S1 E25 - Season Finale Chaos: Champagne, 700 Weddings & The Team Behind It ALL!

Welcome back to another episode of Bali Weddings Unveiled, and drum roll, this is the season finale!

What a year! Welcome to the season finale, guys. We have had a wild year of podcasting. Pop the champagne, pop the champagne! We're joined today by obviously Al and Yanti, who are— everyone's met Al and Yanti so far, but we'll do reintroductions while I pop the champagne. Please reintroduce yourself.

Hey guys, you first or me first? Lady first.

We are back for season finally.

Yay! And one of Bali Brides planner, one of our senior planners.

Yes.

And Al.

Hi, I'm Al. I'm joining Bali Brides 2 years ago in May. It's been a wonderful There you go, my dear.

Party!

It's been a party.

It's been a party.

Thank you.

Almost dropped it. And, um, my favorite part about today when we're planning out the episode is I said, should I bring champagne? And what did you say, Yanti?

The only paint I want.

The only paint she wants. So cheers, everyone! Cheers, ladies, to another amazing year of Bali Brides and our first year of podcasting. To everyone playing along at home, cheers. Thank you for listening. And thank you to whoever actually gifted us this beautiful bottle of champagne from the anniversary last year. It's lovely. It's needed. So needed. So team, welcome. Today's episode is all going to be our yearly recap. Last year we did a yearly recap with the entire team, but as we've changed studios, it's a bit small, it's a bit cramped. We've just got a couple of key players that have really been the key to the year, really. So let's kick it off. Um, what a year. How many weddings have we done? How many have we got to go?

I think we've got two— oh no, you've got two more. Oh yeah, Leah's got one this weekend, so three, I think.

Three, four. Yeah, this month.

Can't wait.

And we're gonna help the Bestie Company by the end of the year for New Year's Eve.

Absolutely. We did say that we, um, I don't know if it would have happened by now, so this will be the season finale, but we missed an episode today because unfortunately our guest was meant to be Steph and she's had to duck off for a family emergency. Gosh, it's been a year. So So we've missed filming one of the episodes. We don't know if we'll replace it, but if we do, we're going to try and get Sparrow on. So you might have already met Sparrow. If not, we're going to be working— well, these two are going to be working with them on New Year's for a final wedding. But what a year it has been. I think we've done about 80, 90 weddings. I actually haven't completely counted.

80, 80-something.

I feel like Yanzi had a really big May with a lot of back-to-backs, but that was like the rollover effect from previous.

Yeah, all of the, uh, cutbacks that I made in the company. You're welcome, guys.

But, um, I think other than that, I feel like the year's been pretty good with not as many back-to-backs, and we've actually had time for ourselves, which has been lovely. Yeah, a lot more.

Thank you to Steph as well.

Great.

Oh yeah, Steph has been like the breath of fresh air that we needed, I think, this year. Like, just the scheduling, the filtering of clients and finding people that we really vibe with. Like, our clients this year have been incredible.

Yeah.

And I think also another very special milestone that we need to mention— obviously we had our anniversary party last year— we have just surpassed 700 weddings for the company.

Whoa!

Can you believe that, Yanti? Since like 700— what do we do in our first year? Like 7? We have now done 700 weddings overall for the company, which has been massive. Like, I actually just cannot believe that this is where we're at now. And Al, honestly, like, this year without you, I don't know how I would have survived. All the site visits, all the food tastings. Like, I don't know if anyone playing at home has noticed, I've lost quite a bit of weight because I'm not doing food tastings. Alice, thank you for making me fat. You're not fat, the angel. But you have been on some food tastings this year. I mean, I haven't done them. I actually had a beautiful client from my last wedding of the year, she messaged me after the wedding and she said, Tristan— she was a bit disappointed, to be honest— and she said, have you had a chance to try the food? Did you try the food at our wedding? I was like, no, babes, I had to supply a meal because we don't eat the meals at the wedding, that's for the guests. And she was like, yeah, that bride. And she was like, I'm so sad that you got a vendor meal. I was like, I'm not, because I saw what your catering was, in the nicest way. Um, but you've been on all of the tastings this year, so you are probably the most experienced. Who's your favorite catering company right now and why? For now, can I pick a favorite? Absolutely, we can.

Tough questions.

So far, I would probably choose Bollywood Food any day.

Oh, yum. I've only done one tasting with them in the last couple of years. You've done one now as well because we've been busy and you've been out doing them. Why? What's so special about them?

The taste is just so rich, very Indo, even though it's Western food, but still like very rich. And then their presentation is also mind-blowing. It's like an art. It's like a piece of art which you feel sorry to eat.

Oh, that you feel sorry to eat. That's adorable.

Yeah. So the content was looking great every time we are tasting there. And yeah, it speaks its own name. Probably good food.

It's good food.

Yeah, it's a good food.

And favorite venue of the year?

Oh, Um, I would say the new one, Villa Stella.

Oh, I love that villa.

Yeah, the sounds of coconut.

Very old school Bali, like the villa. I'll put some photos up here of that particular wedding that we just did. Actually, I think I just put them on the last episode as well because that was my final wedding of the year. The trees, the ocean in the background, and you can see a lot of Bali in the background as well. And it's quite far out, like there was a lot of travel out there. Would take us 2 and a half hours, 3 hours.

2 and a half, yeah.

Yeah, it is far out. But yeah, that venue is gorgeous. Something new, I think, for us as well, especially in the area, right?

Especially when the weather is good. Oh, the sunset is like— I even like stood there shooting content, like didn't move for a couple minutes just to enjoy the view, how good it was.

The amount of people that I just took a photo as I walked into that villa, because you straight away when you come in upstairs, it's just like, it's so gorgeous. The amount of people that replied to my Instagram story, oh my gosh, where is this? I think that'll be a venue to watch for this year. I mean, the location, it's probably the most inconvenient thing, especially for us, like having to leave the office at the crack of dawn, getting home. What time do you get home that night? Like 2? Big day.

It was faster than leaving. Yeah, maybe 1 hour and a half-ish.

That's not too bad. And Any— well, I suppose we don't really want to badmouth venues. I was going to say any ones that were taken off the books. If you are a Barley Brides client and you're currently on school, I would encourage you to check all the suppliers because what happens at the end of every season is we've now done a full year working and maybe we've worked a full year now with newer companies or companies that we've worked with for a while. And the standards do go up and down. Like besides a couple of the key players that have been in the industry for years, like, and I'm very confident saying, you know, Butter and Exora as a cake company, they're never going to fault. Like they're always just consistent. Bali Good Food, been around for a long time, certain venues. But this year I really feel that a lot of our suppliers let us down, and we've actually removed them from the books for next year. So if you're a Bali Brides client, please constantly check school because we do— at the end of every year we do a bit of an internal review. We say we're not going to work with that company for next year because of XYZ, and our standards are high. So it could be little things like they were late for a wedding, or for DJs they messed up the music, or, you know, they said no when we asked them for help for something, or the catering food— the food wasn't good, it was inconsistent. Yeah, so we are updating all of our things, and I feel like we've also got some new suppliers coming onto the books for next year, which is really exciting as well. Any up-and-coming companies that you've loved working with this year that maybe aren't as popular?

