S1 E17 - Styling Your Dream Day with Kylie from Enakai Creative: From Mood Boards to Celebrity Weddings

And I think that's the biggest thing when we work with couples. We always say to them when we kind of hit that aspect, first of all, budget, because not everyone's going to have the budget to onboard a stylist, which we can touch on in a minute. But we want, we want a rough idea of what they like, like send us some photos of ceremonies that you like or receptions, but we don't go into that full detail, like walk me around the house and do this and do that. And in the nicest possible way, we just don't have the time to do that.

Yeah.

Because we've got other clients, we can only take X amount of weddings on each year to ensure that all these clients get our full attention. Like if we were going into that, we'd have to double our fees and half the amount of clients that we took on. First thing I walked into, I was like, the flowers, they're the wrong colour. Oh my gosh. And I'm like having this internal freak out and then Brid goes, Tristan, aren't the chairs the wrong colour?

And I've looked down and I'm like, oh. Every wedding something goes wrong.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah, every time.

You know, like the furniture might be the wrong colour.

The chairs the wrong colour.

Whatever. Like, and you've laid it out and you've got the best plan you can possibly have, but something might happen.

So the team went out and bought plywood and they painted the dance floor.

But it was a water-based paint and it's like powdery.

And it rained.

And it rained.

Oh, it just came off.

Well, it was everywhere.

It was all through the venue.

And of course we've got a security deposit down at the venue. It was at Pandawa and you know what they're like there. And the paint all over the grass, all over the floor, all over the bride's— decking.

You should have seen the bride's feet. Hi and welcome back to another episode of Bali Weddings Unveiled. My name is Britta.

I'm Tristan.

Today we are talking about wedding styling. One of our last episodes, we spoke about florist versus stylist, and we have a very special guest with us today to kind of go into a much deeper dive. We've got Kylie.

Hello. From Inakai Creative. Is it? It's Inakai Creative, isn't it?

Inakai.

Inakai, yeah. Lovely. Welcome, Kylie. Thank you for joining us today.

Thanks, girls. Thank you. What no one saw was how many times it took these two to get the intro done, so.

And we started laughing and we accidentally headbutted.

I think the thing is it's wedding season, so everyone's a little delirious and a little exhausted. 100%.

We definitely are. Well, you've come in sick. I was just explaining that I've had about 15 hours sleep in 3 days. So I finished work this morning. What time did I, you went home. I got home, I think at 12:45. I finished chatting to the bride, home by 1:30, in bed by 2:30. Woke up this morning, sent my son out the door to school at 7:30, and there was no school today.

That is the classic working mom situation.

Well, look, it's Monday. I honestly thought he was going back today. And if it makes it better, I don't know if you know my friend Amanda from— what's her charity called? It's in the back of my head.

Let's Help Bali.

Let's Help Bali. So I saw on her Facebook this morning, she got up this morning, she cooked her son breakfast, went to send him to school. He doesn't start till next week. So I was only a day off.

She did the same thing. She did exactly the same thing.

Anywho, well, thank you so much for joining us. Joining us, Kylie. So first of all, let's just kind of go into a little bit of like who you are, what you do. Tell us a little about—

Well, Kylie from Enakai Creative. I am a wedding person. So I'm exhausted as well. So yeah, I've been working in the wedding industry for probably close to 20 years. And have been in Bali for about 11. So I've had a very broad range of experience in the wedding industry from working in venues, helping set up in-house wedding planning programs, also, you know, doing wedding planning myself. So I come from a background where I get the big picture, but the true passion for me is the creative. And that's when the aesthetics of wedding come into play. And we set up Enakai Creative, I guess post-COVID, as a chance to bring that passion to the forefront of what we do. And it's just been an amazing few years and being able to work with, you know, side by side with different wedding planners, with different vendors. It's just really given us an incredible sense of joy and it's given us a chance to build a team where everyone's really like-minded and really passionate about what they do.

Yeah, amazing. Now, I think I first met you when we were in Ungasan. I think when we first met, so a while ago. So you've kind of, is that where you started in the wedding industry in Bali or you were working somewhere before that?

Look, I came to Bali many moons ago to work within the events industry. I had my own wedding company on the Gold Coast in Australia, and we were so, so passionate about moving to Bali. So a job opportunity came for me to come over and work in events for a major group.

Yeah.

And so I came over with that. Things shuffled a lot. There was lots of transitions happening in that company, but one of the properties that they did manage was the Samara Luxury resorts at.

That's right, I think that's used to be called that. Yeah.

So there was a natural progression over time to move into that property when it was rebranded and the owners were wanting to really push forward the, you know, the weddings that were there, which were always amazing. But they also had a lot of inquiries come through for people to do weddings with an in-house sort of coordinator. Yeah. So it was a twofold role. It was really about supporting other wedding planners that were coming in and then also, you know, being there for the clients that wanted to deal directly just with the resort.

Yeah. What do you say, like, we work with a lot of clients directly, we work with a lot of hotels.

Yeah.

And a lot of hotels have in-house coordinators. I guess Ungasan's a little bit different because it's a lot, you know, it's up here compared to some of the hotels we work with. And sometimes, what would you say the main difference is between working directly with a hotel versus an outside wedding planner?

Um, look, I, I guess the Ungasan was different because it took a next level approach to their wedding planning, but for a lot of resorts, a coordinator fulfills the packages that are presented from the resort directly. Wedding planners, external wedding planners, are very much about creating bespoke experiences for their clients. So we don't package up really what is done, you know, for our clients. Every client's unique. There are wedding planners that also do packages, but from a hotel perspective, a coordinator fulfills what, what that package, in-house package is. Yeah, so that might be the flowers, it's the food, it might be, um, you know, includes sound system. So it is quite basic. Yeah, yeah.

And then you ventured out, you've obviously left the venue, you've gone out into the wedding planning space. How did Enakai come about?

Um, Enakai was a name that I've held on to for probably over 20 years. So my grandmother's name's Ena, I'm Kylie, Kai. I love that. And so the two names sort of came together. Years ago, I came to Bali and had a little bit, the creative came in again. So I was playing around with some different homeware products, some different fashion products. We were looking at, you know, bringing containers back to Australia. So it was just sort of sussing the field and I needed a brand name and it just came, organically. And when I looked it up, it was a Hawaiian name that actually, you know, means glowing ocean. There's a few different meanings to it. It's about being fiery, about being creative, about flowing, about energy, about being a storm. And if you see me work, sometimes you'll see there's a bit of a storm. So yeah, so it was just a name. And, you know, I grew up learning how to knit. My grandmother taught me how to knit, how to bake. I was sewing dresses. I've always been, you know, artistic, drawing, creative. I've been doing layouts for my dream home since I was about 5 years old.

Wow.

Designing cubby houses, you know, like all of that sort of thing. So for me, it's just been a natural progression, progression through my life to extend that creative. And an opportunity came for me after COVID working with Global Weddings, actually, to style quite a big wedding. And I was like, yeah, amazing, let's do it.

Was that the one we worked on?

That was with the Tones and I wedding.

Oh yeah, we were there. Yeah.

And so for me, that was just amazing. But I didn't have a name, didn't have a brand.

So that was your first wedding under your brand?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So it was—

that's a big one to start on. Yeah.

Well, it was just everything. Everything that was sitting in here was able to come out. Into that space. So yeah, it was so much fun.

You know what's wild? Like, Britta and I were obviously there working, but I feel like there's so much going on behind the scenes that in my head right now I'm like, I can't even really remember what that one looked like. I remember it was beautiful, but there was just so much going on on the day that I'm like—

I remember the big structure, I remember the floor, the dance floor.

That was—

was there a pattern or design on that one?

Yeah, so we took, um, we had an approach to that wedding where we wanted to really showcase sort of style elements of Bali. Yeah. And also, you know, bring in like the modern look that, you know, Tones was wanting and a bit of eclectic. Tones and Jimmy were wanting for an eclectic look. Yeah. And there was a lot of things happening obviously within that wedding itself as from the planning and logistics side. Yeah. So with Global, so we, you know, we really tried to marry everything together, but that dance floor, Septio, who's our in-house graphic designer, I said to him, look, I want to, I want to replicate a Cinnamon tile. So, you know, that sort of hand-painted tile that comes from the Cinnamon region that you do see even in Java, you know, different elements. So we looked at designs and patterns and, you know, it took us maybe 20 different versions before we got to that.

