[00:00:07] Speaker A: This is the EMG podcast.
Yes. Tomaso back, baby. We did. And I just did it live, too. We are back on the EMG podcast. I'm fading out the music. It nice and smoothly.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Look at that.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Look at that. Oh, my gosh. So, Tom, you and I have not podcast since you withheld information from me about your son, about how you were having a child.
That last time was the review of 2022.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: That's what I was going to say. You're the second person to know.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
You withheld that information from us, right? No.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I planted the seed. I'm like, oh, yeah.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: And then next, listening back on it, it was really obvious. But anyway, so now I'm here with Tom. Last time it was Mike, and the three of us just can't seem to get together because Mike's at a wedding right now, because his brother in law and Tony's brother Joey is getting married today.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: We're here, they're there, it's fine.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: We are now back with another remix. We're bringing it all the way back to 2019. It was a show that Brian and I did, and we're talking about selecting music for your wedding. So the way that this format goes again, we're going to just recap that last video real quick and then we're going to go over some points of what has changed or what we want to just reiterate. That has kind of stuck. Yeah.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: And I just want to put that into context of how long ago we did that episode. I say you had mentioned that you were about to get married. How about that?
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Yes, that's right. Oh, my gosh.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Mike is still married.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Good.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Cheers. Nice. Anyway, let's get into it. All right, so we quickly talked about live versus pre recorded, right. And that can go for ceremony, coxalater, reception. Right. Live band, hybrid, DJ.
Then we went into the specific sections, right. Ceremony, coxala, reception, after party, the ceremony. Basically, we just kind of recapped, like, do you want contemporary music? Do you want traditional music?
Figure out what versions of songs that you want, because Boyce Avenue was really popular at the time. And then vitamin, string quartet, things like that.
And then songs that mean something to you, not just like the pretty songs. Right? Yeah.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: And I think the only thing I would probably follow that up with is that I think you don't necessarily need to choose one or the other.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Right? Right.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Yes. There is classical, there is contemporary, but you can mix and match those.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: So if you wanted to come down the aisle to a classical piece, but you wanted your wedding party to come down to something contemporary, that's totally fine. It's just a matter of you thinking through those things and kind of accentuating the moment and how you want to.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Tackle and same thing for right. So you don't need to overthink it. And I'm going to go through that in a little bit, but we talk about working in other styles of music. So, for instance, like Ashley, she loves country and she wanted to incorporate country into our wedding, which we all know is not good.
I'm just joking. We worked it into some of the dinner, but mostly cocktail hour.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Got you.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Right. So she got her fix of country. It didn't affect the dancing, and then everybody was happy. Right. So some unconventional stuff. You can work there. Yeah.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: And I think the big takeaway to that is both that ceremony and cocktail.
They're two opportunities to fit in your style. Right.
Maybe of songs more so cocktail hour than ceremony, of things that are meaningful to you that might not necessarily translate to the dance floor.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: And I'll expand on ceremony just a bit, too. Just what has changed since the last time we recorded this type of episode.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Is now you're skipping the recap. Because we're not done with the recap yet.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Oh, we are.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah. We got to do it at the end.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Hold on.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: And then we hit the numbers.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Oh, right, okay. So I get excited because anytime I speak and I have to introduce stuff, usually I take too long. So I'm just like, I'm trying to you're doing good.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Just hold off on that for a quick second. We talked about intros formalities dancing on the reception. We talked about what their favorite intro song was.
Advice about keeping your wedding guest centric, not just thinking about yourselves. If you're the only two people that are having a good time, your party is most likely going to suck.
We talked about a cohesive playlist, what you're actually investing in. Right. You're investing in a company to create what your thoughts are in a cohesive way at your reception. That's what we talked about. We talked about songs that were hitting at the time in 2019. Obviously that's changed.
And then we were talking about like, old planning forms that we're using PDFs of. Obviously that changed. If you're current EMG bride or groom, obviously that's changed a hell of a ton. And then we talked about, like, when you're choosing your music. We gave some advice to you, which we have some advice today as well. And then we talked about the after party, the different types of vibes that you can do. So today we're going to go through we have about four and a half points. The fifth one's kind of a segue off of one of them. But Tom, you want to hit the button?
