S3, EP26: Chatting about Aleks’ new celebrancy gig

Eddy: Welcome to Project Engaged, a podcast for fun loving couples planning their non traditional wedding.

Aleks: We’re wedding DJs Aleks and Eddy Mac from Melbourne. We run a business called One More Song, and our tagline is No More Nutbush.

Eddy: In this podcast, we’ll share our wedding experiences and chat to some of our past couples.

Aleks: We’ll also interview bold wedding suppliers who share our philosophy of your wedding being a celebration of you as a couple and one epic party.

Eddy: Let’s get into today’s episode. Welcome back to another episode of Project Engaged. My name is Eddy.

Aleks: I’m Aleks.

Eddy: How are you, Aleks?

Aleks: I’m entertained by your dancing. I wish people could see.

Eddy: Oh, yeah, I was dancing the intro. I was actually playing the drums.

Aleks: Yeah, sorry. It was. Yeah, it was very distracting and it took me a while to realise you were doing it. That’s true. Hilarious.

Eddy: That’s true. How are we feeling?

Aleks: Good.

Eddy: Good.

Aleks: Busy. It’s gotten busy.

Eddy: It has gotten it. Our inquiries are back up to comfortable numbers, which is really great. So I’m hoping that our fellow vendors also feeling a little bit more activity in their camps too.

Aleks: Now, do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the interest rate did not rise?

Eddy: I don’t know if it happens that quickly. Just.

Aleks: Happy coincidence, I think.

Eddy: I was actually speaking to someone, a DJ friend of ours, Daniel Toop, over the weekend, last weekend, I think. And we were chatting about. I thought it was quite funny, actually. We were chatting about everyone that seems to be overseas at the moment, like in France, in Italy, et cetera. And I sort of joked off the cuff that there might be a few engagements happening over there at the moment. So when everybody gets back, because apparently most of Australia’s over there right now, according to Daniel. Anyway, catching some sun. There might be a few, you know, newly engaged couples that are seeking venues and photographers and videographers, DJ’s, celebrants, and hopefully DJ’s. So. Yeah, so I think, look, ebbs and flows.

Aleks: Yeah. Oh, well, it’s good. I’m glad that things are picking up again.

Eddy: Definitely. We’ve got a pretty jam packed episode for you today, but I think we should firstly do our weekend wrap up. All right.

Aleks: Whoo.

Eddy: Yes. You can go first.

Aleks: All right, I’ll go first. I was at the post office hotel last Friday night for Alicia and Kieran. It was. No, it wasn’t a cocktail. Sit down. Sorry. I’m at the post office tomorrow, so I’m. Yes. Confusing myself. No, I played for 6 hours and I just had the best frienders there friendors. Friend ors vendors who are friends. For those of you who aren’t sure, someone did ask me the other day what that meant. Nat Sproul was a celebrant and Danny from killer Queen creative did makeup and was there for a drink, which is lovely because she often, you know, well, pretty much always does her thing and then doesn’t get to enjoy the party. So that was great. And Anna from Lulu online was doing photos. Super long dance floor. Four and a half hours, I think.

Eddy: Wow.

Aleks: Wow. Don’t you have like a special sound?

Eddy: No, I got rid of that one.

Aleks: Cool. No worries. Lots of Motown, fungsol. And then the oldies kind of peeled off. I think they lived quite far away and had some transportation. It was a bit sad because there was a couple on the dance floor all night and they were, they didn’t want to go. And they’ll kind of look at me like, we don’t want to go. And I’m like, I’m sorry, okay, can’t do anything. Um, and then it kind of was like a bunch of 30 something year olds and, uh, yeah, just loads of nostalgic house and r and b.

Eddy: That sounds awesome. And you have a new service as well, on top of your deejaying, I heard.

Aleks: Yes, that’s right. Have we not mentioned it?

Eddy: No, no. The other new service.

Aleks: What’s that?

Eddy: Taking someone home.

Aleks: Oh, taxi.

Eddy: Taxi.

Aleks: I took a guess. Home. Yeah, we’ve got chatting. She was so lovely and she lived around the corner from us, so I drove her home. So there you go.

Eddy: Yeah. And what about feather to your cap? I was at quat quarter. It’s not a venue that I play often, but it is quite nice. It’s got that old world charm. It was for Chloe and Chris. Super, super lovely couple. So I empty seat as well as DJ. And we had an audio guest book in there as well. We will play you some clips, some messages from that in a second. Some quite funny ones, I might add. But yeah, look, they love their indie stuff early on, and then they wanted some like absolute EDM bangers as well. I felt it probably polarised the oldies just that little bit, so he had to sprinkle in, you know, your September’s, et cetera, just to kind of keep even Calvin Harris’s as well, just to keep some of the older crew a little bit more interested.

Aleks: God, when Calvin Harris is getting the older crew up and about, was it a young couple? How old were the old crew?

