Manage Handwrytten Notes

I made a decision in the moment that I wouldn't have in hindsight. Our show started immediately after speeches, and we found out once we were there that one of the speeches involved a PowerPoint presentation and screen. Since the speeches were in the middle of the room (directly in front of the pianos, they set up the projector in front of us. Originally, they were going to do first dances right after, but the day of, we found out they were considering scrapping all first dances and going straight into our show.

I spoke with the coordinator during the speeches and she still wasn't sure how the bride wanted to handle some of the first dances (there were a lot of last minute changes, and it sounded like there was still a chance they wanted to do at least the father/daughter dance). My suggestion was that after speeches, we give the guests the opportunity to get gelato from the gelato station (which had just opened after speeches) and use the photo booth (which also only opened after speeches) and then start the show. This way, she had some time to talk to the bride and see what she wanted to do. So that's the announcement I made.

It turned out they scrapped all dances, but once people were out of their seats, it was hard to get them back. Also, given there were lots of other activities, like lawn games, we sort of lost the "everyone is sitting and watching you" option.

I think we did a great job re-engaging with the crowd and still putting on a great show (see the show notes), but in hindsight, I wouldn't have suggested the crowd disperse before we start. In retrospect, I think I'd have asked them to move the projector and table setup as quickly as possible while turning on some BGM and getting ready to start, then start the show before people had too much of a chance to get up.

Then again, they all saw there was gelato now set up behind us, so it's possible people would have gotten up and walked away in that transition anyway, but I would have preferred to try that route than the decision I made. It's a tough call, though, since the coordinator needed time to talk to the bride anyway.

The bride and groom explicitly sought us out after the show to say they were very happy and ask how they could best promote and help us ("can we write you a review?" so yes, ask them for one), but still, I wish people hadn't dispersed at the beginning.

The bride and groom had a table of kids of various ages and nationalities and lots of lawn games for them to play. When we started the show, the guests were in line to get gelatto and take photos in the photobooth bus, so we asked all the kids to come to the dance floor and yell out their favorite Disney movie. We then proceeded to have a kids dance-and-singalong to the Little Mermaid, Moana, and Encanto as they totally tore up the dance floor!

The groom and many guests were from France, and I speak French! I surprised them by introducing the couple in both English and French, then speaking in both languages and singing French music. Multiple people came up to thank us for creating such an inclusive, multi-lingual experience. There was also a table of Spanish-speaking family that we ended up singing some songs in Spanish for as well (I also speak Spanish), so we had a truly international evening!

Playing for an international crowd is always a fun puzzle, so I did a lot of Googling on what US songs and artists are most popular in France. The groom mentioned there is a song they always play at the end of every wedding, but he didn't specify which one, so we Googled it and the French went NUTS at the end of the night with it! We have a few videos we can send of them singing and dancing their hearts out after most of the guests had left.

Some of the best songs of the night were I Will Survive (it's a sports song for them and they sing along to the solo on "la") - we went through the solo multiple times since they were enjoying it so much. ABBA, not surprisingly, had people screaming and dancing along. Don't Stop Believing, which was requested by the bride, ended up being just the bride and one of the kids dancing while everyone else sort of tuned out, but Bohemian Rhapsody was huge!

The song For Me Formidable is about a French man in love with an English-speaking woman and is half-French, half-English. I said, "you didn't request this, but this seems perfect for you, let's see if you know it!" Boy, did they know it! They created a singing conga line dancing around the room, pulling in non-French guests too! It’s so fulfilling to have put in the work to prepare songs I thought they would like and see it pay off with such joy! These are the moments I do this gig for.

If we work at this venue again, make sure to bring at least 2 100-foot extension cords. The venue is huge and the power supply is quite far! We have 2 100-ft cords, luckily, but I could easily see someone showing up without.

Also - it would be incredibly helpful if the blog notes showed how many characters we're typing as we're typing. Or make the max character count higher. This was a great gig and I could have given 15 blog notes and wrote some great memories, but ended up cutting out a lot to make each one 500 characters.

I take these gig reports seriously and think they're a great way of providing notes and doing a post-mortem. Ideally, a character count would appear as you're typing so you can see how close you are to 500, or if not, when providing the error, maybe let us know how many characters over 500 I'm at? Currently I'm opening up a Word document and re-editing each blog note to get it down to 500 characters. I can write less, but when the gig could create a really lovely blog note, I'd love to provide that data for you!

The other thing I'd love to offer for consideration is needing to upload a screenshot of the route we took if we're not disputing the mileage reimbursement. Creating the screenshot, saving the photo, finding it, then attaching it may seem small, but when you add it to 5 blog notes, room for improvement notes, these notes, uploading photos and videos from the gig, and making sure the blog notes are not too short but also not too long... it adds up.

If F&F says we drove 9 miles and I'm saying that's correct, would the company consider skipping the Google maps upload? If we're disputing mileage, of course, happy to provide a screenshot of why.

Thanks for listening! Always a pleasure working with Felix and Fingers and I appreciate your spirit of continuous improvement.