How About Some Joy From Mingle 30A?

One of DJ Josh's favorite parts of working in the wedding/private event industry is having so much beautiful aesthetic incorporated in each event.  This week's guest, Rebecca Cross from Mingle 30A, helps to wow clients and their guests by decorating using balloons! It's a hot trend on the Emerald Coast that even COVID-19 couldn't cool down. And, it just might be right for YOUR wedding or event.

DJ Josh and Rebecca talk about her serial entrepreneurship because even though she has "retired", she not only started Mingle 30A, she and her husband also launched The Grayt Room, 30A's newest private event location. 

Make sure to click that subscribe button, so you don't miss an episode. And if you haven't left a review, DJ Josh would appreciate it! He might even read it on a future podcast! Also, if you have a wedding pro that you think other brides might benefit from working with, send their info to josh@highlightweddingsandevents.com. he'd LOVE to chat with them :)

The intro and outro for this Highlight Weddings & Events Podcast were both edited and produced by DropHouse Voiceover Production Studio and Tony Tee Neto, Voiceover Artist & Audio Producer. For more info on branding elements, editing, and post-production services, visit http://drophouse.com.

The song used for the intro and outro for this episode is Crush by https://audiohub.com License: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Transcript

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:00:28] Well, hello, everyone again. Thanks for checking out the podcast. My name is DJ Josh will Highlight Weddings and Events, and I have an awesome guest today. Her name is Rebecca Cross from Mingle 30A. How are you doing today, Rebecca? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:00:40] I am awesome. Thank you, Josh, for having us. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:00:43] Oh, my pleasure. How are you holding up with Florida's version of the winter? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:00:50] Well, I mean, I hate it. I don't know what's happening this week, but I moved here four years ago from Utah. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:00:58] Oh, okay. Yeah. It gets a little chilly there, right? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:01:02] It gets a little chilly there, but we were really tired of like snow eight months out of the year. So we decided to trek down to the South and here we are.

And so now I'm just so wimpy when it comes to cold, I'm wearing a sweater right now. So it's, it's cold out. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:01:20] What were you doing in Utah? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:01:23] Well, that's part of our story. We owned a business previous to this that we sold to a larger company out in Utah. So we were there for two years to help with transitioning that business.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:01:35] All right. Tell the listeners a little bit about yourself. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:01:38] I am the owner of Mingle 30A. We are a balloon decorating, company here on the Emerald Coast. my husband and I actually own it together. His name is Barry. most of the time. I handle all of the creative, the design, and the client interaction. Then I'll show up with Barry and he helps, with all the installs and everything else. But we  focus primarily on providing balloon decor for weddings, birthdays, celebrations, corporate events. Really, you name it.  

We've been in the area four years and we were probably the first, to actually bring this type of decor to this, community. It's kind of exploded since then, but, we'd like to still think we were the original, and we kind of started a trend in this area as what we do kind of became a trend across the United States. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:02:26] We actually haven't done an event together, but following you on Instagram,  you wouldn't expect that you could do all of the things that you can do with balloons the way I'll do it. So I think that's, super awesome. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:02:37] To be honest, we've kind of focused on one genre of the balloon industry, which is called organic balloon decor. But there is even so much more out there. So I think when people look at my Instagram, they're like, "Oh my, God. You guys are amazing!" And I always think, "Wow. There's so much more we can do if we just took the time to focus on other areas. Which, we do branch into some of those other styles, but what we're doing right now is just so on-trend that it keeps us busy seven days a week. So, you know, we don't do like animal twisting.

A lot of people will call us for that type of entertainment and that's an area. We just don't go into. We, um, one don't have the time, but to just, it's not that part of the decor that excites us, if that makes sense. we've focused on what has become kind of our niche and our style.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:03:28] Okay. so then how did you get started in this direction with Mingle 30A?

Rebecca Cross: [00:03:33] Every time we go to an event or we deliver our product or set it up. The very first question people ask us is, "How did you get started doing this? It's such a fun thing. Like how did you even come up with this?" And so to answer that there is a lot of history there, but we came down here in 2016, from Utah. We were going to retire. Honestly, we kind of thought, "Well, let's get to the beach and let's kind of take it easy and we've been successful in our other careers and now we just want to chill.

Then we got down here, and we're still young enough to be doing something. And we've always been entrepreneurs. And we've always owned our own businesses We just felt like we needed to do something, so we opened a retail store actually here in Inlet Beach, in the shops of 30 Avenue. It was called Mingle.

