Do we want to have a traditional celebration?
Both of us were like immediate no.
It's the ceremony.
It's usually hot.
It's usually outdoors in the baking sun.
Everyone's sweaty, but you're like, yay, beautiful.
I absolutely do not want to celebrate my wedding like this.
How can we plan something that is true to us?
Oh, you want me to be real?
Let me tell you how I feel.
Boom!
And it turns out he had been planning behind her back, behind my back and lying to me.
The way that everything panned out was perfect.
I had a vision and the vision, the vision visioned.
Yeah, it was beautiful.
Welcome back to Voice Hugs, a podcast on becoming your best self and embracing all seasons of life with open arms.
This is your host, Viv and Brooke.
Hi everyone!
It is Viv here.
In post-production, dropping in on her webcam for those of you who are watching video.
We unfortunately lost the first 10 minutes of our audio for today's episode, so I just wanted to pop in and let you know of the audio quality changes.
Luckily, we do realize so the majority of the episode, the audio is great.
But again, thank you for understanding.
Today's episode is on our approach to an unconventional wedding.
We really hope that you enjoy the conversation.
One thing I wanted to add before we hop back into the episode is that our hugs hotline is now open.
So if you've listened to any of the episodes, if it's sparked additional questions, or if you have situations, scenarios that you need advice on, please call into hugs hotline.
We want to hear from you.
We want to answer your questions.
The link is found in the description of all of our episodes, so you can call in that way.
If you're feeling a little bit shy and leaving a voicemail is not your thing, you can always shoot us an email.
Hello at voicehugspodcastcom.
Just let us know.
It's a hugs hotline email.
You can also find us on Instagram.
Shoot us a DM there with your questions or feel free to drop by and just say hi.
So yeah, thank you again for your support and we hope you enjoy today's episode.
So today, I think it's a long long, long awaited long long, long anticipated episode to get a full download of Viv's first few weeks of being married.
Yeah.
But instead of just talking about her because she's- Calvin's like literally started the episode like okay, we're not making this episode about me, okay.
Like, we're talking-
About marriage and wedding, but we're not making good stuff to say about it.
So I think we're going to wrap it in a beautiful gift.
That is, how do you choose to plan a wedding.
That is true to you.
That is potentially very unconventional, or it could be very unconventional because I think both of us ended up opting for a very non-traditional wedding.
How to navigate that, how we've been navigating marriage, whether it is Russian?
Yes.
Or a year?
And a half?
Two years in?
Oh my god.
I don't even know.
Yeah, two years.
Two, three, two.
Anyways, everything's a blur.
But we will be talking about all things wedding, marriage and also our real thoughts of Instagram weddings.
So many thoughts.
Because there's been so many.
To start the episode, we're gonna pull from our feelings jar.
But instead of talking about our week in honor of this episode, we're thinking let's answer this question describe your marriage currently, in this moment in time.
You pull it this time.
Okay, we're gonna describe our marriage.
Okay, with pizza flavor.
Oh, another food hot honey, baby.
Is that how you feel?
A little bit hot honey, not in the way that you guys might be thinking.
Describe it's a little spicy, but like, not like spicy, it's like contentious spicy.
It's just marriage with a kid or partnership with a kid is just, it's testing.
And we have been tested.
But I think we're both mentally prepared because, like our friend, one of our dear friends was like I do not love my husband for my age.
Like it will pass and we will come back around.
So I think like we were both kind of mentally calibrated to that.
But just because it's a little bit hot doesn't mean it's still not sweet like I love it.
So it's like on days where, um, this is a thing that we've been, not we, he's been repeating to me.
He's like, I am not the enemy.
I am not your enemy.
Whenever I get angry, he's like, I'm on your team.
Yes.
So other other like those moments is like hot, because i'm just like everything is your fault um, not just that, there's a lot of other examples um, but otherwise, once we hash things out, which we do, which you have to um and which we try to do, try to not let her drop for too long.
It's sweet, it's very sweet.
Yeah, split the piece of paper.
I like it and i, and i honestly like really appreciate the honesty too.
You know, like i feel like, especially on social media, people make it look so easy and like they highlight their partners and they're like there, there wouldn't be like this if there wasn't this man behind the scenes, which is true yeah right, but like yeah, so it's hard yeah, and it's just, It's just reality.
It's beautiful, right?
I think every hard thing has the potential to birth and to bring life to very beautiful, sweet things.
Hot honey.
Hot honey, baby.
You like how it just immediately was like?
Yeah, she knew exactly what flavor.
Yeah, no cuts.
It just immediately was like.
My pizza flavor to describe my marriage.
I feel like it's definitely a pizza where I'm not eating with my hands right now.
It almost feels like a romantic date in Italy.
Are you on your honeymoon in Italy?
It feels just so nice.
