Forecasting the Wedding Industry: What’s Next for Couples & Vendors with Nora Culley Tuck
What does the future of weddings look like, and how can today’s pros prepare for it?
In this episode of Mind Your Wedding Business, Kevin sits down with Nora Culley Tuck, Owner and Creative Director of Engaged with Nora, to forecast where the wedding industry is headed. From the decline of “Pinterest weddings” to the rise of experiential design and Gen Z’s bold approach to tradition, Nora shares how shifts in culture, tech, and client priorities are reshaping the way we plan and celebrate.
Together, they unpack what today’s couples really want, why smaller guest counts can mean bigger impact, and how pros can adapt their systems, communication, and offerings to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving market. Nora also opens up about building her company in 2020, the lessons she’s learned about innovation, and why “don’t get comfortable” is her mantra for future-proofing any business.
Highlights:
- Why “Pinterest weddings” are fading, and what TikTok and short-form video mean for future trends
- How guest counts are shrinking, and why intimate weddings benefit couples and pros
- What true personalization looks like (and why it goes far deeper than choosing a color palette)
- How Gen Z couples are rewriting traditions and embracing risk-taking in their events
- The role of technology - from AI and 3D renderings to wedding websites and automation
- Why continual innovation is the key to surviving (and thriving) in the wedding industry
Whether you’re a planner, DJ, florist, or any creative vendor, this episode offers an inside look at the trends, client behaviors, and industry shifts shaping the future of weddings, and what you can do now to prepare.
Connect with Nora:
Connect with Kevin:
Transcript
All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. I'm here with Nora Coley, and she's here to talk to us today about forecasting where the industry is heading. But Nora, before we do that, please introduce yourself to our audience and tell us a little bit about you and how we got you here today.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Hi Kevin, thank you so much for having me. ⁓
Kevin Dennis (:Of course.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Yeah, so I own Engage with Nora, which is a wedding planning design ⁓ firm based out of Cleveland, Ohio. We specialize in statement making weddings for cool couples. So oftentimes our couples are looking for really unique experiences for their guests and they call us. So we get to be innovative and think outside the box and ⁓ think about where weddings are going instead of where they've been.
Kevin Dennis (:I love that. right. All right. So Nora, you launched Engage with Nora in 2020, which, you know, right as the industry was in the middle of that, but we don't want to talk about that word anymore. So how did that timing shape the way you built your business and your team?
Nora Culley Tuck (:and whoop.
Yep.
a fair word here, but before: Kevin Dennis (:We don't talk about that word, remember?
Nora Culley Tuck (:some people in the industry put out feelers and were like, are you, are you going to take some like side planning jobs? And, know, we think you could be great at this. And I decided to take the big step and launch my own planning firm in October of 2020. And originally my goal was to have 12 weddings total across the company for 2021.
se planners who couldn't book:which was a big overwhelming experience to be honest, because we were just kind of not saying no to anybody. I was like, we'll do it, we'll do it, we'll do it. I'll keep building the team until we have enough staff to handle the number of events that are coming through our doors. But.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:In the same time, because the pandemic was still going on and things were uncertain, there were a lot of changes ⁓ to the industry as a whole. So when I launched my company, I was creating our systems and processes at the same time that the industry was shifting. So it actually put us a little bit ahead of some other companies because they were playing catch up, whereas we were setting foundation with where the industry currently was.
So things like, you know, Zoom and Google meets and having a lot more online resources for our couples. Batching meetings so that we, you know, we're spending one or two days with them at a time instead of having a meeting with them, instead of having to meet with them multiple times a month. And it really kind of launched us into this new style of planning and this new generation of client that has a little bit of a different focus than
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:previously.
Kevin Dennis (:I love that. it just sounds like a whirlwind and you, it was almost like a perfect storm for you. So it was really kind of an interesting way of looking at it. So like.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Yeah, it was
lucky, but also overwhelming.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, no.
mean, there's lots of not good stories that have come out of that pandemic, and it's nice to see that there was a positive story. All right. So how are you seeing couples' priorities change regarding their wedding experience versus traditional traditions or aesthetics?
Nora Culley Tuck (:Absolutely.
Yeah, I think we're finally over the hump of the Pinterest wedding. I think we're getting away from it. Well, now we're seeing TikTok weddings. Trends are happening on TikTok, trends are happening on Instagram, and people are really looking for innovative and unique experiences for their clients. I will say we've seen a...
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:a trend in lowering of guest counts, which I think is still, you know, a part of the pandemic aftermath. But I think that it's actually a good thing for this industry. I think having smaller, more intimate, more intentional events is better for everybody involved. I think.
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Everybody in this industry has worked a 400 person wedding at some point in their career and even the best planned, the most expensive, the best teams ⁓ coming into those events, it still feels a little lacking in a way.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:You don't feel like you're being served as best as you could be. You don't feel like you actually get to interact with many of the people around you or with the couple of honor or their family. And so what we're seeing in the inquiries that are coming through our inbox specifically are for weddings under a hundred guests, which is not.
