Victims of Love
Tropical Turmoil: Dream Weddings and Stormy Skies
What happens when your dream wedding collides with tropical chaos? Imagine the high stakes and high drama of Chris and Thane's spectacular event, where unpredictable weather and last-minute changes turned wedding planning into an adrenaline-fueled adventure. We share the gripping behind-the-scenes moments and humorous mishaps that transformed a frantic setup into a breathtaking wedding day, earning it the title "wedding of the year." Hear about our personal experiences, the challenges we faced, and the stunning end result that made all the stress worthwhile.
What happens when your dream wedding collides with tropical chaos? Imagine the high stakes and high drama of Chris and Thane's spectacular event, where unpredictable weather and last-minute changes turned wedding planning into an adrenaline-fueled adventure. We share the gripping behind-the-scenes moments and humorous mishaps that transformed a frantic setup into a breathtaking wedding day, earning it the title "wedding of the year." Hear about our personal experiences, the challenges we faced, and the stunning end result that made all the stress worthwhile.
I was like I've got my fucking lemon garnishes still in the kitchen. I was like I need to get my fucking lemon garnishes out.
Kylie:I'll tell you what happened? Because when we went down for a pack down and I was like this is weird, I really wasn't ready. Like I'm going to still let them up.
Tommy:Yeah, 20 minutes in. Hello everyone, welcome to Victims of Love. I'm sat here with Radz. It's her birthday, so everyone out there say happy birthday. Sat here with Keely say hello, I'm Tommy. We've had a few weeks off because we've been busy. We've had a few weddings on, so we thought we'd recap on a few of the weddings we've had. We had a few weeks off because we've been busy. It's busy. I've had a few weddings on, so we thought we'd recap on a few of the weddings we've had. We had a few special ones there, did we not Specialised in special clients and special weddings? Hi, chris and Thane, no, we, we love you Because we love you, yes, well, I guess that's a good place to start. We'll start with chris and thames wedding. Who's best to kind of go on that one? It was a huge, huge. So I don't know, can we, are we?
Kylie:allowed to say that we've already done the like. The wedding of the year, I think we have the way.
Tommy:I think, look, uh, yeah, it was the wedding of the year. I would say I don't think port scene a wedding that looks has looked like that. Yeah, for that, that number of people as well. Like, oh, that number of people in the park with that setup. It was a good one.
Rads:The look was great the wedding of the year for also in the sense of how quickly the whole design changed and how you made healy made everything within the two days, the way you flipped everything. You just changed it and still made it what it was I I guess we should.
Tommy:we'll let everyone know. So obviously it's May here in the tropics, so it's very precarious to have a wedding, an outdoor wedding, in May in the tropics because you know, generally you're always battling with some kind of monsoonal trough out on the horizon waiting to come in. So you know it's something you've got to think about and that's where a wedding can change from one setup to another setup in a matter of hours, right?
Kylie:It was wet and wild. And I just want to say, when I say the wedding of the year, listen, we do lots of amazing weddings. When I say the wedding of the year, it's not because a lot of weddings will be just as beautiful and things.
Kylie:For me, when I think about a wedding of the year, I usually class it on the logistics or the production or the big bags, the big craziness. It was more than a wedding. It was a moving kind of crazy pop was going off. It started right from the beginning. So that's what that is.
Tommy:What do we have? Fireworks? We had that band that they had. Oh, I did that Amazing.
Kylie:Yeah, Right yeah it only took one and a half hours, four of us on our hands and knees picking it up, no worries, yeah, so it had the big. It was a big show, yeah, but let's just call it that it was a production, wasn't it? It was so, so yes wedding of the year isn't the right.
Tommy:Yeah production, yeah of the year well, I think we should go back to the beginning of that. So you know, like the wedding itself, the reception, when that's actually the easy bit, right, we actually knocked out the park, it was good, but what was happening eight nine o'clock in the morning?
