Hello. Another week,
another week.
with us. Your favorite gals,
Yay.
about wedding planning and all the tips, all the t all the, the BTS. That's
You sound like a tele presenter. B-S-T-B-T-S. You sound like a tele presenter.
Yeah, I shouldn't give up my day job, really. I
Do you reckon you could do that? You know, when do you reckon you could do that? You know when they're like, they watch a little screen, don't they? And they're reading. You reckon you could do that?
do you know what? Me and Richard actually tried this out 'cause there was a, there was a video on, I think it must have been TikTok. Everything's on TikTok. And he was like,
TikTok.
it and try and keep up with it. And I was actually not bad, but I feel like
Oh, there you go.
like backward.
Get her on the B, B, C.
Yeah. Get me on the B, B, C. Oh no, I think I'd be more, um, suited. So I know like the shopping channels, you know what I
I reckon that's hardcore.
the
Keeping up with those call. We've got a call coming in. We've got an email coming in. We've got someone on the line. We've got a chat box and I know.
do you know what I'd love to do is like the ghost hunting, you know, Derek, was it Derek? Or whatever it was. It was like the haunted,
Oh, no, no.
There's
Do you know what my, no. The, the singer in my band, she's like a singer, model presenter, and she does one of them shopping channels.
Oh, does she?
Yeah, there you go.
you heard it here first.
Heard it. First
a singer in my band.
singer in the band that I had at my wedding, not my band.
on your own birth.
I don't have a band.
instrument you playing? I thought you sung
You're like, since when do you have a band? Oh dear.
Oh, should we get started?
Let's go.
do it.
Hi, I am Hannah
I'm Haley.
and we are your wedding planning experts.
Here to spill the tea on the insider wedding planning and everything that goes with it,
Expect our honest opinions. The real due somewhat happens on a wedding day.
few tips thrown in between.
And also just chat between friends
of course, make sure you hit that subscribe button
and let's get you, woo hoo.
That was close. They nearly tripped up there
I did.
little
I
Don't be doing that to me mate. I've
Alright, don't flag it.
Whoa.
No one noticed.
I did.
Anyway, guys, another week, another reminder. Make sure you follow review, send in your questions. Am I the assholes? Maybe you're stuck with you planning. Maybe you're feeling rubbish about planning. Maybe you are just not sure about something. Let us know.
We can help.
How's your week?
How my week's been. Good. Another busy week for me. I have been freelancing most of this week.
Nice.
so I've been all over the place, been in Windsor,
Ooh, Jesus.
big weddings,
Nice.
of fancy flowers. So, you know, just a,
Nice.
just another day being a florist, you know,
Yeah. Another day. Glorious. No.
People just think you're like, like the help Sometimes though when you're a florist, you're
Do they
yeah, you do. You do get a bit mistreated.
do?
a bit, and I just wanna say here, for, for all of my
Go for it.
there and people that may not know what florist does and we do some serious, it's same like with
Yeah,
unnoticed. We do some very long, long
a hundred percent long hours. Yeah.
doing, making sure everything's amazing for you. We just want a bit of love sometimes,
Yeah. A
it's
hundred percent.
I have to say. Couples and like I've never had a couple treat me badly to be fair
No,
like that. But sometimes the
the guests.
I, the
Oh, the venue. Yeah, the venues. Yeah.
you are an inconvenience as a florist because you're putting flowers out and
Yeah.
look, without the flowers. Yeah, this place would look crap. So, you
Without the wedding, without the flowers, this would not be a wedding. Yeah. And you will not be getting the photos of my flowers. No, I know what you mean. Do you know what I find with some venues, and look, I'm just saying this very, like, there's so many incredible, I love so many venues that we work with and some of them are amazing. Just putting that out there.
enough for you. But then
And also equally such a hard job, like I did it myself for 10 years working in venues hard. But there's some that I do just think that they just think of it like working it as a corner. Even though you are working for a company in a venue, you technically need to see it as though you're not, because you, you gotta be ready to go above and beyond. And I think so many of them just see it as they're just, that's their job and they go home at five o'clock and they're done.
Yeah,
Do you know what I mean? And I don't think you can see it like that in this industry. There's no job in this industry where you can act like that, but unfortunately, there's some people that act like that and you can't.
No, but, but yeah,
That's our run.
no, no, that's fine. I agree. My week was busy, busy again. So it is been really good, to be honest. So,
Good.
but I'm, uh, I'm looking forward to having a, a week off next week. rich
Nice.
for a week with his work.
Oh.
Um, so I will be staying at Casa de
Oh,
with my mom and dad.
nice. Oh, if I wasn't away, I'd pop and see you.
yeah, I know I'm alone.
I will be in Munich any day now. Ready for our corporate event to kick off?
it's exciting. I be It's been busy
No, I can't wait
it? How's your week
till it's over.
I was gonna say, I was like, how? How has your
No, it
been?
is. No, it is good. It is just, there's a lot. There's a lot going on. A lot of changes. A lot of, yeah, doing a lot more than I thought I would be.
Oh,
And you just got, you're trying to, the thing is, my job is essentially project management. You know, you've got all these different project and you are managing them all
Yeah.
management, and you're trying to work out, it's quite hard as a planner to work out. Like I always work it out on a, you know, a basis of it's gonna take me this many hours. To work on this many, do you know what I mean? I put aside so many hours a week per wedding, but sometimes, yeah, it goes over and I feel like at the minute a lot of 'em are coming over.
over, oh man.
