In TikTok, it's kind of like you reach who you reach, and if that connects with you, then great, give us a follow. And if not, may the force be with you. And so I think that there's a little bit of freedom in that to allow your personality to shine through a little bit better. And now three years later, it's, it's allowed us to make better relationships with our couples because especially when they find us on TikTok, they feel like they know who they're getting into bed with, if you will.
I'm Becca Pountney, wedding business marketing expert, speaker and blogger, and you're listening to the Wedding Pros Who Are Ready to Grow podcast. I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level. If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business, doing what you love, then you're in the right place.
Let's get going with today's episode. Today, I'm chatting with Meagan Colkin, owner of Magnolia Collective, a wedding planning and design company, which is now in its 13th year. When not designing event spaces, Megan spends her time helping other wedding business owners by teaching them how to use TikTok, something I wish I understood a whole lot more. Megan and I recently taught on a wedding pro panel together, and I wanted to take the opportunity to.
Find out a little more from her and share it with all of you. So Megan, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here.
It's such a pleasure. It was fun. We did a panel together and it was a really fun time and there was quite a few of us on the panel. So we only got kind of a few sentences each. So I'm really excited that I'm going to get to dive a whole lot deeper with you during today's episode.
Definitely. Send me all your questions. I'm here for you.
Okay, well, before we get into the world of TikTok, which I know is what we're going to be talking about in depth today, I'd like to find out where people have come from. So I mentioned in the intro that you're in your 13th year of your wedding business, which is incredible. Congratulations. I love it when people have been in business a long time, it shows that it can happen. You know, we don't have to just have a wedding business for one year and then forget about it.
So how did you end up in the wedding industry in the first place?
Sure. So I came at it a bit of a glutton for punishment. So I'm third generation. Business owner in our family, but my dad is a chef. And then on my mom's side, my cousin's family is 30 years in the floral industry in New York. So I grew up in weddings. My and my dad's mother actually was a wedding dress designer, and so weddings and catering and events were kind of all I knew. And I loved them, but was also wary of them and was very much thought that I would always have a nine to five.
I would always, you know, like I would never work weekends and holidays and do all the things that they did. And I. Got into college and was like, my brain doesn't work this way. I, I don't know how to do anything else. Right. And so very quickly I, I pivoted and, and started, I started in the catering world. I opened an online bakery and I did. catering and moved into restaurant management and country clubs, social clubs, things of that nature.
And then before I went full time in my business, I was working on college campuses, doing student activities there, which really helped me. More than I realized it at the time because to be in your early 20s and to be given an event for 1800 students and then to turn around and have someone's wedding that's 150 people. Yes, it's their most, most important day, but It's small potatoes, right? It's like, yeah, it's fine. You're going to be fine. It's really okay.
So everything became relative to me in terms of crisis management very quickly. And as I was working on college campus, I just started cultivating this team of Students who were also going to school for hospitality and, you know, like they would get out into the world and be like, well, maybe I'm working a 9 to 5 and I wanted to work weddings on the weekends or I wanted to do something else. And so we just started building this team.
Kind of along the way of people that had this love for the industry, but maybe they weren't really ready to do it full time. And that's really what the business has grown into now. So I have a team of 14 and of those 14. I believe nine of them have been with me for at least eight years.
So whether they were a student or a sorority sister or we planned their wedding and then they circled back or, you know, like they just kind of became part of welcomed into the fold and brought their own strength to, to the team. So it's been, it's been enjoyable for sure.
I absolutely love that. There's two things that really stand out to me from your story. The first one is around your parents and your family being in weddings and being business owners. Because so often I speak to people who are self employed and they have self employed parents. It's definitely a thing that we often become, you know, the sum of the people that, that made us.
I always laugh when I tell my story because as a child, I used to laugh at my dad because he did loads of networking and he was always like helping businesses. And then one day I woke up in my thirties and realized I'd become my dad. Like we all do it, but I definitely think it gives you a headstart when you've got self employed parents because you've grown up and you've seen that different way of living and doing life that other people haven't seen.