Yeah.

And so that was a custom colour floor and all of that was hand-stamped.

Wow. I remember watching bits and pieces of that going together on the day, but I feel like we've worked together quite a bit now, especially at the same venue with Global. We work a lot with Global Weddings when they need extra hands on deck. So I'm just like, in my head, I'm like, and I also think it's because obviously all the media blackout around that event. Like normally we'd have photos that we'd get to see later. I'm like, oh, that was a beautiful day.

We've actually never seen any.

I didn't see any photos of that wedding at all, no.

I know, like, I mean, I'm the worst social media poster. I love sharing other people's work, but I just, I guess for us, we've always held onto that wedding a little bit sentimentally. And also, you know, to respect our clients. And, you know, there'll be a time when we bring that out and I'm excited to do that because every now and again, I even go back to that, you know, everything from, you know, there's just so many great stories that came out of that wedding. Like we did, we had some terracotta, again, another sort of Indonesian element coming into that. Terracotta name cards made, and Santee went to pick those terracotta name cards up, and when she got them, her motorbike had fallen over and a lot of those name cards is actually broken. And so we sat there and we looked at it and I went, actually, this is really beautiful.

Yeah.

And so we hand sorted through all these terracotta and matched them to the site, like the size of people's names. And each one was hand calligraphied.

That is so cool.

And with a broken edge. So, you know, like it's sort of some things like that happen. There were stories behind a lot of the different pieces. Like, you know, one of our side businesses in partnership with the Jungle Trader. So we used all of our linen lanterns in that space. We had, you know, local artisans doing all the rattan lights that we, very specifically sort of broke down. We added in some glass lights from, you know, like that Java sort of heritage colonial sort of look. Like there was so many moving pieces.

There's so many elements that go in behind the scenes into the styling that I don't think a lot of people realise.

No, definitely not.

Yeah. Yeah. And this is a big thing that Britt and I touched on on one of our last episodes last month. We kind of delved into, you know, when you hit You've done all your key suppliers for your wedding, you've got in your catering, and then we kind of move on to the styling, the decor. And there's two avenues you can go. We can do basic styling on the wedding or we'll onboard a stylist. And a lot of people don't understand that that's two different things. Like what we can do compared to what you can do, completely different roles. I mean, we could do it, but not to like the level that you're doing it.

And it's so interesting because like, you know, from a planning background as well, you know, I know exactly what you're saying, you know. So you can create a beautiful wedding as a wedding planner, But I've even found that when I've broken off and just focused on the styling, that side of it is almost—

Well, that's a full-time job in itself.

Yes, it's, it's just as big as the logistics.

Yeah, for sure.

So when you're taking that on board, like the work, appreciate your wedding planners because it is, you know, like we've often, we ran a few exercises to try and work out how many hours we put into planning or styling, you know, years ago. And, you know, it's upwards of 300 to 400 hours.

It's wild, isn't it? Yeah, especially when you're going into detail. You are as well on some of them. I just did a big wedding a couple of days ago, and I did all the styling myself. And we had like a custom-made dance floor, and we did a custom like audio guest book.

Yeah, yeah, I saw that.

Customized, like we even made all of their— what do you call it— not vases, but their table centerpieces were made in acrylic. So we put flowers A lot of detail and it does, it just takes so long to go backwards and forwards and source those things that if I had to do that for every wedding, I could probably take half the amount of weddings because it is very time-consuming.

Yeah, and look, there's a lot of trial and error that goes into creating. And you know, you'll go, you know, like that dance floor for the number of samples of timber colours that came to us because that's the detail that goes into a styled wedding. You know, and it was, it was a lot. And the practicing of the hand stamping, the cladding on the structures, you know, handmade paper for the menus. It all seems very over the top, but it is. It's the little touches that kind of create a unique wedding for people. So often people say, you know, what's the, you know, what's the difference between styling and having a planner do it? It's, it's kind of like a replication versus an authentication. So where, you know, like a stylist will take a couple with their vision, with their values, with their culture even, and, and try and create a big story from the big picture of where they come from.

Yeah, we just, we just had a call the other day with one of my clients for next year.

I know. And, um, sorry.

And, um, yeah, we need to bring like the Chinese side into it. So not so much She doesn't really want the reds, but like a bit of blue. Yeah, Kylie was like, no reds, please. But yeah, just bringing in little touches into the wedding, like it makes all the difference.

Yeah.

And it makes it a more personal, you know, wedding for people, you know, like often, you know, people say, how do you get to a style with a client? And Narelle will laugh because if, when you're watching this, but from Global Weddings, because I'll often get the couple to walk me through their house. Because that's such a good way to see what their personal style is. And, you know, the colors that they may gravitate. And it's one of the questions that you sort of, you know, go through and, and color's a big part of weddings. It's a big part from a personal, personal taste, but also from a trending taste. Yeah. And so, you know, you'll have, have couples that may live in a really neutral space at home And then you've gotta throw it at them and say, is this where you are wanting your wedding to go? Or are you wanting to break the mold of what you normally have and go with something a little bit brighter, a little bit more color? Like, where are you landing with that? And so, you know, it's a lot of conversations to get to a point where you're pulling together what someone's vision is. Not just from 40, 50, 60 to 100 Pinterest tags. You know, it's really about, creating something unique in those people.

And I think that's the biggest thing when we work with couples, we always say to them when we kind of hit that aspect, first of all, budget, because not everyone's going to have the budget to onboard a stylist, which we can touch on in a minute. But we want, we want a rough idea of what they like, like send us some photos of ceremonies that you like or receptions, but we don't go into that full detail. Like walk me around the house and do this and do that. And in the nicest possible way, we just don't have the time to do that. Yeah. Because we've got other clients. We can only take X amount of weddings on each year to ensure that all these clients get our full attention. Like if we were going into that, we'd have to double our fees half the amount of clients that we took on.

Yeah, you would.

It's a lot. So in your words, we've kind of touched on this already, but this is a really good perspective because you have kind of given the inside of, you know, we're building your whole look rather than just asking you what you like. What would you say, why would somebody go with a stylist over just having a florist and having their planner do the basic styling?

Um, I think it really comes down to what people put as a priority for their wedding. So, you know, there's two things with weddings, obviously. There's the logistics, so, and that's where the wedding planners really, you know, nail that. They're marrying their couples with the right photographers, the right caterings, the right venues, whatever that may be. And then a stylist takes that personal aesthetic. And some clients, you know, for them, that part of it is just as important as the rest of the planning or the logistics. Sometimes it's more important to people. They're less about the food and they're more about the look.

Yeah.

But even if it's a balance between the two, what comes together with the stylist and the wedding planner, especially the relationships that we all have, and we're really blessed for that here in Bali.

I don't think people realize how close the industry is, like the key people.

And how much we all help and support each other. Each other. But that middle, that middle bit is experience. And that's where I think, you know, for a lot of people now, if you're looking at weddings and you want to talk trends, which I'm like, you know, yellow is the trend this year. No, everything's a trend. Yeah, bows, draping, all of that. But it is about taking experiences and making them very personalized for the couple between the wedding planning logistics side and the aesthetic side.

Yeah.

And that's what I guess from having that background also in planning is I understand what it's like to create experiences for your guests, but you still want it to look good. So that's why, like, when we're styling, we're ridiculous, but we're there right to the very end.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because, you know, things will happen. Like, look at Brianna's wedding.

Stunning.

And, you know, like the cake cutting and timing and logistics. And we, we, you know, you were going, okay, we're not going to do it there, we're going to do it somewhere else. So we're on board to kind of help bring that together because you want to look back at your photos, all the experience, and make sure that every element is as beautiful as the very beginning.

Yeah.

Right to the end.

I think what I love, like looking through one of your whole documents that you had together, kind of like us, like the whole wedding brief, but you had, you did just did a mock-up of just everything, whereas we don't really do —like a detailed mock-up, like what I saw on that—

Yeah, we're like, these are the flowers that they want, the exact shape, but we don't want yellow, we want to replace that with red instead. And we will just provide details, whereas you can do the graphics. This is what it's going to look like. It looked amazing. I was like, can you just go with Kylie?

