What’s Your Wedding Day Vision?

Kristina Stubblefield  0:00  
If we're all being honest here, most brides to be have been dreaming about their wedding day since before they met their fiance.

Sharon Rumsey  0:08  
What are you thinking? What's your vision? Are you urban rustic, boho, maybe a princess ballroom kind of bride? Tune into this episode to hear how to narrow down your thoughts and close in on your vision for your special day.

Kristina Stubblefield  0:24  
You're listening to The Ring The Bling And All The Things Podcast. I'm Kristina Stubblefield, one of your hosts, along with my two good friends Michael Gaddie and Sharon Rumsey. We are here to get you from down on one knee down the aisle into happily ever after our informative episodes deliver valuable tips, trends, ideas, and advice covering everything from you saying yes to the i do's and all that happens in between and after. Now, let's get started with this episode. 

Mike and Sharon are really excited to talk about today's topic. We are going to be diving in to what Sharon, we're going

Sharon Rumsey  1:12  
to talk today about defining your wedding vision. It's kind of one of the first things you really have to do before we can pick anything or or make any plans.

Michael Gaddie  1:22  
Well, I think that every bride as a little girl has always envisioned her perfect day is her wedding day. So I think you know, this is something that starts way before we even begin to plan. And I think that's the most important thing.

Sharon Rumsey  1:40  
I think honestly, if if most couples were honest with us, it started before they even got engaged are met their fiancee. Yes. I mean, they have been planning this wedding, like you said, since they were young, young, young.

Michael Gaddie  1:56  
Well, very seldom do you do I ever talked to abroad? And they say, Oh, I'm not sure what I want to do. They pray now much know what they want to do. Plus when you start getting on, you know, Pinterest is a wonderful thing right now. And all you have to do is type in that whatever urban look urban chic, whatever, on on Pinterest, and that's going to show you a million plus things that you you like or don't like,

Sharon Rumsey  2:21  
if anything, I think the struggle is that there are so many choices. And so many options and so many different ways to do your wedding, that I think couples have a hard time narrowing it down to what they want.

Kristina Stubblefield  2:35  
Mike, I want to go back to something you just said, because I got news for everybody listening, whether you want to admit it or not. You've had a Pinterest board probably set to secret before you were engaged. Sure, exactly. You may not even have a significant other. And you got it because Pinterest offers that. And if you didn't already know that, you can toggle that little switch and make your board private where only you can see and

Sharon Rumsey  3:00  
I tell you that my granddaughter's 15, and already has a wedding Pinterest board.

Kristina Stubblefield  3:05  
What and that brings me to another topic, you know, yes, those visions and ideas and things you see that you like start at a young age. But I do think I've had people, they can't believe how much different their Pinterest board is over the years where they have compiled wedding ideas, because there's new trends and new topics. So it might not be exact of what you first thought about. But Pinterest has an awesome tool to be able to capture what you're seeing that you like to be able to have your own vision.

Michael Gaddie  3:39  
I'll be honest with you, when it when Pinterest first came out, I despised it.

Kristina Stubblefield  3:43  
I know you told us on a regular basis, oh,

Michael Gaddie  3:45  
I despised it. But now I think it's the best thing. I mean, because it helps the bride get a vision, she can actually bring that board to me or any of her vendors. And it helps us to find exactly what we need to do.

Kristina Stubblefield  4:03  
So when we're talking about vision, would you say there's listeners out there? Haven't thought about this engaged, gonna be engaged wherever they are in their life? What do you suggest? Like where do you start? And like an overarching theme, like in your search, like, just looking for looks that you like or that capture your attention or that draw you in?

Michael Gaddie  4:30  
There are so many things and so many things that you can use for a wedding that even though you're saying where do we start or where do you start? I still believe that that bride has that vision in her brain before she even starts to look

Kristina Stubblefield  4:49  
as something what you think she

Sharon Rumsey  4:51  
ever sent and like Mike was saying, she's got something in there. She might not know what to do with it. And that's where hiring professionals come in. But she knows what colors she likes. She knows what season she likes. And I think too, she knows if she's a princessy ballroom girl, or if she's more urban, rustic. Maybe she's a little boho. I mean, there's all kinds of adjectives and labels we can put on. She knows who she is stop

Kristina Stubblefield  5:23  
the stop the train, you've just thrown out terms right there. Urban chic boho. There could be listeners don't have a clue what we're talking about. To be honest with you. I don't know if I could exactly pick out that look, because I don't work with it every day. My point to this is and Mike, you mentioned this before we started recording, because they don't know what those looks are. They may use that terminology. But that's not at all what they want. So we can we define some of this?

