S1 E20 - From One Party to Five Weddings a Day: Bali Event Hire's 12-Year Journey
8 Apr 2026 · 93 min
In this episode of the podcast, hosts Tristan Moy and Britta sit down with Vanessa and Sarah, the founders of Bali Event Hire, to trace the company’s evolution from a single‑party hire service to handling up to five weddings a day. The conversation covers the quirky, high‑energy culture of their team – from kids‑style adult parties with magicians, water games and surprise rap performances – to the logistical challenges of managing inventory, rain‑proofing furniture, and scaling operations with custom software (HirePos) and detailed photo‑based inventory. They discuss the impact of COVID‑19, how they kept staff on payroll, the emotional toll of losing a beloved team member, and the importance of treating employees like family. The hosts explore competitive pressures, including copycat venues, pricing strategies, and the decision to stay focused on furniture hire rather than full event planning. They also talk about off‑season strategies, the unique Bali climate, and the need for better communication tools (WhatsApp tracking). The episode ends with practical advice for couples planning Bali weddings – choosing the right planner, budgeting for cocktail furniture, using second‑day rental discounts, and embracing classic, timeless design over fleeting trends. A brief banter touches on women’s sporting and the uniqueness of being a furniture‑owner company in the market. Finally, the hosts tease the next episode, promising a deep dive on how to choose a wedding planner, and thank Vanessa and Sarah for joining. Throughout, the tone is informal, anecdotal, and enthusiastic, highlighting both the fun moments and the serious business decisions that have kept Bali Event Hire thriving for 12 years.
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It is hard because they do fight over, yeah, going to their favorite wedding.
Who's their favorite wedding planner?
Of course. Who's their favorite?
No, no, no, truly, because there's often 2, 3, 4, 5 in a day, and so then the schedule's coming out and different teams are going to different places, and obviously they don't want to come to you guys.
Yeah, it is like just making a family. We've tried really, really hard to, you know, you have to have fun at work.
Well, the team that you've built, like, it would be like family.
Yeah, yeah, they are.
They are. They're all so incredibly sweet as well. Like, nothing is ever too much. Like, we obviously work with a lot of companies, but your team is by far the best.
Yeah, thank you.
Like, the, the above and beyond that they will go through to make things happen, and they get it. Like, they understand.
And I feel really bad sometimes because I think there was one wedding in particular I've asked them to move the tables like 5 times. I'm like, I'm so sorry. Yeah, you know, sometimes space is awkward, and I'm like, I'm so sorry, I just need you to move the tables again.
Look, you know, it's wedding season, it happens, and you know, it's just part of— it is. And most—
every other company charges us a security deposit and we get that back after the wedding.
It's kind of goodwill, like, you know, it really is.
It is.
Oh, I think there's probably 3 times we've asked somebody to replace something afterwards. It's not— it hasn't been—
and it's probably for good reason as well. Yeah, jumped up on it.
Oh, this is the thing, our staff will send us a video of like 2 men dancing on one chair and then it breaks and they're like, here's the evidence.
And we're like, okay, yeah. Yeah, but then sometimes I'll look at the planner and go, you know what, she's doing an amazing job and we'll just let it go.
Yeah, and again, honestly, it made such a world of difference. But I'm such an advocate that the brides get the wedding they want.
Yeah, absolutely.
They get one wedding and they pay a fortune for it, for their day.
Which is why we always say, like, you have to trust your planner.
Like, hey, there we go. Hi and welcome back to another episode of Bali Weddings Unveiled.
My name is Britta and I'm Tristan.
Today we are going to be diving into an episode all about furniture, and we've got two very special guests with us today.
We've got Sarah and Vanessa from Bali Event Hire.
Hi girls.
Welcome.
Hi, thank you for having us.
Thank you for joining. It's the end of the day.
We've got all the blondies on the couch today.
We really do, yeah.
Do you know what? Like, did they say hello to you when you walked in? Oh, they already knew I was up here, 'cause sometimes when Britt and I come in here, like just to co-work, I will walk in and normally I get, hi Narelle, because they think I'm Narelle from Bali. Because, you know, like sometimes we think a lot of Asian people look the same. They must think we all look the same. And then Britta gets called Tristan all the time. I get called like—
and Michelle as well.
Yeah, I'm wondering, like, where have you met us?
We are actually the same person.
We are the same. You are. You honestly are. Yeah, actually it took me a while to realize you guys aren't actually sisters. Yeah, I always thought you were sisters.
I actually have a twin sister.
It was Jess from Soiree that told me you weren't sisters. I was like, what?
Yeah, everybody thinks it. We get asked every single day. And now in Bali, there's some people who say, hello, Sarah Vanessa.
Hello, Sarah Vanessa. In one word, because they've just merged together.
You know what, this is all too hard.
Honestly, it's probably easier.
We're just like, that's fine. But we answer to both. Like, but yeah, even in Melbourne.
Even in Melbourne. Yeah, you kind of just do. Like, one of our main— for not furniture, our— what do you call that thing that drives? Transport. Our main transport company that we work for for a long time, one of the drivers, he must be newer, but every time he picks me up, he says, "Good morning, Britta." And I don't correct him. I'm like, whatever, good morning. And then we were at an event the other day and we were walking out the other night and he's coming in with a couple of other drivers and he's like, "Hi Britta." And Britta was pulling in at the same time from her wedding. 'Cause I said, stop by, let's go home together. We'll split the cars. She was at Pyrri Bugga while I was at Pyrri Temple Hill. And I started laughing because Al and someone else had realized that he'd called me Britta. And I said, what's my name? And he goes, Queen. And I was like, no, what's my name? Princess. Because one of the other drivers calls me Princess. Yeah, he calls me— if you met one day, he accidentally called me my beautiful princess. Well, he didn't accidentally— he messaged and said, good morning, my beautiful princess, I'm here to pick you up. And I was like— I walked out, I was like, my beautiful princess? He goes, sorry, sorry. And I was like, no, I love it. You must refer to me beautiful as my beautiful princess every time you pick me up. So now when he messaged me, says good morning Tristan, boss, anything else, I'm like— and then he'll say good morning, beautiful princess. I'm like And he's like, my beautiful princess. I'm like, there we go. So this driver was like, queen, princess, trying to think of the other name. I was like, no, no, what's my name? And he's like, Britta. And then I was like, what's her name? As she's walking out and he looks from me to her and he goes, big boss. And I was like losing it laughing, still didn't correct him. I'm still pretty sure he thinks I'm Britta.
Yeah, so you're a blonde double act like we are.
Yeah. And I was like, I'm like, whatever.
Whatever, I don't care. It's a compliment either way.
Absolutely, I answer it either, all the time.
But we are really different as well. Like everyone thinks, I mean, we're very similar, but really different as well.
Really similar, really different.
Yeah, we are.
Fair. So we wanna talk to you guys a bit, like you have been in the industry for such a long time. Tell us about your story.
What inspired Bali and Ohio?
We're about the same as you. Are we?
12 years, well actually we're coming up to 13.
Yeah, so we're coming up to 11. So you're a couple years older. Like how did it start back then? It was an accident.
It was a really lucky accident, wasn't it? We had no, literally no intention of starting business whatsoever at all.
So you just woke up one day and you're like, I think we'll make some furniture.
We just loved coming to Bali.
We loved coming to Bali. Vanessa was having a party in Bali. That's right, yeah. We went to pick the DJ, the food, the flowers, the everything. The everything. And when it came to the furniture, there was a Tiffany chair and a, what do you call it?
The banquet chairs with the bow.
The bottom. Gross.
And we were like, it's a party. What about the—
Yeah, we said no. Okay, but what else is there?
Yeah.
And then they were like, no, there isn't. We're like, come on, we're in Bali. No, this is it. And I'm like, that's the saddest thing I ever heard. Yeah. So we didn't, we didn't want the Tiffany chairs, so we just dashed out and had like just the bentwoods, which are now still basically—
So you just had them made for the party?
I had them made and just teak tables because, you know, it was all like shiny tablecloths.
Oh my gosh, the shiny tablecloths. You wouldn't have seen a lot of them in your day, but When I started, I remember one of the first weddings I rocked up to and I'm like, what is with these tablecloths? And I demanded the hotel go and get, they didn't have anything else. I demanded they go get bedsheets and I used bedsheets as my tablecloths.
Magic. So they're not shiny, correct?
Oh, they're so gross. No, you don't see them as much anymore.
Awful. No, so this was 12 years ago. And then that the event planner who did the party said, can I buy them or rent them or? Do something with them because this doesn't exist. And we were like, okay, we could be onto something here. Let's just see what happens. Like, let's make 30. See what happens. And then we started getting bookings and then it was like, okay, shit, we need 50, we need 60. We need cocktail furniture, we need chairs. Guys, we need to move to Bali.
Yeah, so we said to our— 'Cause we had little kids and our husbands. And we were like, do you know what? We all just need to move. And they were like, all right. And so we just did.
Wow. So you were living here?
We lived here for 3 or 4 years.
Yeah.
When we were starting. Yeah. Because it really did just grow so fast. Yeah. And I think everyone was just so excited that there was actually an option out there. And we just started like with a really super small range plus cocktail furniture. We were talking today about our first like warehouse. Hilarious. And because we had no idea what we were doing, by the way. And one day we were just, we were like, okay, so we've got all this stuff, we need a warehouse. And so we were just driving past some place and it just said for rent. And we were like, that looks fine.
That'll do.
Yeah. And so, you know, you sign on the weird Indonesian stamp and suddenly we've got this warehouse. And then, but what we didn't realize is that we had to store everything upstairs and it was the tiniest little staircase with like tiles. And then all our staff were like, but we can't fit the furniture up.
Oh no. And we're like, oh.
We'd signed for a year. Yeah, we've run into a few brick walls.
A lot of brick walls.
Yeah. In the early days.
Yeah. But we nailed our staff early. You know, we got Annie and she'd been with you the whole time. The whole time. We made her work for us.
We met her when she was 8 months pregnant and she said, like, this is my third child. I don't want to work for you. And we said, we think you do.
We said, we really firmly believe that you do want to work for us.
Yeah.
And she said, I don't think we do.
We said, you have the baby and we'll call you after that.
It kind of sounds like Ryan. Ryan was like, I don't want to work for you. I want to go to uni. I want to do this. And I was like, no, you're going to come work with me and you're going to do uni. You'll be fine. Yeah. And like, almost 3 years on, he's still with me.
And he's at uni now.
Yeah, he sent him to uni.
Yeah, no, she, she was the beginning. So that's how it all started, and it was just the right time. There was nobody else here. We happened to have really little kids, so it was really easy to just say, guys, this is exciting, we're moving. And we just started getting bookings, and it just took off.
But we did all the things that people didn't do back then. Like, it's really hard to believe that Instagram accounts didn't exist. I mean, that is making us sound so old, but they didn't for weddings and—
Or websites, really.
Or websites.
So you made them. Well, they didn't. When I planned my wedding, I was saying earlier, doing anything online, like it just wasn't a viable thing.
But we kind of sort of applied all that kind of Western rigor to, you know, a beautiful creative industry that just needed a bit more of a framework. Do you know what I mean? And I think that's why we became successful Quite quickly because we had all that stuff in place that was familiar to Western guides. And so we were kind of trusted quite a lot.
Yeah, there were real invoices and receipts and—
Which is something you don't, like even now, like sometimes I just get a WhatsApp message with, please pay this amount with a bank account detail.
Oh, often. Yeah, yeah, no. And so having a website made it all real. And then we moved warehouse and that's when we decided to get a showroom because people started saying, can we see the furniture? And we were standing in a hot dusty, space, and it was like, this doesn't feel very nice. Someone's come with their fiancé and their mum, and we're standing in this hot space and saying, this will be beautiful, but it's all up in the shelves.
So that was the biggest kind of, yeah, early financial kind of risk that we had to take because we really wanted a beautiful showroom.
