Happy 4th of July!

In today’s episode, we replay some of the best and craziest stories from the first three months of the podcast so far!

You’ll hear stories from:

Photographer Ginny Corbett (Episode 7, Instagram Stories and Wedding Photography Style)

Videographer Phil McInnis (Episode 5, Why You Need a Wedding Video)

Photographer Katherine Miles Jones (Episode 9, Moving Her Business from NYC and Putting Clients at Ease)

Author and photographer James Walters (Episode 12, Writing the Book of Wedding Stories)

DJ/Speaker/Podcaster Joe Bunn (Episode 2, How to Hustle and Grow Your Wedding Business)

Planner Nicole Smith (Episode 16, Wedding Planners and Venues Working Together in Harmony)

Ice Cream Entrepreneur Jared Plummer (Episode 8, Ice Cream at Weddings and the Explosion of Two Roosters)

Venue Owners, Planners, and Sisters Courtney Hopper and Dana Kadwell (Episode 13, Sister Entrepreneurs Courtney and Dana on Building a Wedding Venue)

We hope you enjoy!

This week, Megan brings on her husband Jason Gillikin, and they discuss the Top 5 Wedding Movies of All Time, and how they relate to real weddings that Megan has worked.

Top movie candidates include:

Wedding Crashers

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (fun fact, produced by Tom Hanks!)

Meet the Parents

27 Dresses

Bridesmaids (with the dreamy Jon Hamm)

The Princess Bride

Father of the Bride

The Wedding Planner (with its 15% Rotten Tomatoes score!)

My Best Friend’s Wedding

The Wedding Singer

Tune in to find out which is our #1 wedding movie of all time.

Nicole Smith, owner of wedding planning company Vision Events and former venue coordinator at The Sanderling Resort in the Outer Banks and the Marriott in Chapel Hill, comes on Weddings for Real to talk about how wedding planners and venues can work together in harmony.  Megan worked as a venue coordinator as well, so the two of them talked about several issues that come up that sometimes make the process much more difficult

Eclectic Sage’s Heather Miller comes on Weddings for Real today to talk about style, her wedding last year, The Royal Wedding, and the time a couple sued her over a color of a rose.

Elana Walker has built up her empire in the Raleigh NC market. It started with her wedding planning company Elana Walker Events back in 2009, and has expanded to her inspiration blog Southern Noir Weddings, her Masterclass for wedding industry vendors, her month-of coordination company Carolina Fete, and she even co-authored a book…she really does it all. It seems like she never stops and always has ideas on how to improve and expand that empire.

Courtney Hopper and Dana Kadwell are sisters and serial entrepreneurs in the Raleigh wedding industry.  In this show, you’ll get a sense of what that means to really be an entrepreneur.  Courtney and Dana were willing to sell everything and go for it, knowing that their visions for their businesses would work. 

James Walters of Walters and Walters Photography has been in the wedding industry for 16 years, and he has some crazy stories to tell.  So he did!  

In 2013 he came out with the book, Accessory to Marriage: A Chronicle of Outrageousness from My Life as a Wedding Photographer.

In today’s episode, James talks about some of his favorite stories from the book and his code language when it comes to weddings, like who “Fluffy” and “Triple D” are.

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.