Michael Gaddie  5:54  
Well, when you start looking on Pinterest, go through trends or visions, or whatever you want to call it. Things for weddings, and they're going to go through and they're going to give you all those different ideas. For an example, I mean, some people and I understand what you're saying, Christina, some people comes in and tells me I want a jewel tone wedding. This actually happened it did it was my client and said she wanted your tones and I'm thinking okay, I'm thinking navy blue, burgundy, hunter green, lime green, all these really jewelry, color rich colors. And I started showing her the colors and I go through and show them different flowers and these and she hated it all. And I said okay, so what do you like? So then she started showing me and sharing with me what she did like and it had nothing to do with your tones at all. It was all pastels. totally opposite of the color color wheel.

Sharon Rumsey  7:00  
But that jewel tones were passed House.

Kristina Stubblefield  7:03  
Okay, well, why y'all been talking chit chat in here. I have actually looked up some terminology. And I want to just define because completely not what I was thinking. Boho Chic weddings have a distinctive, soft and romantic feel that is earthy and inspired by nature and the beautiful outdoors.

Michael Gaddie  7:23  
That's good. That's that is good. And that's it. That's just that, well, when it comes to flowers. That's what they are. That's what this is. And I'm not kidding the flowers. If you look up terms on boho or traditional, you can tell a big difference in them.

Kristina Stubblefield  7:39  
Well, and this also has in in air quotes that I'm showing you all flowy a lot of descriptions of flowy.

Michael Gaddie  7:47  
And that's the way they are in flowers, loose

Sharon Rumsey  7:49  
mine, I actually shared a client. And she described her wedding as boho chic to both of us. And I remember when she told Mike about her flowers, she said she wanted her bouquet to look as if he stopped by the side of the road, picked a bunch of wildflowers and put them together. So I think I think what we're all trying to say and we're trying all three of us are saying in a different ways is narrow the vision down to what you believe that to be. And then you can use Pinterest you can you can Google you can you know use different wedding magazines and you can gather all these photos. But I know for me as a wedding professional when I'm trying to choose a vendor team that's a good fit for a bride and when I'm trying to get ready for my floral meeting and my decor meeting and pick my place settings in my linens, I need that narrowed down just a little bit. So pick pick what you like but instead of bringing me 500 pictures, bring me five pictures of the perfect bouquet. Bring me five pictures of the perfect tablescape that you like then from that we can create and make your own but I think it is important that you narrow it down all of my clients are their wedding has created an aisle planner and aisle planner has a design studio in it and that's one of the reasons that I chose to go with that planning software for my clients because they can upload photos into that categorize them by type, you know floral dress, but I absolutely love that program, but then I can link the vendors to that. So before we go in for an appointment, say we're going to see the florist before we go in for an appointment. Mike has already seen what they like and he he knows where to begin. So I think you hire a great team and you give them a great starting point and then let them do their thing. Let

Kristina Stubblefield  9:48  
their experience and expertise add to the look you're going for. One thing I want to say though, the aisle planner software just so people know. That is not available. level unnecessarily to the public correct. So if your wedding planner does not use that software, just in case before you go out and start looking, that is something that but I'll be honest with you, you can do a lot of that using Pinterest boards, breaking down your boards, by tables, buy dresses, all of that kind of stuff for those out there that aren't using a wedding planner, or they're professionals don't use that software.

Michael Gaddie  10:28  
Well, I want to make another suggestion too, because it's always a good idea to bring pictures of stuff that you do not like. Because sometimes in today's society things overflow with one another. And it could be something very simple as pompous grass or dried palm leaves. And that also goes into the hobo look. But if you don't like that, there's a way that you can do the same look and not use that. So bring pictures that you don't like to so that could be edgy, I

Sharon Rumsey  10:58  
think sometimes too. One of the things I see a lot now is mothers of the bride mothers of the groom grew up with very set ideas on if you get married in the spring, this is what these are the colors you need to use. If you get married in the winter, this is what you need to do. And in talking with you, Mike, I hear you saying no go like we can do anything doesn't

Michael Gaddie  11:24  
really matter. I mean, if that bride has a certain vision, it doesn't matter if it's lavender in January or live in during December. I mean, normally wouldn't. And the last few years, I mean, we've been Lavender has been the one of the very popular colors. And it didn't matter if it was in summer, spring or even fall and you wouldn't think about seeing pastel lavender, some pinks in the fall. But last year, we saw a lot of it.

