S4, EP15: First half of 2024 wrapped up!

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.

Aleks: Hi.

Eddy: Hello. We’re back.

Aleks: Yeah, we’re back. We haven’t done one of these episodes for a little while, have we?

Eddy: No. Just the two of us.

Aleks: Amongst each other.

Eddy: Amongst each other. Amongst ourselves.

Aleks: Amongst. Yes. No, we haven’t. And the reason we are doing this is because we haven’t really been doing our weekend wrap ups on our usual episodes. And that is. Is because we’ve had pretty, like, what we call it, substantial episodes. Like meaty, juicy, meaty. Lots to cover.

Eddy: Yeah, we have. It’s been awesome.

Aleks: It’s been really good. I feel like people have a lot to say.

Eddy: Yeah. Put a microphone to somebody, in front of somebody, and they will talk. And we love that.

Aleks: Yeah, exactly. So they’ve been nice meeting you. But what we thought we would do, it’s obviously coming up to the halfway point, the midway point of 2024. So we thought in lieu of doing our weekend wrap ups, we’d do a bit of a highlights kind of showcase of things that we’ve seen at weddings this year that we’ve loved.

Eddy: Yeah, we are approaching the middle of the year, and there are obviously far too many weddings to talk about. So instead, we’re gonna pick out some pretty fun little tidbits.

Aleks: Yeah. And it’s interesting. Cause we were talking about this before this episode, and some things just like, a lot of stuff hasn’t changed, you know what I mean? Like the. We can get into it a little bit more. Sorry, everyone, I’m distracted. Cause Ed had decided to shave off his beard right before this episode, and he’s had a beard.

Eddy: I’ve left the stash.

Aleks: We’ve been together.

Eddy: I think I’ve had a beard for like, nine years.

Aleks: Yes. So the whole time we’ve been together, basically most of.

Eddy: No, not the whole time.

Aleks: Okay, well, when I met you, you had a lot of stubble and I said to you you’d look good with a beard. And I haven’t seen you without one since.

Eddy: It is a bit weird.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: It’ll grow back.

Aleks: It reminds me of that time when I was seven and my dad had a moustache my entire life and then decided to shave it off and I just cried and I wouldn’t talk to him for a week. I just had to hide from him.

Eddy: So does that mean because we’re off to Bali next week, you’re just not going to talk to me?

Aleks: I’m not going to talk to you. Am I organised in our room? Oh, you don’t mind?

Eddy: Well, kind of be nice just to, you know, just chill out by ourselves. But it will grow back by the time we get back from Bali. It’s going to be like halfway there anyway.

Aleks: Yeah, because I feel like you’ve lost half your face.

Eddy: Yeah, it is a bit strange. A bit of a strange.

Aleks: Anyway, no one will see photos because he’s going to let it grow a bit more.

Eddy: I won’t take any photos until halfway through our trip.

Aleks: Okay. Yeah, cool. Anyway, I’ll get past it. All right, let’s get into it. So we’re gonna basically just go through some kind of, I guess, trends or trends, really just highlights and organise them into some sort of structure, theme.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: I want to. I want to start off, actually to talk about what hasn’t changed that much and that is music. And look, I don’t know if it’s. Obviously we work with, you know, couples who are pretty similar in terms of the style of wedding. They want a big party, etcetera. They want everyone to enjoy themselves. So, you know, you still have a lot of variety in people’s music briefs. All the classics are still working really well. You know, like gimme, gimme. Abba is not going anywhere. Sergeant Slick.

Eddy: Sergeant Slick.

Aleks: And in fact, you made a comment the other day that even where we’ve got AbbA on the do not playlist, a couple often say, except for gimme, gimme.

Eddy: Yes. Yeah, that is very, very true.

Aleks: Which is so funny. But in terms of music, the one thing I would say that we are seeing a lot more of, and it’s obviously due to, like, the age of the couples that we’re working with, is more pop punk.

Eddy: Yes, definitely. Which I love.

Aleks: Same.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: Cause we are. That was our era, the emo era, 2000.

Eddy: I don’t know where I was in the emo era, to be honest. I wasn’t really listening to emo music. Um, I think I got as close as like Linkin park or something.

