Special Podcast Episode 3 - Style - angledlightphotography.com

Weddings from the Pros

Episode 71 with Nathan and Preston

Get encouraging insights from Preston and I on this episode as we talk about wedding style. Be bold in expressing your own style into your wedding and purposefully craft it to be a unique masterpiece that truly reflects who you are.

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In This Episode We Cover:

Planning your final step is necessary to have a successful wedding event.
Why creating your own style affects your planning and outcome of the event.
How your wedding projects who you are and what are the styles you really want.
How to create a meaningful wedding with your own ideas.

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Read the Full Transcription Below!

Here at Angled light photography. We believe marriage is an amazing adventure and your wedding is the jumping off point. We'll explore planning an authentic and meaningful wedding experience as we connect with real life couples and the industry's top professionals. We're here to inspire and encourage you as you begin this journey of a lifetime. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of weddings from the Pros. If you are here, you're probably a very intentional couple who is working to plan a very fulfilling wedding and this is the third and final episode in a series of kind of, these were pulling it together, press and are pulling this thing together and we're calling it the guide to creating a meaningful and fulfilling wedding experiences, weddings from the pros God and the first episode which if you haven't listened to it yet, it came out a couple weeks ago, go back and listen to it really quick.

That one was all about relationships and it was kind of like the foundation of everything. Like and that's a big part of this. Like you want to make sure that you do these in order, right? You want to consider relationships before you consider anything else. The second episode, which came out last week was really fantastic and it kind of touched on once you have the relationships kind of in place, the next thing you want to consider in the next level or the next tier of decision making that you should go through as an individual or as a couple is all about the organization of the day.

Okay, so go back and listen to that one. If you want to know what does that mean, You go back and listen to the episode. It's really, really good. It'll help you through a lot of those decisions. Today is the final episode and this is kind of like the final thing that, and again, I'll give Preston a lot of credit for this. He's kind of come up with this organizational, not organizations like the episode about organization, but he's kind of came up with a way to kind of frame this whole discussion around really what the correct way or what we've found to be the most fulfilling way to plan a wedding is.

And I'm about to throw it over the press and so we can talk a little about style, but you know, I want to say it again because there's probably a lot of people whose coming, and this might be the first episode you're listening to on this subject, this kind of came out of a place where Preston and I was often seeing weddings where, you know, it was just an incredible experience. The couple walked away from the wedding and they just seemed so fulfilled that they wouldn't have changed a thing and in the, in our conversations that we have with them after the fact, you know, they were like, it was incredible and what Preston and I have noticed is that there is a pretty direct correlation between how intentional the couple is in their wedding planning process and how they treated the process of planning their wedding and the result, right?

We've seen a pretty big correlation there. So that's what's kind of started this whole conversation with Preston and I about maybe creating this guide may be creating something that's, that's helpful for couples and provides a little bit of a framework that you know, you've gotten engaged, you're excited before you start digging in and you start planning things that we'll either make it difficult for you later on or you know that you haven't really thought about the bigger questions, approach it this way. So first consider your relationships, then work on the organization of the day and when we talk about organization and talking about the organization of time and money.

And then the final step here is to talk about style. So Preston, how you doing man? Good, good to be here. Um working on my second cup of coffee like 10th today I noticed there's no K cups left and I think the last, I left you one, I appreciate, I filled up the water in the K cup machine in the Keurig to make up for drinking on the cake up. No, no, no, no. And I was going back there to get another cup of coffee and I pulled out the last cake up and I was like, I should probably leave, that's a good partner right there, just leaving the last last cup of coffee.

But yeah, I'm doing great and I'm glad that you kind of went rehashed a lot of that. This has been a fun process to try to think through, like how do we create a framework to help people think about wedding planning and ask the right questions? Obviously, I'm not claiming to be an expert on, you know, flowers or dresses or any of the really specific details what we want to do. And this draws on our experience as videographers and photographers who end up spending a lot of face time with couples were there for every part of the wedding day.

So you really get an inside look on, like, what are the factors that correlate to people being walking away from their wedding and be like, wow, that was really fulfilling. And very often the trend that we see when we're talking to people about how they're planning their wedding is that they start with what we're gonna be talking about a little bit today, which is style, right? We think about kind of the superficial, we think about the aesthetic of the wedding day, right? And that's where we start, right?