But once this is out the way, I mean, I've been doing, I was supposed to be doing about five hours a week and I'm doing over double that. So you think that's a lot of time I'm gonna be getting back once this is done. So yeah, I've pretty wonder.
how many hours I do.
You do, yeah. You need to do it from the point when they first inquire. To write through until after, even after the wedding when they're asking you questions and stuff and just talk. But you do forget 'cause I use, um, toggle track for when I'm doing the call. 'cause I pay, they pay me by the hour. So I track all the hours I'm doing with them and send the report so they can see what I've, what I've been doing. And um, sometimes you just forget to press that start button
Oh
and you lose. So like, how many hours can I do for them today? Like, yeah.
I didn't even know that was a thing. Toggle
it's cool 'cause you could then track your, for each couple and then it'd give you a good average of how much you spend with each couple.
that's
Yeah. But it's just remembering to track it, that's the thing.
like me with this? Um, so I started doing like the fasting, the intimate and fasting.
Nice, nice.
which is basically, essentially just a timer, which I could have just
Yeah.
I downloaded it and I was like, for free. And then I was like, I did the seven day trial and I thought, wow, it's literally a timer. I can just do this on my
Yeah. Oh yeah. You don't wanna pay for that.
I guess.
Yeah.
do do this. Start you fast, you
Yeah. I suppose. And it tells you what you, where, what part you're at, like what it's doing to your body.
stage or
Yeah, yeah,
a good one. That's the one I wanna stay
buddy.
Um, but I basically forgot about the, uh, the, free
No. And
And I
now you've paid,
for a timer a
shut the front door.
I accidentally paid. Yeah, I was really
Can't you recall it from the bank or something?
But
Oh, 60 quit.
I forget to start my, when I've started fasting, I forget to start it and I'm
Yeah.
it. But it's like, when did I
Yeah. When did you start it? Yeah. Well, I'm currently 23 hours into a fast.
quite
Yeah,
I think I'm about, dunno, do you know what I'm gonna quickly look, I'll just use this app. They
come on.
They
Yeah.
60 quid. 'cause
You be using 60 pounds you need, you know what you need to do. As soon as we get off this call, you need to go into your calendar on your phone and set yourself a reminder for a year now, or a week ago, a year to cancel it. 'cause you'll be doing that again. 'cause you'll forget in a year and they won't be reminding you. I'll tell you that right now. Always set a calendar reminder when I've got cancel something.
good idea.
Yeah, it's all about the Google calendar.
in. It's
Yes. Is it your first long one?
Yeah. This,
Nice.
just doing 16 hours, but I just decided to
Go. Keep going, but you, you know what you, sorry, listeners, we're gonna really bore you now if you're not into fasting, but actually if you are looking to drop some pounds for your wedding, intermittent fasting, amazing. Although this is an intermittent fasting, now you're an actual prof, an actual fast, anything over like 16 hours is not classed as intermittent anymore. This is a proper long fast, right?
I feel
So when you broke it, break it. You need to be doing this properly. You can't just be munching your sausage and mash. You need to be thinking about this.
what you
need to be eating something like high in fat first, then you need to leave it, uh, where they say half an hour to an hour, but you probably ain't gonna have time for that. I always break my fast with half an avocado with some olive oil and a bit of salt on it.
Yeah. Like
Because otherwise if you just put all that food straight into your stomach is gonna be like, what the hell is going on? It needs to get, the digestive system needs to get the little men in your gut. I dunno why I said men or women.
It's the
I.
in the Gavascon
gotta run back to the gut. They're,
little
yeah, but they're pickaxes. They've been off pickax in your fat mate. They've gotta get back to that gut and they're not gonna know until that food hits the gut. They've gotta go and go and do some damage onto that, you know? But they ain't gonna know. They might be on their break, you know?
Oh my God, this is amazing. What a way of thinking, how your
Or handful of nuts. Handful of nuts. If you can have a handful of nuts. Have a handful of nuts, and then now just have a little bit of a break before you steamroll your sausage and mash. Yeah. Sorry guys.
Oh,
That went completely off wedded chat.
I'm on day 19. I've been doing it every day for 19 days.
What? For? How for 23 hours?
No, no,
21 hours? Oh,
minimum. I normally do
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
though. I don't
yeah.
I normally do
I always do one long, long fast, so I stop eating at about 8:00 PM and then I start eating the next day at 1:00 PM What's that? A. Eight to nine to 10, 11 to 12, 17 hours. I do that. That's just a standard for me now. I can't even eat breakfast anymore. I'm not even hungry.
It's good
Um, but I do once a week, I do a 24 hour fast and it resets the gut.
Resets
good for you.
It's good for
Yeah.
biome people
Anyway.
anyway. But yeah, it's a good way of, uh, shifting some pounds. I mean, I've lost half a stone
Yes, baby.
uh, well about a month now. I've been doing lots of other stuff though. Don't, not just fast. I, I, I
Not just fasten. Yeah. Fasten's amazing though.
I run.
She's running, she's running, talking of food. Just skipping into my, we week here,
Sorry. How was your
we're both going fast and crazy by the way. This is when you start going to a bit cuckoo and you start seeing clouds. Anyway. Um, my mouth's gonna start drooling 'cause I'm hungry now.