I would say maybe Books Are the Forest.

Yeah, big shout out. Sarita Styling does florals and styling. We've worked with him probably more for florals than anything this year.

For high-end, like big budget.

Yeah, but oh my gosh, some of the weddings have been absolutely incredible.

The fullness of florals and just everything about him. I've just gotten a mood board through for a wedding in September next year and we've, I didn't even think, it's just like stylists think of things that we don't. And he's got these beautiful like burgundy, lanterns, like hanging lanterns going above the bridal veil. Like, that is freaking gorgeous. Never would have thought of it.

The brains, they, they just work differently.

I think having styling companies just make life so much easier.

Yeah, it does. But for me, I, I'm like such a control freak on the wedding day. I need to know what's going on. I need to know everything. And when a stylist steps in, I'm like, I don't know what's happening. I don't know what this is meant to look like because they've been all over it.

So, well, no, I felt that with with a company that was booked directly, and I didn't even get the final mood board, so I didn't actually know what the day was meant to look like.

And then there were a few things that were missed, and there was a few things that were missed afterwards, and I'm like, that wouldn't have ever happened if we were there.

As soon as we stepped into the venue and then you saw the, you know, the art— this is not the ones in the mood board, you know?

Yeah. So I love working with the styling company, but I think it's really important that the planner is involved in that, because with that particular another one. Styling company was gorgeous. I think it was a newer company, but missed things that we wouldn't have missed. And like, there are just those little details, I think. Now, one of the other things as well, Yandy, you said to me the other day, please don't do this. What has been your biggest pain point right now?

Please don't book, you know, any venues that especially they built not for events.

And do not book your wedding venue directly before engaging. And why is that?

Let's deep dive into that a little bit.

And we arrived there, it was quite surprising. Like, the venue is like uphill and downhill. It's not like flat.

There are so many logistical things that need to make the correct—

yeah, the space. Of course the venue will say yes because they want the money. Yes, that's true. We need to think about space for all the vendors load in and out.

Yeah.

And catering company to build their temporary tents to prepare the food. Parking, the generator as well. How many suppliers do we have like on site? Maybe around 8 cars. Yeah, so we have to make sure there is like, you know, easy access for the vendors.

My—

I had a wedding the other week and I literally had to stagger in the suppliers because there wasn't enough parking for all the suppliers to come in at once. So it was like, you must arrive at 10, you need to be out by 1 because the next person's arriving at 1:30. But yeah, Yanti's had an issue— well, issue— that a client has booked a venue directly then onboarded us as the wedding planner, which we're like, it's fine for us to do, but we've gone out and seen the venue and it's not suitable for holding an event of that size. Logistically, it's gonna be a nightmare. It's too late. You've already paid. Can we get a refund and go somewhere else? Probably not. So if you are in the early stages of wedding planning and you're reaching out to venues, please, for the love of God, engage a wedding planner to make sure that they're capable of holding events because the venue will say yes, they want your money, they want your booking.

Yep.

Yes, of course we can do it. Um, we sent Steph out to a new venue the other day and she said, oh, they told me they could do 100 people. And I was like, she goes, 50. And I said, that's because some venues, they can do 100 people if it's just sit down, there's no DJ, there's no buffet, there's no dance floor, it's just squishy squishy at a sit-down event, they can do 100. But you need a wedding planner that's going to ask all the questions and honestly tell you like, hey, it's a beautiful venue to stay, not for an event. And also the staff we need to be able to communicate well with the staff. It's no good. Like, I had a bit of a party the other day in the office. There's one particular venue, I love working there, but the in-house wedding person, wedding planner— they're not really a wedding planner— person I have to coordinate with there is so overworked, too many events. It took me 8 weeks to get a reply, and that's me every third week, second week, hi, hi. And my last email was, babe, I need a reply on this now, I've been waiting X amount of time, followed up with a WhatsApp message. Got a reply the next day. I emailed back because that out of my 5 questions, I got answers to 2. Emailed back and she replied to me straight away. I was like, oh my God, I don't know what's happened, but she's replied straight away and this never happens. But that shouldn't be the experience. You need to have a venue that's going to communicate with you because we've got so many questions about what's on board. You're going to have questions, you can have allergies, you're going to have what equipment. And if the venue's not replying to us, like it's a nightmare to work out. So please, please, please, please research venues, but then give it to the wedding planning company so that we can make sure that it is a suitable place for a wedding.

That villa?

Which one?

That one you were just talking about.

Oh, like, is it— no, it's not.

Oh, new one?

New one. Okay, your one.

I keep thinking in my mind, like, which one is it?

Oh no, I'm talking about a hotel. Oh, hotel.

Hotel, which is the same hotel that I told you I asked for an invoice at the start of this year We know that, Rachel.

We won't name it. It's— look, it's not the person's fault because they're overworked and they don't have the team. Like, they don't—

they don't have enough team.

Yeah. And I'm really compassionate when it comes to that, so I'm pretty patient. But it's really hard. Like, imagine if I was finalizing that wedding, it took her 8 weeks to come back to me. By now, like, some of our clients sometimes like, oh my gosh, I didn't get the bill to the last minute. Yeah, because that's how long it took the venue to come back to me.

Imagine when we send, you know, the final invoice, and then when we get the invoice from the venue, and then The rate has changed.

Well, exactly. It was like I've been waiting all year for this invoice so my clients could pay a down payment. And then suddenly it's 2 weeks out from the wedding. I'm like, babe, I still do not have an invoice. I have not been able to bill my clients. They've been wanting, they've been chasing me and chasing me because they've wanted to pay for months in advance.

I got like, how do I bill the client when I don't have a bill?

Exactly. Like I need to make sure the price is correct because what if I then invoice the client with the incorrect amount and then the invoice comes in with different, it's just, it's a mess.

And I feel like this is like a double-edged sword. Like, we had a bit of a disagreement with a supplier. I'm going to touch on that in a minute. But they were chasing us for payment from a client, and we'd billed the client, but the client hadn't paid.

Yeah.

How do I pay you for a bill I don't have the money for? I can only chase the client so many times. I don't have access to the bank account to take the money and put in my bank account and then put in your bank account. Like, so same with the venues, like, they need to communicate. But also, like, if you're a supplier and you're waiting for money from us, we don't gatekeep your money. As soon as we're paid, you get paid straight away. Yeah. Like, I actually don't handle the money, neither do any of this team. Like, money daddy Anwar, who will get on from the team— the process with Barley Brides is we get a bill, we bill you, we double-check it's correct. Sometimes it's not, sometimes it is, and we pass that on to you together with other bills, so you're only going to pay one international transfer fee. Then you pay the bill, then we pay the supplier. Like, that's the way the money flows. So suppliers, we pay you when we have the money, I promise. And for clients, like, we've Again, we'll send you the information when we have it. We can't give you stuff we don't have access to.

And I've just had another one, a hair and makeup artist, and then they started messaging Al saying, I haven't received the money.

I'm like, it's almost like every 2 or 3 days.

I haven't even paid the client yet. Like, I don't— like, I can't physically jump into the client's bank account and take their money.