Kevin Dennis (:wow.
Nora Culley Tuck (:technically a micro wedding. think my things are typically 30 and under. And then, you know, you have like your more moderate size, which are your 50 to 75 range. But a lot of our clients are in that hundred to 150 range, which if I go back to, know, when I was working in catering, average was 200 to 50 somewhere in there, especially here in Cleveland, we got a lot of Irish, a lot of Italian, a lot of ⁓ Ukrainian families.
Kevin Dennis (:No.
Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:so they're very large and everybody has to be invited. But I think that people are being a little bit more stingy with their guest list now, which means that we're doing quality over quantity. Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:⁓ OK.
Well, and it's interesting because I'm in California and our guest counts are starting to slowly creep back up. it's kind of interesting because I think that's the biggest thing. No matter where you are in the country, I think we go through different pockets at different times. So it's kind of interesting. All right. Are there industry shifts that you think vendors should start preparing for now to stay competitive in the next few years?
Nora Culley Tuck (:Yeah, interesting.
Absolutely. I think we're looking at more experiential design at this point. So it's not just about if it looks pretty on Instagram. It's, you know, now that we're moving towards short, ⁓ now that we are moving, wait, Megan, it Megan? Emily, Emily, Emily.
Kevin Dennis (:Okay.
No, no, no, we say Emily.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Since social media is moving toward more short-term video content, it's not just about if it looks pretty in a picture. It's about how it felt, how it moved, how people reacted to it. So because the shift in media is happening, there's a shift in priorities for the client as well, where it's not just about, you know, let's have the largest cake.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:we can have, it's about does that cake move? Does that cake taste good? ⁓ Is there something hidden inside the cake? Something that is surprising and interesting that can be revealed in video content rather than photo content.
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
I love that. right, personalization has become a buzzword in the wedding industry. So what does true personalization look like today, and how do you think it'll evolve?
Nora Culley Tuck (:So personalization starts in the intake process. When I first work with a client, we do a two hour meeting before we look at venues, before we talk about design, before we start talking about vendors and preferences. I do a two hour meeting just to get to know the couple.
And in that meeting, I'm asking a lot of really specific questions, but everything informs how we move forward with the event. So if you could live anywhere in the world, regardless of finances and work obligations and family, where would you be living? Because someone who chooses New York City is very different from someone who chooses Hawaii or someone who chooses Japan or someone who chooses Amsterdam.
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Those are completely different clients and completely different styles and completely different experiences. Someone who's looking at New York might want things a little flashier, a little bigger, more impactful versus someone who ⁓ likes something a little bit more beachy might want something that doesn't feel so high energy. They might want something more relaxing and more soothing and more conversation based. So we do a lot of those questions up front.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:I ask about where they go to eat on date night. I ask about what meals they make at home. I ask about what movies they watch, what music they listen to, what TV shows they're binging, what books they're reading, ⁓ when they go to an art gallery, what style of art are they drawn to? All of those questions inform how we move forward in the process. Instead of me asking, what do you want your wedding colors to be, I'm pulling in
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:inspiration from their actual life to pull those colors when I start working on the design. And that's true personalization. That is going to the meat of who you are as a person and pulling out what makes you special to present it to your guests versus just going on Pinterest or Instagram or TikTok, seeing what's trending and copying.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, I love that. And it's funny, I was working with a couple last year and ⁓ she was very much like every, you know, I want blush, blush, blush, everything blush. But then all her photos she was sharing with me or showing with me, everything was like a lavender. So I was like, and I was like, kind of first I'm like, is she colorblind? You know, like I was kind of like in my head, I'm like, does she not know? And then so finally I was like, hey, I just want to make sure that we're on the same page because
Nora Culley Tuck (:you
Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:know the word you keep saying is blush blush blush But I'm like everything I'm seeing is lavender and the girl's mom hit her and go I told you and blah blah blah, know And so I'm like are we playing in a wet? Do you really like lavender or do you really want blush because that's the the buzzword of the you know, like everyone just throws blush around for everything in a wedding so
Nora Culley Tuck (:Well, I-
except Pinterest boards for my clients. I know there's lots of planners that do and that's completely everybody's individual process. But I don't want to see your Pinterest board because more than likely what you've pinned on there is what everybody else who's planning a wedding right now is pinning. And what do you think about it? For something to make it onto Pinterest, someone has to spend a year designing it, actually execute it, the photographer has to
to
two months to edit those photos, then the planner or the designer has to get those photos back, choose which images they want to upload to Pinterest, and then actually put it on there. So if you go off of what is being fed to everybody, you're actually a year and a half behind the trend. Yes! And also, everybody's algorithm on Pinterest is different. It's just like TikTok.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
I was going to say 18 months. I was like, you're behind 18 months. So yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:What I see on my wedding TikTok is very different from someone who is planning their wedding because I'm being fed content because the algorithm knows that I'm a planner and I want to see up and coming versus if you're a bride, what TikTok is going to do is it's going to feed you what is doing well with all the other brides planning their wedding at the same time. So.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Ultimately, you're going to end up in this generic place where nothing is actually personalized to who you are or what you want. And then the same thing comes down when you're talking about lavender versus blush. Sometimes when people show me an inspiration photo,
⁓ I see something different than they do. So you could be sending me a picture of a bouquet and I'm looking at the varietals and the texture and you might be looking at that and saying I like the size and the shape and the color.