The other thing that really stood out to me, which I, Always love is how much you learn from doing another job. And I think so often I speak to wedding pros and maybe they're part time in the wedding business and part time in something else and they're frustrated. And I'm always saying, yeah, but we can learn so much. And when you look back on your journey and you see. All of the stuff you learned from those days on student campus, the connections that you made, it's just incredible.
So for anyone listening and feeling that frustration right now that you're not quite where you want to be, like take in every moment, absorb everything, make every connection. Cause I guarantee there are things that you're learning from your business right now that you're learning in your job. So you got full time into weddings and you've got all of these these great team members. How have you seen the industry change across those years?
Well, you know, 13 years we've hit in North, or in the U. S. we've had the recession, which hit us pretty hard, 2008, and then obviously the pandemic, which hit us everywhere, right? We also have, I'm in North, we have two teams, one in North Carolina and one in Virginia. We're on the coast primarily, so we also have hurricanes, which are very prevalent every year. It is not a scenario where it's like sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't fall wedding season. You always have them.
And so it's this very interesting skill set really that you have to hone of not only are you making these rain plans, but are you learning how to work with vendors who could potentially move up an entire wedding 24 hours Earlier, if a storm is coming or, you know, like a catering team that was supposed to be full service and move to a drop off caterer and, you know, just all of these things that again, in, in that moment are that, Oh shit scenario. Right.
Like, but they make you so much stronger. on the back end. You know, they prepare you, they set you up for success for that next time. One of the things that I, it was not a natural disaster. It was just a thing that happens. But in 2020, we had our first bride that Had to reschedule her wedding and she got pregnant in the interim and she was going to be very pregnant at the time of the wedding. And they were like, well, here it is.
And so when we were working through this wedding, we then had to work through the timeline, things that we typically don't do things like. When she's going to have to pump and when, you know, she's going to have to, like the baby is going to have to eat. And when, you know, just all of these things that are not normative things, after we did that wedding, we booked three other brides that had.
A baby within the calendar year of getting married because I told that story and they were like, we have not even begun to think about this yet. It's not even remotely on our radar that we're going to be pumping. We're just thinking that we're not going to be pregnant anymore and that's going to be fantastic. Right. But it made us better. You know, like that moment of, we're going to have to move this around and we're going to have to change allowed us to better prepare for the future couples.
That's such a good story. Absolutely love that. And you're so right. And in the wedding and events industry, we have to be so adaptable. I mean, here in the UK, hurricanes, thankfully, are not a thing, but we all have these things that happen and we're just not sure what's going to be around the next corner. Now, obviously for us in the wedding industry, in more recent years, that was COVID. We had to shut down.
And I believe if I'm right, that was when you personally started to explore the world of TikTok.
Yes. So we had In March of 2020 was when weddings pretty much got grounded for us here. And, you know, we were just. It was no fly zone. Nothing was happening. Right. And all of these brides started going on Tik TOK and they had been consuming as vendors. We were not there, right? We, we were on other platforms potentially, but that was not on our radar. Potentially we were watching Tik TOKs, but we were not creating. And what I was noticing was they were.
There was almost this mob mentality, right? Of as couples by us were saying, well, My venue has canceled on me and then someone in the comments would say, Oh, well, you should just threaten to sue them or you should just pick up and move and do your wedding in your backyard or you should tell them you have, you know, and they were kind of banning together and saying, I'm getting married at this venue.
So if we all do this, Then, you know, like strength in numbers and it was getting scary really fast. And so I was like, and I had a background in venue management. I had, you know, like a background in venue consulting. And so I was just kind of inserting myself into their comments originally to just be like, hi. So, you know, we're working on a lot of. different coalitions and trying to talk to senators to get a lot of these different bills passed.