I'm like,
Yeah, so.
out, the mic.
We had a very lovely delivery this week, so we had a little cake tasting come to us. So
Oh
now and again, you get a really nice supplier who instead of just sending an email saying, can you please add, add me to your recommended suppliers list, they actually send me something to show. What they do, because that's what we wanna see. This isn't me just asking for free stuff. I need to see it to believe it, you know,
Yeah.
so, and they're called the Abigail Bloom Cake Company. Amazing Cake. I can tell you right now, it's definitely amazing because I.
van around in Lighten Buzzard.
you go. Oh, I dunno where they're based. But honestly, I got this whole box, beautiful box. Dunno if you see it on my Instagram, but really nice box. All these different flavors on the fla. Oh, just such good cake. Amazing cake. So yeah, that was a nice little delivery. I also got a really nice delivery today of candles, but I haven't even looked in it yet. So I will report back next week. I think it's to show like wedding favors or something. Yeah. So I'll show you them next week.
But um, yeah, there we go.
Love that.
Yeah. But I also wanted to briefly mention that I obviously, was it our last episode? Episode before,
of back, yeah.
yeah, we were talking about not saying the word wedding.
Two
Well, I've taken it a step further, Hailey.
Oh
written a blog about it, which is gonna be going out soon. I've mentioned a lot about florists in it, actually, about how.
Thank
we did. 'cause you were saying a minute ago, and actually I thought I'd mentioned that because we, I feel, I feel like I see it a lot where it's people that are like, oh, they're only there for an hour, just putting some flowers out and they're charging me all this money. So I've written about how you start really early in the morning, all the prep work you do, all the ordering time.
seen.
mood boards. So yeah, we've, we've mentioned, we haven't just talked about planning, we've talked about all sorts, photographers, cakes, all sorts. So, yeah. But also I had a news reporter contact me 'cause they wanted me to do a report on, um, you know, people that wanna be planners. Like what's the reality of being an actual wedding planner? And they're doing it all for all types of different jobs. Maybe I should put you forward for a florist. Yeah. But then one of the questions was.
they sent me a list of questions and then I just respond to them. And then they put the news article together was Everything is so expensive and the word wedding has added. People might think the money is brilliant, aren't they? Right? Because obviously we're talking to people that want to be a wedding planner. So I went back and was like, this is complete myth and something we are actively trying to educate couples on. If you say the word wedding, the price does not go up.
And then I wrote about how. This is really frustrating for the wedding industry. Yeah. So I'm hoping maybe I'll get another little news report out of that.
Oh, I
Um, so I'm gonna go back to her and just say, would you be interested in writing about it? Because I'm really trying to like encourage as if anyone is listening right now and is like a news report or is in PR or journalism or anything like that. Please, can we start writing about this more because it's pissing me off.
need to shout it
Yeah.
because it's so
Shout it from the rooftop.
any other industry. That's what
he wouldn't. Nope.
It's
Yep.
wedding industry, so
I don't know we say this. No, I'm gonna take that back. Me saying, yeah, I do think it happens a lot. Me and my friend were talking about it. She owns a cleaning company. She gets it a lot.
yeah.
artists get it a lot. Builders get it a lot.
labor jobs, like labor
Yeah, you're right actually.
that
Yeah. Vocational.
Or perhaps the
Yeah.
see the end product of something. They don't see what goes
Although I do like moaning about a solicitor's costs, but I feel like that, I feel like that is, I feel like that is like, I'm allowed to do that. 'cause that is ridiculous. I might be wrong solicitors. Tell me, I'm, I'm educating you. You educate us.
and she can probably vouch that they're extortion to be
Yeah, they're so, oh, they're so expensive. But what? And I will sit there and moan about it, but solicitors educate me. 'cause I'm sure there's a reason that they're really expensive. The same as that we are trying to explain to, do you know what I mean? It's all about educating each other. I'm also gonna do some TikTok videos on it as well. So there we go.
Let me
Yeah,
want me to get files.
of course. Always, always.
dear.
I also wanted to briefly mention, I'd seen this week actually a post about, um, someone was really like ranting because
we love a rant here.
So basically, and I know we've definitely discussed this before, but basically they'd contracted to their venue, bought a package, and then the venue would put the package price up so they'd emailed in or listen to this response from the venue. Maybe this talks back to what we were just saying about some venue coordinators are just like, oh, well this is my job. That's what I'm getting paid for.
And then the venue replied saying, we are sorry you feel this way, but how would you have felt if we had put up our prices and came to you and asked for more money?
I mean,
I mean, kind of true, but would you say it.
Jesus.
Would you say that? Uh, do you think they're trying to be one of those like funny marketing, you know, like Aldi? Yeah,
Well, just thinking that.
I would never, back in my day, back in my days, as of any quarter, I'd have sat there and said that in the office, like they're taking the piss, aren't they? Would I put it up? They wouldn't be moaning, but would I actually say it? I dunno if I'd have the balls. So I'd love to hear if anyone's had any funny responses to things because that how funny. Yeah, there we go.
that.
story for you that I, I love spotting these little things.
do as well. I love it when the pop up and I'm like, oh, this
I mean, for the couple that's frustrating as hell. I'd be livid if that was me. I'd be livid. I would be straight on the blower, like, how dare you? I'm paying you. How dare you? But, but then there's, the venue's probably just gonna be like, well, but also if you've got an owner that's, that's said that to you and you've just reported it back,
Well,
you know?
are you gonna do? What can you do?