And as the boss at the company, that's not my bill to pay. I'm not paying your photographer if you haven't paid me. That's not my money. Like, I'm not spending my money to pay for your wedding. And I think that also kind of touches on— we, we're not going to name names, but I have had a really big year. We've obviously gotten rid of a lot of staff at the start of the year. There's a lot of changes, there's a lot of in and out. We're slowly starting— yeah, I was counting. I've introduced new systems, but the downsize, I feel, for us was good because I feel like we've really reconnected as a team. We're closer, the office environment is nicer. Like, it has reconnected us all, and I feel like we're, we're working a lot better together now, which is nice for the flow. And we are now slowly starting to onboard staff again, which is going through a very different process than what we used to be. It would be good CV, interview, you're hired. Now it's good CV, further questions, further questions, interview 1, interview 2, trial day or week depending on the role, and then the whole team get a vote before we onboard that person to make sure that we do all vibe, because the wedding planning, it's such big days. Like, you want to like the people that you're working with.

Such a layer. Yeah, decision.

And again, again, like, as much as you need to trust your wedding planner, we need to trust each other as well. Yanti, you've been like a godsend this year because I've had all those medical situations, Britta's been sick, and I had to hand over two weddings to you and just say, can you please— I've got to go home. If I didn't trust you, or I had like subpar stuff, I could have never have done that, or I would have left and the wedding could have been a disaster.

And we also have a big team support.

We do, we're very amazing.

Them—

I, I do like— I'm very biased, but I think we have the best wedding planning team on the island. It's my favorite.

We love our jobs, that's the most important as well.

Do you know what's funny? So, um, we've onboarded a new staff member at the moment. His name is Ian. He's wonderful, everyone will meet him. He's actually sitting in the corner watching at the moment. And last night I was dealing with I'm not going to call it an emergency, but I am an incredibly compassionate and passionate person about my job. If something's going wrong for another client from another company, I'm always like, those emails I answer straight away if they come through because I don't want that client to stress. Last night we had a bit of a situation. I've had 3 clients contact me overnight. I suspect another wedding planning company is actually about to go under. I've had 3 separate clients and I need to reach out to a venue and I didn't have the contact to the venue. and I sent out a message SOS last night. Does anyone have a contact for the venue? In particular, I targeted Ian because I know he's worked there before. And I turned to Britta over making dinner and I said, this will be a good test for Ian. It's now 7 o'clock at night. We're outside of workouts. Ding, ding, ding. Ian's answered me. Ian's a keeper. He likes his job. He's actually answering me outside of business hours. Um, and then even Evelyn, who's Charlie and is my assistant, she was messaging me until 7 o'clock last night because she still had stuff to do. Like, it is so hard to find people that generally like their job enough to work after hours without being required to. Like, your job finishes at 5:30, but I know, and I've said this countless times, if I emailed any of you at 8 o'clock at night or messaged that I need help, every single one of you would jump because you generally love your job, which is so important in weddings.

Yeah, because accidents happen.

I was like, yes, hit the nail on the head.

Accidents happen.

Yeah.

So I want to touch very quickly, um, I've seen a lot of complaints going up on Facebook groups at the moment about other wedding planners. Britta and I have touched on this. It's okay to fire your wedding planner if you're not happy, guys. Um, obviously you've got to check the terms and conditions of your contract. I have had a bit of a situation in the last month that you guys had a wedding on that day and I got contacted basically from one of my side businesses that I run saying, can I have a celebrant for a wedding today? And I was like, oh my gosh, what's happened? Got a bit of background, and basically a client had paid in full for their wedding and shown up, and wedding was double booked or something happened. For whatever reason, their wedding didn't happen, so they found a new venue, pushed the wedding to the next day because all the friends, all the family were here. So, um, together with the team at Bali VIP Weddings and with the help of Inakai Creative and of course Ryan and so many suppliers that jumped on board, we planned a wedding in 5 hours. 5 hours from start to finish. I got a literally phone call at 11 AM, we had a bride walking down an aisle in a villa. Let me tell you, like, that is not an easy feat in a villa. Banjar fees had to be paid and sorted, we had to get permits, we had to arrange sound, lighting, brand new catering. Like, we planned a wedding from scratch in 5 hours. And I just want to say, like, I'm the shit because who does that?

And I think it was a Sunday, wasn't it?

It was. I was actually—

or Sunday, Saturday.

I'd had a wedding the day before in Candidasa, and it was the following. So that was the day the wedding was meant to happen, and then I spoke ride the next day. Um, so I think a big lesson here is follow your gut, guys. If you're not feeling good about your wedding planner, jump ship. I've got 3 emails overnight, it's the same company, which is really hard and sad. But I think if you're feeling off with your wedding planner or something's not right, it's really important that you do follow your gut and switch before it's too late.

Planning the wedding, it should be fun.

Yeah, that was not fun.

You have to trust your planner as well.

And this is the thing, the emails I was getting last night, I sent them through obviously on the group chat, and It was 6:30 at night, I'm making dinner, and the first email came through. I was like, I'm so upset, I'm so stressed, this has happened, my planner's not replying, I don't know what's happening. And straight away I said to Britta, hang on, I just gotta reply to this straight away because I don't want that poor bride stressing. She's not gonna sleep, she's not doing anything. So straight away I was like, let me see what I can do. And so today with the help of the rest of Bali Wedding Association, we're trying to get to the bottom of it. But I just feel like this also touches on, you know, all these new planning companies that are opening. Are they gonna last? Because this, this company has been around for quite a while and they're not staying above— like, you have to be so organized on the back end to run a business here. There's taxes, there's insurances, there's overheads. We're about to do 6 months really of we're working, but it's admin work. We're not making any money as a company coming through the door because the weddings aren't happening. So you need to be really pedantic on how you're managing the business as well. So for all these new companies that are popping up, or for a beautiful girl that I may have offended at a birthday last month. He said, I'm going to start a wedding planning company. And I said, the market's oversaturated. It's not just like, I like weddings, I'm going to start a company. There is so much work. And me and Yanti have learned so much.

Time-consuming, to be honest.

It's so time-consuming.

Like, there's a reason why we don't have a life for 8 months of the year, you know.

Our job advert should be like, are you a hermit crab and don't like to socialize with friends? Do we have the job for you.

Clients are like, well, where do you go out? Like, what's your favorite restaurant? I'm like, I don't go out. Like, Al goes out, Yanti goes out, but like—

Do you know why? Like, I don't know how to word this nicely. If you are a client of ours, you're basically, you're probably Western, right? And as a Westerner, they probably think a lot of Asians look the same. You know, like a lot of Indonesians think me and Britta are twins or me and Michelle or Narelle who are much older than me. So like, I don't know if it's an Asian thing, you think boules look the same. So when me and Britta go out, if we've got clients in town, they recognize us if we're out partying. Like, we get recognized by clients or people. You guys probably don't. Like, have you ever been recognized by a client? Elle, probably, because you're like a little social butterfly. But have you ever been out and been recognized by wedding clients?

Wedding clients, no, but just appear from the other companies, maybe.

