CHOOSING YOUR REFLECTION
TITLE: A Gift to Ourselves - Terry B. McDougall
DURATION: 35:42

Getting married is an event that holds a different meaning for everyone. For some, itÕs based on religious traditions, and for others itÕs a validation of an earlier choice they made to live with that special someone they love.Ê

Hi, IÕm Lauren, and welcome to Choosing Your Reflection; a series of discussions that reflect upon the reasons we have for choosing our wedding day outfits.Ê Our guests are diverse, but they all share a common journey.Ê

As they share their stories, theyÕll help us unravel the mystique that exists around choosing that special outfit, and what they learned about themselves along the way.

Lauren: It has been said that marketing helps you understand the human psyche better and since Choosing Your Reflection focuses on the psychology behind what you wear on your wedding day, we're so excited to have Terry McDougall with us! 

As host of the Marketing Mambo podcast, Terry taps into her thirty years of corporate business experience in her conversations about trends in the marketing world. She's also an executive and career coach, as well as the author of the Amazon bestseller Winning the Game of Work: Career Happiness, and Success on Your Own Terms. Welcome Terry! So happy to have you!

Terry: Oh Lauren, thanks for having me! I'm excited to be here! 

Lauren: LetÕs just jump on in! The first question that I have is, when you think about your wedding, what do you think is the first thing that pops into your mind? Like the first image or the first thought or story or even a word?

Terry: Well, the first word that pops into my mind is pride. Because my family didn't really have a tradition of having big, fancy weddings and my husband and I really wanted to have a celebration of our wedding. And we made it happen, even though we weren't really in a position É I was actually in graduate school when we got engaged, and were planning the wedding. And so we had a lot going on. 

And he had actually just started working the year that we got engaged. He had just gotten out of college and started working. So we had a lot going on and we made it work. You know, we envisioned something that we wanted and we made it work, and I'm still so joyous when I think back on that day.

Lauren: What exactly was different about other weddings that you had experienced in your family?

Terry: My mom had to drop out of high school when she was 16 years old, because she was pregnant with me. So she and my dad went to the church and just got married. And I've seen one picture of her in her wedding outfit. And she wore a blue suit to get married. 

And my sister who's right next to me, and I'm the oldest, but my sister that's a couple years younger than me got married first. And she actually just ended up going to the courthouse and getting married to her husband. 

My sister, that's the next one down, she and her husband went to Las Vegas and eloped. And she got married just a little bit before I did. She had kind of thought about planning a wedding
but we just didn't really have a lot of support from our parents to you know, they weren't going to write a big check to have a wedding. And, you know, I went to many of my friendsÕ from college weddings, and I wanted that kind of wedding. You know, I wanted to have a nice church wedding and a nice reception with dancing and dinner and drinks and all of that kind of stuff. And my husband and I, we agreed, and we were like, ÒOkay, we're gonna make this happen!Ó And we did.

Lauren: Was there a theme involved? And then how did you carry that theme into what you wore that day?

Terry: I had a vision of what I wanted. I actually was getting my MBA at the University of Maryland, and my husband and I decided that we wanted to get married at the chapel there, which is really picturesque. You know, it's sort of like one of the, you know, points on campus that they often do like postcards and stuff like that, it's really pretty. And we actually spent the night outside in order to be at the front of the line so we could pick our date. They've got like this whole process that you have to do in order to pick your date. 

But I wanted sort of like the classic traditional wedding, you know, would just get married and kind of a church or chapel and then go from there to the reception place where it was nice. You know, we got married and, or we had our reception in a hotel ballroom. You know, nothing super fancy, but just like different from everybody else in my family. 

I wanted to have flowers on the tables, and flowers in the chapel, and have your classic white dress. And the funny thing that I mean, I went with my husband to pick out his tuxedo. And he picked a white dinner jacket with black slacks. And it actually É I didn't make him pick that but it totally reminded me of whenever I was a little girl and there was a game called Dream Date. And the dream date, that's how he dressed. He had a white dinner jacket, and black pants on! And so I suppose in some ways, I got sort of my little girl ideal wedding day!

And, you know, I also É I mean, I'm only five foot three, so I'm kind of petite. And when I went to pick out my dress, I was thinking that I was going to get like one of those mermaid dresses -- like I was going to be all like completely, you know, glamorous and all of this. And I didn't think that I was going to want a lot of ornamentation on the dress either. But once you start trying them on, you realize it's almost like the dress picks you. 