Eddy: Old crew? Look, it’s always hard for me to say how old people are, but I would say mid fifties onwards, the couple was on the younger side, I’d say mid sort of twenties, and their friends were, I felt, on the younger side as well. But look, it was great, everyone had a good time. I actually had, I don’t know if you’ve checked our instagrams lately, but I put up a fun little reel because I have a, what they call an Insta 360 camera which just plonk. I plonk on my decks or near my decks and switch it on and hope to capture some cool footage here and there. And I had this lovely, lovely lady, elderly lady come up and request the nutbush, which unfortunately I had to say no to and I showed because I write all my do not plays down. If you are on our instagram, you will see weekly the do not plays that we have from our couples. So write them down and actually then stick them onto my DJ booth. So I’ve got them handy most of the time. I, you know, I’m not going to play any of the stuff that’s there. Sometimes they might be a bit trickier and there might be some artists that maybe I would play. So it’s just their front of mind. So I ended up peeling one of those off and showing this, this lovely lady and she was, yeah, very understandable standing.

Aleks: Yeah, it was actually really funny that you got that on camera because you were so smiley and polite. So it was, it kind of, you.

Eddy: Know, it gave a bit of an insight as to how we do field requests and I guess the, the word is field. You know, when people say, yeah, of course I’ll take requests, but doesn’t mean.

Aleks: I’m throwing them back out there.

Eddy: You field them and, you know, I did ask, is there anything else you want to hear? And I think her heart was very much set on the Nutbush.

Aleks: And that was it.

Eddy: And that was it. So that was quite funny. So, yeah, fun, fun gig. The lights that we brought in as well looks really cool.

Aleks: That looks like the white.

Eddy: Yeah. So that looked really cool as well. But anyway, I’ll stop waffling and we can play some of the audio guestbook messages for everyone.

Aleks: Hey, you gorgeous. Two. Congratulations. Wishing you every happiness, always. Love you lots and bye.

Eddy: Hey, can I grab two flake? One hot dog in batter, six dim sims, six potato cake minimum chips, two flake. Can I grab another flake? What else do you want, Nick? He wants a corn dog. So that’s another hot dog in battle. Or do you want it to be a corn dog? Hot dog corn dog. Can we get two mars bars in batter? Oh, yeah. Good job.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: Appreciate it. Thanks. Bye bye. Everyone yell, congratulations to Chris and coy. Okay. One, two, three. How good were they?

Aleks: So good. They never, never fail to surprise and delight.

Eddy: They don’t. And so that last one that you heard was actually me because I explained, as I mentioned, so I explained how it works. And halfway through the night, I sort of asked, who hasn’t yet done this? And a whole bunch of people put up their hands saying they haven’t record a message because they had an OG guest book there, too. And I saw a lot of people writing things. So I actually took the phone with me, grabbed the microphone, and we did, like, a live demo.

Aleks: So I love that.

Eddy: Say congratulations to the couple. And, yeah, bang. So that worked really well. So I guess as a bonus, if you do have us emceeing and you have an audio guest book in there as well, we will show everyone how it is used.

Aleks: Yeah, that’s a really good point. And how far away was the guestbook set up from where you were?

Eddy: Like, not super far. So there was a little kind of breakout room with a nice cosy fireplace that they kind of plonked the auto guest book and the OG written guestbook as well.

Aleks: I love that. And look, you can probably get your, even if we’re not mcing, you could probably get your mc to do that as well because you can just pick up the phone, right. It’s got a battery inside. Yeah.

Eddy: You can pick it up, walk around with it. The battery’s inside. So, yeah, it worked relatively well in terms of that little demo. So I was pretty happy about that. But, yeah, I think overall, pretty solid weekend for the both of us. Definitely yawning, as I’m saying.

Aleks: Oh, my. No, I just.

Eddy: I don’t know.

Aleks: Maybe I need another coffee. But, um, I was actually gonna say, I forgot to mention my wedding last week. I did not have a single request in for half hour dance floor, which was very nice, I have to say. Very nice. Yes.

Eddy: Yeah, that’s. It doesn’t happen very often.

Aleks: Very rare. That’s why I mentioned it. Very rare.

Eddy: There you go. So, yeah, that was the weekend. We have a huge announcement on today’s potty because we are doing our annual wedding livestream.

Aleks: Yes, definitely.

Eddy: It is next Friday at 07:30 p.m. We’re doing it on a platform called Mix Cloud. And you pretty much just jump in with the link that we’ll send through and, yeah, have fun. A couple of hours of tunes and, yeah, we’ve got a few little surprises and all that kind of stuff, so should be a lot of fun.

Aleks: And to sign in, do you need to sign into Mixcloud? Only to chat.

Eddy: We need to chat. So if you do. Yeah, if you do want to make it that little bit more interactive, you do need an account. But by all means, if you just wanted to sit back, maybe stream it onto your television or what have you and enjoy, then, yeah, we would love.

