SPEAKER_01 0:22

She has a viral dumpling.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

I am always playing with something. I want the one that's like I was playing with that the other day too. Alrighty. Let's get in today's episode about AI and the wedding industry. Yes. I'm Ashley. And I'm Jessica. And welcome back to the IO Files.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

We are we have a lot of just things that are kind of exploding in our local wedding industry with AI. And it's pretty diabolical what transpired so far.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yeah, it's pretty it was fast, but it had been happening for a very long time. Is what I've been what people were saying is that it was it had been happening with a specific person for a very long time, but where people just are scared to say anything and not open up about it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Well, and and then this person was also like sending out like C synthesis, I think. So um, you know, that's not like not scary for somebody like a small entrepreneur. So I guess it just, you know, it just really kind of made a lot of us feel like how are we gonna kind of control this within the reach that we have, and you know, like just from our like small areas of the industry here.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

So Ashley, can you go into more detail kind of about what happened a little bit? So because I think not everybody is all knows what's going on, but within a brief we don't want to see some desist.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

We don't want to see some desist. So essentially what has come out within the last month or so is there was a local photographer who was is, I guess, relatively known in between vendors at least, and they were allegedly taking other photographers' work and then manipulating it with AI. Uh, in addition to that, they were also allegedly just completely creating images with AI, and it was like an exorbitant amount. Um, and photo stealers did do like an insane blog on it. If you haven't heard of her, you should definitely go check her out. It's stopped stealingphotos.com, I think.com.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Oh, I just know I just followed it like crazy.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah, I think it's stop stealingphotos.com. And not only did she cover this, you know, she put in so much work into that story, but also other people who are out there like scamming people basically. So this is all alleged. This is not no one's been like convicted or like charged with anything, as far as I know. So this is just like something that happened recently, and it's something that I was already speaking with potential clients about, you know, people that I talked with at different shows in January, or people who've inquired with me every time I've had a call with somebody. It's been part of that conversation because the I, you know, I don't care if you book me or not, I just like want people to be aware of like what's out there and what to avoid. And we already know like there's other certain things to avoid, like large companies, they're not typically paying people well, they're just grabbing people off the street, like wherever, like whoever can go shoot it, whatever. Um, so we just are out here trying to do our due diligence to inform people on what to expect from an actual professional.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

I think the thing too is I after this whole thing kind of blew up, I you know, we had tons of photographers at our venue, and I think a lot of them were saying about how some photographers use only AI to like add presets on all their photos to make it quicker and make their it their process streamlined versus this wasn't taking and they were still individually going through every photo and checking and doing this. This person was manipulating photos, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

So there's there's definitely a huge difference in what this person was allegedly doing. So allegedly again, alleged, she was not only stealing people's photos and then changing them with AI programs, like she was like putting possibly her own couples into different landscapes, or I'm not exactly sure, you know, because I don't yeah, I don't know which one. We don't know the whole story, yeah. Yeah, but and then like there's one photo from my friend Ashlyn that was a like overhead drone photo of a location. Yeah, so pretty. Allegedly, she took that photo from her Instagram page and then edited it with AI in a way that made it look like it was you know a different setting, same same location and everything, same exact composition. There were like certain things about like the grass that were exactly the same, but the people that were in Ashlyn's photo weren't there, it was different people in the photo, and then there were like added like like huge like florals around that photo. So and it was obviously pretty, it would have been great if it was real.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yes, oh, it was a stunning photo, and I think that's the thing too, where it gets hard for some couples probably to know the difference is you know, how do you know the difference between these AI photos because they are getting so so good and so real, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

