Redefining Wedding Ceremonies with Ryan and Valerie Kingsman

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s episode. We got two for one Today we’re talking to uh owners and luxury wedding officiants at Weddings Royale And what they do is they help to tell their couple’s love stories at their ceremonies and mentor them through their marriage Very excited to be rocking out today with Ryan and Valerie Kingsman.

Hey, you guys ready to rock?

Valerie Kingsman: Yeah, let’s do it.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So we always start off here in a good note. So tell me a story of success in your business that we can be inspired by.

Valerie Kingsman: I think we were inspired really by the failure of our own wedding ceremony. It was 13 years ago. I know that sounds negative. I wanted, um, just the person we had put there, our friend to, um, just focus on our love story and do something kind of quicker and we’re going to have more fun with. He said, sure, sure.

It went an hour. It was pretty painful. Yeah, my feet hurt. People were bored and, and we were just thinking about the food. And I thought, wow, I, [00:01:00] I remember what that feels like. And, and then we saw our friends, the same thing kept happening in their ceremony. So we’re painfully watching it go. I know what she feels like.

Um, so a couple years later we kept thinking about it and we got an opportunity to. Do a ceremony for a couple Um that couldn’t get married in the church traditionally that we were working at so we were on staff and have a background in church ministry Um, but yeah, it gave us an opportunity. Ryan actually did the ceremony so you can talk more about that

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah, it was it was awesome.

I remember the uh, They walked in to ask the pastor at the church I was working at and he rejected them and so they just walked out like you could just see they became trusting and vulnerable Um And started to walk out and so I was recently licensed and so I reached out to him and just said hey Like I don’t know if you want me to do it.

I’m the music guy I’m, not the head guy of the church, but i’d love to support you Uh, we met up for coffee and it just from that initial contact when we had face to face time Um made enough of an impact on them where they trusted me with the role And so [00:02:00] then a few months of planning getting to know them and their story.

Um Doing their wedding. I remember like sitting a cocktail hour. It went amazing. My family’s there. We’re invited to the reception I’m, enjoying drinks and good food. We go home with a bottle of wine Thank you And I’m like, how, how, like, this is awesome. I would do this every day. If I, this is so cool. Um, and so from there we did it on the side for a while, but eventually it got to the point where it was like, maybe we could actually like, like create our own brand and like actually do this for real.

And so we, we built our website, we started marketing and you know, here we are today where we’ve married over a thousand couples and given them the ceremony of their dreams and are really changing the expectation on people’s wedding day where they’re in the past, kind of like the ceremony is what we have to do.

And then we get to have fun. Now the couples we work with are like, no, the ceremony is treasure. This is one of the best parts of the day. Um, and that’s still kind of a newer idea in our culture, but it’s fun to feel like we’re, we’re touching their lives. Um, but also we’re kind of reshaping the expectation around the wedding day is pretty cool.

[00:03:00] First

Tim Melanson: cool. Okay. So now you’ve been doing this for what, seven years or so, right? And all these,

Valerie Kingsman: 10 years ago. Yeah.

Ryan Kingsman: But started the company officially the branding seven. Yes.

Valerie Kingsman: Yeah. Took three to figure out we can do this more often. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: that’s so awesome. That’s so awesome. Well, and this is like a performance really with is what you guys are doing, right?

Valerie Kingsman: Yeah, which which really allows us to incorporate because we were really both performers before we met Ryan’s a musician. It’s

Ryan Kingsman: like fun Broadway type stuff.

Valerie Kingsman: Yeah, I actually worked for radio and it was a news writer for television news. And I just, I just hated all the negative stories. I’m like, where can I have cover the fun stories?

Where are the happy people? So you do the stories, you know, the last story I did before I left TV was a suicide. And I thought, I love stories. I just don’t want the bad ones, you know? Um, so yeah, whirlwind, we kind of just. [00:04:00] ways. And then when we met, I thought our love story was the greatest thing. Um, so yeah, just kind of pulling from all of the ways that we know how to already engage with guests or with a crowd.

And we’re like, they’re missing all of it in the ceremony. That’s what makes it boring. So can we make it fun? Yeah, I mean, it’s a couple’s like, let’s give them permission to have fun. Fun, like Yeah. In the ceremony.

