S1 E16 -Episode 16 – May Recap: Drama, Dropouts and Dry Season Shenanigans

You do realize that wedding planning is 90% admin, and out of the 90% admin, 50% of your time is like, "Hi, just me again chasing this up. Please see below." "Hi, me again," and you'll send like 7 emails to one supplier.

We didn't want it to be connected to weddings anymore, like the stress and anxiety that can come with a smaller island wedding. Like, can you imagine Bali and the little bits of stress that you get there, but having to do a full, like, the barge getting all the furniture over. Like, it's, it's a lot.

I will never forget talking to Amber about all the requests she was getting through concierge because Jackie and Carl were like, oh, I don't think we're gonna use it. Yeah, not sure. And then they got concierge last minute, and honestly, like, what did you bring out to the wedding that Amber sent to you?

Oh, um, white underwear. Tighty whities.

Tighty whities. When I got to the office yesterday afternoon, Ella was like, are you okay? And I was like, no. And I said, look, I know it wasn't my fault, but you want your bride's day to be like— I'm getting emotional. Yeah, you want You want it to be like amazing.

Best day of their life.

I want them to be so happy. I want them to be like hugging me at the end of the night telling me what a good day it was.

Yeah.

At the moment, we have been told we're in for a wet summer.

Oh yeah, wet summer.

Bali typically rains, let's say November through to February. We've been told to expect a wet summer. It's been raining a lot the last month, which is really uncharacteristic for this time of year. So if you are a bride getting married this year, whether you're with us or you're not with us, talk to your venue, talk to your wedding planner. I think you seriously need to start considering backup options just in case. Hi and welcome back to another episode of Bali Weddings Unveiled. I'm Tristan and I'm Britta, and we are your co-hosts. Um, today is a bit of a fun one. We're jumping into our monthly recap. Last month when we did our recap, we didn't have a lot to chat about because we hadn't really done that much. We were kind of coming into the start of the year, but we have just come off 5 Back-to-back weddings. Yeah, insane.

It's been, uh, horrible.

Look, I wouldn't say horrible, but we had— normally our weddings are kind of broken up, but we had weddings Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Yeah, we obviously didn't work all of them, but you did 4 of them.

I did 4 back-to-backs, and like, because you were— 4th day, I was like, I, I had to get, um, drugs sent out to Yeah, very rundown.

The long days definitely take a toll on your body. But because of that, guys, you will see we normally have a beautiful flower display. We don't have it today. It's on my kitchen bench. I grabbed it. We were just a bit tired. It'll come in shortly.

We were very tired.

We were very tired. So we might be a bit tired today than normal. But let's recap what a month it's been. 5 weddings back to back. We're coming out of a massive month of holidays.

Yeah.

If you're a client of ours, you will know that there were a lot of delays in the last 6 weeks because we had— what did we start with?

I don't know.

Was it Edelfitri?

Yeah, we've had Edelfitri, we've had Galungan, then Easter. Yep.

Then what's the one after Galungan? Kuningan? Yeah.

Yeah.

So we've had a lot of holidays and, you know, in Australia you have a public holiday, you have the day off.

Yeah.

What happens here?

People take extended days off or they go away to their hometowns, villages, and they're just not contactable.

I swear one of our suppliers had like 3 weeks off and I was like, I understand the Balinese holidays, but you're not Muslim.

And we're constantly chasing, like we have it on our to-do list. It's like, okay, chase this person again. They still just don't get back to you.

I was explaining that I had a job interview with someone the other day and they really excited to be in the wedding world, really want to come on board. And I was like, you do realize that wedding planning is 90% admin. And out of the 90% admin, 50% of your time is like, hi, just me again, chasing this up, please see below. Hi, me again. And you'll send like 7 emails to one supplier. They just, they, I don't know what it is, but the admin for some companies is just shocking. And I get it. Like we're busy. I actually got a beautiful reply from a florist the other day. I sent it to you, remember?

Yeah, that's right.

And I think it was the third time I'd followed up. and the reply that I got back was like, oh, Tristan, like, we had such a busy few weeks of weddings, don't know how you're handling it, and you're podcasting like a boss, like, I inspire to be like you, so sorry for the delay. And I was like, all is forgiven.

It sounds like your ChatGPT when you're trying to get it to hype you up, you know?

Look, I've seen this quality of English from this Florissant person, so I think they definitely ChatGPT'd it. But I was okay because I was like, yeah, soften me out with a compliment and say sorry.

Do it.

So yeah, we had a few massive weeks of holidays and chasing and admin, and, you know, some of the team had time off as well. We had a beautiful weekend. Away.

Oh, we did actually.

It was the last, it was the last time we were here. We kind of joked about it. Let's go to Lombok for the weekend. And then I think that was a Wednesday we were filming.

Yeah.

Thursday we had a massive office day. Friday I was in meetings. And what happened when I came home on Friday afternoon? What did you say to me?

I was like, I've booked a boat to go to Lombok and I've got some tickets on hold for you, but I'm going.

I've already booked. What time was this and what time was the boat leaving?

I think The boat was leaving at like 2 or 4, no, 2.

Yeah. And I literally got home from this meeting and it was like, I think 11:30, 12. And I'm like, I wanna come to Lombok. And I was like, phoning and I'm like, you bitch, what about the dogs?

I had your tickets on hold. I was like, I don't know what's happening with the dogs, but I need to go.

So we have pets, right? Like we live together. One of the pets is basically mine. I've had it for 11 years, buddy. But we have a little like family dog and Britta was just like, well, I'm going away. You can figure out the animals. So it literally was like, right, I can make this work. I can pack a bag. And then our nanny, Aryu, bless, calls out, I want to come.

Well, like, come.

Well, I come then if you can sort the dogs out. And she's like, I have no clothes. And I was like, we'll sort the dogs out, ring the dog hotel, see if they can come.

I've sorted the rooms for everyone. I've booked the boat tickets. All right, Aryu's coming now. Whyan, Whyan, add one more ticket on.

And it was literally like, well, if you want to come, Aryu, you're more than welcome. Good for me, you can watch Christian, might be able to have a nice dinner or night out one night, which didn't actually happen. But yeah, and literally she rang the dog hotel, was like, right, they'll be here in 2 hours. We messaged one of our other staff and said, can you come be here so the dogs can get picked up? Are you— road home, we were at the boat harbor like an hour and a half later.

I think it was half an hour later before we even like walked out the door, the dog hotel came and we were like, that was so much quicker than 2 hours.

