S1 E23/1 - Meet the Team: Leah & Monthly Recap - Chaos, Cough Syrup & Client Rants

I said to Britta the other day, like, I'm surprised it took Leah this long to cry. Within 15 minutes, like, we've completely changed the decor because she's provided a picture and goes, oh, I like that. And the person's like, yeah, no problems. You're not a wedding planner, you're an order taker. Oh my God. And there are 5 people right now, 5 people on the Facebook forum saying I'm a wedding planner. No, babes, all you're doing is saying I want pink pillows. Yeah, no problems, you can have pink pillows and I'll put them next to the yellow, orange, green, and red.

Here's one couch for 100 people.

So I'm going through the things that went wrong and he was like, that's so bad, that's so bad.

And I was like, but this is why I I have a job.

If this stuff was perfect every time, you would not need a wedding planner. You have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. A company that's been in business 2 years.

Um, yeah, uh, well, you have no idea what—

I'm sorry, I've been working in the industry for 11 years. You've been in the industry for 2 years, and one little thing out of the 50 billion supplies I deal with, I don't know what goes on behind the scenes? Like, yes, I fucking do.

You're behind the scenes, sorry.

Hi and welcome to another episode of Bali Weddings Unveiled. My name's Britta.

I'm Tristan. We did not coordinate who was starting, so we We just looked at each other. Welcome to peak season, guys. Today we're joined by one of our remote planners, Leah. Hello. So we're tuning in today. We're going to be doing our monthly recap, bit of a meet the team, and just kind of touching on everything that's happened over the last— these are supposed to be monthly recaps, but I'll be honest, guys, we're running quite— not behind. We've filmed quite a few poddy episodes, but we've got 3 to release. We're supposed to release one last week. The last one was like, We're in the midst of peak season and we always knew this was gonna happen.

Yeah, I feel like we should have kind of pre-scheduled in like a peak season break. Like, well, we did, for us to get the editing out of the way kind of thing.

We did schedule in a break from the potty episode, but I think we didn't factor in the fact that we need to film the episodes and then edit them and then go through and make the highlights.

Like, there's a whole process once we film, and it's not other people doing it behind the scenes, like it's us.

So that takes us like, honestly, if the episode goes for an hour and a half, takes us takes about an hour and a half to obviously go through and pick out.

Because we have to watch the whole thing.

So first we have to pick out the highlights and then we go back again and then we're like, okay, we're gonna put photos here. So it's quite a process behind the scenes. So we're running late. It's the midst of peak season. We always knew this was gonna go. So there's a lot to go through today.

Was there one meant to be today?

One was meant to be released last week, but then— Oh, okay. What's inside of my mind then? The episode before that was a week late as well because we were in the village for Cadets. So yeah, behind the scenes, guys, we're trying to keep up. We're trying to get you regular content, but We're in the midst of peak season.

We're trying our best.

By the time this episode comes out, I think we'll be towards the end of the season and you're getting pretty good weather.

Yeah, probably like end of October, I would say. Maybe start of November.

How is it almost October?

It's wild.

It's like, I feel like I blinked and it was September. Yeah.

I was talking to Amber from Concierge this morning. She was like, I actually can't believe how— I ran into her at our little local coffee shop because I missed Pilates this morning because of the bloody traffic. Anyway. Caught up with Amber and she was like, how has this year flown?

Honestly.

I feel like I do say it every year that it flies by.

It's so quick.

But this year has been— I feel like we've had a lot happening. We've had a lot of staff leaving and we're gonna touch on new staff things.

Do you remember? So I, again, we joke about this all the time. Whenever something happens, I'm like, oh, it was like 6 weeks ago. I'm always like, oh, like a couple of months ago, but really it was like 7 months ago. It was ridiculous. But a couple of months ago.

You do that all the time, you're the worst for it.

So I can't remember what month it was, but I'm one of these people that my friends that are close to me know that when I hit peak season, like, don't talk to me. I'll chat to you at the end of the year. Like I just disappear for a long time. But I caught up with one of my friends, Claire, who owns Manic Hairdresser. We've been friends for God, basically since I was pregnant. So a good 10 years. And I was explaining to her then What a fuckery this year has been.

Yeah.

There has been so much, and not just for me or you, but every single person I know has had major things, hospitals, accidents. There's been so much. I don't know if Mercury's just permanently in retrograde, but she's in Mercury. Mercury in retrograde.

Mercury is in retrograde. I can't even say it. She can't even speak.

We'll come to that in a minute. But I came home after that dinner because she said to me, "You know what you need to do?" in the next couple of weeks we need to have a party and we're going to have New Year's Eve and we're going to count down a happy New Year's Eve and we're going to start the year again.

I meant to do that in like June, July. That's what I mean. And then it didn't.

I don't even think it was June, July. I think it was like April because it was after Christian's hospital visit. Remember? Like I'd come out and I was like, what the fuck is this year? Now it is now September. And for this episode and for the next episode, you'll probably realize my words are not there. I look very, Makeup. I've got massive bags under my eyes. So that happened after Tristan's hospital stay. Guess what, guys? I have been in the hospital since Saturday. It is— what day is it?

It's Wednesday.

It's Wednesday. My son is back in hospital. He has been since Saturday. So I'm so tired.

Like, and you're probably going to be there till Friday.

Yeah, I'm so tired. Steph, who's our sales and marketing manager, her daughter's been in hospital last few days. You were in hospital last week and the week before.

You're sick.

You've been sick for weeks. Amber was in hospital.

Like, Yeah, I don't know. It's been like one thing after another, after another, after another.

We thought it was COVID because you— we got sick.

Oh yeah, I've been sick. I've only jumped around.

We've been like, we went out to weddings. We've had to get Yanti, Queen Yanti.

She's had to take over twice for us in the last week.

Yeah, in one week because we get there and I'm standing for a bit of time and then I'm like, I need to sit down. I'm about to pass out.

I think I said to you, I can't even be there. Britta likes to start at like halfway through a story when no one else knows the content. Oh, that's like me. So we get that. I knew. She was, I knew as well, but you know, he was at home like, she got wet. Britt had a wedding last week, quite a big one. She got there at 2 o'clock. She messaged and said, I'm not doing so well because we've been so sick. And so Yanti to the rescue, went out to the venue. You ended up staying a long time because it was raining. Oh, 'cause it was raining. It was a disaster. Well, not a disaster, but you know, it was like, it was just completely, on our end it was a disaster, for the client it was fine. But Yanti came straight out, you know, was there for you, moral support. did you end up going home early? No, no, no.

I think that's when I think cold and fluent. V was 10, Kirfi was at 11.

So she.

So she stayed just for the hour.

Yeah. Yeah.

I don't think you could get away, though, because of all the.

Well, that's what I said to you because we had that elopement and you said, we'll Britta be on the way home. And I said, no, because it's now raining. She'll be like, she won't feel comfortable leaving. Like.

Yeah.

And this happened to me the week before. So basically, timeline. Christian got sick with the flu.

Yeah.

and he was down for a week. Like, he was caught— he was not well.

I remember.

And then as he was recovering, I sent him back to the school on Monday, right? So he's already had a week off school. I sent him back Monday, and that morning he was, I'm a bit nauseous. I'm like, no, you're not, go to school, you're fine. But yeah, basically, you know, like, straight mom, off you go.

Kids are resilient.

You'll be fine, babe.

He's like, I'm feeling nauseous. I was like, babe, you're not coughing. Like, you're fine, your flu's gone, don't worry. Do you know what the issue is?

Because they tell you they're sick all the time.

Yeah.

When they actually are, you're like, you're fine, go.

Yeah, but he was recovered. So he, like, the flu took him probably like 3 or 4 days, and then Friday he could have gone to school, but I was like, I'll keep him home one more day. Monday he was fine, like, he was fine over the weekend. Monday's like, I'm nauseous. I'm like, no, you're going to school. Um, anyway, school rings me like an hour and a half later that Christian's been vomiting. I was like, whoops. So he came home, he had another week off, and then that week was my birthday. Was that my birthday week? So he's like down vomiting and not well, and like, it was okay, he was just nauseous. Like, he was sick in the morning, then he was fine by the afternoon, but then the next morning, same again. And then later—

Threatening him because you were like, you're fine now, Christian, you go to school.

And he'd be like, no, I'm not well, Mummy. And then, so I think he'd been sick and then I was like trying to— I was so conscious to stay away from him because I'm like, I have weddings. And it hit Thursday and Thursday I had a wedding. So Christian's still homesick. I wake up Thursday and I am runny nose, headache, fever, coughing all night. And I'm like, of course, of all the days I get sick, today I've got a wedding. So I go to the wedding and I've normally, wedding day I've got socks over the brain. Give me a hug, it's my wedding day, yay. She arrived and I was like, I'm not going to hug you because I'm actually sick. And she's like, you wouldn't get a sick day, would you, when there's weddings on? And I was like, no. So I'm okay, but I'm just going to stay away from you. Love you, happy wedding day. And so we smashed out the wedding, but on and off all day I was dizzy. I felt like I was going to pass out. I was like, someone else needs to go do all the running. I'm going to sit here and I'm going to delegate. So that happened. And then that weekend was my birthday and I was so sick. I literally booked a last minute trip because I was like, oh yeah. And so we disappeared for a couple of days to Komodo.

I clicked.

But then we're in Komodo, then Britt is sick as well. So we're both coughing. Like I'm telling Britta, I can't sleep because I'm coughing all night. So we're both really unwell. Then we get back. Tristan goes to school for a week. We're still coughing and dying the whole week. We've got weddings on.

No, I sent you cold and flu and feet.

There was one night that I didn't sleep.

Sleep at all one night because I was coughing. And then she was like, oh, I know what you mean now. I thought I had that cough.

That's why I was just going on.

I just sat up and I'm like, I can't go back to sleep, so I'm just going to sit up for the rest of night, scroll.

Onion on your feet, mate.

Onion on your feet.

Because my head—

I was putting Vicks on my feet and putting socks on.

No, onion.

My head was like— my head felt like something was being squashed, wheezing. So even when I would open up my computer and try to do some work I physically couldn't do it because I was in so much pain in my head.

It just had to like put your head— just had to just—

yeah, I just had to—

I think we had a phone call one day that you weren't feeling great and you're like, okay, my brain can't deal with any more computer. And I was like, all right, go.

So mine's only disappeared in like the last couple days. So I had a wedding on Saturday, even Saturday at this wedding. So Britta last week, yeah, remember last week got Yanti out because she wasn't feeling well. Then I went to the wedding on Saturday and I was literally messing around. I was like, I feel sick, I feel like I'm gonna pass out, I need a Coca-Cola. A cola, someone get me a Coke, some sugar. And I wasn't well. And then it hit like 3 o'clock and my nanny's messaging me like, Tristan's sick. And I was like— and this morning, the morning before I'd left, he'd been vomiting.

Yeah.

So I was like, you're fine. Because again, I was like, he told me he's nauseous. And I was like, you're fine. Then he vomited and I was like, oh, okay, maybe a little bug. But then by 3 o'clock, the nanny messaged me, he's been vomiting all day, he can't keep food down, this and that. And I was like, you know what, he's been sick for like 3 weeks now.

Yeah.

Then it hit 5 and she's like, I think you need to come home. And I was like What do I do? Like, well, and luckily Yanti was already assigned to that wedding with me. And Yanti's one of our senior players.

She's amazing.

She's amazing. So I literally, like, first I went to the team and I was like, most of the team would leave at like 8 and then me and Yanti would stay to the end. Went to the best team and said, look, is it okay? Like, I've got to leave, I think. If I leave, can you stay with Yanti? They were like, yeah, cool.

Do you know the best thing about this is you wouldn't have left if it was just you. It's only because Christian was sick.

Oh yeah, 100%. Because it's my kid, you know, and because he's obviously had a big hospital stint at the start of the year, I'm very conscious that maybe he's gonna have a seizure or something's gonna happen, and I don't want the nanny dealing with that. So that happened at 5. I checked with everyone, checked with the auntie, fine. It hit 5:30, I said, how's he doing? Nah, vomited again. I was like, crap, okay, I'm coming. So I walked the bride through the reception, went home, and I've been in hospital since. So I'm just like ruined, like I'm so tired.

Sometimes I feel like the clients must think we're lying at the moment because it's like, obviously, like I was sick for that 4 weeks and I ended up having to have surgery and then back in.

Yeah, don't get a day off.

And then I was like, and then I had to do another quote for another client. And I was like, listen, I would normally get Steph to look over this, but her kid's in hospital. That's what's taking me a little bit longer. And I was like, do you know what? I'm just gonna have to send it to you. Look, I think it's okay. But it's just 'cause that's obviously not my—

I mean, we are very fortunate because we've said this before, like we've got a very good team. So even this week, like I've cleared my schedule out. There's, you know, you went to the meeting this morning with Leah that I was meant to be on. Yancey took over for our wedding, but it's just like, what is this year? I know, it's just like sickness.

That's what I mean though. These people must be thinking, oh, they're just they're sick. But it's like, no, like, it's actually just been— for everyone, it's been like this.

And it's all good and well, we get rid of the admin, but the wedding day is like, I can't—

yeah, you can't do anything.