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Are we doing number five or number five?
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Right there, that light green one.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Check this out.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Number five, literally. Perfect. Yeah. So let's talk about how we need to simplify it. I think that we missed the mark on the last episode of don't overthink your music. Right. For the ceremony, Coxler reception. If I would just give one example, like the reception, give me ten must plays and then give me some inspiration. And the inspiration you'll give us is through the next thing. That's our next point. But a lot of things have changed, Tom. Right.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
I'll add to that because the way that, again, this is one man's advice, it's the way my brain kind of compartmentalizes it to simplify it. One of my things that I always tend to suggest to my couples, at least, that I work with directly, is to think about the different parts of the day as separate entities.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: So focus on ceremony, focus on cocktail hour, focus on reception. And if you are having an after party, they can be three to four separate entities, individual things. Now, do you want those to be inherently different throughout the day so you can kind of layer the night and change the atmosphere, change the vibe? Or do you want them to be a little bit continuous and build upon each other? You can do it one of two ways.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: You can do it either way. But I think it sometimes helps when you think about them separately like that and not have to feel overwhelmed as the entirety of the day.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Right. You can compartmentalize, you can separate it mentally, even though it really is all kind of like one big thing.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: And even at those disorganized and even at those points, like, say, for ceremony, for example, focus on the most important one first.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Like the most important people that are walking down the aisle, choose that song first and then fill in the gaps.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: And that can be true of cocktail hour. That could be true of reception.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: One song at a time. One game at a time. Right. You're in the playoffs. One game at a time. Always got a sports reference here. So let's go to the reception on what's changing, because we're going to go back to ceremony in a little bit. Sure. But choosing music for the ceremony has changed a lot since 2019. And you had brought up a point in our pre meeting about formalities. Right. So let's kind of go into what's changed a little bit and how now that affects what people have done choosing their music.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. So since the last time we recorded this, it was already trending this way.
You can already agree with this, but formalities are becoming very minimized.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: So there's been certain highlight moments, like things that are still true are first dance, parent dances, specialty dances, like that, maybe some toasts, but really all of the back end stuff, like the second half stuff, so to say, like cake, bouquet and garter. Maybe sometimes you would split up speeches because you have too many. Some happened during first course, some happened during main course. Those back half celebrations or formalities, however you want to describe them, have been really going away.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And those were things that we were at the time suggesting for our couples to do right. But now it's the other way. It's coming back to us saying, like, hey, we don't want to do this stuff. And we're like, Hell yeah, we love.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: That, but what's the end result?
[00:08:28] Speaker A: Right?
[00:08:29] Speaker B: It's longer dance sets, which we're game for, because that's why we're there. We're there to entertain your guests and play music. But that and that probably leads into our next point, requires a little bit of additional planning and a little bit more collaboration, right?
[00:08:41] Speaker A: And so let's go to number four. Number four. And that is the way that we've changed planning here. If you are a current couple of EMG, we're no longer using PDFs. We're not sending you planning forms via an email and saying, hey, this is in a Google Drive, and just kind of ad hoc. And when you got those planning forms wasn't also the optimal way. Now we have our planning app. Yes, and we have that on our website. You can check it out. And the planning app is completely redefined on how we plan. Why? Number one, you're getting the app in your hands when you sign with us.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yes, right away.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: So the way that it used to work was Tom would set up a finals meeting with his couple. He would reach out to them 90 days out from your wedding date, and then 60 days out, you'd have the meeting. Right. So you'd have about 30 days to kind of get everything together that's procrastination at its finest. And then, listen, we didn't throw template wedings, but it didn't really allow for the creativity to kind of go and curate itself naturally because there wasn't really enough time to think about it. Right. And now with the planning app, it's completely changed it. Right. So let's say you've booked your meeting 24 months out. Now you have 23 months, 22 months of thinking about this music, and it's all done from your phone. Yeah.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: And it's all accessible, too.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: I mean, we give the example all the time that you might be out on a date night and you hear a song that you love that you totally forgot about, you whip out your phone and you pop it in your list. Right, or the other way.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: You hear a song that you hate that you forgot about your do not play.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Exactly. It could work one of two ways.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: But it's a highly accessible resource as opposed to having something more, quote unquote, paper based.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Right. Which leads to our point of, like, when I say simplify and organize. The app is organized, right. And so it's organized into ceremony, into Coxler and reception. For instance, if you don't really know what song you want to choose for your Weding party to come down to go into that app, and then you go into that section and we give you suggestions. Right? And it's like, oh, my gosh, that just gives us some inspiration. So it kind of simplifies. And we do a lot of the thinking for you. And you get to do this from your couch as you're watching suits on Netflix.
