Mikkel Paige is a wedding photographer and travel blogger, and she came on the show to give her Top 5 Destination Wedding Tips!

They are:

Destination Weddings can be Stressful! If you’re getting married and you need to be in control, a destination wedding may not be for you, because there is so much you CANNOT control.

Look Closely at your Contracts. A photographer might be included, but is that photographer right for you? And what if it’s not? Can you get a discount off of your package?

Review the Laws of your Destination. Are you allowed to get married there? Are there different rules based on the country’s laws on religion or gay marriage?

Don’t Forget Sunscreen! If you’re golfing or lounging or drinking or whatever before the wedding, use sunscreen. You don’t want the sunglasses or bikini straps showing in your pictures!

Consider the Weather. If you’re getting married on the east coast, a sunset ceremony is probably not going to happen for you. And if it’s windy that day, you can’t force pictures by the beach.

Shark Tank Winner Sara Margulis comes on the show to talk about her wedding to her Honeyfund partner Josh Margulis, how they came up with the business idea for Honeyfund, the company’s big break of being on Martha Stewart Weddings, the Something Wonderful Platform, the new partnership with Target, millennials, and some amazing vacations and excursions that they’ve taken.

Katherine Miles Jones joins Megan to talk about her career start in New York City, how she started in the wedding photography business, an amazing and breathtaking engagement shoot at the Rockefeller Center (see image below), the biggest regret of her wedding, the community of vendors and developing friendships with her competition, how she makes clients feel comfortable, her love of photography, how she recharges her batteries, and some crazy wedding stories, including photo shoots with Abraham Lincoln the alpaca (see image below) and Nacho the Donkey. 

“It was a hobby that turned into an obsession that turned into a business.”  That’s how Jared Plummer, the owner of Two Roosters Ice Cream, describes his start in the ice cream business.  He was experimenting and developing crazy concoctions of ice cream flavors in his apartment and bringing them to dinner parties, and then one day he decided to follow his passion.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

This quote, attributed to Maya Angelou, is how Ginny Corbett of Ginny Corbett Photography remembers what’s important on the wedding day. She wants to make sure that her clients are at ease and can take in the memorable moments, so when they look at a picture hanging on the wall from their wedding day, they remember exactly how they felt.

Amanda Scott with A Swanky Affair sat down with Megan to go over the Top Ten wedding planning mistakes couples make.  Both Megan and Amanda are wedding planners in the Triangle area and have seen just about every mistake possible.  In going over them, they get to share some of their stories usually reserved for parties, from both the planning process and the wedding day.

Phil McInnis from 21 Films Videography in Raleigh came on the show to talk about how he has built up his business from just Phil and his wife Jess to a team of 6 filmmakers and editors, what differentiates the 21 Films style of videography from other wedding videographers, what motivates Phil, how to work with other vendors, and of course we get into some crazy stories about people drinking a little too much and being on camera.

Cydney English, owner of The English Garden, has been in the flower business for literally her entire life and runs a florist shop in Raleigh where about 60% of her business is weddings.  She does over 120 weddings per year, and she employs 10-20 people at a time depending on the season. Actually, Cydney and her husband Warren are both third-generation florists.

On this episode, Cydney talks about her life growing up with her dad and grandma as florists, what it was like in the early days of starting her business, trends in the wedding industry, making your wedding personal to you, and what she thinks about competition.