Wedding Hive Podcast
Giving you the tea and ALL the buzz in the wedding world! New episodes every Wednesday!
Wedding Hive Podcast
018- DJ Production That Will Blow The Roof Off Your Wedding
Javier Carlos, the 23-year-old owner of C-West Entertainment, shares his journey from middle school DJ dreams to running a successful wedding entertainment business with innovative production elements and special effects.
• Started DJing in eighth grade, inspired by Calvin Harris and electronic dance music
• Recommends first dances last no more than 90 seconds – with 45 seconds being ideal
• Explains the difference between "wow" moments (cold sparks, CO2) and ambient enhancements (uplighting, monograms)
• Creates magical "dancing on clouds" effects using dry ice with hot water for first dances
• Credits his team for innovative ideas while focusing on creating positive work culture
• Navigates venue restrictions creatively to deliver the best possible experience
• Uses silent disco technology to create inclusive experiences for special needs events
• Approaches wedding entertainment with a focus on the couple's specific needs and preferences
• Manages challenging song requests by prioritizing danceable tracks that maintain energy
• Balances DJ and production elements to create memorable wedding experiences
Visit C-West Entertainment on Instagram @cwestent for more information about their services in Arizona.
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Hey Queens, it's Kelsey and Grace back with the Wedding Hive, Giving you the tea and all the buzz in the wedding world. Let's jump right in. Hey Queens, welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Hive podcast. Today we have Javier Carlos, owner of C-West Entertainment, a wedding DJ and production company. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:What's up? Guys Excited to finally be here. I know I've been watching for so long. I'm just ready to jump in and I'm so excited to actually be here. We have lots of questions for you.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're excited to talk to you today.
Speaker 2:Perfect, Good. Okay, so with every guest we always do a yes or no question related to all things weddings. So what is your? Do you think yes or no? On choreographed first dances? Yes yeah, yeah, have you seen in your like experience being dj, does it always, does it end up not going well when you see not choreographed, or what's your opinion on that?
Speaker 3:I think that a non-choreographed and what I mean by that is it's not like, it doesn't need to be like you go to dance classes Dance classes are great, but you don't have to do that. I think just practicing what you're going to do is super essential, because if they don't, they just sway there for like an extended period of time and I don't know how it was at your wedding. Did you guys plan it out?
Speaker 2:Did you guys think about how you do it? Yeah, we did maybe like a 45 set, but we just did it at home. Like you said, we didn't actually go do classes.
Speaker 3:But you had an idea of what you were going to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had an idea and I don't know if we really executed it that well, but I gave us A for effort.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, if I dance with my mom, I don't think we're going to have a whole thing, but if it's a couple getting married, hopefully they put a couple maybe hours just into it just to think about what they want to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how long do you think a first dance should be?
Speaker 3:No more than a minute and a half. I mean, I like the 45 second thing. Okay. Photo video, as long as they get all their angles. That's what I tell people. It's like that's really what you're going to remember because it goes by so fast. Make sure they have it, and then I think that that's all you need, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, long dances, yeah, it gets awkward. And if they are doing, just a swing.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like oh.
Speaker 3:As a guest. What are you supposed to do, I know? And then you're just kind of like.
Speaker 2:Just awkwardly sitting there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, You're like dang, that swing's good I was like oh, you hear the chorus like four times and you're like, all right, got it.
Speaker 2:That's the worst I've been at weddings and I'm just like oh, we've heard this line like three times already and it just yeah.
Speaker 3:Some couples love the whole song, though, and I try the major three special dances father, daughter, mother, son, or the first dance. I'm like, hey, there's going to be not a lot for your guests to do and like it's not like you want the day to be focused on the guests. Of course it's your day, like, do whatever you want to do specifically, but, like you said, it doesn't. It really should not be the whole song.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So I have a question for you. This one's not too tough, but what inspired you to start your company? Oh, man and you're young Let me just throw that out there Like you're a very young individual to have a massively successful company. How old are you? 23. What?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought you knew that.
Speaker 2:Okay, I did not know that.
Speaker 3:How old did you think I was? That's my favorite game. I would say like 25.
Speaker 2:I thought at least mid-20s, like at least.
Speaker 3:I was 21. For a really long time I felt like you were. You said I was 21 for an eternity? Well, because I had a lie to get into what I was doing.
Speaker 1:Oh, really. So how old were you when you started the company?
Speaker 3:What? Eighth grade? Yeah, halloween of eighth grade, my first gig. But before that I, like you know, made music on my computer and I wanted to be a DJ that produced music. And an artist that inspired me to be a DJ was Calvin Harris, and you know like we found love. We feel so close. It was like 2012, 2013. He would do these like crazy DJ sets for EDC or for these you know, these major festivals, and I was like, oh man, I want to do that. That'd be so cool.
Speaker 2:I was super nervous back then, so there was no way I would be doing that. But when you're 14, you're like who cares? I'm the shit.
Speaker 3:I remade his songs on FL Studio and GarageBand, all those little music softwares, and I would try to do that whole thing. But then I realized, since I grew up with at school and I had an opportunity to DJ with a friend of mine, which is where we get the name West from our company so my last name is Carlos the C and then West was his last name, so we were DJ Quest, which was our DJ group name, which is where DJ C West came from. Originally it was DJ Quest, but yeah, so that was in middle school and yeah, I mean I just wanted to be like him. And I remember I was in middle school texting some friends, like church friends that I grew up with, and like what do you want to do when you grow up? And I was like I want to, I want to DJ in Vegas.