You know what's gonna be really annoying for that coordinator is when they kick the hell off and then it gets to the owner, and then the owner give discounts it for them.
And then they're like, damn, you
I hate that. That's one of my biggest pet peeves in life is when your boss overrules is like your boss is saying you no. Stick to your guns. No, no, we're not discounting. No, no, no. And then the, they, the, the couple take it further. Go to your manager. And then they're like, yeah, okay. We'll do it.
that undermines you. That's
Yeah, that's the word.
That's annoying.
Anyway,
So
on topic. If you listen to la, if you didn't listen to last week, you need to listen to last week's before you listen to this. Week's.
it won't make sense. I mean it will, but you'll get half. You'll get half the story.
Yeah. Half the tips, half the juice.
So this week we're gonna be talking about evening timing in,
Yes.
the day, we've gone up
Yep.
and we've uh, we've gone to your
Speeches. Yeah.
and that's where we left off. So
Yeah. And in our timeline of events, we got to about 7:00 PM didn't we? 7:00 PM If we were talking classic British timings, we did. We also quickly breezed over some American slash abroad timings. So if you wanna go back to that ep, because we kind of covered it all then, didn't we?
very
Yeah. We was, we just went boom, boom, boom on that one. But if you've got any further in depth questions on that, just write in. But
Yeah.
so yeah, seven o'clock it hits. Seven o'clock. We've done the speeches. We're all sat at the tables and it gets to that point, don't it? Everyone's having a little chat. What's happening now?
going on? What's, what's occurring?
We're securing, that's the word. To cut that. Cut that. That was terrible.
now.
Oh, um, anyway, so I feel like one of the biggest questions we get is what time should we invite the evening guests? Don't you think? So? I would say at that point, all your guests are sitting there. Did you, you had extra evening guests, didn't you?
Yeah,
Yeah, so I'd say at that point of the speeches, you wanna give another half an hour buffer time purely for that, like everyone's kind of waking up a bit
it. That's it.
from the speeches just to slot in here as well, if you are having singing waiters, 'cause I feel like I'm getting this a lot lately as well. This is the best time to now put them in because everyone is on a bit of a speech lull. I'm sorry, I'm gonna say it. There's a speech. Lull is a thing. Everyone's just eaten. They've just listened to speeches. They're a little bit like, oh yes, this is the best time to bring in a bit of who entertainment. All your tea, coffee station.
Get a little coffee in people,
those
get a bit of chat going.
Tea time. Tea
Oh
tea
two, two TT TikTok, two tee time. What the hell is that about? We need to look into that. Um, yeah, this is the best time to kind of do it and just getting people up. So get your caterers to actively come in. I always do this right, but some caterers won't do it 'cause they just feel like, oh, you should leave people. No. Get in. Start clearing the tables around as in not clearing themselves as in tidying. The tables taking away empty Garza. 'cause it means people are more likely to get up.
and
need to get people up to go to something. This is why actually a dessert station works really well.
true.
'cause they're gonna get up and walk to something and then they're up. If you leave people seated, they're there for the rest of the night, don't you think
Yeah.
We had to move everyone through for the cake cutting.
Yes.
So it was into a different room, but if you're staying in the same space,
not gonna,
yeah.
really keen on getting up.
No,
She
is also normally the point. Yeah. It's also normally the point where the caterers might wanna wheel a few tables away. If you need a bit more space for the dance floor, the bar, sometimes your bars then opening, so there's a lot of logistical bits happening in that time. So you want a good half an hour in there. So I would say half an hour, 45 minutes takes you to kind of half, seven, quarter to eight kind of time. This is a perfect time for your evening guest to arrive. Right.
You've had your coffee. Yeah. Get 'em in. Have a little chinwag with them and I just always think time sooner than eight o'clock for your cake getting first dance just too
Yeah. Plus you need the, the evening gets, need, need to come in and feel like they're not interrupting something.
Yeah.
they wanna get in and
Good point.
you don't want 'em sort of like
Get a drink.
into like
Yeah.
dance. Obviously you wanna get it sort of done. Reasonable time, but I feel like you wanna get the guests in and like welcome them and say hello and stuff.
Yeah, settling them in. That's a good point actually. 'cause no one's turning up at half seven if you put half seven on your invite. So that's a very valid point.
Yeah.
Everyone comes when, so I always advise to put a half hour slot, so say please arrive between seven 30 and eight. Because you want 'em there before the first dance. 'cause otherwise it's awkward when they come, if they walk, walk in mid first dance.
Oh, oh, sorry. Excuse me. Oh, sorry.
Yeah. Or if they miss it, you will probably want people there. You want the party to start. Do you know what I mean? Like you want them, give them a little slop between seven and eight. Arrive between seven and eight. Lovely. But I would, I wouldn't say Stephen, in case your speech is overrun and then you've got people arriving and you're still in there. Do you know what I mean? It's a bit awkward.
to, yeah, so you need that buffer time. Then you wanna give him a slot. That's a good
Yeah.
I quite like that.