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:So when everybody sees different things when they see reference photos, so it's very important that if you are going to share inspiration, you're clear about what you like about that inspiration so that whoever is planning or designing for you knows what you are looking for.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm.
I think that makes sense. And it's funny that you said, you know, everyone sees something different and it's like food, like food ends up becoming, you know, such a crazy, you know, like when they go to start making their food choices, it's like everyone likes their food different, like go to a restaurant and that's exactly what happened, you know? So it just, it just cracks me up when you, you said the choices, because I'm like, everyone loves things so different, you know?
Nora Culley Tuck (:Yeah, we talk about that all the time. It's so funny because, specifically with food, like I always use steak as my example, right? Just because you like your steak well done doesn't mean that you should be serving your steak well done to your guests. You have to do something that's gonna appease everybody. And you may have some guests that are like, I can't eat this, it's too well done. And then you might have other guests that are saying, it's not done enough. Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Mm-hmm. It's not done enough. Yeah, no,
it's I always feel sorry for caterers. It's impossible. So
Nora Culley Tuck (:That's when I was like, go short rib. It's braised. It's cooked the same temperature for everybody. No one's going to be disappointed.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
You're so funny. Yeah,
and it's funny that you say that too, because I have a 13-year-old daughter and we'll go to the restaurant and for some reason she likes her steak rare. We don't know where it came from. That's not how we eat it as a family. You like growing up and the waiter or waitress will always look at her mom and I like she'll go rare and like we're always looking at the waitress. I'm like, yeah, she's fine. Yeah. Let her have it the way she wants it, man.
Nora Culley Tuck (:That's me.
Yeah.
She wants a bloody.
Kevin Dennis (:That's right. All right. So we were
talking, you know, mentioning Pinterest and stuff. So let's dive into a little bit of technology. So like, how do you see the role of technology continuing to change the planning and the guest experience sides of weddings?
Nora Culley Tuck (:I mean, I think with the integration of AI in this industry, we are going to see a huge tech boom in the wedding, ⁓ in this wedding industry. ⁓ You know, I already have 3D rendering floor planning software that is game changing for my clients. ⁓ know, yeah. So Triple C just acquired Mary, M-E-R-R-I. Uh-huh.
Kevin Dennis (:What is it so everyone will know?
Okay. yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:⁓ And Mary allows you to go through and choose your linen color, choose your centerpieces, choose your draping, your lighting fixtures, your hanging florals, your china, your flatware, your glassware, your menu card, your chair, everything like that. So we're now at the point where once I get through the design deck with a client, we're doing a digital rendering in their actual venue space so they can see what they are
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Mmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:what they're choosing. And it kind of replaces the design demo that's been pretty standard in this industry for the past 30 some years, where you go to your florist studio or you go to your venue and your planner has multiple tables set up with centerpieces. That's an expensive endeavor.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:So
being able to skip that aspect of the planning process means that we can make changes quicker. It means that the couple still feels confident in the choices that they're making, but they don't need to actually see it in person. And it leaves a little bit more of that surprise element when they actually see the space on the wedding day.
Kevin Dennis (:I love that. That's a great way to do it. Is there any other technology that you think is coming in?
Nora Culley Tuck (:Yeah, I mean, I think wedding websites are going to be the future. I already have a lot of clients who are switching to digital save a date, digital invitations. I still think you need to mail out an invitation, but I don't mind a digital save the date. I will say that. And a lot of the wedding website companies right now are integrating a lot more communication aspects with the guests. If there is a
Kevin Dennis (:I know that's
Yeah. Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:on the wedding day or instructions that need to be sent. can. ⁓
Email or text directly with your entire guest list to make sure that everybody ends up in the right place. So like we had a private resident Residence wedding a couple months ago And we had sent out specific parking information because obviously it doesn't have a parking lot. It's a private home ⁓ and The days leading up to the wedding we sent three more messages directly to the guests Instructing them on where to park how to park and that entire situation so that
nobody showed up to the wedding upset about the logistics surrounding that. They were well informed ahead of time. I actually, had, this wasn't one of our clients, but a planner friend of mine, there was a power outage at a venue, and the venue didn't have a generator, which venues, please have generators, thank you.
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Happens.
Nora Culley Tuck (:but they had to redirect all the guests to a different space. So they went on their wedding website and they sent a mass text message out to the entire guest list saying, hey, the reception is now taking place at this location. Please go there to not go to the original location on the invitation. So I think those kinds of integrations we're gonna see more and more and more of. And then on the business side, automations are the heart of our entire inquiry process.
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:We
use HoneyBook for our inquiry proposal and contracting. And they have awesome automation so that as soon as somebody submits an inquiry, they're immediately getting an email from us saying, thank you so much for inquiring. Here's a link to schedule a consultation. Here are our packages. Want to learn more? Click this link.
