Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 939, Planning a Wedding.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 939.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is ESLPOD.com.
If you want a learning guide for this episode, become a member of ESL Podcast by going to our website.
This episode is a dialogue between Seamus and Kathy about getting married.
Let's get started.
What's that?
It's a planning book for our wedding.
We aren't getting married for a year and a half.
I know, but there are so many things to plan.
We have to book the hall far in advance, you know.
And once we set the date, we have to send out save the date notifications to our friends and family.
I thought that the point of putting off the wedding until we finish school is to take the pressure off and allow us time to plan later.
It is, but it's never too early to start planning for a wedding.
I'm meeting with a wedding coordinator next week to get the ball rolling.
A wedding coordinator?
We don't need a wedding coordinator.
We can make all of the arrangements ourselves.
You have no idea what goes into pulling off a wedding and reception.
There are caterers, photographers and videographers entertainers, ice sculptors, animal trainers.
You know for the swans and the doves, and Are you serious?
You're not planning a wedding.
You're starting a circus.
Our dialogue begins with Seamus asking Kathy, What's that?
Kathy says, It's a planning book for our wedding.
A wedding is when two people...
It's the ceremony in which two people get married.
They promise usually to be with the other person until they die.
Of course, a lot of them are lying because they don't stay with the person until they die.
But that's the idea anyway.
That's what you are thinking when you get married.
And you get married in a ceremony called your wedding ceremony.
Seamus says, we aren't getting married for a year and a half.
Seamus is saying that they are still 18 months away from the actual wedding.
He's a little surprised, I think, that Kathy is already planning the wedding.
Kathy says, I know, but there are so many things to plan.
We have to book the hall far in advance.
To book means to reserve, to make a reservation.
The hall, H-A-L-L, refers to the place where the wedding reception will take place.
The word reception means basically the party, the celebration that will happen after the wedding.
We call that the wedding reception.
We do not call it the wedding party, because the wedding party refers to the people the bride, the groom, the woman and man getting married and the other people who are in their wedding, who are their close friends or family members typically.
Kathy says that they have to book the hall far in advance.
The phrase far in advance means long before something happens, well before the actual date that this event will take place.
Kathy says they have to book the hall far in advance.
She also says, once we set the date...
We have to send out save the date notifications to our friends and family.
To set S-E-T.
The date means to select or determine the exact date that you are going to get married.
We're going to get married on Saturday.
June 23rd, that's the day we will get married.
That is setting the date.
You can set the date for any important event.
You can set the date for the beginning of a new project in your company.
It's common in the United States, when two people decide to get married, to tell their friends and family as soon as they have set the date.
They do this so that their friends and family can save the date.
To save a date means to put it on your calendar and not plan anything else, because you want to go to this event.
To save the date means to leave that date free so that you can attend, in this case, the wedding.
A notification is...
Either a letter or an email or some way of communicating news to you.
Save the date notifications are often sent out as little postcards.
Although nowadays, I guess, you would send an email to tell people the day that you are getting married, so that they will be able to save the date.
Seamus says, I thought that the point of putting off the wedding until we finish school is to take the pressure off and allow us time to plan later.
Seamus is explaining why he's a little surprised that Kathy wants to start planning the wedding.
He says I thought the point of putting off the wedding until we finish school is to take the pressure off.
The point here means the purpose, the reason for doing something.
Seamus is saying that I thought the reason we were putting off the wedding was purpose to take the pressure off.
To put off something means to delay it, to decide you're going to do it at a later date.
To take the pressure off means to do something that will make a situation less stressful, perhaps by making it at a later date so you have more time to do whatever it is that is causing you stress.
Seamus and Kathy apparently decided that they would finish school perhaps they are college students before getting married.
That's why they put off the wedding until after they finish school.
This was done to take the pressure off of them, to make the situation less stressful, so they don't have to worry about studying for school and planning for their wedding.
Kathy says it is meaning that is the reason why we put off the wedding, but it's never too early to start planning for a wedding.
Kathy says, I'm meeting with a wedding coordinator next week to get the ball rolling.
A wedding coordinator is a person whose job is to help other people plan their weddings.