And your showroom is beautiful. We'll see if we can put some photos up here.
Yeah. And I mean, we've been— and it actually hasn't dated. We're really lucky. No, it's beautiful. And obviously we all work out of there as well.
Yeah.
But it is nice, and we have brides and All the time. Planners and anyone can come and actually go, all right, that furniture does exist.
It does look good. What a good wedding planner he was.
Oh, Tara.
Who's Tara?
God love him. You know, made that day happen.
So I'll get to them. I don't even think they listen to the podcast. I had this beautiful couple.
You don't know that.
I can't believe we're telling the story early.
No, I've got this beautiful couple and I was planning their wedding for a couple of years. They had some health complications. So like it was a long planning process and Not only were we planning the wedding for a long time, but they were like monthly calls and then they'd forget. And it was like, have we done this? Yes, we've already done this. Anyway, at one point they said our friend's coming over, he'd like to look at the furniture. So Al brought him out.
You want to hear this story?
No. So Al brought him out to the showroom, showed him the furniture. He helped them pick their furniture because they needed bigger chairs for island purposes. So he picked all their furniture for them. That was it. Never really heard or saw from him again until the wedding day. And I will never forget, this is like the funniest thing. So on the wedding day, they tell me what a fantastic fantastic job. And like, it's a big wedding, there's been a lot of last-minute changes, but of course we're like pros, so we've dealt with it. And they're doing lots of speeches, so many speeches. Now Veena from My Bali Celebrant was MCing, and there's all these surprise speeches that are popping up, but they're very sweet. They're giving presents to Mum and this person, this person. And then I think the speech is wrapping up, and then the bride stands up and the bride's not doing speech, and she hands the groom this like one last present. And then the groom's like, all right, we've gotta like, we have to do this one. We couldn't have done this day without this very special person, like really helped us with our planning process. Without them, like, this day wouldn't have happened. This day wouldn't have happened. So I'm in the corner like, oh my God, I can't believe it. Me and Britta are looking at each other and I'm like, that's so sweet. And the MC's staring directly at me. All my staff are looking at me and they're like, yep, he even flew to Bali and met with our wedding planner. And I've just looked at Britta and I'm like, it's fucking Tara.
As soon as that happens, I am losing it. I am an absolute fits and giggles.
Sure enough, they invite this Tara guy up and they give him a present and everyone's clapping. And then Vina walks over to me and I look at her and I'm like, not a fucking word. And she just loses it laughing with Britta. And it's like now the ongoing joke of like, what a good wedding planner Tara was. Like, they're very sweet. They came up to me afterwards and like, couldn't have done the day without you. But it's now like the running joke.
Tara put the chairs and now suddenly Tara's done the wedding.
I think Al said something on our group chat the other day. He was like, let's just ask Tara.
It's now like our running joke at the company. But we should have invited Tara today.
Yeah, you really should have.
You should have. And then the best part was like later in the night, the bar manager came over to me and he wanted my signature. I was like, nah, just go ask Tara.
I love that.
I didn't plan this.
Yeah, but like, you know, like the showroom's very good for, you know, those planners.
People like Tara. Yeah.
Shout out to Tara and Lance and Arielle. I mean, beautiful wedding.
We'd love to see you again.
Yeah.
Such a great Bali wedding planner.
Yeah. Amazing.
It was just the funniest thing because you know when you're like, oh, this is really sweet. And then everyone's looking at me, and then you just see everyone at the same time like— so funny.
You just sit back down.
Well, I wasn't standing, I was kind of sitting in the corner like as we do with most of these things, and, you know, just paying attention, you know, what's next, music's coming on or whatever's going on. And then I was like, oh my gosh, sweet, such a nice speech. And then the worst thing is she is like hysterically laughing and she can't even put herself together, and she's like, remember that time?
I'm like She's never gonna let you forget it.
She still thinks it's hilarious.
It's so funny.
It was like, you had to be there because it was so hilarious.
And the best thing is, is we've got this whole recording of it. So Al obviously does our content. So he's filming all the time. And a lot of the time when there's thank yous coming, speeches, you see him pan over and he gets the wedding planner's face. And the video that he's got, he's fully zoomed in on the couple. And then you see him like pan over to Tara because he took Tara out and he knew that it was Tara.
Even flew to Bali to be with our wedding planner.
And then he comes after, he's like, oh shit, did you hear that? And I'm like, yeah.
I reckon you should be included at the end of your awards.
Oh my gosh, can we? We'll give an award at the end. Best wedding planner of the year.
But no, they were very sweet.
They came up to me after, they're like, thanks, the day couldn't have happened without you. I was like, yeah, I know.
Yeah, no problem.
Two years in the making, lots of unexpected changes. You're welcome.
We didn't meet him, but he sounds great.
He was great. He was great. He picked out all the furniture. Having a showroom, very beneficial. All those people that need to come in.
Yeah.
So I feel like we need to talk about the Green Army.
Oh my goodness. Photo here of me.
Yeah.
Green Army.
The wind beneath our wings.
You know what? They need like a YouTube channel, don't they? Oh my God.
Actually, they confused me a bit the other day because they've got new uniforms.
No, they haven't. It's only for content.
Oh, is it? Okay. They look fantastic, but I was like, excuse me.
They look amazing. No, they're always going to be green, but when they wear clothes. No, it's their costume. So we love a photo shoot. They now love a photo shoot. And it took a long time to get them. They were so uncomfortable coming into studios and what— and now you should see them. I mean, it is—
Oh, they're really blooming.
They are all main characters. You should see it.
I mean, I've seen them on the wedding day when they think no one's looking and it's my favorite thing to capture videos of them and be like, look what I just got.
They were playing with the lawn games the other day. I'm walking up to them.
I see that's why I like coming to your weddings. Is it because we report back? Like, oh my gosh, a new team dance move.
Oh, they love you. It is hard because they do fight over going to their favorite wedding.
Who's their favorite wedding planner?
Of course. Who's their favorite?
No, no, no, truly, because there's often 2, 3, 4, 5 in a day. And so then the schedule's coming out and different teams are going to different places and obviously they all want to come to you guys.
Yeah, they do.
This is 100% going to be a highlight for our reel.
Do you know what?
Yeah, they do.
The episode we filmed earlier, I said we're going to have the Bali event hire girls on later and they will agree that we have the best team in Bali.
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So together we're amazing. I know. We can all just agree on that, Tara.
So I paid her a lot of money to say that.
Oh shit. Don't go there.
Do you know what was really sweet actually? The other day I was setting up for a wedding and it was so hot. And you know Stone Villa now has the fake grass.
Yeah.
So it's beautiful, but it's very hot. And it was just the sweetest thing ever because I turned around and the bar team Drunken Love literally was handing out cups of ice to your team and topping them all up with Coke. And I was like, and I turned to Ryan and I was like, this is why they're my favorite bar company. Who else would do that? No one else would be making sure the furniture hire boys have cold sweet refreshments. Like it was so sweet.
Yeah. Oh, it's bloody hot and they work so hard.
They do.
Yeah.
But that's what, that's the important ingredient, isn't it? It's like literally teamwork.
How did you like find such a big amazing team? Cause it's not easy to find good staff. Like where did they come from? How do you advertise?
Well, we have a magic formula.
Formula, don't they?
Yeah, we do now. So we started obviously with Anna and dear Mega, who we lost in COVID. Um, and then under Mega was beautiful August, and August had to step up really out of the blue when we lost Mega, and he really didn't feel like he could do it, and we were just like, you can, you can do this. Yeah, you know, you can. And he's now become amazing.
But he's one of my faves.
He is. And he's just so gentle, but he's really, really fussy, which I really love.
Always gives me a cuddle when he walks in.
Yeah, but what we've learned, because in the early days, you know, we had to scale up really, really quickly, and it took us ages to work out, you know, how many staff we needed and how many full-time and how many, um, you know, just to manage that. Well, it took us ages to get to find the right formula, which we've got now. But in the early days, we're like, okay, well, we just need like 5 more of you know, just like you, like just exactly like you.
Clone.
Yeah. Yeah.
And we've said that about Yanti so many times.
Copy paste.
Yeah. And then we get like CVs, all this hilarious like Western stuff, you know, and then they'd meet them and we're like, they look amazing. Like, yeah, these are perfect.
And they're like, nah.
And we're like, why? And they're like, his face. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just stuff like that.
Looks lazy. Or it's lazy.
Or it's lazy.
I got a CV through today and I was like, ooh. And I opened it and I was like, ugh. We both said it at the same time.
Really?
No.
Yeah, it's just they feel things and they know, and you know, of their life.
Karma.
Yeah. And whose banjar are they connected to and all of that and all that kind of stuff. And so we were like, do you know what, these, they need to employ each other.
Yeah.
So they're completely in charge of doing all the recruitment and that is, that's the magic.
Yeah.
Because everybody's now somebody's next door neighbor, cousin, brother, uncle, of course, nephew, uh, which makes them accountable to each other because if you've employed your nephew and he's late or not turning up.
That's on you.
That's on you.
So they call everyone to account. We don't even have to do it. Do you know what I mean? Because they don't wanna lose face. So, and then it is like just making a family. And we've tried really, really hard to, you know, you have to have fun at work.
Well, the team that you've built, like it would be like family.
Yeah, they are.
They are, they're all so incredibly sweet as well. Like nothing is ever too much. We obviously work with a lot of companies, but your team is by far the best.
Yeah, thank you.
Like, the above and beyond that they will go through to make things happen, and they get it. Like, they understand.
And I feel really bad sometimes because I think there was one wedding in particular I've asked them to move the tables like 5 times. I'm like, I'm so sorry.
Yeah, you know, sometimes like space, something—
yeah, sometimes space is awkward, and I'm like, I'm so sorry, I just need you to move the tables again.
They don't mind.
But they're really grateful as well because, and that's the thing, you know, if you foster a really happy work environment and you look after them, they're really grateful, you know? And they're appreciative, they know how appreciated they are.
And they're proud of their work too. So they want everything to be perfect. They want everything to look amazing.
They do. And they don't like, when they're working for you, they want you to win. Do you know what I mean? They want you to deliver the best wedding you possibly can.
Not every company's like that. And we've had a lot of incidents yesterday in the furniture department of like, 2, 3 hours late on site. Things like—
You guys are always early.
Always on time, always available when we need to move things around, like— Bringing out other chairs. Bringing out other chairs last minute. You know, like there's just so many things. What about that event you did?
Oh my God, an extra table at lunchtime.
Yes, a table, because you didn't realize the peacock chairs were so big and we actually needed one table just for the peacock chairs.
One extra table.
And you know, nothing that's ever not doable.
Yeah.
No.
And look, that took time as well to figure out that, being late is not okay.
And we had to do a lot of, and that was just like a, that was cultural training.
Can you just go train everyone else?
I mean, yeah, we're now at the point where they're often early because they're late.
Mostly they are.
Oh, they were like 4 hours early to one of my events last week.
Don't be 4 hours early.
I was like, darling, you do realize you're meant to be there at 2, not 11 or whatever the time was. And he's like, oh, sorry. And I got there and he was asleep. I just went and woke him up.
But see, that's the thing, they actually enjoy work, right? So they wouldn't come early if they, like, they do like going to work.
Yeah, they do.
Not every wedding.
Yeah, like I'd rather them early than late because the lateness, especially at the moment with all the traffic in Bali.
Yeah, oh no, and that took the training. It was just like, there is traffic, there's always traffic, it's always hours to get to Uluwatu.
How do you out-train them to like think that way though? Because that's not a very common thing. Like we see other people show up and they're like 2 hours late, they're like, oh sorry. Like there's no accountability.
We kept having team meetings, didn't we? Over and over and over again. And I think that we always said, this is a reflection on us. And because they really do love and respect us, they didn't want to let us down. So it was more about us saying, this is our reputation, these people trust us and we need you to make that happen. So, you know, they don't get cross at us. And I think that it was like that emotional, you know, and they're like, yep, okay.
