Collective Questions: A Wedding Show

In this episode, McKenzi is talking with Ricardo Gudino, the owner of Caked Las Vegas, about wedding cakes. His shop offers a vast selection of cupcakes, including vegan, gluten-free and keto options, and creates custom order cakes for any occasion.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 – 2:33 Beginnings of Caked Las Vegas

2:33 – 12:20 Trends for cakes for 2022

11:10 - 12:59 Final word

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Trends for cakes for 2022

As Ricardo says, 2022 is expected to be a year of weddings. Trends are different; from Fantasy cakes, that can be 7-8 ft tall, to so called Fake cakes that are being made just for the sake of fulfilling the bride’s dream wedding and perfect photographs. But his favorite clients are those that are willing to go out of their comfort zone and work with different elements.

“Don’t be afraid to go our of your comfort zone, do something else and try something different.”

Links & ressources:

website: https://cakedlv.com/

Instagram: @cakedlasvegas

Facebook: @Cakedlv

Cactus collective:

Personal wedding vows have become a trend that is incredibly meaningful and makes your wedding a true celebration for you, your partner, and the people involved. Angie Kelly, a wedding officiant and the owner of Peachy Keen Unions, is here again to talk to us about personal vows, what they are, should you do them, and how to write them.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

00:00 intro

00:38 Traditional vows vs personal vows

02:28 Are personal vows necessary

05:52 Matching the tone of vows

07:09 How long should the vows be

09:09 Should you memorize the vows

12:01 What to include in your vows

EPISODE SUMMARY:

● Personal vows are required and necessary — they add warmth and vulnerability

● You can exchange your personal vows privately to make sure you're in the same page.

● To match the tone of vows—  Have somebody read your vows if you can ahead of time and compare

● A 30-45 second vow is the perfect length

● Don’t memorize your vow, keep it organic keep it natural.

● Include your first interaction in your vows, and have a couple of promises.

● Personal vows are cited in that short moment in the ceremony where the officiant is going to turn it over to you.

USEFUL LINKS:

Peachy Keen Unions:

● Website: https://www.peachykeenunions.com/

● Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/peachykeenunion/

● Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peachykeenunions

● Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peachy_keen_unions/

● YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy1NaY_KgHZj_zWXHwI3NOA

Cactus collective:

Makeup has come a really long way in the last decade, especially when it comes to bridal makeup. Amelia Cooper of Amelia C & Co is here today with us to bust some myths and share some tips about bridal makeup. Amelia has served as a makeup artist in over 10 thousand weddings. She has worked as a makeup artist since 2004 and opened her makeup agency in 2011.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

00:16 Amelia’s role in the wedding industry

01:11 Amelia busts some makeup myths about the wedding world

04:17 Makeup application method Amelia likes the best

08:41 Who needs hair extensions

10:12 What are tracks

16:39 Normalizing mobile makeup services

19:27 Your hair should be dirty

23:00 Makeup with sunscreen in it will make photographs look weird

EPISODE SUMMARY:

● Airbrush is an application technique, or a digital effect—not a product or a photoshop filter.

● Airbrush makeup is great for hiding tattoos.

● Product brand does not necessarily matter—it’s the skill of the artisan.

● A track is the lines of care that are put into an extension or in a wig.

● Lashes make a big difference in your makeup.

● Depending on where you’re getting married, it is nicer to get ready in your hotel room than anywhere else.

● Makeup with sunscreen in it will give you a bloating face or make your face look whiter than your body.

● Something that has titanium dioxide in it is great for protection from the sun and the light of flash photography.

USEFUL LINKS:

Amelia C & Co LLC:

● Website: https://www.amelia-c.com/contact

● Instagram: https://instagram.com/ameliacandco

● Facebook: https://facebook.com/ameliacandco

● Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/ameliacandco

Cactus collective:

In this episode of The Collective Questions: a wedding show, McKenzi talks with Vanessa Naumann. Venessa is the owner and lead planner of Storybook Planning and Design. She is from Canada, She started her business when she moved to Las Vegas and the desire to be a wedding or event planner sparked when she planned her best friend's bridal shower.

In this part of the episode, we deep dive into Venessa's way of designing a wedding and how she puts the visions of clients cohesively to create an amazing harmony in the event.

