Listen to the Podcast About Veil Events
Podcast Summary
In this enlightening episode of Austin Reed’s show, Kaylie Rogers shares the inspiring journey of Veil Events. Veil Events, known for its innovative approach to wedding planning, began as the brainchild of a graphic design student, Lindsay.
Lindsay was inspired to create Veil Events following her own wedding. Initially, she used her graphic design skills to create beautiful, personalized stationery for her friends’ weddings. Thus, she started her first business, Couser Design. However, Lindsay’s passion didn’t stop there. She slowly began to fall in love with the entire wedding industry. An internship at a wedding planning store further cemented her interest in the field and soon enough, she began her own company, Veil Events.
Originally created as a training program for aspiring wedding planners, Veil Events expanded rapidly. As Lindsay states, “I was realizing all these people I knew were like buying my program. They wanted to be a wedding planner too. And I was like, how about instead of you doing your own thing, you just join my team.” Thus, the team for Veil Events was born, now boasting a total count of 30 lead planners.
Veil Events is primarily based around the Midwest, with Kansas City hosting the majority of their weddings. However, the team is quite versatile, operating wherever their planners are located. There are lead planners in Topeka, Lawrence, and Manhattan, Kansas, proving Veil Events to be a dynamic force in the wedding industry.
Austin Reed fondly recalls the first event where he worked with Veil Events at Union Station and saw the impressive scale of the organization. Kaylie Rogers also chimed in with warmly remembered details, underlining just how passionately the Veil Events team works to execute exquisite, memorable weddings. For anyone looking toward a future in wedding planning, Veil Events is the ideal model to aspire to.
Learn more about
Veil Events
This interview was provided by
Felix and Fingers Dueling Pianos
Podcast Transcript
Felix And Fingers (00:25)
All right, well, welcome to the episode today, everybody. Today we have Lindsay and Kaylie from Veil Events. Everybody say hello. What’s going on, guys? All right. So happy to have you guys. Yeah, of course. I’m very, glad to have you guys on. Yeah, so I guess Lindsay, we’ll start with you. Just kind of tell us about Veil Events, how you started, maybe like what inspired you to get you into the wedding and events industry. And yeah.
Lindsay (00:34)
Hello.
Kaylie Rogers (00:35)
Happy to be here. Excited to chat.
Lindsay (00:37)
Thanks for
having us.
Yeah, so I never really wanted to be a wedding planner. It just kind of happened over time. I went to school for graphic design and I also was planning my own wedding during school. So I actually designed all my own wedding stationery. So I did all the programs, invitations, saved the dates, and this was a long time ago, but right after my wedding, I started my first company called Couser Design and I started designing wedding invitations for all my friends. They were all getting married at that time and I was like,
Felix And Fingers (01:05)
cool.
Lindsay (01:20)
I should turn this into a business. started my first company, Just Stationery, started loving the wedding industry. I got an internship at a wedding planning store. And really from there, I kind of started my own thing. And it’s been great ever since. So Veil Events happened because I actually just was inspired by a few other companies on how they had a team.
started my own thing with Veil Events with a training program. That’s what it originally was, was a training program I put together for people who wanted to become a wedding planner, wedding coordinator. And then I was realizing all these people I knew were like buying my program. They wanted to be a wedding planner too. And I was like, how about instead of you doing your own thing, you just join my team. And that’s really where Veil Events created our team that we have now. We have 30 girls on our team. That’s lead planners. Yep.
Felix And Fingers (01:48)
Okay.
You say 30?
my gosh, I didn’t know it was that. That’s crazy.
Lindsay (02:12)
Yep,
we’ve got 12 lead planners who they all take weddings and then we got assistants like day of wedding assistants and then tear down crew who we absolutely love. We couldn’t do it without them. And we’re in Topeka, Lawrence, we have a lead planner in Manhattan, Kansas and then the majority of our weddings are in Kansas City.
Felix And Fingers (02:32)
Okay. Yeah. So it’s, has it always been like a, like a, like Midwest, like, it’s like kind of based around Kansas city type of.
Lindsay (02:38)
Yeah, really wherever our planners
are and where they’re at. We don’t travel too far out. But yeah, we’ve got people in different cities.
Felix And Fingers (02:46)
That’s so interesting. I didn’t know it was like that big of a organization. That’s really, really neat. I remember the first event that I was on was with Kaylie and it was at Union Station. And I believe, I think that was the first time I was with Vale events. At least it was the first time that you hired just me. It was just to come play piano.