And, you know, there's really just no, there's no rules right now. Like we're in this gray area, right? Where we're not a restaurant, we're not a private public event space. We're not. And so they're not trying to just take your money. They're not trying to do any of these things. And so then I. Took it one step further and started creating videos just sitting on my couch.
Like we obviously didn't have any weddings that we could showcase, but just to try and explain it and then like respond to their videos. And it started to kind of, you know, tamp down the hurt a little bit. And then as more people started to be able to have weddings where you could have. 12 people or something like that, then I was able to use it to say, this is what it means to safely gather, right? Like this is what it looks like in a ballroom that has a capacity of 150 people.
Yes, you can still have 40 people and it looked beautiful, right? So it was really showing using it as an opportunity to teach them. And now obviously flash forward, we are doing weddings every weekend. So we have the, the portfolio more so, but once from my perspective, kind of once I had like cold, some of the herd, even if it was just like five brides at a time, right? Like I knew that even if I didn't have weddings right now in the same way that.
We were still posting pretty photos on Instagram, you know, I could pull old videos or photos off of my camera roll and post it to use an example of like, here's the time where we had an intimate wedding at a larger venue and look at how this worked or, you know, and just kind of like, in my mind, I'll Nobody was really showing up, so it didn't really matter, you know what I mean? Like, I was like, if my mom watches this, then who cares, you know?
And she was like, great job, I liked your video today. I'm like, cool, great, thanks. And ironically, the first video that ever, that went like super viral for us, I was doing like a, a craft, just like a random. You know, non wedding related thing, but people started coming back and kind of the domino effect is like, you know, if they come back, it doesn't really matter what they showed up for. It just matters that they stay, you know?
So if they liked it and they engaged in the content and they ask a question and they know you're going to answer it. You, I mean, how many accounts do you follow because you're like, Oh, that's a cute video of a dog, or that's a great recipe. And then you end up going down a rabbit hole of all of their content. And then you're like, Oh, I didn't even realize that they also produce, you know, five different types of content. This is just one of those things, right?
And so it was very much this kind of. Opportunity to just create, you know, it wasn't, I look at Instagram and I still kind of look at Instagram where you have this grid where you're like. Okay, well I posted a picture of a cake today and so I guess tomorrow I should post a picture of a couple and I haven't posted a diverse couple but that's in our, our mission statement so we should really show diversity and I'm like, that is so obnoxious.
Like nothing against Instagram, we should always use Instagram, but like there's something more kind of freeing about that's not the reality of our jobs. Right. Like, and if couples think that that's the reality of our jobs, they always have us at an arm's length. And I think that that was such a problem with COVID was there was no personalization, right? Like they didn't think of any of us as human beings. They thought of us as a transaction.
And so they didn't see, in my case, they didn't see their wedding planner as. Also, you know, like posting a funny video of their dog or making dinner for their step kids or, you know, doing any of those things because those were never going to be on my instagram because it messed up the grid. Right. Like, so that was all about, like, I'm here to, to reach a wedding client. I'm going to reach that target market in tik tok. It's kind of like you reach who you reach.
And if that connects with you, then great. Give us a follow. And if not, whatever, go may the force be with you, you know? And so I think that there's a little bit of freedom in that. To allow your personality to shine through a little bit better. And now three years later, it's, it's allowed us to make better relationships with our couples because especially when they find us on TikTok, they feel like they know who they're getting into bed with, if you will, right?
They know that I'm kind of sassy. They know that I don't want, my client is not their mom. And so if their mom wants to plan their wedding, it's not going to be with me because like, that's going to be with someone else. But I have an opportunity when I'm not face to face on a consultation to have that conversation. You know, there's just this opportunity to put it out into the world and say, this is what I like. This is what I don't like. This is our ideal.
This is, you know, like these couples that we love to work with. This is what these weddings look like. This is what that ideal budget looks like. And if you really want this kind of experience, this is the reality. And we can put that out in the universe and then see who actually gravitates to that.