I wouldn't say proper, because it's not like we're formal with each other or anything, but it feels like the honeymoon phase where you're sort of like everything is good, everything like your vows are fresh in your mind.
I remember the weekend right after we got married.
He was driving and i get nervous in the car sometimes um, and he was supposed to turn.
But you know, when you make a right turn and there are like cars making left, you're supposed to wait and I'll get them in the right of way.
But he like went up a little bit too much and I got nervous.
I was like stop, stop.
And of course, when you're driving, you hate when someone's like stop stop, right next to you and that has happened before, where he'll be like don't do that.
And I'm like well, you shouldn't drive bad, it's your fault.
Um, and right in that, that was like right after we got married we both went dead silent and we were like okay, i'm sorry.
Like he was, like that was my fault and i was like sorry, i didn't mean to do that, but i was like dang, the power of like, the power of the unity.
It's crazy, the holy natural.
We like literally went silent and was like oh, my god, i'm sorry.
Yeah, properly cuts pizza with a fork and knife.
You dip with a spoon.
I mean with a fork.
I love that.
Yeah.
So that is the quick download of our current state of marriage.
Do we want to start with wedding or do we want to start probably wedding, right?
Wedding comes before like married life.
Yes, wedding first.
So right after you get engaged.
Yeah.
You're ready to start.
Everyone asks, when's the wedding?
When are you getting married?
It's crazy.
And then by the way, right after you get married, when's the baby?
Like immediately.
And when I say immediately, I'm like talking about the same night.
Yeah.
So when's the wedding?
You get engaged and then you immediately, that's like the next thing that you start thinking about.
You start planning together.
I realized after getting engaged that the first real project you work on with your partner is planning the wedding.
It's almost like you're in a group project at school.
You're with your partner now and you guys are responsible for figuring out how you want to do this wedding.
And when I felt that, I was like, This is crazy.
This feels like I'm in school, like this feels like I'm working on a school project or like a work project, and we have to be on the same page and you never really, prior to that, are in a situation where you're planning your financing, your like creating a timeline and milestones, you're figuring out all the stakeholders who are involved internal stakeholders, external stakeholders yourself, parents yeah, your weaknesses, your strengths like, but what is it?
The SWOT analysis, opportunities and threats yeah, like all of that comes into play and that was actually like really fun for me.
Oh yeah, I was gonna be like, i mean, there were definitely ups and downs because, but you know, like for me at least, like i know my partner and i know what his strengths are and i know what my strengths are yeah, the actual process of figuring out what we wanted to do for the wedding and i can go into more specifics but um, it actually helped me build confidence and it helped me feel like this is exactly the kind of partnership and like the decision making together.
Going into marriage day one, we may have had not turned on our mic, and now it's turned on, so the audio may be different and better, very much better, and my nose is wiped.
Yay, my nose is a little wet, but it's okay uh, okay.
So tell us about your wedding.
What was it?
Your wedding party, how did you get back thinking about it?
My celebration, about mine first.
Okay let's let's let's, let's.
Go back a bit.
Basically, right when i got engaged, i was like i don't want to have a wedding and i said that to you a lot.
I was like i don't want to have a wedding, i don't want this huge celebration, i don't want to walk down the aisle, i don't want to do all like.
The traditional things of it like gave me a lot of anxiety to walk down the aisle, to do like the first dance with your parents or to have so many eyes on you from extended family.
And then, when you're inviting extended, extended friends and extended families, it's just like more judgment.
And it was so loud in my head that i was like nope, there was no in between.
It was just like nope, i'm not having a wedding.
And then i didn't think about it for almost a year.
And people would ask, like, oh, so like, what are you planning?
And every time someone would ask, I would say, I don't even really want to have a wedding.
Like, we'll see, we'll see.
So there was a lot of knowing what I didn't want.
Okay, this is what happened.
I went to Seattle in September.
I got married in November.
Okay, so this end of November.
So this is like less than three months before.
I went to Seattle to see Rory's family.
We did like a little family trip.
And on that trip I think I was talking to his mom and there was no pressure on his family side at all.
But i i think i was talking to his mom and maybe because we don't get to see each other that often because we're in different states, she said something to me which i can't really remember right now, but the thought and the feeling that came from it was I really want to have this next chapter in my life where I want my kids to grow up with their grandparents on both sides.
And we already see his family so little that I was like okay, when we come home we're going to sit down seriously, seriously this time and figure out getting married.
And getting married to me was like signing papers and figuring out everything that comes with that part.
Right, that was literally three months before, like what we decided to do and i don't know, like step by step, me and rory sat down together and we were like okay, the first thing you need to figure out is how big do you want the celebration?
Do you want a celebration?
Right, and both of us were like yes.
He was like yes, and i was like okay, i think i do, but i think there's just resistance within and.
And then we were like how big do we want the celebration to be?
