The Bridal Course

Job

Frame the whole thing and make it feel operational, not artistic.

Beats

1. Who you are, what Willow & Jade runs, how many weddings. Thirty seconds.
2. The reframe: bridal isn't a hair skill. It's a logistics business attached to hair you already know how to do.
3. The three questions every inquiry answers, in order: Can I take it (date, location)? What exactly am I doing and for how many? Can I deliver the look they want, on time?
4. Why it's worth it: date-exclusive, priced at a premium, and every wedding is a room full of women watching your work for six hours.
5. The line about expensive mistakes being money mistakes.
6. What they'll have by the end, and one instruction: don't shop for software. You need a form, a quote, and two spreadsheets.

Shot notes

A-roll full, no screen. Shoot last, after you've found your cadence. Open cold. Name the three questions on your fingers so they read visually.

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Job

Turn a contact form into a quoting tool in their head.

Beats

1. The form does three jobs at once: who the client is, whether you can take the job, and what it takes to price and staff it.
2. Event date — the only required field, because wedding work is date-exclusive. Also tells you seasonality.
3. Photos start time — the sleeper field. It's the hard deadline the timeline reverses out from, and it's the staffing driver.
4. Address — travel tier, drive time, parking, outlets, light.
5. Two or more preferred trial dates — you're booking a second appointment right here.
6. The three headcounts (both / hair only / makeup only) — the pricing engine.
7. Is the bride included — required. When someone types "6," that's a whole person of time and money either way.
8. Anything else we need to know — the flower girl, extensions, the long veil, the surprise early first look.
9. How did you hear about us — marketing intelligence you'll want in a year.
10. Inspiration photos — the one beginners skip and the one that does the most damage. Bridal artists specialize; soft romantic waves is a different artist than sleek editorial and full glam. Willow & Jade added this field after putting brides with the wrong stylist. If she submits without them, get them before you quote or assign anyone.
11. NEW — the trial question. "Is anyone besides the bride wanting a trial, for hair or makeup?" with room to list names. This is the field that lets every trial land on the quote instead of surfacing as a surprise later.
12. Close: you now have a quoting tool, not a contact form.

Assets

Blank inquiry form · the same form filled by the sample bride.

Shot notes

A-roll open and close; screen for the middle. Cursor-hover each field as you name it. Slow down hard on inspiration photos and the new trial question.

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Job

The heaviest video. Show that one form submission produces both the price and the schedule, in one sitting.

Beats — part one, the price

1. A wedding price is assembled, not quoted. Build it the same way every time and pricing any bride takes ninety seconds — which is what lets the quote go out fast.
2. Layer one, people à la carte. Hair only, makeup only, and both cost different chair time. The bride sits on her own line, priced highest — she gets the trial, the most chair time, the biggest buffer, and all the pressure.
3. Why à la carte beats a bundle: she sees what she's paying for, it scales from three people to thirteen, and it's nearly impossible to misprice.
4. Layer two, add-ons. Flower girls and juniors at a reduced rate. Extensions, a veil set into the style, a second reception look, the stay-through hour. Anything that adds chair time gets a line.
5. Layer three, travel — charged per service, not per trip, then folded into each per-person rate so the quote reads clean. A party 40 minutes out with 12 services carries real travel money; per-service is what makes a big far-away party pay its weight instead of you eating the drive.
6. The trial is a line on the quote. Not a conversation after she signs.
7. Setting your own numbers with no reference point: start from your chair's worth and make bridal beat it by a real premium · secret-shop three or four established bridal artists in your area as if you're a bride · place yourself on purpose · bride highest, always · a peak-Saturday minimum · a raise cadence with an actual end date.
8. The trap: "party of eight, nine hundred dollars." Hides your math, invites haggling, guarantees you misprice.

Beats — part two, the timeline, built from the same form

9. The one fixed point you don't control is the photographer's start time. Everything reverses out from there.
10. One hour per service. Then the lever beginners miss: total time isn't the sum of all services, it's the sum divided across your chairs.
11. The staffing formula: people ÷ hours available = stylists you send. Nine people in three hours is three stylists. Flower girls book at 45 minutes.
12. Bride in the last round so her look is freshest — but inside the buffer, never after it.
13. Pad in three places: 15 minutes before the first service (setup), one hour per service (cushion in each block), 30 minutes before photos (insurance).
14. Why you build the timeline now and not later: the stylists working that wedding also have salon clients that day. You can't leave their hours open until the month before or you're blocking bookable time on the floor.

Assets

Quote built live from the sample bride's form · G1 pricing stack · G2 timeline back-solve.

Shot notes

About 4 minutes of A-roll; the rest is screen. Shoot in two takes and cut — don't try for one pass. Let them watch the number and the schedule assemble.