It's interesting to me that you say that TikTok is a freeing place to be because I think there's a lot of fear around the platform for a lot of people in the wedding industry, a lot of vendors who don't want to go on to TikTok for the opposite reason because they're scared because they're not sure that it is this free place because they don't know what to do or why should. They'd be on there and they don't feel comfortable in it.
So just give us a little sales pitch right now because we have loads of marketing platforms that we can be on. Why is someone going to want to get uncomfortable and try TikTok? Why should they be paying attention to it in the wedding industry?
So the one thing that I'll say is when I first saw TikTok, my first thought was TikTok, TikTok is not for my business because I'm not going to learn a dance. I'm not going to do a trending dance. I'm not, my client is not going to be looking for their wedding planner to do a trending dance on TikTok. That's all I saw at face value, right?
However, when I started to look at it as in the, In the line of thinking that when I'm on a wedding, you know, capturing a wedding day, I'm already, I have my phone out. I'm taking photos and videos of the first look, the couple cutting the cake, you know, before and afters of the ballroom behind the scenes of the groomsmen coursing around, right? Like. All those moments I'm already capturing those things that a lot of times the bride doesn't see.
You know, because she's doing 500 other things and I am creating that content without ever being like, okay guys, get together. And I want you to film this transition, you know, like we're not doing any of that, right? I'm just simply a passerby or, you know, like an observer, a silent observer of the day Then I'm going to put some music to it and throw a description over the top, you know, sometimes that looks like the photographer taking pictures with a couple at a first look.
And I'm explaining like by doing this, they freed up 30 minutes in their cocktail hour and they'll be able to join their cocktail hour. And they won't have to go table to table and greet their guests, you know, like where it's just like five to eight seconds of a video and you can have like one of those teaching moments, right? Like, I had this conversation with a station or friend of mine the other day, and she was talking about getting photo galleries back.
And she said, I hate when I hate when I get a gallery back and the only detail images of my design suite have the shoes next to it, because often this bride has broken in these shoes and. There's dirty shoes next to this design suite that costs, you know, 800 or whatever to make. And so she's like, I never, I never use those images. And I end up never posting the photographer's photos. I end up hiring a photographer once a year to go back and take pictures of samples.
So it looks like I only work with one photographer a year when I could have been working with all of these photographers. And I was like, you know, photographers don't know that if they, you know, like that's just a, that's a thing that you, you do in a detailed photo, right? You do the rings and then you throw the shoes in there and you throw a flower and you call it a day. Right?
Like, but if Teresa had a tiktok and she had taken a video of her invitation suite and it was like a do this, not this. And then photographers saw that that's such a quick and easy thing that then opens the, you know, Pandora's box, if you will, of the opportunity for all the more exposure for her to be sharing the work of, of all of those artists.
So when it comes to making these videos, you make it sound very easy, but I know that people listening will be, again, panicking about this and thinking, yikes so complicated. Like, how well polished would you say your videos are? How quick are you throwing them together? Are you building them in the TikTok app?
Yeah, so I... Never edit anything on the wedding day, unless I'm in that moment, like, again, a planner that I'm sitting in that hour of dancing where it's just all the DJ, you know, I'm always just sitting, I'm, I capture, capture, capture 90 percent of what I'm doing, I'm editing in the TikTok app.
And it's really very basic if I am using let me pull it up right now if I am using like gallery images just from a photographer's gallery that they were to share and I wanted to do just a slide show I use the called in shot. And it looks like, I'll send it to you so we can put it in the show notes. It almost looks like it's the Instagram logo, but that's a really easy way to just drop a bunch of images in and then you can like edit them all at one time to the same size.
So you don't have to click on every single image and, you know, change the length of time. So there's a couple of things like that. I have one file that I'll also send you. That's a very quick and easy. Like these are the apps that I use that make it super easy. So I'll send that to you for everybody listening as well, just to make it as easy as possible, but really the. Like people are not looking for the high resolution, like most everybody is editing in app, you know, like the.
teeny boppers who have 500 million followers and are doing all of the dance videos and stuff. It's, the app is created and honestly promoted for you to be editing in app. So like the whole, it's almost like they, they're more likely to push out your video if you are utilizing the features that are, that are already there. So, you can kind of cut yourself some slack as far as that goes.