Kaylie Rogers (03:03)
Yes!
Felix And Fingers (03:04)
And
I still remember like walking into this just beautiful, just picturesque, like these amazing drapes. And then all of a sudden this lovely grand piano in the middle of just Union Station. And I still have the picture on my Instagram. And every time I scroll past, I was like, my gosh, this was a crazy day. And but I remember walking in there and being like, these guys are for real, like for real, for real. I’ve never seen Union Station this pretty. And then I Kaylie. And, you know, we had a ton of fun at that one. I was super nervous going into that because
Kaylie Rogers (03:26)
⁓
Felix And Fingers (03:31)
Though I’ve played piano for, I don’t know, 20 years at this point, that was the first time I was called on to just like come do this solo. And I was like, this is a really big wedding planner. was like, we gotta make sure that we do a good job here.
Kaylie Rogers (03:45)
But really I’m like the most chill human being.
Felix And Fingers (03:47)
Yeah, then the more I get to like, we work more events with you. I think that we worked a handful, you know, beyond that and then obviously hitched helping hands, which we’ll kind of maybe chat about that a little bit here later. but yeah. Okay. So, so Kaylie, how did you get started on the team?
Kaylie Rogers (04:03)
Yeah, I kind of forced my way in and I never left. So I was a junior in college and I knew I wanted to be a wedding planner, but I was just going to school for journalism and business. so I was like, well, I just needed to know somebody. Like you just kind of have to force your way in. I feel like you just have to know people in the industry. And so I reached out to Lindsay and I was like, hey, do you do internships? And she said, no. I was like, well, moving on.
Felix And Fingers (04:05)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Next.
Kaylie Rogers (04:32)
And then literally,
no joke, was, it was like two to four hours later, she emailed me again and was like, you know what, actually, I need help this Saturday. And I emailed on like a Tuesday or Wednesday. She was like, I need help this Saturday. Can you be there? And I was like, what on earth? Okay. Sure. So I showed up. Yeah. So I showed up that Saturday. It just was so funny to like how quick of a turnaround it was like, Nope. just kidding. Yeah. Like I need help. I feel like we always.
Felix And Fingers (04:48)
What is happening?
Lindsay (04:58)
Yeah.
So, and then on my end, we, at this time with Veil Events, we had like four other planners. It was me and four other girls. The four girls I knew personally, they all had wedding planning businesses and I kind of asked them to join my team. And this was when we really didn’t have assistance on wedding day, which I don’t, I don’t know how we even functioned. Um, so Kaylie was like the first person on the team that I personally didn’t know. So I was like,
Felix And Fingers (05:05)
Okay.
Sure.
Lindsay (05:27)
It was just hard to be trusting people and all that. But I was also, what, six months pregnant. And I was like, you know what? I probably could use some extra hands. I was a little nervous going into it, just being all by myself. And I was like, this is actually perfect. So was like, never mind. I would love for you to come if you’re free on Saturday. Yeah. We do internships now. We now do those. So yeah.
Felix And Fingers (05:30)
Yeah
I take it back, I take it back, please come. Yeah. That’s epic.
Kaylie Rogers (05:47)
Essentially, I got this job. Yeah, like, okay. I know.
Felix And Fingers (05:51)
See, Kaylie,
Kaylie Rogers (05:55)
Yeah, so then I went to the Saturday, to that wedding on Saturday, and then after that, well, so I did an internship that summer, became an assistant, and then I got married right after college in 2020, and Lindsay was actually my day of coordinator. Yeah, so that’s kind of fun.
Felix And Fingers (06:09)
No, I was gonna ask if you had. Okay, that’s great.
Kaylie Rogers (06:14)
And then I think it was like two days after my wedding. I don’t think it was the day after. I think it was like maybe a couple of days after. She was like, okay, so do you want to be a lead? I’m like, yep. And then I was a lead. And then three years ago this fall, and I did it just part-time. I worked at a hotel and I worked at a law firm doing events. And then three years ago, yeah.
Lindsay (06:27)
Yeah.
Felix And Fingers (06:36)
wow.
Kaylie Rogers (06:38)
Three years ago, I quit my full-time job and started doing this full-time and I became our office manager. So, and I have worked together every day for the last…
Felix And Fingers (06:47)
A lot. Yeah.