Aleks: To have you, definitely. It is free to sign up to Mixcloud. You can just get a free account. And that’s where we store a lot of our mixes. Well, all of our mixes, actually.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: So it is worthwhile doing.

Eddy: I mean, if you want another app on your phone. Well, we’re actually just talking about threads before we start.

Aleks: I just downloaded it. I haven’t looked at it yet, but I’ve had messages from many people about it.

Eddy: For those that don’t know, it’s Facebook’s answer to Twitter, apparently.

Aleks: Apparently. And I mean, we really only have only just started focusing on TikTok this week, so I don’t know if I can handle another one. But maybe just like on the fly thoughts.

Eddy: On the fly thoughts. I mean, this podcast is full of those.

Aleks: Well, that’s.

Eddy: Yeah, frankly.

Aleks: Yes, yes. Very true.

Eddy: Anyway, yeah, so I guess the benefit of downloading the mixcloud app is one you can chat on our livestream and.

Aleks: She’s really fun, actually.

Eddy: You can get notifications every time we post a new mix or one of our sample mixes. We do do a sample mix every year as well, so that’s kind of cool. But I think for this particular stream, we will be looking at tunes that we’ve really enjoyed playing in the last twelve months and some of the new ish bangers as well.

Aleks: And they might not be new songs, just songs that we’re seeing, you know, have been really popular lately on the.

Eddy: Dance floor and that are us as well.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: So it’s really love playing showcase for what we like to play and the kind of vibe you get with either one of us deejaying your wedding. So it’s a nice little marketing exercise for us. We don’t do expos? Or anything like that, so this is kind of our thing. Yeah.

Aleks: Yeah. And disclaimer. I am going. I’ve been forced to have to. To use Eddy”s console, which I have not used, so I will be madly practising.

Eddy: To be fair, I haven’t used this very much either, so, no, it should be fun.

Aleks: So we’ll just see what happens. Yeah, we hope you can join us. We hope you can join us. We will be publishing the link next week a few times, so you can’t miss it.

Eddy: You cannot mix it. We see if we can do a countdown timer or something.

Aleks: Oh, yeah, we can. Yeah. Cool.

Eddy: Yeah, we’d love to have you there.

Aleks: Put a thread up.

Eddy: Yeah, throw a thread on. Why not? All right. Now today’s episode is all about Aleks, my favourite topic.

Aleks: I’m joking.

Eddy: You may or may not be aware that Aleks recently became a wedding celebrant.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: That was the extra skill that she alluded to before, which is fantastic. She’s since booked quite a number of gigs, which is awesome. So congratulations. Get a clapping for you.

Aleks: That’s nice.

Eddy: And I wanted to ask her a few questions about being a celebrant by Eddy. Yeah. So I’ll interview you because I’d like to know.

Aleks: Okay.

Eddy: You know, obviously I was here when you were studying and there’s quite a lot that goes into a lot study and there’s quite a lot that goes into the before the actual day. A lot of paperwork and things like that. Things that I never actually knew. You know, that’s that old adage that celebrates have told me. Oh, you know, you just rock up for half an hour and that’s the day done. That is further from the truth.

Aleks: I’m pretty sure no celebrant has ever said that. I’m pretty sure. Couples.

Eddy: No, no, no. That’s what I’m saying.

Aleks: Oh, you said no.

Eddy: No celebrants have told me that. That’s what, what people have said.

Aleks: Yes, I believe.

Eddy: Much to their disgust.

Aleks: Definitely. Yeah.

Eddy: Anyway. Okay, cool. So let’s get this rolling. My first question for you, Aleks. Why did you decide to become a celebrant?

Aleks: What an excellent question. I think the seed was planted in me. In me. Oh, okay. A few years ago, just seeing we’ve seen so many amazing celebrants, you know, I’ve been really inspired being part of so many ceremonies and thinking this is something I would love to do. And as I have told my couples who have booked me to do their celebrant-ing and deejaying, I just want to be even more involved in everyone’s big day because we do spend so much time with our couples and leader and I love getting to know people. I’m a bit nosy, a bit curious, and I love telling a good story and writing. So, you know, with all those things combined, I thought, why not? This is such a great thing to be able to add on to what I’m doing already.

Eddy: Yeah, absolutely. I think that it was really like a natural kind of add on for someone like yourself and what I’m seeing. And you might be able to correct me if I’m wrong here, but it’s. It’s quite a natural next step in terms of a couple wanting to book you in if they haven’t had a celebrant.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: Or they haven’t got a celebrant, rather. And you’re deejaying. So I overhear a lot of conversations with your couples.

Aleks: Yep.

Eddy: It just makes sense if you’re gonna DJ anyway. It just makes sense. So that’s really cool.