And we both agreed we wanted something small.
Very intimate.
Yeah, like something very small, very intimate.
And that would be really tough for me because I have a huge extended family.
And I also feel like I have so many friends who i feel like i'm close to, so it was gonna be really hard to like figure out who would make.
The guest list is like the i'm like out of breath.
I know the guest list is like so stressful.
I was like i feel your stress right now, like not your stress.
Yeah, i'm like kind of reliving yeah, the thought process, yeah.
But yeah, we basically sat down together and one at a time we were like yes or no why?
Okay, yes or no, Why?
Okay.
And so we were like, okay, we're going to get married at a courthouse.
Yes.
Okay.
Who's going to marry us?
Your sister.
Okay.
Yes.
Why?
Because she knows us very well, right?
Do we want to have like a traditional celebration?
Both of us were like immediate.
No.
How are we going to communicate that to parents who might want that?
Because...
I think weddings are such a huge part of cultures too, right?
Like a wedding celebration, there's so much tradition, there's so much meaning and value.
There's just so many people think about weddings in so many different ways and i think, especially for i don't know asian parents, traditional asian parents, it's a big deal at the very least.
You just imagine like a massive banquet with a bunch of yes, unfamiliar faces yeah, which is our parents generation yeah, what they're used to.
Yeah, i think my mom said her wedding was like 400 people and that was like an option that my mom really was okay with too.
She was like let's just have like a banquet and you don't have to do anything, like the restaurant will plan everything.
And i was like i absolutely do not want to celebrate my wedding like this.
Like i, if i want to do something, i want to do it well, like my way, or don't do anything at all.
And that going from like zero to 100 is what kept me paralyzed.
So Basically, long story short, we broke it down into little pieces and we were like yes okay, okay next.
Yes, okay, next.
And then another thing I want to add to is we changed our minds like every week.
So every decision was extremely fluid.
But the thing that I felt the best about with this entire process is We didn't consult anyone else.
We only talked to each other and we figured out how we were going to kind of like handle the external stakeholders involved and how we were going to make it ours.
Oh my God.
That sounds very special.
It was.
And I mean, the way that everything panned out was perfect.
Like I had a vision and the vision.
The vision visioned.
Yeah, it was beautiful.
Yeah, it was like exactly what I wanted.
We had a very intimate dinner celebration.
The food was amazing.
Like I. it was great and it was all of our closest people in our lives.
I did feel sad because I couldn't invite everyone that I wanted to but a line had to be drawn.
I had to make peace with it.
I also feel like all of my friends and cousins who are like my age, they know how hard a wedding, the idea of a wedding, was for me.
Yeah, so like no offense was really taken either.
So the end product, the destination, was a beautiful dinner with your closest loved ones, and viv also made every single guest.
Oh yes, gifts yeah, i did tell us.
So there were okay, there were.
I kind of I feel like this whole episode so far has been like this is what I don't want.
This is what I don't want.
No, but it's a good lesson.
And you know, you need to know what you don't want for you to know what you want.
So there were a few things that I really wanted.
One is I wanted to have really nice photos.
I wanted photos with my dogs, like the dogs, so that I got them like little tuxedo things.
I wanted to do vows in front of other people.
I feel like vows are really special and the vows were so special for both of us, like we were both crying and it was just really sweet, um.
And then the vows worked right because we were so patient with each other cutting pizza, um.
But i also wanted to because it was so intimate.
I was like i really each person is so special to me, like i can write an essay about each person that was there.
And so I was doing ceramics all of 2025.
Both Rory and I have always had a deep love of music.
That's why we've been to Coachella eight times.
It's crazy.
And so...
I found this ceramicist, her name is Karina Black, and she had this design that I really loved.
On each mug, one side says love you always in my handwriting, and then on the other side it's songs that remind me of you.
Each guest, we sat down and thought of five to six songs that reminded us of them, either a memory or like a song that was actually in our like memory together, or a song that we would dedicate to them.
So that was also a process that brought us closer too.
Cause.
Then I was like Oh yeah, like my older cousin, I in the summertime, I remember in 2002 she said she loved this song and because she was my older cousin and I thought she was so cool.
I wanted to like this song.
And so I put that song on her um, on her list, and it was like ways that we were still learning things about each other and the people who are the most important people in our lives.
So yeah, that was really special, but that was a work that would.
That was so.
You didn't make the cups yourself, i did.
Oh, I made every single cup.
Oh, so you but it was inspired by.
Yes.
Oh, it was inspired by a ceramicist.
Yeah.
And I did it all myself for the first time.
I made handles for the first time.
And it was I wanted our actual handwriting on the cup.
So we didn't draw on the cup.
Rory's handwriting was the playlist side, and mine was the Love You Always side.
So I had Rory write every single Songs That Remind Me of You.
