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Confessions of a Rented Bridesmaid

Jun 04, 202437 minEp. 70
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Episode description

You can now rent a professional bridesmaid for your wedding! Really, no really!

Before you ask the inevitable and logical question…why anyone would need to rent somebody to be their bridesmaid, consider this: twenty two percent of Americans say that it has been at least five years since they’ve made a new friend and nearly one-third say they have three or fewer close friends. With friendship in decline no wonder one woman, today’s guest has acted as a bridesmaid in hundreds of weddings for brides she didn’t know.

Jen Glantz is the world’s first professional bridesmaid and founder of Bridesmaid for Hire, she’s also a best-selling author, a blogger, she writes several newsletters, and she hosts the wildly popular podcast, You’re Not Getting Any Younger.

IN THIS EPISODE:

  • How Jen stumbled into the professional bridesmaid business.
  • Wedding disasters! Arguments, mistresses, fistfights, inappropriate speeches, and dog bites!
  • Which couples won’t last…can Jen tell the difference?
  • The surprising origin of many of your wedding traditions
  • Anybody interested in attending a vow renewal? They have a registry!
  • Destination weddings & why we hate them.
  • Has Jen ever been busted as a pseudo friend?
  • If you’re asked to be a bridesmaid…answer these questions BEFORE saying yes.
  • The inherent sadness of needing a paid bridesmaid.
  • The wedding Hokey Pokey incident Jason will never forget.
  • Google-heim: Hokey Pokey controversies and producer Lorre’s dubious wedding!

***

FOLLOW JEN GLANTZ:

Website: BridesmaidForHire.com

Blog: The Things I Learned From

Podcast: You're Not Getting Any Younger

Instagram: @jenglantz

TikTok: @BridesmaidForHire

X: @jenglantz

Facebook: Jen Glantz

YouTube: @jenglantz

***

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Really Now, Really, really.

Speaker 2

Now, Really Hello and welcome to Really No Really with Jason, Alexander and Peter Tilden, who suggests that our listeners have engaged with us for quite a while, so maybe it's done. We tie the knot and make you a subscriber. But if we do tie the knot, unfortunately we may not have the bridesmaids we need for the wedding. So enter Jen Glance, the world's first professional bridesmaid and founder of

the company Bridesmaid for Hire. She has worked hundreds of weddings, acting not only as a bridesmaid but also as a friend of the bride. In this episode of Really No Really, Jen discusses the reasons that someone would want to or need to rent a bridesmaid and how she transforms into that best friend no one has ever heard of or met before. You'll also discover the surprising origins of many wedding traditions, and Jason will.

Speaker 3

Reveal how the hokey pokey almost tanked a wedding Till death do they part. Here's Jason and Peter.

Speaker 4

I should I go public domain?

Speaker 1

God? Yes, what's a good? What's a good?

Speaker 4

Wedding? Public domain song? What's is there is there one?

Speaker 1

I don't know, but I'm gonna get you.

Speaker 5

In things that the question that was from that's an old light of rose.

Speaker 1

It's the left footed, isn't that? Isn't that? But the right foot?

Speaker 4

That's the hockey pokey?

Speaker 1

I know. Isn't that public domain?

Speaker 4

It's public domain because nobody.

Speaker 1

Wants people love that song doing the.

Speaker 4

You know what happened at my wedding. I brought it up for that reason?

Speaker 1

Story? Can you tell us?

Speaker 4

I can tell the story. Sure, we're going to be talking about weddings today, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah.

Speaker 5

My dear friend of mine from high school was U was the band.

Speaker 4

He had a band. He was a wedding band guy.

Speaker 5

And I asked him if he would play for my wedding and he was very excited to do so. I was very excited to have him. And I said, uh, there's one proviso, just one proviso. My mother in law does not want and she's serious about this. She does not want anyone to play the hokey pokey and that's the only.

Speaker 4

Thing she's asked. I'm gonna call him Dave right by the way.

Speaker 1

I love that she had the request that it bothers us so much that she thought ahead of time request.

Speaker 5

So I said to Dave, please, the only thing I ask you. You're the You're you're it, You're the band. You know this better than anybody. Just no hokey pokey. So in the middle of the wedding, everybody's on the dance floor. We're doing this dance and that dance and this dance. Everybody's having the best time. My mother in law is as close to me as you are right now.

And we hear segway, da dad, you but your left butt in you But and my mother in law gives me a look like if she could shoot lasers through my head and explode my head, she would have done it, and turns and walks off the dance floor. And I'm in trouble. And I go to my friend after the set and I go Dave, Dave the hell man. One thing I said was, no hokey pokey, Why would you do that?

