Episode 20: Coachella Taught Us Everything We Need to Know About Weddings

Episode Summary

What can Coachella teach us about weddings? More than you might think, friends. I’m sharing an idea I’ve been thinking about: the big, collective spectacle of fireworks and the intimate connection of a fireplace. We’ll look at the performances of Sabrina Carpenter and Justin Bieber through that lens, and talk about how different generations experience celebration. I also get into why transparency, access, and understanding the process matter to our clients and our vendor community. If you’re planning a wedding or working in events, I hope this gives you a fresh way to think about the moments you create.

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julianleaver.com | @julianleaver

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Full Episode Transcript

Hello, friends, and welcome back to Mind Over Matrimony. We are so excited to have you here today. And I've been thinking a lot about just about the different generations that we deal with in this job. And so, if you're listening and you are a client, you're definitely in one of these generations, right? And if you're listening and you are a vendor, you're also in one of these generations. And that's what I think is really cool about this time, is that we're dealing with different groups of people who have different things that they prioritize, and it's all of our jobs to figure out what the priorities should be.

And from the client side, every different kind of generation category has its own priorities. And from the vendor side, it's the same. And so the two categories that I'm talking about, not so much from the point of view of the generations, but more just what people believe in and want to see are fireworks and fireplaces. And so those two things can be looked at in two different ways. And so I'm going to start a little bit with fireplaces because I actually love fire, and so it's something that I actually have a lot of experience with.

I don't know if we've talked about it here really, but I am a Boy Scout. I'm an Eagle Scout. And so I did a lot of camping as a kid. And one of my favorite things about camping was building the fire, because it's a very deliberate process. You have to go out, you have to find the kindling, which is the little tiny pieces of wood that go at the very bottom of the fire that you're building so that it will be able to catch and then thereby light the rest of the fire and then off you go down the road.

So you have to gather the kindling. Then you have to gather all these kind of smaller pieces of wood. And so then you find the bigger pieces of wood and all of this has to be dry, but it's a process, right? And so you gather all these pieces and then you put them together and you slowly get it there and then you light it. And if you're lucky, it all works beautifully and off you go and you have a fire that you can tend the rest of the night. And the thing that then comes out of fireplaces and fires like this is the thing that I love the most about camping, which is the memories.

And it’s gathering people together, whether that’s through cooking or through card games late at night or just telling stories or Planning out the next day and just laughter and happiness and the things that that bring people together And so then you juxtapose that with fireworks Right and fireworks are a very complicated Instrument they are combustible. They're very dangerous They can cause a lot of harm, but they can also bring joy. And when they are shot off into the sky, they make loud noises, and they're spectacles, and they grab your attention right away, and they bring you into that moment.

And what I think is the most fascinating thing about fireworks is that we share that experience of a firework altogether. We share this awe. We share this shock and awe in a lot of ways. All of these fireworks shows that we go to are also set to music, so there's an emotional level that's woven in with this shock and awe moment, right? So there's this huge collective experience that we're all having that is magical and also on a grand scale, right? And so every wedding basically has to have both of these things. It has to have fireworks, and it has to have fireplaces really woven into the wedding.

And so then the question becomes for all of us, clients and vendor partners, how many of each and when, right? How many of each and when? And when do we place them? And when are we drawing people in? And when are we having this shared experience altogether? And so what I have found fascinating in looking at the subject more is that there are these three generations that we're working with. We're working with boomers, we're working with millennials, and we're working or are Gen Z. And all three of those are experiencing this wedding industry and world as we know it from different facets and different understandings.

And what I find interesting is that we basically just saw the perfect example illustrated for us at Coachella. And collectively, as a culture, via Instagram, via TikTok, we all watched two very different artists perform two very different sets of shows, encapsulating both of these ideas on back-to-back nights. And we all watched, it was a pretty unbelievable kind of cultural moment for all of us. And first we watched Sabrina Carpenter literally put on the most epic show of her lifetime. She pulled out every single stop she gave us every single firework my friends every single one.

There is a moment where she was singing the song “Espresso” and literally there is so much going on on stage that you don't even know where to look. There is a taxi driver, there is an old nun, there is stuff going off in the background. You don't even really almost see her, you just hear her voice and we are all experiencing it all together. It was amazing. And then you have the complete opposite of that moment the next night. And the next night is Justin Bieber. And Justin Bieber builds a set that is incredibly intimate.

It almost looks like a beanbag, this set. And he's standing in the middle of this beanbag and he's got his computer and the big screens are of course behind him, right? But there's no spectacle. And there's literally one single light that's at the top kind of just above him and it looks, to me, like a fireplace, friends. And so then Justin Bieber basically takes us on a journey to his past and he plays on the computer and he pulls up all his YouTube videos and he's literally singing and harmonizing with his younger self. He brings out every single hit that he possibly has.