I scanned it.
After i scanned it, i went on photoshop and like, fixed the edges.
So i rewrote every single thing on photoshop.
Wow, after that i printed it on like a plastic paper, used a uv light to burn through a film, and so that became the stencil for us for each cup.
Mind you, the ceramic process is also like At any point in the process, your cup cracks.
And so by the end of it, each cup took six to eight weeks.
Like the whole thing took six to eight weeks.
So when we decided we were going to get married mid-September, I started the cups the week after.
And I finished the week of the wedding.
Yeah, so with Ro, for example, the five songs that I dedicated to her Something Special, What a Wonderful World Somewhere Over the Rainbow For Good.
And Fix You, which I know is such a special song to you.
We will put up a photo.
I literally cried.
Really?
I'm going to cry again, right?
And then also Wicked had just came out, Wicked 2, and then James was listening to For Good, on repeat.
So then I knew the lyrics.
Aww.
Yeah.
For Good is such a good one.
But yeah, I think in some ways... that process made the wedding like more special for me, right?
Because it was like I was pouring love and thought into something that made.
Even though it was, it wasn't just a dinner.
But in my mind I kept telling myself, like oh, it's just a dinner.
Just like show up.
Like I couldn't even say I'm having a wedding, right?
Like seriously, like I was like, I'm just getting married.
We're just having a dinner.
We're just going to eat and have like good food.
But yeah, there were a lot of things that actually ended up making the whole experience feel bridal.
And I loved it because I didn't plan for it.
I know I was going to be like your dress.
The way you looked was woo to woo hot.
Worked out really hard for two months.
Yeah, you look beautiful, thank you.
Your dress is beautiful, thank you yeah, yeah.
And then also like the designing of the menus, the little Like.
Every guest had a photo, with also a ceramic photo holder that you made.
And we'll put like all this people on.
But yeah, I made like little ceramic holders to put a picture.
And instead of a name card, it was like their photo.
And most of it is like a memory of us and the guest.
And then we had my younger cousin draw in our suit and our dress and our dogs in the menu yeah, and she's only like 13 or 14, which is crazy.
I was like you know, you can get paid a lot for doing this right, and i'm like trying to egg her on to like do this as a hobby and like pursue that.
But um, i think like other things that ended up making it feel really special is my work.
Threw me a bridal shower, which i didn't, oh yeah, really expect, and you're like i was crying the entire time and it felt so special because when i think about like work right, i didn't, i didn't invite anyone from work, i wasn't having, like a quote, real wedding, but the fact that they still went like above and beyond and like celebrated me, i just like kept crying.
And also, i've known everyone for like six years, six to eight years.
Um, and then my girls also did a little surprise bridal shower dinner slash Rory, which was so surprising.
Two episodes ago I was saying how me and Rory got into a little that week and it was a week before our wedding and it turns out he had been planning behind her back, behind my back and lying to me and lying to my face a bridal shower dinner with all of my closest girlfriends, even girlfriends who weren't able to make the wedding.
And I think part of what he told me was he knew that I wanted to invite more friends but I couldn't.
So this was his way of having me celebrate with my girls.
But I was so surprised.
I was actually surprised.
I didn't even know who I was marrying at that point.
I just remember I see Ro.
I'm like, what are you doing here?
What is everyone doing here?
So it was in...
Okay, from my POV, right?
Yeah, tell me, because we haven't even talked about this.
So Rory, a few weeks before, maybe even a month, it wasn't last minute at all.
So he reaches out to be like hey, I know you're coming to the dinner, but we would love to get a group of girlfriends together.
I know Viv mentioned how special everyone is and how she's a little sad that she couldn't.
And I've been taxed.
Yeah.
And then he created a partiful.
All the girls were invited.
And he was like the location TBD.
And then eventually like the location was set and everything was coordinated.
Everything was organized.
And I think like everyone contributed differently.
I think he got your sister-in-law to like do most of the planning with him.
And then like your cousins brought flowers.
I saw a cake like in this is epic yeah, by the way, cake in london that it was just like a circle cylinder cake with conrad fisher's face, and then it is the surf scene.
If you got, if you know, you know it is the footage here looking straight at belly with so much, so much yearning in his eyes.
Okay, I saw that photo and I sent it to Rory.
I was like, oh my God, wouldn't it be so funny if we brought this cake as like a ha-ha?
He like lost it laughing.
And he was like, wait, Ro, actually.
Do it.
Actually?
He's like, yeah.
I've been talking about how I love him for weeks.
Yes.
So then that was like I could like my contribution was the cake.
It was like a burn away cake and a heart.
It was beautiful.
It was amazing.
The top layer was I know like I know you're about to be a wifey, but dot dot dot.
And then you light it on fire and then you just see Conrad Fisher's face looking at you, yearning you, and i was screaming.