Yeah, I know the design plan stage for us is a big investment in time, but it's also like, it's, it's something that, you know, I know I personally won't compromise on because that's almost like the Bible for the couple, for what they're going to get. And, you know, I love that creative process and I'm, you know, super proud of the team that we have. And we'll start with like, you know, just some pencil, pencil and paper and kind of go, okay, you know, we want to, you know, this is kind of what the direction the couple wants. Here are some of their inspirations and we call them inspirations. Yeah. You know, it's not references to us. We call that an inspiration. Whereas you guys might get a reference from a couple. So we kind of go, okay, that's what they are inspired by, but how do we tweak this to make it more personal and them? And so we'll sit and we'll do some sketches, usually hand it over to the graphic design team who will turn it into a better illustration. And then when it gets to the stage where we're doing more layouts, then it goes over to our interior design side. Yeah. And that then gets rendered. So you'll get like a bit of a visual of, you know, what that space will look like.

Have you got a this for your upcoming wedding yet? The one that you had a call with the other day? No. No. What we might do is we will, I'll use Brianna's one if that's okay. I'll pop up some images so that everyone watching at home can kind of see what you create because it is magic. And I'll never forget that one of Brianna's last calls that I had with her, And she was like, oh my gosh, Kylie has thought of everything. Like I never would have thought about that. Like she had ideas, but you just were like, and what about this? 'Cause that complements that. And there was just so much more.

I think that was something you said about her wedding, the Aperol Spritz cart.

That was cool.

But that's the experience side, you know? And it's not like, you know, it's not unique. There's that, but it was one of her experiences that had already come from the logistics side. So we were like, let's just elevate that. And make that a little bit more about you guys.

Yeah. Well, even that tattoo studio you built, was that last year? That was epic with the custom neon and everything.

Yeah, that was fun. So that was Caitlin and Dominic's wedding at Pandawa. That was amazing. Yeah, and we had done, so that was with Global. So Global is the planners, you guys were there as well. And then, yeah, they wanted to have a tattoo studio and usually we've done like a little pop-up and we'll do beautiful lounges and make it feel like that. But, you know, they were so open to taking things a little bit extra. And I'm like, why don't we just build a, like, tattoo studio? And they're like, what do you mean? I said, let's, like, make it look like a building. Like, put a floor down, put walls up. Let's make it look like a standalone, like, tattoo shop, you know, and make it about you guys. And so, yeah, that, that was, that was fun. And when you've got clients that want to go a little bit extra, like, to do that, like, it's It's insane. Yeah, custom neon, all of that.

So I think just everything about that wedding was just extra. I think even the bar, the bar was stunning as well.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. So we worked with Design Mill on that one, so we did all the design concepts and then they were our producers of that wedding. So we're really lucky to work with those guys. Um, but yeah, like even Over the dance floor, we created a round circular sign.

Oh, that's right, the neon sign.

Yeah, and it had words that were actually from their first dance around that neon sign. So cute.

Like, these are the little things that we just wouldn't think of. Like, your brain for these sorts of things is amazing.

Off the chart. Like, it's— but, you know, you just, you look at— I think you are, you know, creative You know, you have different sort of parts of the brain that you use. But yeah, I just, I love seeing, you know, design and I see design in space always. You know, like I'll walk into a room and I've already laid this out, like those tables over there that the guys are working off. Yeah, we need to like cover them up a bit or something. All about pinks. All about the pinks. But that's all design elements. Like it's repetition, you know, and that's That's where styling comes into it rather than just going, okay, centerpieces on a table, you know, this is the ceremony, this is what we're having. It's about like, you know, a color that might pop as the guests walk in and then that might resonate again into another space and then it'll present itself in another element. It's all, you know, elements of design.

Do you have a favorite wedding that you have styled in Bali so far?

There's so many, actually. You know, it's hard to sort of pinpoint one down. So I think, you know, Tone's wedding, Tone's and Jimmy's wedding was amazing because it just had so many different elements coming in. And it was, you know, it was a 2-day build to get that going, to get all the structures up. So, and a massive team, like, you know, we've got some time-lapse of that, that night before. So for me, like those weddings where we're able to produce, you know, obviously something that's like in a space but actually feels like it's meant to be there. Yeah, that's a really big part of what we do. We try not to push against a venue or push against a space too much. We want to make it look better than what it exists in, in pure form as a blank canvas. But also it's got to work in that space as well. So yeah, that was one. Yeah, Dom and Caitlin's one was, you know, that was pretty epic.

Yeah, that was pretty epic.

Yeah, Brianna's even at Turtha, I love that, like how that all came together. Like in the end it was a space that I was a little bit like, oh, not sure how we're going to, you know, execute this. But that was amazing. Jake and Marie's, I think was it? Yeah, that was also beautiful. I don't know, there's so many. Recently, and like, I think, you know, when I look at like, look back at this year even so far, Julia and Geraint's wedding at the Ungersund was also pretty spectacular because that took a real like, Julie's an interior designer, Geraint's in hospitality. So those guys really like, we connected so well. And the collaboration of taking it from vision to execution like for people that are quite visual people and know what they want, for them to come away from that and go, that's beyond like anything. Like for me, that feedback's like, you know, really special. Yeah. Yeah, we've done some really fun ones, like even ones that are just even more on that like cocktail style, you know? So I could name a zillion, Megan Jack, Courtney Rona, so many amazing events.

That you've done over the years.

Yeah, it's been, it's been a real blessing to be part of this and be part of this industry. We were just in Lombok recently.

That looked beautiful. I, we were just talking about that before we started filming, that I saw on your social media some of the photos of that wedding.

It looked beautiful. Yeah, so we did two weddings over there, and, um, you know, one from that, that whole sort of clifftop venue at Salon Cello India and Daniel's wedding, like that, that was beautiful. Like it was really, and again, the checkerboard, you know, dance floor and you're in a different space, you're outside your comfort zone in Lombok, but it was beautiful. And then Kitty and Kourou's wedding. Was that the beach one?

Yeah. That looked beautiful.

Sempiaq, like down, down there, Sempiaq Beach Resort is just, just beautiful. And, you know, like sand weddings are kind of where I came from in Australia. And to go back to my roots, like, you know, and go back into that space but elevate the look of a venue, or, you know, yeah, it was, it was pretty special.

And how hard was that logistically, getting all of your styling aspects on that island? Did you have to go over there first and find local suppliers, or did you take—

Yeah, combinations. Yeah, we do, like, especially when you're going into a space or into a new destination, we very much wanting to support the local industries as much as we can, and it becomes sometimes a little bit a challenge because, you know, people have, or clients or couples might want something and it's like, well, you can't really have that. But we've got such great relationships with, you know, even vendors like Samadja. Gladdy, I love you. Like, you know, gave us some special, like, 3 days with some of the products so that we could take it over and bring it back. But we had to sort of like compromise on that and see what was available and wasn't being used, you know. So We were really lucky because all of those little touches, the tablescaping, as we know, I love tablescaping too. I know, me too. Really, really escalates a look. And to be able to have access to those products because of, you know, the amazing industry that we work in, how much we all support each other. Like, yeah, it's really special.

It's really good to see like how all the suppliers will rally when you really need it. Like, I think we're talking about before I was in hospital on I've lost track of days. A couple of days ago, I ended up in hospital emergency room and I had to basically, I got out of hospital, insisted they let me go home. And I was like, I know I have to, I've got a wedding. I have to be there. And two of the team had already arrived earlier than me. I was like, you need to go. I'll be there when I can. And I got out there and the first thing I walked into, I was like, the flowers, they're the wrong color. Oh my gosh. And I'm like having this internal freak out. And then Bridget goes, Tristan, aren't the chairs the wrong color? And I've looked down and I'm like, oh, and they were, they were the wrong color. It was just miscommunication between me and the company because I said, I want these chairs. They didn't clarify what color because they came in two and they just sent me an invoice and I didn't look. I was like, great, my chairs are booked. And then when I sent the run sheet down, I had photos of the chairs that I'd ordered, but what showed up was the other one. So it was just miscommunication. But when I made the call, they're like, there's no one at the warehouse. But then the delivery team are like, that's okay, we've got a friend, they'll go open up the warehouse, we'll get a Gojek. And like 20 minutes before ceremony, my chairs were swapped out. But just like Everyone is so helpful when needed. I know, I know.

And everyone jumps in. Yeah. Outside of what they normally do to get things done. Yeah. You know, like, I think, you know, we're really, we're really, really lucky. Like, this industry here is so powerful. Yeah. And very tight-knit.