Speaker 4

Why would you do it?

Speaker 5

And with absolute sincerity, he said to me, Jay, the crowd wanted it.

Speaker 1

Did you ever explore it? Was there a traumatic event in your mother in law's life?

Speaker 5

I don't know, I don't know. I think my mother, you know, my mother in law. I know she's very strong, but I thought to.

Speaker 1

Myself, maybe at one point in her life, while she was doing the hockey.

Speaker 4

Somebody put their left foot and the wint the left.

Speaker 1

Foot went in. It was just something horrible, something went terribly around because to just think to say, no, yeah, wow. So we're having on a woman who's a professional bridesmaid, and and the really no really obviously is you can rent we rent professional bridesmaids. And the big really, why would And then we'll get to the point of why that would even be necessary.

Speaker 5

The only reason I can think of is the bride doesn't know another woman of any never met another woman.

Speaker 1

Well, we're going to find out. This is the woman who originated the rental thing, and she had thousands of people applying for the job of when she started expanding her business. But I mean, there's so many questions. One of them is you got to make up a story for the other brides maids. It's believable about who you are. So we'll talk about it. And she said stuff happened

to her. But I thought I'd give you the origin of some wedding tradition, which is kind of interesting, is the hookeey poky and they started, isn't If I had thought about it, man, I would have loved to look up David Krugerheim will be looking at the army.

Speaker 4

Find out the author of the hookey poke.

Speaker 1

And if there are any other weddings where it was banned. Okay, anybody ever said, don't hooky poky me. Yeah. Centuries ago a groom had to kidnapped the bride of her family disapproved of their union. Best man was actually the best swordsman because he would standing guard. There's a whole lot.

Speaker 5

Of stuff that's it was also the best man was the best swordsman, and we've truncated it down to the best man.

Speaker 1

In fact, in ancient groups like the Huns of the Goths and the visit Goths with store weapons in the floor of the church, a lot of a lot of wedding.

Speaker 5

Again, that's well known about Visigoth churches. By the way, the.

Speaker 1

Bouquet was originally used for to mask the 's body. To mask it was also made in a hundred herbs, because remember in the fifteenth century medieval times, people didn't quite smell people. Forget that when you're watching these historical dramas, they weren't bathroom.

Speaker 5

You know, I've been to medieval timesheim and they smell.

Speaker 4

They got a smell.

Speaker 1

Veils, the wedding veil, wedding veil. Sure tell me you wanted to make sure that this wasn't called off prior to the wedding, so you get to see her after you say I do really comes up? Really not really, Yeah, bride's features only lifted after the ceremony. And then we have the brides. Maybe we should ask, oh, why they were white? By the way, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in eighteen forty, all of the twelve bridesmaid were dressing

identical white dresses to compliment her beautiful white seting. It was Victoria in her bridesmaids that started the creation of royal brides wearing white instead of silk in the way.

Speaker 5

Really and first of all, let me do the bell, and second of all, let me say so, while Queen Victoria was setting that trend, you're telling me people in Mesopotamia and.

Speaker 4

They all went ooh, you know what they're doing in England. We should do that.

Speaker 1

Apparently because it spread, didn't I white wedding rested spread obviously got the memo.

Speaker 5

Okay, I would like to know the sources of your information.

Speaker 4

I think you need to provide a bibliograph.

Speaker 1

If you look at if you look at the Victoria stre it's everywhere, it's every ask We'll ask our guests. If he knows the white wedding, he's not dare Why does she have to know?

Speaker 4

She's making a living, She doesn't need to.

Speaker 5

She's trying to remember the name of the woman she's being a bridesmaid.

Speaker 1

Did they know where white? Did they know where white?

Speaker 4

Of course she wore white.

Speaker 1

She got the memo.

Speaker 4

She didn't get the memo. She saw gone with the wind.

Speaker 1

But a lot of some someways, Laurie, can you come on for something some nights? Did you dress in white or did you do non traditional?

Speaker 6

I was in white for the first marriage, and the second one was more of a civil ceremony, so I was casual.

Speaker 5

Hancuffs, heuff, what a casual and white is not a casual color.

Speaker 6

No, I'm just saying casually dressed.

Speaker 1

What color?

Speaker 6

Probably jeans and a that's what I mean.

Speaker 5

Very Oh, this is not I mean wow cut offs and the shirt.

Speaker 4

Did you work under the car with Okay, yeah, casual.

Speaker 6

And that's been a problem. I have to say I should have done a better second.

Speaker 1

Wow, Now did you put the jeans in the top in a forever box?

Speaker 7

It's still at the dry cleaners?