But that's now putting like, they know what's going to happen and what kind of impact that's going to have.
Yeah.
And it's going to affect us.
Yeah, it's like they don't want to let us down, they don't want to let you guys down. Yeah, they're proud of their work. I mean, look, it's taken a long time.
Yeah, it's always taken a long time.
Yeah, yeah. But I think that's coming back to like, we've said this so many times, like you really do get what you pay for. And there's quite a few furniture companies out there at the moment, and we always say like, you guys are by far our favorites. Like, thank you. But that's the difference between, you know, a cheap company that might be locally owned, like they don't care if they're 3 hours late. The clients don't notice it, but we do. Yeah, yeah. And it's so incredibly stressful. Yeah, you do get what you pay for, for sure.
And I feel like you you guys do look after your furniture as well.
We do.
Like, there's always wear and tear with furniture, but you always look after it. Whereas there's other companies out there, they've got a massive, massive list of just everything that you could possibly want, but they don't look after it.
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's another— yeah, we've learned so much.
I know, that was also number one.
Yeah. So then we had to build an entire— allocate an entire servicing department because in wedding season, like, we can have 5 6 weddings a day.
Yeah.
So we need to be like—
how many team members do you have?
Um, I think we've got in people at 25 full-time, 25 full-time, plus the office girls, plus full-time laundry.
Oh no, but then we've got, um, contract staff, so they're— they work for us each year, but only for wedding. But then I remember that you've got all the covers and the pillows, and you've got to remember, you come back from a wedding in the dark, and we'll talk you through the day in the life of our dear boys, but you have to take off every single cushion cover and wash them all.
Because they're going back out in the morning.
Because you don't have time in the dark to look through 120 cushions and see what's clean and what's dirty. So you have to launder every single one. And that's— we remember one year we got that. We looked at it, we were looking at our accounting and we were like, laundry, laundry. What is that massive number? And then we were like, we'll just build one in there.
Let's just build a washing machine.
Look at that. And then we put Dean and Megha's wife in there. So now she's in charge of our laundry.
I love that.
Yeah. And it just means nothing leaves. The warehouse because it was all of the cushions were going out to the laundry and then suddenly it's like, did somebody pick them up? Are they back? There's another wedding tomorrow morning. Now everything stays on site, which is great.
Yeah, yeah, it's very smart. Like, we had a wedding the other day and I ordered 9 tablecloths, and from those 9 tablecloths, 5 of them had massive stains on them. And I was like, oh my goodness. And I couldn't get a hold of the company, so I was literally just like at 2 o'clock calling another company like, can you send me tablecloths? I'll pay the bill later. Because the other company wasn't answering. Of course I got a very fun. But I'm like, how did you not check those before you sent them to me?
No.
And it must have just been stained from like 2 weddings ago and they just didn't bother to—
someone's put them away and then it's got—
they've gone out to launder. See, because Megha's dear wife is like, she cares. So if it's stained, it goes in the bin, or if it can't, you know, if it can't be fixed.
Yeah.
So keeping everything in-house has really, really helped.
Good.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I think that's very similar to kind everything that we're doing. I've said it time and time again, we've got a whole stationery team, you know, like we do everything in-house now. We have built shop walls and luggage tag wall, and we've got so many different shaped and styles of mirrors in the office because everyone wants them now. So why don't we just do it?
Yep.
So, and have them in your inventory.
Absolutely.
Except we're never going near tablecloths or napkins, are we?
No. I said the same thing. We have napkins now, but only because I brought them for the Bali Brides party. Because I wanted the hot pink color. But yeah, it's just too much stains. And like, I don't know how, but we lose like 2 napkins every wedding. Oh, you would?
Yeah, it's like we had decorative cushions for a few years and they never came back in a set of 8. Not ever.
Not once. Because where do they go? They just go to their room.
So, you know, it's just like giant clifftop villas and it's just— they're not coming back.
So do you always charge a security deposit to clients?
No, no, we never do. Do you know, we don't lose chairs.
No, we've been really lucky.
Like, we really don't damage broken chairs.
Look, it's on a case-by-case basis. It really is. And, you know, as you said, our boys are there the entire time. They see everything happen, so they will take a photo if two chairs come back. And they've, like, he's— they've already taken a photo of how it happened, you know.
Yeah.
And so, and look, you know, it's case by case. It's wedding season, it happens. And, you know, it's just part of— it is. And Mostly we let it go.
Every other company charges us security deposit and we get that back after the wedding.
It's kind of goodwill, like, you know. It really is.
It is.
Oh, I think there's probably 3 times we've asked somebody to replace something afterwards. It's not, it hasn't been crazy.
And it's probably for good reason as well.
Yeah.
Jumped up on it or.
Oh, this is the thing. Our staff will send us a video of like 2 men dancing on 1 chair and then it breaks and they're like, here's the evidence. And we're like, okay, thank you.
Yeah. But then sometimes we'll look at the planner and go, oh, well, you know what? She's doing an amazing job and we'll just let it go.
Yeah.
You know, so yeah, no, we just, it is goodwill. Yeah. We're so nice.
We are nice.
You are nice.
You're really nice, Sarah.
Thank you.
I like your boiler suit.
You are so nice. What do you call it?
She's wearing a boiler suit.
Boiler suit.
She's like, I'm going to do an oil in. What do you say? I'm going to do an oil change today.
You're like, that's nice. I'm like, I look like I'm fixing a car.
So funny. But, but you're right. A chair is not a chair is not a chair. Like, they're not all the same. Like, they're really, really not. And, you know, if we had a dollar for everyone who's like, but hang on, is that the price to buy the chair or rent the chair?
Are we buying them from you? And it's like, well, we know that you're renting them.
Yeah.
But, you know, the chairs that we get, really good quality.
And you have so many different styles.
Yeah, we do.
Like, how do you find different styles?
Like, a favourite chair? Yeah.
Sarah's got a favourite, haven't you? Yeah, I would say, I think it's the bentwood, which is where we started 12 years ago. Because every year we look at our numbers and say, Bentwood's still on top.
Bentwood's still in the top 3. It's still our bestseller.
It doesn't matter what else we design, all these beautiful things. And then we go, oh, Bentwood's still in the top 3, always.
Yeah, because they're classics. The classics will never, ever, ever die. You know, fashions come and go and all, you know, and there are so many amazing ways to follow trends through like, you know, florals and drapery and stationery and napery and all of that kind of stuff. We are just always committed to staying in our lane. We are producing good quality furniture in natural, you know, materials that are all produced here. Like, we could get chairs from China for half the price. We'd never do that, you know, because we want to maintain your quality.
Yeah.
And also want to support the island. You know, we're lucky enough to be able to work on this beautiful island. And yeah, but finding— I mean, we've had a lot of funny stories finding our suppliers, but we've had most of them for now, like, the entire time.
Yeah.
Where do you find the inspiration inspiration for your pieces?
Like, are you copying these from other countries? Are you coming up with like, I had a dream last night about this particular chair with midgets?
It was a dwarf, Britta. It was a dwarf.
We discussed this in our last episode about what do we call them because we've hired them for events before. And I said my literal invoice said 4 times midgets. So I feel like it's okay.
Sarah got asked for that once.
What is okay to call them? I was like, midget or dwarf?
No, they're different, Britta. They're different. Yeah, but we won't go into that.
We won't go into that.
We're talking about furniture.
We're talking about furniture and where your energy comes from.
So I think, well, I think a lot of the time we've just gone with our gut and what we like.
100%.
And so do you design them? You're like, whoosh, this is what we're going to do.
No, but I mean, crossback's a classic and bentwood's a classic. And any time we've done something that's a bit cool because we have seen it, you know, through Instagram or Pinterest or in another country, it lasts a year. It's cool for a year, like yellow and pink things and yellow things and loads of black. And it's like 2 years down the road.
I do love the black. I think colors definitely have their place in certain weddings, but they're not gonna be popular. But I feel like a classic piece, I do love black. Like our Bali brides party, I was like, yes, black would just color everything.
I've got black Bentwoods as my kitchen chairs. Like they're classic. They're gorgeous.
But no, we get inspiration from random.
Places.
Like, we could be on holiday and I'll take a photo. In fact, I annoy Sarah nonstop taking photos of things that I want to do, and she ignores most of them. But anyway, um, yeah, I'll take a photo of something, I'll be like, that's beautiful, we could do that. Or we're just driving down, yeah, around here anywhere, and suddenly we got— we're like, if we did that with that, it'd be beautiful. Yeah. And so it's just all that kind of stuff. Like, we don't overanalyze it, do we? No.
Or like, we've got these beautiful cocktail tables, but no one's ever really liked the stools. So let's find something else to make that work that we like.
I think that's also one of the good things about our range is that because it's basically all teak wood and either whether it's, you know, blonde, white, natural, or rattan or bamboo, basically everything. So you can put anything with anything.
Yeah.
You know, it doesn't have to be in the same family.
No.
And I think that's also been really great because people do mix and match everything, don't they?
Yeah, they do. Yeah. And that's why we've stuck to the classic range, because as soon as you do something a bit crazy, crazy, then you have to have everything else to go with it.
Yeah. And I feel like there's companies that have their moment for the crazy.
Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And also we've got big numbers, so we can't just, you know, on a whim say, you know, we usually do a new chair a year. We did 2 this year.
Yep.
Um, but we've got big numbers and they're really expensive, you know, so that's like a big investment. We can't just— we'd prefer to just do, you know, all the classics but have good numbers and look after them really well.
And how much stock have you got of everything? Like, for the chairs, like what, what's your minimum order when you're ordering all that?
I know that you've got about 132 of a certain chair that I just ordered for a wedding of 150. I was like, kids, you can have another chair. Yes.
Yeah. Look, once we know, we might get 8, I guess, as a sample.
We test the waters.
And then do perhaps a little photo shoot, see what people think. If they're getting excited about it. And then if we get a few more inquiries, we're like, okay, let's start at $50,000. And I don't think we've got anything that's under $100,000.
Usually $100,000 to $150,000 for all the—
And then the Bentwoods and the Crossbacks and the Classics, $200,000 to $220,000, $230,000, I guess they are.
Yeah.
Depending they are.
This is very random. Do they all stack? Like, how do you store 200 chairs?
You've been to our warehouse.
You've been to our warehouse.
I have, but in my head, I can't fathom that's how many chairs you've got.
I actually haven't been to the warehouse.
I have, but I also don't envision seeing like thousands of chairs.
Chairs in there?
Because Agus has OCD. Yeah, which I'm very supportive of. And so our goodungs are like— because we've got the showroom in the middle and then goodung, goodung, right? And they are so beautifully—
it's like a library.
So you've got a second one? So I've only seen the one. So you next to the showroom's here, and then you go down there and that's the good.
So we've got two, two down, and that's where our servicing is, and that's where our laundry is, and, and all the tables, and all the tables live in there.
Yeah. Yeah.
So we've had to build this whole elaborate labyrinth, like, you know, all the different levels. The boys even have a bedroom in there.
Yeah.
You mentioned that because we realized that they weren't sleeping or they weren't going home between events.
So I'm always sleeping on the floor, sleeping in the truck. Well, there's some back-to-back events, you know, like, do they? So I don't understand the logistics. They're just magic. They're there when I need them. But are they at my— like, let's say they drop my furniture off at 10 AM and then I get them to move my chairs at 4 and they're packing down. Are they there the whole day or do they go to other venues?
They are. They're remaining on standby. And I think this This is the— this actually, this is the Green Army magic because they— let's say it's 2 hours to pack a truck. We know it's 2 hours to drive 8 trucks or whatever it is, or to pack for one delivery, 2 hours to drive there, perhaps another 2 hours to unload. And then, you know, under your instructions, set everything up, the tables, the chairs, and then line the chairs up perfectly.
You know, you see them, don't you, standing there like, oh yeah, making sure.
Oh yeah, normally that's me as well. Like, hey, Westerners are too big. Let's just give them another half a meter space. In between.
