S4, EP3: Balancing different music tastes at a wedding

Aleks: Welcome to Project Engaged, a podcast for fun loving couples planning their non traditional wedding. 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. And we are back after a little bit of a hiatus, I might add.

Aleks: Whoopsies.

Eddy: Whoopsies. No, truth be told, we. We had a week or five nights in Bali.

Aleks: Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

Eddy: Came and went.

Aleks: It was very nice.

Eddy: And last week we were actually on another podcast, so we took another week off. We were guests.

Aleks: I was saying today how weird it was to be talking about ourselves the whole time and not asking questions.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: Felt a bit unnatural, but it definitely.

Eddy: Felt unnatural being on the other side.

Aleks: But it was lovely. We were on Cut the cake podcast. I think the episode will come out next year in Feb. At some point it was with Tanya hall and Melly Rain. Melly Rain, that’s her business name, Mel.

Aleks: Lovely. So good to chat to them. We went very in depth about music. I think it went for like over an hour. Well over an hour.

Aleks: So looking forward to that one coming out. Yeah, we went to Bali. Very short trip. Came back and it’s just been weddings, weddings, corporates events. Never ending.

Eddy: Never ending, basically. No. No. So shall we do our weekend roundup now?

Aleks: Let’s do it.

Eddy: Here we go. I’ll go first if you like.

Aleks: We’ve missed a few weeks.

Eddy: We have. Yeah. Let’s just do the weekend that we just passed. So it’s corporate party season at the moment. So we’re playing corporate shows in amongst weddings shows.

Aleks: Wow.

Eddy: Yeah. Showtime. Which is great. Look, it’s a little bit of a break from the weddings. Different sort of dynamic, which.

Eddy: Which we can get into if you have the time. But I did a law firm on Friday night. Great party. They did musical stings for awards, which is always really fun to play as people are coming up to receive. Funnily enough, though, I didn’t know this.

Eddy: Did I tell you this? But I didn’t know this at the time. Time. There were quite a few people that weren’t actually there to receive the awards. So I was gonna.

Eddy: I was sort of getting there, like, don’t. Don’t play the song. Don’t play the song. Oh, good at the time. So I had, you know, sounds just.

Aleks: Like a wedding, actually. Just a bit of last minute stuff going on. Last minute stuff.

Eddy: So that was cool. And then Saturday night, I had a wedding at mount dunied estate for Emily and Tim. The couple going back to our interview with wedshed guys, they came in with big couple energy. Bce.

Aleks: Good.

Eddy: Their bridal party did as well. Or their wedding party, I should say. It was. Yeah. Pretty big vibes.

Eddy: I had Kenny on sax with me as well and. Yeah, just. Just overall big, big, big one.

Aleks: It looked great. And they. I love that they finished with September because often it’s a song that you hear at the beginning of the dance floor, so it’s a little bit different and everyone would have loved that.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: So on a high note.

Eddy: Well, they did. So they actually chose two songs for the last part of the night. And the first one was shooting stars. And then September, funnily enough, like September being as good a song as it is, it really left everyone wanting a lot more. But how do you follow that?

Eddy: That’s the thing. It’s such a great song to just really tie things in. It’s a throwback. So I pulled many, many, many of the older crew that weren’t really vibing with shooting stars for, you know, understandable reasons back onto the dance hall. So we really did land sort of on a high there.

Eddy: We finished that on a high and they just. Yeah, the crowd wanted a lot more, but I couldn’t play anymore.

Aleks: Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? You either end with something that is a sing along, maybe not as high energy, but then you don’t get that energy, but then people don’t really. They’re like, okay, the night’s sort of come to an end, or you end on a high note and everyone’s like, yeah, wants to keep going. You can’t win either way. I reckon.

Aleks: Just, you know, do whatever.

Eddy: I was happy to play one or two more, but, um, the venue was like, do not.

Aleks: No, and look, I understand the venues more and more are getting, you know, complaints from neighbours and their, you know, livelihood is at risk. So I don’t. I totally get it.

Eddy: There was no neighbours at Mount Dunedin.

Aleks: Okay. So I take everything back. Well, people want to go home.

Eddy:To be fair, it was. It was 1130 finish, but they actually made me finish at 1125, so I could have squeezed one more in.

Aleks: Cheeky.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: But, um, can be difficult to get people out.

Eddy: Yeah. So I guess that’s right. So, yeah, that’s completely so how about yourself, Alex?

Aleks: I had two very different and very good weddings last week. On Friday I was at Rockley Farm in Geelong, which is such a unique space. Really, really unique. I don’t know many spaces like it.

Eddy: Tell us why.

Aleks: It’s, um. It’s got a very kind of festival feel to it. So I’ve played a couple of weddings there and it’s got a big, kind of central courtyard area where you have food trucks basically serving food and a dance floor if you want kind of an, it’s kind of an l shape. It’s got like a barn and then attached to it like a clear marquee. All kind of open.

Aleks: They’ve got speakers provided for you in both spaces so no matter where you are, you can hear the tunes, which is great. They’ve really thought about that. Dave and Glenn, the owners, shout out to them. They’ve set it up so well. And the.