I feel like everyone is, and everyone will just help out when needed. Yeah. You don't need to ask them twice. Yeah, yeah.

And it's, you know, whether it be even, you know, some of the vendors, like some of the florists, like, you know, Kintan, who we use quite a lot. Ibu Ayu did some consulting on that last wedding for us in Lombok, where she actually, you know, specified the numbers that go into different, like floral arrangements. You know, we tweak it, of course, on the spot. That's what we do. We're very hands-on. But yeah, like even that, just to work with the local vendors, like an amazing florist that's up and coming in Lombok was really exciting. It's awesome. Yeah, it's really, really good. Yeah. Big passion actually, being able to help the locals. Yeah, definitely. And especially in places that— Like that.

Yeah. And they would have been, I bet you they were so grateful as well over there just to have that opportunity and showcase. Yes, absolutely.

And so proud. And you know, you've got to give credit when credit's due. So, okay. You are a champion.

I love you. Amazing. We're going to try and get some photos of those weddings up from Lombok, if that's okay. Just to kind of share them and share the styles of the locals over there and what you were working with. Yeah, for sure. And when it comes to, I guess, your style and look, do you find it hard to come up with ideas, I guess, for couples that might be completely outside of what you would like? Like, I get some weddings and I'm like, that's disgusting, I don't want to do that. And then I have to do it because that's what the couple wants. It's not what I want. Like, do you ever face issues like that? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And how do you kind of like, do you ever give feedback and go, actually, that's not going to look good, or you just roll with what they want?

I think it's no, not, not. I think, you know, you've got to be passionate with what you do. So I wouldn't do something that I didn't think I would put all my love into. So sometimes there's like a bit of compromise on that, or at the beginning of the process, just sort of say, look, I don't think I'm the right person for you. You know, like I said, especially going into venues, like although we've done big structures and elaborate weddings, they still fit into those spaces. But there are some venues that you don't wanna push too far against. Completely, yeah. Yeah, otherwise it just doesn't look authentic, it looks forced. Like, you know, a beautiful wedding looks sort of simple in some ways, you know, like it should be a space that feels calm. It should feel like you're welcoming people in. It should feel comfortable. And so when you're going against that, that's when I'm like, I don't think we are gonna align here. It doesn't happen often at all, to be honest. But yeah, you sort of, you have some compromises and you sort of go, okay, I see what you're wanting. Fitting, but it feels a bit forced. Can we push this into this direction? And look, when we do our— I said the other day when we're on the call, Britta, like, when we do our design plans, we'll often have, you know, here's like your inspiration, here's some options with that, and then we'll go completely the other way and throw in something that might, might just go, oh, that doesn't work in there. Yeah, but it's more to find out what people truly love. Yeah, yeah. Not what they've seen online that looks good. Yeah. Or maybe trending, or a celebrity's done it. It's like, what works for that person? Yeah.

And I guess you'd get that a lot as well, of people just being like, I want this wedding because I've seen it online.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jake and Marie's wedding, you know, like so many people gone, can I just— I want that. Yeah. And it's like, you can't have that, that was there. That was theirs. Yeah, yeah.

And we get that a lot as well, like obviously not the same scale, but people go, "Here's photos, we want it exactly the same." I'm like, "No, sorry." Like, I'll make it similar, but you can't just copy paste someone else's wedding. Like, we've got to make it you and we'll make it similar, but not the same.

Yeah. And you know, you can have it similar, but you, you know, it's probably a different venue or it's probably a different like menu or it's a different number of guests. You might have different tables, you might have whatever. So like those elements make it a little bit more unique, but but put your own touch and your own spin on things. And I think that, like, you know, we talk trends a lot in styling, but if you want to talk about trends, I think that where things are going is that people are really starting to, like, be true to who they are. Yeah. You know, like, and what, what their own personal style is. I always love, like, we talked about culture in our call the other day like it's, you know, when you're talking to your clients, it's really important to hear what they're saying. Where are they from? What's your story? How did you meet? You know, finding those elements and trying to bring them into the wedding makes it a more personal experience. It's their day. It's not my day or your day. It's not, you know, guest day, but you want your guests to feel comfortable with, you know, this is truly your wedding and a reflection of who that couple is.

I think that's good as well. Like you saying that you like, you really need to listen because as I said, I walked into my wedding the other day and the florist, like fantastic, but obviously wasn't listening. And to be fair, the client did change her mind multiple times on the flowers because she was going with trends and then, no, actually like this. And so we changed a few times, but they just didn't listen to the end product, I think. And so when I walked in, I was like, we've got yellow in here. Yellow wasn't any part of my brief and neither was purple. And where has that color come from? So I think listening is such an important aspect. And I had this, as well even last week. One of my couples, very camera shy, didn't really like the attention being on them. Massive wedding, we had 150 people, I think. Oh wow, that's cool. All different cultures and islands all around the Pacific. And one of the calls that I was having with them, they really want a cake, they love cake and they're like, oh, but you know, we're going to have like performances and this and we just don't know where we're going to fit it in. And I was like, well guys, like you've got your little family, why don't we just do you a private cake cutting after the ceremony? I'll take you back to a private room and do it with your kids. And so we ended up doing that. And when, I'll never forget, I was walking after the ceremony just to, you know, how's your cup of tea? How's your cake? And they're like, this is the best idea ever. Like just having the family time with their two kids, doing the cake in private. And they said, we never would have thought of that. But I think that's, again, just part of listening to what your couples want.

I know. And like, you know, we get asked all the time, you know, what side, like, you know, we're doing a ceremony style and we'll look at everything from the height of the groom to make sure the florals don't feel underwhelming, you know, or the bride or—

She's got a massive bouquet and she's this big.

Yeah, and what's the dress like? We don't wanna overpower the dress with the flowers. Like we go into that level of detail, but yeah, like you really, like there's no set rules, you know, there's traditions. Yeah. And traditions are important to some elements of wedding because it becomes authentic to who that person is or what their family, you know, has grown up with or whatever that may be. That like there's no rules to wedding. If you wanna stand on the left, stand on the left. If you wanna like stand on the right, stand on the right. It's gonna be better for your hair anyway. You know, it's going to be.

I always ask my bride, I'm like, the wind is blowing the other way right now.

Do you still wanna stand traditional?

She's like, no, it's better for my hair if I stand on the right.

Exactly. There's nothing worse than the veil coming over their face and they're like, the bridesmaids are trying to fix it.

Yeah, like I mean, do your first dance at the start of your wedding. Like, you know, it's all of that. And that's what I was saying before, the logistics and the styling. Bringing those together to create that experience. And that's, you know, working so closely to the wedding planners. Like when we're styling, we want to find out exactly what's happening on that wedding. Like, you know, what's, what, you know, are we doing fireworks? Have we got pyros happening? You know, what's the background? What's the, where do they want to do the cake? Is there a cake? You know, we do everything from, you know, from even cake design. Yeah, you know, like we had, um, a wedding when I was working with Global Weddings, and I designed the cake to match Marianne's, like, elements of her dress. So actually went into Exora while they were piping and making sure that the beads were like the same spacing as the dress. That's amazing. Yeah, but it was, you know, when you look at it, does anyone else know that they were like, you know, 8 millimeters apart? I don't know, but yeah, it's those sort of things.

There must be those details though that on the day you're like, I did that. And you must be so like— do you have like these moments that you just walk and be like, wow?

Yeah, yeah, always, always, you know. And I think that's where you either love what you do and you, you know, you, you can still have those moments. Yeah. But if you don't have those moments, then, you know, you're probably not meant to be in the industry.

Yeah. At that moment, I was saying to Britta after like Brianna's wedding, which was absolutely gorgeous, um, and I was like, you know, it's so pretty, but there's always that like, not disappointment, but I'm like, I don't get to take credit for this one because Kylie made it so beautiful. Like, I love walking through my weddings and I'm like, that looks beautiful, my vision, and yes, and bride's gonna be so happy. But when you came into it, I was like, I rocked up on the day and I was like, okay, my suppliers are sort of like, do you need help? And you're like, no, I've got it covered. I'm like, I don't know what to do. And it all came to life. It's so pretty. Thanks, Kylie.

But on the flip side, like, you know, I was just about to say, that wedding was so fun. Yeah, that's really creative. Oh, that was so wonderful. You know, so there is that balance between, you know, wedding planning and styling where yes, it's hard for planners that like aesthetics or love aesthetics, but also it's collaboration. Like you might go, oh, you know, I don't think that's working.