And then the flowers start coming out and it's like, no, we have to redo the whole thing, it's not wide enough. So then they remain on standby and that's the great thing about them. And this is what we always say, they're happy to move your chairs from ceremony to reception so you're not booking two lots of chairs. As soon as the ceremony's over, your I dos are done, they sweep in and move them and set them up for ceremony, reconfigure cocktail furniture, whatever, whatever needs doing, but they remain there.
I'm going to tell you something really controversial, you're not charging enough for your fees, for your delivery and your setup fees.
Yeah, we just went up. Do you know that's Yes, thank you for saying that because we kind of know that.
Yeah, considering that those boys are there and like, I think my last event there was 8 of them. Yeah, for a 16-hour day, because if they're on site at 10, they're leaving your warehouse at like 8, so they're getting there probably for 6 to start loading and they're getting home at 2, 3 the next day.
They're packing up in the dark. Yeah, and you know, venues are big. Yeah, so it's not like—
well, do you know what I do at a lot of my venues? I will insist that my generator and lighting stay on as long as possible for pack downs.
That's really not having it done when it got dark.
'Cause otherwise the event finishes as soon as the guests leave, bang, we're in the dark. And I'm like, that's not fair for everyone. We can't see.
No, they put their head torches on and they're tripping over one another to try and pack up. You're right. Yeah. It's tough.
But for a massive team like that, and I think it's not even just increasing the fees, it's been like, we are gonna send a team of X amount and they're on site for the entire day. So no one's arguing it. Like I feel people think weddings are cheap, but they don't realize how much goes into it behind the scenes.
Absolutely.
The manpower for us is enormous. And look, you know, we definitely spend more money than we, you know, than most would on staff because we want to make sure that you, you know, we'd prefer you have like 20% more staff.
Honestly, it shows. Like, they are so onto it. Like, as soon as the ceremony finishes, you can see them out of the corner. We're ready to move everything. Like, they're so good.
I know. But I suppose lots of people don't get that. You get it.
Yeah.
You know, planners get it, but probably like brides if they're looking at two quotes and it's like, well, that cross back looks like that cross back.
I will tell you that your travel and delivery fees are about 60% cheaper than one of the other major furniture companies. So feel free to bump them up. But I'm not gonna argue it because I see, but the clients might be a little bit, but like, babes, you've got 8 people for 16 hours on the day.
Sometimes more, yeah.
And a truck, probably, remember that wedding I sent you? There was 6 trucks there.
Oh, there often is.
And I'm pretty sure my delivery fee that day was only $1.5 million, $150.
$6,000, and that's just gone up from $950.
12 people. How do you make money on that? Like, you should be charging more for your delivery fees and for your manpower. And there's petrol. And there's petrol. Oh, and we pay for petrol.
And we feed everyone.
Yeah, everyone's having 2 meals. And yeah, well, yeah. Thank you for saying that.
Yeah, thank you for saying that. Yeah. Yeah, we appreciate that.
I feel like a lot of brides and grooms have probably had a reality check from listening to these podcasts. They're like, oh, we've actually got no idea how much goes into it.
I've learned so much. Do you know what I'm gonna put up? I'm gonna put up here, 'cause I sent you the video, as I was rolling into one of my weddings, how many trucks were out the front for that one particular wedding.
And also we can have 5 in one day.
It was 150 guests. And I was like, Bali event hire, Bali.
Like how many trucks do you actually have?
So I think we own 8 and then we lease a bunch during the season. And then we use just a daily rental truck depending on how many weddings we've got. So it's a lot. Yeah, but it has to be.
'Cause they all had your branding on the side.
Well, we have one truck that's in the office for all of our hire items. It never gets used, feel free to hire it. It only gets used on our weddings. But yeah, I just remember going into that wedding and I was like, whoa, like this is a massive army we have today.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it needs to be because as you know, the car park can be half a kilometer from there where they're unloading and then down the stairs and then reception somewhere else and then cocktail on the stand.
Do you charge hard access fees for like carrying out stuff?
We do double delivery for difficult access. Yes. Yeah, yeah, we do. There's a list of maybe, what, 8 venues, 10 venues.
And that's fair considering the amount of stairs those boys have to trek up and down. Actually, I'm about to book you in for a wedding at Ulu Cliff House.
Oh great.
And she wants a bunch of cocktail furniture downstairs. I was like, yeah, we can do it, but you're probably gonna get charged double to triple because those boys have to go up and down 200 stairs with your furniture. And she was like, oh, okay.
In the early days, we had a couple of planners who were not very kind. Remember booking ridiculous things and but not, we had no idea of the access and whatever.
Now we've learned a lot.
Yeah. The horrors that our poor boys, you know, what they had to go through walking on sand. And look, we'll do anything we can if we can, you know, and if it's hard, we'll put on more people. But, you know, you have to just be honest.
Yeah. But I think it's taken a long time. But now we know what's difficult, what's possible, how many people we need and charge accordingly.
Yeah. Well, now you've probably seen like all of the venues and you've got access. I remember we did a light-up letters job, so. One of my other side businesses. And it must've been 2 years ago. And it was like, yeah, it's at Ayana, great. Where? Oh, we'll let you know when you get there. And of course it was on the fricking jetty downstairs, wasn't it? And there's no elevator. So literally my poor boys were walking down. I think it was like 340 stairs down in the heat of the day with these massive steel light-up letters. And I just remember receiving a message at like quarter past 11 from Ryan saying, we've moved one letter up to the truck, we're done. We're gonna sleep here for the night. I'm like, I'm so sorry, boys. I will pay you triple. He's like, but you didn't charge the client. I'm like, I don't care. Like, that's not okay that you've been sent up. I'm so sorry.
I mean, we did a Sundays one really early on. I think it would have been called Sundara. What was it called?
No, it wasn't called Sundara. It was called Finn's.
Oh, it was called Finn's back then. And okay, that's—
oh, the travelator wasn't working.
3 things in the travelator.
No, it wasn't working. We've done weddings down there where we weren't allowed to use the travelator and we had to take the stairs.
We weren't allowed to.
Yeah, it's for guests access only.
Yeah.
But yes, I think you're absolutely right, is that, you know, with with— yeah, we all say, you know, comparing this chair to this chair, but with us, you're, you know, you're getting quality. It's— yeah, it's 12 years of experience and 12 years of training.
And well, it's just peace of mind and confidence knowing that from the beginning to the end you're going to be looked after. Absolutely. Like, from the very beginning to the very end, it's all going to be perfect.
Yeah.
So it's that as well. Yeah. And just the experience.
Well, it's also your understanding that, like— and I think this is the very big difference with the Western-run company is if anything goes wrong, you two are the first to be like, let me fix it. Like, nothing is too hard. Yeah, you can't ignore it. And we spoke about this on one of the previous episodes, like the day I was in hospital and I got to the wedding and I'm fussing over the flowers, and then I'm like, oh my God, my chair— like, Britta's like, your chairs are the wrong color. And it wasn't your fault or my fault, it was just miscommunication.
It happened.
Yeah, I booked the chairs, I didn't specify what color, you didn't ask, the invoice came out, I didn't look at it properly, I paid the bill, I sent you a run sheet, you didn't look at the color of the chairs. And so we in our heads, it was like, I booked this color chair, but you thought I'd booked a different. None of us spoke to each other. But then when it was brought to my attention, I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. Like, it was like, I didn't check the invoice. You're like, I didn't check the run sheet. And I'm like, it was no one's fault as such, but how are we going to fix it? Yeah. And it wasn't even that, it was your team going, the warehouse is shut. Okay, Robbie's got a friend, Robbie's gonna like— and I don't know how that got fixed that day, but it got fixed. And Any other company would have been like, tough, we can't get there in time. And that's happened before. We've had issues where we've had wrong color things show up and they're like, well, we can't get it to you in time, tough. But for you ladies, like, exactly. But you understand that. And I think again, that's a massive difference in you get what you pay for. Like, it's somebody's wedding.
And that's what we've always understood. This is somebody's wedding.
You know what?
They don't need to worry.
That bride, this is like, I had to kick Elle's bum a bit. So we've got this rule. We don't tell couples when things have gone wrong unless we have to, 'cause we're gonna fix it first. Elle actually went to the bride and told her that the chairs were the wrong color because he was in and out. And I think the bridesmaid had come out. And when I went into the room later to check in on her, she goes, oh, Elle told me about the chairs. Don't worry, I love them. Don't worry about it. And I was like, oh no, babe. Like, no, that's not what you wanted. She's like, no, Tristan, it's fine. Don't stress. It's going to be fine.
But we're sending the—
And she literally is like, because she was just one of those people that was so fricking lovely that she doesn't want me to stress about it. I'm like, I know you might be happy right now. She's like, do not change them. And I was like, it's not what you wanted. Said, yeah, nope, don't change them, I don't want you to stress. And I was like— and she was like, before I'd left the room, she made me promise to her I wasn't going to fix the flowers or fix the chairs.
And of course we fixed both, but then she was also like, Britta, promise me that she's not going to change them.
And I was like, I know. I walked out and then they arrived in time, and then I came back and I was like, your other chairs are out. And she was like— she was so happy because she was just one of those people that didn't want me to stress about it. Yeah, it was really sweet.
Kind.
Yeah, but she could see, like, she obviously knew that I was stressed about it because she knows what kind of person I am. But she's like, don't change the flowers. I was like, well Well, once it was done, I was like, I've already done it. And she was like, oh my God, I love it. And it did, honestly, it made such a world of difference. But I'm such an advocate for the brides get the wedding they want.
Yeah, absolutely.
They get one wedding and they pay a fortune for it, for their day.
Which is why we always say, like, you have to trust your planner.
Like, hey, there we go.
No, we do.
No, we do. But for years, so we've had loads of direct bookings, way less now. I mean, most people use event planners now. But in those first 5 years, so many people booked and I'd say, have you got a plan? They booked the furniture, which is great. You know, I'll take the booking. No problem. But have you got a planner? No, I'm just really organized. And my sister-in-law's a florist. And of course she is.
Okay.
And then it's like, okay. And then, you know, by the, you know, 3 months out, they're like, I'm going to introduce you to my wedding planner and she'll take over from here. It's like, yeah.
There's always that panic of, oh, actually this is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. My favorite is like, Hey, I've already booked, planned most of my wedding. How much for you to coordinate? Great, what have you booked? My florist, my hair and makeup artist, photo, video, and my venue.
So how much is it gonna be for partial planning? It's like, no, there's no partial planning fee. There's only the full planning fee. And there's still so many steps to do.
Have you done run sheet? Where's the sound going? Oh, we don't have sound booked yet. Okay, great. Where are you getting sound from? Oh, can you help me with that? What about your lighting? Don't have that. Do you have a generator?
No. Curse you.
You haven't, you haven't really planned your wedding, you just booked a couple suppliers. Yeah, it's going to be the same price.
Exactly the same price.
Yeah, but they don't realize how much goes into it behind the scenes.
And yeah, and also it's in another country.
Yeah. And your team are great, but I'm 90% sure they don't speak much English at all.
Like, but, oh, in good news, so every, every year we sit down because they can basically have whatever they want. Yeah, like, we're always like Do you want showers in the gudang? Do you want new fans in the— you know, do you want music in the cars or do you want music in the gudang or whatever?
I'd take the music.
No, but Augustus is like, no, because they won't concentrate. We're like, okay, they can't have music in the gudang.
But we offer all of this stuff.
They don't want it. They don't want anything. But then in our last meeting, Augustus is like, what everyone would really like is English lessons.
Oh, I love that.
I know.
We're like, oh my goodness.
Absolutely. I think you asked me where we were sitting in our team, didn't you?
Yeah.
I was like, why did we not do that 12 years ago? Yeah, we got somebody in.