So if you speech to the due to finish at half six. Yes. Say between seven and half seven if they're, if they're due to finish at seven half, seven to eight. Lovely jubbly. And now my biggest evening tip that I'm gonna give you all
please.
we did this for your wedding, Haley, of course, but always put your cake on the dance floor. Get your crowd around the cake, cut your cake, get your caterer to WI or your coordinator to whip the cake away and go straight into your first dance. Because I see it time and time again where venues get you to do your cake cutting in one room and then do your first dance in another, or getting people to move through. You gotta add in another 15 minutes. You go, you know.
realize, do they? But pe they, they, the guests don't want to, they don't wanna move,
If they also don't care about the cake cut in first dance, I'm gonna be really honest. So getting people to move for stuff, they don't really care that much about
wanna
twice. Yes. Especially if your bars only just opened after the meal, which a lot of bars do. That is very normal. And if you didn't know that, you need to go and check with your venue. 'cause some venues will not open their bar after the wedding breakfast because she got your wine on the tables.
breakfast.
but it was dead. Not gonna lie. It's always dead.
there. Yeah.
The odd person for a beer, you know? But you could have beer served to the tables if you wanted. But yeah, that's what I'd always say. And then obviously as soon as that first dance is done, whether it's your band doing it, your DJ doing it, you're then kicking straight off into
So what
people.
at now, would you say?
So I would say a bit earlier. So say you kick off your, I would do cake cutting at eight straight into your first dance. You're about 10 past quarter past. It a push. It's always delayed. The cake cutting first dance, 'cause you coordinate will start rounding everyone up About quarter two, you're probably off chatting to you evening guests. We are trying to fucking drag you away. So m maybe let's say more quarter past and then you're going straight into your sets. Now if you're just having a DJ.
Or your band is providing your dj, you can kind of leave them to rock with it. But if you're having separate, you do need to plan your set times. Normally it's like 2 45 minutes and sometimes your band will wanna time them. She then doing a set quarter past eight till nine o'clock, and then one from 10 till quarter to 11. You know, she need to think about this time. This is where, I mean, I work backwards, so I then work backwards from.
If you wanna finish on, some couples wanna finish on a high and finish on the band, right? Some couples really want to finish on a dj. Some couples wanna finish on the band, and they also want their first dance to be done by the band. So you need to work out the time the music has to be off and work your sets backwards.
So if you've got two one hour set, music's off at 11, you've got a set from 10 to 11, you know you've got your break from nine till 10, and then you've got your first set eight till nine. So your first answer's gonna be at eight. Does that make sense? You're working backwards. Yeah. And then you can work out what time you want your first chance to be and what time you want your evening guest to arrive. That's what I mean by in what? What I said last episode about working backwards.
I love that. Oh, that's
I. Yeah, but if it's DJ or the DJ and band are together, you can just kind of leave them to work. You could just say you, unless you're specific. Yeah. Like I want to finish on the band though, or I want to finish on the dj 'cause I want the fricking dirty dancer medley. I don't know.
Oh my God. Abba. Oh.
Oh, the evening. What a fun bit. The other bit I, the top tip I always give is always make sure you do, if you're having a band, always do your food in between the band sets because your band is not announcing your food while they're on that stage.
How
I've had to do, you know what, I've had really tight time before and we've had to do it. We've had to get the evening food, ro rolling. Because the, the band's got like 15 minutes and Yeah. Yeah. 'cause it's been a tight, especially if it's an American wedding, obviously like we were discussing last time, we only got like two, three hours if they got two an hour sets. Well, it's a short gap and I've got up to the band.
a couple of weeks ago when you said about coming round with like trays and like giving
Yeah. While they're dancing,
that.
then you ain't gotta announce it. Yeah, just do that.
I think
Just do that. Yeah. Don't, don't even worry about, 'cause honestly, I've been up to bands for, I'm like, can you announce a f the food in between before your next song? I always do it on my phone when I'm trying to tell the band or the d uh, a message. I do it on my phone. While they're singing. They're like singing and they're trying to read my message. Like, um, I, they, they will not, they're like, no.
No.
will not announce even food till their set is done, which I get because they don't want the dance floor to die.
Yeah.
is why you're so right, Haley. The even food going up to people is so good 'cause then you don't lose the dance floor.
way to be.
Oh, thanks Haley.
love it. You're welcome.
That that was my top tip of the year. There you go. I'm gonna do a to on that now
gonna get contacted by the news, uh, teams to come and do an article on there. I just.
get in touch. So yeah, so I. Think that that's kind of, you know, that is your evening and then the next time you've gotta really think about timings is the end of the night. And this is a very important one. Do you hate that saying,
it.
I hate it like gonna be Cinderella.
on my my, I need to look up my order of the day. I'm pretty sure I just said, time to say goodbye or something
Oh, okay.
anything but
Mine just says taxis.
yeah.
Yeah. Don't write carriages, people.
It's
Time to piss off time for bed. I quite like Ze Z. Time for bed Ze Z. But again, so many people get this wrong. If you are E, if your venue want you out at midnight and it's a hard close at midnight, them shutting them gates at midnight, you need to be turning your music off at Huff past 11 because you need half an hour. Trust me, getting drunk people out, and by the time you are gonna be drunk saying goodbye to people, you need at least half an hour.
where you could have, like I did where everyone had a fight
Oh
was out and good
yeah, you need, you need to time that in anyway. We'll breeze past that.
time in any punch up way.