Aleks: Yeah. And I’ve been surprised. I have booked. Most of the couples that I’ve booked have found me as a DJ first and added me on as a celebrant. They’ve been really relaxed. They’ve been really focused on music and party and good time. And for them, the ceremony is something that they have to do, not, not something that they’re not excited about, but definitely not, you know, the kind of main priority. I suppose that’s what I’ve kind of found with the couples that have. That have booked me. So that’s been cool to see, kind of, you know, who, who is interested in a service, like having someone to do all three. Well, if I’m mcing as well, all three things, or just DJ and celebrant.

Eddy: Awesome. And how would you describe your celebrant style?

Aleks: What you see is what you give. Very relaxed, super, super non traditional. I hate anything stuffy or formal, you know, similar vibe. Basically, if you book me to DJ as well, it’ll go through one more song. So it’s exactly the same experience. Short and sweet, I think. You know, I always say to couples, I’m not there to talk about love or provide my opinions or any advice for happy marriages or anything like that. It’s definitely not what I’m there for. I’m just there to basically kick things off and tell the couple’s story. That’s the main bit, really, in the ceremony, is telling their story in a very authentic and lighthearted way. Maybe get a few tears, few laughs, you know, but kind of very organically.

Eddy: I think, and just have fun and.

Aleks: Just have fun and kick off the party, you know, I think I’ve had a few couples just say, you know, we just really love the fact that you’ll be there for the whole day and really set the tone and people will see you go from, you know, officiating to behind the decks and it’ll kind of have a nice flow to the day.

Eddy: So I think if you’re also MC’ing you, you really create that authority from the very, very beginning.

Aleks: Yeah, we’ve always said this, haven’t we? In terms of looking at your MC, either your DJ or your celebrant. With your celebrant, they’ve already kind of established themselves. People have been listening to them, taking their instructions, et cetera. So, yeah, it does, it does make.

Eddy: Sense, for sure, to be honest with you. I always recommend if there is a settlement there that I know that MC’s as well. Even if I’m asked do you want an emcee? I always say cheque with your celebrant first.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: Because I think it’s just a smoother experience for everyone. Of course I’m happy to do it, but that celebrant might want to kick around for another few hours and continue. Continue the party.

Aleks: Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I think it’s a. It’s a no brainer, really, to have to have your celebrate or DJ perform MC services as well.

Eddy: For sure. Okay, so let’s talk about your packages. Now, what different packages do you offer?

Aleks: Yeah, so as I mentioned, I can do. I’ve got a day and night package, which is the whole thing. So basically I get you married. I make sure there are tunes going for cocktail hour while I get myself ready to then play tunes. So I’m deejaying and also mc’ing. So that basically all three services in one go, that’s the kind of biggest one. The next one down, which has been really popular, is called nuptials and tunes. So that is me basically performing celebrant services and then deejaying. So you might have a family friend. Sorry, family member or friend who you would love to McDonald’s. So in that situation, I’ll just be celebrate and DJ. And then I’ve also got let’s get married, which is just me as celebrant. So I’ve got a couple of those as well. And then there’s one more. I got cute, quirky little names for them all.

Eddy: You do. And I think you’ve kind of missed an opportunity there because obviously the first one’s Daniel.

Aleks: Yes, I know.

Eddy: So that’s a song.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: Let’s get married. Just.

Aleks: I know, nuptials and tunes.

Eddy: And tunes. Maybe we’ll have to revisit that one.

Aleks: Well, I’m happy for you. If you can think of something. I think I lost a bit of steam, but. Oh, and I’ve got marry an MC, which is arguably the most boring name for a package, but that’s basically me just performing celebrate and staying onto MC afterwards. So typically when a celebrant stays onto MC, they’ll kind of stay right up until, you know, sort of first dance or whenever. Once the dance floor kicks off and the four melodies, so to speak, end, they’ll wrap up.

Eddy: So I think, would you be interested in doing that only to see the DJ’s that you come across 100%?

Aleks: Please book me for that. I would love to be a fly on the wall, but, yeah. The other thing I haven’t really got on my website, but very happy to look at micro weddings and elopements as well. Had a lovely photographer ask if I’d be interested in doing a little elopement out in regional Victoria with the couple and their dog and the photographer, who was a friend of ours. So I was like, absolutely would love to do that. So that’s an option as well.

Eddy: I mean, you could go, I want to get away. I want to fly away. Yeah.

Aleks: Okay. Yeah. Good. So that’s like a destination or Lenny Kravitz. Yeah. Okay, so you got to think about the nuptials and tunes. One where I’m deejaying.

Eddy: I’ll get back to you.

Aleks: All right. Please do. I can change on the website. Very.

Eddy: I’m only kidding. I mean, I know how hard you’ve worked on all of this, so just.

Aleks: Having a dig. Well, day and night, I can’t take the credit. Some. Tim the DJ sacks actually gave me the name for that one.

Eddy: Oh. Shout out to Tim. Thank you.

Aleks: And I stole it.

Eddy: I’m actually having lunch with him next Wednesday.

Aleks: You are? How lovely.