Yes. Yeah. So that— this is my problem. Like, The last couple of years we've been out, I've said this before, like I was drunk on the side of the road, my only night I'd gone out that year, and then I was getting beach corn. Britta was doing Britta. Um, and what is a Britta? She was doing her own thing. And literally I was getting beach corn, these guys start talking to me, then one of them says, aren't you my wedding planner? And I just literally died. I was like, oh my God, you've seen me drunk. And then another time me and Britta were out for dinner drinking cocktails, and then across from us, literally the next table over, I was like, But it goes, that's the best man from the wedding 2 days ago. I was like, oh my gosh, him and Darren, we love you. We do love you. But it's like, I don't love going out in peak season because I don't want to run into clients when I'm having downtime or like I've had a few cocktails and been a bit silly because suddenly there was 2 espresso martinis that got dropped. Oh yeah, that was delightful.

And then we sent a birthday cake over just to embarrass them.

But yeah, it is, it is a very hard slog because we don't have a life after. Like I'm now coming into a time that I'm like, oh my gosh, I have weekends back. We've got 2 weddings this weekend and then I don't have to work a single wedding until like April next year. Yeah, what do I do on a weekend, guys?

Planning the wedding, man. Yeah, for next year. It's all happening.

Yeah, the other night and someone just said, yeah, she's online. It was like 9 o'clock. I was like, yeah, Auntie's a night owl.

Yeah, I sometimes work better at night, you know.

I, I, I have the slump and like you'll see on the office days, it hits like 2 and a half.

Yeah, it's always after I can eat as well. After I eat lunch, I'm like I'm tired now. I need an energy drink or a nap.

2 to 5, I just don't cope. And then I'm like, once Christian's in bed all nighttime, me and Britta love sitting on the couch and working late at night. What's been your favorite wedding of the year?

Favorite wedding, it depends. Is it favorite setup, favorite venue, favorite client?

Let's go most memorable.

I wouldn't go on favorite client.

Memorable.

The design.

The most memorable one of the year.

One of my clients who got married in— can I say the venue?

Yeah, we can say the venue.

Lemnusa.

Oh my gosh, I know who this is.

We're gonna say the names, you know, the whole team worked it.

Yeah, I just remember Yanti being like, I'm gonna go jump off the cliff.

Oh yeah, she's almost suicidal.

Not like, guys, for the mental health and for being PG, we weren't actually suicidal, but wedding planning is incredibly stressful at times. And Yanti's client had fireworks and we had a curfew that had to go off by 9 o'clock or they weren't going to happen. And the speeches just went on and on. And after the speeches, what was meant to happen after the speeches? There was a whole thing before the fireworks.

It's first dance.

First dance. But she was gonna go get changed.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, second threat. Yeah, she was supposed to get changed and to get out of her dress was going to take at least 10 to 15 minutes and Yanti's there like, Tristan, you need to go talk to them. I'm gonna lose the fireworks. And you could see Yanti physically getting like more—

I don't think I've seen Yanti like that stressed out on a wedding day. Shaking.

So I'm gonna jump off the cliff.

We need to release the fireworks like before 10, otherwise, you know, you can't have the fireworks.

And we've paid all this money and you don't get a refund. Like we didn't let the fireworks off, here's your money back. No, that doesn't happen. No.

I love the couple.

It was so sweet. Sweet. And I know they listen to The Poddy, so hi.

I will think it's like meeting celebrities.

I walked into the prep room and she goes, what are you doing here? And I was like, I work here, what do you mean? She's like, yeah, but you're like the boss, what are you doing here? And I was like, I, I do work. I think she was just gobsmacked that we physically do work the weddings. Yeah, she was really sweet. I think my favorite wedding of the year was probably my Kiwi couple. Like, they were Alyssa's clients, but they were mine. Pala Ubud.

Oh no. Oh yes, I loved that wedding.

I don't know why, but they felt like my family. It felt like my family were getting married. I think we just had such a good relationship. Oh, we took a little Maple photo of Maple here. They requested our puppy after listening to a podcast episode, so we'll chuck a photo up here of Maple at their wedding. I had to like— it's really funny because the first wedding we took Maple to, we just took her, like we took her out for the day, and then it was like we didn't really think about food and she needs to be walked to go to the toilet. She's still a pet, like, she can't just be running around all day. Um, and so for the second wedding, I'm like, well, we need to— I physically need to hire someone to come out here and look after her for the day, which is an expense. And then we had to get her groomed, of course, because she had to look her best. So then, like, it was like, we got— we got to start billing. So if you want Maple, there is a charge because I've got to groom her, I've got to physically put her in a car and send her out to the wedding. She needs food, water, snacks.

The venues are mostly very far away too.

Or toys and a person to look after her for the day. She can't just be tied up, like, she's a little dog, she needs a lot of attention.

Thank you again, Kim and Darren, starting that one.

Yeah, so like we've had a couple of people be like, can we have Maple at the wedding? Yes, you can, but you gotta pay for her, guys. I'm really sorry, but it's just, it's an expense for me. It's got to be covered.

It's true that you came out to that wedding that day. Oh no, you brought her out to Kim and Darren's wedding.

But then we had to pass her from team member to team member and she got tired.

We ended up giving her to like the DJ to hold and like, just hold her while we go do this.

Yeah, it was, it was a lot of work. We didn't, we didn't really think that one through, but such, such a cute little trend. But they were probably my favorite because they, they did feel like family. And they just trusted me. Everything that I said, they're like, yes, like the tent, the marquee, everything.

Yes.

Yeah, turned out really, really good.

Who was your favorite this year?

Oh, I feel like I got a couple. I've got— I feel like Emma at the start of this year.

Yeah.

Um, May. Yep, that was May. You were so good.

Your memory is next level.

I do the reels on Instagram, so yeah, watch out.

I wouldn't remember that. I remember names and like places.

Yep. Also Halina and Josh from—

Oh, good.

Remember that couple?

Yep.

That was a massive day. We just posted a behind the scenes of that one.

That was gorgeous.

Super fun day.

I'm sad I missed that one. Why wasn't I there? 'Cause we didn't need us. We don't all get to work the weddings.

And then as stressful as she was, I love her so much.

I know exactly who this is. Nicole. Yep.

Mikael and Adam at Villa Vadas. Oh my God, what a time that was.

I feel like we've had so many beautiful weddings.

We also just got the behind the scenes video in for that one, and that like, it's such a great video, and it's just, it shows the amount of hard work and dedication we all had.

Did he not jump to the pool in the end?

I think so.

Like from the above?

Oh no, I told him off. I screamed at him like, you are not jumping off this, that's so dangerous.

Like, I'm like, you're about to lose your security deposit.

Oh no, that was Caitlin and Harry, you know. Oh yeah, we had so many Villa— we had so many Villa Vadas weddings. I think we had 4 in the space of like a week or a week and a half. And yeah, that was Caitlin and Harry, and I was telling him off. He was up on that ledge. I'm like, don't you dare jump off that ledge, you are gonna lose your security deposit, get down!

And photo of the ledge here.

So, and then the mums were coming over to me, thank you so much better.

He wasn't listening to me.

And I'm like, yeah, but he will listen to me because he knows that he's going to lose money.

Do you know what's funny? Like, I, I literally touch on this all the time. Like, there are certain things that are not our job that we end up doing because no one else is going to do it. And some of those are telling you when you're doing dangerous shit because you're drunk.