And I'd been sick the night before, that's right as well. And I was only just starting to feel human. I hadn't actually eaten all day because I was worried my tummy wasn't handling it. So we went to Lombok, and now for those of you who have not been to Lombok, I highly recommend it. We actually used to do weddings there, and unfortunately— well, not unfortunately, I'm happy about it— we did stop doing weddings because it's our holiday destination. It is one of my favorite places to go just for a weekend off, for a couple of days, for a week. It is beautiful. It's like little heaven on earth.

We didn't want it to be connected to weddings anymore, like the stress and anxiety that can come with a smaller island wedding.

Yeah.

Like, can you imagine Bali and the little bits of stress that you get there, but having to do a full, like the barge, getting all the furniture over, like it's, it's a lot.

What's a barge? People don't know what a barge is.

People know what a barge is. We have them in Australia.

Do many people? Because you had a certain client that did not understand what a barge was.

A barge, it's just like a bigger boat that you can put basically larger items. Yeah.

So the last couple of weddings we did in Lombok, were very stressful. And actually the very first wedding I worked on in Boggan wasn't actually my wedding.

It was a friend's.

It was a friend's. So our beautiful friends at Soiree Society after COVID just had a wedding over there. And during COVID she'd come back, she'd had a baby. So there was a lot going on. Your first wedding post-COVID is always gonna be a little bit like high pressure 'cause you wanna make sure it's perfect. But adding an island off Bali into the mix, I remember waking up in the morning And it must have been like 9:00 AM. And I had missed phone calls from Jess from the night before. Cause Jess is one of my very good friends. Like she, we office shared for a while. I was very supportive. Wifey, but she saved my phone.

It's wifey.

So when she started Soiree Society, which was called, what was it called before that?

Q Events.

Q Events. Very supportive. Like we always sent her business if we were overbooked. She actually worked on a few Bali Brides events with some of our higher end clients when we were fully booked. So we work very closely together, but I woke up in the morning, I had like a bunch of missed calls from her and then like a bit of a meltdown message of like, oh my gosh, the generator's gone down. Like more just a venting message than anything. And I, you know, when sometimes you say to someone out of the goodness of your heart, I'm like, is there anything can I do? Can I help you? And you don't expect them to say yes. I was like, wifey, oh my God, how stressful. Are you okay? Do you want me to get on a boat and come over? And she was like, oh my God, can you? And I was like, fuck. And I was literally like, yeah, okay. And luckily I already had the Nanny coming that day because I had, I don't know, I was doing something and I literally just canceled my plans for the day. And I was at the boat harbor an hour later, got over to the island, everything ran smoothly. I think just the day before, the stress. Um, but I literally went for the day, came back, and then after that we did a couple of weddings there. And for anyone that hasn't been to Lombok, and we'll put some photos up here so you can kind of see snippets of the island, there's not like cars, there's no trucks, like it's a very small island.

I don't think I've ever actually seen an actual car. Like, there's—

I just like people movers. No, I've actually never seen an actual car either, now that I think about it. So you can imagine when we're taking things like furniture or lighting or anything over there, when we get off the boat, like, it's a golf buggy or we're trying to find a truck. And the prices— it's— there's no Gojek. It's like, if you want the truck, it's going to be $30. Yeah, one way. And I guess the other issue is we've got to send everything over on a barge, and that normally that has to go the day before.

Yep.

Where do we store everything? Like, so there were a lot of logistics involved. Thank goodness, Wayan, also from Soiree Society, because he had done a couple weddings there. He was like magic because our team obviously can do a lot of research, but he already knew. So we actually hired Wayan out for those weddings as well. And he managed the transport and logistics and the vendors arriving. But when things go wrong on an island that small, you can't just like bring in another company.

There's no backup.

There's no backup. So The first few weddings that were incredibly stressful, we did make the decision after the last one to never do another wedding there because it did ruin it as a holiday destination for us.

Because it's the whole— it's not even just the stress on the wedding day, it's the whole lead up to it because we try to get there the day before.

Fast boats, remember? The fast boats were being canceled because the tides were so rough and we were like, what if we get stuck there? We have other weddings and we weren't charging enough money by any means to do it. Like we charge a surcharge to go there, but we had to be there the day before. That was meals for like 3, 4 people, fast boats, and we charged a fee, but it wasn't enough for 3 days' worth of work because then even after accommodation— yeah, and one of the weddings, was it you that got off the fast boat, went straight to another wedding, or Al? Like, it's—

yeah, we did both. Al and I, we went to Jeeva Saba.

That's right, you came to my wedding.

So I left just after I had to say goodbye to my grandmother as well.

That was like, that was the final straw for me.

I'm like, that was actually— yeah, I remember that, so traumatic.

Yeah, I'm having trauma.

So, so much trauma.

We won't go into it too much, but unfortunately your grandma obviously passed away, and you being the freaking trooper that you are, you took personal leave for that week, but you didn't get on a plane and go home. You had weddings and you were like, I'm going to stick it out. Like, I want to go home for mum, but obviously you can't. And I, I will still never forget going to war for you because one of your clients complained that you were taking personal leave, and I was like, how? I freaking dare you. Your wedding is fully planned apart from the barge boat because we don't have your final furniture order yet. Exactly. That was the thing. So anyway, long story short, Lombok in paradise. What did we do? We did nothing. I loved it. We just sat.

It's so funny because when you go to the smaller islands, it's like when we checked in, when we finally got there, we kind of went straight down to the pool and we were like, 2 Bintangs please. Like, I don't really drink much beer, but as soon as I get on those like small island vibes, I'm like, give me a Bintang. It's always like Bintang Nasi Goreng for me. Yeah, mee goreng.

Oh, delicious. Yeah.

And like, nothing better than just local food.

It's so funny because when you arrive in Lombok and if you're staying in a hotel, as we said, there's no cars. So you either get in like the back of these dodgy little trucks or a golf buggy. Like the hotel might arrange transfers for you. Ours didn't. So we got off the boat, we walked up the sand. It was like, we'll get some scooters, please. Trying to shove that little suitcase on the scooter. Now, my son never goes on a scooter in Bali because I just, I've got trauma. I saw an accident when I first moved here involving a child and I will never get that image and the screaming out of my head from the mum. Um, so Christian doesn't scooter here. He's been on a scooter a few times, but it's literally just up and down the road on the office. And he has like a $700 helmet from New Zealand that I bought from a proper motorbike shop. So I don't really take him on the scooter at all.

But I feel like it's even us when we're just driving around anyway, we just stay in the area. Like we go Seminyak, maybe Legian.