So it's a great way for us to be able to give you a resource without having to send thousands of emails now. And we're in constant communication throughout the process. Yeah.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: And it also lets you understand a little bit more about how things unfold throughout the day.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Because the template, I'll call it, or the order of events that we give.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: You oh, you could see it.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: You could see it visually. So when we get a lot of questions of, hey, what happens when you could see it?
[00:11:18] Speaker A: I love it. Okay, let's move, let's move, let's move. And then we're going to go back to let me see if I have the right number here. Number three. Yes, I'm hitting it correctly. We're going to go back to ceremony because I think, to me, our clients tend to do the most overthinking on ceremony for us for, like we get.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: A lot of questions.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: We get a lot of questions about ceremony. I know you're on the concierge. You definitely do this. And what has changed since it's about what version of a song you want? What's changed about ceremonies now that couples are thinking about that they may not necessarily were thinking about in 2019?
[00:11:54] Speaker B: So I think it's just a matter of what has become more to the forefront and what has been relevant in pop culture. Like in the last call. It 1224 months.
I boil everything down to the show.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: Bridgerton. Yeah, I agree.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Literally, Bridgerton has had and if you're not familiar with the show, I'm a fan. I don't watch a lot of TV, but I am a fan. So go back and look at it. But one of their things about it is the soundtrack. And that's what a lot of people gravitate to. And the whole thing is that it's a timepiece. Right. The setting is back in I don't know what it is. It's a Victorian age or Gilded age.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: I think it was renaissance. Renaissance, whatever.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Very back in time. But the soundtrack in the background sounds very classical, but it's all contemporary music. So you'll hear artists like Maroon Five and Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift and things like that. They also have a spotify playlist dedicated. They do, to the show.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: But a lot of couples are drawing on inspiration from that because it marries the two worlds together.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: So for ceremony, like you said, Mike, it's a really pretty atmosphere. You can hear a lot of great music. You have a lot of elegant or romantic tonalities right.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: To the actual ambiance of that moment. But hear a song that you know the words know.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: I know. I think that's great. And you made a really good point in our pre meeting, is, like, now live music has, like, a resurgence also because of Bridgerton, too.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: And now more people are requesting live musicians, which, you know, that I'm always biased to. I think it's a presentation piece. I think because of the type of talent that EMG has in general, it's an elevated thing as opposed to just having pre recorded. There's nothing wrong with pre recorded music. I just think it's better to have.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Musicians do let me let me put that into context. I'm a DJ. I don't play an instrument, so I'm kind of limited to pre recorded music. I prefer live music.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah, but you have musicians that work for us that can do it for you. So there you go. And you don't have to do it. And then it also quickly bleeds into Cocktail Hour. Now it's like, I get a lot of requests for Drake Cocktail Hour, but it's keys and sax or it's like guitar and sax, or they're looking for like Ellie Goulding or I had a.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Request for Tupac a couple of weeks ago.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: But I think it was that exact.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Slowed down kind of vibey versions. It's so cool and live music playing that I think that's really great. That's a huge change that's happened since 2019. And you see a lot less couples, at least with our couples opting for a lot more couples opting for live music and then that type of vibe, that poppy vibe, that's elegant at the ceremony, more upbeat conversational at the cocktail hour. Yeah.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: I think at the end of the day, it fosters more creativity right. And more choices. And that's what people, they want to know, our clients want to know that they can put their own stamp on something and the capability is there.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And now, not wrap this up, but go to number two. Number two is that I think the largest piece of advice that we can give you today is you really need to allow your music vendor to feel the crowd out right. And read the room, and allow them to curate that soundtrack for you in real time. And that comes with a caveat. Right. It's like you have to trust your entertainment vendor to do that. And for me, the way I would trust somebody to do is if they're well prepped, right? Yeah. Not only are they well prepped, but are they able to execute on the preparation. Those are the two things that are huge. And I think that the way that you accomplish that is with our planning app that allows for our couples to be able to do that, have constant communication, and B how on the talent perspective, on that end, on the execution of that, how do you kind of portray that you're going to be able to execute on that?
