Listen to the Podcast About Wanderlust Weddings and Events
Podcast Summary
In this engaging interview with Eventful Endeavors, Ali Simcho, co-owner of the renowned Wanderlust Weddings and Events, sat down with host Jon Brewer to talk about her journey in the event industry. Ali’s passion for both baseball and weddings was sparked early on during her time in the catering sector at PNC Park. This passion became a reality and translated into becoming one of the most sought-after Pittsburgh wedding planners.
Ali shared a throwback to her teenage years when she was thrilled by the uniqueness of a wedding at the PNC Park. The blend of her sports interest, coupled with a satisfying encounter with a grateful bride and groom, triggered her love for weddings even though she had never been one to fantasize about her own wedding.
A turning point in Ali’s career was the planning of her sister’s wedding in the Dominican Republic. Despite the challenges faced due to language barriers and intricate details, the experience brought out Ali’s love for event planning. Encouraged by her then future brother-in-law, Ali and her sister dove headfirst into the wedding planning industry.
They launched their business, Wanderlust Weddings and Events, a year after the memorable destination wedding. The name Wanderlust was inspired by their fondness for travel and echoes the unforgettable destination wedding that kick-started their journey together in the same year.
This inspiring tale showcases Ali’s journey from her teenage years, carefully navigating the event industry, to co-owning Wanderlust Weddings and Events – one of Pittsburgh’s premier wedding planning companies. It’s a clear testament that passion, coupled with dedication, can transform one’s life and career. Learn more about Ali’s unique journey with Wanderlust Weddings and Events on the Eventful Endeavors podcast.
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Wanderlust Weddings and Events
This interview was provided by
Felix and Fingers Dueling Pianos
Podcast Transcript
Jon Brewer (00:24)
All right, hello everyone. Welcome to this edition of Eventful Endeavors. I’m John with Felix and Fingers. And today we have Ali Simcho. She is one of the co-owners of Wanderlust Weddings and Events, one of the premier Pittsburgh wedding planners. Ali, thanks for being with me today.
Ali (00:40)
Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m excited.
Jon Brewer (00:43)
So we always just like to start off this industry that we work in and find out what brought people to it. ⁓ how did you end up being a wedding planner?
Ali (00:53)
Yeah, always a fun question. I started a catering slash waitress job when I was 16 years old for the Pittsburgh Pirates. I have worked at PNC Park now for 20 seasons, which is insane because I’m, you know, only 25, right? Yeah, been there for 20 seasons, going into my 21st season. I was waitressing, catering.
I, during the off season, worked a lot of corporate parties at PNC Park, a lot of weddings at PNC Park, ⁓ and I remember seeing a seating escort table with Pittsburgh popcorn on it, and everybody’s ⁓ or seating chart number was on a Pittsburgh Pirate ticket. And I remember thinking, this is super cool. It was like,
my love for sports and my love for baseball, but also just like the wedding aspect in general. I felt super excited and like super happy that just like the bride and groom came up to us at one point and we’re super thankful for the serving staff. And I remember just feeling so much excitement and joy in that setting for the first time. Obviously the pirates the last 20 years have not been, ⁓ you know, too kind to us and the excitement factor.
you know, there was a couple of good years in there that I’ve been there, but the wedding aspect really just brought so much joy, like joy and happiness, ⁓ to me in that setting. And I remember just thinking I love weddings. Like I was probably 16 or 17 years old at the time. ⁓ was never a girl that thought about her own wedding day, but I feel like seeing it from that perspective on the behind the scenes aspect, I just really enjoyed it.
⁓ In the meantime of me waitressing and serving for all the years that I was in school and in college, my sister was in Cleveland, actually in college. She had finished college in Cleveland. She’s six years older than me. ⁓ She had an education degree and had a really hard time finding a job. So she decided after 10 years of living in Cleveland to move back to Pittsburgh. ⁓ When she did that, she met my now brother-in-law,
and we planned their wedding in 2014. It was in the Dominican Republic. There was many language barriers, lots of like, what is a pink rose versus what is a blush rose? And I remember thinking, this is the stuff I got excited for so many years before, right? Like the small details, the behind the scenes planning aspect.
Jon Brewer (03:28)
with you.
What is it?