The one that I ended up picking had a lot of you know, crinolines and a lot of netting in the skirt and appliques and sequins and stuff in the bodice. And I É if I had seen that on the rack, I'm not sure that I would have said ÒYeah, this is the dressÓ but once I tried it on I was like ÒWow, okay, I guess this É I guess this dress picked me!Ó

And at the wedding. It was funny because a couple people said to Scott and I ÒYou guys look like the couple that should be on the top of the wedding cake!Ó because we just sort of looked like the cute little, I guess, ideal image of a bride and groom! And that's what I wanted! You know, I didn't want to do anything like super crazy. I just wanted something traditional. For a lot of people that would just be like, ÒOh, it's just a wedding.Ó

Lauren: One of our former guests Ð her name is Brandi Sea -- she's a strategic designer. And we talked a little bit about how a lot of brides before their weddings -- and grooms and people just in general getting married -- they don't really know what kind of strategic story they want to tell going into their wedding. Not that many people are thinking that when they're about to get married. But that a lot of the times what you wear tells a story, regardless of whether you planned for that or not. And clearly you're sort of structuring slowly for me this idea that you wanted something traditional. Do you think that's true or do you think there was another story you wanted to tell with your dress?

Terry:  Yeah it's funny because I've looked back on many aspects of my life. And the more I tell my different stories the more I understand it myself. And I do think that I was making a statement. I didn't understand it at the time, but I definitely was making a statement that I'm breaking with the tradition of my family, which is that people didn't have a lot of control over, how they started their life with their new spouse, right? 

Like, I mean, my mom's was an unplanned pregnancy, getting married at such a super young age. She didn't get the opportunity to go to college. Neither of my parents went to college. And, you know, I was actually the first person in my family to graduate from college. And, and so I really was kind of making a break from sort of that blue collar upbringing that I was in. 

You know, I went to a pretty elite college. And there were, I mean, the things that for me, were like, ÒOh, this is, this is like my aspiration!Ó For other people itÕs just like, ÒWell, of course, that's what everybody does.Ó And that wasn't what everybody did. But I wanted to, you know, make that step into this is going to be normal for me and my family going forward. 

Lauren:  You're marketing yourself almost in a way É

Terry: Yeah!

Lauren:  É and make that connection of how, you've pushed yourself beyond your family's limits. And now you're marketing your expertise. And you're who you are as a person moving forward, not only as someone who's getting married, which is a transition in life but also someone who's saying, you know, ÒI'm not gonna follow the same path.Ó

Terry: Yeah IÕm not going to be limited by, you know, what came before. We wanted an open bar. Some people will do like cash bars to try to save money, and we were paying for the wedding ourselves. And, also, I wasn't working full time because I was in graduate school full time. But we just really wanted this and so we figured out, you know, I think we put a lot of stuff on credit cards and just paid it off later. 

But you know, we wanted an open bar, we wanted a full dinner, we wanted flowers on all the tables, we wanted little favors for everybody. We did it up then the way normally people do like your traditional wedding. And, you know, I did a lot of things myself. I mean, I worked in marketing before. I was a graphic designer so there were a lot of things that I did myself. 

And that's, you know, I am somebody who's creative, and I like clothing and color. And, you know, that's all important to me. You know, I do believe that symbolism communicates things. I understand that on sort of an instinctive level. I'm not even sure that I consciously understood it fully but I knew É like there was something inside of me that was like, ÒOkay, I want this to be nice.Ó

Lauren: It's been happening for years now. But that trend of like having hashtags for your wedding or having a theme of the, you know, this is the Òglitter bash: or É I'm just making stuff up, but like, there's always some sort of slogan for your wedding where they push the two names together or É you know, so that it's so closely tied to branding, and people don't really think about it because it's like, supposed to be fun but É 

Terry: Well itÕs a merger!

Lauren: Yeah! 

Terry: Right? It's like, okay, there are two people coming together. Who are they going to be after theyÕre together? I got married in 1995 so this was before then; the internet was such a big thing. In fact, we had, we had those little disposable cameras on every table, and boy was that fun once we got them, got the pictures developed, people were doing a lot of fun things and taking pictures! There was definitely a party behind the party that we got to be privy to when we developed all those pictures!

Lauren: I wonder once you got to that day, once all of the work had been done, like when you walked down the aisle or walked into your reception venue, what kind of emotional experience were you having at that point?