Speaker 1

That I love that stuff when you go into somebody's fees and the cake is still there and they got this stuff in the forever box. I did I do?

Speaker 6

I did carry my original wedding dress in the trunk of my car for about two years.

Speaker 1

Wow. Yeah, but because you're going to put it in a keepsake prox and.

Speaker 7

You said screwed it something marriage isn't work.

Speaker 1

So maybe, oh, that's so funny. You kept it out just in case because I don't want. I don't want.

Speaker 5

This is as romantic as I think the profession of our guest today.

Speaker 1

Hiring a bridesmaid. Why why? We will find out who does and why and who thought of it and how? Because you are in chaos at that moment when you're doing the weddings are so high emotion.

Speaker 4

It is a little stress. Yeah, little stress, little stress.

Speaker 1

So the fact that she has to enter that every time and that's her business, yeah, chose chosen business. We will find out all about her.

Speaker 4

So, Hi, Jen Glands, how are you hello?

Speaker 7

I'm good. Thank you for having me today.

Speaker 5

So for people that don't know, I'm gonna I'm going to read your biou. You are the world's first, as far as we know, professional bridesmaid, founder of Bridesmaid for Hire, a best selling author, a blogger. You write several newsletters, and you host a podcast. Oh you're in our business. And you've done lots of morning shows about this thing that you do, which is it was fascinating. Basically you are a bridesmaid for hire, which made us go really, no, really.

Speaker 1

What brainstorm led you or desperation or inspiration led you to go, I'm going to do this. There's and there's an opportunity to do it. There's a need.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 8

I mean, I feel like so many people out there go to so many weddings, and I was one of those people. I was always the bridesmaid in my early twenties. And then people I was hardly friends with, like the kind of people who you talked to once a.

Speaker 7

Year, they asked me to be a bridesmaid.

Speaker 8

And that's when I thought, Okay, if I could do this for people I'm hardly friends with, why not do it for strangers. So I didn't know how to start a business. I posted an ad on Craigslist offering my services as a hired bridesmaid, and the ad got three hundred responses, and that's when I decided to kick off the business.

Speaker 1

That was the first How far back? How far back was that?

Speaker 8

Now this was a decade ago, so twenty fourteen, I launched the ad, launched the business, and officially started.

Speaker 1

What do you remember about that first wedding?

Speaker 8

Oh, it was terrifying. I got on a plane to Maple Grove, Minnesota. I got off the plane and I thought, what the heck am I about to do? I'm about to go to some stranger's wedding. And I went because she had fired her maid of honor the month before. And I go to this wedding. I have the best time.

I'm pretending to be her best friend. And I got back on the airplane and I'm like, Okay, there is a business here, like there are people out there that genuinely need this, and I'm going to be that person to do it.

Speaker 5

So okay pretending to be I was there a moment when you're on the plane going I'm about to be kidnapped into a cult?

Speaker 4

Have I given people my address?

Speaker 8

And yeah, you got to be a little bit crazy to do this job, because you're sometimes like, I don't know who these people are. I don't ask them for their passport or social Security number, like they could be catfishing me, they could be kidnapping me.

Speaker 7

So yeah, you got to be a little restricted.

Speaker 1

So you went there, you said, best friend? Yeah, were there any other people in a bridal party?

Speaker 7

There wasn't.

Speaker 9

No.

Speaker 8

She had one made of honor that she had fired like a month before, and she had nobody else to turn.

Speaker 1

So how do you come up with the alibi story? So the people around there go, so, how do you know her? And you can actually pull that off? And are you always jen or do you have like some Oh my god god, yes.

Speaker 8

So the first so if you hired me, the first thing I'd say is, Okay, what part of your life won't be at the wedding? It's can I be a friend from high school, a friend from study abroad? Can I be a friend from the month you lived in New York City. I'll try to find out what is not going to be at your wedding, and then I

will be that person. Sometimes I have a fake name, I'll change up the hair, I'll do whatever I have to do to blend into your life and never be gen Glands if that's what you want, and a lot of people want that.

Speaker 7

They don't want me, they want somebody else in their life.

Speaker 1

So you have to then animatedly talk to people and go, oh, I love her so many you know. The funniest thing about her, yeah, is when she does this. Joanne and I went to summer camp. We had a thing. We both love Bobby and so you have to come up with intricate stories because people want intricate stories.

Speaker 8

Yeah, but the thing is too at weddings, like, nobody's like questioning me as if I'm lying. They're like, how do you know the pride? I'm like yoga class. They're like, okay, great, where's the open bar? I mean they don't really.