Aleks: I was also involved in the ceremony, playing tunes for that and it was out by this 60 zero year old oak tree. It was just magical. I laugh about that because they were making comments about the 600 year old oak tree or the cruise men for the entire, like, as they were waiting. I don’t know why. It must have been an inside joke.

Aleks: Anyway, it was absolutely lovely. I was with Justine Dreamcave, who I have been looking forward to working with for a long time. So that was awesome. The couple, Celine and Finn, were just so gorgeous. I just loved them.

Aleks: They, when they inquired, they’re both business owners and they really wanted to support a small business. That was one of their things. They’ve been there. Inquiry, which I absolutely loved. So, yeah, loved those guys.

Aleks: It was a cocktail style wedding. I was emceeing as well. It was a long day and anyway, yeah, just big vibes. Like their family did a little surprise, uh, flash mob kind of dance for the couple, which was pretty funny.

Eddy: That’s fun.

Aleks: YMCA and Cupid shuffle. Cupid shuffle was verging on nut bush territory, but we excused that. Um, I didn’t keep it going for very long. They kind of did the whole YMCA and then it was just family and then we went into Koopa shuffle a little bit. But, yeah, that was really fun.

Aleks: Their first dance was Fred again. Lots of Fred again this weekend.

Eddy: Which one?

Aleks: Adore you?

Eddy: Oh, yeah.

Aleks: Great way to kick off the dance floor.

Eddy: Oh, yeah.

Aleks: Really good.

Eddy: More big vibes. Big vibes all around.

Aleks: Yeah, it was very fun. Yeah, they were, they were really into it. Lots of EDM, bit of indie stuff. I will actually talk a little bit more about their wedding on this episode when we get into the topic. On Saturday, I was playing for Christina and Charmaine down the road, five minutes down the road at east elevation on Lygon street in Brunswick east.

Aleks: Also involved in the ceremony for that. Just playing music. First time at the venue. Shout out to Lorenza, who’s so lovely. It was, yeah.

Aleks: Really intimate wedding, 40 people, pretty big vibes, pretty good. Lots of kids, like, very heavy on the family, but the kids were up for a boogie, which was great. Yeah. What else can I say was good?

Eddy: No, that’s a. That’s a great summary.

Aleks: Yeah. I will go into both of those with some real examples when we go get into the topic, which you’re going to introduce.

Eddy: I am going to introduce. So today’s episode is all about how to balance different music tastes at a wedding. So. And what we mean by that is, you know, a wedding being a wedding, you’ve got people from all walks of life, different age groups, work friends, you know, old friends, new friends, family members, family members that you may not know as well as some other family members. So how do you balance everybody’s tastes?

Eddy: How do you keep the majority of people happy for the majority of the.

Aleks: Wedding whilst also playing stuff that you guys, the couple, like? And this is where it gets tricky. You guys might not have similar tastes as well.

Eddy: Yes, exactly.

Aleks: And we see these pretty often. It’s one of the first questions that we ask when we meet with couples, potential couples, we ask, do you guys have similar taste in music? And when you two look at each other and laugh, we know the answer is no.

Eddy: Exactly, exactly.

Aleks: So it’s important to flesh that out. Shall we start there? Should we talk about the couple?

Eddy: Yeah, I think it makes sense to do that, because that is sort of where we start.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: In our consultation.

Aleks: Yeah, definitely. So, yeah. What happens when you’ve got completely different tastes and we’re gonna throw in your favourite?

Eddy: Yeah, I might take a step back and say, yeah. The. How we ask the question, I suppose, is in the context of your wedding.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: Thinking about what, you know, thinking about the way. Because, you know, there are tracks that you love that you just probably wouldn’t want played at a wedding. Not that they couldn’t be played, but maybe they’re, you know, lounge stuff that you’re just chilling out to, or maybe you love nu metal or.

Aleks: I was gonna say something like that. Most people would accept that you wouldn’t be playing metal at a wedding.

Eddy: Yeah. Yeah. So it might be on your gym workout playlist, but it’s not necessarily gonna be at your wedding. And when we phrase that question in that particular way, it kind of starts to shift your thinking a little bit. Okay, cool.

Eddy: So what do we love? That we could actually spin at a wedding or have spin at a spun.

Aleks: Spin.

Eddy: Spun at a wedding. Moving on. So, yeah, you have alluded to one of my favourite phrases, which is the Venn diagram.

Aleks: We need to include an actual Venn diagram in.

Eddy: Yeah, we need to sneak it in some or even in the party brief questionnaire that we do send out to our couples. Gotta do something because it does get a lot of air time. And, you know, if you know what a Venn diagram is, it’s two circles and they intersect at one point. And so you’ve got three. I was gonna say quadrants, but three areas because quad would imply four.

Aleks: Three round areas. I don’t know what shape the middle one is. Like an eclipse.

Eddy: Yeah, exactly. Eclipses in the middle. Love that.

Aleks: I was. So FYI.