And so now they've done their first little 8 weeks, and then we're just going to do it. Like, we can't do it obviously because we're right in the middle of—
actually, that explains a lot because a couple of them have made a point to speak to me in English recently, whereas before it was like never. Yeah, well, they would say hello, boss, or big boss. That's all I'd get in English. And then everything else, yeah, because I've been like, every time I speak to them, I also make a point to say like, what's the word for like move was my last night. Pinda, pinda, we're gonna move that later. So I've been making an effort, but they've been making more of an effort to speak to me in English, which I'm like, this is new lessons. Yeah, that's great, great.
It was really cute, wasn't it?
They did ask to go to Singapore once.
Oh, we suggested that.
We said, would they like to go to Waterbomb Park? And Annie said, they said they'd like to go to Singapore for a holiday.
We said, so would we, but we're not going.
So how about Malaysia? Malaysia is fairly affordable.
Oh, we've got too many stuff.
Oh, we've got too many.
Yeah.
No, oh no, we did the best Christmas party last year, didn't we?
At Sese Villas.
Yeah, we basically did a giant kids party. Like it was a kids party for adults.
Oh, that's so cool.
We had magicians.
Water toys. Why did we not see any of that? Where's the social media on that?
Oh, we had our bathers on. That's why you didn't see it.
You don't want to know. Your teeny tiny little bodies.
You don't want to know what we have to do. To do that day. It was a lot. We had to do like a lot of like throwing water bombs and like lots and lots of passing things in between our legs.
And yeah, like the Indonesian games.
Oh yeah, I love that. And then, yes, and then one of our most quiet, quiet little, um, staff members suddenly looked you in the eye, pulled out a microphone, and he's a singer.
Oh, stop it.
And we're like, sorry, when did this happen?
And he was incredible too, wasn't he?
Oh yeah, yeah.
And he was rapping.
Like it wasn't even just singing, he was confidently rapping. But then once the microphone stopped, he went back to not looking at you and not speaking.
Yeah.
Oh, so cute. Bless. They've all got all these superpowers. Like Aguil's a chef. You know Beautiful Aguil? Yeah.
He's a chef.
Really?
Yes.
No, we did know that. 'Cause you've got his number and you were like, is he a chef?
Because it's his profile picture. Oh yes, his profile picture has got his wife.
Oh yeah, he's got his wife.
Yeah, and I got really confused when he messaged me.
Oh, 'cause you thought the chef from who knows where.
Well, 'cause he'd said like, I'm on site or something.
And I was like, is this a singular chef?
He didn't specify where he was from.
That's his profile pic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're all really interesting.
Yeah, they are. And then you get to know them when you do things like that, which are really fun. And yeah, we've had some fun at these parties.
And they obviously take the piss out of us all of the time.
Yeah.
So see, I love that though, because you can have that friendly banter with your team and that's what makes it such a fun— like all your boys are so much fun.
Yeah, we have a lot of fun.
Actually, one of my favorite bloopers from last year, and I've got it on video somewhere, is like, you know, during party time, we're all kind of wandering around, and at some point, I don't even know why, maybe it was like we had to move a cocktail table or they were moving cocktail tables, but like the team were doing like little dances on the side, and Amanda grabbed one of the boys, did a little twirl, and no, Robbie grabbed one of the boys, did a little twirl, and as they came out of the twirl, they accidentally elbowed Amanda in the stomach as she was walking past.
Oh no.
She was fine, but I just like absolutely lost it, 'cause I got it all like, on camera because I was filming them. She was fine, but I was filming them dancing and then I've just got her like coming around the corner and just bent over like, ah, and they were so apologetic. It's fine.
Yeah, they have fun. I mean, they work really hard, so hard, but yes, they have fun. There's a lot of fun happening.
So we did a big content shoot on, when was it, Monday? Oh my gosh, that was the funniest thing ever.
Like, really, they're for hats.
They're, uh, except I tell you who everyone was taking the piss out of, and that was me.
I was gonna say you guys.
Yeah, no, me.
Just you.
Me. Why?
Because I'm annoying. I was gonna say because there's a midget there. She just— did you just throw in a midget joke? Yeah, she's also a midget.
It wasn't me.
So we're doing this, we're doing this funny thing, weren't we, with the— what's it called?
I feel like we need some background context of this midget joke.
Yeah, I know, I know, it's not going to land well.
No, I have to say, we might need to—
yeah, cutting room floor on that one. Yeah, I'm not going to bring out my, my—
I know, because that might not be the wrong— it might be the wrong way. Also, I don't think—
it came to me on an invoice, I'm telling you.
I didn't know you guys talked about this. I got an invoice, but I didn't get an invoice, but I got an email of someone who booked it.
4 times midgets on my invoice because we were discussing it last episode about the entertainment we can get, and I booked 4 midgets once to be door people, and I was like, what's it going to say on the invoice? Like, what do we put on the run sheet? And when it came in, it said 4 times midget, so that's what I wrote on the run Sarah said we didn't have them in the inventory at the moment.
No, I got an email with someone booking a bar and cocktail furniture and then she wrote, we just want to have dwarfs serving drinks. Do you know anyone? It's me.
And me. And my mate, yeah.
Yeah, okay, it's a real thing. I didn't know that.
It is a real thing. We have them in store, people. I think Jess had them at an event as well. I can't remember what for, but yeah, there's rules like, you know, they can only stand for a certain amount of time, but they're all lovely. Yeah, but yeah, it's a thing and it comes on the invoice.
I didn't know, I read it and went, part-time job for you and I.
Absolutely. If furniture ever doesn't work out, you know, we know where to go. Yeah. What do you think like your biggest, excuse me, setbacks are like running a business? Like for you being in Western Sydney, like we've spoken to photographers and all sorts of people. What do you find the hardest thing about running the business here? Is it like the traffic? Is it the late is okay? The close enough is good enough? Like what's been really difficult for you both?
It's changed over the years, hasn't it? I think, and this is, we often talk about you, I have to say, because we're really so inspired by your processes. And because we grew so fast and we just didn't have time to have all of that, you know, really in place. And so after COVID, um, and due to me being super annoying, we did put all of these new processes in place which have made life much much easier. I think that was something that caused us a lot of pain.
Yeah, but I think we realized how much pain it was not having it.
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Before. And yeah, it was probably 2 years to get it to a point where all of our inventory is on an automated software program.
What are you using, Bookable or something?
No, we're TypePOS. So we went through, uh, like 4 different—
we signed up to so many trials and we couldn't get out of them.
And for us, because we're like, it had to be so customised for us.
There was nothing that had IDR and they couldn't customise it to be IDR until we got to HirePos.
Well, the, yeah, it was, the IDR was like the easy bit really, but it was all the, you know, that we have like our rentals like from the same day, remember everything?
That's right.
It was all very, everything was really not set up for weddings at all. And that took us a long time, but it means now that everything is on there. It all has a photo, like every, Yeah. You know, combination of every table with every cocktail table with every stool, you know, is all on there. Yeah. And we do all of the chairs.
Yeah. Photos of the chairs, packing slips with photos also. So when we have casuals.
Oh yeah, that's another thing. Because we're just like, you know, what are we, how much are we spending?
You just kind of roll with it. And then as you get busy, you're like, oh no, I need to do something about that.
That's not a good system.
Yeah, you do. You roll with a really manual system and whiteboards and yeah. And that's where mistakes happen.
Yes. And we did want to identify how much we were spending on delivery, which, you know, and that's That's something that is just, we've been doing this season. So now we have packing slips and we have, you know, it's this many trucks, our trucks, hire trucks. And then there's like obviously a calculation for petrol depending on where it is, the number of staff, the food, all of that kind of stuff.
Full-time, casual, daily.
At the end of this season, we'll be able to then start looking at that and then identify exactly what you've just said to us.
And we'll never have a double booking either because in real time. We can now see that it's not available.
Yeah, we used to have to count things manually and we'd have like 6 or 7 weddings a day. Like Annie nearly lost her mind. Yeah.
And then one thing breaks, no one reports it. That's not up to date. But now it's everything's completely reported, but every payment, everything's going into the software system. Yeah, it's made everyone's life— yes, it was 2 years of torture.
Did you have to teach the team how to use all of that?
And again, we nearly tipped Annie over the edge. Everyone. Yeah. But now, 'cause we were just like, we promise you that this is gonna make your life so much easier. And we know it's really hard and we're finding it hard too. But if we could all just stick together, you know, and now it's amazing, isn't it?
Oh, it's amazing. It's changed everything.
Yeah, that's been a game changer.
I need to roll that out. So we've obviously got a lot of hireables in our office through, you know, light up letters, neon, champagne walls, like all the random things. And Ryan, bless little Ryan, I found a program from very similar, like an inventory thing. And I basically said to him, this is the program. You need to figure out how to use it.
Is that bookable?
Bookable. And he's been like, he told me that he's like, I know how to use it now. We can start putting everything in there. Amazing. He's been self-teaching himself on YouTube how to use it.
Yeah.
And I want to strangle that kid sometimes, but he is so incredibly smart when he is pushed. So we're going to be migrating over to that in the near future.
Yeah, fantastic.
Oh, it changes everything.
Well, also it's like there's double bookings. We've had that in the past because we've got random things in the office that's like, I'm taking that to my wedding. No, you need, did you book it through the boys? Well, no, I'm just going to take it. I'm like, you can't. If we have 2, 3 weddings in a day, you need to be booking these things because maybe I needed that. And there has been like, not arguments, but like, I'm taking that today, but I need it for my client. No, like, no. Oh yeah.
I mean, we were manual for so long and now we actually can't believe it.
I know. We look back and we're like, how do we even do that?
Just counting things.
Yeah, that's why I'm like doing it for so long.
On whiteboards with dates and yeah. It's changed everything. It's great. Yeah. So, so that's been the best thing.
Yeah.
And then I guess the other thing is that, you know, obviously we have competitors now. You know, we didn't— we were the first to market.
Yeah.
There was not—
oh, we were out there on our own company.
And then, you know, and now there's, you know, lots and lots and lots. And sometimes we do kind of go, oh gosh, another one, another one. And then we have to go, no, do you know what? We always stay in our own lane. Like, you know how people get greedy over here and they're just like, they want to do everything. Yeah, we're always like, we're going to do—
mine's out of necessity.
You don't like—
no, we don't have that yet. I'm going to make it.
Yeah, no, absolutely. But we're just, we're just like, we are going to stay in our lane. This is what we do. We're going to do it really well and have confidence.
And you do, you do do it.
We've got experience. Yeah, because people do say, what next? And what— why don't you have event planning as part of your— and it's like, we do furniture, we do it really well. We've been doing it for 12 years. We couldn't plan an event.
I mean, we probably could, but it'd look like a kid's party.
We just want to do what we, we're good at and we enjoy it, and it's enough. We don't need to do anything else. It's— this is what we do here.
Yeah, yeah.
It's good that you know that and you know your niche though, because we've seen— I mean, over the years, gosh, we've all seen people that started this and they're like, I'm gonna plan events, and then they fail miserably because they think it's easy and they can't. We just discussed this on one of the other episodes. And I've just seen another industry that came over to do something completely different, now doing event planning. And I'm like, how did you go from that to that? Like, completely different.
Oh, it happens all the time.
Yeah. Like, how do you— how did you deal with the competitors when they first started popping up? Like, you've had people copy you. And I know, I know of one venue that literally copied all your furniture.
Yeah, I know.
Like, how do you— I've never, ever—
I've actually never heard Sarah raise her voice.
Yeah, I'm pretty calm.
But yeah, but I was just like, oh no, they had a venue hire furniture and then they copied it.
They measured it all. Like, our boys were there watching because, as you know, they're always there. And they were like, boss, they're measuring.
And they actually said they copied it. Yeah.
So they asked for a loan to do a photo shoot to do all of their website and to advertise their weddings. So we said sure. So we sent everything out for free. And then, yeah, I started—
I didn't know it was free.