Eddy: How lovely. Okay, so thank you for that. Now, I do have another question, and this is, I suppose, more of a logistical kind of question. Say, how does it work practically, when you’re marrying a couple and then deejaying for them and maybe even also Mcing?

Aleks: Yes, yes. This is a good question, and definitely one I have been asked. So in terms of, I suppose, equipment and set up and that sort of thing for the ceremony, it’s very basic setup, you would see with most celebrants, which is kind of one little wireless, I’ll call it wireless speaker with a.

Eddy: Microphone, so battery powered, you can plonk it anywhere you like.

Aleks: Yes. So that’s, you know, that’s what we would use if we were providing pa for the celebrate.

Eddy: It’s a Bose s, one pro for all those audiophiles out there.

Aleks: Yes. And what’s the mic? Sennheiser.

Eddy: Sennheiser. Something for all those microphone lovers out there.

Aleks: So as we always say, you know, there’s got to be music as guests arrive, which is normally half an hour.

Eddy: Before set the scene.

Aleks: Yeah. Before this, before the ceremony kicks off. So I will look after that as part of my service. I will put together a curated pre ceremony playlist for the couple and I will run that through the speaker. The only thing I can’t do is play the key song. So it is a little bit logistically difficult. Maybe I’ll get there one day. There are some celebrants who are also DJs who can do it. They’ve got.

Eddy: Do you know how they do it?

Aleks: Yeah, they use. There’s one Annie Monologue who was actually a big inspiration for me becoming a celebrant. She’s a celebrate and a DJ as well and runs a celebrant agency from Queensland.

Eddy: Queensland.

Aleks: Yep. So she uses an iPad and she switches basically between. She plays the tune through using Bluetooth and she switches between her script and whatever music app she’s using to play the tune. So it is. It is possible.

Eddy: I mean, you could split screen it on an iPad too, if that’s what you see. So you’d have both. Bluetooth can be a bit finicky. So I’m very anti Bluetooth because I’ve had problems with it in the past. I’ve had an issue where we were almost. It was a ceremony situation. I was doing the tunes almost time for the ceremony and the Bluetooth started kind of cutting out. So I immediately had to run and connect it and just hide behind the speaker.

Aleks: Yeah. So, yeah, so where, you know, sort of celebrate stuff aside, where you and I have been involved with ceremonies and continue to do so in terms of looking after the tunes, we always plug in a cable, like a really long cable.

Eddy: It’s just foolproof.

Aleks: It is.

Eddy: And we typically put the speaker behind everyone as well because, I mean, you’d be able to test this, but as a celebrant, most people can hear you that are right in front of you. People behind obviously get the speaker.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: So that’s another thing to think about.

Aleks: Yeah. So there’s a bit to think about. But anyway, look, regardless, you know, so it’s really just if you’ve got an aisle song and the kind of ceremony finished song that someone has to look after. But I would provide a cable in the same way and just make sure that they’re ready. Even loaded up on an ipod or whatever, and just give them a little bit of a rundown right before things kick off.

Eddy: Big, big, big.

Aleks: Well, yeah, yeah. So we’ll see. Look, there are venues that I’ve, you know, got bookings in where the venue staff are bloody pros.

Eddy: I’ve got post office.

Aleks: Yeah, I got two booked at, actually, I’ve got two at post office and one at Rupert, so I know the venue will be all over it, so I don’t have to worry about that, which is awesome. Then I do my thing, ceremony, and then I will have, similarly, a post ceremony playlist that I will also curate for the couple that will play the cocktail hour, sign the paperwork afterwards. After the ceremony. That’s my preference. So get all that done and then my setup for reception will be a separate setup. So our usual booth, decks, two speakers, etcetera, that will be set up before the ceremony starts. So that will be all organised and ready to go. I can jump over during cocktail hour, do a little sound cheque and I’m ready. And if I’m mcing, then, you know, same sort of thing as when we’re deejaying, just emceeing from behind the decks. So that’s all good.

Eddy: Beautiful.

Aleks: Yeah. So it is possible. And people have asked me if I’ll be tired, how will I go? And, you know, honestly, you know what it’s like on a Saturday or a Friday when you’ve got a wedding, the whole day is taken up with that one wedding, regardless of what time you start.

Eddy: Yeah. You’re talking about vendors.

Aleks: Yeah, yeah. I’m saying you and I, like. Yeah. And other vendors, like, the whole day is basically taken up with that wedding. You’re getting ready, you’re thinking about it, you know, you’re going to work, checking all your equipment. Yes.

Eddy: All your tunes. If you’re a DJ, have everything.

Aleks: That’s right. And where we’re involved in ceremony, we’re there right from the start anyway, so it’ll be totally fine.

Eddy: Yeah, I don’t think there’s a. Obviously, there’s the work in the lead up from the celebrant’s perspective, but, like. Yeah, you’re right. On the day, it’s probably not a huge difference.