Eddy: Oh, no, it’s more english words, shapes we’re going to chuck here. But. So in the middle is what you’re both really like or be happy with at your wedding to be played. And we’re not talking just dance floor, because we find that some couples do make the mistake of just thinking about dance floor music rather than music as a whole. Because we’ve probably chatted about this a lot on this podcast.

Eddy: But the background stuff, even from the very, very beginning of the day, as the people you know at your wedding are walking into the venue, it’s highly important that you set that right vibe and then gradually build up to the dance floor. So think about both. If we can 50 50 think about both parts of the day.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: Background and dance floor. And. Yeah, there will be, obviously, within the Venn diagram, there will be on the outside, the things that say one person loves and the other person loves that perhaps aren’t shared.

Aleks: Yeah, I think there’s a. Look, there’s a bit of, like, marriage. I’ve said this before, there’s a bit of compromise. So if you’re can tolerate or don’t mind, you’re just not a massive fan of, say, I don’t know, indie folk or something. Right.

Aleks: And your partner is. But maybe you like stuff for dance floor that they don’t necessarily like. Maybe there’s a bit of compromise there. Okay, well, we can throw in a few indie folk tracks early on while people are eating. And, you know, people, the couples definitely pay attention to what we play during background and give us a little nod and appreciate it and enjoy it, but maybe then you’ll throw in the other stuff for dance floor.

Aleks: So there is a little bit of negotiation there. Usually there is something in the middle, though. There’s definitely overlapping and just coming back.

Eddy: To your point as I. As I cough. It’s funny you mention that because oftentimes I’ll have a couple and one half shouldn’t say half, but one of them is more, like, geared towards the dance floor, but the other absolutely loves kind of more chilled, like, hip hop vibe or something. So they’re, like, super happy they might not be a dancer.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: So they’re like, oh, I’d love to hear this, this, this and this as we’re eating or if it’s a cocktail format, as we’re kind of cruising around, chatting to our guests with a cocktail in hand.

Aleks: Want to enjoy that part.

Eddy: That can be one of the compromises.

Aleks: Yeah, definitely. And I think, just thinking beyond specific songs and artists, think about the overall vibe, looking at, as you mentioned, both the background and dancing tune. So when I say vibe, I tend to find. I don’t know about you, Ed, but I tend to find that couples do fall into a, like, specific vibe they like in terms of music. So whether it’s, like, more funky stuff.

Aleks: And you can have a look at our vibe playlist, which cover this, where there’s more funky stuff, which can cover a number of different genres. Kind of house soul, a funky eighties, you know, maybe a bit of, like, disco funk type tunes. They might kind of like that sort of vibe, or they might like a bit of, like, soft rock and more mainstream pop. Or maybe they’re really just like, r and b, kind of hip hop and different versions of that, different kind of side genres and that sort of thing. So I think it’s important to agree on that as well.

Aleks: I do find a lot of couples have similarities. There. Maybe don’t share exactly the same taste, but the overall vibe is similar, would you say?

Eddy: Yes, generally. I would agree with that, generally. And it also, if you flip it back to your dj or your musicians or whoever you’ve hired for your wedding, it does give them a little bit more flexibility within those vibes to kind of do their own thing. Be creative where they can be creative, but stick within the brief as a whole.

Aleks: Yeah, absolutely. We’re just trying to make it easier for you guys to let us know what you like and what you don’t like. We mentioned kind of background. Very, very important. We even get inquiries where people are like, can you start doing the dance floor, you know, absolutely not thinking about music earlier in the night, which is just no.

Aleks: The answer is no. We like to set the mood as soon as people walk.

Eddy: It depends if they’ve got, like, if they’ve got an acoustic artist or such. But it does make it a little bit more difficult for us if we are starting later because we haven’t really clocked the crowd as much. So you’re pushing your point further. It’s really important for us to. Because we start reading the crowd straight away.

Eddy: You know that most.

Aleks: Most of the reading crowd happens before the dance floor even starts.

Eddy: Yeah. So. And if you’re not familiar with what that term means, it’s really just watching people, watching for their reactions with each tune that you play. And then you can kind of form somewhat of a profile of your guests. And everybody’s different, obviously.

Eddy: So some people will respond to different things differently, but you can start to get an overall picture of, okay, so this. This will work later on if I’m playing that earlier, that kind of thing. So, yeah, 100% your point?

Aleks: Yeah. So it’s like we start with the couples brief and then we go, okay, let’s test this out early on, play a couple of these things. Couple of these things. What resonates the best with people? And we’ll get on to the family and friends soon.

Aleks: And that’s where we kind of. That’s what the direction the night will go in. And it can be a little bit of a different direction. It might not be exactly what you thought it would be. In fact, often it’s quite different.

Aleks: So it’s important to have a wide range from the couple as well.

Eddy: Yeah, and I like what you’ve said there in testing. So, yeah, we are testing the water, and if we’re given the opportunity to do that earlier on, yeah, we’re going to have to do less of that. On the dance.

Aleks: You have more data. For later on.

Eddy: We have more data. You have processed the data for later.

Aleks: On, we have more intel.