And I think the big one of the biggest things that I've noticed just for myself, my own eye, is that if it's probab if it looks too good to be true or it looks like too beautiful, it probably isn't real, unfortunately. Yeah, not saying that those kinds of weddings don't exist, they absolutely do. People do spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on weddings, but is that photographer that you're looking at consistently photographing those kinds of weddings, or is it a one-off? Is it like here and there? Yeah, because people also photographers also are there's a huge industry in photography where people will set up styled shoots, which is where you know, a group of vendors will get together, they'll like plan this whole thing to make it look like a wedding. It's not a wedding, they'll like have photographers come pay to photograph there, and that is uh supposed to pay for like all the material and things. Uh, there's people who scam people in that too. They scam photographers in that. Um stop it. Uh so there's just a lot of in the service industry. I feel like there's not a lot that's regulated, and so it's just it's with anything, I feel like it's with hire a contractor for your house. It's this, like, it's not only just in the wedding industry, but it's happening, you know, everywhere. And we do need legislation put in place for AI. We need legislation put in place for data centers, it's getting out of control, and there's lots of people that were already talking about it before, and I think a lot of people get caught up in like the like cute little oh my god, like here's a version of me created based on like what this AI knows about me, which can be really dangerous, yeah. Um, but also now, in addition to people creating things that are completely not real, there are data centers that are using up our water resources trying to keep these like servers like cool enough to handle the load of image image creation. Also, AI is learning from images that already exist out in the universe, like on the internet, photographers' work, artist work. So it's it's not like AI isn't like coded to like creatively think of things itself. It it just like takes data from outside sources, outside everything else, and then gives you a what you're asked for, yeah. Right, or a version of what it thinks you're yeah, asking for.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

So I think one way that another way that potentially couples can tell that it's is if they're not tagging the vendors that it was in that photo. That's what I noticed. Like our at the venue, we always get tagged and or collabbed. And so, like, that's how you can verify too from like I know this whole scandal happened within the photo world. Um, but like with us, like you can go to that photographer's page and then see that they have tagged all these vendors and then go to that vendor's and double check, like double check that work. And if that's correct, then you know that's a real like wedding. They've called some photos.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yeah. So in in addition to that, uh, we'll, you know, we're gonna get into other ways that you can kind of vet your vendors. Um and it just the thing that makes me annoyed about it is that it creates extra work for people who are having to do that themselves. Like if you don't have a referral from somebody or you don't know somebody who like recently got married where you visited, you get to see someone work in in person, then you're having to do like extra work just to make sure that you're not going to get lied to. Yeah. So that's the thing that really annoys me about it. However, we want um we want people out there who are planning their events or whatever, their weddings, their 60th birthdays, to know how to kind of look for those signs that something might not be real. And one of those things is a website. So they should have a website, and this is for any vendor. If they don't have a website, it's usually even if you're a flag.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Even if you're a small business personal, like just started off, they will always have a website, and they might their what's that word? The um galleries or yeah, portfolio, there's the word might be small, but at least like they'll have that professional-based website and generally professional vendors will have a website.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

You might know of one person somewhere that doesn't, and they're getting work just fine. They might just work off Instagram or whatever, but generally having a website is key number one. Uh, key number two would be that website doesn't look too good to be true. You know, not all the photos look exorbitantly, you know, like there's not like these exorbitant floral installations on in every single photo. Yes. Um, you can also right-click on images or and like save them or copy them and then put them into Google's reverse image search, and it can tell you like if that photo came from somewhere else, if it's AI generated. Interesting. Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

That's a good way for couples just to see if they're yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

And if you hover over, I I don't know if it still does this actually. Sometimes if you hover over an image, it will show you the file name.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Oh, I've heard something like that in an email though.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Maybe. But if you like save it, if you like right-click and try to save the image, it'll tell you that it might also say the file name. I'm not saying that you should save images off people's website. Yeah, no, it's a lot of work, you should just copy, you know, also like it's that person's work. Yeah, you know, probably. So we don't want to encourage you saving other people's work or anything like that, but the best that's like a good way to tell if somebody's using like a lot of stock images, like if their website is mostly stock images and they're advertising themselves as a wedding photographer, then you probably wouldn't want to inquire with them because you don't actually know if they can perform the service. So the same goes with like AI generated images. If their website is full of AI generated images, they're probably not going to show up to your wedding day, or if they do, you might not get the results that you were expecting. Yeah, so those are just a couple ways that I've been sharing with people on how to like vet people themselves.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Another one, too, and this is more on like the photography world, is you can ask for galleries. Yes, and if they're only sending the certain galleries, you can ask for more to prove that this is your work and show all of that. And the more galleries and the more they look very similar, that's another way that you can tell. Like there's no difference in galleries, right? Because a lot of photographers have certain styles, they don't vary styles throughout weddings, they're very consistent with it because that's how they like to like photograph a wedding or events or in general, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Also, the galleries should reflect the same tones and overall feel of the images that they're posting on their website, they're posting on social media, it shouldn't look completely different, it shouldn't feel completely different. So absolutely, I mean, that's also like something we don't always talk about a lot is like how does this image make you feel versus like does it look pretty or does it look pretty?