Kylie:yeah, you know, I always and I love taking. Look, there's some people that I can have some fun with and some that are a little bit more sensitive, but this happens a lot and I guess it's really good to bring it up, because I always say the bones of weddings are really ugly. And you know, when I do my funny videos, it's like oh you know what?
Kylie:in three hours' time this is going to look amazing. In fact, it's ugly right now. There's so much truth to that. I do that because the bones of weddings are horrible bare trestle tables, lighting not finished, nothing in place, rad's not there, tom not there, flowers, all the things. And so I do that because I always have had that worry where people will send a family member down or a friend down and they come and there's. It's either there's either nothing or there's stuff that looks absolutely chaotic and horrendous. And for the boys, that is what happened, and what I think my gorgeous boys forgot was that we actually had no wedding in that park until the day before their wedding.
Kylie:You know there was so much going on and and when I and there was no malice and I know there wasn't. When people ring and say, hey, that's not the wedding of my dreams yeah, well, so, so this is.
Tommy:This is the crux of the problem. Wasn't when you started getting these phone calls at that time stressing about the look of their wedding? It doesn't really help the whole.
Kylie:Uh, the setup of it does it and it's weird, you know, because it's you take the phone calls and these people well, there's already as well and I was very lucky with them. The anxiety because of the budget blowouts that happen when big monkeys have to go in capping to floors.
Kylie:Shit starts going crazy when you are experiencing 110 kilometer winds you know so so we're prepared and everything's happening and in my mind I know what it's going to look like, because for the thursday and the friday, where I knew that we had big problems- I don't go to bed, you know, but I don't say that to the clients.
Kylie:Hey, listen, guys, I haven't been to bed for two days, but hey, everything's gonna be okay. Go, you know what? Everything's under control. You're going to see a bit of weird shit. Light's going to look very strange. Whatever, what happens is that people don't realize that all the mess and all the weird things that go on even for you, guys, you don't go into your kitchen and look at an uncooked prawn yeah, that's right.
Tommy:That's not the problem yeah I mean, like that's the whole thing with with off-site events, like the back of house is not pretty to look at it, just it just can't be. It's just not that way we work. And I mean, you know, even like I can imagine like rocking up and looking at an event at nine o'clock in the morning and you've got the boys, they're work. And I mean, you know, even like I can imagine like rocking up and looking at an event at nine o'clock in the morning and you've got the boys they're setting up. I mean, those guys never look any good. They're usually all rough and, you know, sweating their asses off. So it's not a good look. But you just got to appreciate that by three o'clock this afternoon it's going to look amazing.
Kylie:But you need us to get on with it and isn't that weird, you know, because when you have a relationship with people and Radz and I have a very good relationship with Chris and Thane- and it was so beautiful, the relationship that we had. But it's, you know, Thursday night. Everything's great. Friday night, yeah, I'm on top of this, Radz organized to help get toilets, because at one point we didn't even have toilets.
Kylie:You know so things were all going and in my mind I knew exactly what I had to do under that marquee and the light room looked funky as hell. But there was a method to the madness, knowing what was coming in the flowers and things. But when the phone calls come, because even though I sound like quite a confident person for anyone, there's still some doubt. The doubt yeah, this is your one dream, your one day Is it?
Rads:going to am. I going to yeah and fucking somebody. Some doubt that's out. Yeah, you know, this is your one dream, your one day, and is it gonna? Am I good?
Kylie:yeah, and fucking somebody's room. It's not high on my list of things to do yeah, so you know in my mind it's all there, but saying to them hey, you know what, at five to four it's gonna look like you know that's the habit. At six am. You're like I understand your concerns, but this is what's happening now. Seven o'clock. You're like I understand your concerns, but this is what's happening now, seven o'clock. You're like I understand your concerns, but this is what's happening now.
Rads:But it's not something that you should be having to do. I'm sorry, but you should not have to be saying to someone Please trust me. Yeah, it's, you know, we've been saying please trust me for the last year and a half.
Tommy:Well, it's also. It's like what do you want to actually happen? It's like what are you going to do with this phone call? What are you going to change? I mean, we're going, we're in the mode, we're getting this event done Nothing is going to change now.