And we found that people are so much more responsive to that than when we were handwriting, even if it was an email template, when we were personalizing each email to the client. Because if people are shopping right away, they don't want to feel the pressure. They want to be able to take their time to review materials, see if it's a right fit, and schedule at their leisure. And we've actually seen a higher conversion rate since we've started that automation process than when we were doing it by hand.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, and it's funny, we just recently switched to DubSado for that very reason. it's a similar setup as HoneyBook. with that said, HoneyBook, DubSado, there's so many other ones out there that someone can do. I feel like if you're not doing that, you're going to be left behind. So yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Absolutely. mean,
tech is the future in this industry. You know, there's a lot of ⁓ planning software out there, like planning portal software that planners use. And I have tried every single one of them and I don't like any of them. Yeah. I don't like any of them. I don't like that.
Kevin Dennis (:⁓ really? I was gonna ask, which one do you like? Okay.
Nora Culley Tuck (:The time like if it's a timeline, I want my timelines to look like my timeline I don't want them to look like another planners timeline who's using the same software as me or You know, I like the way that I do my budgets and estimate those costs and and track those payments And I don't like the way that some of these other Software is do that. So we do everything in Google Drive currently just because of the custom a customization aspect of that but with Google
Kevin Dennis (:⁓ gotcha.
Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:space coming into play, the world's going to open up where we essentially can build our own software in Google and house it for our clients.
Kevin Dennis (:Well, there you go. that would be, I mean, and it can't get here soon enough. Because it's funny you say that because I use, you know, because we're we do rentals, lighting, decor, drapery. So we use a rental software and it's it's the best of the worst, you know. And so and we've tried like that was one of the things that we were doing during the pandemic was trying to find a new software because that was a better time to change than when there's no events going on kind of thing. And we literally like went through like
Nora Culley Tuck (:Yeah.
Great.
Kevin Dennis (:five to six different demos and we kept coming back to like, this is the best of the worst. It's still not great, it's still not gonna be perfect, but it's better than nothing. anyway.
Nora Culley Tuck (:What you can
tell in a software if somebody in the industry made it or not.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, and that's the nice thing with the one that we have is that there are industry people that made it, you know, but they're also, they're not techie. So they're having to like get the tech. Yeah. And it's why I just went to a training. I just went to a training for it, a two day training in Orlando actually. And ⁓ the nice thing is, is when we were sitting in the room, there was about 80 of us users in there and they were all like, that's a great idea. Let me bring that back. know, so at least they're open to.
Nora Culley Tuck (:bring in the people after. ⁓
Kevin Dennis (:constantly improving the platform, you can't beat that.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Well, you have to. And I think a lot of these software start off as kind of grassroots, they're, you know, something built by the industry and then they get bought out by a larger software company. that's what HoneyBook,
Kevin Dennis (:Which I think HoneyBook did, right? Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Well, Mary used to be independent and then Triple Seat bought them. Somebody else just did the same thing. And my biggest thing is that as soon as a software company buys it, I kind of hate it. ⁓
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
No, well, yeah,
I think it's like Cvent, which is used a lot in corporate America. Yeah, they bought social tables and they bought, you know, they bought a couple other things. I forget what else, too, but it's, yeah, you're right. They grow. I remember when, it's funny, I remember when HoneyBook just started and it was all the rage because it kind of started here in San Francisco Bay Area. And so they were really pushing it to all of us and then it grew out to be, you know, kind of an industry standard out there right now. So anyway. All right.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Yes, I used to work sea bed.
Nice.
Yeah, absolutely.
Kevin Dennis (:So with younger generation of couples entering the market, what new expectations are they bringing to the table that pros really need to pay attention to?
Nora Culley Tuck (:I think the biggest thing here is the way that they communicate. And my team, we talk about this, I'm not kidding, every single day. Because we sit there and we're like, has So-and-So responded to this email? No. Have they signed this contract? No. Have they paid their deposit? No. They've been sitting on this for two weeks, right?
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:And I think what Gen Z couples in particular are looking for is quick form messaging. So whether that's through, you know, an app like WhatsApp, right? Or if it's texting or if it's just shorter form emails, that's the biggest change that I'm seeing. You know, after every planning session with a couple, my team sends out a meeting recap. And typically it's eight to 10 items long with here's what we
Kevin Dennis (:Mm.
Hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:talked about, here's what we decided, here's what we're doing for you, and here's what you need to do for each one of these, right? And what I found is that these younger couples completely black out and are like, this too much for me to handle right now. Right, right. It's like you've just given them homework, right? And every couple has to do homework.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Hail to the dough! I don't want to do work!
Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:It's just a part of this process. I can't make your guest list for you. I can't do your seating chart for you. I can't determine if you want parents' names on your invitations. Those are all your decisions. And I think what happens is that couples see the process, they get overwhelmed, and then they shut down. So we've started to reformat the way that we do those meeting recaps and the way that we communicate with the couples because instead of sending eight items, we'll send two. They're like, hey, do this, do this.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah
Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:and that
we see a much better return rate on those emails because they're not just looking at it on their phone and being like, ⁓ paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs. And that's the other thing. These couples are working off their phones.