 It was about a 1500 square foot store and we had home decor and home goods and furniture and a lot of gathering type products like tabletop and kitchen. And then we have a little party section in the back. I used to tell everybody it was business in the front and party in the back.

So, one day we started offering balloons in our shop. We got a helium tank and we thought, "Well, four or five years ago, this balloon look was really trending in like Australia and the UK. It wasn't quite as big as it is now, in the United States. I knew this was coming and nobody down here was actually doing this. So we decided to start launching balloons in the shops. So we had helium, we started blowing up balloons, and we made an announcement one day that we would start delivering. So it kind of happened by accident. And that's what I tell everybody.

It really was truly an accident. It kind of evolved and we started getting more and more requests to deliver balloons because nobody around here was doing that. sometimes you just have to listen to what the market is telling you. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:05:28] No, definitely. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:05:30] Every time the phone rang in this retail store, people were calling us for balloons.

They weren't calling to say, "Do you have these pillows or do you have this couch?" Or, all this, the other stuff that we were selling in the store. They were only calling to order balloons for delivery. And so we thought, " What in the world is happening?"  We made the decision to just close the retail store and now seriously, I'm not even exaggerating, we do balloons seven days a week.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:05:55] Wow. That's awesome. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:05:56] And so that was just truly an example of,  we were just listening to what people wanted. And what we learned quickly is this is such a service type of, community down here. So, people come down here to obviously relax and vacation and they don't want to travel with these things nor do they really want to have to mess with it.

So, we've just become their go-to for any celebration, whether it's weddings bridal showers or things that lead up to the wedding.  Yeah. that's how it happened. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:06:27] Now, do you think your previous business experience helped you see, sooner than you might have, if you had started the business earlier in your business careers, being willing to transition away from the storefront and just kind of working more at home, if you will.

Rebecca Cross: [00:06:44] Just to give you a little background, we used to actually own and design products for the craft industry. So I've always had to be one year ahead of the trends because we were developing products for large retail stores. So when it's Christmas this year, we were actually designing products for the Christmas next year. Having to spot those trends early has been something that I've always done. when we, came down here and we realized this balloon thing was kind of taking off, part of our other business also had a party element to it, because we made party supplies and party products. 

So when I came down here to quote-unquote retire, I just felt like there was a huge need for it. And, obviously, I have a lot of experience in designing and manufacturing and distribution and sales and marketing and branding, so I just figured I'll make it work in this type of business. Now I kind of always worked from home whenever I wanted before, so it's no different really working from home in this business, but I feel like that's kind of the trend anyway. COVID or not, I feel like working from home has gotten so much easier with technology.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:07:54] Yeah. Well, and you have less overhead and less travel time  especially if you're a smaller business like yours or mine. There's not really as much of a need to have like a dedicated workspace. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:08:08] Yes, we can do most of everything that we do from home. We do also own a storage unit and a separate venue space, which we can talk about later. But sometimes you need more space, but you can definitely manage the day to day from home, which I love. So it works out great. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:08:22] All right. Specific to weddings, what excites you about being a part of the wedding event team?

Rebecca Cross: [00:08:28] Well, I mean, that's a huge important day for these couples and we really love being a part of that. I think it's really exciting when people want to have you involved in something that they're going to cherish those memories forever.

Our typical bridal experiences, the brides will call us, or the wedding planner will call us. What we have found like the most success with down here in this area for, wedding parties or wedding teams is we do a lot of wedding exits. We developed what we call a balloon wand and that sounds kind of funny, but that's what I call it.

It's a balloon on a stick with the ribbon. So like your typical exit wand. we put bells on it, we put ribbons on it and we light it up with an led light inside. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:09:13] That's cool! 