[00:15:34] Speaker B: I think it's a two way street. Clients need to be open and willing to share their priorities, give inside information, so to speak, about their guest list. What's the demographic, what's the breakdown what do people enjoy?
Because we look at it on the talent side is that when we talk to our clients, they're essentially our cheat code ahead of time that we can draw from their experience or what's going to be most meaningful to their family and friends.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: And number two, allow for inspiration to take its course. So when you throw 60, 70 songs on an open dancing list and now we're talking about reception, leave room for your lead talent or your headlining talent to put that together in a nice magical way.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: I use Pinterest as a good example. Yeah, you use the word inspiration, like give us a mood board, right. So you might give us 60, 70 songs. Okay, great. But all right, give us the top ten that are most important and then give us the inspiration that follows through so that we can put this in a nice little basket for you. Because this is just a follow up to a previous point, the minimal formalities is allowing for longer dance sets. So we're going to have to draw that out and put those pieces to the puzzle together in a syndicated and cohesive way.
And we can only accomplish that we could do our best work for you when you're open and honest with us about how we can do that together.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Exactly. And that actually leads to our last point, number one, which is as you're giving us more information, try your best not to micromanage your playlist. Right. There has to be some sort of surprise. Right. And so that is our I screwed it up. Tip of the wheel.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: Let me push more buttons. I only pushed one button.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: I know, sorry about that. But let me just move this down here. So if you're giving us 9000 songs that you have to have played, there's a lot cheaper way of doing it. Spotify since 2019 has like that DJ thing. Yeah. And it's like AI way four or five grand cheaper, right. Very cool. It's like 699 a month or something like that. Allow your music vendor to take your guidelines and surprise you and allow them to do what they do and that's entertain a crowd, but they're going to do it in a way where it's reflective. The reason why I think a lot of couples micromanage is because they've been to weddings where they're hearing Sweet Caroline all the time.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Too many times, too many times, or.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Don't Stop Believing or that type of stuff. Nothing wrong with those songs. You want those songs, that's great. But there are a lot of couples that I get in our consultations where it's like, I can't hear this anymore. And they want to just micromanage the playlist. Like, we don't want this. They don't trust you to not do that. Right. That's the comfort zone. But again, it's the planning, it's the talent that is able to take that away and be considerate of the guest list too, correct? Yeah.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Don't knock some of the songs that you might actually just you yourself might hate or dislike, because in the moment, I can tell you that there might be a song that you don't like, but in the moment when you have 100 and 5200 people celebrating with you with that one specific song, that might take precedence. Right. So just think about it. Be considerate of the guest list and kind of work that through.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Great. I think this was like a perfect time. We just kind of wrapped up there. So this was the next episode of the remix of our 2019 podcast, 2020 podcast. A lot of things have changed. Tom, thank you for not withholding any information today from me. I really appreciate it.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: I don't think I have anything else.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Going on and so we'll see you next time. Especially the last time I did it with Mike, I got up and demonstrated something. But you couldn't have done that if you weren't on video.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: Last time I demonstrated something, I put a guitar on backwards. It was bad.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: We're not going to see you next time. Peace out.
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