Kevin Dennis (:I was just going
to say that you, I think you brought up the main point. It's scrolling on that little screen. So that's, I think a lot of people need to check their inquiry responses, everything. What does it look like on mobile? Because that's, I mean, I'm guilty of it too. I'm like, I, I sometimes I'll overreact to an email cause I didn't read the whole thing. Cause I skimmed through it on a mobile and my staff's like, you're relaxed. It's all fine. You know, like, yeah.
I just caught like one little part of it, so anyway.
Nora Culley Tuck (:When our couples sit down after having dinner and they've set aside time to work on their wedding tasks, they're not pulling out their laptops or going into their home office and sitting down at a desktop like they used to, like 10 years ago, right? ⁓ They are sitting on the couch with their phones and scrolling. And if your systems don't translate to phone usage, it's going to be an uphill battle the entire time.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, think you'll become extinct is what's going to happen. So you need to continue to evolve. that's where I think, that's the one thing in the wedding industry, you can't get set in your ways. This is how I've always done it, or this is how I want to do it. You've got to, how can I communicate and make it easier for my clients? And that is going to change year from year from year. just, it is. Yeah, so.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Exactly.
Yeah.
If I had a principal growing up that his slogan was get better every day.
And so every day when I walk into the office, I'm like, how can we do that better? How can we serve that better? What can we be doing? Because I do look around at people who've been in the industry for 30 plus years and I'm like, they're coming to me asking, hey, do you have any clients you can send me? When these used to be huge people in the industry, your biggest revenue companies, and they're struggling because they've not evolved with the clients.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
you
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's funny, I have a saying that I keep with my staff is we're only as good as our last event. And if we fucked up our last event or something went bad, then we suck as a company. so how can we make sure that never happens again? so, when, I mean, it's inevitable you're going to make a mistake or something's going to happen when you go through the business. We're not all perfect. And I think that's something that I think business people got to learn right away is you are going to make a mistake.
And you've got to use it as a growing. You've got to grow through that mistake and take it as, how do I learn from this and how do I not make this mistake ever again, you know, kind of thing. And what policies, procedures, what do I need to do differently to make that? And those are the people that are going to survive in this industry, I think, as we go. So, yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Absolutely and like nobody
wants their client to be the guinea pig on something like but every time something happens you learn you know and you have to
Kevin Dennis (:No.
Mm-hmm. You really do.
You have to. Yeah, I mean, because you're going to be put in a situation that you've never been put in before. know, like, it could be family drama. It could be a medical emergency at a wedding. It could be, you know, weather. It could be, you name it, you know, it could be the bride decides that she doesn't want to marry the groom on the day. You know, you know what saying? It's like, you never know what you're going to be dealing with. And all that stuff, just hardens your shell and gets you tougher.
Nora Culley Tuck (:my gosh, I grabbed it all the time.
Kevin Dennis (:you know, get thicker skin for that next crazy wedding that's going to come out the door. So, all right. So, from your perspective, how will the role of planners evolve over the next five to ten years?
Nora Culley Tuck (:I think planners are going to continue to be the heart of the planning process. I think that even with innovations in tech,
Planners are still needed. You still need a point person on the wedding day who everybody is turning to for final decisions. I think that the way that planners work with their clients is going to change them. I think everything's going to be a lot more virtual. think that the mid to lower tier planners are going to see a lot of virtual planning, which we're already seeing, where you actually aren't executing the wedding day at all, but you do the planning for the
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:remotely.
Kevin Dennis (:I've heard about this and it's so intriguing
to me. Yeah, I just can't imagine doing that. But okay. I'm just yeah
Nora Culley Tuck (:It's crazy. We
won. We've done one. Um, and it was a great learning experience because the client was originally supposed to get married up here in Ohio. And then, um, they got pregnant and we were like, yay, good for you. Um, and they postponed their wedding and moved it down to Florida. So it was going to become like a 20 person wedding. And I said, listen, you've already paid a deposit with us. I am more than happy to customize a package.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:for you based off of this new direction that you're taking the wedding. So your options are that we can continue to plan with you up here and then you can fly us down and we'll execute this 20 person wedding, which is a huge expense, right? Or we can plan everything for you and then we can turn it over to the vendors down there.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:And we did that and it was fantastic. Was I having heart palpitations the entire day? Yes. Yes, but it also, just required a lot more communication with the vendor team. So instead of us having more like client facing meetings with the vendors, it was a lot of B2B meetings. Just being like, Hey, this is how I have this set up. This is how this needs to transition. ⁓ know, the bouquet is going to be delivered here.
Kevin Dennis (:⁓ 100%.
Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:So make sure that you have her room number. I'll text you that the night before. Like we were still doing some virtual assistance. And even on the wedding day, like the venue manager was texting me and being like, it's gonna rain. We have to move dinner inside. And I put together, you know, a little direction sheet for her. And I said, this is what you do when it's inside. Execute the rain plan. We're good. And they did. The photos are great.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
That's crazy. All right. let's real quick about, we were talking about vendors. Let's talk about vendors for a second. So what's the one thing vendors should be doing now to align with where the industry is headed? So since we've been talking planning, let's talk about the vendors.
Nora Culley Tuck (:think it's about removing homework. I think it's removing homework. I think ⁓ there was kind of this thing that happened several years ago.
Kevin Dennis (:⁓
Nora Culley Tuck (:particularly in photography and videography, where it must have been taught in lot of workshops and classes that you need to have this questionnaire that you send out to your clients like a month before the wedding, where they fill out all their vendors and what time are you getting dressed and blah, blah, blah, and click this and click that, all of that, right? And where I see that as like extremely beneficial from the photo or videographer's perspective, especially if there's not a planner involved, I don't think it's
should necessarily be standard practice. Oftentimes what happens is my clients, after we have spent months crafting an extensive timeline for them, then the month before their wedding, they're hit with all these emails from their vendors that are automated and say, hey, fill out this questionnaire, schedule your final call, blah, blah, blah, do all this stuff. And it's like, we've already done all of that. We already scheduled our final call. We already put together the timeline with all the information that you need in your questionnaire.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm.
Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Most of my vendor friends have learned to not do that for our clients, but I still get pushback from vendors occasionally and they're like, well, this isn't in your timeline, even though my timelines are like 30 pages long. They're like, you didn't.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, so
it's funny because I'm gonna stop you right there. I'm sorry to interrupt because it's something that drives me nuts. If you're a planner, I respect the hell out of a 30 page timeline because you put all the effort in. That's like basically the Bible on the day of the wedding. And so when I work with a professional planner and I get a page or two pages of and I'm like, I could have done that with them in a 30 minute phone call. You know I'm saying? Like I don't
Nora Culley Tuck (:is.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, and so anyway, I'm sorry, you got me on it. Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:No, I mean,
our timelines are so detailed that like, if a chair has to be moved from one space to another, it's in the timeline. Every setup note.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:every deliverable, every, you know, everything is listed in there. Your family photo list is in there, your song list, your ceremony, or I mean, everything is in this timeline. So it really bothers me when I've put in all this effort to craft something keeping you in mind as a vendor, and then you completely disregard my process to automate yours. That's a big, that's a big no-no.
Kevin Dennis (:No, yeah. Yeah,
no. That's the thing I think where people mess up. Me as a vendor, if I want to work with you, I need to learn how you work and I need to learn how we can work together and where I'm making it easier for you and you're making it easier for me. You're going to get a lot of that information ahead of time, so why am I asking for that information already? Because I know
Nora and her team are going to deliver me that information. I don't need to do that. I just need X, Y, and Z that Nora doesn't go over. You know what saying? Yeah. Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:could
be and also I probably still know the answers to that even if it's not in the timeline. So send me those questions and if I don't have the answer to them I'll communicate with the client.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Planners are hired to be the middleman, right? Very few of my clients communicate directly with their vendor team and it's built that way for a reason. Everything flows through us so that nothing is lost in communication. No one's confused and everybody is happy because just like we were talking about with these Gen Z clients about being overloaded with homework and information. When you have a team of 20 vendors all emailing themselves
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:they're going to shut down completely. They're not answering anyone. So it might as well funnel through me where I know they know to answer my emails, right?
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah. No.
Yeah. We could probably open up a whole rabbit hole. mean, just, well, no, it's just, and it just, I totally respect, like, there is a gentleman that I've worked with for years, and his timelines would be 40, 50 pages. I mean, because it was who, what, when, where, how, and why. I mean, it was covered in every little thing that needed to be covered in the timeline. And when I get these little one-page, two-page timelines, and I'm like,
Nora Culley Tuck (:I know.
Kevin Dennis (:What are you doing? Again, I could probably put that together in 20 to 30 minutes with the couple and deliver the same product. So why are they paying you so much money to do work anyway?
Nora Culley Tuck (:And every time we have an event, that template that we use gets updated every single time. I'm like, well, it would be helpful to list the appetizers here so that I don't have to go back and look at the BEO to confirm that we have the same appetizers, right? Like it's those little details that allows everyone on the team to settle into their area of genius and focus knowing that there's someone with an overview on everything.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah. Well, yeah, because you're learning and you're growing. Again, that's what it's about. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yep.
Well yeah, if something were to happen to the night before, someone can take that little timeline, which is like the playbook of the wedding, and run with it and execute the whole wedding. yeah. No. Yeah, and that's where I think a lot of planners mess up. All right, we're done with our tangent, but we're moving on. All right, Nora, looking ahead, what excites you the most about the direction weddings are taking?
Nora Culley Tuck (:Exactly. Yeah, I shouldn't have to be there if timeline is correct.
You
I love that Gen Z are risk takers. They don't give a flying fuck, pardon my French, about tradition, expectation, ⁓ or fitting in. None of them care.