Terry: I finished up business school and got married nine days later. And so you know, leading up to the wedding, I was going through all my final exams, final papers, final presentations, and graduation. And so I had a lot of stressful stuff going on leading up to the wedding. And I just kept telling myself ÒNo matter what happens that day, we're going to be married at the end.Ó I was just trying to keep it in context, right? 

And I'm so glad that I kept that in context. And I remind É I kind of had that mantra in my head leading up to it. Because the minister that married us, like the chapel had certain people that are, you know, kind of allowed to perform there, perform weddings there and so I picked from their list. And we met with this female minister, and she had sort of almost like a Chinese menu type approach to like, how she put together the, the ceremony. And you could kind of pick for it, you could change things if you wanted, but she had certain prayers and readings and stuff like that, that she suggested, and you just kind of picked them. 

And I realized during the ceremony when my husband and I were up there exchanging vows that she skipped a whole huge section. My father-in-law was supposed to come up and do a reading and we were supposed to have a couple different things. And the next thing I know she's like declaring us husband and wife and you may kiss the bride and I was like, ÒWhoa!Ó

And you know, it's funny because my husband he was like just so nervous that he didn't even realize that she skipped this whole section. But I did and I just said ÒOh well, more time for pictures!Ó And I was really glad that I kind of had already prepared myself for the fact that everything's not going to go according to plan. 

But I just felt great that there were so many people that came to see us. Lots of relatives and friends came in from all over. And then at the reception, when we walked in, I was just like so giddy! You know, it just felt really wonderful to walk in and have everybody É knowing everybody who was there was there for us. 

Because I'm not, you know, I'm not somebody that typically likes to be the center of attention. And I'm very used to being very self-sufficient. And so asking people to come and spend money and take time and come and be there for us. And they did. It just was really thrilling. And very joyous day; it was fun! It was lots of fun.

 It's one of É it was a day that I probably felt the most loved in my life. Because not only the love for my husband, but just everybody who was there was there for us. It felt great. I'm so glad. I'm so glad that we that we gave that gift to ourselves.

Lauren: Community is so important. To allow yourself to receive love is also something that's difficult for some people. As you said, it's hard to walk É hard to be the center of attention. Hard to be the person that everyone's focusing on. So I think it's a great way to put it as a gift to yourself to allow yourself to be sort of the spotlight for a day. It's okay. That's a good thing. 

Terry: Yeah!

Lauren: Beyond the emotional success of the day and the love that you received, do you think you learned any, strangely, any business lessons from that experience of having done all of that work?

Terry: I donÕt know, I'm just like a natural organizer. I'm just somebody who thinks about like, ÒOkay, this is our goal. What are all the steps that have to that you have to take beforehand?Ó And I find that stuff fun. I think a lot of people find it stressful. I found it really fun. And it was like a good distraction and very satisfying to do that instead of, you know, working on my finance project for business school!

In my career previously before I became a full-time coach, I would plan big multi day conferences, you know, with big resorts and stuff like that, that had a lot more moving pieces than a wedding.

Lauren: Women historically, kind of in that vein, sort of get forced to take that leadership. But it doesn't sound like that was something that you were forced to take. It sounds like it was something you enjoyed.

Terry: Yeah. And my husband would have had a hard time pulling it away from me!

Lauren: But sort of on that note, I'm also someone who likes to plan! But not everyone feels that way, especially people getting married and lots of people get married. So do you think that that sort of traditionally forced role of leader in the wedding or at least in the planning side of things, the minutiae, do you think that some women who don't enjoy planning struggle to embrace that role?

Terry: I would imagine, yeah, for sure. Because I know I've worked with a lot of people professionally, who, you know, they, they knew that they wanted to do an event and I'm talking about, you know, at work and they knew that they wanted to do an event and they would engage me or people on my team and marketing to do it, and they'd be really, you know, anxious and nervous about ÒOh my goshÓ like, ÒWhat's gonna happen if this happens and blah, blah, blah?Ó

And for me it never worried me or rankled me because I've done so many events that, you know, you understand where the potential pitfalls are, and you plan for that. But for somebody who's never been through it before, I can't even imagine! 

And then also, I think society just puts so much pressure on like, ÒOh, it's gotta be a perfect day, it's gotta be a fairy tale dayÓ and all of that kind of stuff. And, you know, that's part of the reason why I just kept telling myself, like, ÒLook, whatever happens, we're just gonna be married.Ó That's the objective of this day right? 