It's like, yeah, okay, let's switch it up a bit. There's also some clients that I'm like, I know how detailed you're gonna be and I don't have the time to go back and be like, I want the L on my seating chart to be in a slightly different font. Like, I don't have that kind of time up my sleeve to spend 2 hours on your seating chart. So there's ones that I'm like, yes, we're going to onboard a stylist. Or today I said to Brit, I've just had an inquiry in and it's not the kind of client that I would normally take, but they've thrown a huge budget at me. I was like, well, I'll just get a stylist on board. And it's easy because I'll just, I'll focus on all the logistics and things and let a stylist do the rest. Yeah.

And look, I mean, like I said, there's elaborate weddings, you know, obviously. And that would be an elaborate one. Yeah. There's others that, you know, aren't as elaborate, but they still deserve to have that level of attention. Sure. You know, and it's not— we talk budget. Let's just talk budget. Yeah. That was the question.

It's not that I don't have time, but, you know, our wedding planning fees do not cover elaborate styling. We can do basic styling. Send me a photo of what you like and we can make that happen or change aspects. Yeah. But for more time, like, as I said, we'd have to double our fees for it to be worth our while to spend that kind of amount of time.

And we'd have to take on less weddings.

And we'd have to get graphic designers. Like, you've got a whole team behind you. So like, besides obviously you, who's the face of the business and brings all that in, like, who else is on your team? Like, what roles do they have?

So we have admin. Yeah, obviously. Definitely, but also sourcing. So people that go out and do that sourcing. We also have, you know, graphic designer and an in-house interior designer. Wow. Yeah, so, you know, there's— it's a big team, um, within a little team, if that makes sense. So there's people like— and, and we all have different sort of, um, backgrounds, and somehow it's all come together. Like, Ibu Made used to work with the production company. Yeah, you know, and, you know, so blessed because she's strong in admin. So those, those elements— Santi, who's who's now, you know, going off on a big adventure, um, you know, has come from a wedding planning background. So, and relationships with the vendors has been so amazing with her. So, you know, it's— we run our, we run our wedding styling, you know, very inventory-based, like very detailed. Um, you know, we don't sort of, you know, throw everything into one and go, that's what it is. Yeah, we sort of break things out. Yeah, because it is all custom. And sometimes like when we're going into budgets, we've got to work out, you know, this is what you're saying you want, this is what you want to spend. Yeah. Um, and somehow we've got to make this work across the two, which means that we need to find where the focus points are, where the most important elements are, and have some compromises on things. We're a big— and I say this a lot to our clients— where we you know, we're big reusers within the space. So when we work in venues, I love when the venues have got their separate spaces where there's a ceremony space, a cocktail space, and a reception space, because we can actually move everything, move everything around quite seamlessly. And that's a big part of what we do because like we don't stop until the guests are walking in. Yeah. You know, like we're all adding, adding, adding, you know, let's bring that from here. Let's make the seating plan part of the, you know, the welcome sign part of the seating plan and really like create something extra. Yeah. It's also a big part of being a little bit more sustainable with the weddings so that you're not wasting, you know. So if we can, we can design our ceremony so that the pieces are a little bit more moving, then we're able to bring it into the space. Like look at Brianna's wedding.

We just took it all and took it into the reception. Yeah, yeah.

Like her aisle that we had, we put that in front front of the stage so that it created like almost like a little bit of a floral, um, you know, front to the— to where the bridal table was. Yeah. Um, and that all came from the ceremony.

Yeah. So what would you say, like, ballpark— I mean, this is going to be very how long's a piece of string— but if somebody wanted to work with you, is there a minimum budget of, you know, this is how much we'd probably ideally need to do your flowers and your styling, let's say, of like 50 people?

Look, I think the thing is it's not just the flowers and the styling. It's everything. It's everything. So it's everything from, you know, the layouts, your furniture, lighting, lighting. And we work obviously within the venue space, but with the wedding planners as well to make sure that all areas are lit up properly. Yeah. You know, it's not just about having the pretty, pretty lighting over your dining tables. You still have to make sure that there's lights or ambient light in certain places. So there's all of that. There's all the tablescaping, obviously all the florals, all the graphic design. Which is time-consuming. Yeah, like sometimes we're designing the cake. Sometimes we are consulting even on some of the dress. Yeah, or going off and buying tiles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, So it's, it's all encompassing. Yeah. But I would say for 50 people on a very low budget outside of our fees, you're probably looking for all of that for about, let's talk IDR because we're in Indonesia, like about, you know, 200, 250 minimum. Yeah.

So that's about $20,000 to $25,000 Australian dollars. Yeah. $12,000 to $15,000 USD. Yeah. So that's flowers. Deco, you know, things like candles and your— Yeah, tablescaping. Tablescaping, your napkins and your cutlery and simple. Yeah, simple.

And sometimes that's, you can't get all of those things into a budget like that. So you've got to use the cutlery from the venue if it works, you know. But again, you know, it can go upwards. Like we've done weddings of 50 people and people have spent 100, you know, a billion rupee or $100,000 because that's what they want. That's what they want, you know, and they want all the things and they want it all custom. You know, that's, you know, well, even little things like a custom dance floor.

I did one the other day and I think that was like $2,500 to customize a dance floor the size we needed. Yes. So there are those little details that people probably just do like, oh, well, I just thought that happens. Like the seating chart must have taken my team like 2.5 hours to do the seating chart on one of the weddings because they wanted everything in alphabetical order and then names and last names and like it's very time consuming behind the scenes. And as you said, it is 300+ hours of doing it all.

Yeah. And, you know, time of year as well. So yeah, if people are wanting to spend money on their styling— and look, every wedding is styled. Yeah. Like every wedding has some element of decoration to it, but you then have to factor in, okay, are we, you know, do we have structures that our lighting needs to go on? Yeah. Do we need to factor in that there could be possible rain at this time of year? A wet summer we're having.

Like, has anyone seen the weather outside right now? I know. Although it started raining 10 minutes after my wedding finished last night, so I was just like, thank you, weather gods.

But you've got to think that through because there's no use, you know, when we're doing our structures, we're thinking, okay, what happens if it if it's raining and do we need to put a cover up over the top of the structure? Yeah. Yeah. You know, and we're not going to invest all that time and energy into something that isn't going to give us a backup plan. Yeah. But we will cost that future into our estimates so couples know that for us. What to expect.

So it's not like a surprise at the end.

Do you know what I said to the team a couple of weeks ago? So obviously we're having a wet summer and we've had quite a few weddings where last minute we've had to install a marquee. But what I think clients don't realize we have to be on site to install that marquee, which is a day that I didn't plan to be out on site. And I said the other day, I was like, we need to start charging our fee. Yeah. To actually go out and oversee that marquee. 'Cause I spent 6 hours on site a couple of weeks ago because I had to be there for them to show up to make sure the positioning was right. Is it gonna be big enough? And then I've gotta be there until the end to make sure it's perfect before I go home again. Like even these last minute things like installing the floating stage again, I had to go out to a venue the other day to install the floating stage on the pool. And I got there and they'd bought the wrong equipment. And I'm like, I'm gonna be here all day. Had to ring a staff member to swap out 'cause I had another meeting. Like there is a lot of stuff that's not just the wedding day.

Yeah, and it does add a lot of extra time when you are, you know, when you have a marquee or you have a structure or— Yeah, especially the marquees.

Like we wanna install at 7:00 AM now. So I'm gonna be there at 6:30 AM. Or that wedding I had last year, I had a wedding at Pandawa Cliff Estate. Marquee company said, we're gonna install at 6:00. I was like, okay, I'll be there at 5:30 waiting for you. And they were 3 hours late and I was so upset 'cause I didn't finish work till 1:00 that morning. I was like, "Hey, come on, guys." What about that floating stage last year?

Oh, they said, yeah.

They were 4 hours late. 4 hours late, and we're just sitting around waiting. Like, there's so much time outside of an actual wedding day in the behind the scenes as well that just doesn't get factored in. But you wait, don't you?

You do. You do. You have to. You've got to get it done.

I get constant messages. I was actually going through those messages the other day.

I was like, "Where are you?" Well, they said that they, the owner of the company tried telling us, "We've got a flat tire." But then the team arrived, "Sorry, we came from another event." In Ubud. Gosh.