Aleks: No, no, it’s fine. And look, there’s some. I’ve got one booked at Coombe Yarra Valley. So the ceremony takes place in a separate area to work, to pre dinner, drinks or cocktail hour, which is, again, in a separate area to the reception. So for that, I basically will be just moving the Bose speaker from, you know, once we sign the certificates, moving it over to cocktail hour.

Eddy: That’s easy enough to do as well.

Aleks: Easy, yeah. So it’s all totally manageable.

Eddy: Excellent. And so we’ve talked about, like, the practicalities of being a DJ and a celebrant and an emcee on the day, how it all works. Let’s talk about the process in the lead up for a couple who book you as their celebrant.

Aleks: Yeah. So I’ll talk about it assuming that everyone kind of knows what the process is when you book us as a DJ. So basically, these are just a few extra bits and pieces that the couple and I need to work on in the lead up. So if you book me as a celebrant as well, I will send you a link to a party brief or a ceremony brief, depending on whether I’m deejaying or not. I’ve just labelled them different things, so that’ll just cover your kind of key logistical details, you know, timings, venue contact and all the usual music stuff that we have as well for ceremony and reception. And then really, like, I’m keeping it pretty low touch. So I’ve got a couple emails that you receive in the lead up and then I don’t really reach out until five months before your big day and give you a link to my calendar and let you know what you need to bring to that meeting because basically, that meeting four months out from your wedding is the ceremony planning meeting. So we sit down, we talk about the structure of a ceremony, what you’d like included, you know, what your wedding party looks like, how you can enter all the little details, or big details, as you say. And we also get a head start on the paper. So I’m just trying an online form so that couples can fill out some of their details before that meeting and then I can generate some of that paperwork. We can go through everything. I can cheque the id, sign some stuff while we’re there, and then we’re pretty much good to go. And then I go off and send the couples separate questionnaires. So asking them questions about each other, how they met, what they love about each other, what they hate about each other, all the fun stuff so that I can put together my script.

Eddy: Very, very. Sounds like a lot of work.

Aleks: And also. Yeah, and obviously, you know, I will help my couples with personal vows, so they will need to write their own vows and I will cheque them. You know, that you’ve got to make sure that they’re similar length, similar style. One isn’t, you know, a two line thing and the other person’s written some lavish poem or something, you got to make sure they’re a little bit similar. So, yeah, and then we basically catch up in the same way that we would with our DJ clients the week of. Just to run through absolutely everything. One thing I do want to point out, I’ve mentioned to my couples is that I do not share the ceremony script with my couples. Controversial before the big day.

Eddy: Well, and why don’t you do that?

Aleks: I think, look, celebrants sit in two very distinct camps on this. I don’t do it because I think that you don’t get the genuine reaction and genuine emotion on the day. If you have seen something while you see in your pyjamas stressed after big day at work and you’re trying to read a script on your tiny laptop, like it just isn’t. The impact is lost on the day, I think. So it should be a nice surprise. You know, it’s really just your story. So whatever you’ve provided, it’s the way I’ve craft your story. That will be the thing that’s a surprise on the day. The rest of it, the structure, the way things flow, you will know we’ll have a little run sheet and we’ll go through all that.

Eddy: I personally am in your camp when it comes to that because I know there is a 50 50 divide. And so I think again, trust in your celebrant. If the celebrant is doing things that way and you won’t know the script or have seen the script, I think that’s fantastic. If you trust your celebrant, then they’ll do a fantastic job.

Aleks: Yeah, that’s right. And look, all of one couples are so relaxed as they are, you know, with one more song, super, super relaxed, they really want something that’s short and sweet, starts a party, they put their faith in their vendors and that’s it. So yeah, it’s been a great experience so far.

Eddy: Excellent, excellent.

Aleks: One more thing I just want to say is I’ve got a separate website, aleksmac.com.au, which has a little bit more about the more the celebrant side or the kind of all encompassing day and night packages and all the other packages I apparently have to rename. But as I mentioned before, if you are booking me to also DJ everything is run through one more song. So the process is exactly the same. I use the same booking system, invoicing everything is the same as one more song.

Eddy: Geez, I might have to get my own website now, too.

Aleks: Okay.

Eddy: If I pay you, can you make it for me?

Aleks: No, absolutely not. I’m not doing another website. It is painful. No, it is painful.

Eddy: It is very, very painful.

Aleks: Yeah. Anyway, that’s it in a nutshell. And I’m super excited.

Eddy: Fantastic. No. And let us know when your first ceremony is.

Aleks: Yes, it is on the 19 October.

Eddy: Very close.

Aleks: Lovely couple, Maddie and Joel. It’s on a Thursday at pier ten winery in Red Hill. And it’s a bit of a. We’ve been quite involved in this network, this family. You’ve dejayed a few family and friend weddings for the family, which is so lovely. We’ve been guests and, yeah, it’s just great to be a part of their day.