And, and now I kind of look at, I don't know that this was kind of my philosophy at the time. But over time, I've learned that, you know, sometimes things are gonna go wrong, and you're gonna have a really good story to tell when they go wrong.

Lauren: So I wonder as a coach, how do you help people move forward with their careers having their outside of career skills developed, but also in career as well?

Terry: Well, I mean, I always start with ÒWhat's your goal?Ó Once you get really clear on what your goal is É I'll just use my one sister as an example. We had kind of this overlap of both being engaged. And she was talking about planning, and I was trying to, like, kind of jump in and help her with that. And so, the bottom line was that she wasn't clear on her goal, right? She was sort of like halfway committed to throwing a wedding. But then she sort of just said ÒEh, it's too much troubleÓ and then they just eloped. 

But you really have to get clear on that goal first. And then once you're clear on the goal, you start planning the roadmap. What are all the things that we have to do? And how do we have to, you know, sequence them to make sure that it happens on time? You know, in my case, and with any event it's like, you've got to decide on the date, and you've got to secure the venue. right? Like, nothing's gonna happen if you don't have a place to have it happen. And then there are other things that can happen later. 

But those are the first things you do, and then you just sort of, you know, you start walking on that path to make it happen. And at times you're gonna run into gaps, like, okay, there might be some information, I don't know. So how am I going to find that out? Am I going to ask other people? Am I going to buy a bridal magazine? You know, get a checklist? But you know, you just kind of have to start on the journey.

Lauren: Where do you think most people struggle the most when it comes to making those big decisions? Whether it's for a wedding or even in their career? 

Terry:  One of the things that I see a lot with people is that if I ask them as a coach, ÒWhat is it that you want?Ó A lot of times they'll either say ÒI don't knowÓ or they'll say ÒI want this, but here are all the reasons why I can't have it.Ó Like they will immediately smother that thing that they want. And I really try to get people to separate those things and say ÒLook if you want that as your goal, let that live, right? Don't smother it. And then separately, we can figure out how to make it happen, right?

Like I knew for me, I was really clear and my husband was really clear that this is what we want. It took a while for us to figure out how to make it happen. We had to get really creative, and we had to make choices about, you know, how much money do we have to spend on things. 

I remember going to the florist, and we had a certain amount budgeted out for the flowers, and I just kind of went in and said, ÒThis is how much we have and these are the things that we want.Ó And they just really helped me to say, ÒOkay, well, what's the most important thing here? Okay, the bouquet is the most important thing? ÒOkay, if, if this is what you want, this is how much of your budget is going to go towards that. And then here's what we can do for everything else.Ò

Like we had pink carnations on the tables, right? Because that's a cheap flower, right? And they had these like little bowls that looked silver, but they're really plastic. And you know what, it was cute. It was fine, right? But I didn't have you know, those big fancy, you know, $150 things on every table, I probably had like a $10 thing on every table in 1995 prices! 

But I think that, that getting clear, and then understanding what your trade-offs are, you know, that's É but you got to start, right? You got to get to that point where you can have those conversations, or you can identify those people that can tell you what you don't know. Because a lot of times, we don't know what we don't know, right? I knew I wanted flowers. I had no idea how much they cost, or, you know, what could be done with that? 

Lauren: Yeah. You tell a lot of stories in your book. And I wonder how you incorporate stories into your coaching and what advice you give from those stories to people that are struggling É are having these difficult moments, and how you share your personal sides of stories and bring that to the present?

Terry: I do share stories, but I always ask for permission before I do. Because when I'm coaching somebody, it's about them. It's not about ÒHey, this is what I did, you should do the same thing.Ó It's, you know, I'll say to them, ÒYou know, I had a similar situation with somebody that was on my team. Would you like me to share how that worked out?Ó And if they say, ÒYeahÓ then I'll just tell the story of what went on there. 

I also use a lot of analogies in in my coaching too, because sometimes people are so close to their situation that they have a hard time getting any kind of perspective on it. But when they start to look at it, you know, through an example of an analogy, they start to understand ÒOh, okay, now I know what's going on.Ó 

And I'll actually just share a conversation that I had with one of my clients this morning. And he was talking about how he supervises people that are kind of technical experts that help the sales professionals at his organization. And he's relatively new in his role. And he's bringing in a lot of best practices from the industry to implement in this organization that's somewhat of a startup. 

