Inclusive Wedding Summit – Brian Lawrence & Brenda Ferrarini
Are you truly equipped to serve diverse clientele? Have you considered how inclusivity can impact your wedding business’s growth? In this episode, we discuss why attending the Inclusive Wedding Summit can elevate your skills, boost your marketing competence, and improve your understanding of multi-cultural, diverse weddings. Are you aware of the untapped opportunities in inclusive wedding planning? Join us as we cover invaluable insights from experts who will share strategies, tips, and knowledge that can transform how you approach inclusivity in your business.
Listen to this new episode for insights on expanding your reach, enhancing your inclusivity skills, and understanding the hidden potential of serving diverse clientele.
About the Inclusive Wedding Summit:
On January 22, 2025, two seasoned trailblazers in the wedding world—Brian Lawrence, a celebrated author, speaker, and expert in web design and SEO, and Brenda Ferrarini, owner of Elegant Bridal Productions, one of the largest wedding show producers in the tri-state area—are joining forces to present the Inclusive Wedding Summit at the Hasbrouck Heights/Meadowlands Hilton in New Jersey.
This isn’t just another industry event. It’s a bold, game-changing full-day experience designed to empower wedding professionals to move beyond surface-level inclusivity and truly connect with today’s diverse couples. From actionable strategies to elevate your marketing and websites to insightful sessions on leveraging AI and improving your visibility on Google, the summit delivers the tools to future-proof your business.
But that’s not all—this summit dives deep into essential topics like creating welcoming experiences for same-sex couples, navigating the intricate beauty of South Asian and Jewish weddings, and making your services more accessible to differently abled couples.
At a time when the wedding industry is undergoing a profound transformation, this event offers the opportunity to lead the way in inclusivity, authenticity, and growth. Don’t miss this chance to learn, grow, and position your business for the future of love in all its forms. In addition the event will have industry exhibitors, time for networking and included a full breakfast and lunch.
Tune in as we explore what makes the Inclusive Wedding Summit a must-attend event and how it’s set to redefine the wedding industry!
Website
https://inclusiveweddingsummit.com/
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/inclusiveweddingsummit/
Instagram Page:
https://www.instagram.com/inclusiveweddingsummit/
TikTok Page:
https://www.tiktok.com/@inclusiveweddingsummit
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/inclusiveweddingsummit/
To exhibit or become a sponsor, email [email protected] or call/text Brenda at 201-405-4212
If you have a wedding business audience and are interested in a promotional partnership, email brian@brianlawrence or call/text Brian at 201-244-5969
If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com
Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com
View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/
Why should you attend the first ever Inclusive Wedding Summit? Listen to this episode and you’ll find out. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I am so happy to have two friends that I’ve known for a long time. We won’t say how long for a long time in the industry to talk about the inaugural Inclusive Wedding Summit. Brian Lawrence, Brenda Ferrarini, thank you so much for joining me today. How you doing?
Great. I’m excited to talk to you about this. Sure.
Yeah, I’m excited as well because it’s the first that I’ve ever heard of something like this and I’m really happy to be a part of this. So, Brian, why don’t you just tell us a little bit about this? What is this and how did this come about?
Well, essentially, I have always just. I just have my heart out to, you know, just to care about people. Back in, back in the day when I was the VP of sales and marketing for one of the leading wholesale invitation brands, I advocated the owners of the company to be inclusive, to have to show wording that honors different genders. And we were the first company to do that. And I’ve been a caretaker for people that have handicaps. And I learned, and Alan, I was on a podcast with you earlier in the year about this, that there are ways to make a website more friendly to people with disabilities. So I thought about how we’re just about all the different niches that we’re trying to target, like as a web designer and SEO company. I thought about what if we created an event? It’s an event with marketing.
It isn’t a matter of. It’s not a diversity and inclusion type of event. I mean, we just want to create a great environment to welcome people to share ideas. But it’s all about to help, say, a business that wants to be more inclusive and they just don’t know what else to do beyond just saying it. And you can’t just say it. You have to. And it’s more than just showing imagery.
Right.