Thank
Ali (03:45)
And after my sister’s wedding, which was one of the most fun weeks of our lives in the Dominican, ⁓ my brother-in-law was like, you guys should do this. ⁓ And we thought about it for a little. At that time, my sister had a handful of friends just starting to get married. So we had planned bridal showers here and there, some bachelorette parties.
And then I really just kind of dove head first into saying like, I think we could do this. And that’s kind of how it started in 2015. So she got married in 2014. And then about a year later in November of 2015 is when we kind of had a handful of weddings under our belt and we kind of launched our business.
Jon Brewer (04:30)
And that was about 10 years ago. ⁓ So tell me, there’s a lot of wedding planners that we work with. It’s always so-and-so’s name, like Jane Smith’s wedding planning, ⁓ Jane Smith’s events. Tell me about the name Wanderlust. How did you come up with that to tag your company?
Ali (04:46)
Yeah, so being that my sister got married in the Dominican and just our love for travel in general, think that we, one, knew that because there was two of us, we didn’t want to use our names. Again, just my brother-in-law, who is very much in the business aspect of this, and he is one third owner of Wunderlust.
⁓ What if we get to a point where we want to sell our business? What if we get to a point where, you know, we don’t want to do this anymore? I think that I was like, okay, it can’t be attached to something as permanent as our names. ⁓ But with Wunderlust, you know, our love for travel, our love for the beach, planning destination weddings. I mean, we do plan weddings ⁓ all over the world. So we’re not, you know,
privy to just being in Pittsburgh. have a lead planner now who actually lives in Sarasota, Florida. And we do, you know, as long as you’re willing to pay for us to go, we’ll go anywhere. But our our tagline has kind of become traveling through life one celebration at a time. We feel that a lot of the clients that we work with are, you know,
Jon Brewer (05:53)
Thank you.
Ali (05:58)
start to finish with their lifetime events. So even though we’ve done a Brattoshower wedding, we roll into gender reveal parties, we roll into first birthday parties, fifth birthday parties. So we’ve learned over time, a lot of our clientele kind of stays with us. ⁓ And that’s kind of where I came from.
Jon Brewer (06:19)
Yeah, and that actually leads to my next question because obviously weddings are probably the majority of what you do, but ⁓ talk about some of the other events that you do. say you do birthday parties and gender reveals and what are some of the main events that your company helps plan?
Ali (06:34)
Yeah, I would say a lot of times we do have return clientele, right? So if they love their wedding planning experience, you know, a year or two years later, you know, here comes first baby. And that’s when people are really excited about, you know, the gender reveal things that people are doing now or the big baby showers. ⁓ We do do corporate events as well. So we do have a lot of return clients.
for things like holiday corporate parties. That’s always a big one. ⁓ But yeah, we are open to planning, you know, micro weddings, intimate small parties. We do, you know, personal dinner parties, 30th birthday surprise parties. Like I think that luckily people are realizing more and more how many small details go into planning events like this. ⁓ So, you know, any event, or small, I have, you know, friends reach out.
And yeah, we’re really open to planning whatever, but 90 % of our business typically starts with the wedding planning process.
Jon Brewer (07:35)
Now, there’s obviously a lot of different places ⁓ nationwide, but specifically in our market here in the Pittsburgh region for weddings. ⁓ You’ve lived here a lot longer than I have. What are some of your favorite venues in the Pittsburgh market where when you walk in ⁓ before the first decoration is put on the put out, you know that this venue is just something special about it.
Ali (07:57)
Yeah, so the Audrey is a good one in Cannonsburg area. It’s not super far for me in the South Hills, which is nice because the South Hills is definitely lacking ⁓ some of the bigger venues, but the Audrey is a really well done one. It’s, you know, pretty modernized, super pretty without having to do a lot, which I really like. ⁓ Winter Garden downtown also super pretty, super very like modern black and white, a lot of natural light. ⁓
You know, the staff there is great food and you know, bar is all included, which is nice. We kind of like that exclusive, you know, walk in and here’s what the price is for kind of all the big things, which is nice. ⁓ Monaco is always a great one. Those are probably my three more city like ones. Pittsburgh Botanic Garden is amazing. It’s like indoor outdoor out in the Oakdale area, which I also love.
They have a ton of great caterers on their preferred vendor list. So that’s probably a good one too, just for the kind of garden feel and not so much city industrial like feel.