Kristina Stubblefield  11:53  
Now the only thing to mention there from your standpoint as a florist is that there are certain flowers

Michael Gaddie  11:58  
that you can and cannot get all year round. Okay. And we'll just go over if you bring me a picture of something that you like, and it's not available. I mean, I have I'm not a genius. So but when it comes to the to the Aaron, he's a floral genius, right? He is but when it they show me something, and I have a book that I can look at, and it tells you if you're available or not. So I always tell my brides, you know if somebody tells you, oh yeah, we can get that. And my book says you don't you can't. Your book is like a Bible. Yes, I would actually not trust that other vendor by saying it because I want to be up front with perfect

Sharon Rumsey  12:39  
example of this. I had a bride that got married in January. And January 3, never forget it. She loved the white flower with the black center on enemies and then an enemies. I cannot pronounce that word to say myself, but she loved it. Our florist was not Lloyds. Just for disclaimer, but repeatedly went over at every meeting how much she loved this flower.

Kristina Stubblefield  13:09  
What are they called again?

Sharon Rumsey  13:11  
And then a nice, great job. She

Kristina Stubblefield  13:12  
gets a sticker Mike.

Sharon Rumsey  13:15  
Anyway, come wedding day. In comes the bouquet. Oh no, there's not. There's not one. I see it mother the bride sees it. And I look at the florist and I go this is not what she asked for. And she goes, yeah, why can't get those in January?

Kristina Stubblefield  13:32  
never said anything beforehand. No, you knew when we had these meetings, the vendor never said anything but not not a word. And then I have one other thing to add in here. So she didn't see it before?

Sharon Rumsey  13:45  
No, most most florists do not offer that some do

Kristina Stubblefield  13:50  
will. And I assume Mike I know that's something you started doing a while

Michael Gaddie  13:53  
back or 20 years ago,

Kristina Stubblefield  13:57  
I was kind of being a little smarter, like there. I knew it was a long time ago. But that way you can make some adjustments. So ask your florist, no matter where you're listening to with us from wherever you're listening from. Let me get my words right here. Ask your florist if that is something you can do. And go ahead, Sharon with your story. I

Sharon Rumsey  14:17  
just also think that part of choosing a reputable florist is that you're choosing someone who would say to you, I agree that's really pretty, but I'm not going to be able to get that in the month of your wedding community.

Kristina Stubblefield  14:30  
Are we back to communication again?

Sharon Rumsey  14:32  
Let me show you something else that will pull off that same look. That's one of the things that I appreciate so much about Mike is he'll just upfront say I'm sorry, I'm not gonna be able to get a pione in December. Yeah, but I can use a cabbage rose. I have learned something setting it all those appointments there and I can pull off that same full look of a pod and it is available.

Michael Gaddie  14:55  
Well everybody does love that anatomy with that block center in it. Oh Eaton center, it's actually a navy blue center. And that's one reason why everybody loves it, but really dark. But I mean, there are only one other flower that we can substitute that for and that is like a Gerber Daisy. That's a miniature Gerber Daisy with that black center. But I always tell my brides, if they're set on it, I've got a silk supplier that has a silk one that you can insert silks into the fresh, and then they would never know the difference.

Kristina Stubblefield  15:25  
Okay. Pause. I just learned something. So you do mix silk with fresh, but there's

Michael Gaddie  15:34  
something like anatomy that I don't do that often. But especially on those dead set on it, I will incorporate one silk flower to sew flowers into it. And I've done that with

Kristina Stubblefield  15:45  
a medium. You don't want to do that all the time. But it's a way. Okay. Interesting. I

Sharon Rumsey  15:49  
just think it's really important. I think it's very important to have those discussions to know what's available to you. And I also think color is so important. I mean, narrowing down those colors is a huge step because from the colors will come not only your florals, but your bridesmaids dresses, your linens, you know, when I build I one of my favorite things to do is to build a table scape, meaning the linen, the napkin, the plate, the fork, the menu, and I'm going to use those color choices to do all of that.

Michael Gaddie  16:24  
Well. And you're talking about the the tablescape and stuff. I mean, that's where you can bring in when the bride comes in and talks to you, Sharon, I mean, she may not care anything about real China, right, or whatever, that may not be a popular or a thing that she really cares about. She may care more about the floral, or she may care more about the music. So I mean, but every little step helps a lot.