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

So um, I I'm always happy to share multiple galleries with people. I think that that's something that you should absolutely be doing, no matter what vendor you are. Like, you should have a portfolio to show people so that they can see what your work is like, and then there's no like misconceptions about what is expected or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

And I think couples on the venue side, I think couples that are getting married, I know there's always a whole like, oh, do you go off their vendor list? Do you not go off their vendor list? But a lot of times venues have already vetted a lot of vendors, and it's for your benefit. So that's another way to be like, hey, do you have a couple photos from them? So you can cross-reference if you're really thinking that potentially it might not be the same. Like we get galleries too. Yeah. So in the photographers or vent DJs, videographers, there's a reason they're on that list because they know that space, they know them as people, not as just the screen, in a sense. So that's another way is like talk to your venue and see what they have to say because they're gonna have like firsthand experience with these as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Right. And that's another thing with referral-based you know, people is that AI in the wedding industry is not just um interrupting photographers' work, it could literally be any vendor, yeah. It could be the florist, it could be the planner, literally anybody could be generating or using AI images and making it look like work that they've done. It's very true. Not just, you know, photographers or videographers, or I mean I guess video might be a little bit more difficult, but did you see the I just saw a video posted on YouTube Shorts where it was like, who's the guy from uh my god, Twilight, Edward Collins? Oh yeah, and Robert Pattinson. Yeah, and it's like the characters of from the movie are input into the McLemore and Ryan Lewis uh thrift shop music. Oh I saw yeah, so and that looked almost there were still things you could definitely tell that weren't like real about it, but there's some of it that looks legit, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

I think too so since I'm on the venue side, I've not that it was AI, but I had a a bride who did like it was a definitely a styled shoe, but then she said um she wanted this whole look, but you know, it's like a singular photo, and her and I actually got talking about the AI in style shoot world of the weddings and how it can create an unrealistic expectation out of a wedding. Yeah. The one thing I did have a bride do, and she sent it to me, and I thought it was actually kind of cool, is she took pictures of like the florals because they had made like a mock-up of the florals for her wedding. And we actually had a wedding with that exact color linen on there, and I sent her the photo, and AI had generated it for her so she can get like a sense of like, did she like this, did she not like that? That was cool because for some couples who are very visual, sometimes they need that, but it's not meant to be for like marketing in a sense of like how this is what my work was. This was for her to say, Hey, I took a picture of a florist that she did it in front of me, and then the venue. And does this look like I what I want for my wedding vision? And if it's not, then you alter it, you make different changes. That was kind of cool, but I think there's a difference between that and other like the different side of AI.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Sure. I don't, I mean, I don't think AI is all bad. I think, like you had mentioned before, there are definitely tools available to people in every form, I feel like, now, uh, especially app form that utilize artificial intelligence in in photography specifically. The way that most photographers might be using AI is in terms of culling software. Um, there's software called Aftershoot, and it culls through photos for you, and then it determines it like puts them into categories based on what you want it to do. So if you're like, I want all the blurry photos to be marked as red, then it will like do that. Or, you know, everybody, every photo where people's eyes are closed, I want that to be blue.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

So you can easily call it yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

So it's just like a way to categorize images. I don't use a software like that, I just call through the photos yourself, myself. Yeah, it's I use narrative select and it's just it's really quick anyway.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

So um there's like positive and negatives to everything, you know. But I think this the scandal that was going was because it was being used allegedly for her selling purpose.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Like that, like that was her her work and her selling and her saying I'd photographed this, I did this, I created this, and that wasn't actually what was happening.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