Rads:What you're doing is you're dampering the mood of everyone when I say to Kelly hey, oh my God let's do this and she goes.
Tommy:I fucking hate it and I'm like all you do you're affecting your own event, because as soon as you take the wind out the sails of everyone who's organizing your event, that's it. Your event has just dropped down a level, because then everyone's just like right, well, they don't like it, so what's the fucking point? You know?
Rads:But then no, how quickly do we get each other up and work? You know, what no? Because they've seen two trestle tables and this is not finished. Once we get everything in there, it's going to be amazing. How can it not be? Oh yeah, it does for me too.
Kylie:The thing is is then what happens is, as I go into a very strange mode, which rads then has to try to pull me back out from.
Kylie:But also I knew because the way the hotel had said, there was a massive school coming in due at 3 30, right when the boys were to be married, and that's like 120 kilometres an hour winds, and so we did the ceremony first, which is not often what we do. So we'd held off the park, so I knew what was happening. Their friends were going down, but to explain that, and then also to not scare clients.
Rads:Exactly Like really at 3.30.
Kylie:we either sit and then we're fucked or we don't, and then you just have to trust me, and so, because I was in that mode, I sat and then the score came and then we lost the back end of everything off the tables, and then it's a pick-me-up. And it's just one thing that I always say to people is, when you choose people like us, you have to find a way inside yourself to go right.
Kylie:They know what they're doing, regardless of what it looks like regardless of if your mom's sat down and taken a picture or whatever. Weddings very rarely come together until that last half an hour they can look absolutely horrendous until that last half an hour when all of a sudden everything disappears and the magic happens. The lights turn on, rags is there with all the staff and boom, you have a wedding.
Tommy:Well, that's what we've said before, and it's like it's not the run sheet, it's not the floor plan, it's none of that. It's the people who are there on site who are going to get it done for you. Right? You've got to trust us that we're not looking at the run sheet. To be honest, we've got the floor plan. Yeah, we look at the floor plan, but what we're doing is getting it done. So when there's a rain front coming through, we're getting it fixed. When there's issues with guests, we're getting it fixed. That's what it's about On-site management, right? Yeah, it is.
Kylie:You know, when I think about Chris and Dave and how you and I dealt with that, you know you just, I just feel so proud because everything should have gone wrong. Yeah, that was the end. Still, it was perfection. Yeah, to a level that I've never done before and in a production sense, everything. But then we had the support of every single person yeah you know needs kids, you and-.
Tommy:Well, and also like because we were kind of dealing with it too from a food side, because they went like a totally bespoke menu. So it's like we're doing taste plate entree, taste plate main. So I'm like we're over there, your guys are over there dealing with the weather and all that. I'm in the kitchen thinking how the fuck am I gonna get this done in between rain events, if possible? Luckily, man, the weather was amazing right Once that squall came through. After that it was like, oh right, it was like God just gave us one last little rainy patch and said, all right, now it'll be all nice for you, it won't be puff and puff, yeah. So I think all aspects of that wedding were high pressure for everyone really.
Kylie:Yeah, and you know, and I think when you do something like that too, you learn so much about what's actually possible and it just gets you so ready for all the smaller weddings, because they're all really important.
Kylie:But on those big things, where there's so much room for error, when everything just goes so incredibly, yeah, you know then that there is nothing you cannot do yeah because that, you know, what I wanted to talk about really is a wedding that we did, which we didn't mention, but where we had an issue with weather and there were outside vendors and I don't want to name the client because actually and I really love the client, this but we were set ready and everybody pulled themselves together and we set the inside of the wolf, we left space, we did all the things that that our vendors knew that we could communicate properly with and we're talking about on a much smaller scale.
Kylie:But what is heartbreaking is when because on prison bank, all of our vendors were all known to us, we all knew what we were doing, we all knew that there were pressures and changes and things constantly happening and we could communicate that because of the tight-knit vendor list that we had.