Speaker 4

Care about you know, well that's me just about everyone.

Speaker 1

Although you did get bush I read it you had a mother in law who got picked off. You have been busted a couple of times.

Speaker 8

Yes, I've been closed where people found out but they didn't say anything. But yeah, a big part of the job is getting paid to be undercover, So a big part of the job is just trying to make sure no one's questioning me changing the subject, and that's really hard.

Speaker 4

Well, you've got to go back a step for me.

Speaker 5

Were what was your aspirations or training or education prior to this? Were you trying to be an actress? Were you trying because this is like an actress's gig. But where did you think you were aheaded before this left turn came up?

Speaker 8

No, I'm like, it's so funny because I'm so I'm like a little bit shy, and I'm a writer and I hate weddings. I still hate weddings, so I never thought that this would become my career path. But I've always had a passion for helping people, and weddings are a complete disaster. They're complicated, they're messy, and I feel like this is the perfect environment for me to help people.

But no, I had no Like, I'm not even a good friend half the time to my real friends, so I have no background in doing this.

Speaker 7

I just stumbled into it.

Speaker 8

And then for the last ten years it's been my life and I've worked hundreds of weddings for the most fascinating.

Speaker 4

People and it's lucrative.

Speaker 7

Yeah, I mean you.

Speaker 8

Definitely get paid, Like I get paid anywhere from twenty five hundred up per wedding and sometimes close to ten thousand a wedding. They fly you out, they get you the ugly bridesmaid dress, they do it all, and it's enough money to really become a full time job.

Speaker 1

And how many do you how many are you doing a year at this point?

Speaker 8

When I first started, I was doing like fifty a year, but then whoa, I've popped out, Like I have some people who I've hired and fired to work for me and they'll do weddings with me or for me at this point, but I still do like a dozen or more a year for people myself.

Speaker 1

So the most memorable stuff, Yeah, what are some of the things you had to deal with that you didn't ever anticipate when you've got into the business.

Speaker 8

Weddings are not a fairy tale, They're not a rom com. They are like a nightmare. I've had people who have started fights. I've seen fires. I had a bride get blackout drunk and start screaming.

Speaker 7

I hate the groom. I hate this.

Speaker 8

I've had grooms go missing. I've had like everything you can think of, a cold feet. Just all of these things, they really do happen. It's just that when you're a guest at a wedding, you don't really see all.

Speaker 7

These things unfold.

Speaker 5

I'm guessing that a wedding couple that requires the services of a for higher bridesmaid, these things would have more of a preponderance of happening issues. You know, my wedding, I would you know a lot of things went wrong, but not this.

Speaker 1

You're right, you're fired. Firing the bridesmaid before you're firing a really good friend indicates trouble.

Speaker 5

I have been at funerals where the religious leader has never met the deceased, and they've been given a couple of little tidbits from the family, and they make up a eulogy like they were best friends. You now get up to give a speech a about your deep and long and satisfying relationship with Brenda. Where are you forgive me for being crass? How are you pulling this out of your ass? You forgive me for being crash? How are you pulling this out of your ass?

Speaker 8

You know I was a poetry major in college. You know, spend so much money with that major? And never put it to you. So I feel like Number one, that helps me a lot. Number Two, you've been to weddings, most of the speeches are the same. You share a couple of funny stories, you give them well wishes, you go off the stage.

Speaker 7

I mean, it's pretty.

Speaker 8

Basic things that you're saying, and then you just put in some flowery words. So yeah, these speeches are from the heart though in a way because I do get to know these people, I do build a friendship with these people.

Speaker 7

But then a lot of it's just standard stuff.

Speaker 1

Also, there's this thing of undermining the wedding where somebody's there who who has been harboring hostility and they get up and they're going to say something that's going to tank. How often does that happen?

Speaker 8

I Mean, the worst situation I've ever seen is that the person that the groom is having an affair with entered the wedding, came to the wedding, and the bribes saw this woman and that started a whole thing right there.

Speaker 7

So that was one of the weirdest things.

Speaker 5

That I've ever had, is that frowned upon is that?

Speaker 7

So that's real.

Speaker 8

But in speeches, the biggest mistake I see is you're right? People bring up oh you know this person was hooking up with everybody in college?

Speaker 7

Are they? They're saying things that are just so, and it's just.

Speaker 1

Stuff that that the group, the group didn't know.

Speaker 7

Yes, yes, and it's just like how did you think that was mentioned?

Speaker 8

Like the hot sea seed in Vegas, Like it's just somes.

Speaker 4

No vaccine canentuck.

Speaker 1

And you must be really good because after the sixty two guys she's been with. Wow, you did I read it? You said you've been bitten, You've been bidden, bribed? Were you bitten?

