With over 15 years of experience in the wedding industry, I’ve learned a few things. There’s a lot I could share, but today I want to focus on one key truth: relationships matter.
Relationships are the backbone of your wedding day. I can’t count the number of times couples have thanked me simply for taking the time to chat on the phone about their big day. It might seem like a small gesture, but to them, it means the world.
In this industry, you meet family members, share special moments, and often begin to feel like family yourself. Of course, professionals work to provide for their own families—but being invited into one of the biggest days of someone’s life means so much more. Marriage is a sacred commitment, before each other and before God, and we are deeply honored every time a couple chooses us to be part of it.
Relationships don’t just matter with couples—they matter with other vendors, too. The wedding industry is a team sport. Everyone has a role to play. While I may not get paid to move flowers or carry chairs, my purpose is to serve the couple. At my company, one of our core values is teamwork. We don’t believe in “That’s not my job.” If someone on our team is standing around and can help, they’re going to step in.
Relationships with fellow vendors—even those who do the same work—are just as important (if not more). Many times, I’ve called on peers outside my company for help when I was in a bind, and I’ve done the same for them. I’ve even gone out to DJ under another company’s name when needed. At the end of the day, I want to see like-minded vendors succeed.
Couples may not realize how much happens behind the scenes to make their day run smoothly. For example, early in my career, I agreed to use a venue’s sound system for a ceremony. The bride had a specific song—recorded by her mother on a burned CD—that she wanted to walk down the aisle to. With only 30 minutes before the ceremony, I discovered the venue’s CD player wouldn’t play burned discs. (Yes, I’m showing my age here!)
I called a colleague from another company, got advice, and ended up extracting the file from the CD onto one of my backup laptops so I could play it through iTunes. The bride never knew about the crisis until I told her afterward. That’s the point: vendors care deeply about making sure every moment goes as planned, even if couples never see the behind-the-scenes challenges.
Here’s another example. My company, Creative Entertainment, serves the entire Southeast with three locations (Birmingham, Gulf Shores, Panama City Beach. One weekend, all of us were booked in different places—Pensacola, Coffee Springs, Fairhope, Pelham, Birmingham, Moody, and Huntsville. During setup, Joe (one of my team members) called to say his ceremony was in the middle of a field with no power source in sight.
This particular venue was familiar to us, but the ceremony location was new. My own wedding was about to start, but I told Joe and Jordan to pack up and start driving—I’d guide them. I immediately called my friend Chuck, who owns another entertainment company nearby.
Thankfully, I caught him right before he left for the LSU vs. Alabama game. He set his generator outside his garage, Joe picked it up, and they made it back just in time for the ceremony. If I didn’t have those relationships in place, those couples would have been the ones to suffer. And that’s not acceptable to us.
I’m grateful for Coastal Weddings Magazine and the relationships we’ve built with their staff over the years. They’ve been such a valuable part of our journey, and we love watching them continue to grow.
I hope this gives you a little glimpse behind the scenes of our world. We don’t often get to share these stories outside of conversations with other vendors, but they matter. Who knows—maybe one day I’ll write a book. I certainly have plenty more stories to tell.
AUTHOR: RYAN JONES
CREATIVE ENTERTAINMENT