For Real: Life, Leadership, & Unlearning

Generation Z is the next generation of consumers and (wedding) clients.  Christie Osborne from Mountainside Media is an expert on analytics and marketing, specifically for the wedding industry. And today she comes on to talk about what's different about Generation Z, what's the same, and what we as wedding vendors should be doing to get ready for this group!   Christie Osborne, Mountainside Media...

Some believe the creative path is a winding road from zero to (one-day) reaching your full creative potential.  But for destination wedding photographer Perry Vaile,  that didn't work for her. Because as creatives, some days are more productive than others, and sometimes we have feel like everyone else is doing so much more than us, and sometimes we’re on a roll, and sometimes we want to be proud...

  Brittny Drye started Love Inc Magazine in October 2013 as the first equality-minded wedding publication. And although the wedding industry has come a long way, we still have so much further to go to make sure that LGBTQ couples aren't discriminated against.  Part of that is looking into our content - are we using bride- and groom-specific verbiage on our websites, contracts, and proposals? And e...

  If you've been in business long enough, you've probably had a negative online review (or several). Whether the review was fair or not, you NEED to respond. Not so much to the person who wrote the review, but for the potential clients who are reading your reviews.  So how do you do it?  We give some tips on today's show! Weddings for Real on Social Media: Instagram: @weddingsforreal Facebook: @we...

Lindsay Longacre from LVL Events  (Southern California) and LVL Academy comes on the show today to talk all about pricing for profitability, a vision for creating pricing standardization, whether or not she takes on partial planning (or is it day-of coordination? or month-of? or wedding management), and the best way new vendors can connect with vendors in their market (hint: it's not a mass bcc em...

On this Mother's Day Weekend Wine Down, we have interviews with Megan, Megan's mom, and oldest daughter Emma. Happy Mother's Day!   The host of Weddings for Real is Megan Gillikin, owner and lead consultant at A Southern Soiree Wedding and Event Planning .  She's also available for wedding and hospitality business consulting and can be reached at megan@weddingsforreal.com . Weddings for Real is ed...

  Happy Mother's Day! Today we give a real, honest, vulnerable, and hilarious look at the balancing act of being a mom and a business owner. Our guests today are Ginny Corbett from Ginny Corbett Photography , Kim Holderness from the Holderness Family Podcast  and all those crazy YouTube videos , Grace Beason from Grace Leisure Events , Perry Vaile from Perry Vaile Photography , and Jessica King fr...

Meghan Ely, Wedding PR and Marketing Expert at OFD Consulting comes on to share the best ways to promote your business. Most of us creatives have very little time, so we need to figure out the most efficient strategies for maximizing exposure. And with the craziness of the past year or so – with WeddingWire and The Knot merging, with Southern Weddings shutting down, with Style Me Pretty shutting d...

Life is stressful. Owning a business is stressful. Clients are stressful. Parenting is stressful. Relationships are stressful. As a creative entrepreneur, it's not possible to be all things to everybody at all times. Sometimes it feels like life is in complete disarray. Catrina Ballard from Root and Restore  has been both a creative entrepreneur AND a counselor, and she comes on the show today to...

Jacob Boehm, owner and head chef of Snap Pea Creative Dining , doesn't run a typical catering company. He caters a few weddings, but not many. He doesn't do menu tastings. In fact, if you're working with him for your wedding, the menu that you pick...well, he might change it by the time your wedding comes around. And for his clients, that's one of the reasons he's so unique and in-demand. Find out...

International Wedding Planner Eva Clark from Eva Clark Events has planned over 400 events. Some of those clients have been more difficult to work with than others. But still, she wants to make sure that everyone getting married has a memorable experience in a positive way. How does she do that? By making sure she infuses compassion into her professional and personal life. Support this show by supp...

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported us over the past year plus! And we're so excited to announce that we've been nominated for Best Local Podcast on IndyWeek ! Even though we have very little chance to win, we would love for you to vote for us (starting Monday April 8th)! And on today's Weekend Wine Down, we talk about our one year anniversary, weddings on other planets, wedding season...

Rachel Sheerin is a keynote speaker and trainer focused on helping hospitality professionals sell more and be happy! Featured in Inc. Magazine for her unorthodox, high energy style,  Rachel has been an advocate for authentic sales and preventing burnout in our industry. Today she talks all about the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80-20 Rule, and how it applies to wedding vendors. Images from...