Kylie:And then we did a wedding where there wasn't that and there were outside vendors, photographers from different states, you know, and when you have no control of that and a vendor will not listen to you and they set themselves in where a ceremony is supposed to go, that's the stuff that is so heartbreaking, you know, to me is when you you have a wedding like chris and dame, where everything should have gone crazy and terrible and it was such a huge success, and then, two weeks before you'd done a wedding for 80, yeah where there was one vendor who would not do as they were told, would not, not take any direction, would not listen, would not read the room, would not understand the spatial problems we were having. Everybody else knitted together perfect, set different scenarios, everything, and then you have one person.
Tommy:Yeah.
Kylie:Who's not working?
Tommy:as part of the team, you know.
Rads:We're there to collaborate and fix problems together. So when I say to you, you need to sit here because this is the reason, and you're not listening to it and you go and do what you want to do, because that's what you want to do well, guess what. You fucked it for everyone. Because now guess what you look like a dickhead because you told the bride this is what we're going to do for a backup weather plan, which we had to do, but we couldn't.
Kylie:And I think you, you know that's when everybody is familiar with each other and we all lift each other up. Yeah, I'm in a hole. Rads comes on and speaks. Come fuck sake, quick, let's get this fucking navel set. What's in this box? Hurry up. Oh, you're missing a fucking glass. You have that all when bart's there, go get the truck, move the truck. That will stop the wind. You have all this.
Tommy:Yeah.
Kylie:And then you have a different scale of wedding where there's just one person who will not be a team player, and then it goes to shit and that's why. I've always. It just comes back to when you pick vendors or somebody says this is a recommended vendor list, you can use the vendor list.
Tommy:Yeah.
Kylie:Because then they people on that vendor list know that there's somebody in charge. Rads at night, me on in the daytime because one person going outside the lines, coloring outside the line to their own, be their own draw ruins yeah can ruin everything yeah and the mood of everything just slides. And so we had one where I think the client was still happy. There was potential for greater happiness, especially for me, because I don't think that's successful when there is problems like that.
Kylie:And then we've had two very successful weddings where there were problems on both of the bigger weddings, but we were able to get through it make really good decisions, because, even though there were times where there was raised voices, especially on the bigger one after christmas day, there's an understanding that somebody has to be making the final decision. So I think, I think we've had two really successful weddings. One not successful, but that's what happens with that. Yeah, yeah absolutely.
Tommy:Yeah, I always think it's funny when these people bring in like these interstate vendors for their wedding up here, especially when it's like a dj. I love when they go we've got a dj coming up from down south. You're like man, that is such a waste of money, unless it's like john, course, or something right. Generally 100% of the time it's just some wedding dj and they bring them up. They're a pain in the ass. They haven't got any equipment with them and they just don't know what's going on. I'm like, no, we've got DJs up here, even photographers. They're like, oh, we're bringing a photographer from Melbourne. They're like, yeah, we've got photographers in far off Queensland too.
Rads:I really liked Hayley Josh's DJ. He was he was yeah he was different and it was just oh no, I've still got his name. Can you please, Paul Fisher? No, we don't want to name him, oh, okay.
Kylie:He was amazing and he was yeah, he was like he understood how weddings work.
Rads:Can we?
Kylie:just say that we had a chat and, yes, very nice vendors yes, that's the difference too there. Yes, that wedding, because their vendors were from interstate the DJ and the singer. They were two of two of the nicest intersegnators I have ever worked with, who were very willing to help, to take direction, to fully understood the process of, of of a wedding that was really impressive. I thought that that was yeah, for, especially because you know when they were expecting dj setups outside and all the shit that didn't happen there through no fault of ours or yours.
Kylie:Um, they, they dealt with those things very, very well. I mean, we were running power for the solo single and guess what? Yeah yeah, because there was a breakdown of of the audio supply not doing as they were supposed to do.