Eddy: Well, so Maddie’s sister, we were in Hamilton island for their wedding and I deejayed there.

Aleks: Yes, it was actually one of. One more song’s first weddings. Really? Okay.

Eddy: That’s very cool.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: There you go. So they were there from the inception of one more song, and they’re there for the inception of your celebrant career.

Aleks: I know, it’s so nice.

Eddy: How good is that?

Aleks: Yeah. Can’t wait. So good.

Eddy: And is there anything else you’d like to tell our listeners about you as a celebrant or celebranting or what you’ve learned so far, or any trends you think are gonna be big in the next year or two?

Aleks: Yeah, look, I think there’s. I just want to say, like, in terms of the process, I’ve been surprised at how little people know about what a ceremony consists of. So that’s been really interesting for me because obviously, when you do your certificate for and everything, they go into great detail about what’s included, et cetera. So I really. It sort of made me step back and go, okay, what do I really want my ceremonies to look like? And I’ve sent, you know, I’ve put together an email for my couples and I’ve sent it to them with a little blog that talks about. Okay, here’s what you need to have. Here are the legal bits and pieces that you need to have in your ceremony to be legally married. And here’s all the bit that. Bits that are optional. And they found it quite surprising, which is interesting. Very interesting.

Eddy: As long as you don’t know what you don’t know, though. Most people only get married once. Or is it most, should I say most or half?

Aleks: Most people don’t go to as many weddings as we do. Let’s just say we’ve seen a lot of weddings.

Eddy: Very, very true. I think the statistics are actually changing in terms of people getting divorced.

Aleks: Okay. Yeah, that’s positive.

Eddy: Which is great. Yes.

Aleks: Well, I think people are. Look, there’s. We’ve definitely seen, you know, there’s a lot of older couples getting married. There’s people waiting a little bit longer.

Eddy: I think that’s it. I think people are waiting a little bit longer. And they’re not say, like my parents who are divorced. So, you know, FYI, they got married very early, I think, just to get out of the house.

Aleks: Yeah, that was quite common, wasn’t it?

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: In terms of trends. Look, all the stuff that we’ve heard from other celebrants and vendors, I think tradition out the window, you know, lots of couples questioning whether they want to have a wedding party at all. True. The walk down the aisle, you know, do you go down with your friends? Do you both go down together? Do you not do an aisle at all?

Eddy: Do you greet everyone at the door?

Aleks: Exactly. It does not matter. Like, that stuff really doesn’t matter. It’s about telling your story and starting the party.

Eddy: Love it. What a great way to sum that up.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: Thank you. Well done. Well done. Claps, claps, claps well, hopefully our listeners have gotten something out of this. I’ve certainly learned a few things still. I’m still learning all about what you’re doing.

Aleks: And I didn’t, I didn’t even get into the. And that’s the one thing I want to say. One thing. Um, I’m not going to get into all the legal paperwork because I think it’ll just overwhelm clients. It’s really not that bad. It’s really up to your celebrant to guide you through it and just cheque in with you, you know, as they need to. You don’t really need to know the nitty gritty. It’s, it’s too much, you know, government.

Eddy: What if sounds kind of boring as well.

Aleks: Yeah, exactly. Just leave it to you, to your poor celebrate to deal with.

Eddy: All right, well, thank you so much for that, Aleks. That was really awesome. Okay, cool. So next segment, have you noticed that we’re sort of segmenting our podcast a little bit more, getting, making a little bit more dynamic. So we’re a little bit distracted. Our cats playing with her little. What would you call that?

Aleks: Like a little. Yeah. Little top of our electrolyte bottle. And she’s looking at us and she’s being a martyr about it.

Eddy: Like, oh, she does this every time we record a podcast. She’s like attention Seeker. Little attention seeker. Okay. But I think it’s time for what have we been listening to?

Aleks: And again, you’ve done the mock, you.

Eddy: Should know because you were a pianist. Yeah, back in the day I was. Be careful how you say that word.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: Okay, so what have, what have I been listening to? I have been listening to flight facilities, new decades, mixed. Twelve to 2022.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: So good, so good. It’s a great little trip down memory lane. Quite emotional, as you put it, Alice, because I sent it to Aleks when I, when I started listening.

Aleks: Yeah, I went for a walk on my own this morning and I had my Airpods and I got a bit emotional. I don’t know why.

Eddy: Epic, epic, epic, electronic, epic electronica. A lot of Aussie stuff in there. Very, very cool. It’s on sound. I think it’s pretty much everywhere. We listen to it on Soundcloud.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: But uh, yeah, check it out if you like music.

Aleks: If you like.

Eddy: Really good general.

Aleks: I don’t know why I got. Anyway, look. Yeah. Obviously recounts moments over the last, you know, historical things that have happened around the world over the last ten years. But that just, the tunes just ah, epic. So good.

Eddy: Cool. Yeah, it’s very, very cool. So that’s. Yeah, yeah.