Like, tell me the truth at least.

Yeah. Well, they're the conversations like really, you know, you have with your vendors because you don't want to be in that situation. You know, it's like, what else have you got on at this time? And yeah.

Have you had any like really big disaster stories where, you know, wind wasn't cooperating, the rain wasn't cooperating, or things that have just like ruined your day? Like what's been the worst you've had to go through? How did you deal with it?

Do you know what? Like, I think I haven't had anything really, touch wood, catastrophic. And every wedding something goes wrong. Yeah. Oh yeah. Every time. You know, like the furniture might be the wrong color, whatever. Like, and you've laid it out and you've got the best plan you can possibly have, but something might happen. My dance floor.

Yeah. The what? Britta had a wedding last month and the dance floor showed up and it was the wrong color. And so she's trying to fix it, but the warehouse is a couple hours away, the wedding's in Uluwatu, there's no way they're going to make it in time. Yeah. So the team went out and bought plywood and they painted the dance floor, but it was a water-based paint and it goes—

it's like powdery. And it rained. And it rained.

Oh, it just came off. Well, it was everywhere.

It was all through the venue. And of course, we've got a security deposit down at the venue. It was at Pandawa, and you know what they're like there, and the paint all over the grass. All over the floor, all over the bride.

All over the decking. You should have seen the bride's feet, white all up to the knee.

It happens and you learn from it. You never do that again.

Well, it wasn't even us. It was like, this is not our problem. You've bought the wrong color dance floor, you fix it. We're going back to doing whatever we've got to do. And they, they came up with a solution and yeah. Yeah.

Look, I think sometimes like, you know, it can work in your favor Like we always, you know, it's not the first time this has been said. It's not like we coined this phrase, but there is perfection in imperfection. Yeah. You know, okay, that's a bit extreme, but there is sometimes like times when, you know, look at the work that Tara— Yeah, it's even better. Like, because if you are put into like a bit of a pressure moment and like we do what we do because we kind of love the pressure. Yeah. And we love the adrenaline. Yeah, exactly. It's like, and when you fix it, it becomes better than what you had even imagined. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, that's, that's the, that's the sweet spot. So I haven't had any real major disasters. Of course, we've had weddings where it's, where it's rained. Yeah. But we do try and plan as, as much in our styling. Yeah. To, you know, to allow for that. Sometimes people are just like, we don't care. But okay, and you've had to move it inside, you know, or you've had to, you know, leave beautiful flowers and, and the rain. I'm sorry. Yeah, I know, I know. But that's where the experience of it, you know, you try and make that better than what, you know, what it was. Dance in the rain. Yeah. Yeah.

Not everyone's like that. I feel like you're either going to get like two types of couples. You're gonna get couples that are like, things are going to go wrong, we'll roll with it. Or you're going to get the ones that one thing will happen and and that entire wedding was a disaster.

Yeah.

We've had a big couple of weeks of just extremities on either side.

Yeah. But that's where, you know, that's the joy of it. Yeah. You know, but most of the time people, I think, you know, when it has, and you talk about it with your couples, don't you? Like if it rains, the only people that are gonna make things better are you. Because if you go into it like, oh, I had a couple once at Ungasan, and it, beautiful wedding all set up and it started to rain and you could sort of, you're getting phone calls from, you know, different, you know, different sort of people along the coast. 'Cause you know, other people got weddings. It's like, oh, it's raining in Seminyak. You know, it's coming your way.

And it's like, oh my God, okay, quick, quick, quick.

You know, speeches or whatever. Let's, you know, wedding planner, let's get them rolling so that we can, you know, move things if we need to. And it's like, no, we're having a great time. Let's just hang out for a bit longer. And you know, it's like, oh, and you know, I remember standing on the edge of the cliff there and the bride was crying. I was like, right, you need to pull it together. You need to go and have, go and freshen up. And by the time you finish freshening up, we're gonna have a plan. Yeah. And I'm gonna bring you two gin and tonics and there's gonna be a plan. And there was a plan. So, you know, it was—

I just need you following me around when things go wrong.

Actually, the bar team does that for us some days.

If we look stressed, you go and have a sip of your soda. What are you like? Oh, that is not That is gin.

Yeah. Like, I mean, it's just, you can turn things around if the couple have got the right attitude, for sure.

Yeah. And I feel like if you've got the trust of the couple as well, like we say it so many times, you have to trust your planner, you've got to trust your stylist. And even the wedding yesterday, I was saying to Britt and you earlier, like I got caught there for 45 minutes at the end of the night trying to go home because she was just raving like, oh my gosh, as soon as you walked in, my shoulders were like, ah, like Tristan's here, I can relax now. And I think, and she even said to me like, she was crying 2 days earlier because it was raining. And the groom apparently turned to her and said, do you think Tristan would have been in touch if she was worried about the rain? I'm sure she's already got it figured out. And I was like, oh yeah, I've already been looking at the weather. There was like, for you, there was no issues for your day. I've already been like, yeah, it is something that you've got to be there to take the pressure off because that's part of our job. We're not just a wedding planner stylist. Like, you're there to problem solve. Yeah. You need to have that experience of dealing with it.

And they trust us as well.

Counselor, mathematician.

When they trust us as well, it makes us feel good. If you don't trust us, I feel like we're on edge all day. I know I am.

Yeah, I'm a bit like that as well.

Yeah, surprisingly not, but I just feel like I'm on edge all day. I'm like, what can I do to make this better for them? Just, yeah, constantly trying to—

you just need to do what you do.

Exactly.

But yeah, I know, it's like, I know, I know what I'm good at.

It's just I think you and I both overthink the situation. I do. We always talk like, this year is a big thing, like the Taipei bride, the Taipei bride, I give them all to another company. If they come in with like massive attention to detail, 'cause it stresses me out that I'm like, I need you to trust me. Like I need you to not micromanage every part of this event. Like I will bring your vision to life, but there needs to be trust there. Whereas Yanti is like, she's fine with it. She's like, well, I did my job. I don't care. Like if they're not smiling though, I'm like, is she okay? Like, is she happy? Is she not happy?

Yeah. Yeah. Because you want the whole experience for people to be amazing. Yeah. But they've got to want it to be amazing as well. Sure.

Well, that wedding the other day, the bride said to me, She was messaging me early in the morning. I was like, I'm actually in the hospital right now. I will be at your wedding, but give me an hour to figure out. I can't remember what she wanted. She wanted a steam or something. It was something she needed first thing in the morning. She's like, no, don't worry. Your health comes first. And I was like, I'm not missing your wedding for the world. And later on during the reception when I was walking around for her first look, I was like, this reaction right here is exactly why I wasn't missing your wedding because she was just the most excited. Like, oh my gosh, that and this and that. And you've just brought it all to life. And I was like, I thrive for that.

How, how lucky to have such great clients. Yeah, you know, and I honestly, like, all the couples that we've been involved in in the last sort of 3 years, um, have been amazing. Yeah, to be honest. And I think it's like, you know, not that we harp on about COVID but it really wasn't that long ago. No. And I think that people are just wanting to have an amazing experience and celebrate life and celebrate these life moments.

So like, you only get one life, I think, make the most of it. I know.

Look at Italy, Tristan. That was beautiful. I forgot about that one too. I know, that was, that was a definitely a drop of mic kind of moment. Yeah, that was beautiful.

So for those, uh, playing along at home, was it 2 years ago? Yeah, 2 years ago. I was very fortunate that Global Weddings, um, were doing a wedding in Italy and I I happened to be in Europe at the same time, and I said, can I come along? And they're like, we need extra hands. So I came in and Kylie was doing the styling, so we got to work a wedding in Lake Como together. Yeah. And that was incredible. Like, even the styling there, the setting, it was absolutely beautiful. But the one thing I will say is, like, my gosh, we worked hard. Like, there is no— there is no furniture company, there's no Bali event hire, like, fixing the chairs for you. Like, they dump it out the front, and we had to go physically place all the furniture, pack it up at the end of the COVID it. Like it was hard manual labor of 3 days.

Crazy. Yeah. And you can't leave anything behind, like on your hands. Not even cigarette butts. Like picking up little bits of plastic, whatever it was on the grass. Yeah. Yeah.

It was so full on, the rules and that villa. They took a massive security deposit as well.

Yeah. And look, I mean, any property that we go into, we're responsible for that property as well. You know, it's all these little things that I think people don't realize. Italy was next level.