We see a lot of weddings, maybe on social media, the internet or Pinterest boards, and we start there and we say this is what I want my wedding to look like. Uh and the discussion and I absolutely agree with Nathan, go back and take a listen to a couple of those discussions and you may understand a little bit more of what we're talking about, but when we start kind of at the relationship level and we ask those questions about who we are right? What are our values?

What makes just experiences in general meaningful for us? Right? That gives us a starting point, that gives us, what do we want our wedding to feel like what um it's important to us, what, what kind of activities to be bond over then that next phase organization is really just kind of the core of event planning, right? You have to have an event that works and that is functional for your guests. You have to have places for everyone to say you have to have a venue. Right? And so those are all kind of the big pieces and what we want to encourage people to do is to start thinking about today's topic, style kind of at the end, right?

Because when we've gone through this first two categories, right, relationships and organization, then we've got really the meat of the wedding plan, but this is the part that we think should come kinda towards the end or kind of middle to the end of the process, which is how do you take that venue that you've booked? Right? How do you take all of kind of the big building blocks and personalize them. Right. And so when we talk about style, we're really talking about the aesthetic, the atmosphere, all of the things that fill your space and fill your time, that kind of make it personal to you.

So this includes like flowers, the attire, what are your bridal party is gonna be wearing? What are you going to be wearing? How are you going to decorate? What kind of, you know, rituals and activities are going to fill your wedding day? And I do think if we've done the work in kind of the relationship category, in the organization category and we know what we want our wedding to feel like And we kind of have a sense of what our style really is. Then all of the decisions about like what flowers to pick and what, you know, all of the details kind of falls into place a little bit easier.

Like I guess you've probably seen that 100%, And what's really interesting about this whole process and the reason why we encourage couples to go through it is because you know, too often I feel like I'm walking into the same wedding every single weekend, right? Like I'll walk in the door and then I'll look around and I'll go, this looks like the very same wedding that I was at last time and I know that it's a different couple, right? Like I know that you know that couples the nature of the relationship of that couple, who they are, um you know, all those little things and really the character of them and what they love and what they pay attention to.

A lot of times when I walk into a wedding, it just kind of seems to be kind of this template, right? It's like this template that a lot of people are using and what president are really encouraging people to do is to stop ask why and break out of that right to make the wedding a true reflection of you and who you are as a couple. So one as we were sitting down, we were thinking there was a wedding that we did and the bride's name was Augie, the wedding was really, really interesting.

Yeah, it was super fun and they were like an absolutely great couple. They're a great example of, you know, kind of starting with this, starting from a place of a traditional wedding. But then feeling, you could tell that they felt the freedom to really take their wedding and make it their own. So they applied a ton of creativity, like down to the details. They really took liberty to like make decisions that reflected things that were fun and important to them. And so it was, it did follow like for the most part of kind of the classical wedding organization, but the way they decorated their space was really unique.

There were big Star Wars fans, like they, you could tell they wanted a high energy type of wedding and Augie especially like her personal style was like very, don't say it in a negative way, it was, it was just very loud. Like she, she loved vibrant colors, vibrant flowers, absolutely bold is like the right word for it. And so from the top down they were making decisions like with that kind of general cohesive feeling in mind, right? So they booked then downtown, if if you guys have been there, it's a very modern feeling place, cool light fixtures, very like sleek and sort of very industrial.

Yeah, yeah. But then down to the flowers, what they chose to fill that room with was like really bright centerpieces which were also the bridesmaids bouquets. So they got creative with that they're really bright pink flowers, Bridesmaids were all in like very vibrant dresses they had instead of one wedding cake, they made like a smattering of different wedding cakes that all had like reflections of like different, like pop culture stuff that they liked. One was the rug from the big Lebowski, that was a fun way. And then like of course everybody loved that, but that's like a way for them to reflect what was important to them and like show off a little bit of their personality.

And then of course my favorite part the highlight was instead of doing sparklers at the exit, they held up light sabers right? And everyone walks every single person. She actually walked down the aisle to like Padme and Anakin's loves but that I thought that was a great example of a wedding that kind of takes into consideration one of the most important aspects of, kind of, planning the style of a wedding, which is that it is cohesive, that it is all working together to kind of go for one vibe if you will, right?

And I think, like, all the examples that were given to you are very visual in nature, because that's probably for the most part of what we're thinking about. But you know, I would encourage couples when they're thinking about the way something looks, it really kind of comes down to how does something feel right? Like when you walk into a well designed space, that's something that I've really gained a lot of appreciation for, since becoming a wedding photographer is the way that when you walk into any space, it makes you feel right?