Aleks: Yeah. Yeah. But it was in the mainstream, you know what I mean?

Eddy: Definitely was in the mainstream, though. You’re right.

Aleks: It was, uh, it was on the charts. So I think we all enjoyed a bit of, you know, and, like, you know, my chemical romance.

Eddy: And, um, we actually touch on this in our next episode, which we’ve already recorded. Someone very special.

Aleks: Yes, true, true, true. Other thing, again, a reflection of the age of our couples is like a lot more 2010s, lots of black eyed peas. Although they do appear on the do not plays often as well. They do very divisive. And also seeing more like, really good recent dance music, like current dance music, like Dom Dollar. Fred again.

Eddy: Yes. It’s funny cause I’ve been going through and organising a lot of my music again, and I got to. So I’m splitting out my dance into like, nineties, two thousands, two thousand, ten s. And when I get to 2020, I was amazed at how much I had in there, how much good stuff.

Aleks: I had in there, which is exciting for us because we’ve always been big, you know, fans of electronic music. So, yes, nice to see that it’s being appreciated.

Eddy: And it’s nice that there’s some Aussies in the mix there too, like fisher, et cetera. Dumb dahl. We mentioned Fisher all the time. Yeah, it’s funny because we mentioned Fisher all the time, but I haven’t been playing him that much.

Aleks: No, I know, sorry. Dom Dollar has kind of taken over and Fred again as well. I feel they’re the kind of two big artists at the moment that people are requesting. And look, stuff, like, rhymed us, like, whatabanger. That’s just epic. There’s some lesser known stuff too, depending on the crowd, obviously, but, yeah, generally not that much. Not that much new stuff in terms of music. Like, you still have people wanting, you know, the same, you know, Mister bright side in some situations.

Eddy: Summer on the dude I plays, they.

Aleks: Tend to be yeah, I feel like.

Eddy: It’s those big anthems that that can be polarising at times.

Aleks: Totally.

Eddy: Like horses, for instance.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: You either love it or you don’t.

Aleks: Exactly.

Eddy: And there’s yeah, Mister Brightside definitely falls into that camp.

Aleks: Yeah, I’m seeing a lot of requests for classic house, again, reflective of the age because that stuff was on the charts when we were, you know, you know, 18 to early twenties. So seeing a lot of classic house, which is cool because you can also get the quote unquote oldies. That’s not really oldies. You know, people in their fifties and stuff love it too, because they were going out fifties. That’s not oldies.

Eddy: We’re getting closer to our fifties every day.

Aleks: Gross all right, so music. Yeah, not much to report. Some cool recent dance stuff, but the classics remain classics and yeah, people either love or hate them.

Eddy: Yeah I might just interject there and say that I think eighties has had a bit of a resurgence as well because I found certainly when I started deejaying eighties, it was all about the eighties. Yeah this was 15 years ago and then it kind of obviously crept into the nineties and the nineties was such a big thing and it still is, but I’m finding now we’re getting a lot more eighties requests.

Aleks: Yeah, that’s so true. Actually I did know, yeah because when I started deejaying, eighties wasn’t really that big. So it must have been like before I started when you had kind of your first years of your DJ.

Eddy: And if you think about it, right, it’s the parents. So the parents grew up with the eighties music whereas when I started it would have been more seventies music for the parents.

Aleks: Yeah, true, true. Yeah. Although the nineties are still massive. Massive. And I think the fact that every single like nineties dance classic has been re edited within an inch of its life. There are some really good edits out there though that don’t muck around too much.

Eddy: Well yeah, and they’re the ones to choose I think. Cause I’m somewhat of a purist, I must say. Again, gimme gimme gimme is an exception. Cause I think they did wonders with that track, Sergeant Slick. But when it comes to nineties I do tend to play the og nineties dance stuff. Cause it still hits.