So we’re going to dig deep from a lot of different vantage points, from websites to SEO to digital marketing to sales, and then also hyper focus on how to be, how to honor gender diversity, different cultures like Indian weddings and Jewish weddings, which for some businesses are a little bit mystified about how to really understand that culture. So these people that come that are getting married can be heard, they can know that, well, we got this as a venue or a vendor.
Right. So I’ve said there’s a difference between being open to doing weddings like that and being competent. Right. So saying I’m open to a same sex wedding. Right, but you’ve never done one. But I’m open to it. Well that’s great. But do you understand the differences? Right, so what you’re talking about here is going deeper than that.
Now Brenda, you’ve been doing wedding expos back when we called them bridal shows, right. So to talk about inclusion, Right. Just changing a name there. What have you seen on the ground at your, at your shows of people doing or not doing this? And what made you want to be involved in this?
Well, what made me want to be involved really is because things have changed. And we did. I deal with a lot of small businesses and after Covid, everybody was so, so busy trying to just catch up. Right. And I myself too. You’re just so busy. We’re self employed, we’re small business, we only have so many hours. And now when Brian approached me, it was like perfect time because now things are back to a normal state.
As far as weddings, they’re not as, as busy by any means. So they have time and they, they find themselves a little behind on all the things that have happened in the past four years. They’re behind on social media, you know, their websites and of course what’s really gone on in weddings, changing same sex marriages. So they, it’s a perfect time. When Brian approached me, I was like, you’re, you’re perfect timing and I want to be part of it because I deal with so many vendors, they ask me so many different questions. And here in January also great time of year for something like this that they could take the day to really get educated, network with some great people and that, that’s, that, that’s really. I was very excited when Brian asked me to be part of this.
Yeah, I just had a conversation the other day with a couple that just took over a wedding venue and they said, you know, we’d like to be able to do South Asian weddings, so Indian, Pakistani weddings, things like that. And I said, well again, that’s great. But do you speak the language? I don’t mean Hindi. I mean do you understand me and do you understand the Mandav and do you understand the Bharat and these things that happen around it? Because there’s other events. You know, if you’re doing a wedding of an Indian couple, it’s not just the day, it’s days leading up to a thing. So do you know that? Because when you’re talking to them. Are you saying you’ll be our venue will be available for you for three days before for this and two days before for that. And are you charging accordingly? And they didn’t, they didn’t they just see pictures of Indian weddings and go, oh, there you go? I said, okay, you need to learn about that.
You need to do more of that. So, Brian, who are some of the speakers besides me? Because I’m going to talk sales. That’s what I do is talk sales. And my sales is agnostic to my sales training is agnostic to what you’re trying to sell because the techniques, these tools work no matter who you’re trying to sell. But who is it that’s also going to be there and what are they speaking about that’s going to help this marketing aspect?
Well, certainly I’m going to. As an agency that does web design and SEO to the wedding industry, we already have strategies in place to help businesses market to different niches. So we’ll be talking about different types of landing pages, different types, how to choose wording and also how to get found on Google for different cultures that are searching. And sometimes when one goes to a website, they often judge the website by how clean it is and easy to navigate. But we have found that if we have really good targeted pages and a couple say that it’s Indian wedding is looking to know that they have a vendor that really understands it, having that page is almost a fast lane to generating interest rather than, I mean, it’s more forgiving. It could be an outdated site. But if they get that right page that really talks about and makes that couple understand that they know this, it’s really important. And this is a long day of education that is only the beginning of what we’re hoping is more of an awareness that people have to continue to learn.
So besides what’s going to be shared and conveyed that day, both live at the Hilton and Hasbro Kites in New Jersey. We have a really large capacity, a lot of space. It’s going to be great. We’re also doing it live stream across the country. And one of my intentions is also to have a really good resource list of a lot of other experts that could be of support to people to learn more. So while I’m preparing my talks, I’m also in research mode and I’m inviting other speakers and experts to connect with me. While we may have the speaking agenda totally covered now, like you said, this is the inaugural event. So naturally we’re going to evolve and have Other speakers.
And we may have, where we also have a podcast that is that Nina from I do Wedding Marketing, who’s doing the social media, she’s inviting guests on. And it isn’t just the speakers. It’s people that could weigh in on inclusivity.