Speaker 7

I had, well, I had.

Speaker 8

I was bitten by a dog once and I had to walk a dog down the aisle before and like shepherd around a dog for a wedding. But I've dealt with everything from bodily fluids to fires. I've had to put out to fights to you know, every type of physical thing like that.

Speaker 1

Fights, you're breaking up a fight and then making sure they get married.

Speaker 8

Well, sometimes it's fights between guests or mothers of the bride and the groom or fighting. I mean, you see it all and again, these are things that happen at everyday weddings. It's just that sometimes you don't notice them.

Speaker 1

Wow, you do you?

Speaker 5

Does it ever strike you truly where it stays with you that it's kind of also a very sad situation. I mean, do you ever just go, oh, man, I this is more than I want to get involved with.

Speaker 8

And you know, I think the toughest part for me was realizing that not I always thought before this everyone was getting married because they were in love. But you start to realize that a lot of people don't get married for love. They get married for other reasons, or they get married for a version of love that's very different than what I thought love was.

Speaker 7

And I think that was the toughest part.

Speaker 8

You know, I've had people tell me I don't love him, but I'm thirty nine and I'm going to get married because I have no other options. I've had people tell me I'm flat out marrying him for the money. I've had people tell me, you know, I'm marrying him before all these different reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that. I never judge anyone, but I think that was the toughest part to stomach, is that people are making these decisions in life.

Speaker 7

That they don't have to make. You know, they don't have to get married, but they think they do for reasons.

Speaker 1

Can you tell, having done so many weddings over this period of time, Yeah, can you tell who's going to stay together? And do you follow up to see if you're right?

Speaker 8

I do fall out to see and I've always found that I'm so wrong because there might be a couple who are fighting. I've had a couple screaming, cursing at each other at the wedding and they get married and they stay together for ten years, or they stay together forever because that's love to them. And then I've had couples that are I think, are so in love that don't make it a year. But I do think I've had everyone say who doesn't make it that inside when they're walking down.

Speaker 5

The well, Oh no, I'm gonna push back on that because of you.

Speaker 1

Why would you push who are you?

Speaker 5

Who are you gonna tell you ahead? So if you looked at my wedding album. Now, I married my wife when she was I was twenty two and Dana was twenty five, and we've been together for forty three years and we are more in love than we've ever been and I thank God for her every day. There is a photo of her walking down the aisle where it looks like a truck is bearing down. It looks she

has fear and disgust and doubt in her eyes. That we laugh about it all the time, and if you saw that photograph, you'd go, this girl is not sure she wants to do this today. And that's the case. I don't know how this is gonna lie. And and she will admit in that moment as she was walking down, she went, what.

Speaker 1

Am I doing?

Speaker 4

What am I doing? This is not This man doesn't.

Speaker 5

Look like what I dreamed my friends Charmik would look like.

Speaker 4

I like him very much.

Speaker 5

I've only known him a year, and I had that I'm all in and I think he's a child.

Speaker 4

He's twenty two, I'm only twenty five.

Speaker 5

Everything that you could think about about this is not right was going through her head. And then this rabbi that we didn't know married us and referenced something from our lives that we couldn't believe he would have known. And we started giggling during the ceremony and we went okay, well okay, but I mean, if you had looked at that photograph, you would have thought this is not.

Speaker 1

So to that point, how many weddings have you done where it didn't get where it fell apart, and you no matter what you did, threatening, bribing, whatever it is, you couldn't get it together.

Speaker 7

I've had about five.

Speaker 8

I've had about five that on the wedding day, they completely had cool feet.

Speaker 7

They ended it on the wedding day.

Speaker 8

And you know, I mean, there's a lot that don't even make it to the wedding. I've hired to end engagements before the wedding has begun because they don't have friends to tell the truth too, so they'll hire me to help them end an engagement. I've had people back

out on the day of the week of. But over the last ten years, the ones I followed up with, you know, maybe like thirty percent haven't made it in the course of ten years, which is relatively you know, normal for divorce rates and things like that.

Speaker 4

Five and ten years. That's not bad.

Speaker 1

Yeah, But I can't even imagine being there. Can you imagine sitting at the audience and you're waiting and it's exciting, and you're flew in with your cousin Lewis from Minnesota, and you're paid and you got the room and here's now we get the announcement er and Les decided best calling it off. And then what do you do? What do you do?

Speaker 5

And what you do is you go to the intended bride and you said, I'm going to have to change my flight.

Speaker 4

There could be up charge and expect you to cover that.