Aleks: It does, yeah, got a great sound and we’re seeing a lot more nineties sound creeping into house music now anyway. And pop music. Yeah, that’s it for music. I think about just the general like relaxed nature of weddings. We always talk about this in terms of cocktail style weddings, but I’m seeing the cocktail weddings being like even more relaxed and very, very flexible with the run sheet, which I love. I don’t know if photographers love it as much. It depends. But I’ve had a couple of weddings where they haven’t really had like a photographer hang around for too long or they just had like a family or family member or friend take photos. Has been super, super relaxed. I had one at noisy ritual which I think I did a reel on and it was the couple got married in Canada but they live in Australia and then they had like their post wedding party for all their Aussie friends and family. So it was very intimate and you know, Bailey, the bride wore her wedding dress which was cute and they had little polaroid photos kind of pinned around the place showing their original wedding and stuff like that. So very nice, but, like, really, really relaxed. And the main kind of, I guess, thing on the run sheet was this is when the official dance floor will start, so it’s good to still see. Kind of see that happening. But, yeah, I’m seeing a lot of flexibility. One extreme example is Loz and Cole’s wedding at top paddock, where they actually decided to ditch their first dance. Things were running a bit behind. It was cocktail style. People were dancing super early, I think was like a five hour dance floor, something crazy like that. And they went, you know what?

Aleks: Nah, screw it. It’s gonna ruin the flow. Because the dance floor had already started.

Eddy: Yep.

Aleks: And last minute they decided for the encore songs, I’d finished up one more song, one more song as an encore song to do the first dance, I think, was actually my idea.

Eddy: Good idea, good idea.

Aleks: And it was so cute because everyone joined in. I think it was two strong hearts, John Farnham. So everyone sang along and clapped, and it was such a cool moment for the first dance. So, yeah, and look, we’re, like, pretty flexible with this stuff, as long as we’re being communicated with and we don’t get sprung with something random. But we’ve talked about this recently, too. Like, I’ve had couples recently. Alex and Chris are an example at post office hotel, where they’ve decided last minute to do an entrance. So I think you mentioned this as well. Things like cake cutting and entrances might not be on the run sheet, but we always have tunes ready to go.

Eddy: We do. We says we say this in the next episode. Yes.

Aleks: Oh, do we? Oh, God, we’re gonna repeat us all.

Eddy: We don’t listen to both in a row. Well, we recorded. Was it Thursday night?

Aleks: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Eddy: Today it’s Saturday. Saturday, yes.

Aleks: We’re going on holiday scenes. Yeah. So super, super relaxed, cocktail style weddings with a flexible run sheet. I think it is harder to have a flexible run sheet with a sit down dinner, because a lot is based around food service and the kitchen. So, yeah, just a word of caution. If you do want something that’s a bit more flexible, be careful with the sit down. Maybe have a chat to your venue if you want.

Eddy: I mean, if it’s like a cocktail vibe wedding, it might. You might have food trucks or something like that as well.

Aleks: And they have to serve at certain times as well. Yeah.

Eddy: When they’re there, I think. And you sort of go up and grab what you need at any given time. So there’s things that you can build in to your wedding, depending on where it is, of course. That will help you with that.

Aleks: Yeah, absolutely. That reminds me, I had one of the best meals. There’s a food truck. It was a pasta truck. I wish I knew the name because the owner was so lovely. I think they’re, like, based in Northside or near pool or something. And I had, like, this noki in this, like, roasted tomato sauce with, like, you know, freshly shaved parmesan. It was amazing. And it was cold that night. And I was like, this is the best meal. So stodgy and delicious. Anyway, God, I’m hungry. Um, should have eaten before this next one. Do you want to kick it off?

Eddy: Yes. So I want to talk about kind of fun and unique things that, you know, don’t we? Don’t what we’re seeing more of, I suppose. And the first one is. Is from Mimi and Joe’s wedding at the bun factory. Yeah, I’m jumping. Aleks is looking confused. I’m jumping down to the end of this list because I do want to have a chat about this, because we’re talking about unique.

Aleks: Yeah, we did.

Eddy: We did mention it short, you know, before. So they. Similarly to what you’re saying, they wanted to kind of get a lot done in one time. There was still a fair bit of structure to their wedding and actually had dance brackets, which we don’t usually play.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: But it kind of worked for this situation.

Aleks: Again, we talk about in the next.

Eddy: Again, we talk about the next episode because it’s fresh. This is why we’re saying things. But. So they had shots on entrance to.

Aleks: Fireball to the reception entrance.

Eddy: Yes. Yeah, yeah. To their ceremony, and not that it hasn’t happened.