Yay. You also then need to time your last orders at your bar. Your bar. Generally, you do not want that bar to close after. You want that bar to close before the music finishes. Now, as a member staff, it's the most annoying thing in the world because as soon as that last song come finishes, they come straight up to the bar to get a drink and you have to be like, sorry, can't serve you. Which is annoying, but it's less annoying than having a massive queue.
You've gotta try and get everybody you haven't personally, but everybody's gotta be out within half an hour. If their taxis arrive or you've organized a bus or something, they ain't waiting for no one at midnight. I'm telling you now, no one's waiting around at midnight. You need to be, that bar needs to be closed a good 45 minutes before that time. You need to be out. And if your venue is flexible at our time, they normally have a music off time.
So again, I would generally say, say your music's off at 1130. Do your bar close. 1115, music off at 1130. Bar closes at 1130, done, done, and dusted. And then you've got half an hour for people to finish up their drinks, stagger out home.
home.
Now what I would say that I did at my wedding was I actually really loved that last half an hour of the night. I see some of the funniest moments, the funniest conversations, the hugs, the laughter, everything. Once them lights are up, it's brilliant. So I actually gave a good. 45 minutes for mine and we put a fire pit on at the end and we all sat around the fire pit and we had a good old chin wag and it was great.
We had a lot, a lot of people had gone off there was probably left about 20 of us at the end.
actually a really, that's a really
It was really fun.
um, uh, the means to do that at your venue, then I would definitely
a chill out outside, which kind of came from my friend's wedding I went to before where we sat at, when we kind of did a similar thing and it was just a really nice moment at the night and I was like, I want mine to be like that. So I actually put in a bit of extra time and, and, and it goes back to what again, what we was spoke about before is engine night on a high. Like I found that people were starting to take, I had people coming up to me at like 11. To be like, oh, we are about to go.
And I was like, no, no, no. Last song's about to come on, so just wait. And then they hung around and we actually ended our night with majority of our evening guests. End it on high. People that wanna extend the night till 2 1 2 in the morning. No one's sticking around. You're always gonna be left with 10 guests and you do not wanna end on 10 guests. You wanna end on everybody being there,
that's a good point. Yeah, I
which actually, what's your thoughts? I've been seeing this a lot lately. What is your messages to guests? I've seen a lot of message to guests. Never go and say bye to a couple that are dancing on the dance floor. I can't. I think that's true. Do you think or would you be pissed off? Would you be pissed off if your guests left without saying bye? Did you say, but I can't remember saying bye to you at my wedding. Was you there till the end on the fire pit bit? I just can't remember.
I can't remember. And I went drunk. There
I dunno.
you go. I went. I didn't really care if people would've disappeared off, to be honest.
so. Because they've
Nah.
the whole
I prefer that.
you all
Yeah, I don't, I hate saying bye. Do you know what I mean? I hate saying byes, and I was seeing you the next day as well, so
No, I don't think it's out of order.
No, no,
No.
but just little things that people don't think about. Things like that. Ending on a high, my biggest tip.
that.
Yeah, have a little, have time for your chinwag at the end of the night. And also just make sure you've got someone there to worry about where your cards and gifts and all that shenanigans are going. 'cause the amount of drunk brides I've got like, uh oh, where is my presents? And I'm like, they're already in the honeymoon suite, but if you haven't got someone doing that for you,
you just, anything goes, mate, I don't
anything goes.
so
So let's say that's our top things really for the evening timings. Make sure you're planning in your time for the evening guests to arrive, your timings of your band and your DJ sets. Make sure you always got your food in between your band sets. Make sure you've got a time to tell everyone. To get taxis at the end of the night is another big one. If you're in the bit back, end of nowhere,
Yeah, that's
make sure they're pre back them taxis.
them. I know. I put that
Yeah.
um, invites. Like
Did ya. Yeah. Nice. We can put up a little thing in the, it's quite good to put up a little thing in the toilets. Mm.
Little reminder
Sat in the, yeah. On the back of the door. Make sure you order taxi and extend in the evening. Just really think about that. Make sure you've got that little bit of extra time at the end. Don't worry about having a bloody Do you know, I have some people that are like, they wanna kick their evening off at eight and they wanna extend it till two in the morning. I'm like, that's six hours of evening.
That's a
I'm like, no,
That's
that's ridiculous. It's too long. Too much. Yeah. Anything you wanna add to that? I think that pretty much covers the evening, don't it?
like that. I, I totally agree with everything because it's
I agree. Yeah. There you go. Because she had me in her corner telling her to do it.
And it worked really well.
And that, that you, you made a valid point of taking the food up to people. Great idea. She hadn't really got time it then just, yeah.
that's a new way to do it. I
The new way. Any wedding cake, put that on a little platter at the bar. Will you tin coffee station, make sure it gets eaten. 'cause God, the amount of cake you end up with at the end of the night.
apart from what we'd saved to
is nuts. Did you do little cake boxes though for people to take it away? No.
on, uh, 'cause we
Hmm.
so it was like the room where the DJ
People munched it hard.
on tables. Like a
Yeah,
like you
that's a good idea though. Yeah. 'cause you had actual tables where people were going and sitting at, yeah. Putting it on there instead of just like a table and tucked in the corner. If you physically put it, if it's in front of people, they will just sit and eat it, you know? But if you've gotta get up and get it, not as likely to do so. Mm-hmm.