Jon Brewer (09:05)
No, obviously we do we do entertainment for weddings and as musicians we’re always ⁓ figuring out the newest songs or you know the stuff we used to do that doesn’t work and the jokes we used to tell that we have to update. In the last 10 years, ⁓ what are some of ⁓ the newest things that you’re seeing kind of people want for their weddings that maybe they wouldn’t have asked for 10 years ago or how is how things changed maybe over the last half dozen years or so what are you seeing that you didn’t see 10 years ago?
Ali (09:35)
would definitely say the line dances have seemed to gone out. I have a lot of people who were like, you know, we don’t want shout or we don’t want the YMCA. ⁓ But, you know, there’s a couple of millennials who were like, we need a good Cupid shuffle or we need the wobble. ⁓ Yeah, I would say tons of Taylor Swift, obviously, tons of like instrumental walking down the aisle to Taylor Swift’s wildest dream. Like those are things that I’ve been seeing more frequently.
but I would say overall, the, the best thing I’ve seen in 10 years is probably the
ability to like play more personal like songs on a live entertainment aspect. Like I feel like, you know, quartets and musicians, two piece, three piece are definitely something that 90 % of my couples want now, which I really enjoy. Like
There’s so many churches where they’re like, hey, we have an organist and that’s what most people use. And I’m like, okay, what about like an electric violin or a piano, like something different? ⁓ And I’ve just enjoyed kind of seeing that growth, because I feel like there’s so much more than, you know, just your basic church organ. But I also am loving a lot of the non-religious church weddings now. Like, I think that it’s very…
up and coming that more and people aren’t getting married in church. And I think it just gives you a little bit more of a personal aspect of like, you know, every Brad for a million years walked down the aisle to Canon and Dee and now it’s like, what could you do that can just be different and make it, you know, more fun, more yourself. You know, people doing things like Wicked for their first dance and it’s choreographed, right? Like just something that’s
Jon Brewer (11:21)
You
Ali (11:27)
more personal and not so much like this is what you do because everybody’s doing it, you know?
Jon Brewer (11:32)
I actually don’t remember the last wedding I’ve done where I played like Here Comes the Bride or Canon and Dee where that used to be. If you knew those two songs you could do just about any wedding. So yeah, we’ve seen a lot of that as well. So this is a fun question and don’t pick anything that any of current clients are currently doing. ⁓ What are, because we all have this, when you are planning a wedding, you’re working with a client, what are some of your absolute like
Ali (11:39)
Yeah.
Every wedding, yeah.
Jon Brewer (12:02)
I’ll do that if you want me to but what are your cringiest wedding traditions that you wish would stop?
Ali (12:09)
Definitely the garter toss and the bouquet toss. Those are two of the biggest ones where I’m like, it’s cringy 80 % of the time, like no one left is single. So it’s always just like, why are we doing it? Yeah, the whole like groom up the bride’s dress. I’m always just like, I don’t know. They’re like sweaty and don’t have clothes on. Like it’s just always not my favorite thing. It’s pretty ick. Also,
Jon Brewer (12:29)
It’s like grandma sitting over there, you know?
Ali (12:39)
probably like the bridal dance ⁓ where people bring out the shots and you take a shot and you get a dollar to dance with the bride. Not that it’s not a nice gesture to have everybody come up to like dance with, know, bride or groom, but I think it just takes a lot of time. Like it’s a lot to like choreograph, getting people to where they need to be, getting the shots ready, working on the money bag. I just like prefer that people not do it. Cause I think it’s like a whole.
Just like a buzzkill to the dance floor, trying to get everybody where they’re supposed to be. And then it just eats like a lot of time. So those are probably the two bigger things where I’m like, I don’t typically recommend them. And if you want to do it, you know, I’m here to help you to make it happen, you know.
Jon Brewer (13:26)
Oh yeah, we always say, we wouldn’t do that, but you’re the client, so they’re allowed to do what they want.
Ali (13:31)
Yeah, even just from like a timeline standpoint, like when they’re both introduced in, like trying to get the first dance out of the way and trying to get them to cut the cake just so they can be seated and things can kind of start moving for dinner. ⁓ So many people are like, we don’t want to do our first dance before dinner or we don’t want to cut the cake before dinner because it doesn’t make sense. And I’m like, from like a venue standpoint of like catering, removing the cake and then cutting the cake, like these are things that make sense.