Now what about the people who are thinking, I don't want to go onto an app and just get crickets. Like, it's a new app, I don't have a following, I'm going to go over there, I'm going to make these videos, and then who on earth is ever going to find them? Like, have you got any tips on, number one, how to get over that, and number two, how to actually get people to find your videos?
Yeah. So two things. One, video content is king these days on all platforms. So, you know, whether you are comfortable on Instagram and are getting comfortable with reels or are, you know, just trying to figure out ways to approach TikTok where maybe it's a tutorial that you're hypnotized, Just coming at it from an educational standpoint, you know, I come, I come from an educational standpoint, but I also come from like a, this is the work that we're showcasing.
There is a venue, however, in North Carolina, she is brilliant because she has used her entire tiktok as essentially her FAQ page for. Any and every question she ever gets for the venue, she makes a tiktok and then when her parent, when parents, couples, anybody asks that question, she's like, great question. Here's a link to that. And she embeds it in an email. She'll link it on her website and she sends them right back to her tiktok that she's like, if you have more questions.
Here you go, because she's done the job. She's done the work already, right? Like the work has been done once. She's not going to do it again. The other thing is like, I don't spend any time in reels, but I know that people like if I post on just rough numbers here, I have, we have over 7, 000 followers on Instagram. We get like 25 likes a day on a photo. It's trash. Like the engagement is absolutely terrible. If I post a reel, we get like 2, 500 views and like 300 likes.
So it's pretty obvious that we need to be posting more video content, but I just take TikToks that I've already made. And post them onto Instagram. I'm not creating completely new content. I've already created it once and I'm just sharing it onto the other platform because now it's given me, it, it's just performs better. So I'm just doing the work once and showing up twice.
So that's okay for us to be doing that, to share the same thing. And how are you doing that? Are you editing it in an outside app, and then uploading it to TikTok and Instagram separately so that you don't have the logos? Or how are you working that?
I just, yep, so one of the apps that I use, which will also be on that same PDF, is... Called I believe it's called safe tick and it removes the watermark. So when you go, yep, it's safe text. So when you copy the link from your tiktok and you bring it into safe tick, then you save it to your camera roll. You upload it as a real on Instagram and it took that. That TikTok watermark out and all of the music and stuff is all still there, so you do not have to find it and realign it or anything.
It's already still. It's already done. It's just removing the watermark
and so presumably does that work the other way around. So if people have got some content on reels, they can go ahead and open a TikTok and they've already got content to put on there. Absolutely love that. That's great. Golden. We definitely need a copy of this resource. I'll be putting it in the show notes for sure. So let's just talk then as we draw this conversation to a close about conversion, because ultimately we want to do our marketing to get more sales.
And if we are going to go on TikTok, Reels, Instagram, any of these things, they take our time. So. How would you say it works from a conversion standpoint? Do you see conversion from people finding you on TikTok? Do they come over to another platform? Do they reach out directly? How's that working?
Absolutely. So last year alone, we had seven couples who booked us that came from either Instagram or TikTok, which would have, which would have equated to about 28, 000 in revenue. Comparatively, we paid for about 12, we, we spent about 12 in paid advertising. We made. Exactly. Like we broke even on what we booked from those people. So TikTok and Instagram are free. So it was, it was time, but it was 100 percent profit.
And it's not, that's not to say that we're not spending time engaging with all of the couples. Making sure our sites are monitored, making sure our storefronts are monitored, you know, like we're still spending all of that time on these paid sites and so instead, we've been pulling back on a lot of these paid sites and now we're going to be doing for next year.
Is taking a lot of that money and going into like TikTok ads and Instagram ads and Google ads, because even just a fraction of that spend will only increase that revenue.