Aleks: Why not? God, I’m still waiting for that to happen in one of my ceremonies.

Eddy: It has happened. One of your ceremonies?

Aleks: Yeah, but no, no, when I’m. When I’m a celebrant. So, shot with the couple.

Eddy: Oh.

Aleks: Even though that will be breaking my no drinking before ceremony.

Eddy: Also, would the attorney general’s department look disfavored, drunk, intoxicated? Okay, there you go.

Aleks: We do know the attorney general listens to this podcast, so I’m probably gonna.

Eddy: Be generous to the ad. Yeah. So they had shots on entrance, which was really cool, into the reception, and then they basically did their cake cutting straight after their first dance, straight after that mother daughter father sundance, open dance floor through a few kind of throwbacks there for 20 minutes or so. Everybody sat down, and then, obviously, speeches, etc. And then we came back to the dance floor later on. But I thought that worked really well, and it really signified that this crew was a party crew. I’m talking about the wedding party, and obviously, all of the guests, friends, family, saw that. Okay. They’re setting the scene by having a shot.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: Worked really well. The song made sense because it’s funny. They emailed me and they said, oh, we really want to do a shot of tequila. And, you know, tequila’s that did it. But they’re like, it seems like a weird shuffle to come in. Do you have anything more high energy that kind of talks about tequila? And I just said, oh, it’s a shame you’re not doing it to fireball because, you know, fireball’s a really cool, fun song, and they’re like, let’s do a fireball. That’s a great idea.

Aleks: I love they change the liquor of.

Eddy: Choice, and it’s much more palatable.

Aleks: Oh, yum. That’s sugary cinnamon. I’m hungry and thirsty. Clearly.

Eddy: I love that.

Aleks: So that’s, that’s rare. Yeah. So dance brackets are dance sets. That happened before the official start of the dance floor. And they’re pretty, it’s pretty traditional, but we very rarely see these. Probably maybe once every two years we’ll see these happen. But the way you’ve described it sound like it actually works really well because they did it in such a fun way. Fire. Fun, high energy way.

Eddy: Yep. Yep. They really did. So, and because I was Mcing, I was able to kind of, it’s like they had, they actually had somebody from nudo with a tray with the shots on it. So I was kind of directing them, you know, find the person with the shot tray. Don’t worry about anything else. That’s, that’s your goal as you’re coming into the room. Um, which I thought was pretty funny.

Aleks: Yeah. That’s so cool. So the whole wedding part, everyone did a shot?

Eddy: Yes. There was only four of them.

Aleks: Yeah. Nice.

Eddy: Yeah. Yeah. So best man, maid of honour, and.

Aleks: Then bride and groom, lucky wedding party. There you go. Love that. Did you have another one that you want to comment?

Eddy: I did, actually. So Greta and Paul at the trust, this is something we do here and there every now and then on request, mostly on request. Sometimes we will do it. Are not on request. If there’s a fun and different and unique music brief. But they actually asked me to record their background music set. Not their dance pool set, but the background set, which I thought was really cool. Honestly, it was one of the best Spotify playlists I received in my career. I think for the background vibe.

Aleks: I think when we say Spotify playlist, we just should make it clear this is their inspiration.

Eddy: This is Inspo vibe playlist. So they sent me to. They sent me. Here’s some songs that we’d love to hear for the dancer, and here’s some songs we want here for the background part of the night. So sit down, cocktail hour, sit down, dinner, all that kind of thing. And I was blown away. And I think. I think I might have got them a little bit excited about how excited I was on our final zoom catch up, because they. Yeah, they asked me afterwards, can you. Can you record it? Which absolutely I did and I loved it. And then it sent that one through, so. And that becomes cool for us, too, because we can promote how we like to build a set for background in that kind of. It was very soulful, very, very funky. There’s a bit of disco splashed in there. So very much the vibe that we love to create, particularly at a venue like the trust.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: Because I do like to play the venues sometimes in terms of how they look and all that kind of thing. Yeah, it worked out quite well. And it was nice to have another mix that we can share to our general couple demographic, too.