That’s so much fun. That’s a really, really like just interesting and fun story. So I guess both of you have been in the industry for a good amount of time now. You’ve seen a lot of things. You’ve done a lot of things like I guess from each of you and you can choose who goes first here, but like crazy wedding stories. Just like give me, give me your best and see what you got.
Kaylie Rogers (07:07)
Yeah, I can go first. So there we see a lot. There’s just we see a lot. true. But one of my craziest ones, think this was really early on actually when I was a lead, but I was outside with the bride and groom like doing sunset photos or something. I come in and I smell fire.
Lindsay (07:13)
There’s some we can’t talk about.
Felix And Fingers (07:15)
Yeah, yeah, the NDA’s even
signed, yeah.
Kaylie Rogers (07:31)
Which nowadays, if you smell fire, half the time it’s people lighting their little custom match books and I’m like, cut it out. But I smelled fire and I was like, well, that’s concerning. I ran up to my assistant and I’m like, what’s going on? She, we then figured out. There was a coffee pot on the edge of the bar and the bartender happened to be behind the bar. The coffee pot fell on top of the bartender, burnt the bartender and also fell into a box and started a fire behind the bar.
Felix And Fingers (07:36)
Sure.
Kaylie Rogers (07:58)
And so that was put out while the bartender, he like had to go, he went to the hospital and so the ambulance had to come and I was like, look, the venue had just windows all on the front of it. And I was like, I’m not having all these people find out there’s an ambulance here. So I had the ambulance go to the side street and then we like got him out and we covered it all. But I think my biggest flex is that nobody knew that like, unless you were standing right there when it happened.
Felix And Fingers (08:10)
Mm-hmm.
Kaylie Rogers (08:25)
Nobody knew that the ambulance came.
Felix And Fingers (08:27)
That’s one of my biggest like just amounts of respect for wedding planners are. you know, we, as, as the entertainment, you know, we, we see a lot of the moving pieces and you we, we work a lot like alongside you guys, like with, know, throughout the night and, you know, we don’t hear about all this stuff, but sometimes we see it and it’s just a testament to how professional the Kansas city just seen as with, with weddings. Cause I mean, we’ve had some crazy stuff too, that we’ve seen in the background, but it’s always been handled just perfectly.
⁓ And yeah, that’s nuts. ⁓
Kaylie Rogers (08:55)
Yeah.
And it’s so satisfying
to know that like, well, this, this and this happened, but nobody knew about it, you know? Or like, like I always tell brides, like, like once it gets to your rehearsal, like you’re not making a single decision, you’re not doing anything, you’re not finding out about anything, you are just here to enjoy every minute of the day. And then like a month from now, we can recap and be like, man, you want to know what happened at your wedding? Right. It’s like, yeah.
Felix And Fingers (09:03)
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Yeah. And then a couple of years later, we’re going to talk about it and flaunt it on a podcast.
Lindsay (09:22)
Yeah.
Kaylie Rogers (09:23)
You just, you see so many things. Like I do a lot of teardowns and that’s when a lot of the crazy stuff happens, you know, because the longer the night goes on, the more adult beverages have been had. And I mean, I had one a couple months ago where I thought there was taco sauce on the dance floor. It was blood because people collided and somebody lost their tooth. So, yeah.
Felix And Fingers (09:27)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
You didn’t do a taste test, I’m hoping. Okay.
Lindsay (09:45)
there’s been a lot
of broken bones on the dance floor.
Kaylie Rogers (09:48)
I’m
Felix And Fingers (09:49)
Yeah.
Kaylie Rogers (09:49)
getting bones on the dance floor.
Lindsay (09:50)
things pop out of sockets.
Felix And Fingers (09:51)
Well, mean, you’re
not going hard unless you’re breaking bones. I mean, that’s just, yeah, the band’s not doing their job, I guess, if that’s the case. Yeah, Limsey, what about you?
Lindsay (09:54)
Yeah.
Kaylie Rogers (09:55)
Yeah
Thank
Lindsay (09:58)
Yeah
Well, it’s hard to like think of a crazy moment, but the things that stand out to me when I look back, so we actually calculated a few months ago, we were over, so since I’ve started weddings, it’s been 13 years, we’ve hit, like counting all of those I did kind of by myself, we hit 500 weddings, like.
Felix And Fingers (10:23)
my gosh.