SEGMENTED TIMESTAMPS:

00:38 - Venessa's way of designing a wedding

01:40 - Planning a wedding for people according to their style

04:46 - Putting the visions of the couple to create harmony in the event

07:19 – Budget talk

09:09 - What is partial planning?

11:55 - Relationships within the wedding industry

14:13 - Why should one hire a wedding planner

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Venessa's way of understanding the style of clients

To understand what the client actually wants, she has a deep dive into questions like their personal style. What their home looks like? How do they want their wedding to feel like, not just look like? What are some Pinterest ideas that they are attracted to? Why are they attracted to them? What makes them happy about that image? What makes them unhappy about an image? She discusses these topics until she gets to know or understand their style.

Designing a comfortable wedding

It is always important to keep in mind the style of couples when designing their wedding

She says: "You can't just stick people who like shirts and jeans in a closed ballroom with a giant chandelier and centerpieces. It is going to make them uncomfortable.They can still have a formal event by being a representative of who they are. And tapping into that takes a certain skill."

Working with the visions of the couple

Venessa says everyone has a little bit of vision. Even if they say that they don't have a vision, it's her job to extract the vision from them. It's easier for her with some clients to understand their vision, but they don't know how to express their vision for some clients.

So, for those people, she conducts a questionnaire meeting to understand what they want. And some have an amazing Pinterest board, but they don't know how to source things locally. They need someone to put things together.

When the budget comes into play

She says, "I try not to design based on the budget because I don't want to go mad and fall in love with something and then, the client is constantly feeling a sense of disappointment. Feeling that I can't give them something that they can afford."

USEFUL LINKS:

Storybook Events

Cactus collective:

A Unity element is the most beautiful part of a wedding ceremony, it symbolizes the coming together of couples forming one unit. Over the last years, unity elements have changed their form from the traditional — Unity Candles or Sand-Blending — to contemporary and modern-day Unity Elements like Whiskey-Mixing and Tree Planting.

In this episode of The Collective Questions: a wedding show podcast, Mckenzi talks with Angie Kelly about unity elements specifically for ceremonies. Angie is the owner and main wedding officiant of Peachy Keen Unions. With her team, she performs customized marriage ceremonies.

What you'll learn from this episode:

00:41 What is a unity element?

01:56 About whiskey mixing

03:51 Modern twist in sand unity

05:05 Styling cocktail blending

07:51 Including unity element in a micro wedding

11:21 Why and when you should have the unity element

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Traditional unity element

A lot of couples come from the background of traditional marriage ceremonies. And within a traditional marriage ceremony, whether it be a church or a banquet hall, often you have become accustomed to seeing a unity candle or sand blending. Once those grains are intertwined, they can't separate them, and the unity candle has a similar preference for background, like joining two flames together.

That's probably what you've seen in the past. Couples are moving forward to have contemporary and modern-day ceremonies because they don't want to do the same unity elements their parents and their grandparents did.

Whiskey mixing

Instead of the archaic unity candle or sand blending, now we're having things like whiskey blending or cocktail unity. They can get intricate. And it's about if the couple has time to do it. In their ceremony, it could be a lot of ceremony space.

Amount of time unity element takes

Angie says, "It probably only takes about three minutes. If you want to pause the ceremony for 30 seconds of silence, you'll see that it's a decent amount of time. So when you're, you have 20 minutes slated for a speaking portion of a ceremony, and we're going to use three of those for you to do a unity element. We're going to use maybe four vowels. And then we have the walking in doubt. Dad might be passing somebody all, but each of those segments adds up in the end. So you probably only see three to four minutes of interaction."

Unity element in micro wedding

The budgets for micro weddings, scenic weddings, they're just rearranged differently. For instance, for couples that are tuning in now, your portion of transportation might be more extensive. So you might have to cut out things like favors or unity elements because instead of people taking their cars, you're putting everyone on a bus and taking them out to a scenic spot. So it's not necessarily that budgets are smaller when you're dealing with scenic or micro weddings, but they are rearranged.

USEFUL LINKS:

Peachy Keen Unions:

● Website: https://www.peachykeenunions.com/

● Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/peachykeenunion/

● Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peachy_keen_unions/

Cactus collective:

Website, Instagram, Youtube.