Aleks: I have to have a listen to that one. That sounds great. I love that. And it just highlights the importance of background music to our couples as well. I think most people appreciate that. You know, the vibe is set as soon as you hit play on that first song and not to only think about dance floor music. So that’s really cool.

Eddy: Yes.

Aleks: Oh, the next one is. I’m involved in this.

Eddy: You are involved. So this was Ellie and Ethan at Lucci. This was the. This was the night before, I think, the trust.

Aleks: Very similar venues.

Eddy: Very similar venues.

Aleks: They’re, like, sort of very classy New York style bistro. Yeah.

Eddy: Old world charm.

Aleks: Yeah. Beautiful.

Eddy: Gorgeous.

Aleks: Classic.

Eddy: Yes. Very classic. So I actually brought Aleks along as my content.

Aleks: It was my night off, guys.

Eddy: BTS person. I owe one. So, yeah, she was able to take a bunch of footage that I wouldn’t necessarily get to take myself. And there’s a bit going on in that, on that particular wedding as well. So, you know, even if I was by myself, I probably wouldn’t have come over with any footage, wouldn’t have had any time to capture those things that happened. And we, you know, like, truth be told, we had a couple of microphones in there and we got a bit of interference from one of them, so we had to swap it out. So these things happen at gigs. So this is why we take backups and troubleshoot on the fly. And the reason why it sometimes happens with wireless microphones is there can be some interference. We were in the middle of the city, so there might be some interference on the channel. Even though we do search for clean channels before things get going, it can.

Aleks: Happen Friday night in the city.

Eddy: Friday night in the city. Everyone was there, so, yeah, so we had to quickly manage that situation. So, yeah. Long story short, I’m super glad, Aleks, you were there in order to take some footage.

Aleks: I mean, it was beautiful.

Eddy: It was aesthetically beautiful. And we put together a really cool reel that really showcased the day, the crowd, all that kind of stuff. But we were also able to take all that raw footage and just send it on to the couple. So they have some cool stuff. Stuff. They had a videographer and photographer, obviously, and Alex was obviously mindful, you know, not to step in the way of the professionals doing the work. But it’s cool sometimes because you get angles you perhaps wouldn’t have gotten with what the videographer was doing or what have you.

Aleks: So also waiting, obviously, for a little bit, you know, a little bit before you.

Eddy: Well, yeah, I don’t think they would have to film for a while. Yeah. So that was really cool as well. So I guess we’re bundling this under fun and unique things. It is good to consider content creator for your wedding, if even particularly, particularly if you don’t have a videographer. I think 1 million% just so you can get some cool footage that will really be delivered to you, I would imagine within one or two days, usually.

Aleks: The next morning, usually the next time you wake up.

Eddy: Yeah. So you’re able to kind of grab it all. They’ll put together typically a fun reel that you can share out on your socials to your friends and family, but then they’ll give you all the raw footage because then that’s great, because you might pick up some really nice little nuggets in there that you want to share at a later time or just want to keep for yourself.

Aleks: Exactly. That’s right. And, yeah, it gives you more. More content before. While you’re waiting for the other bits and pieces from your professional photographer and videographer. We’ll talk about the last one in a bit. I want to talk about that at the end because we’re talking about our offerings, and we’ll do the sales pitch. So I want to talk about dance floor props, which I’m seeing more of. You had this recently, or maybe it was last year, but recent example is Lucy and Darren, older couple, actually, at Glasshouse Brooker. And they had the light up sunnies you buy on Taimou, or whatever it’s called. But they work really well. They’re kind of aviator style and they’ve got kind of, I don’t know, horizontal lines going across, and they kind of light up on the dance floor. So it’s very, very fun, very, very cool. I feel like there’s something about putting sunnies on that makes you kind of let loose on the dance floor. Sort of almost hidden or anonymous or something.

Eddy: Yeah, I think it is the anonymity that it brings.

Aleks: And I had a super recent one as well. Alexa and Chris at post office hotel, they actually had our photo booth, but they also provided every single guest with those different coloured heart sunnies. So every single guest on top of their napkin had the glasses spilled onto the dance floor. And I tell you, the photos are so much fun. So good. They had bang hangings and disco balls. Screams party and. Yeah, I feel like it really added a lot other dance floor props. Have you seen. I mean, I’ve seen those, like, those.