Me and Kylie were basically starving to death as well because obviously Italy, it's all very pastry and pizza. So for the supplier meals, I think it was pizza and pasta. Now you're gluten intolerant. I'm lactose intolerant.

So I would have been in heaven.

I remember one of the nights me and Kylie had to go out and get dinner after the event. We'd worked all day, hadn't eaten. I was like, I can't eat any of that. It's got dairy. And she's like, I can't eat any of it.

It's got gluten. Yeah, that's so true. I forgot all that.

So did I. I actually completely blanked on the fact that we're in Italy together on that wedding. I know.

It was such a whirlwind, such a blur.

It was, I was only in for 3, 4 days.

Incredible experience. And you know, like we're so, look, the wedding industry in Bali is super tight, but you're so lucky that, you know, Narelle reached out to, from Global Weddings, reached out to, you know, Matty Oliver.

Yeah.

And so Birdie and Danny came over. So I loved them. They were great. They're just, you know, they're the guys that have got the European experience. So it was so nice to have them there as well. Yeah. Um, but yeah, like, and, and for us having to do those logistics, you know, somewhere like that was, you know, a great learning curve. Yeah, 100%. For sure, for sure. But you're on a completely different time zone, completely different time zone. There's still that language barrier as well. Yeah, so fun. Yeah, so beautiful, so good. Yeah.

Do you have any favorite venues in Bali?

Yeah, lots actually.

What would be like your top 3?

I would have to say Ungasan.

Yeah, I knew that was going to be up there. It's such a gorgeous venue. I want to get Sasha on actually from Ungasan and get her in for a little interview.

Yeah, yeah, look, I mean, I love it there, you know, the, the Celatan Lawn's amazing. And like what we were talking about before, the experience of having a ceremony in one villa, you know, cocktail space, you know, and then having your reception on the Celatan Lawn, which is a blank canvas, and I probably pushed as far as I can push boundaries, like, in that space, as far as a stylist goes. Like, you know, marquees that aren't meant to fit in there and structures that aren't meant to fit in there. Um, so I've been really, really lucky. Like, years ago when I was working there, I did a wedding, um, for a gorgeous Australian couple, um, Sam and Madeline. And, you know, we really worked with Bali Event Styling on that wedding and we really pushed the boundaries in that space. Like, it was one of the biggest setups at that time that we had done, and that was like a 3-day setup, you know, a whole canopy of like, you know, almost like a wonderland, like a really whimsical garden that grew from the ceiling and big giant chandeliers. Amazing, amazing. Sese Beach Villas. Yeah, I love them as well. I think the staff there as well really just give me the warm and fuzzies. Yeah, and I walked in the other day and they gave me a big hug.

They're like, welcome back, Brit.

I'm like, yeah. And the staff in villas make a massive difference to the experience for you, but also for your guests. Sure. And villas that get events, you know, they host events, but do they really get it? Like, they do there. And having again that lawn, yeah, like separate space. There aren't too many properties in Bali where you can actually be be like on the front wall there, right there. Yeah, front. Um, yeah, it's, it's great. It's amazing. Um, Pandawa is also up there.

I love Jeevasaba. I really like it.

Yeah, you had your first wedding there last month.

Yeah, not too—

like, you know, it's just, I don't know, you keep going. There's so many great venues, isn't there? At least you know the answer.

We've asked this a couple of times. I'm like, what's your favorite venue? Uluwatu.

I'm Yeah, there aren't like, you know, there's a lot of properties, like Latitude's great as well, you know, like it's that sort of wide, like it's very hard to get a cliff view that's as wide as that villa. Yeah, so many, we're so lucky, we're so lucky. So spoiled. Sempiac Beach Villa down there. But so beautiful in Lombok. Oh yes.

Yep. I don't wanna work off the island. It's too stressful. Lombok was enough for me. Oh yeah. We called it quits on island weddings a couple years ago. It was just logistically, it was not hard. It was just a lot more time than like we had.

I really think you just, clients need the budget for it as well.

Yeah. And a lot of them didn't. And it was like, well, why do we have to pay all the travel fees? And why do we have to pay for accommodation? Well, you're celebrating. Parent can't come home because the fast boat's finished. You've got to pay for accommodation and their meals and yeah.

Yeah. And look, you know, people, you try and do things as, as, you know, not on a budget for your clients, but try and make their dollar go as far as it can. Yeah. But it can also put a lot of pressure and a lot of risk on things. So to get to those islands, you've got to be there in advance really, because there could be, you know, yeah, boat issues. This was the issue with the last wedding we had there.

The week before we were leaving, lots of boats have been canceled. I think one sink— I can't remember. But we had weddings like 2 days after one of the weddings. I'm like, what if we get stuck there? Yeah, like, this is terrifying because we might not be able to get back for a couple of days, and then who's going to run our wedding? And I'm sure we would have sorted it, you know, Soiree would have stepped in, Global would— someone would have stepped in for us. But it's still just the fear of like, we could get stuck.

Yes, exactly, exactly. Like, and then the knock-on effect with everything else that you do. Like even being over there, if you're working on other weddings, it's really hard.

Well, what if we didn't get there? What if the boat got canceled and half the guests— like there's so many things that could go wrong. So I was like, I'm just gonna stick to Bali, like the mainland. It's beautiful. I love it. Traffic can be shit sometimes, but we're used to it. We're used to it. We sing some car songs, we stop and get our coffee, we're set. Yeah. And what do you think the biggest trends are going to be at the year? We briefly touched on this earlier before we started filming. I'm seeing a lot of bows. Is there anything you're seeing a lot of at the moment? Big bows around the glasses.

Beautiful bow that Tristan put in my hair. Yeah, bows are definitely there. Look, I mean, I think that what you're seeing is like lots of draping. Like, yeah, there's lots of like going back to that sort of wave.

Yeah, actually I've got that on my next one as well. Lots of draping through the trees and the chiffons and the beautiful. And we had that at the bar the other night.

Yeah, I think I would love to to see that be done in a way that I, you know, I was talking about where it's not like, you know, sometimes you see all this beautiful draping, but it's actually blocking the beautiful view that may be in place. So, you know, I'm sort of seeing a lot of that draping done. I'd like it to not be as overdone, I guess. And hopefully that becomes a little bit more of the trend where it sort of, you know, sits in a nice balance. But each, you know, clients have got their own style, planners, stylists have got their own style. So, you know, that'll continue. I think it's gonna be a big one. But I actually think that the biggest trends are going back to that personalization. Like where people are really starting to, you know, go back to their roots and who they are. And that's what I love, like that authentic, you know, self. Like I'm, my style is very eclectic. Like we talk about, like our personal style in the office a lot. And, you know, we're about to finish renovations on our new office space in Ormelez. And so the style is very much, I just want it to resonate with, you know, who we are collectively as creatives, but also where I've come from. So I'm very nostalgic. I love retro, I love vintage, I love a little bit of boho, I love a little bit of sophistication. And I'm completely all over the place. So, you know, I love the juxtaposition of all the old and new. And I think that, you know, that's when you're talking to people, you know, like Julia was gorgeous. And when I sat down with her, we were talking, she loved like her nostalgic background and bringing in touches of, you know, the Philippines where she was from. You know, so we, I think I think that is going to be a big trend where people are going to be a little bit more personal.

Yeah. I think that's good as well because I'm like, we always have the years where it's like we had, was it 2017, 2018? Everything was green and white and everyone just copies. And I do feel you're right. This year I'm getting a lot more personalization and you just did like full personalized bar. I've just done a full personalized audio guest book and dance floor. We've got so many events coming up that there's so many little personal touches. I just love, I think it's just so special for the couple.

Yeah, and I also think that there's going to go back to that where it doesn't have to be, you know, everything exactly the same. Yeah. You know, so there could be like a real spectrum of like, you know, almost tapestry on the tables, you know, whether it's a different sort of, not saying different cutleries or whatever it may be, but you know, there might be different, You know, not copy, copy, copy all the way along. So a little bit more of a mix of materials maybe, or colors throughout. So I think that that will definitely start to come back on trend. Yeah. Like we've done weddings and you know what it's like, sometimes you've got to make that work, you know, because you, there might be a big wedding of, you know, 180 people. And there may not be that quantity of the same chair there, but also that can look quite bland. Yeah. So why not mix it up and have, you know, different chairs at round tables as they would be to long tables. Do combinations of longs and rounds. I'm starting to see a lot more of that and we, we're doing a lot more of that as well. Yeah. Yeah. Love that. It's more interesting. Yeah.