Rebecca Cross: [00:09:14] Yeah, that has been like one of our most, and people don't even hardly know we do that. I'm getting ready to do a hundred piece wedding next week for those. So, they basically hand those out to the guests and they shake them and it makes noise and it's kind of light inside and it's kind of like a little globe when people exit the wedding and that became popular because down here at the beach, there's no sparklers, no confetti, no. There's restrictions on what a lot of these communities or beach communities will allow.

we developed our version of the balloon wand, so that's a big wedding product that we offer. But then we also do like the Mr. and Mrs. Jumbo balloons with tassels. We've done everything from garlands to walls, to backdrops, for weddings.  it really kind of depends on what the bride is requesting, I think. It normally comes from the bride and not necessarily the wedding planners, if that makes sense. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:10:03] No, totally. So, Rebecca, what can Mingle 30A do to make a couples experience a highlight? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:10:11] Well, that's a fun question. We really try to work with each client to make something unique, and special for their event or their wedding. One thing that we'd like to do is offer suggestions on how they can actually get the best use out of balloons. Cause a lot of times people call me and say, "I just love what I'm seeing on your Instagram. Everything you do is amazing. What can you do for us?" And so I like to sit down and just go through kind of initial consult. I tell clients, "Don't waste your money on something that's not going to be enjoyed by everyone or all your guests,  we might put balloons in an entire house that the bridal party is going to be getting ready at where they might be setting up to get their hair and makeup done.

And so we might have balloons throughout that space because one, the photographer is going to be there. The bride might want something kind of airy and light and white and just kind of in the background of these photos. So, we just really try to ask them what they're doing throughout their wedding, which has now become like a wedding week. because people come down here and there's welcome parties and there's the bridal party getting ready.

And so balloons are actually incorporated into all those little micro-events that lead up to the actual big day. even if we don't have balloons at their actual wedding, we try to figure out how we can incorporate it, to make it unique and special to everything they're going to be doing that entire week. It's not uncommon for us to go in and deliver balloons on a Wednesday and then go back and do something separate on a Friday, just to like set them up and, even surprise their guests each time. Cause they might come in for a welcome party when they all arrive in town and we might do something totally different than we would do two days later at the reception. we just try to make it all unique and special for their big day, so that's our goal. Okay. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:12:07] What's the most memorable setup you've ever done? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:12:10] A lot of people saw this event. We did an event with Vie magazine and it was also for Alys Beach. It was called Digital Graffiti.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:12:21] Yes, that's an awesome event. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:12:23] It was so amazing. And we got to decorate three different vintage vehicles, with balloons. And we had teamed up with a floral company here in town we kind of went a little bit crazy with florals and balloons all over these cars. But it was really cool. It was like the perfect evening outside and everything just came together. And so that's, that's been one of my most memorable events.

It looked good. It was fun to put together. We got to plan, you know, it was kind of a creative, kind of a Coachella type event. And so we got to have a lot of fun with that. And the team at Vie magazine are amazing.  that's probably been one of our most memorable down here so far.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:13:01] Aside from weddings, what other kinds of events would Mingle 30A pair well with? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:13:07] Okay. Well, everything. As it relates to the wedding industry, cause that's what we're focused on today. We do a lot of bachelorette parties, so I'm talking way before the wedding happens. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:13:20] Right. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:13:21] We have groups of girls that come down and they actually have turned this into like a four-day weekend. This is no joke. They always come on Thursdays and they stay Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

We do a ton of welcome. decorations for the actual bachelorette party that's going to come in town. That's become a big thing down here. And so we go into the house before they even arrive. We work with a ton of the rental companies in town and the owners of these homes that they actually give us early access.

We go in and we like decorate the whole house. So we'll put balloons in and streamers and party supplies and backdrops and walls and stuff. That might be our first experience with that particular bride. whether she's coming back here to get married or not. Just kind of depends. A lot of people just come here, even then they're not getting married here. They still have their bachelorette parties here. We do a ton of that. 

And then we do what has become the welcome party. And I'm sure all of the wedding planners and event planners in town will tell you, this is.  weddings have become again, kind of a three to four-day event with itineraries.

And when guests travel down here and they check-in, they want them to have a fun experience. You know? So they do these welcome parties. We've done a lot of balloons for welcome parties. that might be in a smaller venue or a private home. We're able to go in and kind of create balloons that would welcome guests at the entrance, or we go in and do, things inside the home for like photo backdrops. It's all about The Gram, right? and getting those photo moments. A lot of times people will just say, "I want something, we can all take pictures in front of to remember this night or this day or whatever." So that's a big part of what we do. And then of course, obviously we do some wedding stuff. We do a lot of bride letters and Mr. And Mrs. Balloons and things like that. But aside from weddings, we also do every other event you can think of every day somebody is celebrating a birthday. So, we handle birthdays and kids' parties and, everything we. Before COVID hit, and I'm sure we're going to talk about that too. But we were doing a ton of local festivals and corporate events. A little bit of that has fallen off. but yeah, we really covered it all. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:15:28] Okay. Now, since you are retired some people might be surprised to hear that not only did you start Mingle 30A, but you also have created something else. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:15:40] Right.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:15:41] Could you share a little bit about that? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:15:44] I would love to. Thank you for asking. Well, when you're a serial entrepreneur like myself, you really just can't, sit still. I don't know. It's kind of like, you need to do something and, obviously, I love the creative side of things, but I actually really love the business side of things.