Eddy: Sticks, those light up sticks.

Aleks: Floppy.

Eddy: Well, I had one similar to, like, having those types of things. This was late, like, last year, but we’re obviously talking about what we’ve seen this year. But I have seen those kind of. They’re inflatable sticks that kind of light up. I’ve seen them in a lot of wedding dance floors. They look fantastic. Yeah. And I don’t know whether it’s the DJ’s or perhaps if there is a planner involved, they’re providing them, or whether it’s the clients themselves supplying them, but, yeah, I’d love to see a few of those on the dance floor. I would probably not give them out until maybe that last hour and a half or hour even, just because, you know, that means every single photo you’re going to see are going to have those. It’d be kind of cool to have them without and then maybe push it home with those, because that’ll give a nice boost of energy and fun for that last.

Aleks: We spend too much time together because I was literally gonna say boost of energy.

Eddy: Yeah, we do. Well, we’re having separate rooms in our. In our.

Aleks: Oh, new house.

Eddy: No.

Aleks: What?

Eddy: We’ve just bought a house.

Aleks: Oh, sorry. Separate rooms, separate offices.

Eddy: I’m talking about our holidays.

Aleks: Oh, our holiday. Yes, yes, yes.

Eddy: Separate holidays.

Aleks: It’s so warm in Bali. I’ll just sleep outside.

Eddy: It’s. Yeah, awesome.

Aleks: Can’t wait to defrost I actually wrote my out of office and it says defrosting in Bali. You should copy it.

Eddy: It’s pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, maybe I will. Yeah. So, no, I haven’t seen any at our weddings just yet, but I’m very excited. Please, if you are a couple that has one of us deejaying their wedding and you’re listening to this, have a think about it, hit us up on DM’s and we’ll see what we can do for you.

Aleks: Yeah, totally. Just go to Taimou. Also, I forgot to mention, I’m doing a massive disservice to my clients. Mel and Josh and Rhiannon and Tom had their cats, uh, you know, on a, like, printed out.

Eddy: Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s like.

Aleks: And, like, going out on the dance floor. I just absolutely adore that. So anything like that, super fun thinking about the photos and the content that you get, but also just, like, adding just a fun little element to the dance floor is good. Next one I want to talk about, because I’ve seen it quite a bit this year. Um, and it sounds a bit tacky, but in practise, it’s actually so much fun. And that is some surprise sing alongs.

Eddy: Yes.

Aleks: Or just surprise singing in general. I’ve got three examples from. From the first half of this year. The first one was Maddie and Sami at Glasshouse Brooker. I actually worked with the MC’s who worded me up beforehand, and they were doing. There were two MC’s. They were doing, like, a roving mic thing. So they’re going around, like, interacting with guests and asking them how they’re going and blah, blah, blah, which was kind of fun itself. But then there was a guest who is a singer and they went around to her and I queued up aerosmiths. I don’t want to miss a thing. Must be some sort of in joke or something with a friendship group. And then she started. When she started singing and got to the chorus, I, like, cranked it up and then they kind of got everyone to join along. And this is a sit down dinner, so you could see everyone, like, swaying their arms and just having a huge sing along. And there’s something about singing that just boosts endorphins. It makes people super happy. So it was really very, very fun.

Eddy: I love that.

Aleks: Yeah, it was really cool. I’d love to see more of that. Another one was Caitlin and Braden, where I was celebrating MC at acres of Tuberak. I don’t know how to say that, but it’s gorgeous. Venue bit like butterfly, Red Hill vibes.

Eddy: Oh, cool.

Aleks: Lots of different spaces. Very, very cool. Their cousin actually surprised them with a song after the entrance. The entrance was kind of outside and it was you. She did such a good job. The bride cried. She had been practising for months. Like, it was just. It completely blew the couple away. They had no idea. So I love that.

Eddy: Lovely. Yeah.