In this episode of The Collective Questions: a wedding show, Mckenzi talks to Ginger Munsell. Ginger is a Cactus Collective Weddings team member and has been working with the team for over a year. Today McKenzi and Ginger talk about transportation in the wedding industry, what it means, why to get it, and some experiences with their Cactus Collective Clients.

SEGMENTED TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 A story from Ginger

02:21 What is the key thing when it comes to wedding transportation

03:34 Timeline for guests

04:47 Issues that you might face with transportation 

08:44 How does Cactus Collective organize the transportation for the couples

09:11 Where should be the pickup point

11:30 Things that clients need to preplan

13:30 McKenzi's message to people

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Why Should You Have Preplanned Transportation?

Ginger says, "When you're planning a wedding, and specifically on the day of the wedding, there are so many things that you have to consider timeline-wise, management-wise. And the last thing that you want to be doing is worrying about your accident on the freeway, or which vehicle your mother is in, etc.

So, it's one less thing to worry about when you know that everyone is coming together, departing together, where and when they will arrive and depart, i.e., having the transportation preplanned. So, it's like one less thing to check off the list, and you can enjoy the wedding and worry about the things that are more important than your guests getting to and from your venue."

What Does It Mean To Have Pre-planned transportation?

When everybody is coming together, it makes it so much easier and seamless to get everybody where they need to be at the right time. So, you can get down the aisle at the right time. That indicator will be the indicator for the rest of the timeline for Cactus Collectively and other venue providers. Another thing is, it is convenient for the guests also. For example, if the destination wedding is in a deserted place with no cell phone service, people can't get Uber from there. So, it becomes more accessible and convenient for people to experience their wedding with preplanned transportation.

How do Cactus Collective Organise The Transportation For The Couple And Guests:

Ginger says, "Specifically, for Cactus Collective, we have one preferred vendor, one partner that we use, and we use them because they are just really well versed with our operating systems, our locations. These guys know how long it takes to get to these areas.

What happens is, for your account manager or whoever is helping you plan your wedding, we'll send you a list. It has all of our preferred vendors on it. Inside of there, you would just contact them directly. And the great thing about doing that or working with our preferred vendors is. Usually, they have a pretty good working relationship where the planning process is more cohesive. So when you're working with preferred vendors, it means that we have a relationship.

It makes it easier on you as well because we're able to work together simultaneously. So typically, what we'll do is we'll have everybody have one pickup point, everybody has one drop-off point. So that just makes it even more manageable, instead of having to make several different stops. So that's how that works and what to expect typically."

USEFUL LINKS:

Cactus Collective:

Website, Instagram, Pinterest.

In this episode of The Collective Questions: a wedding show podcast, Mckenzi talks with Vanessa Naumann. Vanessa is the owner and lead planner of Storybook Planning and Design. She is from Canada, and the desire to be a wedding or event planner sparked when she planned her best friend's bridal shower. She started her business when she moved to Las Vegas.

SEGMENTED TIMESTAMPS:

03:24  Vanessa’s backstory

04:18 The influence of traveling on her designs

06:23 Difference between a wedding day coordinator and packages they offer.

09:20 Venue coordinator vs. a wedding planner

11:01 Vanessa's favorite clients and venues

14:23 Kinds of weddings she can plan

15:42 How should people find and hire a wedding planner

18:16 Her views on small and intimate events

18:58 Her favorite season to plan a wedding in las vegas]

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Her Backstory

Vanessa is from Montreal (French-speaking Canada). Her father is Canadian, and her mother is Italian. So, she speaks French and Italian. She has worked in an entertainment company, and with her previous employer, she got the opportunity to travel to many countries. Travelling gave her a different eye and perspective on a lot of things, especially when it comes to events and dealing with people from different backgrounds and religions.

Difference between a wedding day coordinator and partial packages that they offer

When you hire a wedding planner, you're hiring someone that's going to do full service. They're going to take you from start to finish, your wedding needs, including sourcing vendors for you, design, etc. But with the day of the coordinator, the couple plans most of their wedding on their own. And the day of coordinator comes two months (roughly said) prior to the wedding and executes the plan.