Eddy: And another thing, like, if you. You look at our actual music or dj software, we have a. It’s different for each of us because we use different software. We’ve spoken about this before, but we have both have like a preparation box, so to speak, within the software. So we can start throwing things in early, later on, what have you, and really start to get a sense of, okay, this is what I might play.

Eddy: And it can go out the window depending what the.

Aleks: The crowd’s doing.

Eddy: But, yeah, I think there’s less testing on the dance floor when we do start a little bit earlier.

Aleks: Yeah, it’s like your practise run before the background’s a bit of a practise run because there’s a bit of less pressure because people are still eating and you know, a bit distracted but you can still see that they’re enjoying it.

Eddy: Exactly.

Aleks: And seeing what they like. I think also, you know, feel free to include in your sort of brief for your dj in our situation that will be a our party brief in your brief or questionnaire or whatever you fill out for your dj, feel free to include different requests and write down who they’re for. So if you’ve got like five song requests each. Because sometimes I find like for example, say you’ve got a bride and groom in this situation and the bride wants a particular song and the groom doesn’t really like it but he’s gone to the toilet. I might quickly play it, you know what I mean?

Aleks: So there’s things that we can do. So it’s good for us to actually know who’s put what forward as well. So feel free to do that.

Eddy: Exactly. Another thing is to collaborate on a playlist in Spotify or Apple Music or whatever your, you know, I’ve had YouTube.

Aleks: Music before, it doesn’t really matter because we don’t stream music anyway we physically.

Eddy: Saw and that’s something we do have to sort of say time and time again because I think people, and rightly so, we’re in an age of streaming, people do think that we stream our music but we still buy the mp3 s of our music and have them on our hard drive locally. And that’s because, you know, if we were reliant on streaming, if our Internet connection dropped out, then the song would.

Aleks: Drop out and it happens and the Internet connection drops out all the time at venues. So yeah, you cannot rely on it anyway.

Eddy: So yeah, back to you. Regardless of what platform you use, Tangent Central. So regardless of what platform you use, collaborate on a playlist. So give yourselves like both of you permissions to add tracks and then, you know, prior to meeting up with your dj again, run through it together.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: Just to make sure that you’re both happy with what’s in there, with the compromises that we spoke about before.

Aleks:
Yeah, exactly. So it definitely can be done. Don’t be stressed out if you’ve got different music tastes, it’s up to your dj to flesh that out with you. And yeah, hopefully some of those tips will help to in sitting down and putting forward stuff that you’re both happy with.

Eddy: Yes.

Aleks: All right, so that’s the couple. Let’s talk about the family. No, this is the biggest one.

Eddy: Family, to be honest. Yeah, this can get tricky. This can get tricky. So, firstly, communicate with your family. Ask them for their requests.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy:
You don’t have to forward all those requests to us. You can vet those requests. It is your wedding. You should. Yes.

Eddy:
And I guess a good way to do is give them different options of music that you both don’t mind. Options.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: So instead of sort of asking, hey, is there a song you want to hear? And they’re like, yeah, I want to hear the angels. Am I ever going to see your face again? From the couple for next week. Actually, it’s the last song, so there’s a subtle hint to get out of the.

Eddy: Which is their reasoning behind it. Anyway, I digress. You know, ask them. Have a chat before with your partner, perhaps, and just say, okay, what would we be happy with?

Aleks: Let’s.

Eddy: Let’s put some boundaries around.

Aleks: Yeah, let’s put some boundaries.

Eddy: You can let your parents own the decision. So. Oh, or your family, other aunts or whomever, and do it that way.

Aleks: Yes. Yes. So say, you know, oh, if they say, we want ABBA, but you don’t like, maybe you hate ABBA. Does happen sometimes. What else?

Aleks: Like, is there other. Do they like Fleetwood Mac if we’re looking at seventies, or are there some disco tunes that you like that they might like? Or some eighties fun sing alongs or whatever. So negotiate with them. Come up with something that you’re happy with.

Aleks: They feel like they have buy in. They’ll hear their favourite tunes on the night, or at least tunes that they’ve told you they like. Happy days for everyone.

Eddy: Yes. Yes. And, um, I mean, if, depending on your brief, if you’re only really into the modern style music, modern music. How old do I sound right now?

Aleks: I wrote that down.

Eddy: I’m older. Contemporary tunes.

Aleks: Contemporary. I would say two thousands onwards.

Eddy: Yeah. Okay. Or maybe these days, maybe even push it out to 510 anyway, so that your elder family won’t dance to, like, is there any sort of middle ground or any remixed classics or edits? And we are in an age that things are coming back around. I mean, they always have come back around, but we’re finding now we have a lot of those, what I like to call four to the floor, say, like dance remixes or edits of songs and ones that always come up, and we’ve mentioned this before, is obviously your gimme, gimme, gimme.

Eddy: Your rasputin there’s some bony m stuff. Other bony m stuff, too.

Aleks: I’ll tell you a really new one that’s come up. Is that Lil boo thang? Don’t know. The artist can’t remember.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: Really fun. It’s samples best of my love emotions, so the oldest can get behind it. The young ones will know it from TikTok. Everyone’s happy and it’s really, really fun and quite short, so everyone can have a little bit of a boogie and a bit of a sing. That’s a good example of something that could work for both, you know, old.