And I guess the last thing, are there any trends or things that you you wish couples would stop doing, or things that just don't work? Like, we used to get, back in the day, not so much anymore, but we used to get a lot of people that were like, we want frangipanis. I'm like, do you know how hard frangipanis are to work with? They've got no stem. They're just like a little flower. We're gonna put sticks up them. Like, what things do you wish couples knew more to not use?

Um, look, I don't— I think, to be honest, it's hard to sort of go against what people want. You know, like, so if a couple really wants frangipanis, okay, we can bring it in somewhere if it works in with the big picture of whatever, maybe somewhere really little. In the bathtub where they belong. That's it, that's it. They smell nice. Look, I think there's a few things like, you know, stand, and it comes back to that experience as well because it's not just about like creating, a stagnant space and making it look pretty, that can be moving, if that makes sense. So I think like standard, like photo booths where people are just going in there and doing the props and, you know, doing all of that, I think that that's less trending and more like people are grabbing things and being on the dance floor. It's a bit more about candid and flowing rather than it just being so, here's a photo booth and take a photo and make it look pretty. Look pretty, and here's a this, and da da da, you know. So I think it's, it's definitely like, look at photography styles, like how many couples kind of want that, you know, mixed sort of vintage camera looking now. So many. Yeah, like, you know, film, you know, photography. It's all, it's always been there, it's been special to some people, but it's really now starting that nod back to nostalgia. Definitely. Yeah, I don't, I don't think there's anything that I wouldn't want a couple to bring to me, but I think there's ways of making it special. Special. Yeah.

Lovely. And I'm going to touch on one more thing because we've discussed this a couple of times and we have very strong opinions. What are your thoughts on fake flowers in Bali?

Okay. I was hoping we weren't going to go into that conversation.

Well, I personally hate them and I've banned them from my weddings unless they're like in the back of things. Cause I don't find the quality good enough. Fillers. But you, you obviously work with flowers a lot more hands-on than we do. Have you ever seen good quality fake flowers? Because I've had a few couples that are like, we want fake flowers. I'm like, no.

I know, because like it's that conversation about sustainability, you know, and some people think that by having those artificial flowers, it's going to be a bit more of a sustainable wedding. Like, you know, there's been weddings that, you know, where it's almost been 100% fake floral. You can tell. You can tell.

I can see them like, yeah, I can't do 100%.

No, I can't.

Absolutely not. But look, I think that there are— it has a place, definitely.

In the bin. Most of them are in the bin.

No, I think it has a place where it might be if someone wants a really full look and it might be a budget constraint. Yeah. You know, as far as having like, let's talk white hydrangeas because they're probably the biggest filler, right? So bringing in white hydrangeas as is an import and can be really, really expensive. So if you really want that and you wanna have some, pick like the key moments for those pieces. But sometimes you'll use some as a bit of a filler to then pull out all of the— Yeah. Yeah. Look, not a lot. Like it's really hard. They're a really good backup plan if floral goes a little bit pear-shaped or it might, might be damaged in transit. And that's the thing people got to understand. A lot of the florals that come into Indonesia are imported. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, even into Bali, a lot of the time the flowers might be Indonesian, but they don't come from Bali. They might be coming from one of the other islands.

Oh yeah. They're all like, they're all coming from another island. Yeah.

You know, like they're coming from Java and what the florist might have ordered wanted might not be what they get. Like, we had florals the other day that was supposed to be like this pink color and they turned like a very purple. Yeah. And it's just, yeah, sometimes these things happen.

So we, like, I mean, we try and get that before the day as much as we can. So with the florists that we work with, we'll go in and have a look and review the flowers that are coming into the wedding space. And like, sometimes we'll say, okay, look, I mean, that, you know, they're bruised. Like, we really need to pull those back, or you need to flex those roses, or let's use them as the filler rather than the mains. But yeah, you've really gotta, gotta try and, you know, make the most of what we are able to get here. And we can get basically anything, but it does come at a cost. I don't love fake florals, obviously, and the colors They're not natural. They're not natural. So the thing I struggle with is like that white on white palette. Yeah. And where you, you're mixing in the white artificials with the white, which are not always white. No, exactly. And most of the time when couples say, yeah, but look at that, that looks amazing, it's like, yeah, but it's been photoshopped, or there's a sepia tone over the top, or, you know, whatever that may be. That's not the real color of the flowers. So yeah, you've got to, you know, we look at it and, and tick it off before it gets, gets to, you know, the space.

Yeah, yeah, fair enough. We were discussing that as well when we're going through florals last month, like the amount of times over the years that we've had to say to people like, yes, I love that, but you need to be aware that that's not going to be the actual color because that is a photoshopped photo, or it's got a filter, or there's something on there that's not a raw photo of the flowers. They're gonna be duller than that.

Yeah, and I think like, there's a big misconception that you've gotta have a really beautiful wedding and have lots of flowers. Flowers, the right flowers that have been worked well, and like, look at Sandat, you know, like he's, like Mardi's a master at working flowers. And you know, it can be as simple as a few stems and it can be incredibly beautiful. Like that architectural style of florals definitely is coming more and more into the forefront. And I feel like Bali is exceptional at that. Yeah. You know, when you look around the world, like some of the European weddings are very floral-oriented, very round in the construction, whereas we use light and space and contrast and texture to make it look beautiful. Yeah. Because we, we're creative. Absolutely. Amazing.

And let's talk about how we book you. We've got people obviously listening that may be planning with us, maybe planning with another planner. If somebody wants to get in touch with you to chat styling, how would they do that?

They can send us through a message on Instagram.

Yep. So we'll put our Instagram here.

Yeah. Speak to the wedding planner. The wedding planners have our contact details. Send us through an email. Yep. Lovely.

And I know the answer to this already because we touched on this already. If somebody is working independently with a hotel planning their own wedding, they can still onboard you as a stylist. They can. Lovely. And they don't need a wedding planner because you could also, I guess, take over that as well. Well, you can. I see your face when you say that. You can do the planning as well if need be.

Oh, look, you know, we, we have helped. Yeah. Wedding venues. But you prefer to focus on the styling.

I love the planning. I love the styling, but not to that detail. Like I do actually really enjoy the styling. I just, I can't focus on all the little details like you do. I don't have the brain for it. I wouldn't have thought of an aperol cart for Brianna. Your brain just works in a different way. I was like, oh my God, that's a brilliant idea. And that's a brilliant idea. Yeah.

I think it's nice, probably you being able to focus on the wedding planning and then—

Well, because if it is such a massive project, then you've got two people there. Yeah. Oh, I love working with Carla. I wandered around all day. I was like, she's got this, she's got this. I'll just— that's fine. We're running late. Get the violinist out of her white dress. Yeah.

Like, what a great team having being a wedding planner and a stylist.

It's like the dream team. Like we've spoken in the past about like, now my thing of the year is having a professional MC. Like it's just made such a big difference. Like now I'm like having a professional MC and a professional stylist, chef's kiss. Yeah.

And look, I mean, it does elevate experience everywhere. Like, yeah, obviously we plan as you know, and being able when you're doing both, you know, on the day you can give focus to so much, you know, like, you know, you've got to expand your team, you've got to have bigger teams. And even that in itself, managing those bigger teams is, yeah, like you need someone to manage that, you know.

Well, on the wedding day, you know, we might have anywhere from 30 up to 100 suppliers on site and someone's in charge of them and it's normally us or you or whoever else is around to manage that.

Yeah, it is, it's good to have the roles split.

Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming in today and spending some time with us. We will put your Instagram handle emails and things up here so people can get in touch if they want to.

We're all feeling a little under the weather. So I think, yeah, we're very—

when you messaged me this morning, you said, I'm not gonna be very energetic. I'm like, I've had like 4 hours sleep last night, 5 the night before. We've come off back-to-back events for 3 days. So it's fine.

I had no voice this morning.

She sent me a voice note and I was like, this is my voice right now. It might be okay. I'm gonna drink everything I can. Amazing. Well, thank you for joining us today. And next episode on Bali Weddings Unveiled, we are going to be covering off the difference between a hotel and a villa wedding, how to choose, and I guess the pros and cons on both. So stay tuned for the next episode. Bye!