They had that. Yeah, because they were like, we'll book all our weddings through you because then our marketing material is going to be full of your furniture with the weddings. And yeah, and they, they were measuring it on the day and just copied the exact But I tell you what, now, so obviously they had, they had it there on site and that would have been storing in the shed for all these years. No one was looking after it. And 5 years down the road, now they book through us again because all the furniture's died because you need to maintain your furniture.
That's interesting that they're using you again because we don't do weddings there, but we've had to provide a couple of quotes over the years. They are charging in US dollars a lot more than what you're— and I thought that was because it was their in-house furniture. But when I was seeing prices of like, oh, they're marking our furniture up, or their own furniture up— well, I thought it was their own furniture, but if it's yours now, yeah, it's been marked up.
So then you still have some, but they'd have their base range, and I think they lost a lot through not servicing it.
Like, let's say a bench chair. I think— what's the bench chair worth, $150K?
No, $300K.
Okay, so maybe it's a little bit less, but I'm pretty sure it's $25 USD plus plus.
How can they charge in USD?
Yeah, because they're a venue, so hotels—
oh, right, hotels can charge in USD.
But yeah, I saw the price and I was like, why would I pay that when I'll just go get it from you girls? Like ridiculous.
No, that was awful.
But we've just had to let it go with competitors as well. And this is the thing, we're just like this, there's enough for everyone, you know?
And yeah, there really is.
We're not, we don't want, we don't have what, we don't need to have all of the business on the island and everyone needs the best. Yeah.
And it's almost like when somebody starts another furniture company and the furniture is completely different, not our style. We're like, good, great. It's not us. We have loads and loads of Australian brides and we're like, that's not our market. So fine. It's when someone does exactly the same, that's like, which so many people have. So many people have. But when they do something different, we're like, great, there's something for you here too, for sure.
Yeah.
You have to roll with it.
Now I feel like this is a topic of maintaining furniture. We've had a very long wet season, I feel.
Oh gosh.
Did you hear the rain this morning? I literally woke up and I was like, I was like, thank F we don't have a wedding today. Yeah, it was barking. Like, it was quite relaxing.
Like, I woke up and I was like, oh, this is nice.
It was nice all afternoon though.
All I thought was, it's not wet season anymore. Like, it's not—
it's more challenging.
Like, it has gotten better the last couple of weeks, but like, we're in August. How do you maintain your furniture when it rains?
Like, does it all just get completely soggy?
And no, it doesn't, because we have covers for most of our— like, you know, all the stuff that needs individual covers. That's another thing we did early on, didn't we?
Yeah, so like we had a wedding that got rained on.
Yeah, well, and this is why we have, we have to have really high numbers for all of our chairs because, you know, if they do, if we do have to have 40 drying out, we've still got enough.
You know what, no one runs faster than the Green Army when it starts to rain and the ceremony cushions are already out. Oh, absolutely.
We should get a slow-mo of that.
I'm sure you have.
So also in our inventory system, we always have like 10 or 20 more of everything than we'll ever book because—
Just in case.
Because things happen. Yeah, the rain has been super frustrating.
Yeah, they've got a whole system. Like, they're amazing. We don't know what they do.
Yeah, they often need to change it. They run, they run real fast. And normally it's me and my team running behind them like, we'll help you get the pillows.
Yeah, November until March, not much is happening. One or two a month. It's fine. But yeah, it's been raining this whole year.
It's so crazy. How do you, like, do you do anything special during the off-season? 'Cause I wanna have a little chit-chat. I wanna do deals with a few select suppliers that we do discounts through wet season so that people that are on maybe a bit of a bigger budget have an opportunity to have a very affordable wedding from November to March so that we all get the business. A smaller budget.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I will always say yes in wedding season.
In off-season, we're thinking November, maybe not December so much because of Christmas and that's quite a busy season for other events. But like November, January, February, March, having, special deals where we get a discounted code and we can team up with a few.
It's a great idea. Yeah. And then I guess if you need more wedding, then you just need a marquee and you know what you're getting. But yeah, we're always open to it. Yeah.
Yeah. Because do you do anything? Do you do corporates or any other events or is it mainly weddings?
We've just started doing.
Yeah, we've done a few corporates. And in fact, there is a November 4-day corporate, which is great because nothing ever happens normally. So, and we'll do a great discount for that because most of it will be inside.
Is that with Greg?
No, we have done a couple of corporates.
I was going to say Greg does so many corporates.
Yeah. Yeah.
He does. And he's so flexible. Flexible as well. And a lot of these clients are from the US, and so they're happy to not have like a corporate big feel. So we can go, why don't you do all our tables, but then why don't we do these chairs and these chairs? And, you know, and they're just like, oh well, it's Bali, so that sounds great. So we're allowed to kind of be, you know, sending our creative.
Yeah, we've really just done a few great ones with Greg this year actually. Um, but no, that's an inside one. Yeah, in November. And so I was like, great, you can have very special November price because it's not even a wedding. They'll just sit there for the conference. So yeah, we're always open to—
Yeah. And a lot of families are here with their extended families and, you know, like in December and January and like they probably want to have like, you know, like little like events if they were, if, you know, if there was something that was—
Yeah. Which is why we don't have a minimum spend during the off-season because we do get things like dinner parties at villas where there's 18 people. It's like, fine, sure.
Well, if you're not having a minimum spend, please put your pricing up so at least it covers the cost of your staff and the truck space.
People have got annoyed with that minimum spend, haven't they?
A handful got annoyed with the minimum spend.
You just need a generic, like we've discussed this so many times, like when people go into pricing things, like you've got no idea, like even our wedding planning fee, I worked out the other day, before I even deploy a team out or before we do any planning, it costs me $1,300 per wedding just in things that we're doing, like having a salesperson, having a wedding butler, having to pay 3 to 5 people to go out on the wedding day. We send security to all of our weddings after me and Britta work. Yeah, like, so we send security, all of our vendor meals, because not only do we feed our team, but we feed every supplier on site because it's just a personal preference. I want to make sure everyone's got food. So there's so many expenses, like our cars, we have to, like, we fill an esky up for the cold drinks for the team for the day.
That's a lot.
And it's huge. Yeah, like, the expenses are huge. So I'm like, don't whinge to me about my wedding planning fee. Like, you're getting what you pay for. And like, our systems are event to none. Like nobody does things the way you do.
No, we know that because we talk about it all the time.
It's like, you're just Tristan. But you just need to say like, hey, I know that a minimum spend doesn't seem that great and just have like a generic answer.
We do.
It's just, yeah, we just want to make everyone happy.
Yeah. So you're the people pleaser.
No, I'm not.
No, I'm not.
No, but you could be the event planners because look at you. You're like, you just want to make them happy. That's my goal. I just want my client to have a good time.
No, she doesn't I don't, but it's—
I'm really bossy. That's why you're on the email. I don't know.
I don't, I don't know. I don't do people.
She can't deal with the people.
What do you do?
What's your life situation?
I do everything else, Tristan.
Okay.
And there's a lot of everything else. Don't worry about that.
Yeah, I can imagine.
I'm annoying. So I'm just like, let's do, let's do. Why don't we do?
Yeah, she's the ideas girl. She's the creative. She's ideas.
She's always pushing everyone forward.
Yeah, the brains.
Yeah.
Oh, thanks.
And I've just got my headset on dealing with customer service.
Yeah.
And I'm just like, yeah.
Yeah, the message is she never loses her cool, like ever. No, like this stuff she has to deal with sometimes.
Oh yeah, I'm sorry, I need to go and call insurance.
She never ever does. She just fixes it and done.
You need that. You need that like calm in the storm because my kids would disagree with all of this. Weddings are so chaotic.
They don't need to listen to this podcast though.
Exactly. I don't need to know.
No, that's actually— she absolutely loses her cool most of the time.
Yeah. Yeah. And so at the moment you obviously are not living in Bali anymore, back in Australia. Are you doing anything else? Bali Event Hire is a full-time thing that you do from home.
Oh no, it's full-time.
Yeah, pretty much.
So once we, I think, yeah, first 4 years we lived here with our families. And then once our kids got a bit bigger in school, got a bit serious and they had, we had spots at school on hold and they all play sport and dance and do things and they kind of wanted to go home. We were like, everything is running completely smoothly.
We got it to a place where it was really happy.
That's 'cause you got a dream team.
Yeah. Everyone's WhatsApping anyway, all day, every day, except to me.
How do you track WhatsApp messages? I don't know.
WhatsApp's me.
I'm getting there. We almost have a system for that.
Oh, do you?
Everyone WhatsApps. I'll tell you everyone WhatsApps.
Yeah.
I don't like WhatsApps. I hate it. I like emails.
Me too.
Me too. But it's the future. Everyone's texting, everyone's WhatsApping, but there's no way for us to track it. So I'm trying to find a system right now to track it.
If I find a wallet in it. Another one.
The problem is that's because WhatsApp's now Meta, it needs to be verified by Meta. So we've tried a couple systems and we've actually been banned from Meta and we've had to redo our Facebook, not for Bali Brides but for Concierge. So, oh, I'm trialing it there first, so it's not a massive deal if it, yeah, doesn't work out.
Yeah, no, so we went home and said, okay, let's see if everything will run as it has been while we were there, and it has. So the plan was always to just work on it full-time from home. Yeah, and, uh, during the season we come regularly.
Yeah, we see a few times a year, which is lovely.
Yeah, we usually do 4 or 5, and then we work in the most upstairs lounge room.
And I love— we've caught up more recently, and I love that you come and visit all the planners. Like, I always— until our anniversary party that we threw in November, I had never met the owners of any other furniture company here.
Oh really?
And I've been in business 11 years, and then I was like, oh, that's who you are! Nice to see your face.
That's crazy.
Even a lot of the owners of all of the companies here, actually, I haven't met because I deal with them sometimes on email, but I've never met them in person from day one. And you get what you pay for. I get beautiful service.
But also, I think you only find things out when you meet with people in person, particularly with— I mean, we have a lot of clients who are Indonesian decorators and they wouldn't say anything. Like, they wouldn't ask us anything or say anything about anything. And suddenly you sit down and have a coffee and you're like, Well, now they're more comfortable to have that conversation.
And then they're like, you know, well, maybe you could do this or whatever, you know, like it's, it's really advice to get in front of people. Yeah, it's a people industry. Yeah. And we were, remember we had our, our industry party. Yeah, right. It was hilarious. 'Cause we were just like, why don't any of the planners in it? Why don't people talk to each other here?
We do, but I'm very, I said to Britta, like, it's a very rare thing to have the relationship that I have with all the other wedding planners. Like, yes, I've got a good relationship with all the other wedding planners, but the other wedding planners don't have a good relationship with each other, which is really bizarre to me. I'm like, why not? Like, why don't we all just be friends?
Because we had a party, didn't we?
And no one could believe it.
And, and everyone came. Where were you? Were you there?
When was that?
No, I don't think 10 years ago.
No, I would have just been starting then.
And like, so many people came and everyone was like, oh my God, I was so happy to meet so-and-so, and now we can work together. And yeah, You know, because we can all help each other.
Like we're saying, oh, is that Mardi? I've been WhatsApping for 5 years.
I've never met.
I've never met.
Like, yeah. Well, even during COVID I met Annie from Evermotion and I've always dealt with her on email, but she started coming out to the weddings during COVID I was like, oh my God, face the name.
Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, do you remember that was like raining so badly and we were having the party outside our showroom and like down the driveway and we had all our new furniture and all this kind of stuff. And then we were just like, okay, we need a rain stopper. So we got our rain stopper and then we're just like, we need a more expensive rain stopper.
Because the rain's stopping.
We were like, the rain's not stopping.
So then we had the—
It was Narelle. Narelle's like, this is the most expensive one.
Yeah, Narelle's like, get ours. And we're like, okay, we already have one, but we'll get yours as well. And those two rain stoppers, we literally had like a river, a river running down the driveway. You couldn't have had more rain if you tried. But we all had a lovely time.
Yeah, it was fun. Everything got wet.
