Krista Seekely of Belle Events
Krista Seekely of Belle Events, a Houston and Dallas wedding planner, joins Kevin Cochran on the Texas Wedding Podcast to talk through planning a wedding in the middle of COVID lockdowns, the early career mistake that still keeps her up at night, and the hot takes the two of them can't quite agree on.
Krista focuses primarily on Dallas and destination weddings for Belle Events, and walks through how the Texas wedding market compares to Aspen, Colorado, where she planned mountain weddings before moving back to Dallas. She and Kevin swap early career stories, including the missing photo list that started her running "Do Better" list, and Kevin's own camera mishap that cost him one of the most iconic moments of a wedding day. They also get into wedding cake waste, Pink Pony Club versus Mr. Brightside, and what most clients never realize is happening behind the scenes on their wedding day.
Follow Krista and Belle Events on Instagram, and catch more conversations with the people moving and shaping the Texas wedding market on the Texas Wedding Podcast.
Want the view from the top of Belle Events? Rebecca Martens, the company's owner, joined the podcast to talk about scaling her team and the flooded tent wedding that put all of it to the test.
The Texas Wedding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Cochran of 718 Creative, a Texas wedding videographer.
Full Transcript (condensed)
Meet Krista Seekely of Belle Events
Kevin: You're literally the first guest ever on the Texas Wedding Podcast. How does it feel? Welcome to the pod, Krista. Do you want to introduce yourself?
Krista Seekely: I'm honored. I'm Krista Seekely, I'm a planner with Belle Events. We're based in Houston and Dallas, and I focus primarily on Dallas and destination weddings. I feel like I'm always on a plane or in the car, but I'm lucky to do it.
Kevin: How long have you been doing it for?
Krista Seekely: I started wedding planning in 2019, and my very first wedding was March 14th, 2020. We're technically recording this in 2026, so that's coming up on six years now.
Planning a Wedding Through COVID Lockdowns
Krista Seekely: That week, people were getting scared. I was living and working in Aspen, Colorado at the time, a small town where things move fast. My client got in on a Tuesday or Wednesday and vendors were already canceling. I told her it was going to be fine, that the people who showed up were going to be there for her, and that's what counts. By Thursday her venue had canceled and we didn't know where the wedding would even be.
Aspen put out a ruling that any gathering of 50 or more people could get your business fined, though restaurants were still open and still at capacity, which was strange. So we moved everything to a restaurant and staggered the vendor arrivals. Some vendors canceled outright. I wasn't even there to manage the wedding day myself, because we were worried about the fines. We got it started and then had to step back and let it run itself. It ended up mostly being a dinner, with some dancing afterward.
Kevin: Are you still in touch with that couple?
Krista Seekely: It was tough. It was a lot of money essentially wasted, and the aftermath was hard. I think everyone learned a lot. My next wedding was that August, and it was a little better, except all fifty guests who attended got COVID. The event itself went smoothly, but then everyone got sick. Still, I stuck with it. It's 2026 now.
Colorado vs. Texas: What Changes With the Market
Krista Seekely: My Colorado clients didn't live there, so I was their boots on the ground for a destination wedding, which gave things some natural boundaries. Here in Texas, clients want to visit their venue every week just to see if anything's changed. You get a lot more hands-on, but people here care so much about their events, especially since Texas guests are used to going to a lot of them, so couples want to give people something unique.
One of the big differences is guest count. These days I rarely see anything under 250 in Texas. In Colorado my average was 100 to 125. It's expensive to travel, but people are more willing to do a destination wedding now because they want the excuse to travel somewhere new.
One thing I miss from Colorado is how many of the venues were built around the food and beverage experience, a real local, artisan approach, locally raised beef, farm-to-table tastings. Texas may not be able to do that quite the same way given the heat, but it gave the location a lot more intention.
Krista's Early Career Lesson: The Missing Photo List
Krista Seekely: This truly haunts me. We send out a photo list ahead of every wedding, all the specific shots the couple wants. I'd sent it to the bride, and she told me she'd sent it to the photographer, but I wasn't full service on that one, so I didn't triple-check it myself. What she'd actually forwarded was just the blank template, no names filled in. The photographer assumed that was intentional. After the wedding, we found out she was missing a lot of the portraits she'd asked for, including one with a guest who had traveled all the way from Italy. There was no way to fix it after the fact. All three of us had a hand in it, me for not following up, the photographer for not double-checking the version, the bride for sending the wrong file. That's the one that still keeps me up at night. If a ceremony starts five minutes late, nobody remembers. But if you miss the shot, there's no remaking it.
Ever since, I review the entire photo list with the couple after they've finished it, then send it to the photographer and review it with them too, just to make sure it's actually made it through every step.