Aleks: And the final one, which I saw very recently, was Judy and Ian at the terrace in the botanical gardens was a daytime wedding.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: I actually played for Judy’s daughter a couple years ago, which is really sweet, and saw her there. Anyway, they had. Before I started. I was there early, but they had a trio, kind of jazzy trio. They handed out some songbooks to everyone. This is before I started and got them to sing along. So everyone did a huge group sing along. Literally from there. Seats sitting down in the middle of the day, sunny shining and everyone’s just belting out all these classics like there’s the Beatles and stuff. Love it. The group sing along and the couple had no idea that it was going to happen as well, which added a lot of fun to that. So I love that. I think you had a sing along, but it might have been last year, though.

Eddy: No, it was this year. Yeah, it was this year. Michael and Tess at post office.

Aleks: Yeah. Yeah.

Eddy: Who actually, there was somebody there at that wedding that we are interviewing on our next podcast. Podcast episode.

Aleks: We didn’t talk about that on the episode, actually.

Eddy: No, we didn’t, actually. Yeah. So they did something. So they had somebody contact me about removing the lyrics from a Kylie Minogue song, which I promptly did through my software. And then I sent that through to them and. Yeah, they did a similar thing. So everybody kind of sung it and it was. It was very cool. I think. I think you’re right in saying that it does kind of lift the room.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: And just puts everyone in the best mood. There must be something about singing that just kind of gives you a dopamine here.

Aleks: Yeah, totally. I think it’s similar to dancing, you know? Yeah, definitely belting out a tune. So I love that. That’s definitely something that I like. Haven’t seen in previous years and it’s been a huge.

Eddy: Yeah, no, I haven’t seen it either. Yeah.

Aleks: Which has been fun. Lastly, we’re going to talk about. We’ve had quite a lot of our couples book audio guest books and the photo booth.

Eddy: Yes. And I think this plays into couples understanding their guests and understanding that perhaps some guests aren’t crazy, avid dancers, but they want other things for people to do at their wedding. And also obviously it brings about some really cool content for the couple later on. So yeah, if we start with audio guest books, I was looking through all of the weddings that we’ve been playing and a lot of them. Yeah. Had audio guest books attached to them. And we’ve probably spoken about our audio guest books on the potty before. But it’s a rotary phone that you pick up the receiver of. There is a message from the couple, a beep and then you can record your own message and then hang up the receiver.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: So I often make a joke when I’m saying like for those of you who are under the age of 30, you won’t know what this is. So get.

Aleks: I mean, I would, if someone said to me, rotary phone, I would have no idea. Just like an old fashioned landline. Really old fashioned phone.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: For those of you who are under 30. Um, yeah, audio guestbooks, really fun. I mean one of the, you know, the messages get funny because we have the audio guest booking all night. We basically set it up before we start and have it there to the very end. And yeah, the messages get interesting as the night goes, goes on. Some of it to be r rated. Lots of pizza orders and dumpling orders that you’re meeting.

Eddy: That’s actually. I was really hungry after.

Aleks: Explain like describing the delicious flavours. I was like, oh yeah, love and audio guest book I think gives a couple again, you know, a way to extend the memory of their wedding and capture more content from, from their guests. And you also get a sense of like, you know, if you don’t get around to chatting to everyone and you maybe saw did so and so have a good time. Like you can hear it like in their messages. They’re like had a few drinks, they’re, they’re feeling, you know, they’re talking about how much fun it is, it’s the best day, etc. So it’s kind of nice for the couple to hear that.

Eddy: That’s lovely.

Aleks: Photo booth.

Eddy: Photo booth.

Aleks: Super pop, that thing. I could set it up in two minutes.

Eddy: I reckon you, you’re actually booking it more than I am. You are. You have gotten very, very good at that. So it’s a digital photo booth. We don’t do printouts. The reason why we made a decision not to do printouts is back in the day when I’ve seen these photo booths with printouts. Nothing against them, obviously. They’re fantastic in their own way. But most of the time I was packing my equipment up as DJ and just seeing everyone had left the printouts on tables and on the floor and all that kind of stuff. So we made a decision just to do fully digital.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: You obviously with props. We do props, yes. But we made the decision not to do any back jobs unless requested. So we can hire in backdrops if needed. We’ve got a few different options there that look cool, but instead, we do look for places in the venues that we play. That is a cool backdrop for that.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: And we found some really good ones. And it makes you start to think and appreciate where the photo booth is going to be put.