It was funny though, because because half the table knew who it was and then would like scream, and the other half was like who is that?
And then i'd have to explain that this is like a 26 year old boy who's in a show with this girl, who's sleeping with both brothers, and i was like, oh my god, it sounds bad, but i love him.
Yeah, i don't care.
And then I think, like the day of the venue, it's like a pretty long hallway.
It was in a back room.
Oh my God, this sounds so jank.
It's not like a... It was a beautiful private room.
Beautiful, beautiful private room.
It felt very like New York.
Yeah, it did.
It was like a...
Yeah, when I walked in I was like it did feel very much like a New York bistro, like nice, really nice restaurant.
And so when Viv walks in, well, you can fill in.
One of my best friends, she was like, I want to take you out to dinner before you get married.
You know, like, let me treat you.
And I was like, okay.
So then Saturday night, she was like okay, i'm gonna come pick you up, we come, she comes over.
I'm like all dressed up and ready.
Mind you, as i'm getting ready, i keep asking roy like do you think this will look good?
I have no idea where we're going.
Like, what about this?
And he was like yeah, it's fine.
Like just ask faustine when she gets here.
Um, completely playing it.
Cool, i married a liar.
No cracks, No cracks.
I had absolutely no idea.
I thought my friend was surprising me.
So she comes over, she was like, surprise, I'm taking you to Vegas.
And I was like, I need to mentally prepare for this.
And we're actually going to Vegas.
And she's like, no, I'm just kidding.
No, but you're like, I got a rally.
Yeah, I was literally like, I got a rally.
You actually thought you could end up in Vegas.
There could have been a chance.
Yes. that my friend would drag my booty to Vegas.
And I would have been really confused, but I would have still rallied because she planned it, you know.
You're such a good friend.
So then she comes and she's like, just kidding.
I have two dresses for you.
So there's two white dresses.
She's like, pick the one you want to wear.
And then she drives me to LA, blindfolds me.
And I was like, What is going on?
I walk in and then it's just like all of the girls in this private room.
She was still blindfolded with headphones on when she first walked in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then they're like, surprise!
And I was like, I think my first reaction was, no!
And then tears, tears, tears, tears.
This is not gonna stop!
No!
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I didn't plan for that, you know, and that made, leading up to the actual getting married, feel so bridal.
Like I didn't, I even told all my friends, I was like, don't plan me a bridal shower.
Don't plan a bachelorette.
Like I don't want to do any of those things.
And of course you know, each person was still like, how about we take you to get a massage?
Or like, I'll still take you out to dinner.
I'm like, okay, that's fine.
Like I love one on one time.
Yeah.
But then yeah, that dinner made everything feel like wow, I'm like getting married and like my girls are sending me off.
And yeah, it was really sweet.
And I honestly was like, the whole night I was questioning like, wait, Rory did this?
Wait, he printed the name tags?
Wait, he came up with the seating chart?
Like, what?
Who am I getting married to?
But then when I came home and I talked to him about it, he gave the girls full credit.
He was like I just came up with the idea.
The girls did all like like he, like you know he was.
Like you did the cake, like girls did the flowers, other girls did you know the present.
And what a humble king you're probably.
Like, i love you so much, i'm so excited to get married to you, but you lied to me were you even at work today?
Yeah, he told me he was going to work.
I know yeah, and i don't know.
Like, everything leading up to the wedding, even though we didn't have a traditional wedding, i felt so lucky because i don't think this always happens, where the timing of getting married and you and your partner feeling like one, like that just doesn't always happen.
Like i've had girlfriends who, as they're planning the wedding, they like hate their husbands, they're like this is like i'm so stressed right, but the way that we approached it and i think just maybe where we were both on in our like couple's journey and in our personal journeys, each decision we made together, made me feel like we were together and i felt really grateful that that's how we entered this new season, especially because our environment remained the same.
Yeah Yeah, I think a lot of friends are so stressed because of the traditional wedding and what it comes with and all that it entails, and the finances and the time and the seating chart and the rental of the actual forks and knives and the plates and the chairs.
Like, it's too much.
Yeah.
Yeah, I didn't even think about that.
I was like, I didn't have to decide that.
I just designed my cute little menu and my cute little cups.
Went to a restaurant.
It was beautiful.
In retrospect.
Is there anything you would have?
I know it's still very fresh, but would you have done anything differently?
Or do you think that was the best that everything turned out Everything really turned out great.
I was so surprised with how good I felt after.
If I was to do anything differently, I think it would have been okay to invite 10 more people.
But then we wouldn't have been able to fit the venue.
I think I would have wanted to invite more people.
It was just hard because we were already at 40, and if it became 60, it's like almost 80, almost 100, and then the lions get to.
Then it's like oh, you invited them, but not me, you know.