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Job

Show the actual document, and make speed and a deadline both feel normal.

Beats

1. What the bride receives: one branded quote carrying the schedule, the assigned stylist for each guest, the itemized pricing with the trial on it, and the payment schedule — plus a view-only contract and the script email.
2. Naming convention: "Bride's Name MM/DD/YYYY." This is what ties her file to her row on the master sheet.
3. Every price on the quote already includes travel. No separate travel line, no surprise mileage math.
4. The payment schedule is three dated buckets: booking fee at signing, trial at the trial appointment, balance on the wedding day. Same total, no surprises, and the operations stay clean.
5. The response window, two different clocks. You reply to every inquiry inside 24 business hours. She gets a stated window to accept — 72 hours is a good default — because you may have two other parties wanting that date.
6. Why speed wins: a bride inquires at five places the same afternoon. The one who sends a clear, itemized, professional quote while she's still in planning mode books at a rate the salon that "calls to discuss" never touches.
7. The trial-first option, stated here: she can sign and pay the booking fee before the trial, or do the trial first and decide after. Say it plainly in the first email — it lowers the risk of saying yes, and almost nobody ever walks.

Assets

Finished quote PDF, both pages · the script email.

Shot notes

Talking-head bookends only. Show the file name in the tab so the naming convention lands visually.

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Job

Prevent the two most expensive failures in bridal.

Beats

1. Nothing is real until the signed contract and the 50% booking fee arrive together. Not one. Not a verbal yes.
2. The story that makes it land: Willow & Jade double-booked a date once, before that rule was ironclad.
3. Call it a booking fee, not a deposit. There are legal rules around the word deposit, and "booking fee" reads as earned rather than returnable.
4. The policy: 50% of the wedding-day services, applied to the balance. Refundable more than 90 days out, non-refundable within 90. Transfers on a reschedule if you can accommodate. Extraordinary circumstances case by case at management's discretion — a door you choose to open, not a right she can demand.
5. The money is held, not spent. The booking fee sits until the wedding, then pays the stylists alongside the day-of balance. Say this out loud; it's why the trial is billed separately.
6. If she does the trial first and walks, you refund the booking fee minus the cost of the trial. Willow & Jade has never had to.
7. The rules that protect the day: final headcount 72 hours out, reductions until then, full contracted amount owed after. Late arrivals: $25 at 15 minutes, forfeited but still charged at 30. Overtime $75 per stylist per hour.
8. Card on file isn't convenience — it's how the balance charges on completion instead of you chasing a party that scattered. Cash or check that morning is fine; the card stays on file either way.
9. The second story: a previous coordinator rang up a booking fee wrong and there was no shared record to catch it.

Assets

Contract clauses on screen (booking fee and cancellation) · G3 booking rule.

Shot notes

Mostly A-roll. Tell both real stories plainly. No drama.

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Job

Show that the back end is a naming convention and two sheets — and that one of them has to be visible to the whole desk.

Beats

1. The test: anyone at the desk has to be able to answer, instantly, where a bride is in the pipeline and what she still owes or needs. If that takes a phone call or someone's memory, the system is broken.
2. The per-bride file — quote and schedule, named "Bride's Name MM/DD/YYYY."
3. The master sheet — one row per bride: inquiry in, booked, contract signed, booking fee paid, trial done, final headcount, stylists assigned, balance status.
4. The failure that created this rule: when only the bridal coordinator could see the sheet, a bride would come in for her trial saying she'd already paid and whoever was on the desk had no way to check. It made the salon look disorganized to the client.
5. Before your first booking you need five things: the inquiry form, a quote template, the shared master sheet, a contract, and the file-naming convention.

Assets

Master sheet with 6–8 fake rows in different states · the per-bride file.

Shot notes

A-roll open and close, screen for the middle. Tell the trial-checkout story — it's why the sheet has to be shared.

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Job

Short and concrete. Not technique — logistics.

Beats

1. What the trial is for: dial in the vision, document the look so it's repeatable, clock how long it actually takes, and tell the stylist what to pack.
2. What the bride brings: her veil if she's wearing one, any hair accessories, and her inspiration photos.
3. How long to book: an hour and a half for hair, and she gets two different styles in that window. An hour and a half for makeup.
4. The stylist who does her trial is the stylist who does her wedding day. That's the whole point of assigning at the trial.
5. What you write down: formulas, product, pins and placement, and the real execution time — that last one feeds the timeline on the next wedding you price.
6. Required for the bride on every service she books. Anyone else in the party is welcome at the same rate — and if they want one, it goes on the quote up front.
7. A trial does not hold her date. Only the signed contract and the booking fee do.

Assets

Optional 10 seconds of a trial in the chair.

Shot notes

A-roll full. Shoot this one first. Five minutes, pure protocol — the cheapest place to burn your first reps.