Further out we take a car. If we're going to have a drink with dinner, we always take a car. Like we're very good with not drinking and driving ever.

We just don't really go far on our scooters.

Well, that's like $3, $4 for a taxi, so why wouldn't you just get a taxi? So we arrived, we obviously trying to shove the thing. Tristan was so happy. He's like, am I going on a scooter? And I was driving so slow, like a little grandma, but it's just like the island vibes. You drive around the island to your little accommodation, go for a swim. You just float from beach club to beach club really. It's just, it was so needed before the March. That was a delightful day.

That was very delightful.

Those lychee martinis. Jinx.

All right. I'll drink.

So everyone had a lot of holidays. We got a lot of holidays and then we came back and I had my first wedding. Yep. Oh my goodness. So we need to get Amber on here.

Yeah.

From Bali Concierge Co. Because we have the side business, me and actually one of the other wedding planners. No one really knows it's my side business. I've kind of got my fingers in all my pies, but we started a side business, myself and Narelle from Global Weddings called Bali Concierge Service. It was her idea, but she came to me saying, you know how to grow a business and things. Yeah. So we started this business called Bali Concierge Co. We've hired somebody to manage it full-time, so we don't really have anything to do with it. And basically what it is, is when you get married in Bali or even come on holidays, you can pay for this concierge hotline, right? So it's like having your own little personal assistant in your pocket. So for the weddings, you pay a set fee. It ranges from like $450 to $550 depending on the size of your wedding. But once you pay that fee, every person in your wedding party gets access to concierge from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM.

So handy.

And all it is is a hotline. Literally, like, you can text this number at any time for anything you want. 'Hi, I need a doctor. Can you send me a doctor?' 'Hey, can you arrange my airport transfers?' 'I'm not feeling well, I have Bali belly. What should I do?' 'Is the ice safe to eat?' Like, she gets so many questions. And we did go to the launch of the concierge party not long ago. But Jackie and Carl, love them.

Oh, they was the sweetest couple I think I've met.

I'm really lucky because I said like the last wedding was my favourite couple of the year, but now I'm like, maybe Jackie and Carl was. I don't know. But honestly, they're from New Zealand. So first of all, I'm from New Zealand. So that was really close to my heart. Elissa did the planning, I did the coordination, and we actually caught up with them in New Zealand when we were there at a cafe, kind of finalized a lot of their wedding details. They brought me like these little juices from these markets. They were just such beautiful people. But I will never forget talking to Amber about all the requests she was getting through Concierge because Jackie and Carl were like, "I don't think we'll use it." "Yeah, not sure." And then they got Concierge last minute. And honestly, like, what did you bring out to the wedding that Amber sent to you?

White underwear, tighty whities.

Tighty whities. So the groom obviously was wearing cream pants, forgot underwear. So Amber went out shopping.

He forgot like white underwear or skin colour?

Yeah, he had underwear but not skin coloured and his pants were a bit see-through. So Britta had to bring out underwear. Jackie had messaged concierge the night before like, I think my dress needs a veil. Amber, whoosh, whoosh, made it happen. Like there were so many funny requests that came through from them. They also listened to one of our other podcast episodes where we were talking about Kim and Darren and having little Maple out there. So sure enough, photo insert here. Yeah, here's them snuggling a little Maple because they insisted she be part of the wedding as well.

The official dog handler of the day. So I just walked around with Maple all day.

Yeah. And, um, Pala Ubud. Oh my goodness.

Oh, we don't— beautiful.

We don't do a lot of like jungly weddings. And when they came to me, we were going backwards and forwards on quite a few venues. And then we— I went to the opening of Pala Ubud and I literally messaged Karl. I was like, I have found your wedding venue, you're gonna love it. And sent him through all the videos. They booked it, I think, like the day. It was absolutely gorgeous. I mean, the staff were wonderful as well because they are the same staff from Pala Uluwatu. So it's a sister business, and the owner even came out that day to meet me. It was the first wedding they'd had there. They were so grateful, so over the moon. So I'll pop some photos in here, but Pala Ubud, if you're considering a jungle wedding, probably like one of the only venues I really want to work at that way, to be honest. I mean, technically it's a very gray area about logistics of Ubud for us Westerners, but as the director of the company, I'm fine. Just absolutely beautiful. And a lot of the venues in Ubud, the grass is uneven, they're hotels, you can't take outside catering. But because this is a specific built venue keeping weddings in mind, like everything just flowed. You can take catering in. They're just wonderful to work at, I think.

Yeah, they're really good. And the tent that you guys put in there as well, like that was beautiful. Like it really just fit the setting. I think it kind of made it as well. I really think it did.

So It's been raining a lot. Oh yeah, it's been raining so much. And we say this so many times, it is so important to trust your wedding planner. And these guys, I think also one of the reasons they were my favorite, they just trusted us. Like there was, there was never any like, I'm not sure about that Tristan and Elissa. There wasn't like, no Elissa, we don't think that's a good idea. Like every suggestion that we gave them, they were like, yep, no problems. And when it came to the final meeting and we sat down, it's always a hard conversation to have with someone like, we think it's going to rain and we think we need a marquee. Because I get it, like it's a few grand.

That they weren't really budgeting for.

It's also the plan of the day. Like, that's not what you want for anyone's wedding day. And I actually just had a wedding and I like, I'm still kind of traumatized from it because I felt so bad for the bride. Yeah, we'll dive into that later. But the final meeting, I sat down and I was like, I've been keeping an eye on the weather. I've been talking to people in Ubud. There's a high chance of rain. I think we're going to need to do a marquee.

I feel like Ubud's just— it's prone to rain.

It's wetter.

Yeah.

And so I said to them, we're going to do a marquee. And they're like, Tristan, no problems. And I was like, "Okay, it's going to be X." "No problems." And I was like, "Okay, well that's going to cover dinner. I think we need the rain stopper for ceremony." "No problems." "And because it's going to be really hot under the particular marquee that I have on hold, I'd like to do misty fans so that keeps the tent cool." "No problems." And I was like, "Oh." When does anyone ever just say yes to you? It does happen, but just for the— there was no debate. There was no backwards and forwards or we'll think about it. Explicit trust. And like, for me, it just makes my life so easy. And it just like, it warmed my heart so much. I was like, they just trust me. And sure enough, on the wedding day, rain stopper, ceremony was beautiful. Cocktail hour was beautiful. Dinner time, poured with rain.

Yeah.

Now I want to explain something about the rain stopper because you just had a wedding.

Yeah.

It rained.

Yeah.

So what happened? How does the rain stopper kind of work? Like he tells us he moves the clouds.