Yeah, you needed our rain stopper, obviously.
Okay, magic. We'll get 3 next time.
Bella, the rain stoppers. Oh, it was— it a day that the island was covered in clouds?
Oh, we don't remember.
If the island's covered in clouds, you can't do jack. You can probably delay it for like— you can put it off for 10, 20 minutes at a time, but if the island's covered in clouds, they don't have anywhere to move them to.
Okay, well, this was non-stop.
Yeah, I came to your showroom opening though, your new one when you opened Umbraua. I came to that.
No, you did come to that one.
We've been at a party.
That wasn't as big though. There weren't—
I know it wasn't everybody there. Yeah. And I think that was a really surprising thing when we started and we'd go around and visit people and show them our catalog. No one had a catalog or a little printed out lookbook. But people would say, lookbook?
Yeah.
Who do you work with? Who are you happy to work with?
We're like, what do you mean?
What do you mean?
Because we—
what did you mean? And there are lots of people who say, I don't work with that person. I don't work with that florist.
And we're like, we like, we'll work with anyone.
Anyone. Yes, we're the same.
Strangest thing ever.
Unless you get blacklisted, which is very hard to do.
Unless you're not kind. That's— yeah, that's—
unless you're not kind and you're not accountable is my new thing as well. If you mess up, like, say sorry and fix it. Don't just like—
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, no, everybody— we just said yes to everybody, and why wouldn't you work with everybody? Yeah, a few people didn't pay us in the first few years that we had to let go, you know, like a lot of those wedding planners who went bankrupt.
And so many— yeah, we've been talking about this. There's so many new ones popping up that I'm like, I know that person. Oh, I don't know how they're going to survive.
They break away.
And then, well, also like we're planning weddings a year ahead, so you get a little bit of money now, but the rest of our money doesn't come in. Like, you need to be able to survive for at least 18 months of running your company without making an income to survive.
We do. Yeah, that's, that actually is the most challenging thing now.
But there was a lady on a current affair, one of the wedding planners, and she was on a current affair.
Yes, I remember. Bali wedding international, wasn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that was when I was starting.
But again, we were starting then, and so we were really trusting, and she'd just pay a tiny deposit and say, I'll fix you up next week and tomorrow. And then we actually went to her wedding to try and collect the money. She was setting up the wedding.
Do you remember that? Why did we do that?
Because she was on a current affair.
Oh no.
Yeah, and we went there and we were standing there and she's—
and she was up the ladder, wasn't she?
She went drunk. I don't know.
Oh my gosh, that's why we were like, oh my gosh. Oh, that's right. They were painting the dance floor.
They were painting the dance floor.
And the ceremony was like an hour away. And we're like, there are ladders everywhere. The paint is wet and she's drunk.
Did you listen to our last podcast episode about the dance floor? I just looked at Britta. Oh my God. Yeah. And then I remember, so post-COVID, I think I actually approached you ladies for a discount. I think you gave it to us. We had a client who was planning with another wedding planner, went belly up during COVID or just disappeared. She had got got mostly refunded from suppliers, not refunds in full but partial refunds. Told the client she didn't get refunded, got blocked, her ghosted her. So then I was picking up the pieces, the wedding, contacting people. I was like, babe, just like, they refunded your old wedding planner, I've got proof of receipt. And so I was literally, I was like, and she was hysterical, I was like, I'm so sorry, like, this is not the industry. So I planned her wedding for free, literally said to her, I will only charge you what it cost me to send my team out on the day, that's it. And then I approached, like, I pulled every string I had, obviously my Bali celebrant. I was like, we're gonna do this girl a freebie. And they were like, okay, Tristan. And then I approached all the suppliers, I was like, can you give me a discount something? Because yeah, this planner just like disappeared with all her money. She'd paid in full.
It's awful.
And it just— it was horrible.
An awful name, and it just feels yucky.
And yeah, just be decent and kind. Yeah.
Yeah.
And accountable.
Yeah. And I guess that's like probably my main thing as well, like how did you survive COVID? A lot of companies didn't make it. You've still got your same team, obviously minus the beautiful Mega, but like how How did you get through that? What were your staff doing?
Well, we were out of pocket is the answer to that question. Yeah, of course. So, because obviously we have, you know, the showroom and the warehouse, the two warehouse, like that's, that is expensive.
Yeah, sadly the rent got reduced, but certainly didn't stop, it was reduced too.
No, and then we've got all of our staff. And so we obviously went straight to, we paid them for a bit, we paid them full time, their full wage. And then we went to 75%. And then we went to 50, and I think we stayed on 25.
We stayed on 25 for the 3 years.
Yeah. Wow.
Um, yeah, and honored credits all the way through. In fact, until almost only 6 months ago.
I was going to say, have you broken even yet? Because we only broke even post-COVID, like, 6 months ago.
We had— well, we had to personally put in money.
Well, that's what I mean. Have you gotten that money back? I still haven't got all my money up during COVID No, we haven't.
No, probably close. Towards the end of last year, we were like, that was a great year and it's all now been worth it putting that extra money in for sure. So maybe at the end of this year, hopefully. Yeah, but it was worth it because it just went on and on. How long do we just keep paying for this?
And also, were you like, if I get rid of these staff members, their family, what are we going to do?
We couldn't, we couldn't, no, that wasn't even an option.
That was me as well.
I just couldn't fathom it.
It wasn't about the business coming back. It wasn't about that. It was like, that might never come back. We don't know what's going to happen, but We have to keep paying.
They're like family.
Like, they really—
yeah, they really are. And I think also that, you know, they were so grateful for that. That has built like goodwill that—
yeah, that you'll last a lifetime.
Oh, we could take that first trip back after COVID. Yeah, we could tell how much it meant.
It was loyalty coming back.
We will.
But you know what, like, this is probably a really sad thing to talk about, but you must have kept that family going because the day of Megha's funeral I live not far from the showroom, just around the corner from here. And I think I messaged you because I came around the corner and the Bali event hire truck was going out and it was full of the Green Army. And I was like, oh my gosh, I wonder where they're going. And I think that's when I found out that it was Megha's funeral. And I was like, the fact— I know the fact that they were all together like that, like, shows what a family you have built inside there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really sad.
Yeah.
And he didn't speak for like 3 months.
Oh God, I mean, she did, she did her work, but she wouldn't actually—
he was like the heart and soul of the team when he came out.
Yeah, and Annie and Mega were like brother and sister, so they were running it. She was the girl boss and he was the boy boss, and they were running it, and they used to argue non-stop.
It was hilarious. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that was— yeah. Oh, that was awful and the worst.
And, and you were stuck in Australia.
Yeah, yeah. And you know, things just happen quickly here, you know. Yeah, like one in hospital and then you're gone.
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, awful. Um, but his wife works for us full-time in the laundry, which is really nice. Yeah, he's got—
nice that you're still keeping the family together and supporting them.
Oh yeah, yeah, she's wonderful, like so wonderful.
Yeah, she is.
Yeah, that was awful, COVID. It was just— yeah, we didn't know if it was going to come back, and it wasn't about the weddings and the business, it was about we employ all these people, we can't just walk away.
So yeah, but Bali will always be like, like, it bounces back. It does. But also sometimes we think, oh gosh, you know, it's resilient with the, you know, it's raining a lot, people are going to not, not want to get married in Bali. But it's so unique and so incredible, you know, like, as to, like, in terms of destination wedding, you know, location.
So many options for everyone. Like, you've got jungles, you've got waterfalls, you've got beaches, you've got clifftops. You've got, yeah, like beautiful gardens. Like, this— there's honestly something for everyone here.
There is.
I mean, did you see McDonald's does wedding catering now? Are you joking? No, I'm not joking.
I didn't even know there was a job.
I, I've been double daring Steph to send it to ones that send us really unrealistic budgets, like, I want to get married on a clifftop and I've got 150 people and it's a $10,000 budget. And she's like, Tristan, are they joking? And I'm like, I dare you to send them the Macca's link. It's like $3.5 million for 100 cheeseburgers and I think 100 packets of nuggets or something.
It's not bad, but I don't know how they keep them hot.
That's a really good point, actually.
It's McDonald's, it's full of preservatives, it doesn't need to be kept hot.
Are they sitting at a table?
I don't think so.
You know, like, so everything, everything's doable.
No, it is. It's one of the only places in the world where almost anything's actually possible. Yeah, like, really, it is.
You know, I've, I've been having an argument with my son's birthday party venue for tomorrow. Because, and I'm literally like putting in ChatGPT, like, help me win this argument. She's like, it's not possible. I'm like, it is possible, babe. Like, so to begin with, I obviously work in events. The venue, like, we include decorations and this and that. I was like, I don't want to use your decorations. I want to bring my own. I've got an events company. You have to use ours.
No, you don't.
Okay, can I send you all the designs then? And then you can print them. Yes, that's fine. It's like, okay, great. I'm bringing a piñata. That's going to be a corkage fee. I was like, can you do custom-made piñatas?
No.
Okay, well, I'm bringing in a piñata, corkage fee. I was like, no, I'm not paying a corkage fee. And like, so it's been a lot of pushback. And then we've got more adults than kids coming tomorrow.
Yeah.
So there's 25 adults and we go into the white party afterwards. So I'm like, I'll bring a couple of bottles of gin for the team because the team's coming as well with their kids, a couple of bottles of wine. And then the venue messaged me today, oh, you can't bring gin, you're allowed to bring wine. And I was like, why not? Oh, because we only have wine in here. I said, okay, great, but I've just found out I'm allergic to yeast, so I can't drink wine. Like, I'd like to have gin. We can provide you rum. And I was like, well, you can provide me gin then. No, we can't do that. And I'm like, yes you can.
This is hilarious.
It's like the biggest like argument. And they're like, it's not possible. Of course it's freaking possible. And I was like, I don't know if it's a licensing issue, but if it's licensing, you wouldn't be allowed to serve rum, so you can do gin.
They're both alcohol.
Well, one of our taglines is, in Bali, if the answer is no, then you're asking the wrong question, or you're asking the wrong person, or you've asked it the wrong way, or you've asked 'Cause you've just slashed it the wrong way. And that's the beauty of Bali. Like really anything is possible. And you can see that also now with the, how weddings look now. Like they're insane. Like anything's possible.
What do you think the trends are going to be over the next couple of years? Like, is there anything new that you've got in the works or you think just the classics are not going to go out of time?
No, look, we always, we always do new little interesting things, but we're always staying in the, it's always going to be blonde or white or classic.
Yeah.
It's always, yeah. It's always going to be in that.
I love the blonde pieces. I like those new dining tables.
Yeah, they're gorgeous.
But can I tell you how long it took to get to that blonde? Because we all have blonde hair, you know, when you go to the hairdresser and then you have your hair done, you're like, that's not blonde, that's ash, or that's yellow.
Have you seen people trying to perfect whitewash? Like, they're all different colors.
Yeah, well, that's what our team do. We have to do it in-house now because they know how fussy we are.
But it took us a long time to get that perfect, to get the right blonde. Yeah, it really did.
I love those chairs, and I think the ones I just got in the wrong color, the white ones with the— oh my gosh, I love, love, love.
So when you said your bride was happy with the other ones, I was thinking to myself, I'm not surprised because they're both equally as beautiful.
They are. But when you saw the decoration, I don't know if I sent you the after photo, but no, when we got the new chairs in, it was like, mwah. Okay, like it was, it was then, but it looks nice.
The right one was white, right? Or white wrong?
I can't—
white was right. Yeah, so the natural ones arrived.
So that big blondies, that big, um, wedding we did for, what was her name? Brittany.
Brittany Hockley.
Brittany Hockley and—
Oh yes.
Yeah. So she had those.
Yeah.
That looked epic.
They're beautiful. Yeah.
They're really popular this year.
I'm just trying to see like if I can find a photo of what the before and after looked like.
Oh yeah, I didn't see that wedding. So you fixed the flowers as well, so.