Venue coordinator vs. a wedding planner

A venue coordinator is working for the venue. So, they will do everything that has to do with the venue. They will not reach your dress provider to make sure that the alterations are done on time. They will not reach your rental company, confirm your rental order and make sure that you have the right quantities for everything. They are there as a sounding board. They won't be there by your side, making sure they are troubleshooting everything.

Many venues need an independent coordinator or a wedding planner.

Vanessa says, "I think more and more venues in Las Vegas are getting on board with weddings as they realize that it's really hard for them to manage all of the work, managing the bride or groom or bride and bride and groom and groom's needs while still trying to sell and service. So they rather pass that on to us where they can just focus on stuff that solely involves the venue."

WORDS OF WISDOM:

USEFUL LINKS:

Storybook Events: Website, Instagram

Cactus collective: Website, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest

Enter the giveaway by Reviewing this podcast and send a screenshot of your comment as a dm at: @cactuscollectiveweddings on instagram

#1 In this episode of Collective Questions: a wedding show, Mckenzi interviews Brittany Lo. Brittany is a Las Vegas photographer who has also started a new business with her husband called Little Lo Floral. Through her new business, Little Lo Floral, she preserves flowers or bouquets for brides.

SEGMENTED TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 About Brittanny

02:15 About her idea of bouquet preservation

04:28 The oldest bouquet she has preserved

06:00 The process of drying the flowers

12:07 How does she design the product

20:42 Brittany shows some samples of her work

35:26 How to contact Brittany

36:10 Giveaways for lucky winners

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Her idea of bouquet preservation

Brittany has been working in the wedding industry for six years, and she was always getting the same questions from brides, "What do I do with my bouquet?" A lot of the time, the couple go straight on their honeymoon right after the wedding. If they wanted to save the flowers for a keepsake, it was not feasible to air dry them. So, Brittany came up with the idea of offering bouquet preservation to the clients.

She says, "So I just take the bouquets and start the preservation process for them so they can go drink, have fun, be with their new husband, go on vacation or do whatever they want to do. And you don't need to worry about bruising your bouquet or leaving it somewhere at the bar. I try to handle that for you."

The Process of Bouquet Preservation

Brittany says, "When people look at the final product on her Instagram account, a lot of them think they look like big fresh flowers. They are actually all dried. You cannot preserve anything in resin that's fresh. It will, over time, get all moldy inside. It's just organic matter. It can't thrive like that. So, we dry them. Our drying process just saves their color and their shape.

The only difference with an air-dried bouquet is that it has already got the color and shape it will be. We can still cast it and preserve it in resin. But, I can't make it look fresh again." The oldest bouquet that she has preserved was 13-14 years old.

How does she design the product?

She doesn't use all of the flowers in the bouquet. She dries out the whole bouquet and uses the best flower, the best rose, the best carnation, the best eucalyptus, etc. Some brides want it to be jam-packed, full of every single flower possible. But the shape depends on how the bouquet was preserved.

How do clients contact them or give them the flowers?

Clients can reserve their date with Brittany through their website. There are two options. First, the client can either leave the bouquet at their hotel at the Bell Desk after buying the front concierge for $75 pickup, and Brittany and her husband will email the instructions of what they need. The second option is that the clients can also drop off the bouquet at their home studio near the airport. 80% of clients like to take the second option. Brittany and her husband are still able to take last-minute clients, but she doesn't plan to do so in the future.

USEFUL LINKS:

Brittany Lo on: 

Instagram: @LittleLoFloral

littlelofloral.com

CONNECT WITH MCKENZIE:

Instagram @cactuscollectiveweddings

or at: www.cactus-collective.com

Collective Questions: a wedding show aims to answer all your: Who, What, When, Where’s, and Why’s about the wedding industry.

Each episode aims to focus on a different aspect within the industry such as Photography, Wedding Planning, Real Life Couples, and Behind the Scenes.

In 2017 as she eloped in red rock canyon, Las Vegas Nevada, She knew that others had to be interested in something as special, unique, and beautiful as her wedding was, so she made it her mission to be the guiding voice for every bride and groom to have a wonderful wedding experience.

Subscribe Now and Join her in this journey as she unravels every stepping stone for a magnificent wedding.