Ryan Kingsman: Well, and it’s, it’s, it is, like you said, a performance. It, it feels, honestly, it feels like if we’ve done our job well, we kind of feel like rock stars and it’s kind of a balance because the wedding day is about them.

I don’t want it to be about us, but the connection we make with the couple, they feel like they have something special that they’ve invested in. And so when we arrive, like the bride and groom the, the couples, the family, they’ll come running to us and be like, oh my gosh, here they are. They’re so proud to have us.

day. So you kind of feel like I kind of feel like a VIP here. And then, of course, when the ceremony is happening, you really are the master of the ceremony. It’s about your stage presence. It’s about your ability to engage the audience where you’re not just [00:05:00] giving the couple a beautiful ceremony, but you want the rest of the night, their guests to come up to them and be like, that was the best ceremony I’ve ever seen.

So there is a lot of performance and being comfortable speaking on stage. It’s really important as well.

Tim Melanson: right. Um, so there’s a lot of good notes there. Now, unfortunately, though, I would like to talk about some bad notes, because, you know, in business, not everything goes as planned. And I’m, I’m interested where you’re going to take this, because you could either take it in, like, did anything bad go while you were like, administering your business?

Or was there anything like, didn’t go well on this at the ceremony that, you know, maybe you’ve recovered from? Because, you know, I think Hearing these stories, especially as an entrepreneur and hearing how something can go bad, but then end up being good is, I think, helpful for people to recognize that it’s okay to make mistakes.

It’s okay to have failures as long as you move forward. So can you share any stories?

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah, I mean, I I’m like,

Valerie Kingsman: I don’t even know what college is. You

Ryan Kingsman: know, you’re not. It’s [00:06:00] been a while, but it was such a painful experience. And I think to other people, maybe it doesn’t feel that bad. But at the moment, I mean, I was, I was devastated. So there was a wedding I came to. It was on a yacht in Newport Beach.

Like, cool setup. I arrive. And at that time, it was still earlier on where we’re doing this full time. And um, and so like I, I’m not the best note taker and most organized person in the world. Like I have to force myself to do that. She’s much better at it. So for this wedding, like I thought I had taken great notes.

Um, I still to this day swear that last minute they changed something and didn’t tell me. And so I arrived at the ceremony set. I do sound check. And then all of a sudden, about 10 minutes before the wedding starts, the planner brings out a table with all these like vials of sand. They want to do a sand ceremony.

If you’ve seen that in a wedding, it’s basically like the two becoming one. They, they mix their sands and all that. So, but they, they didn’t tell me, or at least I didn’t have that in my notes. And I was like, I don’t remember them ever saying this. And so real quickly, I was like, okay, I’m literally lining up to start the ceremony.

So I went to on my iPad, a past script [00:07:00] and copy and pasted from someone else’s script. Here’s the verbiage I use for the sand ceremony. I’m good. But when it came time in the ceremony, I was so locked in, like I’m not prepared for this. So instead of And speaking and engaging the audience. I was like, I’m really going to read word for word and just make sure I nailed the reading.

And I didn’t realize I had someone else’s name in the script. And so the whole ceremony, I’m saying, I’m saying the right names. It’s like 15 minutes of the right names of, you know, let’s say Sarah and Steve. And I get there and I’m like, and now Jonathan and Brian and decide to do a sand ceremony. And like, like the bride just stops and her eyes are big.

She’s like, what? And, and what made it worse is like some uncle on the front row was like, uh, Oh, like just all loud for everybody. And I was like, Oh no, what did I say? And so like, I’m sure like, I spent out

Valerie Kingsman: like year one, I’m sure

Ryan Kingsman: I spent out like my talking and I’m sure I was like kind of looking red in the face.

And they were so generous. Cause I had gotten it right for most of it. But I just remember walking away from that ceremony being like, That is never going to happen [00:08:00] again, and I can honestly tell you it hasn’t but that’s like Getting names wrong is like the worst thing, you know So that and dropping the rings like you do not do those two things So it taught me an important lesson about like check your notes Make sure you’re on the same page get there early enough to make sure that you’re available If there’s some kind of change that happens last minute It was painful, but it definitely taught me some some organizational skills that i’m not naturally good at

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. Wow. yeah

And, and of all places to like the name wrong on a sales call. Okay.

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah, oh

Valerie Kingsman: dude Yeah,

Tim Melanson: Oh yeah, Of course it was recorded. Yep.

Ryan Kingsman: yeah

Valerie Kingsman: never live it down.

Tim Melanson: But you know what? I will bet you that they love it. It’s probably hilarious for them, right?

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah, i’ll admit One of the few couples I did not ask for a review because I was just worried I know they were happy but I was like i’m not sending you the links like we’ll just let it be when it was Move on. Yeah. Yeah[00:09:00]

Tim Melanson: I’m sure that they show it to everybody now and go, This is when

Ryan Kingsman: Just,

Tim Melanson: they screwed our names up, you know?

Ryan Kingsman: Brittany.

Valerie Kingsman: Oh, no. Well,

Tim Melanson: that’s good stuff.

Valerie Kingsman: I was thinking though your example would be because we’ve been at some weddings that are not Like the weddings we would want to be at. Oh, you know the one that you Like oh, it’s the backyard and the dogs are barking at me and stuff.

Ryan Kingsman: There’s been pit bulls chasing us Yeah, I mean

Valerie Kingsman: that we realized over time that we were kind of pricing ourself where we were accessible to everybody But what we were offering was really something different.

That was more luxury And lung a luxury efficient is really something that we coined the term of because we wanna give you the luxury of really thinking through your guest experience and we’ll create whatever you’re looking for. Yeah. So some don’t wanna cry at all, you know, or some want this, some wanna laugh more or some have unique things about their engagement or their love story.

Um, but that really was kind of a step up from. a certain type of client, we realize we, [00:10:00] we are drawn towards people that have similar core values. Let me, I wanted something in my ceremony. So how do we find those brides? Cause it was producing kind of like, uh, not the chemistry in every couple that we would like.

Um, so when that would happen, it’d be a little like, I want to dive into your love story and maybe you don’t really care about it that much.

Ryan Kingsman: Like

Valerie Kingsman: I said, we’re not aiming that high. Yeah. Right. You’re like, no

Ryan Kingsman: when you’re, but when you’re building your business, there’s an element, like at the beginning I just took whatever I could get because I needed to get it started.

Mm-Hmm. . So we started doing so many ceremonies that it got us exposure and we were able to take that next step. Yeah. But yeah, we were, there was pit bulls chasing me at different times and drunk uncles wandering in. Like it wasn’t the kind of environment that ultimately we wanted to be in.

Valerie Kingsman: Yeah. We realized this is a product for a very specific kind of couple that’s looking for something.

Um, but yeah, we had some awkward.

Ryan Kingsman: We

Valerie Kingsman: didn’t really connect or you didn’t really care or it was really good, but nobody really appreciated it as much. So we found, we found our, [00:11:00] our bride tribes that really are seeking out this kind of experience. So we feel like we just flow really well with our clients now.

But early on we find our place.

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

and that’s that advice is super like applicable to just about any business too because you know It is sort of like depending on what you’re trying to attract the price point is going to change those people, right? Now I do have an interesting question. So for me in in my business, I’ve got a creative, uh part of my business and I’ve found that the lower the price The more difficult the client is to work with, meaning like they, they have like these weird expectations, even though they’re paying very, very little.

But then I found the opposite to be true too. Like where I’m charging this, like, you know, I’ll raise the price drastically to the point where I’m like, Oh, I don’t know if I’m going to get any clients. And then they have hardly any expectations. It’s just [00:12:00] like, do what you do, that kind of thing. Like, do you, have you found that happening too?

Ryan Kingsman: Even with even with uh with couples and even with planners like that’s one of the things we’ve seen is Wedding planners that we work with ones that are less experienced maybe doing more of a budget wedding Like you come in and they micromanage everything and they they’re like messing stuff up because they’re overthinking it and it’s like what’s going on?

And then we go to some like we’re in southern california Some of the best venues in the world are here the most, you know, fancy and luxurious You step into that property and if it’s like this high end planner, they’re like You I’ve worked with you. I know you, like, do your thing. I don’t need to tell you what, like, they just give you your space.

And same thing with couples. We, we tried. There’s been times where we knew we needed to scale. Um, there’s a bride I’m thinking of like this last year with her, where it’s like, we kind of are trying to give you a low end deal. Cause you’re, you’re moaning about the price. And is it still worth it for us?

And then it was like, no, like you can see already, this is going to be the biggest pain in your butt, kind of a bride to work with. Cause you’re going to give her the lowest [00:13:00] price. And she’s going to ask for the most services. It’s not worth it. You

Valerie Kingsman: end up like, Oh, can you also bring your microphone? I’m like, no, you’re supposed to bring a DJ.

You bring this too, right? You’ll do flowers. You’ll do like, I’m not doing all these different jobs, but yeah, the lower the price, the more I would work, the more calls I’d get, the more meetings they needed and the higher end, it’s like two meetings were good and it’s amazing. And they’re super, super happy.

Um, but personalities too, we kind of jive a lot better. So

Ryan Kingsman: yeah.

Valerie Kingsman: I don’t know. Everything’s like for a price, right?

Ryan Kingsman: It’s scary. It got

Valerie Kingsman: quiet and now we’re, we’re so busy where I’m like, maybe we should end, right?

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah,

Tim Melanson: interesting, but I think it’s probably because the people that are trying to spend less Are looking like they’re like deal seekers or like, you know what? I mean, they’re they’re trying to like get the most for the least and that’s why they’re kind of doing that whereas someone who’s just like You know what?

I know this [00:14:00] is going to cost some money. I just want them to handle that I just want professional and so they’re you know, their their attitude is more like no No, i’m going to throw a bunch of money at this and it’s just going to happen the way I want it to happen rather than I’m You know, going to try to squeeze every little penny out of this deal.

Right.

Valerie Kingsman: it’s funny. I used to think that like our booking calls our first free consultation to kind of get to know them and see if we were a good fit. It was kind of us convincing them that we were going to be enough and now we’ve turned it around where I’m, I’m kind of interviewing them to see if this is going to be a good fit, you know, say our ideal clients care about the experience.

Our ideal clients, you know, our couples are attracted to us because they’re thinking about their guests And their comfort and they don’t want an hour long ceremony. They want something focused on them So when I use that verbiage, they start going. Well, I could be that person. Yeah, right. I care about I want to be a royal couple Yeah You know and we kind of branded and created that it’s not for everyone and I think mentally [00:15:00] we kind of had to be Okay with that like not everybody’s looking for that Um, but I also don’t want to work with Anybody else that is is expecting more than um, the unique product that we’ve created And there’s plenty of those people to um to keep us really really busy.

So

Tim Melanson: yeah

You know what, it’s probably just like a rite of passage too, that you have to go through those tough clients to recognize your worth and what you’re, because you know, it, wouldn’t it be great. I mean, I’m, I’m sure maybe some businesses do, but it’s very difficult to get into that mindset of like, I don’t need you when you do need them.

When you’re first getting started, but it would be great if you could just skip right to that part.

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah,

Valerie Kingsman: oh, I know. Yeah, here’s the go. I mean, I never imagined we’d be this busy too.

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah

Valerie Kingsman: this month We have 30 30 events, which is the most we’ve ever done in one month

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s

Valerie Kingsman: And

Ryan Kingsman: by the time this year is done, we’ll have married 180 couples just this [00:16:00] year. So, and over a thousand now in general, but it’s two years ago we had to scale because it got here big.

And that year, that year that we scaled, we raised our price. We did about 70 less weddings, but we made the same amount as the previous year doing less work. So we’re at that place now where it’s like, we’re probably gonna do less weddings next year, but making the same.

Valerie Kingsman: Or more.

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And you can, you can put more into each, into each event too. Cause you have more energy now. Right. Rather than like burning yourself out. Right.

Valerie Kingsman: All right. Yeah, we definitely won’t forget names.

Tim Melanson: No, so let’s talk a little bit. I mean, if you can full schedule, how are you finding all these people? Like, what’s your, what’s your secret there?

Ryan Kingsman: it started out the very 1st place that I got a chance was an actual company in Newport Beach. They did a yacht weddings and they had just a select group of vendors. And so we actually went to go and think about maybe doing our 10 year anniversary on a ship. And after we talked to the lady, my wife was like, hon, like, just ask them, you’re you’re a minister.

See if they did an efficient. And so they had all kind of old dudes. They were all [00:17:00] captains. They had nobody that was like younger and more modern. And so they gave me my first shot, you know, really was our, our, as we started the company officially. And so we did pretty much all our weddings through them.

And then early on, even just being creative, like she, she found places to like put it in Craig’s list and find free options. Early on, it was like, just get it out there any way we could. Um, and then in the wedding world, there’s a, it’s called a wedding wire and the knot are two avenues. There’s a couple other ones as well, where you can platforms to put your information, but really what’s taken our company to the next level was doing the hard work of taking any and all weddings, but giving a good experience consistently, um, even if it was in a backyard, we’d walk away and say, maybe the couple didn’t appreciate our filet mignon, they were looking for a burger.

Um, but. I’m still going to give the same experience. I’m going to be consistent so that I grow and that I can walk away and know I gave my best. And because of that, the reward was then now planners, photographers, Couple people who are sitting in the audience at the wedding who are now engaged and want to get married [00:18:00] Now it’s become word of mouth to we’re having that connection within the industry where people can say you have to book these guys Now couples will call us and we don’t have to convince them of the price.

They’re not even thinking about the price They’re like are you available? I have to book you So it really has taken a turn from like let’s advertise online to really all about relationships Um, and, and having other wedding professionals who are like, we’re going to tell people about you. So the word of mouth is huge in our industry.

Valerie Kingsman: We can trace every time, you know, the business kind of scaled up to some specific relationship. Um, some experience we had with someone who was like, you should be here. You should know. So, and so, um, and a couple of years ago, there was a DJ who said, did you know that there’s like this whole awards thing?

Ceremony for California, uh, vendors in the wedding business. And we’re like, what’s that? He’s like, I’m going to nominate you guys. Um, so that took us into the world of really high end professional vendors. Um, we actually hosted their [00:19:00] awards this last May won the award, um, for best officiants, um, yeah. And there had been some people that would kind of won every year.

Cause there’s not that many officiants for like, And then we kind of came on the scene. So we’re like the hot new ticket now, but it’s the relationships. And now they’re all going, did you know that there’s this couple, um, that does weddings? So they like having the security and we tell them we’re here to serve you guys too.

So the food’s ready and that your timeline’s not disturbed. Um, but we have really, really good relationships with the people that are in charge of. Creating the day so we’ve now turned everything to the planners and the couple say they told me you’re the best I trust my planner

Ryan Kingsman: when we when we get a reference if a planner tells a couple Hey, you got to go check them out It’s like a 95 maybe 90 success rate at booking within like a 30 minute phone call So the the planners that’s what we’ve seen is like their word to their couple the couples trust them So that’s really become [00:20:00] now like how do we get more around these luxury and high end planners?

So that if we’re on their list then like We’re taken care of. We’re good to go.

Tim Melanson: So now, when you’re running an event, um, I imagine there’s probably some expenses that have to be paid before the event that you get reimbursed at the end. Like, how does your cash flow situation work so that you know, you’re not going to lose money? Wow. Wow.

Ryan Kingsman: about ours is we don’t use our own sound equipment. Um, we, we factor in any kind of travel fees and gas and stuff. So we do, we do, um, destination weddings as well. But the heavy majority of our weddings are basically like Los Angeles to San Diego. So it’s, you know, it’s in a specific range.

Um, so we, we factor in travel fees, really the only other, the, the biggest amount of money goes towards advertising still, um, and then attire, like we got to look good for the pictures and stuff. So we’ve got some good suits and dresses and cool outfits and things because we, we let couples dress us. So we look good for their pictures and match the theme and the style.[00:21:00]

Um, so for us, it’s the more and more that we’ve gotten into the luxury end, the more and more we’re like, this is. Meeting our needs and then some it’s it’s significantly more than what we’re putting into it. Whereas there’s people like DJs and florists where it’s like, man, there are all these thousands of dollars of dying flowers and all this equipment.

And for us, it’s like. We’re there for maybe two hours at the most. We’re there for sound check. So it’s a really unique, uh, Job that we put together where I think there’s been there’s been people who’ve told us like that’s nice You guys do that. It’s like a little side, you know hobby and we’re like it’s it’s not like I maybe it feels that way For other people but for us like it’s very The majority of the money is income.

We really don’t have a lot of high expenses, which makes it a beautiful experience for us, too so

Valerie Kingsman: Insurance and things that we have to pay, you know, but we found really, it doesn’t look like what we thought it would look like. We thought we would need all this stuff. Right? But, um, there’s like memberships with high end planners that are thousands of dollars.

[00:22:00] Yes. Oh, you want to get to know us? It’ll be an 11, 000 dollar trip to what?

Ryan Kingsman: But it’s luxury planners. Yeah,

Valerie Kingsman: I’m like, wow, that’s not what I thought. But that’s they want you to invest in the time with them if they’re going to get to the business. And that’s kind of a new thing we’ve learned this year. But for a long time, it really is a really cost efficient.

Ryan Kingsman: Some of the other things too, though, is also looking for ways to grow this where you, you think about officiating, like that’s a one time thing for a lot of people. Maybe we’ll do a second winding in the future or a vow renewal or something. The majority of people though, it’s a, it’s a one time event. And so for us, instead of it being about, you know, we, we served you on this day and now there’s not really anything else that’s really over the last year, two years of us now looking and saying, we still have great relationship with.

A thousand couples who are thriving. I’d say we stay in touch in about 90, 95 percent of them are still happily married, which is really cool [00:23:00] in our culture. So maybe, maybe we have magic pixie dust. If we marry you, you’re like set for the long haul. No, but, but there’s, there is a certain type of couple we attract.

Like we were saying to where it’s like, you’ve got some tools in the toolbox that are showing up to be stronger in our culture. And, and, and so we’ve gone back to the drawing board of like, how do we learn from you? But the next exciting part for us for cash flow for the business side, but also impact is we’re building a community with these couples and saying it doesn’t need to stop at your wedding day.

We want to continue to not only be a part of your life, but actually bring all these couples together to have online groups and memberships and coaching seminars and retreats. to continue to invest in your marriage. You know, your wedding day was awesome. How do we keep celebrating with you? And so for us, that’s the next exciting thing is kind of saying this, this thing all along, we could have been doing this.

And now all of a sudden our eyes are open to the opportunity with so many happy customers that we’re like, we can continue to, to get resource from them, but also resource them and support them in their marriage.[00:24:00]

Tim Melanson: That’s really cool. And so, Is that something that you are going to be doing or is it already in the works now?

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah.

Valerie Kingsman: And they tell us what they want. We just kind of didn’t think of it for a while. They kind of experience these, like, wedding blues afterwards, because now there’s a weekend. And people aren’t planning to gather to celebrate them anymore. And they’d say, Oh, it’s so sad that our relationship is over.

Kind of ending with you guys, you know, I wish we could keep celebrating and they kept saying that over I wish we could keep celebrating Yeah, and I thought do you know how many couples we have in queue for the next two, you know, a couple years That are already booked that would love to hear about your experience And you’re the experts.

So we’ve always, our business has always been elevate the couple and we get elevated. Our business gets elevated. Um, so the podcast is going to be all love stories and their unique love stories and their advice that they would give to the [00:25:00] brides and grooms that are, um, you kind of in queue, but they all kind of.

Have the same values we would hang out with any of them.

Ryan Kingsman: Yes,

Valerie Kingsman: we’re like y’all should just meet. Um, so We we don’t normally think in terms of products, but that is a product That’s a membership and we’ve pitched it to so many of them being like what would be the interest? If I told you you didn’t have to stop, you know celebrating that you could actually join an elite group of royale couples Who have you know now married?

Why can’t we celebrate everybody be married in 2024? Why can’t we have our own galas and our own anniversary, you know, things and celebrate you guys when you have babies and they’re like, I would be there. Sign me up.

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah. Like waiting list, like begging for it to get to get on.

Valerie Kingsman: Can’t get it fast enough because our business also boomed with just the ceremonies at the same time.

So it’s like trying to find the time to now. How are we going to There’s hundreds of them lining up going, I want to be featured on your podcast. Um, so it’s overwhelming that this was something that has [00:26:00] been there for years that we just didn’t realize because we were just

Ryan Kingsman: in the cool part about it though, is like, I don’t, we’re not going after brand new clients.

I mean, eventually our vision is like, you know, where it’s like, have you heard of this, this membership or this podcast where people that we didn’t even marry are like, I still want to be a part of that because I see the value. I’m not even going after customers that I have to convince. These people already love us and know, like, My wife and I and our kids like they already are like we buy anything you guys have so again We heard that for years and just like we thought through like just the lens of officiating and now it’s like no like Oh my gosh, it’s at our fingertips.

We just got to get it going officially. So they

Valerie Kingsman: kind of just want to hang out. Yeah All right. Here we go I just didn’t think in terms of cash flow that that was a thing, but people will, people will pay to buy their ticket to go, you know, hang out with a bunch of other couples that we married and they’re all very similar.

Ryan Kingsman: I would say, like, I know we’re going on this for a long time, but just the other thing I would say real quick too is. [00:27:00] Thinking, having other voices help point out because a lot of this stuff also was having like a mentor or a coach who’s like, Hey, have you thought about this? If you thought about this, things that we weren’t thinking.

And so one thing that a coach randomly pointed out kind of just on the side, a few months ago, Val’s like full on implementing now where we can’t marry enough people where we can’t duplicate ourselves. And so all of a sudden when she had like a DJ and a chiropractor and a couple other people who are like, I love what you guys are doing.

I’d be interested. I’d like to

Valerie Kingsman: work for you. So

Ryan Kingsman: she’s setting up phone calls to be like, okay, you know, how do we Get you like if we can’t marry this couple We’ll send them your way and like you’re gonna pay us some because we did the advertising for you but kind of expanding our business slowly without them technically being an employee, but still like We’re making some money off a wedding that we would have just lost.

So, but again, that was an idea that planted in our mind. And now it’s like, we see the benefit of it. So it’s again, taking this thing that for some people is just a side hobby and being like, no, there are so many creative ways that you can make money and support people.

Tim Melanson: Brilliant. [00:28:00] So that’s awesome. Are there any other tools that you use to get success in your business? Yeah.

Ryan Kingsman: mean to like the, the specific physical things. I mean there, there’s little stuff like to us aesthetics is so important. So of course the website first impressions are, are huge. Um, as social media is still something we’re, it, it’s more successful than I ever thought it would be. But it is still like I’m, I’m getting educated.

We are in, in what we want that to be. Um, that, that can be a huge tool. But even things down to, like, when we’re officiating, we don’t use a three ring binder with papers. We have a, like a small iPad, a small book, we, a handheld microphone. No, no mic stand because again, part of, you know, like, like a rockstar.

It, it’s about the way that you present yourself on stage. And making sure that it’s as clean and clear as possible. So for us, it’s even thinking through how you look and the tools that you’re using. Are these going to be distractions to your customer? Um, or are these things that, you know, can really help in subtle ways, make it a smooth experience for them?

Valerie Kingsman: Yeah, yeah. We were talking about that question. [00:29:00] Like our preparation has been a really kind of an invisible thing. It’s what we’ve dropped out of. We, we have our scripts completely memorized, like 80 percent of it. And then with a couple inserts. Is, um, you know, we’ll read their words in their own words if we ask them to do that, or if they had a love quote that’s very specific, but other than that, you know, um, I said my goal is to make it look like we’ve been friends for years.

So, your family members are like, did you go to college with her? Or like, why did I never meet her? That’s kind of an invisible thing, but we found like people do want someone close to marry them. And so over the years, we’ve refined it going, we don’t need a microphone stand. They don’t like it in the pictures.