Yeah, so it was bad 'cause I'd been in the hospital that morning 'cause I obviously had the whole thing and I like fought the hospital to get out. They're like, we're checking you. I was like, I'm going to this wedding. And then I got there late. So I had two of my boys there and the boys are fantastic. Everything's in place, everything's arrived, but they obviously haven't checked the colors or the quantity. So yeah, I've watched it. I'm like, oh my God, the flower's the wrong color. So I'm internally having this freak out and Britt is standing next to me. And then she goes, Tristan, the chair's the wrong color. And I'm like, oh no. And by now, because I've showed up late, it's like 2 o'clock or something. I was like, oh my God, I can't deal with this right now. But it's fine. Got fixed.
Yeah, you fixed it.
Everything's possible.
It is.
Anything. Most things are fixable.
Yeah.
So what are your favourite pieces in the collection?
You've got your favourites.
Yeah, the original Bentwoods.
She's all classic, so she— well, you can talk for yourself, actually.
You're a grown-up.
She said the Bentwoods. Off you go.
No, I did say Bentwoods, but the Como.
Yeah.
This— we knew they were going to be great and they have been great.
And I love those.
I mean, just white and blonde and that whole Nordic look.
I love that also.
Yeah.
And so we've got that obviously in the stools and stuff. So we're looking at doing like a little extension of that range. Because we like to offer, you know, when we have matching pieces at Cape Town, you know, we have, you know, the stools and the chairs and the cocktails there.
I love it when everything matches.
Yeah, she does too.
I don't, I don't like, I don't like anything matching at all.
No, my OCD wouldn't allow it not to match.
It has to be perfect. But I like putting things that aren't meant to go together together.
Yeah.
So when I'm more stylisty, well, I don't know, I just, I like, as Sarah would like, would say, my wardrobe, it's like a piñata has exploded. It's just crap everywhere.
She never thinks about it.
Well, actually, to be fair, I just had a wedding on the 7th of August, and you gave me some— an idea of putting one of your cocktail tables and then having 3 separate chairs, and you sent me a photo of it, and I was like, yeah, I love it. Yes, let's have that instead of a piece that I don't think I could.
Yeah, yeah.
And that whole day, that whole wedding was so beautiful. Like I had a lot of your cocktail furniture pieces and—
Well, this is why you stick with classic.
Yeah.
And there's colours. Almost everything will mix and match.
Yeah. I love all the whitewash stuff, but I put it with like the black modern stuff.
Yeah.
So you've got like all the texture and the hand carving and all that kind of, you know, it's beautiful and Balinese, but then you're putting like a modern—
Yeah.
You know, that's the kind of thing that I would—
Yeah.
And is there any tips that you would give to couples who are picking out their furniture?
Yeah, just be you.
Yeah.
Do you know what? Everyone knows who they are. They know what they like. They know what their fiancé likes. If you look around your house, look at how you dress, you know what your style is.
Yeah.
It's so easy to get really overwhelmed, you know, because there's so much to look at and so much inspiration and try not to go down a rabbit warren. Just stick with—
be classic, not cool, because classic, not cool, Sarah. That's my next tagline.
It's our tagline.
Yeah.
Because you can be cool with your flat napkins or something that's not as obvious down the road with your photos. Be classic.
Yeah.
This is your, I say it's like it forms part of the tapestry of your life, right? And it goes on through generations. You don't want to, you know, unless you want a crazy wedding, but generally you want a classic wedding.
Yeah.
You know, that's gonna just—
That's gonna age well. Yeah.
So that's what we would say.
Yeah, that would be our advice, I think too. Yeah, it would.
And then a question that we get asked all the time, and I don't know if this is a thing on your website, but maybe could make it. Do you have any sort of guidelines on your website of if you have a wedding of 50 people, this is how many pieces of cocktail furniture we recommend?
That is so funny you just said that, because we were talking about that the other day, the ratio.
Yes.
And again, look, there is your classic ratio, but it really doesn't apply because with everybody they'll be like, no, but I don't want anyone sitting down and I don't want people to say that.
He just fixes me.
Yeah. So just, you need a hug. So we got free tickets from him for the white party tomorrow. And then I just said to Britta, I've done a thing. I've booked a day bed. And she's like, why? How much does that cost?
And I was like, cause you need to lie down.
Well, not cause we need to lie down, but that event goes from like 7 till 4 AM. We won't last till 4 AM. We're old.
We're older.
We might last till 2. Maybe. We might last till 2. But there's literally nowhere to sit otherwise. There's nowhere to sit. There's nowhere to put my drink down. We're just going to be down. You need somewhere to sit.
You do.
And I think a lot of people don't think about that for a wedding. Like, you want to sit down. No.
So, I mean—
Hotel furniture is actually probably our biggest category, I have to say.
Yeah, it is. And it can be overlooked.
That's the thing we quote most expensive actually normally. And what would be your top tips for couples planning a wedding in Bali when it comes to picking out a venue, furniture, and all the styling aspects? Like, do you have any top tips that you're like, this is my go-to thing to tell people?
Yeah, get a planner.
Okay, good.
But find one that fits you, you know? Yes, not everyone's right for everyone, and that's absolutely fine. And that's where it comes down to it. We always say, just, it's okay to be you. Do you know what I mean? And if you don't connect with someone, that's fine. Find someone else.
Yeah, someone for everyone.
Yeah, someone for everyone.
That's literally what we're saying on one of our—
it's our next episode, upcoming podcast. Yeah, there's someone for everyone.
You're allowed to fire your planner if you're not getting along.
Get rid of them. Yeah, don't mask it. Get someone you love.
Yeah, I think people—
because you have a relationship for a while.
Yeah, you need to trust that person.
Like I've got a client coming in now, she's flying in and her wedding's next week and I've been planning her wedding for 2 years. I'm like, oh my God, you're on your way. And I've never met her in real life.
We're so excited. So excited.
That's good. Yeah, you need to get along. It's a long process.
It is.
Yeah, no, don't do it alone. I mean, loads of people try and then as I said, in the end they'll always find a planner. You need, you can't do it by yourself. Even if you've got 20 people, you can't have your hair and makeup done and then be letting vendors through the gate or—
But half these vendors don't speak English also. Like your boys are learning, but our lighting company speaks zero English. How are you going to navigate? Like, I want the lighting there.
Yeah.
And you get what you pay for.
Yes. 1000%.
And you know, we're not, no one here is trying to rip anybody off. No, they're not.
And you, I am.
She might be, I'm not.
I'm joking. You do get what you pay for. Yeah.
Absolutely. What else have you got?
Don't skip on cocktail furniture. We just covered that, but really don't. And there are ways to budget to move.
Oh, to save money there, definitely.
Yeah, to save money. And the benches are a great way of saving money because they'll fit 4 people. You can move them from ceremony to dinner to cocktail hour.
Oh, and to, yeah, to left bank sets.
To left bank sets.
Again, I reckon that was our first cocktail set.
Yeah.
A humble left bank.
I love that when you're doing a cocktail style wedding using the left bank chairs, the benches for chairs, 'cause then you just, doop, you can just move them around.
Yeah, you can just move them from there to there to there. Absolutely. Yeah.
So there are ways to have it beautiful and on a budget.
Perfect. And also be honest with yourself, like within your family and your budget, like what's really important.
Yeah.
'Cause you wanna have money for your honeymoon and for the rest of your life and you know. And so if flowers are massively important, then go for it. Yeah, do that. Food and beverage, if that's your thing. For sure.
I mean, have you seen how stunning these are? But these wouldn't be cheap at your wedding.
Gorgeous.
Stand up.
Stunning. Yeah, he's very clever. Yeah. And the other thing we might say— He did my party.
That was mental, wasn't it?
Yeah, that was cheap.
Yeah. I didn't even get a discount.
Wasn't invited.
Need another party. You need to invite us next time.
Oh, I'm next actually.
I actually had a wedding that day.
I'm next.
No, my husband's like, yeah.
Yeah. Anyway.
No, I was going to say one more thing about the furniture and that is is, and lots of people don't know, but we offer a 50% discount for second day rental.
I know that.
Oh yes.
You know that.
Yes, because we love recoveries.
We love that. We think they're the best.
Because that's the other thing.
Even welcome dinners. Get all the furniture for the welcome dinner and use that.
Yeah, because you're not stressed. You can talk about everything. You can, you know, you can use your flowers.
That's a great tip, yeah.
And again, people are inviting people back to the venue with nowhere to sit. And no umbrella and no shade and nowhere to put your drink. So keep the cocktail furniture, pay half rate, get rid of everything else.
And then wheel in some personality pieces.
Yeah.
Like, you know, umbrellas, coconut cart, you know.
Some pillows, something.
It's so easy just to do the, you know, your hand stamped cocktails, coconuts and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, do something fun the next day. Keep it, it's cheaper. And you can't have all those people come back and then have nothing. Correct, yeah.
And always book with us.
Always book with you guys.
Don't use the others.
Come to us. Don't ask us for midgets and things.
Cut that out.
Cut that out.
Because I don't think they're called midgets.
We've said midget so many times tonight.
It has literally been almost the word of the night.
I need to know.
It was also in our last episode, which is going to be out.
We need to check if this is politically incorrect or not before this goes anywhere, because you know, there's a name for everything now.
Oh, there is.
You need to check that.
I'm going to Google it.
Because if it's wrong, it's super offensive. Yeah, ChatGPT, that shit Tristan.
Can we legally?
I still think it's fine because we basically are.
No, but yeah, we can say it about ourselves, not about others. I don't know.
Little people?
Yes.
Or dwarfs.
They're different.
You can also use the word midget depending on the person.
So is midget offensive though?
It's very, it's like a personal thing.
I feel like we just cut that out.
No, it's fine. We used it in our last episode as well. It came on the invoice. It was literally on my invoice. Otherwise I would have been like, I would have called called it whatever was on my invoice.
This is amazing.
They're gorgeous.
They're really beautiful. Yeah, he's very clever.
Change the subject.
Did you like that?
Very good.
Very well done.
We do need to wrap things up. Have you got any final questions?
No, I feel like we covered everything.
We really did.
We could talk for a good couple of hours.
I know.
Well, we— I think we stood talking for half an hour before this episode. Just like, we better get started.
We can do part 2.
Oh yeah, we'll get you on in a year.
Yeah, because things will change, the industry would have changed. We're going to keep on top of these trends.
Yeah. And also we need to get the WhatsApp situation that you're working on.
Yes.
So we can apply that.
Yeah, I'll let you know when I have a solution. It's been like a couple of years in the making. Yeah. Amazing.
Amazing.
Well, thank you for coming in today. Thanks for having us.
Thank you. Yeah. And also thank you for always supporting us. We are truly grateful. We couldn't be here.
Yeah, we're all about women's sporting without, you know, people like you.
No, really, honestly.
Yeah, no, you're so welcome. Like, honestly, as we said, like, such a dream to work with. Your team's incredible. Yeah. Um, so yeah, and it's always nice to— as I said, I've never met any other furniture owner company, so it's really nice that you make it happen.
You don't like them anyway.
Yeah, actually, I did run into one. I don't think it was the owner, but the manager of one of the other businesses. I ran into at the hospital one day and he was like, Tristan! And I was like, hi! But I had no idea who it was.
But obviously, yeah, don't bother.
Yeah, we don't— amazing.
Whoever that is, we don't worry about it. Anyway, lovely.
So next episode we are coming up— episode next week. Well, I was gonna say next week, but it's not next week, it's next fortnight. Next fortnight on Bali Weddings Unveiled, we are going to be touching on something that we kind of just spoke about— how to choose your wedding planner.
Yeah.
So if that's something you're umming and ahhing about, you're in the early stages, you've just gotten engaged and you're not sure how to choose a wedding planner, stay tuned because we will be covering that off on next episode.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Lovely. So thanks for joining us, ladies, and we'll see you in 2 weeks.
Thank you so much. Bye.
See ya.
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