Eddy: And young, because what we really try to avoid is where we can not polarising the older generation on the dance. Well, particularly in the early parts, I think.

Aleks: The early parts, yeah.

Eddy: If we can get them on side, and I mentioned this to our couples, if we can get them on side for the first few songs, then they’re going to trust us a lot more and be happier to go with us on the journey, particularly when it does get a little bit more contemporary. Maybe we go into new dance territory or something like that, or new. New hip hop or what have you. But I think if you were to play things that they won’t know or find it hard to dance to early on, then it’s much more difficult to kind of get them back onto the dance hall.

Aleks: You’ve put them off from the get go. Absolutely. I think I found a happy halfway point nineties, because nineties is still new enough, but also old enough for everyone to enjoy. And there’s been a huge nineties revival. Just culturally, anyway, I think.

Eddy: Oh, definitely.

Aleks: Not to get too academic about it.

Eddy: When I first started playing weddings, it was really like 80.

Aleks: Exactly. And that was over ten years ago.

Eddy: I have seen that shift into. Into the nineties. So it’s gonna be very interesting when it shifts again into two thousands.

Aleks: Absolutely. And look, this is. This is us making assumptions based on, you know, our experience. But we have had cases where we played exclusively 2010 and onwards and the oldies have loved it, so you cannot guarantee.

Eddy: No.

Aleks: But this is where it’s good to have a chat to your family beforehand, so we. We might get a little bit of a sense of what that might look like.

Eddy: Yeah. It’s all about getting just as much intel as we possibly can from the people that are going to be at your wedding. Like, we like to think that we get to know you as the couple quite well in the lead up, but, yeah, just to try and get as much information or data as we possibly can.

Aleks: Oh, my God, we’re so nerdy. And look, throw them a sing along or two. I think sing alongs are really important for the last part of the night, especially sort of the last, like, half hour, 45 minutes. So have a think about sing alongs that might draw your family, like, say that they’ve enjoyed, the older family members have enjoyed kind of the first part of the dance floor, maybe then have gone off while you’ve played some, I don’t know, commercial dance bangers or whatever. How do we get them back on for the last half hour for everyone to kind of, you know, have a big, kind of big, I don’t know, embrace on the dance floor?

Aleks: Just get everyone back on there. So have a think about sing alongs. Is it a I will survive, you know, maybe disco thing, or is it more of a horse’s crowd? Whatever it is. Another thing is, you know, just have a listen.

Aleks: Have a think about what you listen to growing up. What is your parents play? Like? Is there anything that you can maybe throw. Throw them a bone during dinner or during background if it’s a, you know, cocktail?

Eddy: And that becomes important when your parents do provide examples of music that aren’t quite dance floor songs. So. And it’s totally fine to pass them on to us because, yeah, we can absolutely spin those during dinner. Yeah, it might be. What’s your dad’s favourite artist?

Aleks: I don’t know, like Aretha Franklin or the doors or something.

Eddy: Or like Eric Clapton or something. That won’t typically go. I mean, Aretha can go off in the dance, obviously, but, like, some other artists that are typically more subdued.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: But they’re still a cool vibe for the right crowd. We can definitely spin those.

Aleks: Yeah, 100%. So, um, I wanted to give a little bit of a real example for my wedding on Friday, Selena and Finn. So it was a cocktail style wedding. We had a couple of aunties with sunglasses on, just dancing really early, like, I would say 2 hours before the dance hall kicked off. So it was a bit unexpected, and I wanted to keep them on the dance floor.

Aleks: Now they were dancing to Fleetwood Mac. Oh, I don’t know what else. I played Van Morrison. There was a couple of older songs that the couple had given me, but most of their tunes were newer, so I kind of wanted to keep them on the dance floor, keep that momentum, because there were a couple of other older family members that were looking to get on as well. So I tried to kind of see how far I could kind of push the envelope.

Aleks: I’m like, okay, I want to get back to kind of maybe a little bit more house or indie electronic, newer stuff. How do I get there? So I threw in some Jamiro Kwai nineties. I thought okay, love it, you know they would have been their twenties, they loved that. Had someone even older get onto the dance floor and I thought I want to push a little bit further.

Aleks: And I played Midas touch, you know, one of my favourite tunes which is a classic house tune but has an eighties sound.

Eddy: Yeah I mean it falls into that classic house category for sure.

Aleks: Yeah pretty sure it is a classic house tune. It sounds like it could be an eighties tune.

Eddy: It’s an eight, it’s an eighties tune as far as I know. Geez, I hope I’m not wrong on this. Any other dj’s listening to this. Uh, dm me if I’ve just completely balls this one up.

Aleks: Okay. And well see the fact that we don’t know.

Eddy: No, no it did not. In, in both of our defences um it did get featured and kind of rehashed and thrown onto I don’t know which annual it was, but one of the annuals so. But it is an eighties tune as far as I’m aware.