So and like I like there's you know, we use a everybody uses AI in different ways. Like for us, sometimes if I don't know how to answer a difficult email because what I'm trying to say is not being coming from my brain to my fingers to type it out. Right. Sometimes on our little thing, it says, like, would you like to try to the AI response? And most of the times I won't use it because I'm like, that's not what I really wanted to say, or if I just need to beef up what I was trying to say to sound a little bit like if it was a difficult guess that we're working with and I had to respond to not so nice email, like make me sound nicer and not super blunt and short and to the point kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

But I think a lot I think a lot of people are, I mean, grammarly is an AI software that I've been using for years because it corrects your grammar. Your grammar, and it's actually taught me a lot, taught me to like remember a lot of things that I might not have been um so thoughtful about before. There's also AI assistants out there. We know Alexa literally is artificial intelligence, Siri, Google Home, Gemini, Google Gemini is like similar to ChatGPT. I think ethical-wise, I left ChatGPT because of their leadership and what their leadership was getting into, and I didn't like it, so I left chat, and I have since used Gemini if I need to. Um, and that's just like for I mean if I like need an idea for something for like um not an idea, but like I'm just gonna switch it to like occasionally I'll use gym. Gemini instead, you know, I've liked using Google Gemini, and then because my work phone is a Google Pixel, I get Gemini for free. You know, it's like included anyway. So if I need a quick answer to something, I'll type it in there. Yeah. And of course, everything in moderation is correct better, you know. But the way that I think certain things are going with AI, it is a bit too much, I think. So, and I don't think that people want to be bombarded with AI anymore. Like, I think a lot of people are just over it.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

And I feel the same way. Like, we I'm on our pool board, like our swimming pool board. And when I was creating all of our like event posters, I used Canva and I like hand-dragged everything that I wanted in the image. I didn't just like have AI create it because one, you can totally tell usually when you're like creating something like that. And two, I wanted it to have a personal touch. I wanted it to feel like we actually put work into this, you know, and like the board together has worked really hard in providing a fun, safe environment for our members. So why would we stop at that something so small? You know, and I I enjoy doing it.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

So we do that too. We have one person who does all of our marketing, and like any email blast, she is sitting there dragging, typing, all of that, because she likes to put that extra little like our touch onto it, and like how we like to format things, right? And she will spend an hour sometimes, and then she'll ask my opinion, and then I'm like, what about this? And she's like, No, I'm like, sorry, you know, because it's uh it's for her, it's it's also the satisfaction of doing it and completing that task and right not feeling like kind of sometimes took the easy way just to get it faster.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Yeah, so I guess we'll see where it goes from here. But if you are looking for a specific vendor, feel free to reach out to us. We have a long list of people that we would happily recommend for things in the Chicago area, but also I know people all over, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Your your vendors are all over. Mine's limited, but I know I'm excited because I think it's next month. A planner friend that I met at Wedding MBA, she gets married. Oh, that's and she's out of California, and I follow her like religiously, like I'm like heart, heart, heart, all your stuff. She was so sweet, but yeah, your your vendor list is very state statewide, so mine's like area-based, so we have them all.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

I do. I I feel that's from my mastermind, is how I've like met most of those people or just like traveling, like my friend Lane, who's content creation, yeah. Shout out Lemon Creative, she does content creation in out of Austin, Texas. So if you're down there and you need someone. Oh, the one you did the wedding with, yeah. And she's fantastic, yeah. She's she looks so sweet, and she also just got married, really.

unknown 25:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Um, so we're yeah, we have a list of people we should like help. Yeah. If you guys need somebody or whoever's like listening to this right now.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

If you've ever had an AI story, send it to us. We'd love to hear it. Put it out on this podcast. Yeah. If you've experienced a vendor, you know a vendor friend, let us know. I want to hear it.

unknown 25:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Because I was very blinded. I was like, I feel like I'm in my own little bubble sometimes. And when I heard about this, I was I went down the rabbit hole of trying to see it, find it all, and the disbelief as well. I think because like we I didn't think that would ever come out. Moral of the story is pick us as your vendors. Just kidding. We would love to work with you guys.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Yes. So really, I mean, if if you are planning your wedding, I feel like this whole time people who are planning their weddings are trying to do their due diligence, but now it's just there's that extra level of careful that is out there. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how to like it sucks. It's like the people who go and like buy up the viral things and then like try to sell them on marketplace for three times the amount. It sucks like that.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

And it's like you can't really control it, you don't know how to vet it, not vet it, but like what's the word?