Yeah, basically that. So he moves the clouds, like They go around you.

It's so bizarre.

Yeah, it's so bizarre. I've had two weddings in May and we had the rain stopper for both of them. Yeah. My one at Villa Vaitis on the 6th of May, Carolina. She's blessed.

Oh, that was the beautiful. Bless her heart. Love her.

She— I messaged her the day before. No, actually at the pre-wedding meeting, I'm like, I think it's going to be wise to put our rain stopper on hold. I'll keep an eye on the weather. Sure enough, it got to literally the day I think I'd already confirmed Bapak. Yeah, but I messaged her anyway. I was like, I've been looking at the weather again. I think we will need Bapak Range Stopper. And she was like, yeah, I was thinking the same thing because it rained overnight.

Yeah.

And she was like, yep, do it. I was like, perfect, already done. And yeah, he came out. It was the other Bapak. The Vadas one?

The Vadas one. He's good too.

He's great. And he— it started bucketing down rain, I think from maybe 2 PM until 4 PM. And we had to just remove everything off the dinner table. So it was basically just the tables were out there, the florals were, they were all done and everything. Dada Island, they did a fantastic job.

That wedding was gorgeous. We'll put some photos here from that wedding. Oh, beautiful.

But yeah, it was just bucketing down rain and I like, I just knew that she was getting very stressed up there and there's nothing really we can do at that stage. It's just kind of wait it out. I've been told that yes, it was going to stop in time for the ceremony and it did. Yeah.

So because I think that's what they do, right? Like if it's raining, it's not essential for it to not be raining. Yeah. They're like, well, we'll let it get out now and then we'll fix it.

That's what I said to Yanti. I was just like, just got to get the rain out of the system, out of its system, and then We'll be fine.

And then he like, I feel like when it rains at certain periods, I don't say anything about it. And I don't go to Bapak Rain Stopper and say, hey, fix it. Because I'm like, in the bigger picture, it has to rain. It's fine to rain now because I don't, yeah, like nothing happening. We're going to have to do things last minute, but we can mitigate that. That's absolutely fine. What time can you make it stop? And then normally the question is, what time do you need it to stop? And I'm like, this time. And yeah, every time.

And that's basically what happened. We had probably half an hour to get everyone sorted, get everyone seated. And then yeah, ceremony went onto it. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. It was obviously a bit overcast, but I actually prefer that for photos.

Yeah, me too. Lighting isn't as harsh.

Yes. Yeah, it was nice, the weather.

Yeah.

And, um, yeah, everything went beautifully. I think the rain stopper left at about 10. We had a tattoo studio which we had to quickly run inside, but it rained a little bit for about 5 minutes after he left. 10 past 5. 5 past 10. This is the back-to-back wedding. 5 past 10, it started raining at nighttime. And then, yeah, it only lasts for about 5 minutes and then, yeah, whoosh, whoosh, gone.

So basically what the rain stopper does, and this is my understanding of it, and I might be completely wrong, but they basically move the clouds. So the ceremonies and the praying, they're like, the clouds are coming towards us, let's move them that way. And they move them around. But on days that the island is completely covered in clouds and rain, there's not a lot they can do. So it's not 100% guaranteed. And obviously it's going to come down to a belief system.

Yeah.

So literally for Jackie and Carl's wedding, it was going to rain like it was always going to rain. So he kept it clear for the ceremony, cocktail hour. And then literally just as we're moving everyone in for dinner, rained.

Yeah.

And I was like, you know what, not a massive deal that it's raining now. Kind of was annoying for the band because we had to bring the sides down on the tent and that obviously impacted sound a little bit.

Yeah.

But then as soon as it stopped, we put it up. Then it rained again quite heavily, but everything was in the tent. The band was undercover. The only thing that was annoying was the photo booth because the photo booth was outside and started at 8 PM. So I literally went over to him and I said, Bapak, at 8 PM it's party time. It's going to be very hot in that tent. The photo booth needs to open. I need you to stop the rain by then. And he was like, okay. And literally it was like 7:59, the rain stopped. We set up the photo booth. We did a full party time. Like, so it rained all through dinner, wasn't a big deal because we were all undercover anyway. But yeah, obviously if the clouds are covering the entire island, like it was on Friday, it was literally raining everywhere. Where do they put the clouds? Yeah, but they do, like, most of the time, if there is somewhere for them to move things around, they stop the rain for all the key moments.

The way that I kind of understand it is if you're literally in wet season, which we are kind of experiencing, experiencing a prolonged wet season right now, which is—

we're gonna have a wet summer. We'll touch on that shortly.

Yeah, um, but If say, sorry, if we were to have a wedding in August and we, it was predicted a bit of rain, we're like, mm, not too sure about it. Yes, we'll hire the rain stopper. However, if it's like December, January and we're in like peak wet season, there's just not much that they can do about it. Like there's literally just nowhere to put the clouds. That's the way that I kind of understand it.

That's what they say, where do we put the clouds? There's nowhere in the sky that's clear for me to move them.

So if say the random day in August, a little bit of rain, that is so much easier to move the clouds around.

Yeah.

Whereas, yeah, wet season, no.

A little bit trickier. I did have a wedding though last, was it last year? And it was like my venue was flooded all day and it stopped at like, we had the rain stop in the marquee and he stopped the rain. We got the ceremony done and then it rained later in the night. So like it is tricky because they need somewhere to move that around to. So we had like multiple weddings. So I came straight back from Lombok and we did Jackie and Kyle's wedding. When was your first wedding?

Well, 6th of May, Carolina. Yeah, that was after that. And then I had Alex, Emma and Alex.

Yeah, I was gonna say Alex and Ocean. That was a different one.

That was last year. You weren't even there at that one.

I remember a lot of the names though, because I'm looking over.

I was a puree bag of wine last year. Yeah, Emma and Alex, Stone Villas. And I think it just comes down to—

They're all mushing into my head. I'm like, which one was that? I was there, that was that day. That was so sad.

That was one of my most prettiest weddings to date.

Oh my gosh.

It was so beautiful.

We'll put some photos up, guys. This wedding, honestly, like Britta did a wedding a while ago that I was like, I think this is your prettiest one to date. But then I walked into their wedding. I was like, no, this one wins. This one. It was honestly gorgeous. It was so pretty. Few hiccups along the way to get it as gorgeous as it was. But just so pretty. Who was your florist that day? Oh, we had a stylist. We had a stylist that day.

I just brought him in for florals though, so he just did all the floral styling. I did all the table decor, furniture, everything.