So it was intimate enough where it was like six friends on one side, six friends on another side and then just immediate family.
Yeah, Beautiful.
Yeah.
I know your wedding was a while ago, but Ro's wedding was also very not traditional.
Is it traditional?
Yeah.
Very not traditional.
Yeah.
Yours was very special.
Yeah.
And...
We actually didn't talk about it at all because it was kind of a secret.
So I was thinking about how much to say or not to say, about why I've been dodgy with the wedding stuff and I probably will not tell you guys why yet.
But there's reasons, right?
Of like why anyone decides to share or not to share.
But anyway, yeah.
So I think just to fill you guys in on the timeline, I think enough time has passed.
She's married.
I've been married.
You guys probably already know.
We've dropped like hints here and there.
Um, but we, when I moved back to LA, we actually did um, like a ceremony, just like to set.
We signed the papers.
Um, we took some photos in at city hall.
Um, and we had a lunch with both our moms, cause our dads happened to be out of town, and we had a dinner with all our friends at one of our favorite restaurants in our head.
Like that was it.
We moved back, got married, moved in together, went to Asia for like two, three months and just like never really thought about wedding.
And then I would say, if it weren't for external it wasn't pressure, but like external pressure, input of you guys should do a wedding, i don't think a wedding would have happened.
But we did get external pressure, not pressure.
Um desires sure yeah, external wishes wishes wants yes, external wishes for a wedding between the two of us, or like to see the two of us make it official, whatever.
So james and i sat down and we're like okay, what can we do or how can we plan something that is true to us And that we will look back on and be like we're so glad we took the time and spent the money to plan this experience for the people we love, rather than like get sucked into this vortex that is like the traditional wedding industry and everything's marked up 10x and it's just absurd.
And like a little more context.
Right in your 20s, a lot of your friends start getting married.
You go to these weddings with your significant other, right?
So then, every time james and i would go to weddings, we just like oh interesting, like this is how, like there is just a flow of the event right, you go, it's the ceremony, it's usually hot, it's usually outdoors in the baking sun.
Um, the sun's like just directly like in your face, everyone's sweaty, but you're like yay beautiful, exchanging avows.
And then there's like a cocktail hour um, or like it's like the.
James is like the dead hours, like this time is utilized so poorly.
The couples are usually taking photos, but then like, what do you do?
Do you just mingle?
Granted, james is also the type of person who, like he, like me and my cousins, grew up sitting around and just talking.
James just does not like to sit around and talk.
He loves to do things right, so that he's like such poor use of time.
He doesn't sound this way at all.
Um, i'm just talking, i'm just making him animated um, and then, like the, the wedding starts and we all get ushered into a room, and then, like the dance, the dance, the dance, the dance.
And then like speeches, speeches.
And then it just, everything, I don't know.
It just, it's not us.
Right.
And so when we sat down, we're like, okay, what will we want?
And we actually, um, when we were in Miami for his 20, for his 30th birthday, actually.
So I surprised him with a trip to Miami for his 30th birthday.
There's just for his 30th birthday and then in the hotel lobby i remember we sat down to do like the rich life exercise by Ramit Sethi.
Even more context for this.
Your rich life is basically what does living a rich life mean to you?
For some people it is i can just spend money on shoes, Yeah.
Or like buying a coffee every day.
What it could be anything big or small.
Yeah.
As long as it's yours.
Yeah.
It's not like rich, rich.
It's just what enriches your life and how would you want to live your life in a way?
And what would that look like for it to be quote unquote rich to you?
So then, for me it's a you know, flights over four hours, business class.
Um wanted to plan a wedding where they can invite, where they can fly out all of their friends and and they just have to show up and like everything is taken care of, among many other things, right?
I remember when james and i saw that, we both looked at each other and we're like, oh my god, this is like circle, like we want to do this um, but obviously we're not there yet in terms of we're not just following in the cash.
So what we ended up deciding was okay, everyone can fly into hawaii, but we will take care of the hotel and or like the stay, the accommodation.
And we wanted to because there's this i have a bunch of cousins, there's like 10 of us.
We always had this dream of like going to travel together, and when we're younger, it's like a few families will go at the same time, but like it's very it's actually never happened where like, all the cousins stay together.
So we're like okay, instead of just doing hotel rooms, we want like villas or like connected rooms, and so we got, i don't know, like five villas, a lot, A lot of villas.
For friends.
It was an experience for someone who attended yeah, for family, for friends, for the cousins um, and we also had like a 60 person cap um also, in retrospect, that's one thing that james was like yeah, i think we could have just, we should have just invited more people, like what's another couple thousand in the grand scheme of forever um anyway okay, i didn't do a good job of branding this, so we wanted the vision was you take a flight, you come, you show up, you don't know what hotel you're going to, we do not tell you where you're going, but there's a bus like a, like a party bus or like an uber code waiting for you to be like come meet us at this destination.