Aleks: Okay well there you go. But yeah, obviously had a classic house.

Eddy: Whatever revive we have the classic house remix.

Aleks: There you go.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: Okay so it’s a remix. Oh, you learn something new every day. I play that song quite often and that got even more people dancing. So I was like okay, I can push this a little bit more. I can push this a little bit more.

Aleks: So that was a good example of. Okay, you know obviously still trying to keep within the couple’s brief. I just kept it really funky. People were enjoying that side of things. The couple were enjoying it too so I thought I’m going to stay down that kind of funk, nineties, housey, soulful sort of vibe.

Aleks: So that was. Yeah, it’s a bit of a delicate balancing act.

Eddy: Yeah it is. And I can, I can actually point out an example of my Saturday wedding actually because it’s fresh. When I was chatting to the bride, unfortunately I couldn’t chat to the groom on our second catch up. The first was totally fine but he had to, he didn’t book a haircut and I understand how hard it is to book a good barber these days.

Aleks: You struggle more than me to get time.

Eddy: Yeah, yeah. So I’m like that’s totally fine. Yeah usually obviously we’d love to catch up with them both again but I totally understood. Anyway so the conversation was around. She had a croatian background he has a very australian sort of background, british australian background.

Eddy: And she was quite worried about his side of the family wanting a lot of, you know, the bogan kind of bangers. Bogan bangers.

Aleks: What’s an example of a bogan?

Eddy: You know, like, you know, sort of khe san even like some country stuff like wagon wheel.

Aleks: Oh, my God, no.

Eddy: Etcetera. So. And she was really worried that they would hassle me for that kind of stuff. So, look. Okay, so what do you think of, say, like a sweet Caroline later on?

Eddy: She was. That was palatable for her.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: So that was fine. Or even like a horses was okay as well. So, you know, there were the two. I think there was two or three tracks in total that I could sort of negotiate on if. If I was sort of pushed by a family member to play.

Aleks: Important to have those conversations. Isn’t it my one on Friday as well. They said no pub rock. However, if you have to, Eagle Rock is okay and they have the angels and stuff. So I had a couple of tunes up my sleeve.

Aleks: If I did get those sort of.

Eddy: Requests, there always seems to be exceptions to the rules. And I know you mentioned Abba before. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had no AbBA, but gimme, gimme, gimme. Sergeant Slick is.

Aleks: So.

Eddy: There’s always exceptions. So I guess what we’re trying to convey is we do a little bit more digging to find those exceptions that you are happy with. And, hey, this is what I said to Emily. I said, look, at the end of the day, the track will go for three minutes, go to the bar, grab a drink, go to the bathroom, come back, and by that time, I would have mixed out to something else.

Aleks: Exactly. Exactly. I think. And that’s the other thing. Like, there are, say you’ve got, you know, 100 guests.

Aleks: There are 98 other people that need to be enjoying themselves as well. So as much as it is your day, it is good to think about everyone else also having over time.

Eddy: Like, our couples genuinely want everybody to have the best time.

Aleks: They want a good big party. You can’t have a big party, just two. Two people. I mean, you can, but with 98 others standing around doing nothing. I wanted to mention another little example from Saturday night for Christina and Charmaine.

Aleks: So I think I mentioned they had quite a lot of kids there and they only gave me five specific song requests. And one of them was a Doja cat song, paint the town red, that I probably would have played more during background or wasn’t super, super upbeat, but.

Eddy: That’s before you knew that it was from the Barbie soundtrack?

Aleks: That was before I knew it was from the Barbie soundtrack. Because clearly I’m not up to David pop culture.

Eddy: I think it is.

Aleks: Okay, well, regardless, it’s not one I would play for the dance floor specifically.

Eddy: Should we, I guess, getting controversial, like the Barbie movie. Right? Should we talk about the Barbie movie?

Aleks: Well, at least we had the same opinion. Yeah, we. We didn’t. We didn’t think the execution of the message was quite right. Is that a nice.

Eddy: If you would like more details, hit us up on instagram because it’s probably not the right form, but, like, it’s. Look.

Aleks: Yeah, the first half was great. It was a movie of two halves.

Eddy: I think it was. I think it was. Look, I love how popular it’s been in. You know, it’s. It’s great, particularly for Warner Brothers, but, yeah, it’s real interesting.

Eddy: So, yeah, I’ve had a lot of conversation with a lot of people with mixed reviews.

Aleks: Mixed reviews. Yes.

Eddy: But, you know, it has had some pretty good jams from it. That’s what I will say.

Aleks: Look, I know you want to have a movie review podcast, but this is not the time. One day we’ll get there anyway. Going back to paint in the town red, I realise I’d played all there and look, I wouldn’t. Normally, if a couple gives me like, 30 specific song requests, I’m not going to be like, I have to get through all of these. Unless they’re a must must plays.

Aleks: But in this case, given I only had five, I was like, I really should try and get through them. And there’s a reason they’ve given me only five. So paint the town red was the last one. It was quite late and I played it and I think four kids came on with the two brides and they sang every single word. I’m not joking.