Aleks: Yeah, exactly. And it’s. It’s not been a problem. I was at a. It was actually a corporate, but there was, like, not really any war, and I found a really cool spot with, like, marbling and just, like, really highlighted what the venue is. Like. The benefit of not having a backdrop is it takes up a lot less space if you don’t have one.

Eddy: Yeah, it does.

Aleks: So you. You know, for a smaller venue, you can squeeze the photo booth in. I mean, the perfect example is, like, somewhere like Rupert. Actually, I want to talk about. We’ve talked about Rupert before. They’ve got that kind of floral. Floral wallpaper in the back bar, which is on the dance floor.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: If it’s not a cocktail and you’re. You have a dance floor in the back bar. But anyway, Panama dining room. I had one for Kathleen and Ryan there recently, and I literally squeezed it in the corner against the brick wall, you know, where the arch window is where they get married. So they had florals on one side adorning, like, one edge of it. And then the brick wall, it meant there was a. In a kind of tighter space, you could still squeeze in five or six people. People get really creative with it.

Eddy: They really, really do.

Aleks: It’s better, in fact, to have it a tighter space, nicer frame. But it just goes to show you can. You can really find places for it. So that’s been super popular. We do update our props from time to time. Some of them, people get really excited with them, and they don’t last more than a few weddings, but that’s all part of them.

Eddy: They get a bit rancid. So we obviously look, when it comes to sunnies and stuff like that, or glasses and stuff like that, we do wipe them down with, like, alcohol wipes and stuff like that. So they’re not gnarly before they go out, but, yeah, they do. You know, when we made the decision to do this, we knew that we were going to go through quite a few props, things get broken and it’s just, you know, maybe someone takes off with one of them and, you know, one of the things that I like to do at the end of the night is kind of do a bit of a walk around the room and describe whoever’s wearing a hat.

Aleks: I’ve taken the hats off. Yeah. Yeah. But happy to say we haven’t had a lot missing, so that’s been really good.

Eddy: Yeah, yeah. People are pretty respectful.

Aleks: Yeah. And look, some couples want to bring their own props, which is great.

Eddy: Yes, I love that too. Or make their own backdrops. We’ve had that in the past as well.

Aleks: You can really get creative with it. But basically when we say digital photo booth, you can just. All it means is, yeah, no printout. Which again, makes it easier to set up and operate because you don’t need to deal with a printer, another piece of technology. So once you’ve taken your captcha, so give photo or boomerang, you literally just like put your number, put your mobile number in and the captcha gets sent to you. And then we send the full gallery in Google Drive for our couples to download and do whatever they like with. So, yeah, it’s been very, very popular. Photo booths are not going anywhere. I don’t think.

Eddy: I don’t think so.

Aleks: They’ve been around for so long and they’re still very, very popular.

Eddy: Also, I think the same for the audio guest books too.

Aleks: I think so too. And I think, you know, the whole content creation kind of space and the fact that people want content, content, content means that things like audio guest books, photo booths, they’re just another way of capturing that. So I think stuff like that’s always going to be pretty popular.

Eddy: Definitely.

Aleks: Awesome. Well, I think that kind of wraps it up. It’s been, it’s been a good first half of the year in terms of weddings. They’ve been fun. You know, our couples have been pretty relaxed as always and we’ve really enjoyed it. So thank you as always for listening. Get in touch again, we love to hear from you and know who’s actually listening to this because there’s no real way of knowing unless we hear from you.

Eddy: Well, now that you say that, I do need to say and give a shout out to Farrah as of Farah and Paul getting married at Voodoo Monde this October. Yeah, I did tell her that I’d give her a shout out on the potty because she’s an avid listener. So shout out to you, Farrah, I hope you’re having a fantastic time with your wedding planning. And, yeah, get in touch if you need anything.

Aleks: How lovely. And you can tell Farrah that when I was at Voodoo Monde, I had the audio guest book and the photo booth and both worked a treat, just in case.

Eddy: Okay, those haven’t been booked. Fair enough.

Aleks: I’m doing the upsells for you. Thanks so much, guys. We’ll chat to you soon.

Eddy: Bye.

Aleks: Bye. Thanks for tuning in. If you’re enjoying project engaged, please hit the subscribe button on your fave 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.