And first off, I always love it when I walk into a space and it feels like the couple, right? I'm looking around, I'm like, I'm like, hell yeah, like that's that's that's Alex and Augie 100 all day long and twice on Sunday, and you know, anytime that, that happens, that's always really exciting, and that's really fun and it's not only fun and exciting for me as a wedding photographer just because I go to a lot of weddings, it's also really exciting and fun for your friends and family, right?

A well styled wedding that is a reflection of the couple makes a gigantic difference, right? It makes it really something that uh you know, I was talking to somebody on one of our last podcast podcast episodes, I think it's gonna come out before this and she made this really good point. She was like something that feels and we're kind of talking about this idea of luxury and that's not what this conversation really revolves around. But she's like, you always want your guests to leave feeling like they just experience something that they'll probably never experience again, right?

And what's interesting about that is, you know, when you talk about weddings, I think every couple wants their wedding to be unique. Every couple wants their wedding to be different, right? And one of the most obvious ways to kind of make that happen after you've done all that groundwork. They were talking about relationships, organization is how do you style? Is this thing to be different to be a reflection of you? And I'm very much with you man. Like I am not an interior designer. Like we're not getting your needs and into the thick of like what your wedding dress should be and the different styles that there are.

But what we are encouraging everybody to do, who's listening to this is to take inventory a little bit about who you are and what are the things that make you you and different from everybody else and then work to style eyes, the wedding around that feeling right around those things and because because that will really make a lot of these little like the color of the napkins, it's going to make that way a much easier decision, right? And a lot less stressful when you kind of think about those things before you go into that part of the planning process.

Hey guys, this is Nathan. I just wanted to jump in here really quickly and tell you if these concepts that you're listening to right now resonate with you the idea that maybe I should be asking myself some of the bigger questions in order to craft a really meaningful wedding. I want to encourage you to go to weddings from the pros dot com and check out an upcoming event that Preston are gonna be putting on is called the weddings from the Pros Guide to crafting a meaningful wedding experience.

We really want this to be at the forefront of people's minds when they're making all their decisions and when it comes to crafting a really unforgettable wedding. And so if you're interested in that, just head over to the website www dot weddings from the pros dot com right at the top, you'll see where you can sign up and get email notifications for the upcoming life training that we have, let me know if you have any questions and now back to the show 100% and I think there's two, there's this element of like synergy, right?

Like when you talk about how do I achieve a feeling? Well? Oftentimes it's like a few core elements, right? But the really, really effective weddings that kind of like have their own sort of aesthetic and vibe that really make an impression. I think too, it's a lot of little things working together. Like I'm thinking about when you walk into anthropology, right? It's not just that they have the right items on the shelf, right? It's that, you know, the temperature is set very specifically, right? The store smells even even down to like the aroma that's in there.

Like that is calculated right? The way that the, the color that they paint the walls all the way down to the décor, all the way down to the, the type of wood used in the shelving that is, you know, carrying the goods, right? All that works together. The how the staff are, how they carry themselves, how they dress. Like all these little tiny things work together. So when you walk in, you say, hey, why do I love, why do I, why do I want to buy everything when I go into anthropology?

And of course I'm a single guy. Like I actually still do go into anthropology from time to time and I'm like, this is amazing. Like I love how this, this like feels so upscale and very stylish and it's like if you try to break that down into one thing, like very often you won't have a Good answer for like, why does it, why do I want to buy all this stuff? Well, it really is a lot of the details and those things work together. Right? To give us sort of this impression 100%.

If you know, if you're the type of couple and you guys are, what I would say is a little bit softer, maybe a little bit more quiet spoken, you guys are introverted, maybe the wrong word, but you're more introspective. You're, you're that kind of couple. You know, like what does that mean for the space? Right? Like are you gonna walk into a very industrious kind of space that has these hard lines and exposed beams and the rafters, you know, there's higher this hard iron metal kind of feeling on the walls.

Well, no, you, you probably want to work do what you can to kind of put some drapery in there to soften the space up a little bit. Right, turn off the overhead lights. Light some candles, like that's probably going to be more of the vibe. What does that mean for your wedding dress? Like? What? How are you going to choose the material? How is that going to feel? How is that going to look to the people who's around you? Right. What kind of color? You're gonna have all the guys in your wedding party?