It was honestly so gorgeous. But again, like, trust your wedding planner. What happened in the final meeting?

I recommended to get a marquee and the rain stopper. Um, just because it was— that whole week was unprecedented rain.

Yeah, it was like flooding our road again.

And I spent the weekend out in Uluwatu anyway because there was a massive ceremony going on.

That's right, that big thousands of people walking.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't want to risk it, so I just stayed out there that weekend so I could do final meeting. I met up with them the day before because we could set the lighting up a day before, which was great. Um, but yeah, day of, it didn't rain for the ceremony. We—

Bar Park rain stopper did his job, which we actually booked without them knowing because I just— it was—

they didn't want anything.

They didn't want anything. But I said to Britta, look, we will pay for it. I don't want it to rain for the wedding, like it would ruin their day. Um, so we did pay for it. And as we said, the island was covered in clouds that day, but we did get the key things out.

We did. We We've got obviously ceremony, we could do—

and it was dark ceremony. Those clouds literally were in a U-shape around us.

It was, and, and I was like, and we've— they were going into their grand entry and it was sprinkling a little bit, so we were able to do grand entry. They went straight into the champagne tower and then the skies opened up. Skies opened up and it like not so much of a downpour, but it was heavy enough that it was like, all right, let's get everyone out. Yeah, we let the rain do its thing for about 5-10 minutes. It wasn't even that long, to be honest. And we did a whole refresh of the tables.

We got new plates, we wiped down all the cutlery and chairs and tables because we did say to Bar Park, we need a couple hours just so they can eat dinner after that. We don't care— well, we did care, but like give us a couple hours to eat outside because there was nowhere for us to put them inside to eat.

We couldn't do anything about the tablecloths because then we would literally have to remove everything. But yeah, but that was— it was okay.

And then, you know what, like, this has been covered on episode already, that day would have been so much more stressful if we did not have the professional celebrant, uh, MC Chrissy, because she obviously works with us all the time. She works in Bali, she's used to the weddings, like leaving her with the guests to mitigate that situation. We literally moved all the guests to the lobby. There's no music, there's nothing going on. We were like, just hold here. Like, having her there, game changer to have a professional to manage that while we were dealing with—

A lot of my clients this year do have professional MCs and it's just, it's nice having a family member. I always used to think that it was like, yep, family member, 'cause they know the couple. Exactly.

I don't, I'm not on that mind frame anymore. And I used to be, I used to be, but I feel like Things have changed and things have leveled up for us.

Yeah.

If you don't have the budget, fine, but put a professional in charge. Yeah.

They just— everything flows so much smoother.

And they're also not coming up to you. They're not having to worry about it and stress.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you're not having to go up to a guest and be like, hey, it's time to announce this. And they're like 5 drinks down.

Or the incident we had at a wedding. Whose wedding was it? The— kid got sick. Was that that wedding? And we had to find a replacement MC on the day because a guest had to leave a wedding. I don't know if it was your wedding or your auntie's wedding. We've had a lot of weddings this last month, but we had a wedding where the MC kid was unwell. So of course parents going with the kid, um, they left. So we had to get a replacement, like we had to go through the guests and try and find someone else to take over. Like, professional MC, you don't need to worry about that.

Yeah, but, um, Yeah, we, for Emma and Alex's wedding, we went through, the rain stopped, we refreshed all the tables, we brought all the guests back in. We were able to do the parent speech. We did entrée and mains. We kind of had to move the run sheet around a little bit just to kind of bang out all the food because now we were running behind. Yeah. And then we're going to do the formalities and then straight pretty much after dinner, The rain, the rain lords were just not with us. And it was torrential rain.

I mean, like, it's so funny because at one point we have a security guard at the weddings for our protection, which we'll explain later. But at one point the security guard came running over to me with an umbrella and there were guests walking. I'm like, what are you doing? Get off me and look after my guests. I don't care if I get wet, look after them. And I just remember us like later in the car going home, like, 'Oh, I smell like wet dog.' Yeah, because we had just been wet and dried and wet and dried so many times throughout that evening. It was so gross.

It was so gross. But we, um, we had to do dessert as well. We did dessert, and yeah, someone was holding an umbrella. We were holding the umbrellas for the Barra Good Food staff, and we were like, in and out, in and out.

Oh, that cake was probably one of the prettiest cakes I've ever seen in my life.

It was so pretty. It was from Exora.

Photo of cake here. Yeah, because we were worried about that. And then they had fireworks as well, which was incredibly like stressful.

And we had a 9 PM curfew. I think we asked for forgiveness and let them off a little bit later.

Yeah, we did. I was like, let's just pretend we didn't know. I did that similar the other day.

We asked Bupac again. We were like, we just need like 10 minutes.

Yeah. And we need to dance. Gave us the 10 minutes. And thank goodness that venue actually like has a nightclub downstairs because we were able to move the guests down there and finish party time. That bride got 3 grand entrances in the end. So yeah, like rain stopper definitely needed. So that was them. They were gorgeous. Yeah, loved it. And then after that—

It was just such a pretty wedding.

It really was. And then did we go straight from them into the 5 days of back to back? I feel like we've had a lot of weddings this month and they're all kind of mushing together a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, that was the 12th of May. And then what are we on now?

We're on the— 28th. It's just flowing the whole month.

Yeah. So we've just come off 5 back to back weddings.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's kind of where we're at.

We had Thursday. Yanti though, what a trooper. So Yanti this month has had 6 weddings and we've spoken about this before, but we used to have a sales and marketing person and we've kind of refreshed that role now. It's not really called that anymore, but because of the structure and the way we were giving them bonuses, incentives, they got paid for every wedding they booked in for us and they did not care about our team. They didn't care that we were overworked. So Most of our wedding planners should only take maximum 4 weddings a month, unless you get like 4 weddings and like—

No back-to-back weddings either.

No back-to-back. So it's one a week for a month, unless you check with the planner first and they're like, well, I can do that one because it's a simple elopement on the beach and it's 10 people, whatever it's going to be. So somehow Yanti ended up with 6 weddings this month. And I think we've only got this year to go. And then Steph, magic again, she's balanced our schedule out now. So we're actually getting proper breaks, but Yanti's had 6 weddings this month. That's a lot for any wedding planner.

Yeah. And I mean, she just had 3 in 4 days, which is what I'd done.

So she did Thursday.

Last year.

I was with her Saturday and then she had Sunday and Saturday. We did send her home when we tried to send her home early so she could get some rest. Again, the benefits of having our team is we can do that, but she just smashed it. She did. I thought she looked a bit stressed in the office a couple of weeks ago, but turns out she just had a headache and, you know, coming to the office is a lot when there's so many of us in there. But she just, like, she's just so magical.