Kevin Dennis (:⁓ I love that too, yeah.
No?
Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:None of care. So what we're seeing is a lot of bold and statement making choices from the couples. And I think that should be exciting to everyone in this industry because we are all in this industry because we have some kind of creative heart, right? So I don't want to do the same wedding over and over. Kevin, I'm sure you don't.
Kevin Dennis (:It drives me nuts. I
hate doing the same wedding. It's like, ⁓ rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. We can do, you know, and there's no fun. It gets boring really quickly.
Nora Culley Tuck (:And as soon as you get bored, that's when you get complacent.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:So
I like that Gen Z is like keeping us on our toes, making us think through things and do a lot more research. I'm getting asked for things that I never thought I would be asked to research and find for my couples. And that whole process is extremely interesting to me. That's why I do what I do. I love researching. I love creating something that no one's done before. I love out of the box and unique experiences.
generation is down for it. And I think they're also completely open to mixing it up in terms of structure.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:We're getting a lot of couples asking for multi-day weddings. And I don't mean like welcome party and then wedding day and then brunch. mean, ceremony on Friday, reception on Saturday with an after party and a pool party on Sunday. Like that is what they're looking for because I think this generation is seeing that to fit all of this into one day is kind of stupid.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
or in into
five hours. It's really, mean, yeah, yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:You're gonna spend all this time, all this money on one day?
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Nora Culley Tuck (:when
you could spread it out and spend the same amount of money and have a complete experience for your clients and also have more of a peaceful experience for yourself. I think we've all seen a couple go through the day that feels chaotic and feels like they're being pulled in a million different directions and isn't actually in the moment at any point. They're worried about what's coming next and is this okay and do we have time for this and no, we gotta cut that short because we gotta go on the bus and there's a concert downtown and there's traffic, right?
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:But when you space out the events over a weekend, it allows your couple to sink in and be truly present.
Kevin Dennis (:It's funny, I have a bad joke and I tell my couples this. I'm like, you want to have fun at a wedding, you need to be a guest at someone else's wedding. Like you're going to enjoy your wedding, you're going to have fun at it, but you're not going to be able to enjoy it. And I'm a big guest experience, like making sure guests, that's what it's all about. It's guest experience, making sure they have fun. so you don't, unfortunately, as a couple, you don't get to experience all the stuff that your guests, that you plan for them.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Hmm?
Kevin Dennis (:because you're too busy doing photos and being pulled in different directions and having to entertain and be the, you know, almost the host. I mean, they're still not the host, but you know what? You're the stars of the show, so to speak. And it's next to impossible to really enjoy everything because you're pulled so many different directions. it just, like I even, I mean, my wife and I got married, this will be like 17 years ago, but the one thing we were going through is like.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Congrats.
Kevin Dennis (:We were going through to say hello to everyone at the tables, and she's very shy. I'm like, let's go. And we're going together, and we're just trying to say hello to everyone. had 220 guests at our wedding. ⁓ her damn work friends took her from me and took her one way. And I'm like, we're working. We agreed. We're going to go through this systematically. ⁓
What happened? now, ⁓ so I was walking up to tables of people I didn't even know go, hi, I'm the groom. I'm Kevin. Nice to meet you. Thank you for coming to my wedding because it was like her parents, friends, or who I that you know, like people that you don't know. But yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Yeah, and imagine
if you didn't have to do that. Imagine if you could actually have an organic experience with everybody at your event because you didn't try and cram it into five hours. Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Yeah, I think you're on to something, All right.
All right. So we're going to wrap it up. We're getting there on the time limit here. ⁓ So if you, Nora, could give one piece of advice to wedding professionals who want to future proof their business. So future proof, what would it be? I'm putting you on the spot. We're going to end with the bang here.
Nora Culley Tuck (:would say don't get comfortable. I think that's it. If you're not innovating, you're falling behind. So don't rest on your laurels. Don't rest on the paperwork you've had for five years. Every winter, because winters are off season here,
Kevin Dennis (:⁓ I love that.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Every winter my team and I sit down, we look through all of our paperwork, all of our processes, and we refine. And we go, what can we do better as a team? How can we better serve our clients? And what are our future clients going to ask that we don't already have? And I think that is the single biggest thing I can suggest to any vendor in this industry, whether you've been in it for one year or 30 years, just continue to innovate.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
⁓
I love that. it's funny you said winter. the biggest thing I learned being the WIPA national president, ⁓ I got to do it twice actually for four years, but is I got to go visit other chapters, right? And visit other areas. And that for me, that was the best education I got because how you do weddings there in Ohio is going to be completely different than Phoenix. Cause I learned summer, you know,
Bad, hot, you know, like so everybody has their own wedding season, if that makes any sense. And it's different across this great nation of ours. It's so different wherever you go. I, being from California and we're, believe it or not, we do wedding gear around here. And I joke, well, it just, but with that said, we have a bunch of outdoor venues. And so we get busier once the outdoor venues come back online.
Nora Culley Tuck (:course you do.