Tommy:But in terms of those two weddings, they were what I would call well, so as a roundup of those two weddings then. So what's a bit of advice? You'd give people a hot tip after you know, looking at what happened over those weddings hot tip listen.
Kylie:If someone like me says to you I totally understand that the audio quotes you're getting are not apples and apples and one is a lot cheaper. If I say to you please, that's not how this works. I am not a technician, but that cost is incorrect and it is incorrect for so many different reasons. Please trust me yeah, or else you end up in a world of hurt yeah, yeah, that's it.
Kylie:That's the hottest if I can give it, for that's why I say something to you like please share your quote with us, because something doesn't seem right if we come back to you and say, no, no, something's really terribly wrong here.
Tommy:Yeah.
Kylie:We don't. I don't want you to hire the gear from me. I don't care, I will help you If I see something terribly wrong and you still don't want to revert to something that we have in our shares or a recommendation, I will find you a secondary recommendation that's going to cost you the right things.
Kylie:But if that's going to cost you the right things, but that's my hottest tip Just if somebody like Raz or I or you say something to Raz about food, or Nick says something to me like that can't be done or whatever, there's a reason.
Tommy:Yeah, I like that one. I've said that over the years. It's like you know, we never say or suggest something for any like weird reasons or monetary reasons. That's right, you know, it's always because that's the best option, always.
Kylie:There's no monetary gain.
Tommy:The clients just end up paying through the nose when things go wrong?
Kylie:Yeah, they end up in big shit and where the bills just then keep racking.
Tommy:Yeah, we never make money from other people's products, no, so if we're telling you you should go this way, it's for a very, very good reason.
Kylie:Yeah, that's a good one. There's no 20% margins happening over here.
Tommy:Of course yeah.
Kylie:It's just. It's just blind free. You could have seen there was a problem there.
Tommy:And that's very sad, because that couple was so amazing, they deserve to have the wedding of their dreams.
Kylie:They did have the wedding of their dreams, but it was a struggle to me from one thing where for months before we kept saying that's not right, it's not right, it's not right, right.
Tommy:So you got it. You got a tip from uh to the last month last, oh, last, two weddings.
Rads:Uh, tip um, communicate with your guests. Um, we've got so many forums out there that you can keep a track and keep all your guests on a spreadsheet where you can get one message and sends to everyone, don't?
Rads:you know, let your guests know that your ceremony is at 3 o'clock and expect to, you know, be there at, you know, 2.45. Don't let them assume what time to be there. To have guests arriving at 2 o'clock for a ceremony that was starting at 3 o'clock I think would have pissed off a lot of your guests. You know it's hot out there there. You know there's so many issues and and when you're not telling your guests what needs, where they have to be, I think you just you know when you've done such a beautiful wedding it just reflects badly on the whole I think, yeah, a more detailed itinerary for guests, exactly, yeah yeah one, you know quick, you had a uh uh pre-party.
Rads:You should have said to your guests guys, just so you know, 245 Rexville Park.
Kylie:Well, don't we say that too, and you and I always say that. We always do the client a day or two before they say they're going to Hemingway's or they're going for a pre-party, and we always say, hey, so that's a really good time to tell your guests. X, y, z.
Rads:Pop on the mic say hey, clients, this is just. If you didn't get the memo, just let me know. You know, and yeah, we just got. All you're going to walk into is us still setting trucks to their flowers. Can't go on till last minute, especially with the climate that we work in, you know. So everything is we have to wait for so long to do those last minute touches. So when we start having guests arriving an hour before the ceremony.
Tommy:It is very, very rushed it's also, like you know, 20 minutes on a reception and it's like, well you know, if you're a guest, they're expecting drinks. Well you, you've paid for a four-hour beverage package. Are we sticking an extra 20 half an hour onto that beverage package? But we've just got to suck it up and get it done.
Kylie:But realistically, and you know there's well, from what I saw, from that I I mean even our own partner and I walked out of there and we were like, oh fuck, is she going to be okay, are they okay? 180 people swarming for me like that early is enough to cause all kinds of menace. But, dom, what's your top tip?