And the people on his team have been successful doing what they're É what they've been doing, but he sees a lot of room for improvement. He said, ÒI'm, you know, concerned. I don't want them to feel like they're being micromanaged or that I'm sort of bossing them around. You know, but there's a lot of opportunity for them to sort of step up and learn. And I want to understand how I sort of balance this.Ó

Well, luckily, he was a sports fan. And I said, ÒWell think of it this way. That, you know, there's a lot of basketball players out there who have, you know, just natural athletic talent. But if they get recruited to go play at Duke, you know, the coach there is not going to be like, ÒOh, you don't have to do anything different.Ó Like just, you know, he actually is going to help them channel that talent by challenging them, right? And by teaching them new skills, and teaching them how they interact with the rest of the team and so forth. 

And the client was like, ÒOh, wow, that's really, really helpful.Ó He's like, ÒI am a big sports fan. But that's really helpfulÓ because he was feeling a little self-conscious about stepping up and using his expertise and, you know, feeling like ÒOh, I'm going to be coming down on them hard or micromanaging.Ó And I was like, ÒNo, you're helping them to channel their talent. 

Lauren: I think that's an amazing analogy. And I wonder, now I'm putting you on the spot here! Let's say I was coming to you É I already have my outfit, but let's say I didn't. What kind of analogy or support would you give to someone who sort of feels like they're stuck making those decisions alone? No oneÕs supporting them.

Terry: Yeah, you know, I think that I would get curious about, you know, what is it that you do want? If you can get really clear on what you want, without being influenced by what other people want, that's the place to start. Try to keep that pure, and start to understand what is it about this outfit that I really like? You know, what is it that this makes me feel special, and this is how I want to be seen? Allow that feeling, and that attachment to be strong. So you feel it really clearly. And then once you sort of understand that, you can start to take some feedback, right? But don't allow other people's desires to sort of pollute that connection to yourself.

I think a lot of times, you know, I see it a lot in my coaching business where people will say they don't know what they want. And I really believe that deep down inside we all know what we want but we're allowing other people's expectations or our own fears about what other people are going to think or say to block that. Like, ÒOh, well, if we know that there might be a little bit of conflict if we stick with what we want.Ó But you know, allow yourself to get attached to that. 

And say to yourself, like, ÒHey, this is my decision and I would like to honor what I want.Ó And then say, ÒWell, what concern does my husband have? Or my fiancŽ have? What concern do my parents have?Ó And you know you can listen to it, but understand that it's your choice right? I mean, it could be that maybe somebody's got some really great feedback. 

Lauren: Not everyone, like you just said, immediately knows or can verbalize what they want. But if you take the time to really think and allow yourself to be able to verbalize or share or understand at least, that you're going to be able to move forward appropriately. 

And it really is such an emotional process. Doing anything of this sort É getting married, of being you know, just a person pursuing a career, all of these things are extremely emotional, although they seem to be pragmatic. How do you suggest people sort of keep their head together during those difficult times beyond just staying true to who you want to be?

Terry: Yeah, you know, I think that there's a few things. I mean, there's some things that I think people talk about all the time about, you know, meditating, right? Taking a break from the wedding planning every once in a while, right? I mean, everybody's excited about it, but you don't have to talk about it. 24/7 right? And, you know, I think that it's very easy to get caught up in it. And sometimes for people's families, like, they get so excited about it, that it's like, it's hard to escape, you know? 

But I think journaling, taking note of how you feel in your body, right? Like, if there are certain things that are happening, that you're getting sweaty palms or a knot in your stomach to take note of that and say, ÒWhat's going on here?Ó And maybe go off by yourself and do a little journaling to be like, ÒWhy am I feeling like this?Ó 

And, also, I think that if you're having butterflies, or you have like, sort of a bubbly feeling about something and then pay attention to that, too. You know, because it could be like my dress where I was thinking, you know, in my mind, I was thinking like, ÒOh, you know, elegant mermaidÓ and, you know, when I tried on the dress that I ended up buying, I felt like a little, you know, little princess being on top of the cake! And I was like, I felt like all excited! And so I was like, ÒOkay, I think this is the dress right?Ó You have to pay attention to it and don't let your you know, your mind or your judgment override your joy.

Lauren: If there was sort of a slogan or a branding for your wedding as a whole or particularly for your outfit and what you wanted to achieve, do you think there would be a brand name or a slogan that you could come up with to call your wedding experience or your wedding outfit?