Like, and he comes over to me, he's like, Britta, I'm so sorry, I didn't want to, but everyone was peer pressuring me and I don't do well with peer pressure.

I'm like, And your angry face, your angry face is hilarious. Oh yeah, like Britta, I say all the time she doesn't have a poker face. So like when you play poker, it's supposed to be straight face, because if she's angry, you can see it on her face.

She's like, I'm good at telling people off when I want to.

Not our job, but we still have to do it. Do you know what, like, it's funny, it happened at my recent wedding. Grandma, Grandma yelled at me.

That was another villa. That was a wedding.

Well, I literally, it was like 10 o'clock at night, and obviously when you're in a villa, people stay there, and Grandma had gone to bed and she and she came out like trotted down in her little nightgown. I was like, oh my gosh, Grandma's coming cute. And she came down, she's like, you need to turn this music down. I was like, whoa. And she full-on yelled at me and gave me a lecture about the music. I'm like, it's a wedding. No, you need to turn it down. I was like, well no, because it's—

people should be partying.

It doesn't finish till 11. And it's really funny because like I don't get scared of people, but like little grandma, like you can't be rude to little grandma because she's like, she's like my grandma. And then probably about an hour later she came trotting down again and I hid. I physically hid behind a pole so she couldn't see me. Tristan, she's coming. She's coming towards you.

Hide, hide!

She yelled at wedding guests, didn't she? She came and yelled at other wedding guests and they put her in her place. They had a go at her, but like, I can't do that because I'm your wedding planner and I need— even if I'm going to tell you off, I can't tell Grandma off. She's like my grandma. It's been like such an up and down year of moments, I feel. What do you think? What's been the biggest learning curve this year? Is there anything that you're like, okay, we won't do that again because I've I've learned, or I made a mistake and will never make that mistake again. I know Leah's had a massive learning curve this year. Like, is there anything you've taken away from this year that you're like, I'm gonna do better because of this?

Maybe less honest.

Less honest.

Yes, I like that.

Um, yeah, just leave it to the people that has authority in it.

So what Al means by this is we've discussed so many times So many things go wrong on a wedding day. Who should not find out about that, El? Clients.

The clients.

It's not your job to go tell them, oh, we've got the wrong flowers or the wrong chairs or something's gone wrong. So El had a bit of a learning curve, but so did I because I've now put it into our SOPs. Like, it's not your job to tell the clients that things have gone wrong, or like, that is the wedding planner if we have to tell them. Like, we never tell them things have gone wrong unless we absolutely have to because by the time whatever's happening, it's fixed. Like the cake story with Sasha on one of our last episodes. She didn't tell the client that the cake had been destroyed because she got another one. We don't need to tell the clients things. So less honesty. What about you, Yanti? Any life lessons this year? Hmm, can't think right now. I've had a massive one, and that's— and I think we've changed that— is don't just hire people because they look good on paper and they interview well. Yeah, we had massive, like, turnover this year, and I did apologize to you all, like, it was a rocky time for us at the start of the year. And I think for a couple clients as well, but I've now personally taken over those weddings. I think we're all good, but finding good team members in Indonesia is really hard. And some people do interview really well and they're not great on the day.

Yeah.

Yeah. What about you?

Me, probably biggest one is cross-checking.

Elle's laughing. What happened?

Cross-checking, no, like when villas are coming through in like USD, I'm like, I need to do that. I need to sit next to Ammar and he just needs to do that because when that— when you're converting, you've got to convert it from USD to IDR, IDR to USD. And I didn't know you had to convert it back to USD. Yeah. So I'm like, Ammar, that is your job. This is why you're the accountant. I will sit next to you and I will make sure that it's correct and you think it's correct and then it's all correct.

So like, as a, as a Indonesian registered company. We are legally registered in Indonesia. We pay taxes here. Like, we're very above board, and I'm very particular that, like, I want to do things by the book. It's not my country, so I'm very stickler for the rules, probably more than most. So as an Indonesian registered company, we're legally not meant to bill in USD. Hotels are allowed to do it, accommodations allowed to do it, but as a wedding planner, we're not. So we have to bill you in IDR, um, unless you're going to pay into the venue directly. So when you pay a deposit to a villa, you pay that deposit in USD, and at the time we convert the deposit. But then when we work out the final balance, we have to minus your deposit in the IDR. Like, it's a whole thing. But yeah, that's— it's very confusing. But this is why we have an expert. I don't know, very tedious stuff. I don't attempt the money. Look, I could do the money, but I'm slightly dyslexic. I put numbers back to front. And like, we have an expert, that is his job. He looks after the money.

And some of clients, when I send the final invoice, they got confused.

Hey, oh yeah, there's always—

we paid this amount already, why still in the final invoice?

Because we've only paid a deposit. So the way— that's also another thing this year, like a lot of people have been confused by the bills because what happens is we send out— you book a photographer, you pay X amount, we bill you for 50%. But from an accounting perspective, it's really hard for us to track the money. Basically the money goes straight to the person, but we still have to bill you for the entire amount minus that. And then what hasn't been a good accounting system, so next year we're changing our accounting system, that's going to get a lot better. So that's been a really good lesson, like As I said, like, I've just booked an vow renewal for next year. Christy and Bruce, oh my God, they got married with us in 2016, remember?

Yeah.

Um, and they've just come back to us. We're doing their 10-year anniversary, and I literally— they, they said to me, and Ian's actually going to be head of for this one because I'm like, they trust me.

Are they going to book the same venue, same thing?

No, so we've got a different venue, but she literally said to me, Tristan, I just want to show up on the day, you pick everything, this is my budget. And I'm like, oh my goodness. But I am deliberately going back through through their first wedding because we, we're very good, we file everything, we've got track. So I've just gone through her original wedding to look at all those suppliers to see what I can book the same. Like, she had light-up letters, and I know what photographer she had— not in budget for the vow renewal. But it's so funny because I opened up the folder from 2016, I was like, oh my gosh, is that how we used to do things? It was like everything is here, like, you know what I had. Well, we did, we had an Excel spreadsheet, so there were 5 pages on that. One page was the run sheet, one page was the quote, one page was the flowers. Like, it was So like, what else?

Only one page.

Oh my gosh, it was—

yeah, much more simple.

I might actually— I'm like, is there anything confidential? I might actually put a photo up. We'll put a photo up of what we used to do compared to what we do now, a little running video. Honestly, like, I would just have this moment of like cringe, but also how far we've come in the last 10 years. Like, it's been absolutely crazy.

It would be nice like projected on a like, you know, that garment— what is that, drapery?

Yeah.

Oh. Cute. Yeah, those are very on trend this year, the drapery.

They're like vintage collage videos.

Yeah, yeah, throwback. Do you know what, um, content's been really big this year as well. We just had Eudice and Sasha on for an interview, and Eudice obviously from— I say Soul Content Creation, but they've given me this whole long name and I can't remember it off the top of my head, but you know who I'm talking about. Um, like, so this year, content creation. Like, I'm wondering what the trends are going to be for next year. I'm already seeing lots of drapery. Is there anything you've seen constance of moody colors.

Yeah, I'm seeing more colors.

Dark, moody.