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Job

The full day-of protocol, start to finish. Most of this came out of the Aug 12 call and isn't written down anywhere yet.

Beats

1. The day before: the group check-in. One Slack thread with everyone working that wedding — where they're going, what time, and emergency contact numbers for the bride and the venue.
2. Venue recon. If nobody on the team has worked that venue, go see it first. Willow & Jade knows most of theirs; the one they didn't was a golf course with hotel rooms and no front desk, and it took a call to the bride on the morning to find the room. Recon is also your best chance to introduce yourself to the venue's event coordinator — that's the relationship that turns into referrals.
3. Kits. Every artist carries their own: tools, product, extension cords, mirrors. Standardize what's in it so nobody is packing from memory at 6am.
4. Arrival. Fifteen minutes before the first service, not at first-service time. Claim the spot with the best light, outlets in reach, stations laid out, kit unpacked before the clock starts.
5. The staffing formula, taught properly — this is the piece a first-timer has no way to guess. One hour per service. People ÷ hours available = stylists. If a party has eight people and only two hours, that's four stylists, not two.
6. Hair and makeup run in parallel. One hair artist plus one makeup artist means two guests are being served every hour. More people sent means more people fit per hour. Stagger so nobody is needed in two chairs at once.
7. One person owns the timeline and everyone else executes against it, reporting to the desk in real time so the plan adjusts live.
8. Round every service up, never down. Flower girls and juniors run shorter — book them at 45 minutes to an hour and finish early. That's the safe direction to be wrong in.
9. Touch-ups before you leave. Ask everyone if they want anything curled or pinned before you pack up. It costs ten minutes and it's most of what they remember.
10. The stay-through option. Brides do ask for a stylist to stay through the event. Have an hourly rate ready so the answer is a price, not a hesitation.

Assets

G2 timeline back-solve reused · a photo of a packed kit.

Shot notes

Mostly A-roll. Say the staffing formula out loud twice, in different words.

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Job

Stop the panicked first-timer from blocking off their Saturday.

Beats

1. The governing rule: the wedding comes off the floor, but the salon never bends around the wedding. The salon opens normally, runs its normal book, and never blocks off.
2. It's a staffing split, not a schedule change. Bridal artists go off site; stylists who don't do wedding work stay and keep the salon running.
3. The two-hour rule, with a real example: an hour away, finished by 11:30, salon open until 5 — two stylists drove back and finished out their day. If there's less than two hours left before close, the drive back isn't worth it.
4. This is why the timeline gets built at quote time, not the month before. Those stylists have salon clients that day, and you can't hold their hours open indefinitely.
5. Cap weddings at what your bridal team can staff while still covering the floor. Willow & Jade runs one per day. For most owners starting out the math produces one.
6. How to graduate: every filled per-bride sheet logs actual execution time. After a dozen weddings, swap the flat hour for your real numbers.

Shot notes

A-roll full, no assets. Shoot second. Use the real example — an hour out, done at 11:30, two girls back by 1.

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Job

Close the loop, then close the course. The follow-up email is where the next three brides come from.

Beats

1. There's a follow-up script and it goes out every time. It does four jobs.
2. Check that she's happy — and catch anything that went sideways before it becomes a review.
3. Ask for the review. Ask specifically and ask once, while the day is still the best day of her life.
4. Ask for her photo gallery. This is how you get professional bridal photos without hiring a photographer. Her photographer already shot your work.
5. Ask for her vendor list. Every name on it is a venue, a planner, a florist, or a photographer who now has a reason to know you exist.
6. Then the first-bride problem, answered honestly: your first bride doesn't come from marketing. She comes from the chair you're already standing behind. Willow & Jade's first year of bridal was clients they already had and people those clients knew.
7. The real first failure of a salon adding bridal isn't bad marketing, it's silence. Their own loyal clients get engaged and book someone else, never knowing the salon they love does weddings. So: tell every engaged client, ask every client if they know someone getting married, make sure the front desk mentions it.
8. Portfolio from zero: existing clients with permission · beta pricing for likeness with a set end date · styled shoots with a photographer, florist and venue, which also builds the vendor relationships. On your first few brides, shoot everything.
9. The minimum bridal Instagram: a handle that ties to the salon · nine to twelve posts of real bridal looks · photos that look professionally done, because a bride reads your grid as a proxy for her own wedding photos · a bio with the link straight to the inquiry form · highlights covering a trial, a real wedding, and how to book. No posting schedule, no reels. It's a standing business card.
10. Close the course: the build order is form, quote template, master sheet, contract, naming convention — then start telling people.

Assets

The follow-up email script · the bridal Instagram grid and bio.

Shot notes

About 6 minutes of A-roll, the rest screen. Hit "silence" hard. Close the course here.

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