So who else is going to be speaking? You have some other people lined up already, right?
Yes, we also have, well, I would say very much at the center of this is Marie and Kirsten Paladino from Equally Wed. I mean, they have a longstanding platform that is a welcoming site for wedding couples. Plus they have an education and certification course. So I was delighted that they were, that they were interested in speaking. And I actually had spoken to them the year before about the idea of a conference. And we for a little while discussed the possibility of them being involved on the production end. But they’re very busy people, so they just agreed, you know what? We’ll participate in this one.
Yeah. So again, this is that whole idea. They have a certification because you need the competency in that. I remember when you went to my website and made it ADA compatible. And in my, my view, because I don’t have certain disabilities, I thought you’re going to make it for people with vision impairment or hearing impairment. But it’s so much deeper than that. With people that have seizure issues, people that have ADHD and and so forth. There were so many different things that you did there.
And it’s, you know, actually I like to try to use the phrasing. It’s not a disability, it’s just other abilities. People have different abilities than we do and we can’t see it through their eyes because we don’t have to. So the idea of this in terms of its marketing. Right. I think, I’m not sure if everybody understands that, that the idea of this is it’s marketing, that how do you market to people? I still see websites talking about brides and grooms, which is, yes, it’s still most of the weddings that are happening, but it’s not all of them. And if somebody goes to your site and sees brides and grooms, they might feel or should say bride and groom. They might feel they’re not included because brides and grooms is a more inclusive phrase than bride and groom.
Something as simple as that can do it. But then you have also non binary people and things like that where they don’t feel included in either of those phrases. So how do we do that? So that’s going to be part of it. Websites, part of that. Tell me A little bit more about the live stream. So how’s that going to work? Somebody anywhere in the world, I guess you got to go time zones. I get this. Anywhere in the world is going to be able to tune into everything to the whole day.
Yes, yes. And also we’re planning to record all of the seminars to deliver them to people that signed up for the live stream and people that attended live so they can go back to review it.
And what about will there be any people exhibiting there?
Yes, I guess I can help with that.
That’s department.
Yeah.
And also I know Brian only spoke about a few of the hosts. The speakers mention others. But we’re pretty excited about the host that we have too for the day, Frankie Perez from One of a Kind events. We did virtual shows together and he’ll make the day a lot of fun too. So people come for the day or listen virtually. They’re going to have a great time as they’re learning a lot. And he’s also the one who’s going to be doing the live stream for us and which will be available from you know, around the around the country that Brian had mentioned. And then we also will have some different sponsors and some different vendors there as well different businesses for the different venues and vendors that come the wedding business owners to talk to and get fresh ideas for 2025.
So there’ll be a fun day it’s going to go.
And also also we’re going to allow for networking opportunities both at lunch and by the way, I mean we’re talking about two full meals so people can come for breakfast and they can also have a full lunch. And we also have reduced rates at the Hilton if they want to stay either the night before. So this way they can get up in the morning and come in rather than have to go through commutes. And then we’re going to extend the day into the evening to hang out just to have fun. And plus especially Alan, with your the next day, the mastermind that you’re doing, it’s a really good opportunity for people to go to both events and just stay over and and then be able to roll out of bed and come to you and come to your mastermind.
Yeah. And I haven’t done a mastermind in a while. Certainly up north. I haven’t. I don’t know if I’ve done one ever up in North Jersey like that. So coming in and that’s a happy.
I also plan to, you know, we didn’t put it in the description but I’m you Know, I’m going to be there to support it as well, to weigh in, you know, on any website or SEO needs like we’ve done before.
Right. So you got to save me two nights a hotel, then I need the night before and the night before, the night of before the mastermind.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, Yep, absolutely. I live in Jersey, but, you know, it’s not that close.
Alan, we have to nurture you and preserve you. You know, think about all the years that we worked together at Wedding MBA where I would chase you around with a cup of tea before you spoke.
Yeah. My watch was telling me that I walked five and six miles a day at Wedding mba because nothing’s close in Vegas. Right. Just nothing’s close. But this is great here. It’s a great time of the year. Like you said, Brenda, that it’s the beginning of the year, it’s engagement season. It’s a great time to learn things about being more inclusive.