That wedding is also where my "Do Better" list started, a running document of every lesson I don't want to relearn. Things like: always have candles for a birthday cake, address envelopes should use the actual guest's name and not just whoever RSVP'd, plan parking for all your vendors at off-site events, never let a light tech put purple or blue lights on a first dance, and check for ground sprinklers before you let a truck drive over them. It's been going since at least March 2020, and it's still growing.
Kevin's Early Career Lesson: The Reverse-Cycling Fail
Kevin: I was about a year and a half into weddings and still shooting solo, small local weddings. There's a phrase in videography called reverse cycling, where you think you've hit record on the camera but you've actually just turned it off. This was a country wedding in a barn in West Texas, during COVID, their micro-ceremony before the real one. I thought I'd started recording early because I could tell something wild was about to happen. Right as the cake cutting started, everyone ended up in a full-on food fight, cake flying, families jumping in, one of the most iconic moments of their day. I stood there smiling the whole time, thinking I was getting it on camera. When it was over and I went to turn the camera off, that's when I realized the recording had actually just started. I'd missed the entire thing. There was a photographer there, but no other videographer, just me. It was completely gone.
Hot Take: Wedding Cakes Are a Waste
Krista Seekely: I do not like wedding cakes. After all that money and the whole photo moment, I never actually see anyone eat them. A few aunts and uncles come up and say something about them, and that's about it. The rest gets thrown away, or I'll get handed this massive chunk of cake back at the end of the night from the venue asking what to do with it.
Kevin: I agree, unless it's something the couple genuinely cares about. The question shouldn't be what you want your cake to look like, it should be whether you want a cake at all.
Krista Seekely: I'm not trying to put bakers out of business, they do beautiful work when it's wanted. I just think it's a shame how much of it goes to waste.
Hot Take: Pink Pony Club vs. Mr. Brightside
Kevin: I think Pink Pony Club is the new Mr. Brightside.
Krista Seekely: I don't agree, Mr. Brightside is the best song ever, and Pink Pony Club is at least about being your own person and doing what's right for you.
Kevin: When Mr. Brightside used to come on as the last song at a wedding, I felt completely alive, exactly where I was supposed to be.
Krista Seekely: My actual hot take is that Mr. Brightside needs to be cut from wedding playlists entirely. I said during my own wedding last year that I was so happy I got married in the Pink Pony Club era, because it's the best song known to man.
Kevin: The first time I heard it live, at a wedding with a great band and two hundred people screaming it around me, it felt like heaven.
Krista Seekely: My real favorite is Proud Mary. It has everything, a slow build and a full dance breakdown, especially with a good band that stretches it out to six or seven minutes.
What Clients Don't Understand About Wedding Planning
Krista Seekely: On the wedding day we're being pulled in a million directions while also trying to take care of the couple, because we're the keeper of their hopes and dreams. I need to delegate and get everything done while also making sure the bride is getting into her dress. Clients don't see the whack-a-mole of it, someone needs me here, a bridesmaid's dress just ripped, and my mind is in a hundred places even while my goal is for them to feel like I'm a hundred percent focused on them. If they never hear the behind-the-scenes stories afterward, that probably means I did my job well.
They also don't see the volume of back-and-forth that goes into planning itself. What looks like one simple email to a vendor is actually twenty five to fifty emails to get there, and I'm never going to copy them on all of it.
One Thing Krista Would Tell Every Client
Krista Seekely: You've got to let go of who you think you are in the planning process. Sometimes your own perception of yourself is higher than reality, and if you're trying to be someone you're not, it shows. Just be yourself and do things that reflect who you and your partner actually are as a couple, because that's what people will remember. It's not that deep. If you have two hundred and fifty people at your wedding, you're surrounded by people who love you. Take a deep breath. It's going to be okay.
The Shout Out
Krista Seekely: I want to give some love to Emily at Petals Couture. She's a fabulous florist, and I'm always amazed at what she puts together. We have a wedding together in March and I know she's going to crush it. I've never once seen her without a smile on her face.
Kevin: I want to give mine to Ashlyn Sydney Photography in Houston. Her work is incredible, but the real reason is that I first worked with Belle Events because of Ashlyn. She recommended me to one of our early brides, Margie, back when I was way too young to be working a wedding at that scale. That's what opened the door with Belle, and a lot of other things since.
Krista Seekely: I didn't realize that's how that all came together.
Kevin: If I had to guess what was happening behind the scenes, Margie was probably looking for someone she could get for almost no money, and Ashlyn said she knew a guy in Waco. The rest is history.
Connect with Krista Belle Events: https://www.belleevents.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/krista_belleevents
Connect with Kevin // 718 Creative https://718creative.com | https://www.instagram.com/718.creative
Connect with the Podcast https://www.texasweddingpodcast.com | https://www.instagram.com/texasweddingpodcast