Aleks: Yeah, they wrapped every single word. They were dancing, people were taking videos of them and I was like, wow. But I wish I had been told that earlier because imagine if I didn’t play that song. That would have been a real shame. So please let your dj know.

Aleks: Like, if there’s a song you’re including and you’re like, hmm, this is not really a banger, but really want it played because our younger cousins love this song. You know, they did a dance to it at school and they’re always singing it or whatever it is. I had another example. On Friday night, the bride’s mum does some dance class and they did a dance to. To be loved Lizzo, which is a really fun tune.

Aleks: So I played that for her, you know, halfway through. But I maybe wouldn’t have played if I hadn’t known that it was a special one for her mum. So really important to give a little bit of context. Don’t be afraid to put more detail in. We love this stuff.

Eddy: It helps us a lot. Yeah. And look, it is hard for us to sort of sit down in our final catch up before your wedding and go through every single tune painstakingly, because obviously that wouldn’t do anyone any favours. But look, if there is a track that you’re writing into it or you’ve got it in one of your Spotify playlists that you’ve shared with us. Yeah.

Eddy: Like Alex said, definitely highlight that. It’s important because, you know, making those memories on the dance floor is such a massive part of what we love to do.

Aleks: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, give us context. So that’s kind of covering family. I feel like family is probably the trickiest one because you’ve got the widest age range, I should say. Sorry.

Eddy: And they can be some of the most demanding guests.

Aleks: They can be a little bit demanding, yes, definitely. But if you get them on side, they’re also incredible. So, like, you know, you can get a really good dance floor. Should we talk about friends?

Eddy: Yeah, I just love the notes we’ve got here under friends. Whatever.

Aleks: Yeah. So I wrote. So I wrote some notes for us for the podcast, and family had like eight paragraphs, which we’ve covered, and then under friends, I just wrote whatever. And the reason I wrote that is because your friends typically tend to be around the same age as you, the couple. You’ve probably been out together, been out clubbing, being out to bars, had house parties, gone to festivals.

Eddy: Well, yeah. And look, I will ask the question pretty early on in the consultation phase, what festivals have you been to and how many of your friends were there? They’re also gonna be at the wedding.

Aleks: Yeah. For people who are big music lovers tend to go to gigs.

Eddy: Exactly. Well, which is a lot of our couples, to be completely honest, so. Yeah, yeah. So that’s a big one. But look, the friends, as we’ve probably alluded to, they’re a lot easily easier pleased, I think.

Aleks: I think the bulk of the music will probably, probably be geared towards friends if it’s. If we’re playing within the couple’s taste and they’ve been quite specific about what they like anyway.

Eddy: Yeah. And then. And then, you know, we obviously spent a fair bit of time on family. But, like, you know, sometimes it might be the case of, like, a peppering in a few things here and there to, you know, to keep some of the older people happy.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: But, you know, obviously it’s, again, it’s your wedding.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: And, you know, your friends and you as the couple, you know, we’ll probably want some of the more contemporary stuff.

Aleks: Yeah, exactly. I think it’s also good when couples tell us, like, what years they kind of went out.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: So, like, their peak party days, you know, couples will often say, oh, you know, we especially love music between 2008- 2012, that’s when we were kind of going out the most with our friends.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: That gives us loads to work with and kind of focus on for the main bit of the dance floor, as you said. Obviously, we’ll play stuff, older family members, etcetera. But that gives us a really good starting point, I think.

Eddy: But then again, it could be old souls. You could like throwbacks all night, but it’s.

Aleks: You probably want to mix. You probably want to mix. So, you know, but, but having that, knowing that’s where we’re going to kind of focus in terms of the newer stuff, let’s say if you don’t like super, super new stuff.

Eddy: Yeah.

Aleks: Okay. We’re going to focus on kind of like early, mid two thousands, and then maybe if you like disco or Seoul or whatever it is, or funk, we’ll play that as well. Obviously mixing things up.

Eddy: Exactly.

Aleks: All right. And the last thing is your dj. What does your dj need to do? We’ve, we’ve mentioned a lot of this already, but really, like, it is up to us to ask the right questions in the lead up and do that digging, as you mentioned, and really flesh stuff out, particularly if we’re not getting enough from you in terms of a variety of stuff.

Eddy: And. Yeah, and that’s it. And we will, you know, gently push if we have to, you know, if we don’t have much and it’s getting closer to your wedding, you know, we may sort of prompt you a little bit on email. We might send you some ideas of Spotify playlists or something like that that might kind of steer you in the right direction. I know it is difficult for some couples to come up with requests, and I completely understand that a lot, a lot of the time, in sort of my initial conversation, I’ll say, so you know what, you know, we sort of start with what don’t you like?

Eddy: And then what do you like? But often times, the what don’t you like? Becomes really like, it’s very easy to say, I don’t like this, this and this, which I completely understand. What do you like? Sometimes it’s.

Eddy: I don’t know, but, like, I know when a good song comes on and I’m on the dance floor and, you know, I can’t. A lot of people say, I can’t mention names of artists and songs, so we absolutely understand that.