So when you’re sending out emails, when you’re responding to people, when you’re updating your profiles on different websites, your social profiles, your ad profiles, that you’re being more inclusive and understanding where you might not intentionally being excluding people because your imagery doesn’t show people like them. Right. And when I see people like them, it’s like whoever you’re trying to attract. I don’t know if you guys have noticed that. I’ve noticed on a lot of the TV commercials now, seeing a lot more diversity in terms of the imagery. Right. Sometimes it feels a little forced, I get that. But you’re definitely seeing more because real people aren’t models, you know, and real people are beautiful in themselves, especially on their wedding day.
But they’re not all six foot tall, size zero. Right, right, right.
And I also wanted to explain a little bit in the speaker selection. Now I reached out to a lot of people and I, you know, I definitely had a mindset of diversity, but not everybody got back to me, you know, far as speaking. So hopefully once they see the event, you know, I’ll get a lot more people that will be interested in speaking. But part of, part of the, you know, first event is having people that, you know are experts, people that you trust. And I, you know, have people that I know are going to do a really fantastic job. You know, it may not be equally, you know, when you look at the faces, I mean, and we have, we have, you know, 60 year old guys, but, you know, we also have Mark Chapman, who’s who I consider the leading digital marketing expert for the Wedding industry. So, I mean, he’s gonna. I mean, we’re really gonna help, you know, an average business understand and get this and all.
And also. But we’re also, you know, we also have Mayori, who owns True Client Pro, which is. Which is a. A planning software that. And she is an expert in the wedding. So she’s going to demystify Indian weddings. And we have this really great young. Not.
Not. Not six, not in her 60s, but a really young wedding planner that is really expert in Jewish wedding planning. So there’s a lot of nuances about, you know, that people have to understand. And then. And we also have Nina, Nina Rodeo, who is social media expert and also knows a lot about AI. One of the things that Brenda and I discussed is that we wanted to introduce a little bit of. A little bit of AI logic to some people that don’t know it. And, you know, Alan, what you.
You blew me away at wedding MBA with, you may want to bring that in also. Some of it, like being able. Being able to. How you could really train AI to, you know, to understand your brand through reviews. I mean, I thought what you did was amazing.
Well, maybe that’ll be my session then.
It might. It might be. It might be. I mean, I think that that would have tremendous value.
Yeah. Well, I was just using that today. I was speaking to someone that came to the workshop we did in Vegas. Brian and Casey had some questions that we weren’t able to get to because they were more specific for his business. And we had a call today, and I gave him some ideas on how to get to the answers that he was looking for from me by using AI. You know, I won’t get into the details right now, but. And same thing. It’s like you could just see on his face.
It’s like, I never thought about this, how I can use existing content with that.
And also we could. We can bring in inclusive terms as well. So it just makes it much more relevant to the, you know, to the event. So I love the idea of that being part of your presentation, for sure.
And, you know, a lot of people now are using AI for their search instead of Google because you can get a more. A deeper answer. For instance, if you were looking to know more about South Asian weddings, you could go in and say, tell, you know, what are all the events that happen around the South Asian wedding? And give me some details. And boom, there you go. And then you can dig deeper into that. So just different ways to use that. And the thing is, anybody listening probably knows and heard on my other podcast, I resisted AI until the beginning of this year because I am a content creator. Right.
Brian, the book that we did together is my 11th book. I can create some content. Right. I’m pretty good at that. Right. I think this might be close to my 300th podcast by the time this comes out. But it’s being able to use it with your own content that is part of this. But again, just finding out how we can be more inclusive but be more competent, not just in our.
In our language and our words, but also being able to fulfill that you don’t want to. Nobody wants to pay someone to learn. Right? I’m hiring you because you already know. So I think this will really be a good part of that. So we’re going to have in the show notes, links. It’s going to be all over social. Are there social pages for this already?