  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about making sure your website is found instead of your competitors' websites, when people are searching on Google for your service or product. In today's episode, digital marketing veteran Jason Gillikin gives four basic tips (Keyword Research, Google Business, Title Tags, and Content) to improve your website's rankings in Google, plus a few bonus tips.  ...

Nightmare Clients. If you've been in the wedding industry long enough, no matter what vendor category you're in, you've had them! So what do you do?  Erin McLean, owner of McLean Events in Raleigh North Carolina , comes on the show today to give her tips on avoiding the nightmare clients before booking, what she has done differently to avoid creating overbearing or nervous clients, the "Come to Je...

Candice Coppola - wedding planner at Jubilee Events , business mentor , podcaster at Power in Purpose , author of The White Dress in Color: Inspirations for the Modern Bride , Barbados resident (I'm not jealous, YOU'RE jealous!), and more - comes on the show today to talk all about the importance of making a business plan! Whether you're just thinking about starting a business, in your first coupl...

Madeleine Kojakian, better known as Maddy K , is a wedding planner and serial entrepreneur.  She has had many successes (and many failures) in diversifying her business, and she comes on today to talk about if YOU should diversify your business, when the right time is, when is NOT the right time, hiring tips, and how she works less now than when she did years ago.  This episode is packed with grea...

Sam Dockery is the former owner of Bliss by Sam, wedding planning company in both Raleigh and Chicago, until she abruptly left the industry altogether in October 2018.  Why did she do it?  Sam has her reasons, both personal and professional, and she talks all about it on this week's episode! Support this show by supporting our sponsors: If you're a wedding vendor, you should be using Honeybook ! A...

Support our Sponsor: Visit Audible.com/WeddingsForReal for a free 30-day Trial of the world's largest collection of Audiobooks! Veronica Armstrong, head of marketing at Mayflower Venues , is all about that startup life.  She was the 4th employee and General Manager of the Wedding Market at Lovepop and helped grow that company to what it is today. She loves taking a small marketing budget and turni...

At the Carolina Inn (Chapel Hill NC) Event Showcase on January 27th, Megan and Jason Gillikin walked around and interviewed 15 couples to get their take on what it's been like to find their vendors, where they're looking, what role social media played (Instagram!), and what they would tell wedding vendors to do differently.  Wedding vendors, this is some easy market research for you! Support our S...

Support our Sponsors: If you're a wedding vendor, you should be using Honeybook ! And you can use promo code "WeddingsForReal" for 50% off your first year! Visit MyPinkPartyBox.com for Vendor Gifts and Hotel Welcome Boxes!   Are you in the side hustle mode of your business?  Are you trying to figure out when to take it to the next level?  That's where Hair and Makeup Artist Nina McCaskey was just...

Support our Sponsors: Visit GreenChef. US/WeddingsForReal for $50 off your first box of Green Chef! Visit MyPinkPartyBox.com for Vendor Gifts and Hotel Welcome Boxes! Wilmington NC wedding planners Sally Lindroos and Courtney Stone from Kickstand Events come on the show today to talk all about what happened when Hurricane Florence cancelled FIVE of their events in October 2018!  All 5 were on Bald...

Support our Sponsors: Visit TakeCareOf.com and enter promo code WEDDINGSFORREAL50 for 50% your first month of Care/Of Vitamins! Visit MyPinkPartyBox.com for Vendor Gifts and Hotel Welcome Boxes! Ivy Robinson is the wedding planner for celebrities like Dale Earnhardt Jr and Emily Maynard, has been on wedding reality TV shows like Whose Wedding Is It Anyway, and has been designing big budget wedding...

Finding the right employee in any business is challenging, but it's a unique challenge in the wedding industry because it's "so glamorous". And they can be, but working a wedding involves long hours and sometimes difficult clients.  So how do you find the right hires?   Gina Johnston, Senior Wedding Coordinator at A Southern Soiree and Megan's luckiest hire, comes on the show to discuss the hiring...

The Barn of Chapel Hill on Wild Flora Farm is one of the hottest new venues in the Triangle area of North Carolina, opening up in 2017. Kara Brewer, the owner, and Jennifer Wood, the creative director opened up to Megan about how it hasn't been the easiest process to start weddings up at the Barn. In fact, there was (and still is) a very active protest group, and the media once portrayed the new v...