You come and then the hotel that we booked had this like beautiful walkway, like entrance Um, where it's like a long walkway, and then you walk down.
You just walk down a few steps and you just see like the beauty that is Maui.
Um.
So then no one knew where we're going.
Besides, I think, like one or two people who just like figured out, or like moms who just like went, we going, we need to know, and um.
And then we also wanted to create like a wellness weekend for our loved ones family friends, to be like we love you so much.
This is how much you mean to me.
We know everyone's been working so hard um, especially like our parents and our aunts and uncles for like their whole lives.
This is just our way of being like we love you, we appreciate you and we're so glad you're in our lives.
So we created like a little itinerary too, of like you know, the Thursday you fly in, we're just going to hang out and you know nothing crazy.
We have a dinner.
The Friday I think was the like ceremony, if you can even call it.
Yeah.
Um, so we didn't end up doing anything like traditional, but then we still had the Friday night dinner was like, um yeah.
It wasn't a luau.
It wasn't a luau.
It was just like, we had food catered from the hotel.
We had like a little dance floor.
We had a little cocktail bar.
We had speeches.
Viv gave a beautiful, beautiful speech.
I was in tears.
Yes.
I don't know if you want to put footage up.
That's just too much, but you guys can visualize it.
It was like the sun is setting.
The palm trees are swaying.
There's a warm breeze.
The grass is green.
The ocean's in the back.
Okay.
That's enough.
It goes.
Um, so that was like the Friday night.
And then, but like throughout the weekend, we also had like, we had friends like do arts and crafts.
We have friends, um, teach us like a little dance.
There's a spam of Zuby making.
Yeah, um hour or two yeah, so we just had like we just snorkeling yeah, they're different activities um, like some we would like book for everyone.
Some we would like we like corralled our friends into being like you're gonna help us run this and they're like yes, so then it was like a weekend of just like fun things to do.
And I love the feeling of, it felt like a big campus.
I think like one thing I really miss about college was how you can just like walk out your dorm and like go to eat.
And then you'll be like, Oh my God, everyone's just, everyone's here.
And what we did for a lot of the meals.
We would just cater it to like one of the parents accommodation areas.
Cause it was like bigger and it could fit a lot of people anyway.
So then um, it was nice, just like seeing everyone mingle, being able to mingle with everyone and yeah, that was beautiful.
And i feel like exactly what you said about working with rory to plan everything.
I feel like james and i also really complemented each other and, to be honest, he did most of the planning.
At that time i was already pregnant.
I was like it was earlier on, but like yeah, i was already like i'm tired, yeah.
So then we no, but we worked really well together coming up with, like um, the accommodation was like you know, like usually it's like the, the seating chart, but we had like accommodation of like who's gonna sleep in room, and then oh, and then it's like, are they gonna get along?
And it was.
It was fun, though to me, like those um, that was fun, i think, to james he didn't like doing that and then i could plan things and i could book things, but like he loves doing it, so like he did most of it um, and it was, it was wonderful oh, yeah.
And then, like my cousins, one of them brought all his coffee gear, so he did like a coffee um, coffee station every morning, and then there's a smoothie station every afternoon yeah, and then we love hayley bieber smoothies, so they recreated that.
Yeah, the whole weekend was themed and so every activity, every station, it like matched the theme of besties by the beach and so yeah, the whole experience was like i've never done been to something like this before.
I probably never will again.
But it was very ro and james coded like it.
I don't know if you guys know this, but like james loves creating experiences and like he likes escape rooms and things like that, so the whole experience was very much like an experience for the guest.
Yeah yeah yeah, i actually think it would be really interesting after this episode goes out if you have specific questions about the wedding planning process, because i don't think, Based off talking to a lot of my friends and my cousins, I actually feel like a lot of them at least 50 don't want a traditional wedding, don't want a big wedding.
And a lot of the questions that I get was like how were you able to do that without disrespecting another generation of people, right?
Because um like, i think in this episode we talk a lot about what we ended up doing with our partners, but there was a struggle in between.
And then also just like, how did you decide on on specific things, right?
So if you have any questions, i think it'd be really fun to do a like a q a or like a hugs hotline question or Hugs Hotline episode on wedding stuff.
Yeah, because I think we are sharing the highlight reel.
We are showing you the destination, the end product, but the journey of getting there.
I to be respectful to my external stakeholders.
I'm just calling them external stakeholders.
I'm not gonna name names, but it was testing.
Yeah, let us know if you have any questions or if you're in a situation.
And then the last question that we will address for this episode what do we feel about wedding content on social media bill?
She's not.
This is okay, Viv.
This is our opportunity to start being real with our feelings and not being afraid of hurting.
Oh, you want me to be real?
Let me tell you how I feel!
Viv!