Sharon Rumsey  16:49  
When I meet with my clients initially, once I'm under contract, I have what I call our triage meeting my backgrounds in health care, so I call it our triage. And I literally go through and ask them, what's the most important element of your day? So what was something that you saw at a wedding that you had been a guest that that you hated? You know, have you ever been at a wedding, I thought, Ooh, I don't like this. Have you ever been at a wedding and thought, I absolutely love this. Because as I go through, I can kind of from that scope, what's important to them. So when I look at my, my investment that they're gonna make in their wedding, you know, their budget, how much money they're going to spend, I know that I want to put more money toward maybe gorgeous florals. And they didn't care so much if they had real China, some clients, they feel like that they are, you know, having a less than wedding if they don't have real China, but that money is going to come from somewhere. So it's kind of all a juggling act and learning how and where to allocate their investment. Their job is to dream. And my job is to execute. So I want to hear their vision, I want to hear what we have to invest in the wedding. And then I want to do my very best to make that vision come to life. And that's done by pulling in that, you know, best of the best a team vendors. That's done by listening and listening and then listening some more to what's important to them. And it is done by really investing your money. I always say put your money, where your vision is where your pictures are. And I think you know, with their dreams and some professional guidance that's possible for any couple.

Michael Gaddie  18:41  
Well, one thing I want to make a statement about is, you know, I do have brides come to me, and they have no clue. They'll sit down and they'll say, Mike, I'm not really a flower person, I really don't have a vision. I'm just not creative. If you don't have a wedding planner, or even if you do have a wedding planner, I mean, I'm there to help them.

Kristina Stubblefield  19:06  
Create what they like, really bring it to life, bring

Michael Gaddie  19:09  
it to life. I mean, so if you do not have a vision, or you have no clue, which there's, I would say there's probably a two or 3% that don't don't have a clue. Go to and I would start with your florist on that. Because those are the creative ones. And they're going to be able to help you pull a vision together. Something as simple as a barn wedding or Yeah, I want to get married in a barn I know. But I don't know what colors to use. Well then let us help you depending on what time of the year what season.

Sharon Rumsey  19:42  
And then once again and you and I were just talking about this when they tell you a barn wedding. That might be a barn like there's a chicken coop Outback barn. It might be a barn that has chandeliers, ears exactly, you know, urban rustic. I had a client just this past week. that she wanted urban rustic and we went venue hunting. And the venues that she chose to look at I asked her to narrow it down to five. They to me, they were not all urban rustic. But in her mind, they were. So once again, it's our job as pros to listen, listen and listen some more,

Michael Gaddie  20:20  
and guide them in the right direction and make it as smooth as possible for them. Because this is a very important time of their life, your life. And

Sharon Rumsey  20:27  
it's one of the things I love about my job the most is that every wedding is different. And I get so excited when I put a pretty table together with a linen in a napkin and a plate. I love it, I get so excited about it, just like I'm sure you do when you look at a bit floral install. And I hope I never lose that. Because to me, each one is different. And they're all I think

Michael Gaddie  20:48  
if you do lose that time to go, it's time to go. And you know, we do weddings over and over and over every weekend. And you know, at the end of the day, on Saturday night, two or three o'clock in the morning after picking up you think oh my goodness, why do I do this? But you know what, on Monday morning when I get back to work, and we have to start on the next week. It's excited as I was the week before when I was all stretched out? Yes, I love it.

Kristina Stubblefield  21:10  
Well, and the thing too, I know what Sharon, the point that she just made was, you know how she does things. And I think it's really important to realize that a wedding planner can help pull all of your visions together, and execute that not only execute the day of, and I think that's a topic we've talked about before, when you talk about day of coordination versus wedding planning versus this, when you have these different ideas and visions of how you want things to look executing that can be stressful. And we've talked about that before. So make sure that when we're talking about some of these topics and everything, you know, there's people out there that aren't going to have wedding planners, we get it. But we're also bringing light to the fact of how a wedding planner can help bring your ideas and your vision into reality on wedding day. And that is that's what's really important to take away from this. Or if you're not going to use a wedding planner. Planning ahead.

Sharon Rumsey  22:18  
I think something that a lot of people would be shocked to know about my job is how much of my job happens before wedding day.

Kristina Stubblefield  22:27  
You won't go back to how about calculating hours? Honestly, though, yeah, a wedding. If this has not been a recent one, it's been just a little bit ago, maybe a year ago. But you really did calculate hours. Yeah. And I think this is for this is an this is a piece of knowledge she's going to share that has to do for every wedding planner. Yeah. How many hours sharing on a wedding over 250? Right. And now how many of those hours were before wedding day?