Oh, yes, we have, you know, we have Facebook, Instagram also Tick Tock also. One other really exciting addendum to what we hadn’t anticipated is I have a close relationship with a leader in the association of Bridal Consultants. Her name is Lois Pierce and she wrote a book called Wedding Customs and Traditions, which is a book that you take. She has all of these historical traditions and shows you how to incorporate them into modern weddings. So she, she’s. We didn’t have time for her to speak, but she’s going to be a blogger, so she’s going to be doing blog posts to educate the Hope, you know, besides the attendees, anybody will have access to the blog to be able to see that. So that, that’s just part of that, the extended education that continues after the day and before the day.
And I’ve known Lois for years as well. She’s great. So I need to get a copy of that book because I didn’t know that she had that. So, Brenda, is there still room if people wanted to exhibit, Is there still availability?
Yeah, it’s funny. That’s what I wanted to mention. Right now we run an early bird special that goes till Thanksgiving weekend, December 3rd. Third. The end of Thanksgiving weekend, December 1st.
We don’t want. We don’t want them to be late December 1st.
I’m sorry. I’m thinking December 1st is the end of the weekend. I can’t believe December’s around the corner. It’s crazy how time goes. So people should take advantage of that to go on the website or it’s right on Eventbrite and we’re giving 199. So for the early bird Special. That’s the whole day. We start at 8am and it goes till 4.
But of course, we’re where they have a really nice, nice lounge area at the Hilton. So we feel that people can continue and network together and kind of just wind down, relax, ask questions that maybe you couldn’t have earlier to some of the speakers and just relax together. So it should be a really nice day and should try to take advantage of that especially.
And also, as far as any sponsors that are interested in having a table. Absolutely. There is still room to have, you know, to have a table. And you could, you know, contact Brenda about that. I mean, I’m. I’m just so relieved to have Brenda who just knows how to put together a day of event. I mean, I’ve done a couple of educational events, but they’re not a day in the office like it is for Brenda. So I’m really psyched.
I mean, she. I mean, we went to the hotel the other day and she’s looking at the room and she’s getting it and I’m just watching her and following her lead.
Thank you.
Well, let’s see. We were doing your shows. We won’t say how long ago we started doing your shows. Right? A long time ago, yeah. For people who don’t know this whole scenario with how we know each other. So when I was wedding pages, magazines, I was doing Brenda shows. Brian was a customer of mine, advertising in my magazine. So this is the trifecta over here.
That’s how we know each other. So this is just a wonderful event.
And we were like kids, I mean.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. But you know what? We grew up in an industry that is filled with passionate people who have their heart in helping people have an amazing time on to this point, the most important day of their lives. And now that we’re recognizing and honoring the diversity of people in their cultures, in their religions, in their lifestyles, and trying to represent that this is a great opportunity for people to see. Like you said, Brian, it’s not just about saying that you want to do this. It’s about competency in your marketing because they’re not going to reach out to you if your marketing is not inclusive. Right? Yeah. And if you don’t, if you, if you’re blind to the fact that you’re excluding people because of what you say or don’t say, you don’t even realize it.
You don’t realize the money that you’re missing out on there. So. So on social media, is it at inclusive weddingsummit yes. Okay, so just look on TikTok, look on Instagram, look on Facebook. Right?
Yes. Correct.
All the above. There you go. Add Inclusive Wedding Summit. And the website is inclusiveweddingsummit.com that makes it easy. It’s Inclusive Wedding Summit everywhere. There you go. So we’ll have the link in the show notes as well. If anybody has any questions, you can certainly reach out to any of us through there.
We’ll have those links in there as well. Brenda, Bryan, thank you so much for coming on to talk about this. I can’t wait for this event. And I love the fact that it’s also going to be live streamed, so if you can’t make it in, you’re not going to miss it. And you said it’s going to be recorded. Is the recording available? To whom?
To any. To all of you know, to the attendees, you know, both virtual and live.
So anybody that registers live or buy your ticket for virtual, you will have access to the recording. So if you can’t sit there all day watching it, you’ll be able to go back or if you saw something and like, oh my gosh, I need to go back and see that you’re not missing out on it. I love that there. So thank you for joining me, everybody. Look at the show notes and we will see you in January in person or virtually at the inclusive Wedding Summit. Thanks.
Thank you, Alan.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected] or you can text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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