Lindsay (10:23)
with
all available events plus the ones I did kind of when I had my own little thing. So that’s it’s crazy to even like remember all of them. But when I look back at those moments, it’s like the moments where something was either gonna happen or we had to figure out we had to pivot the timeline with the vendor team and be like, hey, we’re gonna change it up a little bit and do it this way. And then it literally ends up being
Felix And Fingers (10:29)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Lindsay (10:46)
way more perfect than what we even planned because of like something that was gonna happen and I’m thinking of like rain or there was a speech that was, you know, 30 minutes long or like, and then when we come in and we’re like, okay, we gotta figure out what to do. How do we change this? Literally in the moment. Those are like the moments that stand out to me. Cause I’m like, my gosh, that was such a rush. Like that was so fun to like have to fix on the spot and just make a fast decision. Like it’s like a game. Like I love it.
Felix And Fingers (10:56)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we have, I’ve had stuff happen to where like my guitar died, like right before the first dance. And it is this beautiful off track song. And it’s like, well, I’ve never played it on the piano, but here we go. And then it ends up being this like incredible moment. It’s like, whoa, okay, I can, we can do these things. This is the improv skills. I don’t want to do it all the time. ⁓
Kaylie Rogers (11:12)
Yeah.
Lindsay (11:23)
Here we
Yeah. Yeah. It is. No, not all the time.
Felix And Fingers (11:33)
But
it’s nice to know that like, right, you have that as a backup. But again, it’s just that it tests that level of professionalism that we have here. And I mean, it’s not like.
Lindsay (11:39)
Yeah. Yeah, we had a wedding
at the Bardeau in literally five seconds after all the guests got down into the main room from being on the terrace downpour. And it was like a hot 15 minutes. I’m like, it’s going to rain. It’s going to rain. Get everyone down. But no one knew it was even going to rain. No one was looking up. Just obviously the wedding planner was worried about it. So it’s not like that. And then we even got the bride and groom out for sunset pictures. We had to change up the timeline a little bit. It was literally perfect.
Felix And Fingers (11:48)
Okay.
Yeah, that’s awesome.
Lindsay (12:08)
Bye bye.
Kaylie Rogers (12:09)
And that’s you
hire a planner.
Lindsay (12:11)
And that’s you hire a planner, because that’s all we do is put out the fires, literally, and make sure your day is going well. Yeah.
Felix And Fingers (12:12)
Thank you.
Yeah
That’s awesome. So this is the question that I always love to ask. So if you weren’t in the wedding industry, you weren’t in the events, anything like that, what would you be doing? What would you want to be doing?
Kaylie Rogers (12:31)
yeah, so that is a solid question. ⁓ I foster dogs. I’m currently have my 24th foster dog and so dogs are like half my personality. My ideal situation would just be like working with a rescue, ⁓ helping all of the dogs that need homes.
Felix And Fingers (12:40)
I mean…
Kaylie Rogers (12:47)
There’s no money in that because it’s all like foster volunteer based. So my money option would be doing like sports events, like the Royals or the Chiefs doing like game day stuff or like events related to that I think would be really fun. Yeah, I think that’s it. Lindsay?
Felix And Fingers (12:56)
Okay.
Yeah.
I feel
like the Savannah Bananas would be such a fun organization to be on their… Everything they do, I see their stuff and it’s like, I wanna do that. It’s crazy. Yeah, yeah, great team.
Lindsay (13:10)
Yes! ⁓
Kaylie Rogers (13:10)
Yes.
And their management is phenomenal. Like, see, you know, like it’s
so, it’s so impressive. So I, okay, yeah, I would work for the Savannah Bananas. I originally wanted to be an art therapist. So that’s, I’m a minor in ceramics, really random fun fact.
Felix And Fingers (13:24)
There you go. Yeah.
Lindsay (13:25)
my gosh, yeah.
Felix And Fingers (13:28)
⁓ that’s cool.
Okay,
shouting out the arts and ceramics here. That’s cool. Lindsay, what about you?
Kaylie Rogers (13:36)
haha
Lindsay (13:39)
So it’s funny because mine’s similar to Kaylie’s because it’s still like an event. Like it’s still events but not weddings. I’d probably, and I love like live music. So I love what you guys do with your band and everything. I think it’s so cool. You guys are so talented. Like it takes so much work to be that talented. I don’t have that talent but I could definitely like be a band manager or like put on like a country music festival.
Felix And Fingers (13:59)
Yeah.