Right? If you're more of that kind of couple that was talking about a black and white kind of black tie affair probably doesn't really suit your personality, right? So don't make that choice, right? There's again, going back and we're going to say this a lot for the last as we kind of wrap up this episode, but there's a lot to be said for again, making the wedding and style izing the wedding to be a reflection of who you are, not just not just who you want to be, right.

Which I think is another mistake that a lot of people make, but who you actually are, right? You have this really awesome cake analogy. Do you want to tell everybody? And we we kind of laugh because it's a little silly, but like, I think it's just a really good analogy. Yeah. Well I just like help people understand like how are we kind of understanding what this concept of like style is, right? Like say you want to bake a cake and you want to get that cake to be like a great experience for whatever party or celebration or occasion you're making it for.

Like obviously the first part is like the science of it, you actually have to bake the cake part, right? And you want it to taste good, You want to be moist. You wanted to like have all the things that make a cake Great. So that's more of like a science, right? You're talking about ratios of ingredients, how long you put in the oven, that sort of thing and that has to be right first, right? Like that's fundamental. And so we really need to think about that more.

Probably the most important part, right? Like I'll be honest with you, I have baked quite a few cakes that looked like a hot mess totally. But that wasn't what was important to me. Like the most important thing was how it tasted and it was on point, but but keep going. So like, I guess to flush the analogy out like the relationship portion of planning a wedding is like assessing who am I making this cake for asking all those questions, figuring out what kind of party is this?

Like what are they like like having a heading for what we're planning then, baking the cake is just that organization piece, right? We actually have to get something that's going to work. It's going to taste good. It's gonna be big enough to feed everyone. Style is really kind of like the finesse that you put on the top, right? The icing on the cake, The sprinkles on the cake, the decorations, the cake topper. Like all of that stuff is the way we take this great thing that we've made and really like that's our opportunity to dial it in and make it super personal.

Make it super sweet. Make it super ABC for whatever purpose we're making it for, right? So that's what we're talking about here when we talk about style. But I think that you're talking about having had a bad cake. I think we've all had a bad cake that it looks really pretty. And that's, that's the danger of starting with style and working backwards because you realize, oh, I don't know how to bake a cake. I've only, I've only been thinking about like what it, what it's gonna look like, right?

And that's a mistake. And I think that's part of what we're trying to encourage couples to think about is that it is a mistake to start with style. But once you figure out, once you ask all those right questions, right? What do you want the feeling of your wedding to be? What do you want your guests to feel like when they leave your wedding, who am I? You know, what's meaningful to me then all of the little decisions like become so easy. Yeah. And I think that's what makes us such a good example.

I mean all three are fundamentally important. All three things, right? The inside of the cake and the outside of the cake, the outside of the cake does contribute to the experience, right? Like when you walk in and you're looking at this beautifully constructed cake that you know, I mean, there's some local guy dude, there's some local cake artists in this area that like the cake is a work of art, like you almost don't want to like mess with it because it looks so beautiful, it's got like, golden flakes, like, splattered across it.

Like I'm saying, I'm saying like, super dope stuff and that's a part of the experience, right? And that's an important part of the experience, right? Like, like when you and that's why I'm always very cautious, like, you know, there's a there's a lot of people out there that's like, well, the details don't matter, know the details do matter, right? Because the details within the context of the broader picture that we're talking about, they do influence the experience that you and everyone else is going to have this style part, it's important, right?

Again, what we're encouraging though is that there's more foundational things or maybe just more important. And they need to be thought through first before you get to this segment about how do you how do you stylized that cake? I mean, fundamentally anybody. And everybody, if they see a beautiful cake and then they take a bite of that cake and, and it tastes awful. Well, like none of that matters, right. It sucks. Like it's it's a terrible cake, you don't want to eat it. Like, that first impression that you had was like, whoa, this is amazing.

Once you get on the surface a little bit and you take that first bite. Are you going to eat the rest of the cake probably not. It's gonna go in the trash, right? But now the opposite isn't necessarily the same. Like, if I see a really awful cake, like I said earlier and it doesn't look amazing, but dude, like I bite into it and it's the most delicious thing I've ever had. It's still amazing, right? Is it not as amazing as if it would like look amazing too?

Of course not, but like, it's still really, really good. Yeah, but I think that's a great point. Like style does influence how the experience feels, especially for your guests, right? And you know, you want to walk through your wedding with confidence and say, hey, like I chose all this stuff on purpose, it's really working well, I've thought through this well, and I'm maximize like I got this beautiful venue, I'm maximizing the beautiful venue by choosing things to fill it that really fit me and feel my vibe.