She is.

She handled that with so much grace. She smashed everyone out of the park. She's getting raving reviews from every client. Saturday's wedding, me and you went out too, and we did the evening shift and let her go home early so she could rest up before Sunday. I know she was stressed about Sunday because again, we had no marquee, no backup option, and it wasn't a venue you could actually put people inside. I had a nightmare about it. But she did such a good job.

She did. She just— it's so funny because on a wedding day you rock up, you want to help as much as you can, but she's like done everything already. And we just, we just get there and we're like, okay, well, I think this is like the differences though.

So we've got quite a big team. Yeah, we do. So it's probably a little bit different to other wedding planning companies because a lot of wedding planning companies are either independent, there's one head planner, they've got like a team of people that help them on the day, or they hire freelancers. We have multiple wedding planners. So I think the benefits of like when I put you or Yanti on one of my weddings, or again, when me or you go out to weddings, we don't really need to tell each other what to do. Like we just do it. We just get things done. And it's like, there's so much trust, like trust your wedding planner. Like we also trust each other so much. Like at one point I didn't even know where Yanti was, but I literally walked into the prep room and I was like, oh, the name tags are here. I'll just start sorting them out and putting them into table order. Someone else walked by and started helping me. Like, it just makes it so much easier when you've got another planner on. So we've got assistants and the assistants are fantastic. Yeah. But it's not like we could just leave everything in their hands. It's not like if I got sick, I could leave. And this was a big conversation we've had to have with one of our staff members in the last couple of months. It's like, well, why do the wedding planners, the other wedding planners get paid more than I do on the wedding day for assisting? Because we do pay all of our planners a fee. And it was like, well, I could get sick or fall over and hurt my ankle or whatever. And Britta would literally just take over.

Yeah.

You're not at that stage yet. You will be at that stage, but just not yet. So of course they get paid accordingly. Yeah. So I think that's really good for us that we do have just such a knowledgeable team of experts. Yeah.

I think that kind of leads us into staffing.

Staffing as well. There's been a few big changes with Bali Rides the last— let's be honest, it's been 2 years. Like it's been a big 2 years.

It's been a big 2 years. Like a lot of changes, a lot of ins, outs. Cuts and just, yeah, not right fits and people needing to spread their wings a little bit as well.

I am very big on growth as well. Like, there are some people in the industry, and I know for a fact that they're still planning weddings the same way they did 10 years ago. Yeah, which is fine, you do you, boo. But I, I, I always want to do better. I always think it doesn't matter how big you are.

I mean, one of my favorite sayings that you've told me as well, it's like, life is like a video game.

Yeah, like, you've got to move up the levels.

You've got to move up the levels, and there's always new challenges, and yeah, how you overcome them.

And some people are very happy to stay on level 2, and that's completely fine, that's up to them. But I, I want to clock the video game, I want to finish it, I want to get as high as I can. And things get very hard before you move to the next level. You know, you start on level 1, easy, level 2, a little bit harder, and then as you go up, it gets harder and harder. And I feel like that's where we have been for the last 2 years in life. It's been a really tough 2 years on the back end because COVID happened and we sent you home, we sent Hayley home, my local team. I got a part— well, I got a full-time job to support them because I couldn't just shut the business down. I couldn't just stop because we had clients, which we've covered already. But after COVID, we had 70 postponements and we had no money. We literally had no money because we'd already spent all the money that we'd personally been paid for those weddings. And the deposits, a lot of them had already been paid in full because they were coming up. So we didn't have any money and we still had to run all these weddings.

Yeah.

So we had to take new bookings to be viable and to continue the company. So we had 70 postponements. We had a bunch of new weddings coming on and we had to get more staff because we didn't have the capability to do new weddings and the postponement. So we were quite lucky that a girl that I'd known for many, many years who had worked across hotels was looking for a job at the time. So I was like, great, I know her, I know what she's capable of. She's planned weddings, I've seen her reviews. Let's get her straight in to plan weddings.

Yeah.

Now we have never hired a wedding planner in that capacity.

Everyone's always had to learn the ropes and—

Yeah. So like For example, Meeta, who was with us for a very long time, 7 years, she's actually— Yanti was the first OG person with Bali Brides. When she came on board, she was my wedding assistant. She'd book the suppliers, she'd collect the invoices, she'd help me with the run sheet, she would do the admin. I would be client-facing and manage everything else. And then eventually Yanti learned that role, she moved into small weddings. We gave a discount for her fee because she was learning.

Little appointments, hotels.

Yeah. Then eventually she moved into a full capacity planning role after a couple of years, and now she's doing all of our high-end weddings because she is a senior. She's been with me 10 years.

She's fricking fantastic.

Honestly, she's incredible. I always say this, and I know this is probably not great for me, but I'm like, she's better than I am. My English is probably obviously going to be a lot better, but on a planning aspect and being organized, she is so fricking good. She's so good. She came on, and then when she moved into planning role, we hired Mita. Mita again, she started as our assistant. Everyone starts to us behind the scenes admin and they move into a planning role. So hiring that new person straight into a planning role had never happened, but it was necessary. We had to get another planner. We just did not, we couldn't run everything by ourselves. So we hired them. And after maybe 6 months, it became very clear that, not that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but it was very hard to get them to follow our processes. Every Indonesian here that I know, is WhatsApp, WhatsApp, WhatsApp. Invoicing on WhatsApp, planning on WhatsApp, and there is no way for you to document that. You're having to scroll through hundreds of messages. It's very messy. It's very unorganized. And trying to move her onto an email and our systems that we had built of this is how we want you to plan things, like, was very difficult and it just became too much. So she finished up. And as she was finishing up, it was like, holy crap, we're so busy. We're in the midst then of peak season and multiple postponements. Like, it was madness. I think we doubled the most weddings we'd ever done. In a year, that year. And so she was finishing up, and then I had a friend approach me who was like, hey, looking for a job, wanted to get back into the industry. And I already knew her because she was a friend. Um, she hadn't worked in a very long time, had come out of hospitality. And I do look for a hospitality hire because I know they're people people. Yeah. And so again, we hired her, and again, it was like a very backwards and forwards. And when you hire someone that has a lot of experience in another role, sometimes it's very hard to teach them because they feel like they're already there and they might be, but they're not there at our level. They're not there with Bali Brides. So again, massive issues. We finished them up because they weren't right for the company. Um, and then what was happening, because we were so busy, there were also internal issues with some of our staff.

