep.

No, I’ve literally, I’ve seen a photo booth company setting up during the ceremony and I’m like, mate, just read the room. Yeah. Gosh. Okay. It’s always a pleasure to see you and to talk to you. Let’s give you some plugs. Tell everyone about your podcast and how they can find it. And also your socials and website. So that people, if they want to get married in Byron Bay and get the best planner in town, they can get you.

Kiera (38:26) the truck’s backing in with the beeping noise.

Well, I’m sure we can pop it all in the show notes, but my podcast is Dear Future Bride and Creative Weddings Byron Bay.

Playing Battleships with Wedding Photographers

Watch

Listen

Guests

Kiera Ryan

Host

Josh Withers

Subscribe

Show Notes

Links from the episode:

Transcript