I'm getting very burgundy garden vibes and burgundy as well. I like the burgundy.

Me too.

It's nice. It's a little bit dramatic, which I feel like suits my mood for them.

But it's hard to get burgundy for flowers unless it's imported or they're painted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the expensive one.

Yeah, I feel like we're seeing a lot more higher tier Weddings, like I've just had a client confirm their mood board for September next year. And it's went from like a $30 million budget to we've just booked in Sarita, which came through at just over $100 million.

Ooh, that's gonna be pretty though.

It's gonna be fricking beautiful. But I was just like, I had to call Tristan. I'm like, can I call you?

I was at a wedding too. I was like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm not doing anything right now.

And I was like, is like, what, what's happened?

You know, from 30 million to 100.

I was just like, is she okay?

She's just decided that the flowers are very, very important. Yeah. And either the budget that they gave us wasn't a realistic budget, or they've got extra money up their sleeve. But I think that's good when people have the wiggle room. So it's really funny because we did speak about like perspective, like she spent $10,000 on her flowers. I just had a wedding that we literally had to try and get under $10,000 for the entire wedding. So like every, every person is different. And I feel like we've had such a mixed bag this year. Like I've had, I've had elopements, I've had vow renewals. We have done like the last wedding that I did is probably like in the nicest way, one of the cheapest weddings we've done in years. But everyone's got different price points and what's affordable to them. And I think it's important to note that we do work with clients of all budgets. So when you're looking at our social media, We only share the best weddings on social media. I'm not going to share with you like the cheap and cheerful ones, or the ones that don't have the prettiest decor in my opinion, because that's not what I want to portray. But if you are a prospective client, we do work with budgets of all types. And I will very quickly touch on this— we're about to onboard a couple of new wedding planners. When we onboard wedding planners with Bali Brides, there is a process that they now must go through, and that's working on cheaper, smaller weddings, vow renewals, allotments. They've got to learn everything before they upgrade into like bigger weddings. So if you are considering a wedding, we do have a couple of new wedding planners. Chat to Steph. I will give you a very special discount only if you listen to this podcast. Let's make—

I feel like there needs to be a code word.

Code word, code, code word will be Bali Weddings Unveiled. If you're listening and you want a wedding planner for next year, special $10,000,000 off your wedding planning fee if you quote Bali Weddings Unveiled. But you have to book in with one of our new wedding planners to give them the experience. Okay. Because we do want to build up that experience. Like Yanti, when she started, her fee was down here, and now Yanti's a senior planner. You gotta pay for her, you gotta pay for the experience and what she brings to the table. Same with Britta. Um, but our new planners, they're still amazing, they still are experienced wedding planners, they just don't have the name with Barley Brides yet. They're still learning our processes because the way that we do things is very different to a lot of companies.

And very one of us still, you know, have to be on site. Yes.

And it's not— you're not just getting a new planner. Me, Britta, or Yanti personally oversee that new planner for the first year to 2 years depending on how I think they qualify. So we're behind the scenes on the calls, we're helping them with their run sheets, and we're physically there on the day. So you will have a senior planner on site. So quote Bali Weddings Unveiled, tell Steph Tristan said I can have $1,000 off my wedding planning fee only for full price weddings, only for our newer wedding planners. You're welcome. Feeling generous at the end of the year. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Now I'm just going, beautiful cue cards. Mine's upside down, guys. This is very new. Me and Brit always said we're not going to be scripted, but the last few episodes were like, we have all these things to talk about and sometimes we don't cover them and we forget and we're like start rambling. Yeah, so we're trying to stay on track and be a little bit more pro. Um, multi-day events, have you had any this year? Welcome dinners.

Polly and Sean, we love a multi. I heard you were there.

Yes, was I? Yeah, you were. Where?

Early hours.

No, I wasn't. You know what happened? So like, I love my entire team, right? And there are certain weddings that we don't need a lot of people on. But I— when I go to a wedding, guys, I want to work. I showed up to this wedding because I was on the run sheet, I was helping. And I get there, I'm like, 'Yanti, what do you need me to do?' She's like, 'Oh, you just relax.' Don't put me on a wedding if you don't need me to work, okay? Put me in charge of music, put me on guest arrival, tell me—

The styling was from Zaretta.

Like, I have so many things I could be doing. I genuinely love coming out to the weddings, but keep busy, like, just because I'm the boss, guys. Like, Yanti, we started this, we basically started together. It was just me and you. If I'm coming out, put me to work, please.

I feel like there was a wedding at Wonderland. Was that the Wonderland one?

No, it was, it was at a villa, and literally I didn't have anything to do, so I left.

That's right, I remember that.

I'm not staying here.

Stylist for that one. Yeah, but she was like, just relax.

I'm sorry.

That's right.

Yeah.

Why are we hiring Unger if Tristan's here? Yeah, I don't know.

Look, I understand your need for Unger because as Sasha just said before, Unger from Soiree Society, his styling, like, oh yeah, oh my goodness, he is next level. Yeah, like he is an up-and-coming stylist to watch. So like, I get you wanting to have him there, so we hired him in freelance to help us out for the day because me and Jess obviously have a great relationship. But don't bring me out to a wedding if I'm not needed.

And then there was another one at Wonderland, like, Tristan and I were like walking around aimlessly, like, well, she's already done this and this and this. And then suddenly we found the menu cards and we're like, well, we'll put the menu cards out on the tables.

And there are some events, like, we, me and Yazz used to say all the time back in the day, we're like, I don't know what we'd do if we had a whole team. Like, what does the whole team do for the day? And now we have a whole team and we're like, why do we have so many people on today? We don't need them. But we do win the, like, I'd say we need the whole team from like 3 to 7 when the guests start arriving, it gets busy because the planner's here and guests are arriving and the bar needs to do stuff. So there is a point in the day that we need it. But yeah, that was a particular wedding. I was like, why am I here? But you guys, you guys went back and did the recovery day as well. How— that looked fun.

The client is also, you know, super lovely couple and fun.

Yeah, UK.

Yeah.

So I guess some people maybe don't know what a recovery day is. What is a recovery day?

Rejuvenate.

Yeah, she's like, it's easy. It's not easy. Some people don't know. It's chilling day. So what we do is we sometimes do multi-day events. So when you book a wedding in us, obviously the wedding is the main event, but for an additional fee per day, we will plan additional events for you. So normally it's a welcome dinner or a welcome event— dinner, drinks, canapés, furniture, entertainment, whatever's needed as a welcome get-together for the guests. But then recovery days are really big as well. So that's Basically come back the next day when everyone's hungover, do a barbecue, do a pool day, do something fun the next day for your guests. So instead of doing one event, you make it like a whole like 3-day experience. So we love doing those as well. If you want to do multi-day events, just let us know and we can price it up together for you separately, see what's left in the budget. I've got a lot of events next year that are actually going to be multiple days, which is—

and for the certain villa managements, it's compulsory to have planners, to be honest.