You know, we spoke about it last time. I had that allergic reaction, and from the hospital bed I was like, no, no, I'm going, I've got to go, I've got a wedding, I'm leaving. So yeah, we don't really get to call in sick. So I think I got sick, you got sick, Christian got sick, then I'm slowly getting better, and now I've had like 10 hours sleep in 5 days because I'm sleeping on the hospital floor basically.

So you'll be sick again soon because you'll be exhausted.

Well, I literally said to Brett before we came here, I was like, I don't feel so good, I don't know what's going on. I hope whatever Christian's that's not contagious. So yeah, it's been a bit of a year.

Yeah.

Wild.

I think that kind of rolls into like, I think people, I feel like it's just the general consensus that people really don't believe that we get sick. No, we are actually people.

So we're entitled to sick days and holidays.

I feel like that kind of rolls into, I need to have a bit of a rant.

Oh, rant time. She's serious.

Let's go.

She's serious.

I feel it. It's been pretty good this year. Like everyone, we've got our processes in place. Everyone knows the steps of our planning process and what we do.

We've got school.

We drill it into our clients' brains. Well, we try to. We try. But on the off chance when someone isn't booking calls or they're missing calls and they—

I know where we're going with this.

Are sending me long-winded emails.

I think I know where you're going with this as well.

And that then takes— hours to get all the information and reply back to, and coordinating suppliers here, there, and everywhere.

You need to have calls.

You need to have calls. Like I know we didn't do it pre-COVID, but times have changed. If you want to make the most out of your planning, you need to be booking those calls.

And if you wanna be as stress-free as possible, those calls are essential.

But it's your wedding day.

We've got one client that booked every single month, the day that she got Like, I love her.

Gold star. I wish I could award her.

I've just had 2 clients book in calls for the next 6 months.

Yeah, amazing. 'Cause they're stress-free now. Like, I don't think she's ever been stressed on a phone call ever.

You know, when they're not booking calls and we're saying, please book in your monthly call. Like, I, probably controversial, I'm not your fucking mom.

Yeah, I'm not your mom.

It is not my job to book in your monthly phone call. So controversial to me. I give you my calendar, which clearly states my availability. Then you pick a time that suits you. Don't come to me and go, can we do Wednesday at 7 PM?

You know what I hate as well? Is when clients are like, oh, there's nothing available, but I'm available on Wednesday. I'm like, we don't take calls on Wednesday.

But my pure admin day is our pure face down into our wedding briefs, no distractions. What happens with you?

Like, obviously Tristan's calendar books out extremely quickly. I tell all the clients when we onboard, book an event, especially for Tristan. She books out and then they message you and, well, email.

Oh, there's nothing on your calendar for 3 weeks.

But I need a final meeting. And we're like, yes, we told you to book that final meeting 8 weeks ago.

And you know why there's nothing on my calendar? Because all of my other clients the next month have already booked their final meeting and taken those slots.

Like they're told to. Like the past 2 months, I've had a couple of clients that have left everything to the last minute.

I can't talk.

Oh, just, you can't talk.

We'll revisit that.

That's very different. We'll circle back. But it then leaves me in a difficult position 'cause then I have to drop everything and I have to plan an entire wedding in 2 weeks and I'm now letting other clients down because I can't get back to them. Their weddings are upcoming as well.

Like, but you're now fully focused on that one because they missed all of their deadlines.

Exactly. They've missed all of their deadlines. I've now got to get furniture within a week. I've now got to get all your stationery in.

And that might sound like easy, like you just need to email the furniture company, but it's not that simple because what happens, and we'll touch on this in probably a little bit later today, This is the process. So we've seen it. All right, great. This is all the furniture you want. We've now got to figure out where all that furniture comes from, email the companies, come back to you, give you a quote. Oh, actually we only have 3 white stools. Do you want a brown one instead? And that goes backwards and forwards until we get it perfect. So it's not just like a quick thing. That's time consuming. And considering we are so good with blocking out our schedule, I mean, mine's out the window this week, but on a Monday, every Monday, the planner's role, part of our SOPs, is every Monday you have to sit down, you have to fill in on a schedule that's timed out all of your calls for the week. Then before that call, you need 30 minutes prep time, 30 minutes afterwards to do your post admin. And then every client needs your attention because we do have a lot of clients and every client is important. So every client minimum gets a 30-minute time block once a week for your time. So when you're doing all the shit last minute, you might have to clear an entire day. And Ashley and Jovanka and like this, like, 5 people get bumped and you're now talking to them next week or the week after. So like, it does impact on everyone else. It does.

And as much as every client's day is important to me, yeah, like, I can't— and I feel like it's hard when you constantly have to bump something and then it gets later and later and later, and then they have to follow you up again, and it's like, I'm so sorry, I've had—

I'm dealing with this last minute person.

Yeah, basically.

And it's not fair.

And sometimes it's I feel like it's not believable, but that's what we're dealing with.

And then they feel like they're not important.

And the worst thing is if it was to happen in the off season, it's okay, I can handle it. But we're in peak season.

We're out of office, we're going to meetings.

Exactly, we're out at weddings. We've been sick. Like it's just, I know it's been a very crazy period, but it's not fair on me or anyone.

No, no.

Or the suppliers, you know, it affects everyone around us.

Yeah, it's definitely not fair on you guys.

And I'm also like, we've gotten very clear on our boundaries now. So this is like, if you have not booked your wedding yet, and I actually had an email last week, like this is it. I feel like this is where we have to be. You know when you're like, you don't wanna be trying to be nice how you word something. You're like, there's no nice way to say it. Like potential clients, if you don't put any effort into emailing us on your initial inquiry, and it's very clear that you've just asked ChatGPT to email us for you, The amount of effort that you've put into that email is the amount of effort I'm going to send back. Like, I got an email the other day, and I don't deal with the inquiries. I haven't dealt with the inquiries in quite a long time because we have Steph for that. I'm too busy. I got too much going on that as much as I love dealing with initial praise, for me to do that and plan, it's just not viable. We get like 20 inquiries a week, and that's, you know, times that by a month, that's 80 a month. We're back and forth, back and forth quotes. It's too time consuming. So we've got a full-time girl. So I got an email the other day, very clearly ChatGPT generated.

Yeah.

You know, it's got the em dashes.

Very few of them.

You know, like I ChatGPT a lot, but I take out the em dashes and I personalize it, make it my own. Like, you know, ChatGPT does 80% of the work, I do 20. But this one was clearly ChatGPT and it was like, before we book in a call with you guys, we just want to ask you a bunch of questions. And there was all these questions about like if we were to proceed with them. And I was like, that's not how we work, babes. Like there's a lot of wedding planners on this island. There's not a lot of good wedding planners. And I'm very confident in saying we're one of the top tier wedding planners on this island. And if you wanna work with us, it's not if we wanna work with you, like you need to be qualified to work with us.

Yeah, but why don't just book a call with Steph and have a chat?

No, they can't. That's not the process.

Oh.

So you don't just get a call with Steph. Steph's busy. She gets 20 inquiries a week. She can't have calls with all of them.

Steph's a fancy girl.

So the process with Bali Brides is you inquire, we qualify.

I didn't know this.

Okay, first of all, we qualify. Yeah. So without being racist, and that is not my intention at all, but there's no better way to do it. We don't do Indian weddings, we don't do Chinese weddings. Indians.

Yes, they're, they're a lot.

I am not Indian. I don't understand the demographics. No, but we have done a couple. We've done a couple. Yes, we've got one next year because the clients have specified they particularly want us. But it's like, I'm not Hindu, I don't understand. Like, I understand the basics. It's not our culture. It's not our culture. So I referred them to an Indian specialist wedding. With the Chinese ones, I don't speak Chinese. Most of the guests don't. Even if the bride and groom speak Chinese, a lot of their guests don't. So we refer them to a Chinese specialist. So when you come in Steph qualifies. I think that's racist.

I think that's actually—

no, but I'm just conscious that I'm reaching out like Indians and Chinese. It may come across, right? That's not the way we're wording it, but it's not my specialty.

Yeah.

Also, if you come through and you are a type A bride and you send me a personalized— and I'll try to be a personalized thing with 500 questions wanting to know the dimensions of the candles and napkins. Stop it.

Oh God.

But if that comes from the first email, I take a look at it I love what I do, but not that shit, trust me.

I turned around to you guys at the office last week. I'm like, these people want to know the dimensions of the candles.

I don't have time for that. But also, even I was like, I'm pretty keen, why?

We've got this and this that we still need to do, but they're worried about the fucking candles.

Yeah, I know. I was like, why? I don't care about the candles.

So did you work out why?

If Steph gets that kind of question, but there's just those certain personalities. So when Steph gets those questions, she refers them, sorry, Unger, sorry, Jess. She refers them to Soiree Society. They're very happy to deal with those kinds of like detailed inquiries. I'm not, that's not what I want. I want the ones that trust me, that are like, the candles are gonna look beautiful. So there is a qualification process that Steph looks for things in the emails. If she's happy with them and she thinks they're gonna vibe well with me, Britta, Yanti, or any of our team with you, like you probably don't know this, but if we get any like— Yeah, I know, I already worked it out. Especially spicy clients. Spicy, spicy. Autistic-y, we send them to you because you're very quick dealing with that. I'm not. Like, I want people to be yay and fun and personality. So she screens, and if she thinks that person is going to fit a wedding planner, then she books a call. Yeah. So when I get a big email with 500 questions of like, before we choose you as a wedding planner— like, no, babes, like, before we choose you as a client. So we are getting better at this.

It's gotten better. It's gotten a lot better.

Like, because we've got Steph.

Yeah.

And we don't have Brad anymore, who was just doing everything he could to get sales over the line. We've got Steph who cares about people.

I had a client ask about Brad the other day, what happened to Brad?

I'm like, nothing, he just wasn't fitting the team, end of contract.

We didn't talk about him.

We could talk about it, it's fine. So yeah, like I just feel like it's been a big few months and like those sorts of ones, like again, like we're hoping that they get screened and they don't make it through past the Steph thing. Where I was going with that is if you're gonna ChatGPT an entire email to us, like why should I put all that effort in when you can't even tell me from your brain what you want for a wedding? A wedding is not—

I do think people take for granted how much effort goes into it on the backend.

And also I need to know a lot more information. It's not just like, it's not like going into the shop and buying an item. Like it's a wedding. It's personalized to your brain and your budget and what you think. Like Tash from Plan A released a blog last month. I don't know if you read it. I think I told you about it. But it was brilliant. And it was like, how much is a wedding? Or like, this is expensive. She sees so many, we see so many posts on social media. Oh, we want a wedding that's not too expensive. Okay, great. But like, for 100 people, like 50 grand.

And I'm like, but what do you want? Like, that's such an open-ended question.

And this is the other thing, like, so for me, 10 years ago, if you said to me, I want a wedding that's not so expensive, I would have been like, 10 grand, because that was my mentality back there. 10 grand for me was a lot of money. Whereas now, if you came to me and said, I want to 10 grand of money at wedding, I'm like, oh, cheap. Um, my—

obviously inflation and things like that, it's gone up more than that for 15 people.

So how much was your wedding 10 years ago when we're planning?

Yeah, I know, that's what I mean.

Like, because people don't understand that, but things change. But also, like, depending where you are in life— we had just had a client come through, and obviously they were very tight for cash, and I said to you, we have to refund the security deposit within a week. So grateful. $1,000 for them. Yeah, for us, we're like, it's not a big amount of money. 3 years ago, I would have thought that would be an extreme amount of money for me. Exactly, so when someone says, I want a wedding that's cheap, like what is cheap to you? 'Cause cheap to me, if I was a bride right now, would be like 40 grand, that's cheap. Because I'm in a financial position, I'm in a position that I want value for money and I want good things. But for some people they're like, that's 5 times what we wanna spend. So you need to be very specific. Like what is cheap to you? What is important? Some people, photography is incredibly important. Some people, they don't give 2 shits. Perspective on what you think. So Tash wrote this really good blog on it. If you are following along at home, highly recommend checking out the Plan A blog. Yeah, she's got some really good blogs. Like, Tash is very marketing, and like, her blogs, I love reading them because I'm like, I'm going to talk about that.

I think I also need to touch on, um, when people are getting like paying final invoices, they've been paying their retainers like the way that we do things. Like, they've been paying their retainers along the way. I send them an updated like running estimate of what their what a total wedding is going to potentially cost. Um, but just say last week I was like, oh well, I didn't— like, this is way over budget.

And I'm like, why are you bringing that up now?

But you picked that.

Why, why are you bringing this up now? This has been on your— you paid the invoice and it's been on your running estimate. You knew what the cost was. Yeah, so you can't blame me because this is what you wanted. Like, yes, it's over budget, but you wanted it. At the end of the day, it's your wedding. You wanted it.

And we had this with the bride. I won't name names.

And I'm like, I can't take it off now. It's already paid.

And I think we negotiated some stuff that we were gonna—

They asked, oh, well, if we get rid of this, can we allocate that cost to something else? I'm like, no, because I paid the supplier already.

You leave that to the last minute pending budget.