On the bar, on the bar is so good to put anything at uni, I actually put a little sign, we had a breakfast the next day, which would've previ people too, and they're virus vpd. But we put up a little sign on the bar to remind people about that because I thought people are gonna forget and just things like that. You sat at the bar waiting for your drink to come, and then you read it.
will say, yeah. That's good.
Taxi sign's a good place to put them as well.
Yeah.
There you go.
it.
Should we go onto the listeners clients chance and message?
Yes. Um, so I'm in the middle of sorting out the details of my wedding day and would love to get your suggestions and opinions. Has
Of course.
experience or, uh, sorry. Has anyone had a similar experience with this highlight wedding? of background. I have already been married in my home country and I'm now having a reception party with my husband. Family. to have a blessing slash mock ceremony at 4:30 PM but I'm unsure what time the evening guests should arrive. we have separated guests as a ceremony slash blessing is for family only. Does the timeline below seem okay or is it too rushed? So at 4:30 PM is the blessing.
6:30 PM evening, guests arrive and cocktail hour 7:30 PM Evening dinner and speeches, PM First dance. 9:00 PM cake. Cutting. So, I mean, first
First off, my thought was who's having a two hour ceremony? Sorry if we're offended anybody here, but Geez. Unless it is a proper,
and a
yeah, we're like, yeah.
short, isn't
well, maybe. And I said, but didn't I say in that episode, sorry for offending anyone saying it's ballroom, but
Yeah.
Jesus, two hours. Unless it's a proper religious ceremony, then maybe, maybe they've got, do it two hours. Could be like an Indian one where they do holies straight into the Hindu ceremony or something. But no, they wouldn't be doing that 'cause they've got wash in between. No, I don't know. But if this is legit, just staying on the old subject of timelines. Like it, yeah, I think evening guests arrive. You've got an hour for cocktails there.
hour. Yeah.
Hour and 15 minutes is not long enough for dinner. Can I just say unless you're only having a one course? Oh yeah. Jesus.
yeah.
you need your half hour for speeches. That's only 45 minutes, unless you're just having a, a buffet. But, but then are you getting up and serving at table by table, which. It takes just as long. You need a couple hours for that. So I would say you really need to look at that re-look at that time, unless it's literally that you're doing like a standin food. Maybe they're doing like bowls, bowl style service, food.
You know where you're standing is having your speeches at the same time as Ian, but that's not long
And
and 15 minutes.
like 15 minutes for the first dance.
Well, that was the other thing I was gonna say is you do it the other way round because as soon as you do your first dance, you then kick in straight into your music.
doesn't make
Yeah. You wanna do cake cut and then first dance. Yes. Kick that off at, well, it's gonna be at least nine an hour. You need an hour and a half. If you're having a one course, you could do an hour and a half with speeches and,
Yeah, it's
and male. But uni speech, you'll care about that. 'cause if,
like I
yeah.
yeah, that'd be
I hope you're not having a three hour. I'm thinking it's like a sharing style, main core zone. Like say if it is Indian food, for example, and they put it all on the tables, but you still need the time to serve it or unless, unless they're putting it all on the tables, maybe they're putting it on the tables for then people to sit down and straight eat it. The other thing is you ain't got no buffer time there for people sitting down.
So you're going straight from six 30 an hour cocktail reception to.
rushed, isn't it really? That that
It is rushed. If you've got your evening guests arriving at six 30, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to make sure they arrive at six 30. Have not much of a cocktail session unless you can shorten that ceremony a little bit and then get everybody seated at seven to start eating at, or, unless it is a situation where you're sitting and you eat straight away and maybe you're doing speeches in between,
it's never that quick though, is
no, it's not in an hour and 15 minutes, you ain't getting everyone sat fed and speeched up. You need to look at that. Speechy caterers, they'll, they'll advise
They've also said, what time does a DJ usually start?
first dance.
Yeah.
There we go. Hope that helps. Gotta do some rethinking there.
Yeah, but like, give us some context you wanna message in again
Yeah,
um, let us know
definitely.
um, you know, if there's any more details you wanna give us and we can give you a bit more of an in
A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Next up we've got. I ordered bridesmaid's dresses offline, a few different styles for my three bridesmaids to try on. So like nine dresses, they're now charging me 200 pounds to return them. What do I do at help?
yeah.
Right? This is what, I've seen this a lot lately. Did you, where did she buy your bridesmaid dresses from?
I got 'em online. Yeah.
Did you, so did you have this situation?
no.
Can you not remember it?
because I didn't. I didn't. I basically, what I did was I chose a color and then I
Yeah,
the website and I said, pick what style you like,
yeah.
send me your sizes. And that's what we went with.
Nice. What website was it?
remember.
Was it one of these? So basically
was,
I had this with mine. And I didn't get in this situation because I went and read to the return. 'cause I knew there'd be something if that. So for example, I was actually looking at this 'cause I saw this question coming today. We bought some of ours from that Azaz place, which is an American place. It's an American website, and it's one of these, they draw you in, you go on the website. You picky color.