Sharon Rumsey  22:56  
Probably 230. Here's the point. But I think what people one of the things people would be shocked to know, of course is the hours spent but also how much how often I end up representing my client at their vendor meetings, because sometimes I know what they want, but they don't know how to describe it, press it describe it. But if I'm there sitting beside them, I can say you know, Mike, I think what she's thinking is this,

Kristina Stubblefield  23:28  
because you get overwhelmed in those meetings, and it's like you're on the spot, a Wait, what are those 10 things I was thinking

Sharon Rumsey  23:33  
into. And to be very honest, when you have, I've just been so blessed in my career to have a great team of vendors. 90% of Sharon weddings are going to have the same vendors. And that's because I've developed a relationship and a trust with that vendor team. So when I go in to meet with my clients, say at Mike's shop, you know, Mike and I are pretty good buddies. I've talked to him before we get there. He's seen in a minute overview of waste aisle planner, he knows what they're thinking, he knows where we're going to get married, he knows where we're going to have a reception. So I think to just building those good vendor relationships. To me, I could not work. Without the team there is only as good as the team used to 100% I will fall flat on my face without them. And I know that. So

Kristina Stubblefield  24:27  
when we're talking about bringing this as we wrap up this episode, I think this has been really good information. And I think one of the biggest takeaways, even I mentioned it before we started recording is these terms are thrown around, when in all honesty, couples that are planning their wedding may not know what that actually is. And we've talked about that throughout this episode. So maybe research those terms, look up what it's called, that you really are envisioning to help When you meet with your vendors,

Michael Gaddie  25:01  
well, I just want to say one thing, before we close to is, don't always pull up wedding trends or visions on Pinterest, and go with the first thing you see because you love it. Because you want your wedding to be different than anybody else's. So go outside the box, even when it comes to colors, if you're seeing lots of blushes and creams and whites, even though you may like that, dig a little deeper, dig a little deeper in change in your color. Something unique and different. Don't go with the most popular colored of dress on the on the rack, right go with something a little different. So it won't be like every other wedding you go to, especially dealing with brides right now over the last two years. I have probably dealt with brides and their bridesmaids from one wedding. And it just kind of built up and built up and built the same look. And I think that's great, but try to make your own vision and go outside the box and don't feel like like Paul Ryan says

Sharon Rumsey  26:06  
to me, I want cream. And I want tons of greenery. What kind of greenery? You know, cream? What? What kind of, you know, like, you have to just think it through and I honestly I don't like a crackerbox wedding. Yeah, well, I'm

Michael Gaddie  26:27  
making myself in trouble saying this, but I mean, even in trouble before. So it's okay. But I mean, you know, blush and cream we had that's been going on for two years now. And I know everybody loves it. And it's beautiful. It's very romantic. It's very off soft. But look and dig a little deeper, especially for the New Year's coming up the 22 and 23 dig deeper, and pull out those other co I just

Sharon Rumsey  26:55  
saw the new Pantone color of the year that came out. And I was so excited. Because first of all, I think it's a gorgeous color. And it's not pink. And I love pink. That's my favorite color but not you know like we've seen it a lot.

Michael Gaddie  27:11  
Well the eye color that's coming up really is more like a yellow. A deep. I don't want to say mustard colored it's it's even darker than that.

Sharon Rumsey  27:22  
That new Pantone color those almost like a Periwinkle. Yeah, yeah. So I love it's different.

Michael Gaddie  27:26  
There's different colors that's out there just don't I just want to make sure that you know that there is so many options out there. And just because it's trendy, that doesn't mean you have to do it. You can go so much farther with other colors.

Sharon Rumsey  27:41  
And if you choose not to walk down the aisle to 1000 years from Twilight, I will give you a discount. Because I have heard it so so many times.

Kristina Stubblefield  27:55  
All right. Well, I think this has been great information. So we appreciate everybody listening. If there's topics that you want to hear more about hit the contact button on our website. If you like what you heard, make sure to share with your friends, your family, anybody you know getting married, and then sharing what do we always like

Sharon Rumsey  28:12  
for them to do leave us a glowing five star review.

Kristina Stubblefield  28:15  
Until next time everyone stay safe.

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The Ring The Bling And All The Things. If you liked what you heard, make sure to hit the subscribe or follow button on your favorite podcast platform to get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, ringblingallthething.com where you can join our email list and get notifications about new episodes and other information. You can also follow us on your favorite social media platforms.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai