Materializing Emotion

What if wedding planning felt like love instead of noise? We share how a simple meal prep habit with Seared and Sacrum turned into a white glove partnership that raised our bar for every touchpoint—then fueled a bold experiment: a micro wedding expo built for intimacy, intention, and real conversation.

We start with the everyday magic of great food showing up exactly when and how you need it, and the way that reliability reshaped our mindset for client care. We unpack how traditional expos overwhelm couples with crowds, sales pitches, and zero time to think. Our answer was to flip the format. Couples arrived on staggered schedules, walked through fully staged tables and a sweetheart setting, saw a pristine buffet before the first guest touched it, and then tasted dishes that matched the visual promise. Afterward, Adrean from Seared and Sacrum sat down one-on-one to demystify menus, logistics, and costs. The result wasn’t swag—it was trust.

Along the way, we talk about luxury as intention, not price tag: slower pacing, thoughtful sequencing, and space to be heard. We get honest about the emotional stakes too. People cried. Hugs happened. Stories surfaced. That’s the heart of micro weddings—materializing emotion in a room through design choices that reflect a couple’s history and hopes. We also share how breathwork helped us integrate the win instead of sprinting past it, and how our past roles quietly trained us to orchestrate moments that land with a visceral “oh.”

If you’re curious about micro weddings, curated tastings, experiential design, or how to build community-first events in Rochester, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s planning, and leave a review with your dream guest count so we can tailor future experiences.

Music Track: Building Dreams by Aylex Source: https://freetouse.com/music Copyright Free Background Music

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Episode one hundred and twenty three. This is so cute. I can't wait till we're out of our twenties. Twenties. I need to be thirty. Thirty? Okay. Thirty. We're gonna get there when we get there. We have a few more episodes.

Lyssa 0:35

What's in your cup? Oh, margarita. Always ser and sacrum, but they really have a spoiled man.

Barb 0:41

Like super duper spoiled. I love bragging to people about how it just magically appears in the fridge. That part. Because I think that's like my biggest flex. I don't have to do anything, it just comes to me.

Lyssa 0:55

And it was so funny. So Darnell got meal prep last week and he had it delivered to the house. And I got home and there was just like a bag, you know, kind of just like sitting out. And I was like, that's weird. Amazon puts things in boxes. They're just like a bag sitting out here. Um, and then I, you know, I I grab it and it's the meal prep. And my first thought was like, why didn't he give them the code so that way they could put it in the fridge? Like, why is my meal prep just sitting out here when it should be just beautifully placed inside my fridge? Because that is the beauty that I am spoiled with, thanks to Adrian and Anthony. So um, yeah, next time that he orders, I'm gonna give them the code and then welcome to put it into the fridge because it's more impactful that way. It's just, it's such a flex, man. It's such a fucking flex to open up my fridge and just have food be in there ready for me. Good, nutritious, delicious food. Ooh. Just ready for me to consume. We're ready for the commercial.

Barb 1:55

Whenever you guys need, we're here. Call us in, call us in.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Paid advertising is what it'll be at the bottom of the screen. But painted food, though. I don't want money. I just want more food.

From Clients To Partners And Friends

Barb 2:08

So speaking of Searden Sacrum, we had the pleasure of dining with them multiple times last week, which is always favorite weeks. A big flex. We get to have meal prep every day, but then I get to throw in some fun stuff on a Tuesday and on a here, a little there, and call me one happy tubby little girl because minus the tubby.

Lyssa 2:39

But yes, absolutely. I'm down for uh for all the food. I seriously just love our partnership, it has changed our lives, literally. You know, this meal prep, it changes us both personally and professionally. And then when we have this partnership that also is our job, then we also get to eat their food when we do all the events with them. Like, I think it was just the most genius thing that I didn't know I was doing when I did it.

Barb 3:08

The funnel is so good, you know?

Lyssa 3:10

But like now I get to eat your food every single day for lunch, and then I hire you for all my events. So then I get to eat your food at all my events, and then I have all these events because we have this venue space together that we're just killing it, and we're knocking out all of these things together, and it's just all this food and deliciousness all the time. Um, that it's it really is hard for me to cook now. Like it's hard for me to enjoy my food, and I still enjoy it because I'm not bad. I know what I'm doing. It's just not the same. It's not the same, it's just not really decisant.

Barb 3:42

I don't have the right tools, I don't have the right knowledge, right? I no, it's just not the same. Yeah. And so grateful to them for initiating this partnership. Like, this is not something Adrian found us.

Building A Luxury Standard Together

Lyssa 3:59

I know, and I just I didn't even know what I was signing up for. Like, I thought that I was like, oh, I'm gonna have this caterer that I can call on when I have events. Cool. Like I had no idea what this relationship was gonna birth into. I did not realize that I was going to be finding a friend. I didn't realize that I was going to be finding an ally, someone who understands this industry in such a vast, complex way that I could never understand because I've never been in the food and bev industry. But it's so attached to my job, right? Like there is no party without food. You can't, nobody throws a party and doesn't have food. Like those are hand-in-hand things. And at the time where we were at in our business, we knew that was important, but we weren't at the level of like, I'm gonna go seek this out because I need to partner with a specific caterer. We always just kind of said, well, we'll figure out what these events want and we'll find the caterer that does it. And when she came to us and we kind of understood this partnership from a different way, the way that she was explaining it, I was like, oh, so we just do everything together. And like together, we raise the tide and we both go up. Like that is genius. That makes complete sense to me. And, you know, plans take time. And so we've kind of just been in this like here and there, and you know, sprinkled around, you know, I would say over the last year, or say our first year together, you know, that was kind of just like sprinkled there. Um, but I would say over this last year, and especially these last six months of having Slate, we have just now expanded to now it's multiple times a week. We are in events together, we're doing these things together. And what a relationship! Like what a beautiful life that I I thought that I was just gonna get someone that was gonna help me throw parties, and now I'm actually finding a partner that's helping me change my business and my missions and my values to match what the things that that we both want to do in this community. Like that's really freaking cool. And I had no idea that's what we were doing two years ago when we met them.

Barb 6:11

One clue, not one clue. And it started with an email. Yeah. And she sent it, and I was intrigued, and the research began, and I was impressed. I was just by the food on the plate. I'm like, oh my God, like, look at the plate though. Look at that plate is number one, and then look at the food, right? It's the whole thing. It has to be the whole experience. And I think that is why we work as partners so well. That white glove service that I'm going to customer service you through this and make you feel like you're supported and I'm here for you and all of the things. And she blows me away. I love listening to her talk to people. I love them explaining their food to people. And I'm sure this is how we come off to other people, but it's so fucking cool for me to witness it when someone else, because you get it, and that means you get me. And not a lot of people get me, but you get me, and that's why you're my friend.

Lyssa 7:24

And I love it. It is, it's it's that trust building, right? Like I feel like we do, we have a standard, and we do want to have this level of luxury in our business because we are a luxury business. And so you should you need to feel that all the way throughout, from the moment that you are looking at my website and putting in an inquiry to talking to me, to planning your event, to having your event, and even afterwards, after we dissect your event and we talk about it and we have our wrap-up meetings, like the whole way through, it needs to be luxury. It needs to be exceptional, it needs to be intentional. And that means that we can't just partner with anyone. We need to partner with someone who has those same values, those same skills, that same knowledge. And that is seared and sacrum.

Barb 8:10

Like it's just kiss literally put it in 10 and he blows kisses to his food. I know he does. That is the secret song.

The Seed Of A Micro Wedding Expo

Lyssa 8:20

SpongeBob told us that. We knew it. We knew it the whole time. Um, so yeah, that's our our long-winded love letter to our meal prep um and this life, but it is exactly why we partnered with them and why we want to do that. So, one of the things, right, on our list as we are coming together as as one and trying to build our brands um was our micro wedding expo.

Barb 8:52

So I want to pause because in true classic Bar Lisa style, we had no idea what we were doing. And by idea, I meant the magnitude of the importance, the significance. Insert other adjectives if needed. We had no idea. We just knew that this idea came to us, this opportunity presented itself, and I wanted to jump all the way in, and we're really good at that. Yeah. Now go.

Why Traditional Expos Miss The Mark

Lyssa 9:25

We're cannonballers. That's a fact. Um, and once again, our beautiful partner Adrian came to us and she was talking about hosting an expo kind of thing. And it just started small with you know the idea that, you know, they are a mobile catering company right now. So they can't just make one plate here and one plate there. So they're getting their um their micro weddings on. Um, and you know, I think they do other weddings as well. They're not exclusive to micro. Um, but they are booking more wedding clients, and wedding clients want to taste the food. That makes complete sense. That's a part of the thing in the industry. Um, and it's also a part that makes you luxury, right? We are setting that standard. Um, so in order for them to kind of be able to do this and it actually function well and make sense as a business, um, was to do it on a grander scale. So instead of hosting their couples um just one-on-one, they wanted to kind of host a gathering, an expo kind of thing to be able to bring their clients in and have them do a tasting. Um, and they asked us to be a part of it and to, you know, have it here at Slate and to do these things. And we were just like, okay, um, well, you know, now that you just planted this seed, it's gonna go into our brain and now we are gonna grow this. And in classic barley fashion, um, we grew it into this beautiful tree. And it wasn't until it was time to, you know, pick the fruit off that we were like, oh my god, do you know that we just made a fruit tree? Did you know that that happened? Do you know what we just built, what we just grew? Um, and it is such a fire. There is such a fire inside because I am so fucking proud of all of us. There is a market for this. There is a need in our community for micro event spaces, for micro wedding spaces, just in general for the micro wedding industry, that is a movement that is happening, and the wedding industry is not built for that. Not that not the popular, you know, wedding industry, the knots and the wedding wires and all the things that you're gonna see on social media. That is just not what a micro wedding is about. And when these couples are finding themselves trying to curate their dream wedding and they try to go find inspiration, they don't have it because the only thing that Instagram is gonna show you is Princess Dubai's 1,000 guest, you know, wedding event. And like, who's out here throwing those kinds of weddings? You know what I mean? So we just knew that there was something. We knew that we had something to offer. We knew that all of the weddings that inquiries that we get and the clients that we are aligning with are also micro weddings, and we knew that the wedding expos that are offered here in Rochester are all geared towards Princess Dubai's wedding. I want to meet this princess though, I do. I kind of want to know what her wedding looks like. Um, so yeah, so we just were like, okay, well, let's create our own wedding expo. And this is not just a regular wedding expo, it's a cool wedding expo. Of course. It's a micro wedding expo. And what does that mean? That means that it's micro, that means that it's intimate. That means that it's going to be curated for your wedding. It means that you're gonna walk in, and from the moment that you walk in the door, you're going to experience that micro intimate intentional luxury experience. If you would like to get thesaurus and get more adjectives, I'm cool with it. I will add them on for days because that's what we're doing here. You don't get that when you walk into the dome center and there's 200 other couples there, which means there's 400 people plus all the vendors that are trying to sell you and talk to you, and you just run from table to table trying to get free shit from everyone and packing it in and saying, Hey, where's my free food? I just want to taste something, you know, and they're just these little packaged crackers or something because there's no caterers there. That's not what you do there. So it was just this moment that we had no idea we were making, but we created something new here. We birthed a completely different type of wedding expo because we took only a limited number of clients because it's a small space, it's not meant to hold 400 people. You can't just have anyone and everyone walking through here. That's not the point. Um, and we took a limited amount, and we were able to then curate the experience for each one of them. And they each came in at their own time. We each got to talk to them, they got to sit down and talk to vendors, not just run from table to table to table. They got to experience what it would feel like. They got to visually see the wedding tables set up, a sweetheart table set up, and what that could look like for them in this space. And then they got to see the buffet and not just like taste it, they got to see it, see how beautiful this food will look in their wedding before anyone ever touches it. And then they got to taste it and understand that it don't just look good, it tastes good. I'm tasting it again right now. That got name was so good. Like, I just I don't know. Like, I have goosebumps right now, like reliving it because they were able to do that, and then they sat down, and Adrien sat down with every single one of the couples after they ate the food, and she talked about all the things with them and gave them that one-on-one experience that you would not get any other expo. It just wouldn't happen. That's special, that's curated, that's intimate. That's magic, bro.

Crafting An Intimate Curated Experience

Seeing The Food, Feeling The Magic

Barb 15:46

That is mad. Like, I got butterflies in my stomach, right? The reliving it and thinking it. We just got the pictures back from Sue, and I love photographers, man. And I I ingested it, right? Picture by picture, I stopped and I looked at it, and I'm gonna go back into it again because it wasn't long enough. And she captured us with clients. We have never had a photograph of us talking to a real client before in the moment. I can see it, I can see that magic happening. I she took a picture of me taking notes. I'm so diligent with my notes, baby. You're so good at taking notes. Love your notes. You can actually read them after you take them, which is very different from my notes. It's so important. It's like the number one thing with notes, you know? I gotta come back, I gotta read it. But we I love when we curate these moments for ourselves. And right, and we don't even know it. It's only after we experience it that we fully integrate it. Um, I think that's part of the secret sauce. We curate these moments where we get to orchestrate, right? This is our event. Very different from someone else's in the sense of I don't have to please someone else. I get to do all of the things that I know in my gut and that we've talked about that are important, that are exactly the thing that's gonna make you say, oh, right? The aha moment. And damn, we're good at that. We are so good at that. And I can think back to every single job I have ever had, and I can now see it like lights up on the timeline. Yeah, that's where you learn that. You've been practicing that. You've been practicing for so long. I was essentially a store manager for years. You have been telling people what to do for years, yeah, all because this is the magic that we are supposed to bring to the world. This is what I orchestrate, this is what I can do. And every couple felt it and saw it. Yeah, but some couples even shared more intimate things, cried tears, yeah, hugs. Yeah, like when there is a visceral reaction, I did it. I did it, right? I made you feel so safe that you uh shed. You shed it, yeah, and you show emotion, and you had to let it go, and you had to sit and feel it, that this is where you were meant to be. And how great of a feeling is that we did that for somebody, we curated that for somebody, and I won. We won that day, that micro wedding, that first micro wedding expo that we have ever done after only going to two and hating both of them. We learned everything that we needed to know, and then did it and did it so good. We did it so good, yeah, and that is following our dreams, period. That's it. This is our dream to help people feel safe, to help people unlock core memories, to help people show each other love and joy and all of the things that come with events because this is my good.

Lyssa 19:41

We materialize emotion. And I don't think that people make that connection. And I don't think that maybe I made that connection until you just said it. When you said it, when you're talking about all of these emotions, right? That's what I do. An event is materializing the emotion that you feel towards one another. A wedding is so important and intimate because you are materializing your entire love story, your entire relationship, all your experiences that you've had that have brought you to that day where you decide to say I do for the rest of your lives, and you have to materialize it. That has to look like something so people can see it because you can't just tell someone to feel it, only you two can feel it. But you have all these people here that want to share in that moment with you, so you have to bring that to life. That's what I do. That's a gift, and you can go and grab things from all the different stores, and you can buy anything that you want on Amazon, and you can put it on a table, and it can sure as hell look beautiful. But that's not what I do. We listen to our couples, we curate moments, we make memories, we take their past memories, and we design that and we bring them into this, and that's also not something that you can just tell all the time, right? Like you gotta see it, and I think that's really what happened. I don't think I know that that is what happened at this expo. We knew these clients, we knew who was coming in because we curated this, because it was intentional. We were able to speak to all these different clients, and we were able to have these moments with them, and it changes you. It makes it all different. There's new connections in your brain that weren't there before, and I did that. I can't take that lightly, I can't not scream that from a mountaintop.

Barb 21:51

I want to do that all the time. I want to feel that, right? That is my core memory in all of this. And oh, okay. So Monday we did the breath work and visualization meditation. Domin got us again. They did it again. I feel the need to just, oh my God, I can't believe it. So I didn't know what to expect. I love that we just keep going into rooms and are like, okay, we're here. We don't know anything that's gonna happen, but I'm in the room. What the fuck is that?

Lyssa 22:32

Dululu. Shit. It's absolute Dululu. And I think, right, just small tangent, like going back to us cannonballing in, right? Like, why we just go for it. And I think it's because we know that if we stop and think about it, we can think ourselves out of it. And that's not the goal in life. The goal in life is to just go and figure it out and experience it and try. And if it doesn't work, you know, then it doesn't work. But you still have experience and there's things to learn from that. And I think that's why we do that. I think it's just it's a mechanism. We have to jump, we have to go, we have to cannonball because if not, we've learned. Yeah, we've learned then I'll stop myself. Yes.

Photos, Notes, And Proof Of Connection

Barb 23:14

So here we are in the room, thinking that I know what's gonna happen, and then having no idea what actually happened after. So we do our thing, we're in it for a good 50-ish, maybe 45 minutes. I have the visceral reaction. I'm crying. Boohooing. I'm feeling all the feelings, all the things are unlocking and telling me like this is the next thing, and right, all the things. And my my takeaway, no shock. I feel like we've been saying it from the beginning of this podcast and even further be back is feeling is really hard for me. I don't know why. I mean, I'm sure I know why, right? Like that's like, anyways, feelings are really hard. And when we curate magic like that, it's overwhelming. It is so overwhelming to sit in those feelings and like really integrate. I curated this, I did this, this is my gift for the world, and to give yourself that ownership. Much easier to move on to the next project. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

That sounds like classic Bar Lisa too. I got the next thing to do. Okay.

Barb 24:41

And I am realizing at this very moment that we are intentionally tapping in in different moments. We are no longer just like, okay, this really cool thing happened, and that day we're gonna be like, holy shit, that was crazy. And then we're moving on. Now I've almost curated it for myself that I can't just move on. Right now, there are pictures that are coming through. And when I look at those pictures, I'm going to feel something. It's gonna come back to me. Everyone has asked us since like every day. Oh my God, how was the expo? Oh my god, right. We are reliving and retelling and sharing that story because it was so good. I have to feel that more. And I right every time I talk about it, I have to go back and I have to feel it. So look at me integrating, integrating feelings. So brave. So brave. I love this life. At the end of the day, I'm just very grateful to be here and I will continue learning whatever lesson the universe decides I need to learn next. Because at the end of the day, it's hard, yes. Yeah, and it is so worth it. It is so worth it to hear a friend tell me, my god, you guys are so positive. And like you, all of these like good things because I was not this person. Yeah, it's weird hearing that. And I have to tell myself, like, are you that person? I'm like, no, I think so. I think I am.

Lyssa 26:33

I don't think I've ever in in the past.

Barb 26:37

No, people tell me that being so angry. Yeah, and I'm like, what are you mad?

SPEAKER_00 26:42

I'm not angry.

Lyssa 26:44

You know, no one ever described me as positive. Positively so it's not a nickname.

Orchestrating Moments And Aha Reactions

Barb 26:53

So it is like I'm taken aback. Yeah, I'm taken aback by it, and I have to incre integrate it because it is real. If other people see it, yeah, then it is real. And I'm just grateful to be here.

Lyssa 27:09

Because the other seat wasn't so great. And I think that's what we learned in life, right? Like we we didn't like our lives and we changed it. And now we just have this ability to now, if we don't like something, we can just change it until we like it. That you can do that with anything. And we did that with a wedding expo. We went to wedding expos, like you said, we twice, two times, and that was it. I was I was like, I'm never. It was actually setting up the second one that I knew this, I was out. I didn't even have to attend the second last one. I knew in the moment that I was setting up that second wedding expo, this was a mistake. Um and we did. We were just like, yeah, I don't, I don't want that, right? But you know, the girls who said they were never gonna be wedding planners, all of a sudden, like, how do we get more weddings? You know, we gotta figure this out. And to take something that we did not like. We didn't like ourselves, we changed it. We didn't like our jobs, we changed it. We didn't like these wedding expos, we fucking changed it. I made my own wedding expo. And I loved it and it fucking slapped.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

I can't wait for the next one.

unknown 28:28

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

I was planning the next one at this one because I was like, this is so good.

Lyssa 28:33

I can't wait to do this again. And and I'm excited, I'm excited for us, and I'm excited for our community because we have built something that does not exist here. And we had people after we posted it, and I'm sure now after we post these pictures that we got back, we had a couple vendors reach out and say, Hey, I saw that you did that. Can I be a part of the next one? Fuck yeah, you can. Because that's what this is about. Motherfucking community, and we're gonna get together and we're gonna change this wedding industry first here in Rochester, and then we'll figure out where else after. Because I know it doesn't end here. And I I can't wait to do that. That's what I am here to do, and I'm gonna do it, and it's gonna be so much fun.

Barb 29:21

Finding your purpose is wild. It is such a game changer in life, and highly encourage every single friend listening to find your purpose. And I feel like that is such a lotus. Oh, very lotus, right? Like find your purpose. Two words. What the fuck does that mean? Take more breaks, right? I was like, I don't know what that means.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Sure, yeah, whatever you say.

Barb 29:48

Find your purpose.

Materializing Emotion Through Design

Lyssa 29:49

But I think it starts with just saying yes to things, it starts with cannonballing. You gotta cannonball into it because you'll you're never gonna know, and you will always be able to talk yourself out of it. You can talk yourself out of anything, but you're never gonna be able to talk yourself into it. So just cannonball. Find out. I love it. All right, this feels like a good place to love and leave our friends. We actually got a lot of work to do. All right, this is the part where you guys are gonna do all the things. You're gonna like and follow and subscribe. You can follow us on Instagram and YouTube at Marks and Mindset Podcast. And if you're a local to the ROC and you wanna party with us at Homemade Events ROC. Until next time, bye. Get cute.

Barb 30:34

That was the cutest.