Yeah.

And honestly, some of the things that were being done and said was disgusting.

It was horrible.

But I was so busy, I was like, I will deal with it later. And later never came and things kind of got worse. So there were definitely people in the team that are wonderful, but maybe shouldn't have been in the team as long as they were because of the attitude, basically. So we've had a massive couple of years of like even, you know, we hired a Westerner to come into the office and do the admin role. And on the day their visa came through, they quit because they were literally that day.

They were like, oh, well, that's a lot more.

I don't want to be in the office. And that's a lot more work than I thought it was going to be. And I was like, you literally begged me for the job. So we've had a lot of staffing changes the last couple of years. And I actually sent out an email to the team last night and apologized because I'm a big believer in taking accountability and owning your mistakes. And as the boss of the company, like that was on me. Like I should have hired better. I should have gotten rid of people the first time we started having issues with them instead of letting them get away with it because I was scared and I was too busy. So we've had a lot of staffing changes and yeah, so beautiful Mita, who was with us for 7 years, who, as we said, started off at elopements. She actually finished up with us last month. Which was really sad because, you know, we've been with her a long time.

Yeah, it's been a while.

I think it was also sad because she was supposed to finish at the end of the month, and the end of the month was Thursday, and Thursday is a big day in the office. We do staff dinner, everyone comes in, it's compulsory office day. So I thought she was finishing Thursday, we'd kind of arranged a final hurrah for her, and she walked up to me Tuesday in the office and she's like, bye. And I was like, oh, bye, see you Thursday. She's like, no, I'm going to Singapore tomorrow. I'm like What? She's like, I've already given my computer and things to Emma. And I'm like, I was so confused. And because we now have a general manager, I was like, maybe he knows, maybe he approved it because that's why they put it. And I was like, oh. And so I got up and I gave her a hug and I was like, can we do dinner when you get back or something? And she was like, oh, well, look, after singing for, I'm going to my dad. And I was like, oh, okay, bye. And it was like kind of saddest farewell ever because I feel like after 7 years she should have got like a—

because normally we do like a cute dinner or something.

Yeah, like card, present, like thanks for your time, um, you know, depending on who they are. But yeah, so that was a bit sad after 7 years, but we wish her all the best in her new adventures. And then another one, Emma will obviously be finishing up with us basically now. Yeah. And Emma's been fantastic. She's a very bubbly personality. She just wasn't the right fit for the company. And that's okay. Like, not same with our clients. Not every client's perfect for a wedding planner. Not every planner's perfect for the client. And unfortunately, she just wasn't the right fit for Barley Brides, but it's trial and error. So what I'm really excited about though, is we're slowly downscaling back to our pre-COVID team. Yeah, we're going to work on our systems, we're going to retrain, we're going to rebuild how we do things. And when we do eventually rebuild, we're going to do it like we used to— start at the bottom, work your way up. So everyone's stripes are earned.

And I'm so excited because I feel like it kind of feels like a breath of fresh air.

It really does, because it's been 2 years of like, we're just staying afloat. And as a client, you would never know that because Like the reviews that we're getting, the processes we have in place, like everything is so seamless, so smooth.

Even that you never see but the behind the scenes.

The behind the scenes in the office has been really hard the last 6 months.

It's been like, yeah, probably, yeah, 6 months probably.

Yeah, I want to say 6 months. It's been a bit of a wild year, but I also think that's because we were so too, like, so busy for the last 2 years that we didn't notice.

I think finally we're now settling down. We've found our groove, we've got a routine back. Back.

Like, yeah, it's just settling into your team leader role, like, yes, like, yeah, it's been a massive couple of years. And now that we're kind of balancing, it's like, oh, we probably should fix the issues that we're having internally with our staffing.

So, and it's better off to do it now rather than the middle of peak season when we've literally got no time.

Well, also, I think the good thing as well is like, if you come on board with Barley Brides with one of our newer planners, me and you personally oversee them.

Yeah.

So if something like this happens and they do finish up with us, like, what's happening at the moment, who steps in? We do.

We do.

You now get a senior planner.

Like, we've, we've both been on all the client calls and everything, um, CC'd in a lot of emails. Like, the clients know us already, so it's very, it's a very easy transition for us to just be like, yeah, we're taking over, you got us now.

And I think that's like one of the massive selling points of Bali Brides. Like, you either come in with a senior planner— like, in the nicest way, Britta, this is probably really cocky— you're never going anywhere. Like, I have No issues booking you a wedding for 7 years' time. 'Cause I know that you're still going to be here. And probably the same with Yanti, to be completely honest. She's been with me 11 years. She's—

I have no desire to go anywhere.

She's incredible. And if she did go somewhere, I think she would start her own company and I would fully support and back her in that. But she's seen how much I work and how much goes into it. Like, yes, you can plan a wedding, but do you actually plan the whole wedding yourself? No, because we have a salesperson who looks after all the inquiries and all of the marketing and gets the client on board and hands them over. You don't do any of the accounting. Like, to have your own company is such a massive workload.

It's massive. Like, I don't know how people do it by themselves.

I do, because obviously back in the day it was me, Yanti.

You had just spreadsheets.

We did. The way we planned weddings years ago, oh my gosh, it's actually really embarrassing. But as I said, I'm very big in, in growth and learning and leveling things up. If you're a client of ours, you will now be School, I actually have other planners contacting me asking if I will share and set School up with them. I'm like, it's mine, it's my baby, I worked so hard on it. Like, it was years in the making. So like, we're constantly improving. We're not just— in 5 years' time, we'll probably be doing something different. The team will hate me for changing things again, but you constantly have to do better. You got to change with the times. You can't do things the same way that they've always been done, or you'll never get any better. Exactly. And I am such a big believer, like, I don't think I know everything about wedding planning. Like, I will still learn. I'm actually— we had that dinner with Concierge Launch and we went out for dinner with a couple of other wedding planners, BVL Events, Desi, love her, and Joanne. And who else was there?

We had—

Soiree Society. Yeah. So we had dinner with a couple of wedding planners and then Desi was telling me how many weddings she does a year. And I was like, I need to sit down and talk to you because I need to figure out what you're doing to be able to manage that level of weddings. Because she's doing probably how many weddings we are by herself.

Yeah.

I do not understand that.

I don't get it.

So yeah, like I'm like, can we have a catch up? Because I'd love to learn more about your business and how you work things and see what tips I can take. Like you can always do better and you can always learn more for sure. So good.

Have we hit a lull?

A lot of things going on behind the scenes at Barley Brides. And then we had, we've had 5 weddings back to back.