I kind of thrive on being behind the scenes, which if I had my preference, I would always be behind the scenes and nobody would know who I was. But that's not the case and I'm out there. But anyway. When you are a serial entrepreneur and you have these ideas, you always just have more ideas that you can execute. As we've started this balloon business, we've always known that we wanted to like have phases that we would launch eventually.  I can say we're finally at phase two after getting through phase one of launching and, introducing ourselves to the market and gathering, a following and, a really wide customer base.

 Phase two is now we have just launched a new, small, intimate venue space, in Grayton Beach. And that is called The Grayt Room. And it's spelled G R A Y T like Grayton beach. and it's, thegreatroom.com. It's just a really, cute, small thousand square foot space, that we're, renting out for people to use for parties and events. We've had creative workshops in there already. And it really was kind of developed and based out of a need. We would have people that would call us and book us for balloons. And then they would say, "Where can I have a party?" We always knew we wanted our own little space to like, do our own photography, and setups of our balloons, either for marketing or for sales or whatever.

So, we finally found this spot in Grayton and it's the cutest little space. I just love it. It's so new. We're just trying to get the word out about it. And so I hope that eventually, it'll, pick up some steam, but right now with COVID and everything else, it's just been a little bit slow for people to find it. And we haven't done a ton of advertising because of COVID. but it's out there So we have this venue space and place to host parties and set up parties.  

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:17:48] how many, guests event, would The Grayt Room be ideal for?

Rebecca Cross: [00:17:53] it's really 50 people or less. I don't really ever see weddings happening in there. But it would definitely be a cute little place for like a wedding reception. We've actually had bridal showers in there. We've had baby showers in there. We've had a birthday party in there. We've had creative workshops in there. It's really whatever you want it to be. We kind of promote it as a blank white canvas for you to do what you want with. It's light and bright. It's all white. It's got shiplap walls. It's just simple. But we've kept it that way so that people could use it as a photo studio or a collaborative studio and, I mean, the rates are just insanely affordable right now. So, we are basically only charging $25 an hour on the weekdays and then $50 an hour on the weekends. So it's crazy affordable. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:18:40] Well, since you've mentioned COVID and COVID-19 is still here as the winter months wane on. Would you mind telling the listeners a little bit about how COVID-19 has impacted you professionally and personally?

Rebecca Cross: [00:18:53] Personally, thankfully, we have not personally been affected by it. No one in our family has been sick, thankfully. So we just watch the news on that end and just try to keep ourselves safe. We do go out to all of our deliveries and installs with masks on. And, we're very, very safe in that regard. 

Professionally, it was really interesting because like I said, we've had over 700, orders or events or deliveries this year. And when COVID first hit, we did have several clients that called us that had to reschedule or cancel because, they were no longer coming to the area or they weren't traveling, just kind of came to a halt.

I hate to say this, but for two weeks it was very quiet and I was able to really catch up. So I really took that time to just catch up with everything I needed to for two weeks. It was almost like having a little mini vacation there, but then a weird thing happened. And I don't even know if I could adequately describe it. But we got busier than we had ever been before.

What happened was people started calling us from all over and having us do what we call doorstop deliveries or porch parties, or as you know, the drive-by party became a big deal. And so between doorstop deliveries, porch parties, and drive by parties, we had two of our busiest months ever in the four years we've been in business

 Which completely one, took us by surprise. Cause we weren't expecting that. And two, just really showed us a new way to reach. I don't know. It just became a new way for people to celebrate. They couldn't gather anywhere and they couldn't go to big parties and restaurants and other things. So what they actually did was try really, really hard to make it even more special by having us go over the top with balloons. I know that everybody's been affected differently by COVID it's given people a lot of time to slow down and kind of reflect. 

