With wedding season quickly approaching, many couples are on a mad dash to finalize those last minute details for their weddings. With that in mind, we sat down with two of our favorite Austin wedding planners, Katie and Megan, from Pearl Events Austin. Katie and Megan have planned hundreds of beautiful weddings in the Austin area. The Pearl Girls are usually helping their couples pick the finest details, but here’s the kicker: They’re each planning their own wedding right now too!
Read our interview below for their best advice on how to make your wedding the event of the year!
What is the best advice you can give to anyone planning a wedding?
Megan: I would say hire a wedding planner because we’ll keep you on track and make sure everything’s running smoothly. We’re both getting married, and even though we’re planners ourselves, we’re still going to have someone run everything on the day of. I think that’s the best advice I can give.
Katie: Knock out those “what’s next?” questions immediately. A planner can immediately tell you what’s next through every step. My number one piece of advice would be to be decisive. Don’t get so caught up in the color of the font on your cocktail napkins. Get more caught up in what you’re going to serve for dinner and not the tiny little details. Don’t drive yourself nuts looking into the tiniest stir stick options and things like that. Really focus on the bigger picture of the vendors that you really need, not the tiny little things because there are so many things you can go down rabbit holes with.
Exactly! There’s so much going on already. You need someone to help you do all of that big stuff because when you try to do it on your own, you inevitably get overwhelmed or you procrastinate. The day of should be about having fun–not trying to keep a schedule–right?
M: And there are a million options. You can change your mind a thousand times. I also think when having a wedding planner, we’re not going to let you make a bad choice. For example, with the color of the cocktail napkins… Let’s talk about it once, make a good choice that goes with everything and move on.
K: Three months out from your wedding, you should be deleting your Pinterest. No more ideas. It’s done. You have chosen, and it’s going to be great.
What is key to setting your wedding apart from the rest?
M: Bringing in your own personal touches and elements and doing what you want to do to make it your own is key. If you love your cat or dog, tie them into the event in some way instead of having something that everybody else has. Make it personal.
K: I think setting it apart flow-wise is important. You don’t always have to follow the traditional wedding timeline and go straight into a first dance and then a father-daughter dance and then toasts in that order. Maybe do a welcome toast and do your father-daughter dance later in the night. Just kind of break up the flow throughout the night so that it isn’t so structured and a little more casual.
Since you’ve both got weddings coming up, what were your “must have” items for each of your weddings?
M: A PHOTOBOOTH!
K: I immediately booked Miles with Texas Pro DJ. He was my “must have”.
What are some of your favorite trends, whether that’s specific colors or different elements, that you’ve seen over the last year that you have loved?
K: I am obsessed with the color yellow. I used to think it’s so bright and harsh, but the florists now are bringing it in such a beautiful way by piecing it in with light yellow into the blush, into the peach colors. I think it’s absolutely beautiful. If I were doing a spring wedding, all the way I’d do yellow. I’m obsessed with it.
M: I think people are turning more towards spending money on stationery and day of stationery. Going back to personalizing things and just spending a little bit more to make the invitations and then the day of stuff like menus, bar napkins, and that type of thing. I think those extra little touches are extremely important because that’s what your guests see on that day.
K: I also think MYEVENTISTHEBOMB does a really great job of getting our couple’s logo and incorporating it into the experience. At the wedding we did this past weekend, it looked so beautiful walking up to the photo booth. It was gorgeous. It’s the little touches like that guests will remember.
That leads perfectly into my next question! What makes a photo booth an important part of the experience for weddings?
K: People want to capture that moment. A lot of times at weddings you have your little bitty clutch purse that you leave at your seat, and a photo booth allows you to text or email that photo to yourself or take home a hard copy. You have that “forever moment” from that wedding. I don’t think anything’s better than the bride and groom getting it a day or two after, and they can go through all of those photos and see how much fun everyone had. Those photos are so funny.
M: Instead of having a camera in your face, like on the dance floor with a photographer, people really let loose and for some reason, people feel more comfortable behind it.