I actually really wanna get cash from plan A onto here. So like what a lot of people at home don't realize is I'm actually friends with a lot of the wedding planners and we all talk. So like me and Tash, like every second week are chit-chatting, like I guess you'd call it bitching if you were really on the outside. We bitch about clients. Oh my God, did you see that post? Or have you seen, like, isn't this your ex-staff member trying to start a business? And we all like laugh about it and like whatever. But on that, like we did terminate a staff member. Was it this year? Earlier this year? And one of the big issues we had is I caught her multiple times on a phone call. We're gonna book your photographer in for 8 hours. Don't worry if you wanna change that later to 4 hours, you can. Completely false.

Nope.

No, you cannot. Once you lock in a supplier, unless it's furniture, flowers, catering, or things that are item-based that we have to finalize, it's locked in. If you book for 5 hair and makeup people, like with Rani—

I've had to deal with this backlash.

Yeah. But once you book it in, it's final. Like you can't just go, oh, I've changed my mind. I've gone over budget. Can we reduce the photography hours to 5? No, babes. Like they've already booked their team.

We've already paid deposit.

It's locked in. Sorry. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. But part of our process when we're planning is you book in an item, let's say key supplies, you book in your photo video thing, we send you that invoice and then we say, here's your updated running estimate of how much your entire wedding's gonna cost. So every point we're giving you the total. So when it hits the end of the wedding, you're like, oh, I didn't realize it was 30 grand. Like, yes you did. We've been sending you an estimate every second month.

[Speaker] And you're also very clear on costs.

Like, okay, this is pending budget.

So we're not gonna put this on until we know where we're sitting at the end. 'Cause we can't pay the retainer. If we pay the retainer, that money's gone.

Yeah.

Like you're not getting it back.

The things like, you know, it's particularly flowers and I've noticed tableware this year has been a bit more strict. Like they'll only allow one revision.

Yeah.

So if we book it and we only revise it once.

Yeah.

That's a, we'll add at the end. Luckily there is a few different companies so you can get enough.

I think we've also said it a few times. When you first start planning your wedding with us, when you lock it in.

You haven't planned it yet. So we haven't planned it.

We don't know. Yes, you've got a budget and we try to stick to it, but if, If you're adding extras to it, that is your decision.

It's your money. Unless you've told us at the very beginning that you want gold plates and cutlery, we're not gonna put it in your quote. Because we haven't gone into the detailed styling. I'm gonna say, hands off to Steph.

Steph has gotten really good at almost over-quoting a little bit just so clients are on the top end, which is great. Which I like, for me personally, I prefer being over-quoted. But then there's things like, for instance, I literally spent $120 on caps.

That is something that isn't needed.

But I added that because I could. If you can't afford that, you can't afford that, and that's fine.

But it's when they go, oh, actually, can we add on gold cutlery and this? And then you say, that's way over budget. Like, I didn't add that to your wedding. You added that.

And generally I will like add up for them and be like, I haven't said the travel fees at estimate because I can't tell you, but like, this is how much it's going to cost. And they'll be like, yeah, okay. And then you put it on there and they're like, oh no, that's too much.

Do you know what I almost want to do? Because like when I planned my wedding all those years ago, That's what happened. Every single item I booked, I got an individual bill for it, which is obviously very cluttery and annoying. But imagine if we billed our wedding planning fee, just one, and then separately we billed the rest of the wedding. Do you think people would complain as much of like, oh, that's over my budget, it's your fault? Well, no, because that's what you booked and I've sent you an invoice for it. But I don't know, like I don't know how to get people reined in on their realistic.

I think people really need to look into what it costs in Australia as well because the amount of times I've heard, oh, it's like the same price as Australia, it better not be.

Let me just tell you.

Yeah, okay, look, you can spend 100 grand here. You're also going to get fireworks, water drummers, pyro.

So hold it.

Villas aren't really a thing in Australia.

No. So for you to be able to stay at your wedding venue as well, if we took the cost of the villa off, it would be a lot cheaper.

Yeah, it would be.

Jamie got married, well, first marriage, 10— oh no, over 10 years now, like 15 years ago. He booked out some villa on Queen's Island, 45 grand just for the venue for 5 days. So just keep that in mind, people.

Yeah, when, when you are booking private villas like that here in Bali, yes, that's probably up to half the cost of your wedding sometimes.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, it's more than half the cost of my wedding was the villa, but I also chose to stay for 5 days so we could relax and enjoy.

That's not really the cost of your wedding. Yeah, it's like— and that's what I mean, like, do we need to start, right? I don't know. I don't know how we just like, it's not that expensive this is the cost of the wedding, this is the cost of your villa.

I don't think you can break down anymore. I think people just really get—

I think people need to listen to this podcast.

Yeah, I feel like we're getting very real in this episode.

I think we're like—

no, I think welcome to— exactly, overtired peak season brain was like, you're just getting annoying us.

And I think people get excited though, like they do. I sympathize, they get excited. Look, I get excited about stationery, and a lot of my money has gone on stationery, like, and that's fine.

Stationery girly though.

Yeah, that's fine, and that's important to me, but But if you find those things important, maybe you need to really think about, do I need to push this back 6 months so I can save up the money so I can have that dream wedding?

Or do I cut my costs and not have the most expensive hair and makeup artist?

Yeah.

I had that elopement the other day and she literally said, this is my budget. It's strict. I want to stay within it. She looks stunning. I did not even give her an option. I just went straight away and I booked all of our cheapest suppliers and I just, this is how much it's going to cost. Great. She didn't even ask me questions. Some people are very like, they want to know what's important to them, but this is part of the qualification. We need to know, like, do you just not care? Like, you trust us? Like, it's not like I'm gonna go book you a shitty hair and makeup artist. All of our hair and makeup is good, but I booked the one that was $150 instead of $500, you know? Unless you're like— actually, all three of us, really. Yeah, I feel like all three of us are Rani or Fickery girls. There's no one else with— no, because we are very particular. But then for me, for example, when it came to video, I'd pick the cheapest videographer.

I picked social.

Yeah, like, so that's not— you probably picked expensive stationery. I would probably do the same thing, to be completely honest. I'd pick an expensive expensive photographer, I'd also like— look, let's just be honest, everything of mine would be expensive. Yeah, everything.

I mean, those photos that I just got through from Helena and Josh's wedding—

oh my goodness, from Axiom.

Oh my God, those photos. You can see the blue sky. I'm like, you can see the blue sky, Tristan. I just love their photos. When I saw them, I'm like, I just, I need to start using them more.

That's the difference between a $4,000 photographer and a $2,000.

Yeah, like, I am vibing with Pixmax at the moment though, and I'm half tempted to book them too.

Have you not got a photographer?

I do.

Who's your photographer? Leah. Okay.

But I'm vibing with Flip Max as well, and I'm like, do I just get two?

Depends on who. Like, are you looking at Ghani or Aditya?

I can't— I'm not even going to try pronounce the name.

Starts with an A?

Yep.

Aditya.

Wait, who?

Wait, Flip Max?

Yeah.

See, again, different styles. Like, this is what I mean when it comes to qualification. You like— I personally don't love his style because I don't like all the blurry blacked-out images. I love Ghani's style, a bit more candid, bit more Maybe it is going again. But this is what I mean, like everyone's different. So we need to make sure that it's seen. And this is why phone calls are so important. Going backwards and forwards over email, if you just say, I like this photographer, but which, what do you like about it? Like we need some insight into your brain. Like it's, again, it's a wedding.

Yeah, we've had one toss up between Leah and Flip Max and we had to really deep dive into what do you like?

Our role as a wedding planner, we can't do our job if you're not completing your homework, if you're not replying, if you're not booking in your monthly call.

Yeah.

If you can't give us a decency of giving us your time, how do we plan your wedding properly? And then the problem is, is we then hit like a month out and everyone's like, I want to do everything now. Like, babes, like I scheduled out like 2 hours of my time every single month for last year. Yeah.

And you're like, well, bro, like I've got—

that's what I got last week.

I got a passive aggressive email saying we've just had to spend all afternoon doing this. I'm like, that's great. But I've spent my whole of like the 2 weeks You were stressed out. I was stressed out to the max.

Because you're having to do everything last minute and you're like, well, I'm supposed to be working on this for next month's wedding and finalizing that, but I can't right now because I'm doing that. And I think this is like where I kind of went on my little tangent with Steph. Like I have more than once this year had to send out very stern emails to people 'cause it's only like 6 months into the planning process. There's no calls on your calendar for the next 3 weeks. Yes, 'cause I'm busy. Well, we need a call now. Like you would not go into your bank and say to the bank manager, I'm busy during work hours this week, so you need to work on Saturday for me. You wouldn't do it, but people do that to us. We are human. We deserve to finish our breaks if we're not at a wedding at 5 PM. Don't tell me you want to call at 7 o'clock on a Wednesday night and expect me to bend over backwards to make that happen. No, I finish at 5. Also, you're a mum.

Like, I'm sorry, but you also know what I did for them.

I was like, I know right now, yeah, because people haven't booked their call in advance. They're doing things last minute. Well, you need to make time for me at Wednesday at 7 PM.

No, no, it doesn't work like that.

And then they get upset.

That's not how the world works.

I sent them my WhatsApp number. I'm like, I'm gonna be in the office all day today. And it was a Wednesday. I'm like, let's have a call, message me when you're free. Then they never messaged me. And so we never actually got a final call or anything. And I just walked into that wedding and I was like, what can I do? This is what I imagined the day was going to look like.

So this is what's happening. And this is the problem now. I think we've gotten very good with the boundaries. So there's been a couple of times this year that a planner has come to me frustrated and I'm boss mummy. So I had to step in and it was like, this is happening, this is happening, this is happening. And I have to send a stern email and I've had to do this for your clients. Guys, you are not answering my wedding planner. We cannot plan your wedding without you. You have a deadline. If you do not reply, I'm gonna refund your money. You can find another wedding planner. And that might sound really brutal, but how do I plan the most perfect day for you? Or how does the team if you are not responding to us? If you're not booking in your calls, that means to me that your wedding's not that important and it's not my wedding.

I kind of agree.

What I like is probably very different to what you like. And unless you've said to us at the beginning, hey, I'm happy for you to go for gold, Tristan, and plan it and pick out all my decorations, which some clients do. But I know that. If you're ignoring all your calls and then we hit a month out and we don't have half the shit booked, like I need to be able to make decisions. And I can't do that if you're not on a call. I like the color pink. I trust you. Do what you need to do. Just get it all done for me. I am happy to do that, but you need to give me some direction. Not, oh, well, it's now 3 weeks out and your calendar's full. Like, that's not my fault.

No, I think I've sent an email as well saying, if you haven't got this in by 5 PM today, I'm going to have to make the choice. I'm sorry, but yeah.

But it's not like it's not even I'm sorry.

Like it's I need to get this in and I need to get it done or else you're going to have nothing on your wedding day.

I was like, the flowers needed to be ordered by Wednesday. Oh, can we make changes to this? I'm like, no, the flowers had to be ordered on Wednesday. It's now Friday.

Do you remember?

And they're asking about candles.

This is a throwback.

Yes, that's it.

That's why I was like, why are they asking about candles? So I had a wedding a couple of years ago and this is probably to date up there in my top 5 most traumatic weddings. Oh yes. So the whole wedding, yes, she said it was a— look, it was a last-minute booking. So we had like 5 months to plan their wedding out. Okay, so last-minute booking, very big budget though, but getting answers was difficult. So like the response times, especially when you're planning on such a limited time frame. And I will never forget this one because we're going backwards and forwards over flowers. I'd introduced a couple florists, they just weren't replying to the florists, and they wanted a stylist. And then in the end they hadn't replied to the stylist, so it was like, well, we're now working with the florist. And I was chasing, I need decisions on flowers. I need decisions on flowers. If you do not have the order into me by this time today, I'm not gonna be able to get it. They missed their deadline. So of course the florist, because we're now like a week out from the wedding, has had to order everything into the island. And they've come back and they've said, we want XYZ. I'm like, well, sorry, it's too late. You're now working with whatever he could get. And on the day, I'll never forget the bride's face. I actually hid the bouquet. It's the first time I've ever had to do it. I had to hide the bouquet. 'Cause I looked at it and I was like, she's gonna fucking hate it. Because the flowers are very small because we missed the deadline to get import flowers.

[Speaker] Yes. And people don't realize that those roses are—

[Speaker] I looked at the bouquet and I was like, the bride was very— I think she was just unrealistic. Like, I think from her country, everything— like, when I say jump, you say high. How high? So like, when she was like, well, this is what I want, I was like, you've missed the cutoff. There's physically no way for me to get it now. I told you multiple times you missed your cutoff. And I'll never forget the wedding day they arrived, and I was like, there's literally nothing I can do because she wanted import flowers and there was no physical supply. I tried, but no one could do it. Yeah. So I didn't give her the bouquet until she was about to get out of the car, and I gave it to her and she just looked at me and she looked at the flowers and she's like, Tristan. I said, I know, "We'll talk about it later. There's no, it's gonna achieve nothing right now for us arguing about this now." Like, how do you tell someone like, "This is not my fault, this is your fault," on their wedding day? So, and then after she complained and I was like, "I knew you were gonna complain. Like, I know, babe, but you missed the deadline. Here's all the emails. I don't know how much more I could, this is not my fault." And it's so hard because when it's someone's wedding, like the last thing you wanna say is like, "Told you so, but what do you want me to do about it?" So it has been a bit of a, 2 months of, we have hit the season and normally we're very organized, but if you're gonna leave stuff to the last minute, we can only do so much.

And we still need to sleep.

Do we though?

Do we?

Do we though?

Like just a little bit, you know, like just to keep functioning.

I'm like running on.

The last few nights actually, like I've been up till probably 1 still working. I've seen you online 'cause I've seen you on the spreadsheets. And I know you've been in hospital, but whenever I think about the spreadsheet, I'm like, oh, Tristan's online. I can see—

I emailed Ammar last night at like 11:45. So like while I've been in hospital, like I'll be honest, I've done nothing with clients because my brain, like we need a lot of concentration for that and I make mistakes. So I just, I'm ignoring the clients, but I'm doing internal work. So talking to Ammar, getting bills paid, chasing up invoices, supplies. So I am working, I'm just not doing client-facing work. And I was emailing Ammar up till midnight last night and the night before and he was answering. I'm like, go to bed. He's gonna wake his wife. And he's like, you go to bed. And I'm like, or he says, sorry, I didn't take my work phone to dinner.

And I'm like, don't take your work phone to dinner. Like, why are you saying sorry to me?

Do you know why? Like, I don't know. I don't know if I can get away with saying this. I don't even know if Anwar listens to the podcast, but we'll find out. Anwar is very well paid on the basis—

he's— oh, look, I take my hat off to him.

On the basis that when we're in wedding season, you need to be available at all times. In case I need a bill paid.

Oh, and he's amazing. He's very good at what he does, particularly on wedding days.

Not so much like, you know, we've got no weddings on today, I wouldn't be messaging at 8 o'clock tonight. But if I'm at a wedding at 9 PM at night and the photographer's like, I'm not staying back unless you pay me right now, like, I need them available. So he is very well paid, but I think he forgets that when we don't have weddings on, you don't need to be online over the week. Yeah, it's almost a habit. But, um, yeah, so like, it's too hard for me to track overtime and things, so I just pay him a very healthy salary to make sure that he is available whenever we need him. But that doesn't mean like if I email you at 11:30 at night, am I, you answer. So I'm like, stop answering me, go to bed. He's like, but you emailed me. I was like, it's 11:30 at night. I'm allowed to work. I'm the boss. Yeah, she does the same.

Yeah, I'm early. One morning I got up at like 2 or 3, I don't know. And you were like going to bed and I was like, why are you awake at this time, Britta?

I think I was at an after party.

I think I was still working. Oh yeah, because it was a late night. 3 AM, 2 AM.

But I have to tell like clients, like obviously because we intertwine with work and I'm like, I will message you and email you at random hours. That is not normal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When I send weekend emails, I very clearly say, so sorry for the weekend email, just catching up on—

to make it clear that we don't work weekends. So when someone emails us on a Friday at 5 o'clock and then again Monday morning, it's like, why didn't you answer? Because it was the weekend. It was a weekend. It's a weekend. I don't—

I get a very rare weekend off during peak season. So yes, I am taking my weekends.

Yeah. I messaged Alyssa the other day. So Alyssa's obviously in New Zealand, my PA, and they're 2 hours, no, 4 hours ahead. And it was really funny. So I emailed her the other morning and she's like, what the F are you doing awake? It was 4:00 AM. And I'm like, because my brain wouldn't switch off. So I was just working, but again, not quiet. I'm like, Elissa, can you fall off on this? And she's like, why are you awake? Like you're up early. I was like, oh, I actually haven't been to bed yet. 'Cause I'm in hospital and the bright lights and the doctors are annoying me and the nurses. Yeah, so it's been—

I feel like you've had quite a productive time.

Yeah, you have.

Look, I like this new integration.

I'm loving the new system. The new system. There's always new systems, but I'm loving these ones even more.

E, E, E, H, Monday. H, Monday. Yeah. Move. Let's go over a rough recap. Like we've had like a pretty good jam. This is probably gonna be like an episode.

We've got a few weddings.

You know what? So what I wanna touch on this is we're gonna come into the weddings, but what have we been doing over the last weeks? I flew to Sydney. Yep. Yeah. Last month. And I, so I have business coaching and like, I'm very big on education. I'm very big on upskilling. I believe generally that you can always learn. So I'm very big, I love reading business books, I love researching. So I have business coaches that literally there to help me, guide me through business because like, yes, I know what I'm doing, but also like there's a lot of times I'm like, should I be doing it this way or this way? And I don't have anyone to bounce off.

I feel like you also hit a certain point, you were like, okay, what do I do now? And then yeah, after COVID it was like, I had no motivation after COVID.

So like, because COVID was such a heavy hitting thing. I was like, I was demoralized. I was working like so many hours making no money, and then I was working a full-time job to pay the staff, and I wasn't like— yeah, I literally had to have this conversation with Ammar this year, and I said, look, I'm pay rising myself because obviously it's my business, but I don't get paid that. Like, we've got so many expenses, like salaries, insurances, systems. Like, we have so many outgoings, it's not funny. Um, and for the first year, like, I was literally getting paid $1,000 a month to run a company. Yeah. And that's slowly gone up over the years, but It's like in the last 10 years, if I'd worked in Australia, I'd have 10 times the money I do now. So although I'm on like a good thing now, I had to sit down at the start of the year and I felt guilty for it. I was like, I need a pay rise. Like I'm doing so much work and it's not just for the work that I'm doing now, but it's for the last 10 years of me working my ass off and not being paid accordingly because we didn't have the money as a company. So like I've been post-COVID, I had no motivation. I was ready to shut the company down. Very good chat with one of my friends was like, I will fund the money to get you through the business. And I was like, no, I'm done, I'm done. I was ready to walk away, but then it was like, what do we do with the 70 clients that we have? So we persevered. But then coming back, I was so demoralized that I hired a business coach to kick my ass and keep me accountable to— like, I can't even drink— to keep me accountable and do this. So it's been a big thing for me for my self-development ever since I've had a business coach. And I've changed. The business coaching team that I've got now, phenomenal. Um, and so they were hosting an AI conference in Sydney. Yeah. And I was like, you know what, AI is the future. If you don't keep up, you're going to get left behind. Let's go check it out. So I flew to Sydney Steph lives in Sydney. I took her with me and we did this. Well, she did one day. She did, no, she did two days. She did two days. I did a three-day intensive. So day one was for business owners. Day two, three, you could take staff members. So I took Steph with me and we deep dived into AI and everything that it can do. And not that it's gonna take jobs, but how it can make you more efficient, how it can take away the time. So I've come back, I've done so much research and just, what was it yesterday?

I used to be scared of AI.

So did I, but— It's amazing. So I trialed something first and on the weekend, on Sunday, I spent hours on it. Yeah.

Me, have I missed something?

Yeah, so I spent hours with this AI app on Sunday and I have a PA. So at the moment she works 2 hours a day. She's in New Zealand. So she's ahead of time, which means by the time I get out of bed in the morning, I have a daily schedule. She's cleared the emails she can. I've got my agenda. She does my calendars. She checks everything. So it's just more keeping me efficient.

Yeah.

But that's gonna turn into a full-time role soon. She'll be phased out. But I emailed her on Monday.

Sorry, Elissa.

Sorry, Alyssa. Sorry, Alyssa. Love you. I emailed her Sunday and I said to her, stay out of my emails for the time being. I'm trialing something. She was like, okay. And then Monday I messaged her and I'm like, Alyssa, I'm really sorry, but I've just replaced 90% of your job with AI. Now I am such a creature of habit. We've always used Gmail for our emails. We log into it every day. I looked at Steph's emails one day and she only had like 3 or 4 emails in her inbox. I'm like, how the F have you got that? I've got like 15,000 because I'm bad at like deleting them or archiving or I'm gonna come back to it again.

I've said this to you before. I'm like, how do you have 16,000 emails?

So on Sunday I had 16,000 emails. I found a new AI system that apparently can help you clear up the clutter in your inbox and stop the overwhelm. So of course I was intrigued, so I started playing with it. First response was like, I hate it, it's weird, I don't like it, it's not Gmail. And then by Monday morning I was like, Alyssa, I've just replaced you, I'm so sorry. And I found an AI system that can declutter our emails, remind us for things so we're not having to spend hours chasing it up. Yeah. And I rolled it out to all of you yesterday.

That reminding, that pop-up of remind, because like me, I'll be like, yep, I'm gonna do that. And even when it's like in the group with us, like that hides, and then I'm like, but this thing like alerts you, and you're like, hello, it's okay, I'm gonna do this.

I've now given all of our planners their own little personal assistant inside their inbox, so that's fantastic. So yeah, I just wanted to say, I think, so I'm really excited for the future of Bali Brides because I feel like what I know now and what I'm researching, like we're just gonna get better and better with things, which is gonna be incredible. We've had big month of like weddings, sickness, but we've also had some incredible incredible weddings. Yeah. Um, Leah obviously is over here at the moment for a couple weeks. You're getting married on the weekend apparently. Can we say that? Yeah, look, it's a surprise wedding enough, but this is not— it's not really gonna be a surprise. This will come out in October. So you're getting married this weekend. We might tell people by then. But, um, obviously not everyone knows who you are. You've been on the one episode so far. You're behind the scenes. Tell us, like, where do you live? What's your role? We covered on this on one episode, but I feel like people need to know you quite a clients would know me now.

Um, yeah, so I'm a remote planner. I am from WA, so around the corner essentially to Bali. Um, it's such a hard way— I was trying to explain it today actually. I essentially plan everything on the back— not even the back end, because I'm your main point of contact. I'm like your email bestie. Yeah, essentially. And then whatever senior planners, Yanti, Britta, Tristan, will run your day. And I think that you're in on the calls. So yeah, everyone knows, like, you guys are fully integrated into what's going on. But essentially I'm the back end of things.

Yeah.

And putting pieces together. And then they get you for the day. So I have had quite a few clients this year actually say to me, oh, I'm so sad you're not going to be there. And I'm like, this has been explained to you. From day one.

You know what, I think one client at the start of this year still doesn't understand.

No, I don't think the deal was. So, but this is the thing, she was like, oh, where's Leah?

And I'm like, she's in Australia.

And it's explained on the first email. This is the thing, like, people forget. Um, so like, remote planning is fairly new to Bali Brides. I think we've— how long have you been in the role now? 2 years?

Yeah.

So basically what happened is with most companies in Bali, you have a wedding planner, right? And most of companies are small, so they're owner-operators. So it'd be like you book me, you get me, I'm the main point of contact. We have a bigger team. So you book in with Barley Brides, you get assigned to a wedding planner, that wedding planner looks after you. But I kind of, there's a couple of companies as well that have wedding planners and wedding coordinators. So the wedding planner does all the planning, the wedding coordinator runs the day. Now for me, I don't love that because there's not a personal—

Missy matchy.

Missy matchy. I'm getting distracted by Britt playing with the microphone. There's not a personal connection. Hi. And I'm big on the fact that weddings are personal. Like when someone comes to us, they're not picking us for the best price, or maybe they are. They're picking us for our experience and our personality. So I think it's really important that whoever's gonna be there on the wedding day generally cares about the clients. So if something goes wrong, you're bending over backwards to fix it. Like me being in hospital and be like, no, I am getting out of bed, I'm going to this wedding. I love that client, I'm going. Whereas I feel like if you're not involved from the very beginning, you don't have that relationship. So I've seen a lot of companies that are planners coordinators, and then my good friends over at Global, Narelle, she has a remote planner, but then Narelle also plans the weddings herself. She's just got one. And so that person, Hayley, she plans the weddings and then Narelle runs them. And I was like, that's an interesting concept. And at the time you were obviously working— we'd basically had a situation because of my shitty hiring, um, that we hired someone and the day that they were supposed to start, they basically resigned.

Yes, I remember that now.

And because they'd been working remotely for a month before they came to Bali It was like we were in the lurch that we were in the middle of peak season. So I literally said, Leah, you've worked with us on and off for a bit. Can you just jump into their emails and manage it for me? And then we eventually just moved you into planning.

And I remember saying, why is my name against some of these clients' names?

Yeah.

And you're like, here, you're gonna plan the wedding. And I was like, what?

So Leah has like casually worked for us for like, I reckon about 7, 8 years. And it hasn't been like consistent. Like you came on board originally with Kelly and you were doing sales behind the scenes with us. So like you were just taking meetings, chatting to people, getting them booked in with Barley Brides, handing them over. Same as what Steph does, but casually part-time when I was overloaded. And then at one point you came in and you helped me with the accounts and reconciling when I had a freak out because we started getting busy, um, and doing some auditing. And then again, so when the whole thing happened with our admin person and they'd already done work and we were too busy to like figure out what she was doing, I was like, can you just jump in? Like, you already semi know what you're doing.

Yeah.

So you started doing that, and then it wasn't that we didn't need you anymore in that minute, it was just like, well while you're already there, like, let's just give you a couple weddings and see what happens.

Yeah.

And so we did, because I wanted to copy global and be like, let's see if we can have a remote planner. So Alyssa was the trial that worked out well, and then we brought you on board. And so you remote plan, you manage all the emails, you are not there physically on the wedding day. So what happens is you plan everything, but for every call, me, Britta, or Yanti, we jump on the call, whoever's going to be there on the day, and we ask the questions and we run the call, but then we behind the scenes talk to make sure that we're all across it. So it just means that we're not doing the heavy lifting because admin's 90% of the job, you are. But then we run the wedding.

Yeah.

How are you finding it? Like you've had a lot of roles.

Like this year has been a learning curve.

There has been meltdowns. There has been tears. I said to Britt the other day, like, I'm surprised it took Leah this long to cry. I've cried a lot at home. I actually said to her, I made Leah cry today. And I don't know, I was like, I'm surprised it's taken this long because Britta, 2 years ago, how many breakdowns did you have?

Oh, so many within that first year.

This sounds so bad. I'm not a horrible boss. No, it's like, it's a lot and you don't realize. So overwhelming.

Yeah, well, to be fair, I was meant to have like this many weddings and then I ended up with like this many.

Yeah.

And then I—

look, it's my own fault as well.

And I said it to you, it's because the first year post-COVID, it was, it was like, it was chaos and The company was recovering, you know, like how many, like company was just thinking, we were hammered, we had no money.

Company was just thinking, we need to, so how do I, how do I do as much work as we've got without the staff? And we don't have money. Yeah, stuff like, it was hard.

So I think within that first year I was meant to have 5 and then I ended up with almost 20.

She got off the plane in April and I was like, okay, I've got like all your weddings. I was actually going back through like all the moment left for this year and next year.

No, so this year I've done—

Oh, I didn't count yours actually.

I think I counted, I counted on the spreadsheet we're doing the other day. We've got 6 left this year.

Yeah, so, and then you've got 18 for next year. That's just me and you. Me and you have got 11, you and Britt have got 2, and then you've got some of Emma's that we haven't handed over yet.

And I've got one with Yandy.

Yeah, so like there's been a lot. We've changed your role a lot, but what we like to do at Barley Brides, and this is again very unique, if I hire you for a job I watch you for the first 6 months and I'm like, you don't love that, you don't love that. Let's see what you do love and let's— yeah, I wasn't—

it was never a love. It was never—

you never loved the admin. As soon as we put you in front of a wedding and in front of stationery, I was like, okay, this is where we're heading with this. So like, the weddings, yes, but I think we've given you too much. Um, but the stationery, you fucking adore. So we like, we do try and change the roles based on what people are good at, what their strengths are, what they love, and we just rejig the roles as we go.

I think I need a lot really learn how to say no as well when I get overwhelmed, which is—

you don't— hey, this has just happened, do you think you can manage this? Yes, of course. 2 months later, she's not managing. I'm not managing, I am sinking. And you also don't speak up and say, I'm not managing, I'm sinking. It literally is like, I think you're not good.

In October, and then have a breakdown, and I cry. Of 2023, in October, we live together, so I get to see this. I was sitting there at the kitchen kitchen table. I think I had a drink in front of me. I think chef had just put dinner in front of us, and I was like— and I just had to like walk away because I was just thinking, it was like, everything's happening. And I had a lot of back-to-back weddings coming up in October. Like, August, September, October is always busy. Like, that's always my busy period for weddings. Like, I think Yanti's this year was May.

She had like 6 or something. I think that's why she's so chill now. She's down.

The last 2 years I had a lot of back-to-back which a few times I've had 3 weddings in 4 days.

That's not viable.

I wish I could stand up here and really recreate. But anyway, I went into Tristan's bathroom and her bench is like, say, up to there. I literally kneeled down in front of it, hands above my head, and I was like, she had a panic attack in the bathroom. Full-on panic attack. And Tristan's like, I'm like, what's wrong? Like a full-blown panic attack because I was not—

it's all my own fault though.

Like, that's what I mean by it's been a very big learning curve for me.

Yeah, like people don't see the behind the scenes of it. Like, we've been broke down because—

and but this is what I said to Britta then, and I'll say this to you now. The reason you get so upset and that affects you is because you genuinely care about it.

Because you're scared that you're gonna—

you're scheduling the fuck up and it's somebody's wedding. It's not somebody's birthday, it's somebody's once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you want want it to be perfect. And when they're doing last minute things, or this has happened, and like every single wedding something goes wrong in Bali. Like any wedding, any wedding, any wedding, anywhere. I think it was Saturday's wedding, and again it was one of our remote planners. I fucking love this client though, but she like— I love her because she's so nice, but so much had happened in her personal life, and we become like wedding planner, mathematician, therapist. So Not that I've been therapist-ing, but I know a lot of her personal life and what's happened to her in the last year. So I'm very emotionally attached to this client, even though it wasn't my personal client, it was Elissa's. So I want her to have the most spectacular day because of everything that's going wrong in her life, right? So I get into the wedding and the first thing that I notice, I'm looking at the tables and I'm like, these tables are not as long as I thought they were. So I checked the measurements and I'm like, 2 meters. So our chairs are 40 centimeters long. I should fit 4 chairs on that, right?

We need to have a debrief on this.

This is where the mathematician part comes in. So I've worked out how many guests she's got. The tables are 2 meters long, 40 centimeter chairs. I can fit 4 on a table. So I've ordered enough tables for that without squishing them too close together. They arrive and I'm like, I can fit 2 and a half chairs on this table comfortably. So we're measuring them to the wrong measurements, of course, Bali life. But then I'm like, can you get me tables? There's no one in the warehouse. I don't have enough tables. I need 4 more tables because you've given me the wrong measurements. No, the right measurements, that's that side and that's that side. I said, no, that side's supposed to be 2 meters, that one's supposed to be 1, not 1.9. That's 1.5, that's 1.9, like completely wrong. Can you get me tables? So 45 minutes later, they're off to get me tables. They come back, Tristan, we actually hired the tablecloth today, so we don't have the tablecloth. And I'm like, oh my God. So then I'm contacting another company trying to get tablecloths. Like, it's just like so many things go wrong and this is on the day. So can you imagine that on the day things happening, but behind the scenes, everything is also going wrong and we have to be 100% on it. So when you've got 4 weddings in a month, which is normal, but Brad fudged us over a little bit and Britt had 4 weddings in 1 week. Can you imagine when things start going wrong and she's like, all this pressure. So like I'm dealing with that on the day and on the day it's fight or flight. Like you have to fix it straight away. Like I don't care, someone get me tablecloths, someone get on the phone to this company.

Even that's been a learning curve. Like I managed to sort out Save-A-Saver pretty quickly. I was like, yep, I'm learning.

So we will fix it, but that's on the day. But like behind the scenes, triple that is going wrong behind the scenes. And like, that's wrong, or that's wrong, or that company's not answering me and I gotta do that. So 4 weddings in a week, Britt is like having a mental breakdown. So when I made you cry the other week, I literally said to Britt, I made Leah cry today. She's like, oh my God. I was like, so when you talk to her, like we need to be good cop, bad cop. I'm the bad cop right now. You need to be good cop, be gentle on her. But I think I was like, nothing's wrong.

But also we jumped straight on a call.

I know.

And I was like, yeah, because Britt is our team leader. Britta is second in charge of the team, so I put that responsibility on her. If I fuck up or if I make someone cry, right?

But you were— you weren't making me cry. Like, also, I had— I had stuffed up and it's been a little bit—

I know, that's probably just my wording of doing it, but it was like, you know, I made her cry today.

I think I was like, I'm fine.

So then I say to Britta, like, it's now your job as team leader to come in. I'm telling you this in confidence. I'm not going to tell the rest of the cream that I'm— cream— the rest of the team I made you cry. But I'm telling Britta because she's the team leader and now it's her job to fix you and bring you back up. But I literally said to her later, how was she? She was good. And I was like, I'm actually surprised it took her that long because the amount of pressure I've put on her, like this is her year of sink or swim. We will now see what Leah can handle.

And, but like, look, it's, and I've had this conversation with Jamie obviously as well because he's seen me melt down as well.

Did he tell you I messaged him?

Yep.

I messaged him, I was like, I made Leah cry today. Please be gentle and look after her. See, I'm a good boss, I care. I was like, he came, I took off my boss hat and put on my friend hat and was like, right, how do we fix this?

No, I wasn't angry, but, and I think, like, I think I messaged you after and I was like, I'm just really frustrated with myself as well. Like, you know, I'm not the most organized person and sticking to things is hard for me sometimes. And I needed to not offer some clients the service that I offered them because they were too far past that. And that's just what it was. But me being me, I was like, oh, I don't think you wanted those flowers. Like, let me, let me try to put something together for you. Like, And that just happened. But it was really like, Leah, you can't do that. Because when you start doing that, you're taking away from the other clients and other clients are really— and I have bad communication as well.

Can I interrupt and just touch on this? Because this is again something Tash covered on her blog. So there are so many new wedding planners popping up. Now I personally know that there are—

she's counting.

There are 5 wedding planners right now all over the Facebook wedding groups. Hi, I'm a wedding planner. Let me help you with your dream day. And me and Tash have been talking about it because a couple of them are our ex-staff and a couple of them are her ex-staff. So they come into the company, I'm going to be a wedding planner. Now, Leah, you are currently picking up the pieces for one of our wedding planners that we let go, that it wasn't the right fit. And we do have, look, it's better now, but we do have a training process and steps you need to follow and what you need to be going with clients. Like, I love you as a person, but your brain— if I was your wedding planner right now, I actually feel really bad you didn't have a wedding planner because I'd be like, Leah, fucking no, don't focus on that, focus on this. And I will give an example. Hayley, who got married through us years ago, ended up working with us later. At one point, I actually had to sit down and have a hard chat with her. I was like, Hayley, this is too much for the wedding. You can't have 5 types of lighting, you can't have 7 types. Like, no, rein it in. So like, you have to be able to have a hard chat with sometimes. Sometimes, and you have to be honest with people. So you've just taken over from one of our wedding planners who had a bunch of clients, and you're taking over the admin right now. And one of the things me and Britta noticed is they were an order taker. So I want this, okay, no problems, I'll book this. I want one cocktail table, no problems, I'll book it. There was no advice. There was like, hey, you actually need 5 cocktail tables. Yeah. So I just— we just had that wedding, and she's only had one call in January, and that wedding planner said to her, you only need one more call and then we're done. And that was now, and her wedding's in a couple for like a week. And I pulled up the things and it's like greenery all over the beach. And the first thing I said to you was like, what does greenery look like on the beach? And you're like, not great. And I was like, have we spoken to her about this? And you were like, no. And I was like, I don't think she picked these flowers. I think she's just given an image and the wedding planner was like, yeah, no problems. Not giving her any input as an expert.

We had one just like that. They literally got sent A, B, or C option.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So like the first thing we did on the call is I said, okay, you've got this. Yep, that looks good. And I was like, do you actually like that? Yeah, it's fine. And I was like, well, can I give you some advice? And she was like, yes. And I was like, this is not gonna look good on the beach because it's green and the colors and this, it's gonna be, watch out. Can we add some flowers? Like, oh yeah, I like that idea.

Like, it was like a random piece of chiffon.

So within 15 minutes, like we've completely changed the decor because she's provided a picture and goes, oh, I like that. And the person's like, yeah, no problems. You're not a wedding planner, you're an order taker.

Oh my God.

And there are 5 people right now, she's dying, 5 people on the Facebook forum saying, I'm a wedding planner. No, babes, all you're doing is saying, I want pink pillows. Yeah, no problems, you can have pink pillows and I'll put them next to the yellow, orange, and green and red pillows.

There's one couch for 100 people.

And that's the same thing, the same wedding planner.

Come sit on my lap.

The same wedding planner is now on the market saying, I'm a wedding planner, let me help you dream, Jade. Undercutting every other planner out there. And this is the same wedding that I did furniture order, one of my beautiful clients, Courtney, just been. Going through the final thing, right? So this, that, and I hit the cocktail page because I've done a full 100. I'm like, you have one couch ordered for cocktail hour? She's like, yeah, it's beautiful, isn't it?

It's pink.

We have photos. I was like, what about other furniture? Oh, I didn't think about that. I was like, did me— did your wedding planner not discuss furniture options? Yeah, she told me to pick. I picked that one. I was like, she didn't give you advice that you need like 5 or 6 tables? No. And I'm like, and now she's on the market promoting herself as a wedding planner. So please, like, how about those other guys that just gone Leah. So Leah, like, that was killer.

Obviously A, B, or C options.

Literally, she sent A, B, or C, and she was like, they were like, I don't like any of these. And I was like, yeah, I didn't like any of them. Hours deep diving into that person's inbox to see if they had actually sent out. And I was like, here's the brochures, scroll through, see what you like.

And we see—

and then I literally like found the photos of them in real life, and they're like, oh my God, they were so grateful. They're like, this helps me so much.

Yeah. And I think this is really important, like, you need be passionate and you need to generally enjoy what you're doing. So like, from a remote planning perspective, someone that's been through all of the different roles, like, how are you finding planning remotely compared to being here? Like, what have been the biggest things for you moving through the positions?

I think the hardest thing— like, everyone has this idea that working from home is a dream, and I really just need a reality check, everyone. It's not. Like, I— how long— I don't know how long I've been here now. But I have consciously made an effort to try to get into the office as much as I can because the knowledge that you get from sitting and being able to talk to people, like just bouncing off people, the motivation, just the motivation sometimes. Like sometimes I literally have to go sit in a cafe with my headphones on to force myself to work.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, so that is hard.

Can we touch on like, I don't know, because I don't want to go into your personal life, but can we touch on like why you don't have a full-time job in Australia and why this role was suitable for you.

Yeah, yeah.

So what happened is I left my ex-husband.

Yeah, here I'm getting married.

This is why. Um, and I could not— my son is autistic, ADHD, and I know people like to think that that's just— he is. He was in ed support for a very long time. He was extreme.

Yeah.

Um, we managed to do all the therapy. He also had chronic lung disease, so he constantly has to go see the respiratory team at PCH for checkups. And then I have my darling daughter who decided that she would have chronic asthma and collapse her lungs multiple times. So another one in the hospital. And not only like, Billie's quite all right because she's just on a respiratory and yeah, I can't see the other department. So just two departments. Riley is literally under. 6 departments of PCH.

So what is PCH for those playing along at home?

Perth Children's Hospital.

Yeah.

So I don't know, obviously you've seen hospital files. This just gives you an idea. Riley has 4 volumes.

Yeah.

And we are now bursting into volume 5.

So for you working from home is the only thing you can do.

I would not, I would not be able to have, I can't sustain 9 to 5. Honestly, I take my hat off to any mum that can as well. Not only that, obviously I'm in a lot better position now. Thankfully I have a very supportive partner, um, but I couldn't afford daycare. I couldn't afford before or after-school care. Like, that was that.

But also, how do you put chronically sick children into that?

No, because they just get sick and then they get sent home.

Yeah.

And then you've got to deal with that, and then you're running back and forth from a hospital. And when you're on your own as a single mum like you—

yep, I literally— like, for anyone that's watching today, I'm constantly on my phone because at the moment I've left I'm in hospital, my son is there, and I'm waiting for a specialist to come see him. I don't know how you deal with this.

I had to split myself into two. Yeah. And there was no one else. Like Riley, I have Riley, I have sole parenting rights for Riley, so he is mine 100% of the time. He's exhausting. I love him.

Yeah.

His character, he's exhausting.

Yeah.

Um, and then I have Billy who only sees her dad once every, it's literally 25 hours. Every fortnight. Um, so when you're in a hospital and they change the rules at Perth Children's Hospital, so you couldn't have each other child stay with you. So I would have to choose between leaving a sick one at hospital, and I live— my closest family is an hour and 15 minutes with no traffic away from me. Um, so it's nearly impossible. Even school, you know.

Yeah, school for me, like, obviously you're probably used to it in Bali because of traffic, I also have help, so I have a driver pick my son up. Yeah, like I have to drive.

I get up at 4:30 AM, walk my dogs, I go get my son up, I drive him to the train station, which is half an hour away, drive home half an hour.

That's an hour.

Get my daughter ready and then take her to school, which is another half an hour. So that's 2 hours just in the morning of driving back and forth.

Yeah.

Luckily I've had some really— I've onboarded a neighbor at the moment. I mean, I'm currently paying them and letting them drive the Tesla. That is my bribery, and I literally am paying them just to get through this. Yeah, just interrupting in the afternoon.

So for you, like, doing any sort of steady 9-to-5 work, like, impossible. The only option is online.

I am messaging you or I'm emailing you at 4:30 in the morning. Do not expect this from anyone else. I will email you on the weekend. Do not expect this from anyone else.

Yes, because you work your own hours, because the wedding planning behind the scenes, like, as I've said to one of our other team members, I, October, November, December, January, I feel like I can maybe mention, I might get in trouble, but one of our team members is pregnant right now.

Oh yeah, yes, yep.

And we've basically just, not me, so she's, she has me, she has a split role. And I said to her, look, when you come back, one of your roles is not going to be a thing anymore, but we will keep you in a planning role because it does not matter what time of day you do the planning work. You could do it at 3 AM, you could do it at 5 PM, you could do it the next day, like as long as you're staying on top of it, like it doesn't matter. Yeah, so for a remote planner, and you and the other person, you and the other person are the only people that I will ever offer remote roles to. But that's also because like you've been there with, with me from like 8, 9 years.

We trauma bonded.

Yeah, we trauma bonded over planning our own weddings and like similar life stories at the time. But like that's what I kind of want to touch on because not a lot of people understand like why do you have remote planners? And it was like, well, this person looked after me, so now I'm like, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Like I will give you a job that you can work remotely at anytime you want.

Yeah.

And I have, like I always say, like I'm super grateful, but I think I've even had to pull people up before when they're like, well, so-and-so isn't emailing me back. And I'm like, yeah, that's because they don't work on the weekend, mate.

Like, this is not normal. And I think I had someone complain about the other remote planner. She emails me at like 4 AM and I was like, different time zone, babe, because she's literally in a different country and she's one of our remote. And I don't care if she emails you at 4 PM, you don't have to reply.

Also, so like complaint. They emailed in the afternoon on a Friday, and then we hadn't replied back to them by Monday. And they complained that it's been 3 days since they last sent their email. And we were like, you emailed us on a Friday, it's now Monday. We were off over the weekend.

So this is why I'm very like—

you tell people straightforward.

Like, I mean, I'm straightforward as it is, but like, I'm like, this is me.

Yeah. If—

and also if there's a weekend that I happen to take off, which I'm generally not because obviously, I, you know, I manage an Airbnb, so I work the weekend. So I'm generally on the computer doing, doing everything like invoicing or paying people for cleaning the Airbnb. Um, so for me, just to flick to another screen, like, that's nothing for me. That just means a little bit less work on Monday morning. Um, but yeah, I have to be really clear with people, this is me, do not expect this from anyone else. Like, yeah, they have a 9 to 5, obviously, then you have your Thursdays. Um, very different.

Yeah.

But I've also said to many people, like, I'm very appreciative because I would not be in the position that I'm in, being able to take my kids on holidays without this role either. Like, I would be doing bare minimum, like scraping through, because there's not—

there's not a lot of online opportunities that are completely flexible with when you work.

No. And I think there's also the freedom and the trust as well that you have you have obviously with us is not something that you would get in a normal workplace either. Like, you know, you have to trust it where there's no way of tracking us like at all. Like you are putting your faith in us that this is happening. Yeah.

I actually had a massive fight with a supplier last week. Was it last week? Yeah, 6 weeks ago. I had a massive fight with a supplier because—

I'm thinking that I'm— Is it that supplier?

Yeah, it's that supplier.

Okay.

I don't even think they listen to the podcast.

She hasn't worked it out.

I had a massive fight with a supplier last week because they, and look, I am very big that I will back my team 100% if you're doing the right thing. If you're not, then like there's going to be like things happening and there's going to be like you got pulled in a while ago because you've missed one of your SOPs. So you, Weren't punished, but someone else wrote as a punishment, like, you will now report to the GM every morning and every afternoon. And I was like, yeah, so like, I put trust in— if you fuck up, like, you will earn that trust back. And I've had the same with one of our boys. He fucked up my trust, he had to report to the office for 3 months. So I had a massive fight with a supplier the other day, and I didn't even know the context of the story, but I will back my team till the end. So I got a message from a supplier, and it was the— I think I was in bed dying, I was so sick. And it was, oh, this is the day of the floods, we're gonna discuss floods. It was the day of the flood. So the day of the floods, I was like I've had no sleep, I'm so sick. I've literally lost a car. Like my car has gone underwater, one of our work cars. So one of my staff who had the work car at the time was like, I'm so sorry, like blaming himself. So I'm dealing with that. And then they're getting evacuated. So two of our team are getting evacuated with children, a baby, young kids, they're flooded into the house, they're on rafts going through. I'm like, there was so much going on that day. It was like a big national emergency for Bali. and I had a supplier ring me and I was so sick in bed. I was so sick. So I'm sick, I'm on my phone. And then I had a supplier trying to ring me and I was like, I can't deal with this right now. And they messaged me, hey, Britta is not answering me. I messaged her, got a reply saying she's off today and to email her. I've emailed her, no reply.

Can I also say, wasn't off. I took the morning off, but you also got my out of hours auto reply because that—

It was 8:00 AM, mate.

It's 10 AM.

She's messaged me at 12.

Goes back normal. This person's messaged me at 8 AM after a wedding day.

That she finished at 2 AM.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm not—

I'm not alive yet.

I'm not alive.

So I got a message from a supplier at 12 o'clock or like 12:30. It was like between 12 and 12:30. It's 12:30. I'm talking to the boys saying, are you okay? Like, are you being evacuated? Do you need food? Do you have a, like, do you have a house to stay in? I don't think they had internet at that point. Like, 'cause I'm like, they've been evacuated. Where do they go? They've got children, they've got a baby. Like, do I need help finding somewhere?

'You can stay at my villa.' And then Tristan was like, 'They can't get out.' They literally cannot get out of the house.

They were flooded in on the second level, so they couldn't go downstairs. And I was like, 'Yep, I would have been dead 'cause I would have touched that water.' Yep, so I got a message, like a phone call from a supplier at 12:30. Now I'm migrainy, coughing, snotty, messaging, so I don't answer the call. Then she says to me, 'Hey, is Britta off today? Just messaged, I messaged her today, got a message saying to email her, emailed her, no reply.' So then I've gone into my emails and I can see that I'm CC'd on this email at like 11:50. 2:50 AM. So not even like an hour has passed. Now there's probably been emails before that, I don't know. So not knowing the situation, not knowing where Britta is because I'm sick in bed dying, and Britta was very sick as well, and I know that she'd work till 2 AM, I'm not going to disturb her. Um, so I've literally just replied and said, yep, probably right, Britta's off today, um, she'll come back to you tomorrow. No, that's not good enough, I need an answer today. And I was like Excuse me. So like, first of all, like, I said, and then there was another message. Spoke to her yesterday, promised me I was going to get all the information today. We can't proceed with this wedding without all of the information. Okay, we just have— no, but it was like, we just got a last minute booking for this wedding. So, oh yeah, that's right. So I'm— I obviously have access to a lot of documents, but not all of them. Also, I'm in bed, I don't have my laptop, I'm on my phone. So I go into the email, I read the email, and I'm like, they literally just want timings and diaries. Then I read The email chain down, 3 emails down, there's an email from last month. Here's my wedding booking, no dietaries. So, okay, so we just need dietaries and timings. So I've replied to her, hey, respectfully, if Britta said to you she's gonna come back to you today, I trust that she'll come back to you today. I've just read the email chain. Looks like the only thing that you're waiting for is timings and dietaries. Dietaries, there was none outlined, so I don't believe there is any. Timings, Britta will come back to you later today. Respectfully, I'm not gonna disturb her on a day off.

Why is timings, you gotta be there.

Oh, and that's what I said to her. The timing's dinner will be 6 to 7. And then there was like backwards and forwards of like, no, I need this information now. I was like, if she said to you, she's coming back to you today, I trust her. I'm not gonna wake her up right now.

Like also what happens if your client wants to change that timing on the day? You just gotta roll with it.

Yeah, so like, I feel like you just need to have a bit of flexibility because the backwards and forwards, like that day it was like 2 hours and I was just going to bat for Britta. Like, I'm sorry, I'm not waking Britta up right now. To be fair, I was in bed. I didn't know where Britt was.

The messages were very passive-aggressive.

And they were quite aggressive, but I was like, wow, Trissy, you literally just need the timings. You don't need that immediately today. And Bali was literally in a state of disaster. And I'm messaging the supplier saying, I'm dealing with this, this, and this. You're not the only one that matters. And I'm like, I can't deal with it. So the shit that we deal with behind the scenes, is massive.

Yeah.

So like, for you not being here, like, are you finding it okay? Like, what are you enjoying about the remote role?

Oh, I just like—

well, you've got us, you've got us here.

I like planning weddings. Um, yeah, it's okay. Look, I do— I think I said it to you the other day, I said I think I just find out things like in wins.

Yeah, like sometimes because you're not here, so you don't see it.

No, and like a lot of times, like, obviously things get passed through the office and But it's been a learning curve. Like this year has been a learning curve.

We just threw you under the bus.

Yeah. And I threw myself under the bus sometimes. Like, you know, like, and I've had to learn from that.

'Cause you gotta learn to say no and you gotta put your boundaries up. And that's the thing, I will bat for the team and I'll put your boundaries up for you.

I've gotta follow procedure as well. Like they're in place for a reason.

They are.

Look, it's taken me a lot and it's been like, I've got to do this, I've got to do this, I've got to do this. And I'm getting there slowly. But I think, yeah, it's interesting.

It is interesting. Yeah, it's learning.

Like, but also it's very— it's not a really common role.

No.

When you think about it, it's a learning curve for both of us. And yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a fan of taking over people's weddings.

I've learned.

So you're over the—

If you were currently in the inquiry stage of wedding planning and you're just getting people off Facebook, like if I wanted to, like I reckon Mr. Podcast Man over there with the headphones on, he could start a website. You know, you could jump onto Facebook and go, hi, I'm a wedding planner and you could answer really quickly.

ChatGPT.

How do you know that that person can actually handle it when shit goes wrong? When the furniture is showing up? Like I guarantee you if one of my ex-wedding planners that we let go that's now started their own company, I guarantee it would have hit 6 o'clock and we would have moved the chairs and they would have just then realized that those tables don't fit those chairs. Not at 10 o'clock in the morning when I walked in and was like, mm, those tables don't look right. Can we order 4 more tables and then tablecloths? There is so much logistically that goes wrong. And I had this conversation with actually Udi from Soul Content Creator. We're getting him on an episode shortly. I had this conversation with him the other day and he's like, how's it all going? And I was like, First of all, the tables, they were the wrong length. So then I've had to like, and I only realized this morning because they told me the measurements. I've had to order tables. Now I'm waiting on tablecloths. The tablecloths aren't here. And like, I'm going through the things that went wrong. And he was like, oh, that's so bad. That's so bad. And I was like, but this is why I have a job. If this stuff was perfect every time, you would not need a wedding planner. So when you're looking for a wedding planner, you shouldn't be looking for someone that answers you the fastest. You need someone that is a critical thinker. And can fix shit when it goes wrong. Because even that company, no one's in the warehouse, they can't take your booking. Great. Do you have keys to warehouse? Yes. Tell your boss I'll sort it out on Monday. We work together a lot. Can you just go get me the tables? I will pay. It's trust agreement. If you're a brand new planner and you have that company, do you think they would have gone and got you those tables? No way. No, but these guys see me 50 times a year. They know that I pay the bills. They know that I'm good for it. I had a company the other week, actually the other week, it's everything's the other way. Other company the other week, and I will happily talk about this company because I love them, they love me, and they're on the episode that's just about to air. So I had Bali Event Hire out and we ordered this beautiful pergola, the Javanese pergola, very heavy. Okay, yes, I remember in the run sheet that I sent out, it was, it's going to be repurposed, we're using it for the photo booth. So after the ceremony, I was like, can they move the photo booth? No, Tristan, it's very heavy, it's going to take them a long time to move. I was like, yeah, Okay, I don't care. Move the photo booth.

Read the run sheet.

40 minutes goes by, they're not moving the photo booth. They're not moving the thing. They're telling me it's going to take 2 hours, Tristan. Now the boys are Bali Van High Beautiful, they don't speak English, so I'm going backwards and forwards with the staff member.

Okay, great.

I don't care if it takes 2 hours, move it. Photo booth doesn't set up till 7. It's now like time's gone, it's been 20 minutes. Why are they not moving it? The flowers are going to die and they're going to ruin the flowers if they pull the photo booth apart because the flowers attached. I don't fucking care. Move the photo booth. All right, so I'm getting less patient and less patient. And then it hits 6 o'clock and we're moving guests. Why isn't my photo booth moved? Tristan, it's really heavy. They're actually saying it's gonna take 3 hours. And I was like, right, tell them I will get all the boys beers as soon as they move it.

Oh, it's moved.

I'm not even joking. It starts moving. They start pulling it apart. They start moving it. To be fair, they're making noise during the reception. So I'm pissed off about that. But as soon as it was done, I not only send them beers, I get onto Gojek and I order them 5 pizzas and send it to the car park. So you know what happened on Saturday? Exactly the same pergola. Boys, can you move the pergola for me? It got moved straight away. Straight away. Can you imagine? And literally Ryan came to me that night and he goes, you know why they moved it? They weren't going to move it because apparently they're not meant to move it. It's only because it was Bali brides. Can you imagine brand new wedding planner move the pergola? No, they don't know, bribe them with beer or do this or do that. Like they've never planned a wedding before in full. So yeah, I don't know where I was going with that. It was just like a watch out when you're booking wedding planners that people can actually critically think. I think that's a learning curve.

AI will never take our job.

This is, yeah, like it's gonna take, like Liz's job. I had a big call with her this morning.

Like can you assist us with our admin? 'Cause I always feel like you need someone like, AI has been a learning curve too.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, like, we, we obviously, we're very big on it, and but like, remember in the start of it and you're like, Leah, come on. And then I was like, am I meant to be using AI? Am I not meant to be using AI?

And then I had to, I had to learn how to use it because you were literally just getting it to write your whole email and I could read that it was AI.

Yeah, and then I was like trying to word it so it'd be friendly and then it just sounds stupid.

And also you overthink things, so something that would take me half an hour to do, AI 5 minutes to do. Yeah. You will take an hour to do.

Yeah. So like, I think I literally had to start it like you said, set the alarm, and I literally had to do it.

Yeah, because you, you overthink it and you're like back forward, back forward, and I'm literally like, you need to set an alarm and say like, you've got 5 minutes to do this.

Because you've been setting a lot of alarms.

They're a vibe.

You're like, hey Google, yeah, because I need to know to move on. Because like, at the moment I feel I'm very heavily trying to step out of the business, which everyone's aware of, because is I need to grow the business and I need to train. This is a big part of our hiring process, but I'm trying to work on the back end of the business and grow as a company rather than focusing on the business. So I'm trying to proactively get through my work faster so I can work behind the scenes as well. Yeah. But yeah, it's been a massive learning curve.

Yeah.

So we've had a couple of weddings for you this year, and I feel like your weddings are like— not that they're getting bigger, but you're getting a lot more—

getting prettier.

They get— getting prettier. So I want you to walk me through One of my favorites this year, and I think it was just 'cause it was very different, like Joe and Dave, was that their name? My brain is slowing down.

Joe and Dave.

Joe and Dave, very small wedding. Photos here, gorgeous. Like where did the inspo come for that one? Were you like, how over the years, like were you heavily involved in the design work? Were they doing that? Like tell me a bit more about Joe and Dave's wedding.

I think with me, I think you'll, you will be aware of this. I'm very good at people telling me what they envision and then being able to put that into a picture somehow.

I don't know. Yeah.

Like, um, and Jo had said to me, there was a lot of back and forth with Jo.

She was very, she changed her mind so many times. So many times. It all came together beautifully. But that again, that's like not last, she was last minute.

Like I was like, I need your photos now.

Like she was sending us everything through last minute, it was shook away. But that wedding turned out stunning. I mean, obviously we can't can do it. It's just stressful for us.

She's lucky we could do it. Yeah, and she had the budget to do it, which is the other big thing. Obviously we did fabric draping, and I think if fabric draping's done pretty cheaply, it's not a vibe.

No, you gotta have the money for it.

Yeah, she had the money. Even the flowers, like back and forth. Oh look, it was really interesting. Well, in their culture, they can't have pointy flowers.

It's bad luck in the wedding ceremony. I called that my rainbow unicorn vomit wedding because I was looking at it on the mood board and I couldn't visualize it. And then on the day I was like, oh, it's so pretty.

I knew what she was going for, but I think because the photos and very— we had—

I think this is where it comes down to like the difference between a stylist and a florist. So if we'd onboarded a stylist, I would have completely understood the vision, but instead I had photos and then we were explaining to the florist and the florist had to bring it to life with us going, well, no, she wanted 20% blue, whatever.

And I had to get in between— not in between, but I had to really, I guess, translate from Jo's language to the florist language because English wasn't her first language. No. And like, just trying to get across what Jo wanted into— like, she can show me a picture and then trying to say that in a way that the florist would understand.

Planner versus order taker, you know? Like, anyone can answer an email, but can they really pull apart your vision?

Yeah. And we, like, we went back and forth multiple times. Times, and I think it took about 4 days of going back and forth to get to— and you know, like when Jo said, I don't want pointy flowers, the florist took that very literally, so she removed all pointy flowers. And I was like, no, I think we need to deep dive. Jo's first language isn't English either, so obviously there was that language barrier added to it. But when I saw, like, you showed me, and I was like, it's stunning, like, it turned out beautifully.

But again, like, it's a lot of backwards and forwards, that's a lot of pulling apart a client and a lot of trust. There was a lot of trust, so much trust. You have to trust your wedding planner.

Yeah, like that was a lot of trust. Like I knew what Joe wanted, I think Joe understood and trusted that I, I got it. Yeah, but because there was no stylist mood board, there was nothing. Joe literally had to put her faith in us that it was going to work out. And you know, I think the setup, we said no, you can't do that. It's not enough room, Jo.

And she tried and she tried. The fire, like, I want the tables this way. It doesn't fit that way. But I wanna, I'm about to have, I'm meant to have a call tomorrow night with someone, but I've had to cancel it because, you know, hospitals. Like, I can obviously do a little bit of work, but I can't jump on a call because the nurse walks in in 10 minutes and then Christian's calling for me. And then like, I had a call with Alyssa this morning and I think 5 times I had to stop the call because we need to get the bathroom. Nurse came in, lunches arrived, like Christian's put his bed up 2 meters and like, it was, it's pure chaos in that hospital. So I can do a little bit of work when I can, but I'm constantly getting interrupted, which for admin work's not a big deal, but calls, no. So yeah, it was literally trust. It's a massive trust factor that you need to—

I think we've got one.

I've got one tomorrow. That's what I was saying with that conversation. I've got one, I meant to have a call tomorrow and she wants the specific round tables together. Oh yes, I love that.

I wanted that, but I don't—

In a state, but she wants 2 rows. But the venue that she's getting married at has trees. So physically, like, we can't put them all together because there's trees in the way. So at the moment, I've got 3 different options. She can have one long snake there or one long snake there, or we're gonna have to do long, long— it won't fit the other way on the main lawn she wants it because we still need to fit in a dance floor and all these things. So like, there needs to be a big trust. Like, I just had the wedding the other day and we had the curvy tables, and I said to the bride, you need to trust me, I cannot do you a floor plan because there's trees everywhere at your venue. I need to physically figure it out on the day, figure out where the tables fit, then figure out where the bridal table's going, then the dance floor, and then the bouncy castle and everything else. So we had a lot. Ashley's wedding here.

No, that's like, Jamie's like, let's have a bounce castle. I'm like, where?

So when I—

this broke.

So when I arrived on Saturday, normally at the moment I've got this big thing that I send in one of our freelancers in the morning who's good with the setups, and he does the lighting, all the little basic things, and I can have a sleep and get there at like 10 instead of 8 AM. So I got there and everything just said report to Tristan on the day for layout. And so That's when I started putting tables out and that's when I was like, oh my God, there's not enough room. But then like literally I just said to Clayton, you have to trust me. I can't tell you where everything's gonna go because I've got trees and I've got a bungalow and the lawn is slightly raised in some areas. So until I can physically put everything in place, and when you get a venue layout, they'll go, it's 7 meters by 13 meters, but that part's raised. You can't actually put a table or chairs there. And then there's concrete there. Or like there's so many factors into it.

I think trust is the most important thing. Honestly, when I'm doing floor plans and I'm presenting it to a client—

We had this issue last week, remember?

Most of the time I'm like, guys—

It's gonna change.

This is rough.

Rough.

Like until I actually get to the venue, like, yes, I know the sizing and dimensions of everything, but it's when you actually get there and you get all the furniture and everything in there.

I'm having this issue at the moment trying to think.

If you've got like a photo booth and you got a bar or buffet, like until I actually get into that venue and I can actually visually see it, 'cause I'm a very visual person.

Same. That's why you need a wedding planner.

On the day, that floor plan will be finalized.

We were in a ballroom.

This is—

or it'd be in Australia, no problems. I can design your floor plan to the T. But when we're outside in venues that have— like, even the other day I walked— oh, Saturday I walked in, and previously there was a, like, a Bali hut bungalow. And I walked in and I'm like, what the fuck is this building? And there's this big white ugly building. I don't even think I have a photo of it to insert it, but I'm like, what the hell is that? They're like, oh yeah, it's new. And I'm like, where's the bungalow? Oh, it broke. And I'm like, it broke? Do you not think you should have told me that? Because I— the band was going in the bungalow, the bridal table was going to be there, it was going to be a beautiful backdrop.

And now it's like, lucky it wasn't raining if the bungalow was being the COVID for the band.

Yeah, well, they still could have gone in there, but the acoustics would have been terrible because it was a physical, like, building. So then I was like, well, the bridal table's supposed to go there, but that's there, and I'm not having that in the background. So I literally reversed the floor plan and then played with it all. So when people were arriving, I was like, oh no, I had to swap because the building's ugly. So you need someone that can logically think, and trust is massive. Because if you're one of these type A brides, it's like, I want that exactly as it is, and we show up on the day and the venue's built a brand new building, I'm like, I have to change it.

Yeah, we have to do it.

I'm not going to come in and out of hair and makeup and pull you out to come look at it. Like, you just need to trust me that it's going to be beautiful.

Even Megan and Jacob, like, when it started raining—

we had a big rant about this on the last podcast— like, you need to trust your wedding planner. Yeah, I know it wasn't that, it was like Wedding guests, leave us the F alone.

Yeah, shut up.

Oh, the wedding guests.

The wedding guests.

I'm not here for you babes. I'm here for the bride and the groom.

So you obviously do a lot of behind the scenes. You don't see a lot on the wedding. We've had a lot going on in the last couple of months.

I get the phone calls.

You get the phone calls. You see the tea behind the scenes. Like tell, oh, you know what I just had? What? Have you ever had a crush on a couple? Or like a bride or a groom?

Brooke and Josh. Brooke and Josh, if you're listening to this, your wedding planner has a massive crush on you.

Oh my God. So do you know what's funny? So a couple years ago, quite a few months ago, I got a message. I was actually sitting in a cafe, right? And this never happens, impromptu meetings. I was sitting in a cafe, I just wrapped up a meeting. Someone messaged me, said, we're in Bali, want to chat to a wedding planner, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, where are you staying? And they were literally like a 2-minute walk. And I was like, hey guys, like, this is this never happens, but I'm actually sitting in a cafe about to wrap up. I've got nothing on for the next 2 hours. No, I was actually at Revolver. If you want to come right now, I can meet with you. So I can't even remember if it was groom or the bride. I think I was just so blindsided, but it was so long ago that it's all mush. But anyway, these people rock up and they are like supermodels. Supermodels walk in the door and sit in front of me. We have a chat. It's me. Anyway, we give them to a wedding planner. Wedding planner takes over them. I was like, I'm so jealous. They're so good looking. They're going to make the best photos. Anyway, we terminated that wedding planner for whatever reason. I took over, and from the moment I took over, you could not find a more grateful couple that I have personally taken over. Thank you so much. Like, just everything. And every time I got a call on, I was like, oh my God, you guys are so like beautiful, you know, like just genetically beautiful people. And then when we let this wedding planner go and I took over, like so grateful that I'd taken over. Then Christian went to hospital in March and I had to cancel a call. I was like, guys, I'm so sorry, I have to cancel a call. My son's in hospital. Honestly, like I love you, but he comes first. The email back was the most empathetic, beautiful email. I hope he's okay. No rush. It's fine. We trust you. Not even a week later, hey Tristan, just checking in. Is your son doing okay? We've been thinking about him. He's in our prayers. Like constantly checking in to see if I'm okay. Just good humans. And then when we kept the next planning call that we had, I get on the call first thing, how's your son? Is he okay? Like so concerned for me. So I developed a bit of a crush on them because not only were they so sexy, photo here if I can, just genuinely fucking lovely people.

I feel like that makes people more attractive though when they're good humans.

I literally, when I was talking to the celebrant at the wedding 3 or 4 days ago, I was like, wait till you see my next couple, they're so sexy. Yeah, so I had a bit of a girl crush. So on the day, I was actually—

A girl crush or a girl and a boy crush?

Both. I literally said, if either of them decided not to marry their partners. I'm not gay, but I would marry her. Like, she was gorgeous. So on the day, like, she comes in and she's already naturally gorgeous, right? Like, stunning human being. Then she gets hair and makeup done by Fit Queen. I've walked in, I'm like, oh my God, I'm like bi-curious right now. And then he arrives and I was like, oh my God. And then everyone that arrived, like, all this surprise, oh my God, so sexy. I was like, mine, mine, keep your hands off. But also, like, just so genuinely lovely. Like, she actually emailed me today to check in to see how Christian was going because she saw on our stories that Christian's in hospital. So like, yeah, I had their wedding. And when you get those kind of human beings, me and Britt touched on this in the last episode, like, I'm sorry, I'm gonna bend over backwards for your wedding. I'm gonna throw in freebies. I'm gonna like do everything I can to make sure you have the best freaking day ever.

Like crap, what are you gonna get?

Nothing, mate.

It's not like you're treating them like crap, but like, no, like, but generally people are so nice and kind and they're warm and they're such good human beings.

You know, oh my God, I'm going to do everything I can to make you happy because you don't get generally like hot people that are also that nice. Like, I don't know what God was handing out on the day that he made them, but he gave them everything. Like, so I had their wedding, they were absolutely gorgeous. I'll chuck some photos in here of their wedding, maybe a sneaky photo of them. So I had massive girl crush on them. And then a few days later, you had probably one of your most intricate styling weddings to date where everything went wrong. Who was that? We won't name names because we're too far in. I can name names because mine were sexy and I'm just complimenting them.

She doesn't know.

Oh, Ullalathi Cottages.

Oh, we spoke about that.

Oh, did we? We've, we've had, we've recorded since then.

Helena and Josh, beautiful wedding.

We had their wedding.

Stunning wedding, Helena and Josh.

What other events have we had?

There was two, two flyers at once.

And at cottages.

Yeah, actually, no, to be fair, I don't think we've had a monthly recap.

I think we recorded 3 episodes and we did speak about them. We, we did, we spoke about them, but everything's blending. Yeah, so why not? Yes, well, because we've been filming episodes, but obviously every 4th we're doing a monthly recap, but then we kind of touch on things.

Yeah, Hannah and Josh were stunning, stunning.

Do you know what else has happened in the last like 6 weeks? We won't name the venues, but the other thing you've got—

oh my God, don't.

This is what I mean about critical thinking and having an experienced wedding planner. So, you know, we have two venues at the moment that have changed rules on us last year.

They're cursed.

Last minute. And I—

every time I walk into this one particular venue though, I've always had bad juju. Yeah, and I don't know what it is about it.

I've never been there.

I don't have that. I've got one venue I refused to work out. It's actually on our blacklist of venues because I just feel so uncomfortable in there. And that I like— I'm not a spiritual person, but that place is cursed. I don't know what's wrong with it.

But you also told Connecta, our driver, and he was like, oh yeah.

Oh, and the Rain Stopper refuses to go there as well. Oh, that's saying something. So I literally said to him, is there any place he won't work? And when he said it, I was like, oh my God, I've blacklisted that venue.

I think we've talked about this.

Yeah, yeah. I just like— that was the venue that I walked into and within an hour I had to leave, even though I was meant to be there, because I was like, I can't. I feel pressure on my chest. I feel like I'm being like I'm like, fucking suffocated, I have to get out of this venue. And as soon as I walked out, within probably 15 minutes, I was like, it's like I felt like something was sitting on my chest.

Insane.

Um, but yeah, so these two venues, worked with them a long time, just changed the rules randomly on us.

Yeah, but only for you, or only for us, not for you.

Not for you.

Yeah, you're fine.

Double standards over here.

And it's like, this is the shit that we're dealing with. I'm not even joking. A week before the wedding, hey, this has happened, you now need to do this. And I'm not going to go into details, we'll about it in a year when they're not going to know what's about them. You now have to do this. Okay, great. But for us to do that, it's going to cost us an extra $2,000. Not our problem. Well, actually it is because we've already billed the client. How do I now go to the client and say you've changed the rules, we've got to bring in something completely different to what we've booked and what they've ordered.

And now it's going to be another $20 to $30 million on top.

So like we've been dealing with that behind the scenes.

And the catering for those venues, you probably got my email yesterday. That's another thing.

Yeah, there's another one today. So like, and then And yeah, this is the other thing. Like as much as we've got recommended suppliers, but recommended suppliers, they still fuck up. They're still human. They're still like, there's staff issues, there's whatever. So we've had major issues with a couple of venues because they've changed rules. And then they were like, well, you need to do this. And I'm like, I'm not gonna bill my client an extra 2 grand before the wedding. Like that's not my fault. That's not the client's fault. That's your fault. So like there's been these backwards and forwards behind the scenes. And then we had a catering company accidentally, first of all, serve a bride something that she's deathly allergic to. Anaphylactic allergic. And on top of that, that same food tasting then completely forgot the sides and desserts. And we're like, it's been a month. We're having this backwards and forwards argue. Like, how do I trust you now? But we've already booked in the venue. We don't have a choice. So like there's so—

Yeah, I remember saying that.

I think this is why as well, we've been sick and run down because it's not only are we planning these beautiful weddings, but we're so stressed because these couples, the issue with the, like it's gonna cost them 2 grand. Well, they've got no idea that's going on. This is our job. I'm like, if you have a brand new wedding planner that's never planned a wedding and they're like, it's gonna be $2,000, they're gonna have to pass that on. But I'm arguing, I'm fighting for the clients behind the scenes. But it's like, I refuse to do this, this is not fair. And I'm not even joking, it comes to the wedding day and they're refusing to let us do an installation.

Oh yeah.

You know, you can't install that, it's against our policies. We already told you this a week ago. And I was like, are you gonna pay the extra $2,000?

We sent them the run sheet and they said nothing.

They said nothing into the day and then it was future wedding. So there's so much that goes on behind the scenes. Behind the scenes.

And then we get a message, um, our last wedding, we get a message and say— I think it was 2 days out from the wedding, or was it day before?

Anyway, I don't know, it was like the night before.

And I was like, yeah, I'm not replying to this, I can't.

And essentially they were like, it was this person that I despise, despise.

And I, because I think there's just been so many issues, this person build up a little bit of a grudge.

Yeah, I wouldn't say despise, but you should be upset with them. There's industry, you need to be passionate, you need to love the job. When people are just black and white and there's no pull, there's no empathy, there's no nothing, that's when I have an issue. I'm like, you should not be in this industry if you don't have empathy.

It's not even just that, it's like, just make the rules make sense. You need to help us out here.

Yeah, we need to work together.

It's someone's wedding. Yes, sure, we can't do this on this side, can't do this on this side, but we need to meet middle ground at some point it's someone's wedding, this needs to be fixed, we're going to fix it together. But there hasn't been any of that.

No.

It's like, I'm going to fix this. I can't do this to a client. You need to meet me here.

Yeah.

I also find it funny.

You need to help me out.

'Cause this venue is very about paying on deadlines as well.

And as well. So they know that we can't, they know we've already billed our client.

And this is how people get dropped off our recommended list. So when people are like, why aren't they on your recommended list? Like, you don't want to go into detail, but there's reasons you get dropped from our list. So I'm trying to pull a meeting with the owner right now. Depending how that meeting goes depends if they're going to stay on our list. And then there's so many things that go wrong. But the other week, the tables, we came to a middle ground solution. They went and got me tables. I figured out the tablecloths. That other event when I said to you, Bali Event Hire brought me the wrong chairs. However, I had ordered the chairs, not specified a color. They'd sent me an invoice, not specified the color. Well, they did, but I didn't read the invoice. And then when I sent the run sheet out, it had the color and they didn't read that. So like it was both of our faults. But that was a common mistake. We both took responsibility. We worked together to fix it. This venue, they just changed the rules and then they were like, well, tough titties.

Yeah. And this is one venue that we have worked at.

And you can't tell us on the wedding day.

No, no, exactly. But this is also, this is the latest one that we've just had.

We work there a lot. We've worked with them for 10 years.

Absolutely downpour.

And it's new staff, new procedures. And I think the problem is, is like, and this is the reason why I need to work on the team. There's been very high turnover. And so new people are coming in and they like, I swear to gosh, this new manager spoke to me like I was a fucking 3-year-old. Like, babes, I have been in the industry a lot longer than you. You might be much older than me.

You don't speak to people like that, babe.

But I know what I'm doing. I'm not a fucking idiot. Like I know that I might look young or you don't know who I am, but I am one of the experts in this field.

Sometimes I am a fucking idiot. It still doesn't give you a right to speak to me like this.

You know what they said to me last week? You have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. A company that's been in business 2 years.

Yeah, well, you have no idea what.

I'm sorry, I've been working in the industry for 11 years. You've been in the industry for 2 years and one little thing out of the 50 billion supplies I deal with, I don't know what goes on behind the scenes? Like, yes, I fucking do.

You're behind the scenes, sorry.

Yes, I do. When they came to me, the other day, just before this wedding, with the big downpour, just before the floods—

still got to touch on the floods—

um, we like to get this message a few days out from a wedding and be like, there was lots of back and forth email with this person that I've had a lot of tension with recently. Like, there's been a lot going on. I was just saying, I was just very blunt in my emails, but I was still polite. Tristan, I think you were CC'd in those emails as well.

I think one of them you sent to me and you said I just needed to rant, and I said I'm happy with except just edit this teeny tiny bit and then we can do it.

Sometimes I just type it and then delete it.

But then like for them to say, no, you need these like planks, these bases for the lighting.

We had a lot of that.

And I was like, I'm sorry, Tristan had a wedding there last week, literally a few days ago.

And there was no conversation about any— I made sure, I sent that run sheet out weeks before to make sure, 'cause they had the lighting company stand.

There was no conversation about any base or any rigging or anything.

But you know what's happened internally? I wasn't dealing with that person, I was dealing with another person. Yeah, so that person was okay with that person, it wasn't— it'd be like a client coming to me and saying, I'm going to bring in an international celebrant, and me going, cool, no problems. And then they come to you and you go, no, you can't do that.

Do they not talk to each other? Do they think that you don't talk to us?

Well, that's the thing, and I think that's what's happening. And then we're like, well, it's double standards. No, it's not. Well, yes it is, because Tristan just did the same thing last week and it wasn't an issue.

And I'm like, and I actually looked at the venue again. I was like, hang on a minute. We actually can't put any wooden bases down because up there in that cocktail area, it's like very, like there's lots of terrain. It's very uneven ground. It's very bumpy. We actually physically can't put it.

It's not safe.

We can't put any, it would be.

And the lighting would fall over. It'd be like that.

And we physically need to put the poles and like, the pegs in the ground. Like, we can't actually put the heavy wooden bases because they won't actually stand.

They won't sit on this site.

I was like, is there any rules about lugging?