It is. So if you are booking into a villa, you can't just do a recovery day and invite people over, there's going to be an event fee, there's going to be a banjo fee, and you— it's compulsory to have a wedding planner. Um, now I know that there was an incident this year, Yanti, and like, honestly, your, your honesty was like, but they offered to pay you under the table to come out. Like, well, can't we just pay you by the books? But there's a whole process, guys. Like, if Yanti comes out to a wedding, she's got to take the day off work, she's got to get a car, she's going to be provided a meal, she's now got another day off-site, so she's got to catch up on admin and catch up on her hours. So when we charge you for additional fees, it's not just the fee for the day, But it's also now we're out of office 2 days, so that's 2 days worth of admin we have to catch up in, in our own hours of work overtime. So yeah, it was, it is a lot of work planning multiple day events because it is more time. Like you're out of work 16 hours sometimes on a wedding day. And I love this, the other day Ian came into the office and I was like, how's your wedding hangover? So tired because when you work a 16-hour day, the next day you're like, you might be fine for a few hours and then you're like, my brain's not working, I'm tired, I didn't sleep well enough.

You get the afternoon slump but like 100 times.

So doing back-to-back events over 2 days, it takes even longer to catch up and to catch up on everything outside of that.

Actually, during the site visits, I heard a few times why they would like to have 2-3 days event, because they invited people so far away. Yeah, they wanted to spend more time with them in the maximum way possible.

And these events, they, they could be at your villa, they could be just a dinner. So we, we can do it in a variety of different ways. Or if you want, I've just had a client who wants to do a couple of events and I've told them to hire Concierge Co. And Concierge Co. is going to charge them a custom fee for a month before the wedding. They're going to plan all their other activities for them. So there's so many ways to do it, but you don't— it doesn't just have to be the wedding day. We can help you with everything in between, which is really fun as well. Um, now I— we've touched on this as well— who's getting like AI trends? I mean, through AI photos, you're getting that? Yeah, Leah. Well, Leah's— no, Leah's doing AI to design mood boards. So Leah's very clever in the fact that she's very visual, she's very creative, like she loves the stationery, that's her jam. So she's now figured out if you send her a photo of your wedding arch, how to do a mock-up of it in your venue. She needs to teach us in the off-season, looks really good. But I'm getting a lot of like AI-generated questions now in chat.

With a lot of dash.

So many em dashes. Dash. Or my favorite is like, let me be— so I use it to like reword emails and it always says, let me be crystal clear, or something along those lines. I'm like, I don't speak like that, please remove that.

Wow. So you can notice, right?

I notice when the emails are AI, and we did touch on this in another episode, like, if you're going to use AI, that's great, but you, you are a person. If you're planning a wedding, it needs to be you. So you need to guide the AI on what questions you want to ask. And don't just send me questions like, if we choose you as our wedding planner— but I'm now getting AI images sent through to me like, we want our wedding like this. I'm like, babes, that's That was literally an AI-generated image. I can't make your arch float like that.

True. Especially the color.

The colors, yeah. What color trends do we have? I feel like this year was very— I'm gonna just call it Bridgerton. Like, I had a lot of very mixed, a lot of garden vibes.

Yeah, yeah, garden vibes have definitely—

and the swirly tables.

Yep, the wavy tables, the circle tables that are all connected in the wave.

Yeah, the French chairs.

Yeah.

Lots of draperies, garden party vibes. It's gonna last for a few years now.

I feel like the drapery is going to be on. I think the cake, the heart cake, will phase out next year. Drapery will be very big and very in. I'm also getting more requests for those like garden style chairs, like what I had at Ashley's wedding. Gorgeous. I'll put the chairs here. They're heavy. Yeah, they're so heavy. I try to pick one up and I was like, oh, okay, because like, you know, after the ceremony we move chairs. Like, I'll pick up 2 or 3 Tiffany chairs, move them around. I picked up one and I was like, oh, And it's very uncomfortable.

The ones that you have, the surugai, it's a lot better aesthetic. Yeah, it's good for boule ass.

You know, they were big chairs. Like, normally the chairs that you get here, they're tiny, but these ones had like boule ass sizes.

Do you know what's not good for boule ass? Ghost chairs. Ghost chairs do— so ghost chairs are the see-through chairs. Not good for a Western bum because your bum hangs out over the side. They're not comfortable They look beautiful, but they're not suitable for a Westerner.

I need those chairs.

They're good for like yanty sizing, you know, yanty's bum. Your small ass fits in there delightfully. Now what are you most excited for for next year?

Next year is going to be the decorations and new venues.

Thank you, Steph, for finding us some new venues.

Yeah, I got a few at Villa Air. Well, I got one at Villa Air, got a few at Samaya. Yeah, It's my Seminyak hotel that's in Seminyak, which is so close to home. Yeah, 10 PM karofi.

Oh my gosh, you know, I finished my last wedding at 9 PM. 9 PM? I was home by like 10. It was delightful.

So early.

I know, because they like— and she was tired. She's like, I'm going to bed. I was like, okay, 9.

So good.

What else are we excited for for next year?

Um, lots of new items really on the decoration. Yeah, like funny shape furnitures and those, um, champagne towers that full with different things like I'm not just champagne.

I'm doing a, um, porn star martini tower for one of my weddings. And I think this is the thing, like you've got to understand that the wedding rules, like you don't have to do traditional wedding. This client said to me we're not gonna do a cake, we're gonna do a champagne tower. And then on their drinks list, they don't actually have champagne. So I was like, how many bottles do we want? They're like— and you can tell when people— like, I can read body language. This is why the calls are really important to watch people. So they kind of looked at each other and they're like— and I was like, do you even drink champagne? And they were like, no. I'm like, why are we— it has to be a champagne shower then? Like, why? What drinks do you like? And then she was like— and he goes, I only drink bourbon and Coke. And she's like, I love a porn star martini and some other cocktail. I'm like Why don't we do a porn star martini? Yeah, I'll fill up the bottom glasses, you come in with shakers. And she was like, oh my gosh, I love that. And I'm like, you don't have to follow the trends just because that one's—

I found that one, right? Espresso.

Yeah, I had— I've had a couple espresso martini towers now. Um, I've also had a Cosmopolitan Tower. Yeah.

Oh, the tiramisu.

Yes, I'm doing that next year.

Yeah, I feel like this year was that like kind of baked cake with Strawberries on top next year is going to be tiramisu.

Speaking of the cake, I remember your clients at Pandawa with the burnt cake. Oh yeah, the burnt cake.

Let's put a video here. Oh my goodness, we've only done it once ever. How, like, not traumatic? Tell me how the stress levels were on that day on doing a brand new thing.

Oh yeah, it was like it— because you can't test it. Yeah, beforehand. And the venue was like quite windy, so just trying to get it to light The cake company had never done it before. The cake company had never done it before. They'd obviously tested it before they said that they could do it. So that was great. But it's like, it's the moment of truth when you actually get to the venue and it's quite windy, it's been raining on and off all night. And then it's like, oh my God, like, because the cake's been sitting in the fridge all day, like, is it too moist or like, or is it going to be okay? But because you can't leave the cake out of the fridge because it's going to melt, there's just so many factors.

So what this cake was, I know we've said the burn cake, no one really knows what it is. Put the video in.

Bottom tier, like underneath, I'll— yeah, underneath it said just married, but then there was a top like rice paper layer or something along those lines, um, and it said it had just engaged on top. And basically there's this trend going around that you can burn the top of it and then it starts to burn through the whole rice paper or whatever that thing is. Um, and then yeah, it reveals "Just Married" underneath. Very cool.

