Falling in love with my clients music

When I first started DJing at the age of 15 I was as horrible as you would expect - it was a new skill and I was learning. I learned by playing house parties, friends birthdays, and basically anywhere people would let me. By the age of 19 I was playing weddings for one of the big wedding companies at the time, I was the ‘free DJ’ that came with the room hire.

I’ll never forget when I started at the company the owner handed me 4 cds labeled ‘dinner one, dinner two, dance one, dance two’. Enough standard playlist music to get me through 5 hours of wedding. “This is what you play”. A 19 year old in an ill fitting suit getting a baptism of fire; the music wasn’t customised, the client was disengaged, I was disengaged.

Despite this format there were some amazing highlights which planted seeds for what Tennyson Events would become. I remember visiting a few clients a week before their wedding and they handed me CD’s of their favorite artist Koop, compilations of Verve Remixed, and talked to me about their love of St Germain, Nicola Conte, and Scandinavian Jazz. By the end of that meeting I loved it too. The wedding of a software programmer and an artist at the Stamford Grand in Adelaide, with their charismatic father of the bride as MC. He blew a horn whenever he wanted peoples attention.I still talk about this wedding over a decade later, it changed me. The music they gave me has become some of my favorite artists. When it came to creating my own company, I wanted this feeling every time.

I want to know exactly what you listen to, your tastes, favorite bands, what you hate. I want to know because I love music, and your music has an impact on me. I’ve listened to Koop (the favorite artists of the software engineer and the artist) weekly since their wedding day - I own their album Waltz for Koop on vinyl. From my perspective; that one client had a lifelong impact on me. From a clients perspective; wedding days which are a true reflection of a couple are warmer, more comfortable, and just happier!