Terry: Yeah, I think I would call it ÒCuteness Incorporated!Ó And we've used that so much in our family life! We would say to our kids, like, ÒThey're just cuteness incorporated!Ó And we talk about that with our dog too! And I just think that that's, you know, my husband and I are both like the smallest people in our families. You know, we're kind of cute! That's what I would call it! 

Lauren: I love that! And one other question I have, which is sort of backtracking a little bit is, obviously you found the dress that you loved. But how did you know that it was the one when you tried it on? And can you tell me like how many it took? Was it a quick decision? Did it take a while for you?

Terry: It took É it took a while. And I mean, it's been a long time, you know, I'm coming up on 26 years of marriage. But I, I think that I probably tried on 15 or 20 dresses the first time, and I narrowed it down to two or three. 

My husband actually, you know, my fiancŽ at the time came with me. I know that that's sort of like breaking tradition, but I didn't have like a super close relationship with my mom, and she didn't live close by either. And neither did my sisters. 

So he went with me, and he kind of liked the couple that I liked. And I told the bridal shop to like, sort of make note of those. And I went back later and tried them on again, the two or three that I narrowed it down to. And then I decided on the one. 

And I had to sort of like let it sink in for a while because again, it was sort of at odds with what I thought my dress was gonna look like. But you have to go with what looks good, what feels good. And I was a little bit surprised because it was different than what I imagined beforehand. But I'm still so happy with, you know, how cute we were!

Lauren: Considering that he was there, which is É you know, I've interviewed a few brides who did that, and I love those stories. Did he get to have a reveal and do you feel like he because he had input that that changed the way that you viewed the dress?

Terry: No, I didn't because, you know, I think going back to what we were talking about at the beginning of this conversation, that even though it was a traditional wedding it was not traditional for us. My husband just has one brother and we got married before his brother got married. And so, you know, this was all new. There wasn't really a tradition so we were kind of making our own tradition. 

And then I didn't feel like, I don't know. It just was practical and made sense to me that I needed this. We lived together too. But the night before our wedding I spent the night at one of my friend's homes. And, you know, she helped me get dressed and everything like that. 

And so there was a bit of, you know, some separation. And he didn't see me É you know, he saw me at the bridal shop with it on, but he didn't see me with my hair done and with the veil, and, you know, all of that. So I think that it felt special because, you know, it was the wedding day, but also like, I was all done up.

I mean, we were making a break with my family's tradition. And nobody else besides my É I have a youngest half-sister, who also É she's 16 years younger than me, my mom got remarried and had, you know, had her with my stepfather. And she had a traditional wedding also. But the two sisters in between didn't. 

And so we were breaking with tradition. And, you know, I guess I just kind of looked at it, like, we can make it up the way we want to, right? I don't have to Éwe're already breaking the rules of what everybody else has done. So, you know, we'll just do it the way we want to. And I also felt like É I just felt like with my husband, that there's so much that we've just decided we wanted to do together. You know, we built our life together, and it just was one more thing that we did you know that we just said, okay, we want to do this together. And we did

Lauren: Sounded like it just felt natural. You chose the path that you wanted andÉ

Terry: Yeah, it did! 

Lauren:  É you chose the person that you wanted. And you found your way together, which is all that you really can ask for. Are there any other topics that we haven't sort of touched on that you want to talk about?

Terry: Well, I mean, I guess the one thing that I would like to share with any brides and grooms to be out there is that you have É you know, you're always at choice. And, you know, there's a lot of things that are really wonderful about tradition, but my husband and I, we just decided we would take the things that we wanted from a traditional standpoint, and then we would make things up the way we wanted. You know it's up to you to decide these things. 

And, you know, I think that planning a wedding can be a lot less stressful if you just allow yourself to realize that you can do it any way you want to do it. And there's probably going to be people that don't like some of the choices that you make, but it's not their wedding. You can do it the way you want to do it. So I hope that maybe people will take that and feel a little bit more free to just do it the way they want to do it and have fun, because that's the way it should be in my mind.

Lauren: Choose your brand, choose the way you want to be seen, and stick to it! I one hundred percent ... I think that's amazing advice!

Terry: And if people are interested in learning more about what I do, they can go to my website at TerryBMcDougall.com. I also have a book called Winning the Game of Work: Career Happiness and Success on Your Own Terms. And that's available at Amazon. And then if you are interested in marketing and you want to hear me talking to lots of really smart and interesting people in marketing, you can find my podcast at MarketingMambo.net.