Like I think that's how we get the most out of the whole process, as long as it's in its place and we're not building everything around, you know, the Florist 100%. Then, you know, we're going to have an experience that's really great for us. Yeah. And I think, you know, oftentimes it really does when we talk about style and just to give you a little bit more of a concrete, like we really are talking about the things that touch the senses, right? So we're really talking about, like, what do you see, right, are the things that you see, the colors that you see is the type of venue or location that you're at?

Does it reflect the couple and who they are and what they value? Like the things that you see is a style, but it doesn't just end there, right? Like you gave the example of anthropology earlier, it's like, what do you smell? That's also kind of a big part of the experience that you have at a place, right? Like when I'm outdoors, one of the reasons I love climbing mountains, not I've never climbed the mountains like you have like, like when, when I, when I climb hills, I get to the top and I take a nice deep breath.

You wanna know why? Because the fresh air smells different. It really does. Like it's kind of a corny thing to say. But it does, it's different. You know, the things that you're tasting like food is the new fashion? I've heard people say like, like really exquisite experiences with what people are eating like that elevates and that's a reflection of the couple. Right? What are you touching? Like what are the things feel like? Like the, you know when you sit down at the dinner table and you're picking up the silverware to eat with?

Like what does that feel like, Right? Does it feel like what you want it to feel like all those things is what kind of goes into the this idea of style and all of those design elements, they do all work in coordination with each other, right? The lighting that you see inside the venue, like when you walk in really well designed lighting will have an effect on people, like it'll have an effect and that's and again going back, that's it, just to kind of put it all together, all of this has an effect, right?

And then like to me great design is the coordination among all these elements together to have an intended effect on the people who's there. So that's really when we're talking about style, we're talking about those things. Yeah, I'm thinking back to all of you and Alex is like down to the lighting, you know, worked with premier party entertainment, sean hears in the office with us and he's one of my favorite to work with, but like they got the up lighting right? And they, they threw colored up lighting all around the room.

So I had this modern feel, they really wanted a high energy party and like they got it right, people are waving their light sabers around on the dance floor, you know, everything worked together to kind of create that feeling and it was an awesome party. I know and I think Augie at some point, what did she, she was it Beyonce, she got, she did like a full like slim shady number, like I can't remember but she got on the mic at her own wedding and it was, it was kind of like a cool, it was a really cool feeling.

So just to kind of wrap this up again just to give a big picture and then personality kind of give your final thoughts here again. You know, we think that style is important, we think the details matter for sure. It's just, it matters in the larger context. Making those really well thought out decisions ahead of time will kind of set the stage for you to make really great decisions when it comes to all those elements. Were talking about when it comes to style. Style style is in your wedding present.

Is there anything that you want to leave everybody with any final thoughts on this, on this concept? You know, it's funny now because we don't spend a whole lot of time talking and thinking about style like we're more asking big picture questions that's just kind of how we think about weddings and so talking and like you're bringing up flowers and you know, party favors and like all these little details, it reminds me of a conversation we often have, which is, you know, to try to date your fiancé like during the party, the wedding planning process because to me thinking about all of those little light atoms seems a little bit overwhelming.

We're talking about cake tastings and like going to try and like use the dress opportunities like a way to like connect closer with your girls, you know, use the, use the like the caterer trial run as like date with your fiancé. Like remember to like not get overwhelmed by all that stuff because it can be a lot to think about because you're only engaged once and it really is a chance for you to like start making decisions like together as a household like before, you know, you end up married and so we hope you guys have fun and feel free to like send us a message if you like have things that you think people need to hear about this sort of thing.

Like you can reach out to the ankle light. We'd love to hear more of like the bride's perspective to on like what they're thinking about when it comes to making style and design decisions. So I could not have said about myself. Thanks Preston, love it guys, I hope you found this conversation helpful again. Go back and listen to those previous two episodes. If you are curious about what we had to say about, you know, relationships and organization and then finally this last element here style Guys, I hope you have an amazing day until next time here, angle life photography, we believe marriage is an amazing adventure and your wedding is the jumping off point.

We'll explore planning an authentic and meaningful wedding experience as we connect with real life couples and the industry's top professionals. We're here to inspire and encourage you as you begin this journey of a lifetime.

Angled Light Photography

Wedding Photography for intentional couples