Speaker 1

By the way, are you the person that every guest then goes to and says, hey, I got a room, I'm paying for the school? Who has to answer all of those people's questions about what's going on here? I don't see them walking down the aisle.

Speaker 8

The thing is, of those five, the majority of them have decided right before that they're not going to legally get married. But they'll walk down the aisle, they'll have the pretend ceremony, and then they don't sign the marriage license, Like how would you know if they signed the marriage license or not?

Speaker 7

They just don't.

Speaker 8

Really yes, yes, yes, how would you know?

Speaker 7

You would have no idea?

Speaker 1

The gift registry at that point.

Speaker 7

Or they give it back.

Speaker 8

Is they paid for the wedding and it's all evened out, but sometimes they'll break up. If they won't tell guests for a year, you don't really know what's going on. In a lot of people's lives is what I've sort of seen. So next time you're in a wedding asked to see the marriage license.

Speaker 5

As long as you're a professional, only have a professional. I want to ask you this question so that everybody listening will know who's ever going.

Speaker 1

To be a bridesmaid?

Speaker 4

What?

Speaker 5

What are the list of things that a really good bridesmaid from from from the first moment you say yes till you're out the door.

Speaker 4

What's that list? What are their what's their job?

Speaker 8

The number one thing I would say is never say yes immediately because as a bridesmaid, it's not one size fits all.

Speaker 7

You don't know what you're getting yourself into.

Speaker 8

You might be asked to be a bridesmaid for a wedding and she might have all these expectations for you that you don't know about and you can't commit to. So if you're asked to be a bridesmaid, say thank you so much. I'd love to learn more about what you're expecting from me, because sometimes people are like, I want you to pay thirty five hundred for a bachelorette party and six hundred for a dress, and you have no money, so you can't do that and then it

causes resentment. So before you even accept figure out what the expectations are as a bridesmaid. Again, set a budget for yourself so that you're not overspending. The average bridesmaid spends like fifteen hundred dollars a wedding, which is a lot of money, especially in your twenties. So that's one thing to think about. But if you want to be a good bridesmaid, aside from that, just be a really

good friend. Check up on that person. Ask what you can do to help be there for them, give them a space to be honest with you.

Speaker 7

That's really all it takes is just being a supportive person.

Speaker 8

In my opinion, and I know this sounds crazy, I think bridesmaids are going to be extinct in the next decade.

Speaker 4

I think people are going to.

Speaker 8

Have less bridesmaids because they don't have a lot of friends or their friends can't be there for them. So I think that's a trend.

Speaker 4

Jen are you married?

Speaker 2

I am?

Speaker 7

I actually am married. How we did not have a wedding.

Speaker 8

We got married on the US outside of the coffee shop that we had our first date during the pandemic, and it was the best. We had no bridesmaids, we had no anything, and it was perfect for someone like me.

Speaker 4

So it was so seriously.

Speaker 5

So you you got married post your entrance into this field, and yeah, did you anticipate a different wedding prior to doing this work?

Speaker 8

You know, I was never the kind of person that dreamed of weddings or I just wanted to make sure I was marrying what I thought was the right person for me. And then when I started this business, my view of love just went downhill. And even when I met this person I'm married too, I was like, hey, I don't know how I feel about love and marriage and all of this. So he was very patient with that. But I couldn't figure out what to do for my wedding because I'd been to so many weddings and I

have a weird perception of them. So we just decided a week before we got married to just get married outside at the coffee shop on the sidewalk in Manhattan.

Speaker 7

And yeah, we don't regret it.

Speaker 3

You know.

Speaker 8

We saved a lot of money and it was perfect for I think what I needed out of a wedding.

Speaker 5

I surely think that's very how many women are working for you at this point.

Speaker 8

So that had over one hundred thousand apply to work for me, and I've only hired like about five on and off over the years, and it's a very big turnover rate. I feel like most people go to a couple weddings and then never want.

Speaker 7

To do it again.

Speaker 1

But a lot of people, a lot of.

Speaker 7

People want the job, but I don't think they understand the job.

Speaker 1

And your husband works with you still in the weddings, driving or doing something a lot.

Speaker 8

When I first met him, I was like, I have a job for you. You're going to be a groomsman for hire, and he was like, absolutely not. I want nothing to do with this world. But he'll often come with me to weddings, come at the end, like for the last hour or so, but he wants nothing to do with the business.

Speaker 1

Do you and he eats at the weddings? Are you allowed to eat?

Speaker 8

Yeah, well he'll come, he'll eat, he'll drink toward the end if he's allowed to.

Speaker 4

Yeah, yeah, you can take take.

Speaker 3

Off possible care.