Some people hire a wedding coordinator to help them find out which hall they should book next, which caterer they should use.
A caterer is a person who provides the food for an event, such as a wedding, and so forth.
I did not have a wedding coordinator.
My wedding coordinator was my now wife.
However, some people who have more money may actually hire someone to help them plan events their wedding.
The word coordinator comes from the verb to coordinate, which means to organize things to make sure that everything is working properly, that everyone is doing the right thing or the thing they're supposed to do.
Kathy is meeting with the wedding coordinator next week to get the ball rolling.
The expression to get the ball rolling means to get something started, to make something begin to happen.
We often use that expression when we're talking about a large project, for example.
Seamus says a wedding coordinator?
He's very surprised.
We don't need a wedding coordinator.
He says
We can make all of the arrangements ourselves.
Arrangements here means plans.
Seamus is saying that they don't need a wedding coordinator.
Kathy disagrees.
She says, you have no idea what goes into pulling off a wedding and reception.
To go into something here means to be involved in something, to be a requirement for something else to happen.
To pull off something or to pull something off is a phrasal verb meaning to successfully implement or execute something, to make something happen successfully.
That's to pull off.
We usually use that phrasal verb when it may be very complicated or difficult to be successful at doing something.
Kathy says that Seamus has no idea, doesn't know how difficult it is to pull off a wedding and reception.
He has no idea what goes into that planning.
Kathy says there are caterers, photographers and videographers who entertainers, ice sculptors, animal trainers, you know for the swans and the doves.
And here Seamus interrupts her.
Let's go back and explain what she was talking about.
She says there are caterers.
A caterer is the person who makes the food, who prepares the food for the big event, as we mentioned earlier.
A photographer, of course, would be someone who takes photographs, pictures.
A videographer would be someone who makes a movie of your event.
Nowadays, it's very popular for people to hire someone to make a little movie about their wedding.
I never had this, but I got married, I guess, before this became popular.
Entertainers are people who sing or dance or do something to entertain or to keep people happy at a large event.
Ice sculptors are people who make little figures or statues out of ice.
For some reason, at American weddings it's very popular, at least in some places, for people to get a sculpture made out of ice, usually in the shape of some animal, and use that in the wedding reception.
Usually it's placed near the food.
When my oldest brother got married, This was back in the early 1970s.
He and his wife had someone make a swan, which is a kind of animal.
They hired an ice sculptor to make this figure out of ice.
Animal trainers are people who make animals behave or make animals perform tricks, I suppose.
Swans, we mentioned, refers to a type of bird.
Doves are another kind of bird.
Kathy is saying, I guess, that she wants to have actual animals at her wedding.
That is not typical.
That is not usual or normal behavior.
Having someone make an ice sculpture for you is not that unusual, but certainly having animals at your wedding other than perhaps your in-laws, the relatives of your spouse, of the person you are marrying, is not typical, is not common.
Seamus says, are you serious?
You're not planning a wedding.
You're starting a circus.
A circus, C-I-R-C-U-S, is a kind of entertainment.
It's basically a large show that involves a lot of animals and animals doing tricks, that sort of thing.
Seamus is very surprised that Kathy is mentioning having animals at the wedding, and he should be surprised, because that is a very strange thing.
Maybe Seamus should think again about marrying Kathy.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
What's that?
It's a planning book for our wedding.
We aren't getting married for a year and a half.
I know, but there are so many things to plan.
We have to book the hall far in advance, you know.
And once we set the date, we have to send out save-the-date notifications to our friends and family.
I thought that the point of putting off the wedding until we finish school is to take the pressure off and allow us time to plan later.
It is, but it's never too early to start planning for a wedding.
I'm meeting with a wedding coordinator next week to get the ball rolling.
A wedding coordinator?
We don't need a wedding coordinator.
We can make all of the arrangements ourselves.
You have no idea what goes into pulling off a wedding and reception.
There are caterers, photographers and videographers entertainers, ice sculptors, animal trainers.
You know for the swans and the doves, and Are you serious?
You're not planning a wedding.
You're starting a circus.
We'd like to thank our script writer, who's also our script coordinator, Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