Aleks: So I’ve been listening to you, you’re much more, I have to say, you’re much more proactive in terms of music that we listen to in our personal time because it’s very hard as a DJ to separate that. You know, you go to a bar and there’s a song playing and you go, oh, that would be good to play during cocktail hour and you just can’t get out of that mindset.

Eddy: Yeah. I’ve often thought when, if I ever retire from being a DJ, enjoy music for music’s sake and not think, oh, this song would sound good next to that song, which I would play. Yeah, I know it’s a curse, but.

Aleks: It’S not that we don’t enjoy. I mean when I’m playing stuff at a, at a gig that I really like, I’m loving it. Like, to be able to play that and see other people enjoy it is just the best.

Eddy: Oh, it’s so good. It’s why we do what we do.

Aleks: It’s amazing.

Eddy: And also we get paid.

Aleks: So mine, mine is very work related. I’ve just been preparing for tomorrow’s gig and this couple has a lot of newer tracks. So I went, I went to a new music subscription service. Well, it’s one we had subscribed to before, but I went back to it because they have a lot of different types of edits, which is very cool.

Eddy: So just to take a step back for those listening at home, it’s DJ’s often subscribe to DJ music pools. So you pay a monthly fee and you get to choose whatever songs you like in these particular pools. This one’s called BPM supreme. It’s one that we’ve come back to a few times.

Aleks: Very good.

Eddy: And as Aleks said, you know, if you went to the iTunes music store and, and those of you who still do that and purchase a song, you’re really going to get one version of that song, maybe an extended version and a radio edit.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: Whereas these pulls have kind of more customisable things. So they might have a song with an intro, like a 16 bar intro or something like that outro. To make it easier to mix in and out of that song. They have what they call quick hit edits.

Aleks: I love those.

Eddy: Which is like, it might come in, do a chorus, do a verse, do another chorus maybe, and then get out of the track. So these are just tools that we can use to just make our life just that little bit easier when we’re playing.

Aleks: Yeah. So I’ve been really excited about that. And there’s been some good music that’s come out as well from artists that we like that I just hadn’t downloaded. So I’ve got a bunch of new stuff. Can’t wait to play. One in particular I want to mention is miracle Calvin Harris with Ellie Goulding, which I really, really like. Catchy.

Eddy: Calvin’s back.

Aleks: I know. I love Calvin.

Eddy: He didn’t take a lot of time off, does he?

Aleks: No.

Eddy: Come back and just us all off of our feet.

Aleks: Yeah. He’s so good. So I can’t wait to play those tomorrow night.

Eddy: Well, that’s very cool. Again, super work related.

Aleks: Yeah, I know. I can’t help it.

Eddy: And so you’ve got your post office gig coming up. We’ve got our live stream coming up. I think it’s time to just do a little bit of musing over those two things. So how excited are you for tomorrow?

Aleks: I’m really excited for tomorrow night for Pat and Phoebe. They met us at the post office hotel open day last year.

Eddy: The next one’s coming up. I know.

Aleks: So soon. So I met them yet almost a year ago, which is absolutely nuts. And we have our friends Carl and Baz from mister and misses social doing the video guest walk for cocktail hour so I get to hang out with those.

Eddy: They won that competition.

Aleks: Yeah, it was a giveaway and they won because it was a very tight timeframe so you need to have gotten married in a certain time. So I’m so excited about that. Lots of newer tunes apparently. Young, big young group ready to party. Whoo.

Eddy: Oh, love it. And again, just a reminder of our livestream which will be Friday next week, 14th July, the 14 July from 730. We’ll be smashing our socials in the lead up to that. We’ve got a lot of work to do to prepare for that as well, including getting an awesome backdrop. Oh yes, I’ve been yeah, basically smashing our credit card on Amazon to get bits, pieces of for that. Gadgets and gizmos, all tax deductible which is fantastic. Yeah and yeah, so that should be. I’m really pumped about that.

Aleks: Yeah that’s really good. Look, we do it once a year. Started during lockdowns, no surprise. And then they’ve been really popular so we’re gonna keep them going in the wintertime, which is the perfect time for us to do it because it is a tiny bit quieter than usual.

Eddy: It really is. Well, as always, if you do love what you are hearing, please get in touch with us. You might have some questions or you might want to give us one of those five star reviews.

Aleks: Woo.

Eddy: That’s a salseys I get by the way.

Aleks: Oh that’s very good. I don’t have anything salesy to say except thank you so much for listening.

Eddy: Thank you so much for listening. We absolutely love it and we’ll be back next week.

Aleks: As always, until next time.

Eddy: Bye guys.

Aleks: Thanks for tuning in. If you’re enjoying Project Engaged, please hit the subscribe button on your fav podcast app.

Eddy: You can also follow us on Instagram, @projectengaged and @onemoresongdjs.

Aleks: We’ll see you next time. And until then, have fun out there.