Aleks: Oh, totally. I mean, if I had to give someone requests, I could either give them nothing but do not plays or an entire set of.

Eddy: That was kind of what I had over the weekends. Right. Like, so I had a lot of do not play. So many, actually, that I created a crate in my software with all of them because there was. I couldn’t see any sort of pattern to them.

Aleks: Yes.

Eddy: So I made sure. Yeah, I made sure that, like, if I was second guessing, I’m like, hang on a minute, I’ll go into that crate. I’ll make sure. Okay, cool. Yep.

Eddy: It’s not. I’m not loading that song up. But most of the time you can get a good sense of what, what that, you know, what people might not like based on what they give us in the. On the do not plays. But, yeah, so what I’m trying to say in a roundabout way, you know, we’ll do some prodding if we have to.

Aleks: Yeah.

Eddy: With our couples just trying to get as much as we can out of them. But on the same token, it’s. It’s tough sometimes.

Aleks: It is tough. One thing that I found helpful for couples who particularly struggle, I’ve had have to do this a couple of times, is I will send them our ultimate 40 wedding Bangers Spotify playlist, which is a list of songs that we would be comfortable in relying on if we had no music brief. If we walked into a wedding, we had no music brief. We had the usual demographics, very wide range of ages, you know, half family, half friends, whatever.

Eddy: I reckon that that is due for a pretty serious refresh.

Aleks: It is. We refresh it very often, though. We do look at it, you know, every couple of months and we update it. We remove songs and replace them with others. So it’s always pretty current.

Aleks: But yes, it is dual refresh, but it’s a good one because it’s got so many different genres. And normally couples will go in there and pick out, say, ten out of 40 songs and we’ll go, ah, okay, cool. Now we know we’ve got a good sense of what we can play for their family and friends. So that is a really good starting point if you are completely stuck on giving us a brief.

Eddy: Exactly, exactly.

Aleks: So, in summary, yes, there’s a lot. There’s a lot that goes into this, a lot of stuff that goes into getting it right and delicate balancing act.

Eddy: You know, I might be so bold as to say that there’s. There’s more than people realise. Yeah, I always make the joke that we do all of our work, apart from, obviously, the night in the lead up, and I always compare us to someone like a photographer that does a lot of the work after with all the processing of the photos. So kind of a yin to yang situation.

Aleks: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There is a lot involved. Hit us up if you’re having problems, if you’re not sure, if you’re struggling, struggling a little bit, we can point you in the right direction and give you some examples of stuff, but hopefully you found that helpful. And thank you, as always, for tuning in.

Aleks: We’ll try and resume regular programming as soon as we can. We’ve just been slammed with weddings, which is lovely. And other events.

Eddy: And corporates.

Aleks: And corporates. Yep. But, yeah. Thanks for listening and as always, let us know what you think and what you’d like us to chat about.

Eddy: Yeah, that’s it. Or anything else.

Aleks: Or anything else you like. Just let us know you’re listening. It’s always nice to know who’s listening. It’s a bit of a weird one, being a podcaster. You don’t really always know until you hear from someone, so it really is.

Eddy: And I know you did not want to do this, but we’re gonna do this segment anyway.

Aleks: Yeah, sure.

Eddy: What have you been listening to? I’ll go first. One of my favourite artists of all time. And, like, honestly, for any time I’m at home and I’m just chilling, I’ll just listen to a tribe called Quest. So I’ve been listening to that.

Eddy: You’re not allowed to say that, though. You have to come up with your own. Come up with your own. We had this chat before we pushed record on the podcast and Alex got really anxious and she said, I don’t know what to say for this segment.

Aleks: No, well, the only reason I say that is because I have had no time to listen to anything. I tell you what I’ve been listening to. I’ve been listening. This is no joke. I’ve been listening to our couple’s playlist on Spotify, like, which we do.

Aleks: Which we do. But even so, normally I would listen to music, you know, because we’re busy on meetings and working all throughout the week and on the weekend. Normally I will listen to stuff when I’ve got a long drive for a gig, but on this occasion, last Friday, I drove to Geelong and I listen to the couple’s playlist.

Eddy: Yeah, it amps you up. Oh, yeah. I can’t wait to play this track. Yeah.

Aleks: And I actually get a lot of ideas. So one of on Saturday, the Christina and Charmaine, the couple, for their pre ceremony, wanted a lot of kind of newer RnB soul artists like Ella Mae and Solange type people, which was very cool. So I had a little listen to that. So I’m always learning new things from our couples playlist. So, yeah, I’m an absolute nerd.

Eddy: See? Good answer.

Aleks: Good. I’m so glad. And I need to get tickets to Queens of the Stone Age. I’ll be listening to a lot of queens. Got to hit my sister up.

Aleks: Anita, get those ticks she promised.

Eddy: But, you know, I think you’ll be getting tickets anyway.

Aleks: Definitely doesn’t listen to this podcast, so we’re all good.

Eddy: I won’t be in trouble.

Aleks: Yeah. Yeah.

Eddy: Bye, guys.

Aleks: Thanks, guys. 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.