Kevin Dennis (:So that's like your April-ish time and all the way through about October. So then come November, weddings start to slow down a little bit again. But we still, we do every month at least multiple weddings every month. And so it just, it is what it is. just, yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Yeah. Every, every
market's different, you know, I mean, in Ohio, we have a clear on season and off season, ⁓ which is good and bad. like having on and off so that you can kind of separate and refocus, but it's also bad because when it's high season, it's really high. You're talking weddings and months kind of thing. So pros and cons, but whenever you get a break in your, in
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Yeah, no, yeah, you're just fitting it all in. Yeah, no, it's crazy.
Nora Culley Tuck (:where your business is throughout the year because everybody gets a break at some point. Wherever your break is, should be where you look internally and you evaluate.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
And
it's so randomly this year in California. normally, like July will slow down a little bit because it's starts to get a little hotter here, right? But we, it was like, there was venues that we work at that had two events and everyone around in the Northern California are like, where are all the vents? Where, what's going on? Like freaking out calendar turns to August. And now we're like, we're all going nuts again. You know what I'm saying? So it was kind of, it was kind of like random, but it was like, that was just not normal.
for all of us and we all thought the world was ending. know, like the wedding industries were ending. Yeah, we did. But this year it was, you know, usually February's a little slower. ⁓ now it's July, February and July are a little slower for, I mean, there's still events, not like what it, we're not killing ourselves. Like you said, you know, when it's high time. So no.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Everyone checks out when bookings are out.
Isn't that nice though? You have two
times a year where you get to kind of take a second, re-center and prepare for the next half of the year. Like that's beautiful.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah,
and people need to plan accordingly and do that right. So, all right, I loved your advice. Okay, so before we wrap up, I like to ask everyone just kind of what kind of app they like or what they're using right now or something that might help other wedding professionals. So, Nora, it doesn't even have to be very revolutionary. Okay, I love it.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Trust me, it's not.
So since short form content is king, my team, we rely on photo circle. Have you heard of photo circle before? Yeah, so every single event we do.
Kevin Dennis (:huh.
⁓ yes I have.
Nora Culley Tuck (:We create a photo circle for our team and we set it out after the event's complete and every single member on our staff takes photos and videos throughout the event. So essentially we have a library of content that we can use on TikTok, on Instagram, and also sometimes we share that content with the couple.
Kevin Dennis (:and uploads it.
⁓
Nora Culley Tuck (:There's like beautiful moments or if they're, you know, we have the room reveal and their video is not done yet, right? Like we can give them a bit of a behind the scenes or sneak peek of what their day actually was like from our perspective. So it's been really beneficial. People love it.
Kevin Dennis (:Well, I'm going say that's very valuable. I never even thought of sharing what we shoot with the clients. So that's kind of an interesting little, no, yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:You watch what you say. Like when you're
making video, you gotta watch what you say a little bit and you have to make sure that the content is, you know, high quality enough that the client is going to be happy with it. But we've done that for many clients. I actually had a client last year who had a problem with a videographer they hired.
against our recommendation. And they hadn't received their video. It had been eight months after the wedding. They had not received their film. And of course we got involved. ⁓ But in the meantime, I was like, let me share our photo circle with you so you have our videos.
Kevin Dennis (:Uh-huh.
Yeah. Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:And we have their entire first dance on iPhone footage. have, we have their ceremony and their kiss, everything. We have all the, you know, the details. took a table scapes and seating chart and cocktail hour. All of that is in there. And the bride actually sent me a message afterwards and she was like, you know, this entire situation is frustrating, but I am so grateful that your team capture all this because these are memories that we can't recreate.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Nora Culley Tuck (:And she even said this is this is why we say watch what you say in your videos. There's a video of me filming or I'm filming a video of their seating chart and my Bridal attendant is giving me an update saying that like mom is very happy everyone's very happy and in the video I said all I care about is if Bride and groom are happy as they're happy. I'm happy He said I don't know if you know this but in that video we can hear you talking about it
And to know that your biggest priority for the day was whether we were happy or not is such a gift. So, yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah. I love that. That's amazing.
All right. So Nora, how do folks get in contact with you? And we will have all of Nora's information in the show notes, but it's always nice to hear it from the guest's mouth.
Nora Culley Tuck (:So you can find us on all social media channels at Engage with Nora. You can also find our website, EngageNora.com, if you want to see a little bit more of our portfolio or reach out about opportunities to collaborate. We are always looking for new vendor partnerships, new places to go, and people to meet.
Kevin Dennis (:And she's hoping to plan the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce wedding if it happens there in Ohio. ⁓
Nora Culley Tuck (:Girl, it's 20 minutes from where our office is,
where they just bought their new home, so fingers crossed.
Kevin Dennis (:You never
know, never know. All right, Nora, I can't thank you enough for being a guest here on Mind Your Wedding Business. And folks, we'll see you next time on another episode. We'll see you soon. Thanks, Nora. Bye.
Nora Culley Tuck (:Mm-hmm.
Thanks, Kevin.