And for us, we were completely the opposite. And we weren't expecting that. So it's something that even took us by surprise. Now, the crazy thing is that the COVID has caught up with our industry a little bit in terms of we're having a really hard time getting materials right now. So I don't know, like, shipments from overseas or our manufacturers and our suppliers are now having a hard time restocking. Here we are, seven months after COVID initially hit And I'm just now finally running into supply chain issues. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:21:23] Gotcha. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:21:24] So that's hit us pretty hard in the last couple of weeks. We've  really been struggling here lately, but it's fine. I mean, business is still good.

We're pivoting and making changes. And so, yeah, I, don't know that it's going to change really anything. It didn't really affect us. We just changed the way we did business a little bit. It didn't really change our revenue or anything like that. It just kind of changed the way we delivered, if that makes sense.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:21:47] No totally. and I think that unfortunately, the challenge of COVID-19 is  It's going to really highlight the businesses and the companies that are able to be flexible. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:22:00] Yes. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:22:00] And be able to problem solve the best. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:22:03] Yeah. We're kind of in the joy business. I say sometimes. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:22:06] Nice. I like that phrase. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:22:08] You know, we deliver joy and happiness, so when there's times like this where people can't get together and celebrate in person, they want to still send a little bit of joy, you know? And so we've been able to kind of fill that void of them not being able to see people in person. It's just little things sometimes that just make a big difference in someone's day. We're able to really provide that service and we're happy to do it. So it's been interesting. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:22:32] So now that you've shared with the listeners a little bit about how you're retired into the joy business, would you mind answering a few personal questions? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:22:43] Sure. Shoot. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:22:43] Okay. So first question what did you want to be when you grew up?

Rebecca Cross: [00:22:50] Uh, well, if you'd asked me, I would have not said balloon artist. But that's, again, what happened. No. you know, when I was out of high school and, heading off to college and I thought I was going to be a journalist. I was going to do something in journalism.

None of that came to be at all. I don't even know where I was going with that. My friends used to tell me that I should have been like a lawyer or a private investigator because I ask a lot of questions and they always said I was really good at it, but, I was always in brand marketing. It was pretty much what I did my whole corporate life until I started my own company. So that's what happened. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:23:26] When you and Barry are not delivering joy what is your favorite downtime activity or let's just say that you happen to have a day where you don't have any deliveries. You don't have any office things to take care of. What are you and him going to do? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:23:47] Well, we obviously love hanging out at the beach. That's why we moved here. We had a boat for a while, but we had to get rid of that because we never had time to use it. We have an 18-year-old son who we're trying to get off through high school and get on his way, so we spend a lot of time with him and, really, we just love being out in nature. We do a lot of trail walking and there's so many cool trails around here. So, we do a lot of that. But if we're not doing any of that, we're at home catching up and watching movies or just hanging out. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:24:17] Yeah. my wife and I, that's pretty much our downtime is just kind of not doing anything.

Rebecca Cross: [00:24:22] Yeah. I mean, we've been married over 20 years, so 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:24:26] Congratulations. That's awesome. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:24:28] I don't know. We just like each other, we just like hanging out, I guess. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:24:31] Well, I'd hope so that definitely, helps make the relationship enjoyable and spending time with each other. So that's awesome that congratulations on that.

Rebecca Cross: [00:24:39] Yes, and we've always worked together too. So if you can imagine. The working together and being married. So we're pretty much together 24/7. That's true story. Yeah. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:24:47] Okay. How have you been able to balance the dynamic of work versus married or did they just kind of blend together? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:24:55] Well, they do blend. There's no way to avoid that. We have a lot of meetings. We talk about work pretty much 24/7, and then we have our home life. But it does pretty much crossover and we've kind of just gotten used to that. I feel like, we've owned several businesses together and we're kind of yin and yang a little bit, like he's super organized, detailed. He does all the financial stuff. more the business end. And I do all the creative marketing branding, you know, the fun stuff. So it is a good yin and yang. And it's kind of like that with our marriage too. He cleans the house. So he does all that. Yeah. It's great. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:25:37] See, I'm not the, cleaner in our house.

Rebecca Cross: [00:25:40] You know what's funny is he actually really loves it. So I let him do it. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:25:46] That is very noble of you to let him clean the house.

It works out.

Okay. So, let's imagine that you could give younger Rebecca advice when launching your first company, what would you tell her? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:26:01] Well, I would have told young Rebecca to invest in Facebook and Google.