It’s nostalgia at its best. It is literally the ultimate expression of a fireplace. And it was just amazing. It was just amazing to watch. It was amazing to watch someone almost heal themselves on the live in front of all of us and heal the trauma and do it in his own way that felt safe and brought everybody in. It brought us all into these two interesting moments that were Both collective which I think is the interesting thing about the fireplace and the fireworks, right? And what I also think was interesting is that the internet glitterati Basically decided to pit these two against each other It's Justin versus Sabrina.

Justin dialed it in. Sabrina did the most. She did too much. He didn't do enough. And it was like this versus conversation. But I think that is actually the incorrect way to frame this entire thing. This was not versus. This was and. This was fireworks and fireplaces. At the same time, delivered by two different artists on two consecutive nights. One of which, Sabrina, is a Gen Z, the ultimate Gen Z pop star, right, expressing completely her firework moment. But what I find fascinating is that then she brought on stage a boomer. She brought on Madonna, the ultimate nostalgia.

She literally brought the fireplace right on with her because boomers care deeply about the fireplace. They care deeply about the experience, they care deeply about connection, and so she married them. She married those experiences right in her performance. And then the next night, Justin Bieber, who is a solid millennial, friends, right there in the middle, looks to the future and brings on Billie Eilish, another ultimate Gen Zer, and marries those two right in his performance. This is a masterclass in marketing, number one, right? Whoever is at Coachella, mad props, okay? Whoever designed the way that this set list rolled out, mad props.

The way that these two artists controlled their story and told their story and brought everyone together in these moments, incredible. Chef's kiss, chef's kiss of just an understanding of this entire concept. And so, You have both of those in this cultural moment explaining to us how this new map looks in so many ways in the wedding industry. Because we're looking at lots of different generations all at the same time. Because millennials and Gen Z are still very much in the mix. Sometimes they're marrying each other if they're on the cusps, right? And so everybody is looking for something different.

They’re looking for a firework or a fireplace. Boomers are solidly fireworks or fireplaces. Millennials are solidly fireworks, right? And then Gen Z are very much both. They want both things. And so how do you bridge fireworks and fireplaces? The bridge between them is transparency, which I know we talk a lot about here. And for those of you listening, whatever group you may be in, you know that you want transparency. And so what does that look like, right? What does that look like? Number one, if you are listening and you’re Gen Z, you are literally the most marketed to group on the planet.

You grew up with phones, you grew up with ads, you've grown up with this device in your life all the time. You know how to read a situation and you know exactly what it's going to look like because you live in the land of the dupe. So you can very easily decide and determine very quickly what is real and what is not, right? And so those of us in the wedding world, we need to listen. Transparency is super key. We are not marketing to a generation of people who don't understand marketing. They understand it very well.

And so we have to respond in that manner by giving them the information that they would actually like to have. And so where does that carry next? This next generation is also very informed in terms of production They understand production they understand what thirty thousand dollars worth of floral looks like and what? $300,000 worth of floral looks like and so we have to just be really honest and really real and Give the information that is being requested because it will benefit all of us in the long run, because we are not, again, working with a generation who doesn't know what's going on.

They have full access. They have seen all of these things. The second that they say wedding out of their mouth, the algorithm immediately recalculates and starts feeding them all of this information. What I love about this new generation is that they want access. They want to be able to see the process, right? And I think those two go hand in hand. Access and process, right? Access process, access process, access process. And so you have—it is our responsibility to show how things are done. The best way I know how to do that is on social media because I can show you, okay, this was the drawing that we made, this is the deck that we did, this is how it turned out in real life, and this is how it got from A to B, right? Or A to Z, really, like all the whole arc of it. The same with access: I want to be able to give you access to your budget. I want to be able to give you access to your checklist. I want to be able to give you access to your timeline. I want to be able to give you access to all of your seating and as your guests RSVP. And so we as wedding professionals need to be able to give those tools so that then they can do with them whatever they want.

If you are a client, you should be able to have access to all of your information. It's your wedding. It's not my wedding. Why am I gatekeeping any of this information from you? Access. Super and crazy important, right? And when you take those kind of four things in total, an understanding of marketing, an understanding of production, an understanding and wanting to be involved in the process, and then an understanding of access. You literally get basically the key to transparency. And so you can then weave this firework and fireplace situation throughout the process of the wedding planning and also the event.

And so when you get through that whole process and you understand how all of that works then you land in just a totally different place you're speaking to every single group of people and they feel like they're being spoken to and being given the information that they need to be given and we can dive a little bit deeper on. on another one of these about what that exactly looks like. But today I wanted to stay big with you, okay? This is the concept fireworks and fireplaces and we're gonna talk about it a little bit more and we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into what it actually looks for your business in another episode about you need to do this versus this or if you're a client, you're asking for this versus this.

We'll get into all of that, okay, you guys? But it's too much for one podcast to explain all of this. All right, so what I want you to take away from today is to think about Coachella and to think about how it made you feel and to think about the fireworks and the fireplaces and where you want those to be in your business or in your event and go from there. So thank you guys for being here with me on Mind Over Matrimony today and I can't wait to be back soon and explain more.

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