They've got 50,000 different styles and these lovely colors, and you're so excited and they can fit it to your shape and blah, blah, blah. And they offer all the world, but it's not until, and I actually had to really go dig in for it today to look for it. But you get charged a 20% restocking fee. So if your dress is a hundred pounds. So she's ordered obviously nine, probably 900 pounds worth of dresses here. Each dress. They're gonna charge you 20 pounds to return.
And that's obviously what, nine dresses, nine times, 20 quid,
Uh, it's a
pound, that's what she's saying. 20 pound re stocking fee. So if you go on in order all these different styles and colors and whatnot, thinking, oh, we can send them back like you would with normal clothes, you can't on these websites. And I'm telling you, and, and the reason I mention Zay is because when you type in bridesmaid dresses, they're the first website that comes up.
the other one? J J's house or something?
J's house, all of them, SIA or something like that. All of those are the same situation
they
and a lot of play.
wasn't they? Where they're like, people are ordering like multiple things, but so they must have to like sort of cover
It's the shipping fees, I would've thought. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I also think a lot of these places don't, actually, this is the issue with these kind of websites is it's so, there's so many dresses on that website. I don't think they're actually have, they don't have a warehouse with all those dresses, sizes, and colors. I think they're actually making them. To order.
So if you order a, a sky blue off the shoulder dress in a size 10, they're, they're making that to send to you because the delivery time ain't quick either. Obviously Anna's gotta get from China or America or wherever the hell they're coming from. But this, but I understand why a lot of people are using these websites. 'cause as we've mentioned before, the high street, the, the high street for bridesmaid dresses is like on non-existent. There are no bride ma. Dress shops anymore.
They used to be like David's Bridal and you know
isn't any
the, a lot of bright dress shops don't even do bridesmaids dresses anymore, which I get because you have to stock so many colors and so many sizes. So many styles. Yeah.
I think of we can't really help with what to do now, but I think our main tip here is to make sure you read the
Yeah,
and anything like that before ordering multiple items.
actually don't know what you would, I think.
don't think you'd be
The only thing I can think is that you'd have to resell them on like vintage, but I don't, I think you're gonna lose more than 200 back. If you've spent 900 quid and you're gonna get 700 back, selling nine dresses on vintage, you ain't getting 700 back.
price
you're just gonna have to live and learn. Take it on the chin. You're just, or you're gonna have to really plead, you know, to the web, to the people and be like, is there anything you can do? Or maybe if you're keeping a few of the dresses, maybe there's something you can do there. But what I will say is, a lot of these dress shops, this is what my bridesmaids did do. Don't ignore this. There's a reason that they do a try on fee. So you can go on, you pay like 10 pounds and you can try.
They normally, and quite often they've got offers where you can try three for the price of two. So you pay 20 quid, you get to try three dresses on, but then if you keep a dress, you get 20% discount. That's what a lot of them do. There's a reason they're doing that. Don't think you can just buy an, oh well, they'll just buy it and return it.
it because it's not often that, that, so make sure you are looking into that.
the only thing I did see was one of these websites, I can't think what it's called now, but they actually sell via sheen and they do allow return. So you could go down that kind of route, um, if you're looking at those kind of dresses. But I do, you know what, I was thinking about this earlier. I kind of get why the black wedding dress tr and black tie event trend happened because it's so easy to buy a black dress on a, on the high Street.
you're right. Cheaper,
Whereas like, do you feel like a lot of people were going through a phase where they were really just going into like Oasis or whatever and getting a normal dress for their bridesmaids? And I still think you can, but I feel like dress shops are cottoning onto it. Or like High Street stores are cottoning onto it and they're not,
a.
they're doing it a little bit different. They're not, there's some dresses aren't as occasion
exactly. When
Mm. You know?
literally walked into, I think it like quiz or somewhere like that and picked some up to start with. And uh, in the end we didn't, I changed my color, what colors I wanted, but
this is the issue. Yeah, it's, it's finding the same color in different styles. You, you can't always find, you might have bridesmaids that are really not fussy. You might only have two, but if you've got six bridesmaids and you want them all in the same color, you're gonna face this issue.
That's it. It is
Yeah,
but
is. Sorry, I can't really be a mech help. There's no,
using
can kind of.
aren't you really?
You kind of half are. Um, but yeah, there is some real good ones. There's some real good UK based ones now. There's that, um, the six stories or whatever they're called. Is that what it's called? Six seasons? Something like seasons stories, something like that.
based it
Yeah.
a bit like they were a bit
They are
bit
expensive, but sometimes,
more, yeah.
Sometimes by the time you paid they just restocking fees. You might as well just pay to get it from a UK based, but there's not many UK based ones. And I get it. I get why people are going to these places. But yeah, just be wary that, and I'm really sorry we can't help more, but all I can say is I would just take it on the chin. I know it's 200 quid's, a lot of money, but Yeah. Or plead with the company. But I don't think you'll get very far. 'cause they don't care.
if
They literally don't care. I think that's us for today, isn't it?
Thanks so
I'm ready for dinner.
Oh my gosh. Yeah. This fast. Just going
She looks like she's about to pass out. If you could see her eyes right now. Well, don't forget to rate us guys. Subscribe, leave us the reviews, all that jazz, and make sure you email in. It's let's get your web [email protected] and we'll see you next week.
week.
May.