So cool.

But it was quite stressful there for about a minute because they couldn't get it to light, and then we didn't know if it was going to work, and we didn't know if it was going to work or not. And then finally it— and they're like, it's happening, it's happening! And I'm just in the background going, yes! Like, I don't think anyone's been worried.

Oh my God, there are so many like new trends that come, so When you see a trend on TikTok and you send it through to us, look, we'll try our best to make it work, but no promises. But when it does work, it's just like this—

Oh, thank God.

Biggest moment of excitement.

That was the last little jump to end that wedding. It was like, okay, this has to work. If it doesn't work, I don't know what to do. You know? But I think we figured out we probably needed to put a cut in it and then light it, but no one told us that. Yeah, it was the first time doing it. So in future, let's put a little cut in the top and then light it.

So we know, so we'll move it over here. If you want that for your wedding, I would love one. So any of my clients, can we please do that? Because I want to experience this.

Butter Barley could do it. It was only Butter Barley. I tried so many other companies, but Butter Barley could do it.

Yeah, so definitely, like, there's been, there's been some, a lot of new things this year, which has been really exciting. We've also had a lot of things made. I think your luggage wall we had made this year for a wedding.

Yeah.

We hung luggage tags. That was super fun. We had like the phone a friend. We now do that in-house because I managed to track it down and we've built everything because I had a client that wanted one custom made. So there's a lot of fun things coming up for next year. I think my favorite thing for next year as well, I've got such a variety of venues that I haven't worked at as much. I feel like the last 2 years we've worked at Wonderland so much, Villa Vadas. I feel next year we're getting new venues, which is really exciting to get out and about to new places. I'm also really excited to be growing the team and bringing on some new people and some new help because We've downsized, we've gone back to basics, and now we're onboarding again. So it's nice to have new faces around. I mean, Al was my favorite hire, I think, in the last 2 years. And now it's like, we've got new people. I survived. You survived. Cheers, Al.

Survivor.

From your 30th birthday chaos to today.

Kayangan said, oh, memories.

Memories. And then I think what I'm most excited about is we've had a couple of events this this year that the whole team has worked. So over the years, like, we've had split teams, we've got multiple events going on, we don't really all work together in one. But this Saturday, whole team is working your final— one of your final weddings. How many guests have we got?

Uh, 160. See, 160. Calls my client Tristan's gonna be there.

Oh my God, um, have we got any surprises for her she doesn't know about? You have a photo booth?

You do have a photo booth. You got a cookie cart.

Oh my gosh, the cookie cart, when I saw that, I'm like, that's such a vibe. Let's see if we can throw in a little sneaky freebie for her soon as the whole team's gonna be there. Have a think about it. Let's throw in a freebie, see what she wants, see what was cut, and let's see if you can throw in a nice little surprise. I think they're nice, but I'm so excited for the whole team to be working that one.

I'm just worried about the rain.

The rain this year, the rain this year.

I think that's been the most stressful part of the year has been the rain. Hopefully next year we're going to be back on track. It's going to be gorgeous. Um, I do also want to quickly touch— because this episode's coming out in December— if you are still in the inquiry stages with Bali Brides, at the moment Britta is fully booked. Are you fully booked? You've got one left.

One left, but that was the start of the year, not in the midst.

So like the first 4 or 5 months of— Britta's maybe got one or two spots left. Yanti has 7 spots left total for the entire year, but she's fully booked couple of the months. I am now fully booked. Elissa's fully booked. Leah's fully booked. I also want to touch on the fact that one of our beautiful staff members, Elissa, who is my personal assistant currently, is pregnant and she is going on maternity leave from February. So I am losing my personal assistant. For the clients of Elissa, she's gonna be— we're doing a handover shortly. So by the time this episode comes out, you'll be in the hands of a new wedding planner. Of course, course with me overseeing the day and being there on the day. So there's going to be some changes for the next year, and we do have 2 new wedding planners onboarding, but we do restrict the amount of weddings that they take on the first year because obviously me, Britta, and Yanti need to supervise them. So it needs to be a day that we're available. We're basically fully booked for August. So if you're still in the inquiry stages, you haven't put a deposit down by the time this episode comes out, I think Yanti will be fully booked. You've got to put your deposits down to secure your date, especially if you want a Bali Brides wedding. Especially if you want one of my beautiful senior team, Britta or Yanti. Yanti, guys, I know that a lot of you have seen Britta on the podcast because I'm getting, we want Britta, we've seen her on the podcast. Like, Britta, I love you. Yanti is fucking phenomenal. Like, she's been with me so long that I think people really underestimate how good she is. Like, I always say that she's a better wedding planner than me because she's so organized. I mean, we all do fantastic work, but if you Aunt Sharon, you've been picking me or Britta because of the podcast. Like, yanti, if I was planning my wedding, this is who I'd want to plan it because she's just so on time. Around 10 years, you know, she's been around 10 years and she, she's worked her way up, so she generally loves and appreciates the job. And cookie cart, I wouldn't even have thought of cookie cart. Where did the cookie cart come from?

So this cookie is called Dang Cookies.

I love them.

Yes, groom favorite cookies. So yeah, they booked Dang Cookies drag, and then—

okay, so it was a whole thing. Yeah, like your wedding this week is going to be beautiful.

Yeah, so everything—

basically we've got everything. It's gonna be the most beautiful wedding. So we're looking forward to next year. Thank you everyone for joining us for an amazing season of podcasting. Please drop us a line, tell us what you're liking, what you're not liking. We are going to be coming back in the new year. We're going to have a nice Christmas break. Britta and I are going on holidays. We come back, Yanti goes on holidays a bit, Al's going away for a bit. So we're all taking a bit of a break from the filming. We'll be back in February, Valentine's Day, I think decided the next episode will drop. So rewatch your favorite episodes from the season. Tell us what you want to see next season. Next season on Bali Weddings Unveiled, we have more exciting guests coming. We're going to reloop through the photographers, through the videographers, the hair and makeup artists, through catering companies, through other wedding planners. And we are going to be giving you more of an insight into the Bali wedding industry in whole. So whatever's happened this season, we're going to do more next season. So don't just say, I want Terror Logical because I saw them on your podcast. More interviews interviews are coming. You're going to meet more of the team. I'm so excited for next year. And by the time we roll out next year, we will be having a very incredibly special announcement to make. We can't make it just now because the contracts are not signed, but what's next after the podcast, guys? You're gonna die.

More babies.

More babies. Well, Alyssa's gonna have a baby. She'll be back for the end of next year. She's got a venue, she's got a boyfriend.

I don't have a boyfriend.

She doesn't. It's a fantasy.

It's a fantasy boyfriend.

You know, for Brodie to get a boyfriend, someone needs to break into the podcast studio right now and propose. Yeah.

Is anyone coming?

Because we don't go out. No, I heard about it. Oh no, there's no one. So for everyone playing along at home, thank you so much. It's been a wonderful season. We can't wait to come back next year with all the tea, all the behind the scenes, everything that's going on in the Bali wedding industry. Thanks playing along at home, and we'll see you next year. Bye!