It’s
an important, important role. ⁓ need a band leader. Yeah, you need someone in charge because when you throw a bunch of musicians in the same room, we’re insane. We really are. And when you put us all collectively together, it’s just mayhem. We need someone to manage us. ⁓ So yeah, that’s important. It’s a good one.
Lindsay (14:04)
Yeah, I think it’s so fun.
Yeah.
Yeah, you’re in sync.
Yeah.
That’d be fun.
Felix And Fingers (14:23)
Yeah, what kind of trends do you guys see? I guess like what are some of your favorite trends that you’ve seen this year come across like the Midwest like that are like you’re seeing maybe at like a lot of different weddings or I don’t know, just like kind of favorite trends you’re seeing.
Kaylie Rogers (14:38)
That is a great question personally Obviously, it’s great to be trendy love that you want to you know fit in with the times I’m one that I feel like I don’t really push trends like I I Want my clients wedding to be perfect for them? I wanted to make you know I like I wanted to be their style and just really Reflect who they are as a couple so I feel like I don’t really like lean into trends a whole bunch. I lean into
Felix And Fingers (14:43)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kaylie Rogers (15:04)
How is this day going to be exactly reflecting you? I don’t know. I don’t know if that was…
Felix And Fingers (15:08)
Yeah. That’s a great answer. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that’s it’s equal parts to be like, I feel like you can follow trends and that’s great, but it’s also there’s something to be said about like a genuine and unique experience, especially on the biggest day of your life. I mean, that’s, you know,
Kaylie Rogers (15:20)
Right, ⁓ okay, I will say
color in weddings. I’m a big color gal and for a long time it was like no color and now color is coming back and I’m like, praise the Lord, because like all the just like wild flowers, bright like colors, I’m here for it. Like, and people always say, I want my wedding to be just super timeless, white, white and black, no color. And I’m like, well, color doesn’t expire.
Felix And Fingers (15:30)
Mm-hmm.
Here for it, yeah.
Kaylie Rogers (15:46)
You know, like if you’re gonna do Chevron hot pink zebra print. Yeah, you’re back in 2008. But like if you do, yeah, but if you do, you know, tasteful color, like you’re just, you’re setting yourself apart from others. You know, like it’s not gonna.
Lindsay (15:52)
Bye with me.
Felix And Fingers (16:00)
I feel
like there’s a little bit of the arts and ceramics speaking, when you’re talking about the color. It’s important, I see the nails, I understand, it’s the bright, you gotta do it.
Kaylie Rogers (16:04)
Hahaha
you
Felix And Fingers (16:12)
Okay, so tell me about, do you guys have any additional services? What are some of the things that separate you from other planning services?
Lindsay (16:21)
Yeah, so we offer three different packages basically for planning, full service, partial planning, and then you got your month of slash day of. That’s our main packages we offer. Now we’ve also brought back the stationary. I talked about earlier how I started with that, and now we’re bringing it back. We’ve got an amazing graphic designer now on our team.
You know, we’re working with our clients from start to finish most of the time. They’re asking us all the questions. So it’s like, hey, you know, we’re already helping you a little bit with your design. Let’s just, you know, help you with your stationery as well. So I thought it was a good, a good add on with like imitations. And then we do a lot of just like day of paper. got the place cards and the menus and seating charts. It’s just so convenient. We’ll design it, we’ll print it, we’ll bring it with us on wedding day.
And then now we’re also helping our clients with hotel blocks, which is super nice. ⁓ We’ve started some connections with hotels around the area in Kansas City. And so just, again, more convenience, being able to help the bride with more things that we know she’s gonna need to do anyways. Yeah.
Felix And Fingers (17:12)
Cool.
Yeah.
Very cool. Well, everybody, I wanna thank you guys so much for coming on. Lindsay, Kaylie, I love every event that I work with you guys. Every single one, as you mentioned before, is just unique in its own way. And it’s just amazing every single time. And coming in as a vendor and seeing just a very well put together day and wedding coordination, it’s just a really satisfying thing. Because it makes everybody’s, not just the guests, the bride and groom, but all the vendors lives really easy as well.
and there’s just a lot to be said about that. But everybody, please go check out Veil Events. We will post the website in the description below. But thank you too so much for coming on today. I hope we can do this again. Have a great rest of your day and we’ll talk soon. Thank you.
Kaylie Rogers (18:06)
Thank you for having us.
Lindsay (18:07)
Thank
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