We don’t, we don’t need the binder. We don’t need this or that. And so when we let that go, it just looks really natural. And that, that really is the essence of kind of our signature way of doing ceremonies. It looks effortless, but there’s quite a bit

Ryan Kingsman: of very, very thoughtful preparation

Valerie Kingsman: behind it and they [00:30:00] trust us.

They trust us a lot because of that.

Ryan Kingsman: It’s good.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s very intentional. Right. Um, so tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

Valerie Kingsman: Uh,

Ryan Kingsman: yeah, the membership thrilled about and I did go ahead.

Valerie Kingsman: I was going to say we’re making virtual date nights, which he’s like, they’re going to want to meet up in person too. But I was like, well, let me do some of these in my PJs too for the couples that are like me and they’re busy and stuff. Um, but they’re all really jazzed about being able to go.

You know, um, and kind of commune somewhere where we can all talk about working on our relationships and, you know, our wins and our marriage and our, our, our struggles, you know, some of them are having kids and they’re feeling really disconnected just because they’re at home now or in a new stage that maybe their other friends aren’t.

So we’re, I’m really excited about just seeing all of them again and having them come together. And I feel like they’ve always been really good at telling us. What [00:31:00] they need. And so I feel like we’ll be really busy just creating all of those opportunities for them to grow together now.

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah.

Valerie Kingsman: It’s I, we can’t get it together fast enough.

They keep waiting for it and stuff. So yeah, we’re, we’ve got the podcast, we’ve got the membership stuff. We’re rolling out our websites under. Construction stuff, but it still looks

Ryan Kingsman: good. I love when we’ve had like a mentor or someone be like, I went on your website and I could tell you guys were luxury from what I saw right away.

It’s like, okay, cool. Like, that’s The branding element is something that we’re really passionate about. I love that kind of stuff. And I think there’s so many different ways. I mean, I think of Like like your podcast that we’re on today People who are here You don’t have to tell them being an entrepreneur is awesome and difficult like they’re here because they know that it’s like What are the tools and in the same way with our couples?

It’s like I don’t need to convince you that Your marriage is important. I’m just want to create the platform where you have opportunities to come I’m gonna make the space you just got to get here and and learn from each [00:32:00] other And that’s what’s cool too is the couples we marry There’s so many stories.

There’s there’s a bride. She recently married who’s I think 27 and already dealt with two three years of breast cancer and their their personal vows were how he supported her through that prior to their wedding day and like Powerful and then we’ve got another couple coming up that she’s a like a dog whisperer and we’re like we want to bring her into these environments with our couples who have fur babies and be like Literally as part of the membership you’re getting free training from one of our royale couples who knows how to give you some tools You of how to, you know, interact with your dog better.

Like, so all across, like, it just, the more you get into people’s stories, the more you see, like, love is beautiful, it’s powerful, it really is unique to everybody. There’s different ways to express it. Um, and then for, for me, the, the other big thing, too, is just seeing the, the, the membership grow and seeing the, the community, um, really encourage each other.

I’m, I’m like, I’m thrilled about that. I’m so excited about the opportunities.

Tim Melanson: Amazing. Right on. So how do we find out more?

Ryan Kingsman: [00:33:00] So our website is, uh, weddingsroyale. com. Um, so W E D D I N G S. And then Royale, R O Y A L E. com. Um, if you do Weddings Royale, it’ll pop up our website. Uh, it’s the same thing for our Instagram as well. And so on our website though, or even if you DM on our, our social media as well, it gives me like, Hey, I’m interested in the, the Royal couples membership or more information.

Um, and so they can find us on there and then we’ll get back to just about next steps and all the exciting things coming up.

Tim Melanson: That’s so awesome. I love your naming of it. Weddings, Roy al and, your Kingsman. It’s

Ryan Kingsman: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, every couple is royal in their own way, man. So it’s, it’s living that out in the daily life is so important.

Tim Melanson: That’s so cool. Thank you so much for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun to the listeners.

Ryan Kingsman: Thank you, Tim. Yeah. Appreciate it, man. Thank you.

Tim Melanson: time when the work at home rockstar podcast.