Okay, but why?
Okay, this is totally a projection of my feelings about a wedding, right?
But yeah, I don't know.
For me, a wedding feels so intimate, like a celebration between you and your partner feels so intimate and again, to each their own right, like if i had a, if i had a bff who decided to share her wedding on instagram, all the time i'd probably be like yeah, you go girl, you go girl.
You know, like i would totally and i would genuinely still feel that way yeah, Like you go girl, and be happy for you.
But like, you're not like that.
And that's probably why I can also talk about it.
But it's just so annoying because it's like something so intimate.
It feels like you're monetizing your life, which you have thoughts about as well.
And I don't know.
It just feels so like it. showy-offy, and it's one to share your celebrations.
I love seeing my friends get married on Instagram.
That's not what I'm talking about the step-by-step of like everything about your wedding.
Also context, i feel like it's the sheer amount of wedding content of like pack my, pack my bachelorette thing with me.
Like, pick out my things with me, pick out my wedding, just like ever.
It just feels like everyone is doing it, just like how it's completely tangent, but i feel like everyone is getting work done right now, Like everyone's going to Korea and getting injections in their face.
Um, so I just feel like I don't know if it's like a trend but, or if it's just like influencership has reached this stage where you just have to like, post or monetize your wedding, or you can get discounts or whatever.
Um yeah, it's like you don't need to save money if you make enough money, like i'm thinking about, like you make enough money um, but i think there's also like a tasteful way to do it and like a meaningful way to do it and a more just like influencer way to do it, and i think we're talking about like the people who are doing it in like an influencer way.
And yeah, i think the place that i've reached within like and this is like a thought process within like the past five years right, I just realized I no longer want to monetize my life.
I just want to live my life.
And I think with something like my, like even when I was in New York, right?
I realized privacy is so special and so important.
And there's like a huge part of my life that I will share online, which is just about myself and my feelings and the things that I'm working through.
But there's a huge part of my life that it would be nice to keep private, for example, my my view of my New York city apartment, like I never showed it until I moved out.
Um, and that to me was like a thing that I had for myself, um, also for safety and security.
Like I didn't want people to know where I lived.
Right.
Um, same thing with like my significant other or like our wedding or everything.
It's like, it is something that I don't know.
Like I think there are people who genuinely want to share with our audience.
Like, Oh my God, like you guys have been there with me throughout this whole time.
So like, I want you to see, but I think like that just wasn't the, the vibes of our wedding.
So I was just like, I don't need to.
It could have been, you want it to be like, Oh, I'm so different and I'm doing this instead.
No, but we specifically had a no social media policy or like do not people?
They're like, oh my, i didn't take any photos.
I'm like oh, you could have taken photos, just don't post it.
I think like it wasn't.
Yeah, i actually didn't take that many photos yeah, but we had like a just don't upload anything on social media because we wanted it to be like that's like the vibes we wanted, um.
But yeah, how i feel about all the?
I don't really think about it.
I think you feel more strongly yeah, because you're in it.
Yeah um, and then i think like, because In my mind, I didn't even want a wedding.
That I just don't really... It just doesn't really affect me.
Yeah, but I think it's... Do what you want to do with your life.
I will always support you.
But it's a little overboard sometimes.
Yeah, it's like it's it's the day that you're supposed to just be with your loved ones, to turn off your brain and just to be present.
But it's okay, it's fine.
Okay, hold on.
I think i know what bothers me about it and i can wrap this conversation up.
I think it's that like, the wedding content is so shallow.
And because there's so much of it and it's so shallow that it makes it feel like The wedding process is so easy.
It's so easy to do all of these things.
And getting married is so easy.
But my experience in that was not.
Why did I not want to have a wedding for so long?
Why did I not want to do all of these things for so long?
And so I was like, this is all fake!
This is fake!
But it could have been very real for the people who are posting about it right, but you would, and then you would hear that so and so actually fought the whole time that they're doing this, and but then the photos is like, like it's smiley photos um, so i think that is probably yeah, the thing right, like you made the wedding planning look so easy and the day looks so happy, and i know for a fact that like, That's not the case.
It's not easy and you're not happy.
No, not like you're not happy, but it's not always like that.
And of course, nobody's like, I hated my wedding day, you know?
Even for us in this episode, we talked about the highlights, right?
But yeah, seeing it on social media, I was just like okay, that's my little rant and that's all i'm going to say.
Yeah, ask us about low lights or navigating parents, their opinions or external stakeholders yeah yeah okay, let us know.
We'll open hugs.
Hotline in the link below yay, or just email us, dm us your questions.
We're always filtering and asking and we know.
We said we're gonna talk about what marriage has been like, but we realized we should just dedicate this whole episode to the wedding and then we talk about the marriage, because wedding happens before marriage.
Okay, see you in the next episode.