Speaker 1

Yes, yeah, I would make a play for myself. You take it home, you can eat after the week. Well, you really have a nervous breakdown in an airport, didn't you?

Speaker 8

Yeah, of course, I mean, how could you do this job and not have a couple of breakdown?

Speaker 1

Well, continued success and be safe. You should be.

Speaker 4

Looking for your poetry work as well. Anyway.

Speaker 8

Yeah, I mean I write nonfiction books. I have my book Always Surprised Me for hire. I have a blog called a Monday pick Me Up. And I'm just continuously writing real stories for real life.

Speaker 1

And how booked up?

Speaker 2

Ard?

Speaker 1

So let me call it now? How booked? Can they book you for next weekend?

Speaker 6

Uh?

Speaker 7

Not next weekend? But you can book me for the end of twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five, and you can't book me. You guys, you guys want to work for me? We could hire you on as well.

Speaker 4

Oh yeah, yeah absolutely. You know what if this if this thing doesn't work nextly, But it's the two of us.

Speaker 1

We got to be in the bridal party together.

Speaker 5

Unbelievable, Jen Happy. I would throw you my bouquet, but I'm saying thank you. There's a lot of things about weddings I don't that I just don't get. That's why when she said we got married in front of the coffee shop where we met, Because.

Speaker 1

I didn't, and I'm the guy. We didn't have a nice traditional but it's small, and that was it because I didn't want that either. I don't like all that ump and circumstance because it doesn't mean anything. Right.

Speaker 4

So and I say to Dana, hey, should we renew our vowels? And she goes, I will put a nice pick through your head, and by the way, i'll.

Speaker 1

Put it my spick in your head because I don't want to go to anybody's vow I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you. No, no, no, I'll forget. Yeah, I'll tell you why. Because we love each other more than you guys love each other. We're renewing it. That's the imply up yours. We're more in love.

Speaker 6

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Good, Have you have your vower for me? It's your insecure I mean.

Speaker 4

All the gifts I didn't get the first time.

Speaker 3

I know what I want?

Speaker 1

A registry? What a registry?

Speaker 4

Who told people this.

Speaker 1

Is what we want? I like when friends have that, and it's more expensive than crap i'd buy for myself. And you who are you to have a register?

Speaker 4

But you you live like a lowis my friend? About the quality of this French.

Speaker 1

Starting now you're going to use me to upscale your life. You would don't have a slow cooker.

Speaker 3

Why would you have?

Speaker 1

I saw the ball and I bought.

Speaker 8

It for me.

Speaker 1

Viewers. And then the other thing, the other thing I love more than anything is when they make people trap and let me know how it went.

Speaker 4

Yeah, and you're paying for the ticket in the hotel.

Speaker 9

Google the hockey pokey, the hockey pokey, Well, this actually might be your mother in law's issue. There was some controversy related to the hockey Pokey. Some felt that this song was originally composed to mock a Catholic math.

Speaker 1

I don't know if she was faker.

Speaker 3

I don't know. That actually is not true.

Speaker 9

The Hokey Pokey goes way back, with some saying that there were different versions of it and then it was written by a guy named Jimmy Kennedy in nineteen forty two.

Speaker 4

Jimmy Kennedy, Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3

Originally there it was the hockey cokey.

Speaker 9

It was a hockey In fact, the United States, Canada, and Ireland we are hockey pokey places, but the rest of the world is hokey cokey, hokey cokey, and and most interestingly, Laurie actually has a wedding story.

Speaker 1

From here we go, Laurie, Laurie, do we have her music right?

Speaker 7

Wait?

Speaker 8

Wait?

Speaker 1

Wait wait? Have we loaded in her intro music yet?

Speaker 6

Now I'll use David's interesting.

Speaker 1

What's her intro music?

Speaker 4

Whatever it is, I don't know why to say.

Speaker 9

I have to say it makes no difference anyway. Whatever it is, I'm against it.

Speaker 2

Learn about it or who commenced it?

Speaker 9

I'm again.

Speaker 6

But you were talking about when you walk down the aisle. Then my first marriage, I met a guy a month before my wedding. Oh boy, I really liked him, and I invited him to the wedding. And as I was walking down the aisle, I wanted to cancel my wedding, but my nana had flown in from there you go. And I went through with the wedding for that and then dated the guy after I divorced my husband and then and did that work out? It didn't, but it was, it was It was lovely.

Speaker 4

Did he know that you were thinking of him while whilst you were walking down?