Because when I started my very first company, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook weren't even a thing. and it's, been really like, I kick myself now because I'm like, "Man, I totally also missed out on the YouTube boat. Like what in the world?" So I always joke around with my son that he needs to like do these things now because, in 20 years from now, he'll be like, "Why didn't I do that?"

I don't know if I would have done anything differently. We've had a. really good run, as they say. It's led us to this point where we're going to just keep doing what we do until it phases out or it's no longer a thing, or, we'll move on to phase three, which we have kind of in our back pocket.

And so we're never sitting still. other than investing, I don't know what other advice I would have given myself. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:26:51] I think it's really cool that you already have where you're going to be pivoting to next because, like with any niche business, like Mingle 30A, there may just come a time where it's not as popular. 

Rebecca Cross: [00:27:04] Right.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:27:05] That's very prudent of you to have kind of a contingency for when that happens. Or if that happens, 

Rebecca Cross: [00:27:13] Well, I mean you gotta have an exit plan and, I always have, we've successfully exited out of both of our previous businesses and, Not that you don't ever want to just shut something down or turn your back on it, cause that's not what I'm saying. but things change and things evolve. And so you have to be, a little bit flexible to be ready to move on to the next thing. And if, by the way that doesn't work, then I'll just retire. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:27:35] Oh, you mean actually retire or just switch industries, again? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:27:39] I'm not actually sure. I know this is funny, cause people were like, "You're too young." And I'm like, "Well, I'm older than I look," for one thing, but, just had success earlier, but I worked hard for it. We worked really hard. I joke around that for 10 years I didn't even really get to see my son that much. So. I did put in the hours previously and now we just get to kind of hub.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:27:58] Yeah. There's a saying that goes, if you want something done, give it to somebody who doesn't have any time. And they will find a way because being a serial entrepreneur or just an entrepreneur in general, you're used to always having things that you have to take care of and you just figure out how to get it all done when you need to.

Rebecca Cross: [00:28:18] Well, yeah, it's 24/7. It really is. when you're passionate about something and you love what you do and you're trying to grow something, you just don't really turn it off ever. And hopefully you're surrounded by people who understand that. Cause it does. become everything you think about and focus on.

And, we got to try to find a work-life balance, but it's, you're trying to grow something and that's part of the exciting part, really, to create something new and that'll also provide for your family and that's part of it too. So I hear ya.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:28:45] My wife has gotten, really good about explicitly being like, hey, babe. when am I stopping working, on that day or she'll even go, 

Rebecca Cross: [00:28:54] so she wants to retire, huh?

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:28:56] No, no, no. As far as like, what time are you off the clock

Rebecca Cross: [00:28:59] Oh, right.

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:29:00] And then she'll even go further and be like, "Hey, I would really like spend time with you." Not in those words, but essentially reminding me like, "Oh yeah. I should kind of bring it back a little bit. Tomorrow's another day kind of thing.

Rebecca Cross: [00:29:15] Yeah. It's hard to do that, but you're right. Got to find time for the wife that's for sure. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:29:19] Definitely. All right, Rebecca. would you like to leave anything with the listeners before you wrap up the podcast? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:29:25] Well, I just want to say, thank you for always including Mingle 30A in your celebrations. We love being a part of it. And, we're not going away anytime soon, this isn't a fad that's going to end in six months, thankfully. So, we just want to help you celebrate and decorate and create memories. That's what we're here for. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:29:43] How can somebody reach out to you either for more information about Mingle 30A or the Grayt Room? 

Rebecca Cross: [00:29:51] Yeah. So we really try to push everybody to our website, at mingle30a.com. We have a link on there that just says book my balloons, and that is our initial contact with all of our clients. And we use that form for all deliveries or orders or events. and it's the same thing with the Grayt Room. So that is graytroom.com and there's information on there about us and also a booking form on there.

we try to make it easy for you to find all the information you need on our websites. And from there, you can go to Instagram and check out our feed, which is basically our portfolio, of our work.  Really the website's the best way to reach us. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:30:28] All right, Rebecca. Well, thanks so much for getting on the podcast.

Rebecca Cross: [00:30:31] It was truly the highlight of my day. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:30:33] All right. Sweet! 

Rebecca Cross: [00:30:35] Thank you for having us. We appreciate the invite. 

DJ Josh Woeckener: [00:30:37] My pleasure. So here's to the couples that are in the wedding planning process and here's to making those weddings a highlight.