SPEAKER_02 26:54

I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

It's like you don't know like where, like how to give advice to, in a sense, because it's like it always is changing. And right, if it's not this, then it's gonna be something else later on. And you know, the wedding industry is always growing, vendors are always like now. We have content creation, we never used to have content creation, so things are always going to be changing and evolving, but it's making sure that when you are evolving that you're still kind of staying back to your roots and like who you are, and then couples that are coming into the shopping the vendors that you can vet them and make sure that you're not you're getting what you're putting your money into right as well.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Um, and we all know this at the end of the day, after your wedding's over, all that you have is the photos and the video. If you do video, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I have had to do some reshoots before.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

So, oh yeah, you have. There was even somebody who reached out to me to do a reshoot.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Yeah, I had one, I had two since I've been at this venue, but I don't think she ended up actually booking a reshoot that one. Well, no, she didn't, but we were talking for a minute, and then I had one because the photographer didn't show up the day of, so they sent an assistant photographer, and the couple was mortified by their photos, so they kind of knew photographer and did a whole shoot. And this was like the first year at this venue, so I was like, Are we able to do this? How does this work? What are we supposed to be doing? Luckily, the owner was really, really nice, and was like, we can set up a whole table and they can get like one detail shot, yeah, make it work. And we did like a sweetheart table, so it made it look like it was their table for photos and everything, so it was really good. But yeah, I've had a couple that are like, I booked this photographer based upon X, and I got totally different than what I was expecting and had to do reshots, so that was not fun for them.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Yeah, I think I mean that that's also something that's not essentially new, you know. It's just like now it's easier to make yourself look illegit.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

With the AI aspect in it. So just looking carefully at things. I know you might feel rushed sometimes going into booking vendors if you are you know planning something. So just taking your time to laugh things, I think.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

I did. I spent three months on a DJ, nine DJ calls later, and I'm in the industry, so like I know a lot of them, but I still spent a long time. Toto was the only one I didn't do much research on because I knew exactly who I wanted. So it is, I mean, take your time, do a lot of research, hop on calls if they're within your budget and get to know them, get to know let them get to know you and your style and what you want. And don't be afraid to ask hard questions. Yeah, I get hard questions all the time on tours. Um I I've got some of the answers, not all of them. The parking spot question still gets me.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

What parking spot?

SPEAKER_00 30:02

I always ask how many so how many parking spots do you have? Oh, and every time I forget to go out there and count how many parking spots, and then I get that question again.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Do you want me to do a drone photo?

SPEAKER_00 30:14

So I can count them. I don't know, it's not that I don't like to like for me, I don't want to make up an answer and lie. Like, I'd rather know the answer, but then I forget to go out because somebody asked me that question because that question comes up like once every three months, and then when that happens, I'm like, I need that answer. I forgot it.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

I'm surprised the owner doesn't know.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

I just never asked him. Oh it's one of those where like the question gets asked, so I'm like, hmm, I actually don't know that answer. I should know that answer by now.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Just so you guys know, she still doesn't know. I still don't know.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Maybe by the next podcast, I might go count the slots now just to not look at him like imagine you out there. It's like one and two three. 270.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

We know the two seventy parties. How much does a restaurant hold?

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Oh I know party-wise what it holds. Like in a specific room. Yeah, because each room, like party-wise. I don't know how we do restaurant style seating for every room. Because it's less than that. It's like the parties because of how we do tables are different than if we do it restaurant seating, because there's more tables, like little tables, six, fours, twos, eights.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

I don't think I've ever seen the parking lot like completely full though.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Saturdays in the summer. With the wedding, absolutely. We're parking behind the building.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

But when we had that wedding last July, it wasn't we were there early. I guess, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

You gotta like go out at like six o'clock, where a parking attendant is like running like a madman.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Just driving by. Well, and it's like not everyone's gonna be eating there at the exact same time. Yeah, like people, there's the ebb and flow of the restaurants, it's just a large wedding. I like how we've gotten so off track that now we're talking about parking spots, parking spots.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah, thanks for opening up this file with us. We'll see you next time on the aisle files. Bye.