Yep.

Most of them were yantis. I think 2 were yantis, one was Emma's, one was Tristan.

3 wee aunties.

3? So Thursday.

So 3 or 4 days.

Oh yeah.

So she was Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and then she went out to Ubud for a menu tasting on Monday.

Oh gosh. I need to book her a massage or something. So she can get a massage. And then you and Emma did Friday's.

Friday. And then we just had a nice review come through.

I saw that. It was beautiful. Beautiful little low-end, rainfall things. And then I obviously had my Monday wedding, which like, to be honest, it was probably the most stressful wedding I've done in like the last 5 years. Like, the couple themselves, lovely, wonderful. But, you know, ages ago we spoke about that wedding where the people went on to the, the graveyard, and that day everything that could go wrong went wrong. It was like that, except without the graveyard. Like, the lead-up to the wedding, I had massive issues with the venue because they changed a lot of their rules. Fair.

Yeah.

But some of the rules I understood, some of them I'm like, that's ridiculous. Like, you're not allowed candles on the table anymore. Are you joking? Why? Because they might fall off and burn our floor.

And I'm like, by the time it hits the floor, it's going to be out.

And I was like, I'll pay double the security deposit to have candles. No. And so for me, that was like a massive argument behind the scenes with them. And then catering— this is, this particular wedding we've been planning for 7 years. Yeah, they are a pre-COVID client that then obviously was supposed to get married post-COVID but then got pregnant and like multiple things happen along the way. Not only that, they booked a lot of the suppliers directly, so we didn't have a lot to do with it. They kind of came on board for planning back then with most of the suppliers booked, and we took over. So when they came back to us, we said, look, like, we only held deposits for a year after the borders opened. You kind of disappeared on us for a couple years, so it's going to be brand new planning. Your planner's not actually available, she's already booked out. Then you, for whatever event reason, the venue had to be changed. So we started again for most of it, but then things like photo, video because they'd negotiated that themselves, they managed to somehow keep those deposits. I don't know how that worked, I wasn't involved. Yeah, but, um, yeah, so the venue was a massive thing with the candles, and then they were like, oh, you can't have live cooking stalls on the grass. And this was literally the day before the wedding.

And it's on the wedding brief, which you'd already sent them how far in advance?

A week ago. And the catering had been booked in for years. So on the day, I'm like debating with the owner, like Okay, if I can't have them on the grass, where they can go? The kitchen. Great. That's great. I can put them in the kitchen. That's fine. Yeah, but you can't actually have them live. You've got to use the kitchen to do all the cooking and then display them like a buffet. And I was like, no, that's not the vibe of my wedding. Like, that is absolutely not happening. And I don't agree with that. And so eventually we came to a compromise. He let me do it on some of the concrete around the corner from the grass. So it wasn't a massive deal. But then it was like, little kid fell over and like split her chin open on the way to the wedding. I had to get a doctor out and put stitches in her on the wedding day. You know, it rained. Like, there was an incident with the cake knife that the kit— the villa kitchen had given us a knife for the cake cutting, and the bride cut her finger on it because it was double— it was serrated on both sides. I've actually never seen that in my life. And so when they were cutting the cake, she cut her finger, then there was blood on the dress. Like, it was just such a disaster. And I think that's why my probably tone and attitude today is not the best, because I'm still like in my head about it.

You're reeling.

I'm really— and when I got to the office yesterday afternoon, Ella was like, are you okay? And I was like, no. And I said, look, I know it wasn't my fault, but you want your bride's day to be like— I'm getting emotional.

Yeah.

You want it to be like amazing.

The best day of their lives.

I want them to be so happy. I want them to be like hugging me at the end of the night and telling me what a good day it was. And this couple in particular, they weren't emotional people. I think you'd probably call them a Type A bride if you were talking to Unger. Like didn't really display emotions, very monotone, very precise, very detailed. So I was like heartbroken for them. And it wasn't like if you spoke to her or him, like they probably did have a great day. But in the back of my head, I'm like, it, it like, there were so many little things that happened and none of them within my control, although the cake knife.

And the hair and makeup?

Oh, the hair and makeup, she booked it herself. So big shout out to Glow Day Spa, who I booked last minute to come in and take over because she was really unhappy with her trial. But like, yeah, I'm still upset because I'm like, I wanted her to have the best day. Although it was very stressful for her. I know that like the hair and makeup, that was not my fault. I got them a new hair and makeup artist. The cake cutting, I'm blaming myself because even though we got the cake knife from somebody else and put it out, like, and it was dark and you honestly, with your naked eye, you can see it straight on the other side. Like, but I'm still blaming myself because I'm like, I should have spotted that. I should have spotted that when I was carrying the cake table out but you couldn't, you couldn't see it. That it was— and what knives are serrated on both sides? So, and then she got blood on her dress and that was a whole thing. Me and Al were literally in the bridal room like trying to like fix it. We couldn't get it off, so we were like clipping her dress with paper clips and trying to like get her vibe back. So it was just like a really— it was just one of those days where a lot of things went wrong that are completely out of control. But I'm still like sad.

Yeah, that's sad.

But I've got an elopement next week and I feel like those ones always bring me back to life because they're so little, they're so small.

You asked me if I wanted to be on it, I was like, yes. Yeah, I need it.

Those ones ground you because they're so small and simple, and normally the couples are like over the top lovely because, yeah, I don't know, they just are.

That's what I felt about the wedding on Friday, like it was a nice little one at Mandurah. Yeah, yes, it was disappointing it rained, so that whole garden area was like completely flooded. We had to move everything undercover, but you know, it's just those little ones, it's like they're just so grateful for just everything that, that you do.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just— our flowers, the— our staff member is like, are these the flowers you forgot? Because we've got a few flowers because our little bunny rabbit died the other day, so there's flowers in the house.

But a little putty, 5 years she was— he, she, we can't figure it out.

I don't know how you tell the sex. I was told when I got her it was a girl, so I still call her a girl. Yeah, but suppliers is chat to your planner about what your preference is, which we're going to be covering with Lydia and Arshad shortly. And I just know we're going to get an influx of bookings for them, but we are going to be covering a lot of people.

And I think we work with these people for a reason. They're all fantastic. Otherwise we wouldn't have them.

The couch is just not big enough to have them all on in one go.

Like, if we could have all our suppliers in here, we would.

Yeah. So thank you for tuning in, listening along. The next couple of episodes we're going to be running through, um, entertainment. We're going to be having some more of the team in here so you can meet them. But thank you, and we will see you in 2 weeks' time.

Bye!