But you always have some pushback and people are like, this is what I want to do. And I’m like, okay, that’s fine. And then, you know, it’s just something we have to figure out in the timeline with how it works. But I would say most of our couples pretty much just trust like how we kind of run it. This is like a timeline, you know, template, go through it and see if you like it. And usually it’s fine. But ⁓ yeah, always just depends on like the food service, how the food’s coming out. Is it several courses? Is it stations?
You know, those are all things that we kind of have to figure out to make sure that all those things make sense.
Jon Brewer (14:30)
So you have a couple, they just got engaged. What’s your best advice to them? Their very first step, what should they be doing?
Ali (14:37)
Guest count, guest list for sure. I think that people don’t realize how much it actually costs to invite one person or a couple. And I think it’s the most important part to understand where you can have your wedding, how much space you need, and then really just understanding your budget, obviously. So like they kind of go hand in hand and I think those are two of the most important things.
⁓ I have tons of people who were like, we picked a venue first, but this is how many people were at Guesswise. And then I have to say, like, unfortunately, this is how many people the place holds. So like, you kind of got to start thinking about, you know, is it worth removing people, thinking about how important some of these people are to you? I remember the biggest thing for my parents was, you know, this is how much money we are going to contribute to your wedding. And then when they started to wanting to invite
you know, essentially strangers to me, I’m like, okay, so like, this is how much it costs per person, and this is how much you’re going to have to pay to invite, you know, this person from your job that I’ve never met. So yeah, just thinking about the importance and then what it costs per person. I remember specifically saying to my mom, like, I don’t want my husband to have to meet people for the first time at his wedding. Like, I just don’t think…
that’s ideal and realistic. So that helped a lot just saying like, as long as it’s people that like, we both know in some regard, I’m fine with it. But anything above and beyond that, like this is what it costs per person. And I think people were shocked to hear that like a decently nice, somewhat luxury wedding in Pittsburgh.
Jon Brewer (16:05)
So.
Ali (16:26)
You know, when all is said and done with flowers and decor and food and booze and the cost of the space and the cost of the chair, you’re looking at, you know, five, six, seven, $700 per person. ⁓ and I think that frightens people because all they’re thinking is like, what do you mean? Like food and you know, food is 110 per person and the booze is 35 per person. And I’m like,
when all is said and done, when you get that final number and you divide it by the 150 people you invited, it’s a lot more than the plate of their food. And I think that math is important.
Jon Brewer (17:03)
And as far as like people ⁓ seeking out the services of a wedding planner, ⁓ let’s talk time frame. Like what’s the absolute earliest that you would want to talk to somebody about that versus what is the shortest crunch time? Like, if they called us inside of this window, there’s no way we could pull it off.
Ali (17:24)
Yeah. So the nice thing about my team is that I have about 13 other employees who are at least day of coordinators or lead planners. ⁓ so I would say the shortest I have done is about six weeks. I’ve had clients panic call and basically say, you know, I’ve done all of the things, but we need somebody there for the day. I could typically make that happen. I definitely have a team, ⁓ being that my sister owns a business with me.
We do usually have at least two or three weddings in a weekend, ⁓ but that’s not every weekend, right? So the fact that one of the two of us can typically go to another wedding, we do have a wonderful full-time employee, shout out Renee, ⁓ you know, between the three of us, typically one of us can show up to a wedding and essentially coordinate it. In terms of like full-scale planning, I usually say 18 months to 12 months out is ideal.
if they have just gotten engaged, if they don’t have a venue yet, if they don’t have vendors yet. So I would say 18 is like where I would like to be for more full-scale partial clients a year at like the least if they do need a lot of that help still. But in terms of like month of day of coordination, I would say, you know, we’ve done it in three to four weeks without wanting to, but you know, we certainly can.
Jon Brewer (18:51)
Fantastic. And if anybody is listening to this podcast, Ali is offering $200 off her services if a package is booked before March of 2026, correct?
Ali (19:03)
That is correct, yep.
Jon Brewer (19:04)
Very good. So thank you for taking care of our listeners. Well, thank you so much for your time and letting us inside the world of ⁓ your wedding planning. And for anybody listening, services at wanderlustweddingsandevents.com is how you get in touch with Ali and Wanderlust Weddings. And thank you so much for your time today.
Ali (19:25)
Of course, thank you, thanks for having me.