Tommy:Well, I suppose mine is leading on from Rad's as well. Like we got stiff there of that wedding for 180 people where everyone rocked up 20 minutes early and I had the most beautiful vision for an oyster bar Me too. It was going to look amazing. Had it in my mind? Those beautiful lemons you cut for the oysters. I had so much going on. It was going to look amazing and I was out there setting it to the T. It was going to be done to the minute as the first guests were walking in. It was gonna be set, can I?
Rads:just say why. Because you can't put oysters out an hour before, of course, yeah, so you've got to time it and make sure that it's all beautifully timed to have this, yeah.
Tommy:So we had well, we had well. There would have been a hundred guests show up 20 minutes early and they just started raping me for oysters. I was like, as I on the ice and the table, they're just going, and then they're just taking them off me, off the trays. I didn't even get my lemon garnishes, I didn't get anything out. The table was just. We didn't need the table, I could have just stood there. I should have just opened up the Esky box of oysters. There you go Like a trough. Nobody would have known.
Kylie:That's the beautiful thing about what we all do, nobody would have known. That's the beautiful thing, that's right. Nobody would have known that there was this weird heart attack where. Rad was screaming from the toilets.
Tommy:They're coming Rad said to me she goes have you got any more oysters? 15 dozen oysters were gone in like 12 minutes. See you later. I was like, right, okay.
Kylie:So that's to what you're saying. Timings are not suggested timings, they're timing yes um, because everything comes down to the wire. But I just want to say just a quick thing about our first wedding christmas plan, just very quickly, because the food, everything, because you did mention the plated things, um, how different. That was, everybody was talking about the food.
Rads:It was spectacular delicious, delicious it was. There was a bit. We put a lot.
Tommy:Chris and thames wanted their, their wedding to be focused on food they wanted beautiful food, hence two tastings, um which I didn't tell tommy about the second tasting because I was like if he found out that the clients were having a second tasting because his first one they were happy with, he would have killed me.
Rads:Anyway, second tasting, we got it right and it was perfect. He bought what they wanted and it was very bespoke, you know, to have a tasting plate entree for that many people.
Tommy:Well, I'm not there, Me and Dom in the kitchen that night. We worked it out so we had to do nearly 980 movements to get that tasting plate set up. We're like there was so many components. There was probably like 30 different components on that plate. That's why it's not the wedding of the year.
Kylie:That's why it was the logistical challenge of the year yeah, you know the tent outdoors and we're not going to talk about it now because I know we wanted to keep this one short, but next week or next podcast, I really want us to talk about what happened with the council and all the things that happened there, and why, when we say logistical challenges, I mean logistical challenges down to no water.
Rads:You have no idea, no water. So I think next podcast is just going to be rad. We've met in our schedule oh mate, you have no idea so much to say about this. Well.
Kylie:I think the next podcast will all just be rads, saying how absolutely horrendously difficult that was for her, whilst also keeping me afloat, because I do have minor meltdowns. Yeah, small mouth, well small, but mighty meltdowns. Um, dealing with that sorry right, yeah.
Rads:And then, looking at the wedding three hours later, going did this chandelier drop and realized it was actually a drink.
Tommy:It was a decoration oh yeah, oh yeah on the bar. Yeah, I saw that and it goes, check out. I was like, what's that chandelier doing on the bar? Is it full of things? She goes, no, it's decoration. I was like, oh right.
Rads:It took me three hours into the shift to realize that. Check out Keely's Instagram to see what I'm talking about Her table decoration and I literally looked at one of the staff members and went this fucking shit didn't really drop. Shut up, mate, Okay.
Kylie:And do you know what else I'm so glad? The reason I'm trying to wind up this fucking podcast is because I don't want you to give a shit about my butt.
Tommy:So, Tom, it's so nice to be in your office because I want you to forget about it before you walk out. Alright, well, that's us. That's Victim of Love. We'll be back and give some shit to the local council. Listen to our next one. Thanks, guys. See ya, you.