That's fascinating. It's really. important for us to hear those numbers and to hear that you are getting that return on investment because yes, our time is worthwhile. So therefore it's worth something we need to make sure we're getting some business off of the back of it. Now, the great thing about TikTok is that people can go and find your account and they can go through and they can see which kind of content is doing the best because the numbers show for everyone. Is that right?
Yes, absolutely. So, you know, there's definitely. What's really fascinating is if you were to look at a lineup of 10 different wedding planners all across the country, all across the world, they're all going to perform very differently. And the things that. I show up and speak about might perform very differently than, you know, another planner. So you do have to find out what works for you at the end of the day.
But I think it's so fascinating and really very freeing to be able to engage and follow and interact with all of these people and to start conversations with everyone. To be able to say like, You know, Oh, I see that this is working for you, or I see that this is not working for you, or even in the sense where people are complaining in more of like a anonymous way, like about a client every once in a while where you're like, Oh, you're not alone.
This is happening in Scotland too, or this is happening in Colorado as well. Right. Where it's just like. Yeah. Okay. They're crazy everywhere. Got it. You know, like, and there's, there's some camaraderie there too. And where occasionally, you know, you'll just end up having a little sidebar conversation with people and making friends. Just that again, I just don't really think that I see on Instagram in the same way when you're just, Posting beautiful images, right?
Where you're like, wow, beautiful work, but you're not transparent in the same way.
So your personality can shine through more on the TikTok app. We could talk about this for ages. There are so many more questions that we could discuss, but we need to bring this conversation Take care. to a close. Now, before I find out more about where people can find you, I always end my conversations with the same question and it's this, what's one thing you personally wish you'd known sooner in your own wedding business?
I would, I feel like this is a question that, or an answer that people who are over that like 10 year mark would give a lot, but it's that you're not each other's competition. You know, that it's just that there really is enough to go around. And if there is those that pick you are, are the right ones and the clients, and sometimes the clients that pick you are still not the right ones. Right. Like, but you are not for everyone and that needs to be okay.
And so just really being able to hone in on what works for you and. One thing, if the pandemic has taught us anything, if the economy teaches us of anything, is that this job is so difficult. And it's too difficult to make it more difficult on ourselves. You know, we, the beauty of owning a business is you're supposed to be able to do what you love, right? You're supposed to be able to choose your clients and choose who you work with and choose who you surround yourself with.
And so it does not have to be a scenario where you, where you work at every venue and you work with every client. And, you know, like some of them, you just have to let them go. And it has to be okay.
Yeah, a hundred percent community over competition. Every single time there's plenty of work to go around. You couldn't possibly service every wedding. So it's always good to be reminded of that. Megan is been such a pleasure chatting all things. tiktok with you. Just share with everyone. If they want more help from you. on TikTok, or if they want to find your TikTok account, where's the best places for them to go? Absolutely.
My TikTok is magnolia. collective. And I, if you're not on TikTok yet, and you're still hanging out on Instagram, we're over there too. We're magnolia. collective LLC. I offer TikTok coaching. We offer wedding coaching, business coaching. If you're not on TikTok at all and just need to chat. Feel free to reach out. I will send you those resources for anybody who's listening today and we'd love to help however we can.
Fabulous. I will make sure that I put all of those links in the show notes. Maybe I need some TikTok coaching because I went on TikTok and then quickly ran away and haven't been on it since. So maybe that's something that I need to do as well to get myself back on TikTok. It's been so great chatting Megan. Thank you so much for your time and I'll make sure I share all of those links in the show notes. I'll see you soon. I absolutely love that conversation with Megan. Isn't she awesome?
I just wish I could get as excited about TikTok as she did. I think it's definitely something that we need to keep exploring and keep pushing ourselves to do. So if you do nothing else after listening to today's episode, go look up her TikTok, go and see what she's doing, go get inspired, and think about how you could do something similar yourselves. I'll see you next time.