Speaker 1

Hew? He But Laura, That's why I asked, because anybody who's been divorced, My theory has always been. You know when you're standing there, he is wrong, you know, and you do it for all these reasons, either guilt or like you said the Nana that it was just it's exactly right that people go through because they're guilt. And then how long did it last? The first wedding? The first five years, all right? And then how long did the two years? By the way, did you get did

you wear gans when you were dating the author? Didn't you address? Though? I love Lauri on whatever is clean in the closet, figure out whatever smelled. And by the way, do you know that the origin of the wedding dress, way before the wedding dress, do you know what the bride used to wear? Alarm, anything that was anything that was clean. There's from their clients, from their closet. They didn't buy its dress and stuff. Yeah, no, they did not,

way back in Rome ancient one. They're not going I'm going to twenty three whatever, They're always seventeen or you always fifty eight or whatever. Ad Oh, that's really funny. Well, thank you, ebody.

Speaker 5

If you're out there in age, have a wonderful wedding, enjoy your friends, enjoy your married life.

Speaker 4

I think marriage is wonderful. I've been blessed, and we don't have.

Speaker 1

We don't have.

Speaker 4

I'm talking about myself.

Speaker 1

Which is usually what happened this relationship. This relation just has not been about. This has been a thirty plus year marriage.

Speaker 5

Come on, it has And I'd like to go out on this note your left hand, but you left then that but you left. You do the hokey pokey, and you do.

Speaker 1

You don't have any more morning.

Speaker 4

That's love ball talk.

Speaker 1

Don't even more like when you sing it with enthusiasm, that's when you're selling it.

Speaker 8

You do the.

Speaker 4

That's what That's what it's all about.

Speaker 1

I might as well take a piece of cake and you put it in the boss.

Speaker 4

Like, what are you thinking about that?

Speaker 1

It's nonsense.

Speaker 4

That's not the hockey pokey you can do.

Speaker 1

No, that's the kekey part, all right. And then there's alsho pokey, which is the seafood bird.

Speaker 2

Come me in pompa No really as another episode, it really really comes to it glows. I know you're wondering what were some of the most expensive weddings ever? Well, get ready to have your mind blown to First, let's thank our guest, Jen Glance. You can follow Jen on Instagram, x and YouTube where she is at jen Glance, and her website where you can book a bridesmaid is Bridesmaid for.

Speaker 3

Hire dot com.

Speaker 2

Our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads at really No Really podcast and of course you can share your thoughts and feedback with us online at reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some amazing fact or story that boggles your mind, share it with us and if we use it, we will send you a little gift.

Speaker 3

Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts.

Speaker 2

Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and take that bell. So here updated when we release new videos an episode, which we do each Tuesday, So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Really and now, about those weddings, just how expensive could they be? And keep in mind the average cost of a wedding in America is between forty and fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 3

So here's the top five. Number five Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Speaker 2

Knowing that Kate's gown cost a cool four hundred thousand and the Kate cost eighty thousand and ten times that amount was spent on flowers. Would it shock you to learn that the bill came in at thirty four million and twenty eleven, which is thirty seven million today. Number four the daughter of a billionaire steel magnate and a wealthy banker, Venetia Mattal and Aniss Battia flew guests in

and housed them at a five star Paris hotel. Then their ceremony was held in a sixteenth century chateau and the Palace of Versailles. Lavish viffets, fireworks at the Eiffel Tower and gift bags filled with jewels and gems drove the price to sixty million in two thousand and five.

Speaker 3

Or eighty million today.

Speaker 2

Number three Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles in nineteen eighty one. Their lavish televised international event cost a mere forty eight million, but if adjusted for today, it would come in at one hundred and sixty six million, So.

Speaker 3

William and Kate were frugal by comparison.

Speaker 2

Number two Sheik Mohammad bin Zayed al Nayan and Princess Salama. This seven day event for the Crown Prince of Dubai and his bride required a stadium to be built from scratch to accommodate the guests. In nineteen eighty one, the bill was forty five million. Adjusted for today, they'd be looking at one hundred and fifty five million. And number one the wedding of a Soviet oil tycoon and his

bride Kadya Uzakovs and said goutseraev. Photos of this wedding include huge catering halls with thousands of scandals, wall to wallflowers, a Godzilla sized wedding cake, and performances by Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias, and Sting.

Speaker 3

The exact cost of the wedding is not known, but experts have placed.

Speaker 2

The cost at approximately one billion dollars.

Speaker 3

That's a billion with a be.

Speaker 2

You know, they say money can't buy happiness, but apparently it can buy one big, freaking happy day. And I'm willing to bet that these couples had no trouble finding bridesmaids for a small portion of their budget. I'd have thrown on a gall and gone myself. Really, no, really is the production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment

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