Speaker 1:And they hit me with like the cross emoji and they're like Lord, save you from sin city. No, literally, I was like I'm not.
Speaker 3:I'm not all about that. I have never even thought about Vegas now because our DJ careers have changed so much from the club scene. I've never DJed at a club but I've only ever DJed private events, and there's two different sides of things with that. But that's the objective one day is to do that. I mean, I know club DJs now so I could, I could do that, but, um, you know, just haven't ever gone down that path.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Did you like grow up with music or like it just came to you, Like was your family into music or did you just find it on your own?
Speaker 3:Yeah, my dad has a very extensive like record collection eight tracks. He collects the VA uh not VHS, uh cassette tapes and CDs. He collects a lot of music, which is kind of crazy, but I don't think that that really inspired me. I just think that, growing up with parents that were what are they? Gen X, and they loved 80s and 90s country and 2000s country, and I listened to a lot of pop music on the radio when I was a kid. So I think that now I realize that I had a lot of different exposures to music because my parents liked so many different things. Then I played in a jazz band when I was in middle school as well, so I did play the. You know every kid has to play an instrument, I'm sure you know public schools here, it's like you know everybody
Speaker 1:kind of has an instrument.
Speaker 2:I was in that clarinet and I sucked. Yeah, so it's like you know I was blowing the sax, so I don't know how well it sounded.
Speaker 3:So, I played the saxophone and that was my musical introduction and I like to sing and I'm not the best karaoke person, but I'll do my thing.
Speaker 2:We love some drunk karaoke. Exactly that's my favorite.
Speaker 3:That's always my go-to opener. I have a question for you what's your go-to karaoke song?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, Anything from high school musicals.
Speaker 1:High to karaoke song. Oh my gosh, anything from like high school, high school music, okay. So I I truly have a. Every year I set a goal to do drunk karaoke once throughout the year. Good goal. So this year, um, I drunk karaoke with my, my brother's friend, and we karaoke neon moon that's a good one. That's a good ballad every time I hear that song.
Speaker 2:I just think of the movie selena it was terrible, it was absolutely terrible. I saw a video of it after and I was like, oh, my god, I was like I was about to be like don't ever disrespect her, ever again okay, I was like, and that movie's a bop, my karaoke experience not oh my gosh, oh yeah, it's never good in the moment you sound amazing, oh yeah, oh it was.
Speaker 3:We're like taylor, swift, like throw a little effect on your vocal you know, next big thing yeah it was bad.
Speaker 1:It was so bad. That's so funny. Um, so we really want to get into the production side of sea west and really talk through like that side. It's an area obviously we've um, we've seen the cold sparks and the CO2 guns, We've talked about silent discos, all of those things, but I don't feel like it's something that everybody fully knows about and just what cool effects it has in the wedding industry. Um, so can I ask you a really quick kind of jumping back? So that's where your DJ company started was 14.
Speaker 3:Middle school, middle school dream.
Speaker 1:What made you say all right, let's go to the next level and let's add in all of these additional elements to our company.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think a big thing to note too is that I might be the face or the person that a lot of people know, but I'm not the one that comes up with a lot of the great ideas that we come up with. I'm just the one that here's the great ideas that our team comes up with and helps to create that to come to life, because I feel like that's my strength, right. It's like I'm a doer, I like to make things happen, and I have a really great team that comes up with just these amazing ideas, or these but LED dance floor buy it, led video wall buy it, I don't care, let's make it happen, let's do something cool.
Speaker 3:So originally now this is going back to 2021, there was another DJ that worked with us and I think he was only at the Willow one or two times. His name was Caleb and we grew up in high school together and so near the end of the COVID shutdowns and stuff like that, we were approached by a lot of schools, including our old high school, to do their prom, and so that was kind of like the first events back.
Speaker 3:I can't remember if it was 2021 or 2022, sometime one of those spring seasons, but the schools were coming back and those were like the first big events that we could do with production. And so those schools that we started to work with, that we still continue to work with now 2,000 kids, 1,500 kids at the schools, and I went to a school where my graduating class was like 150 people. We had 400 people total, so we didn't really have a big show. It was like a DJ with two speakers and a light bar Like I could have done that You're like it's in the cafeteria, Exactly.
Speaker 3:Exactly so. When we had those opportunities these schools and the people planning them Stu Go counselors they were all used to a certain level of show from a DJ. It wasn't just showing up like we were used to. So we were presented with an opportunity to do that, and Caleb had seen on YouTube and just other people around the country that had done cool things. He's like why don't we do that? And it was really because of him that we started to step into that role, and that's when we needed the stage and that's when we needed the lights and the trussing and all the extra stuff that we needed, because he saw well, shoot, that's so cool, why don't we do that? I really have to give it to him because he came up with that.
Speaker 3:I would still just be doing the same thing if it wasn't for that. But after that, though, we have a great operations manager now, arturo. He comes up with a lot of our cool ideas. His love for this is just coming up with something cool and always doing the next level thing. So I try to not limit these people and just say, like you know what, I'm not trying to give you the credit card and buy whatever you want, but if it's cool and it'll make it has to make money, obviously, but if it'll bring us to the next level, why don't we just do it?
Speaker 2:And bring a cool element to the DJ.
Speaker 3:And I think something too and this is a little bit off topic, but I'm just very fortunate that my dream was always to have a good team that I really enjoyed working with and a place where people wanted to go to work and showed up and did their best. That was always the work culture and the work-life balance was always a super big priority for me and Cordell, like when we would meet and like try to figure out what we wanted to do one day, that I'm just very happy to have the team and be at the place that we are now because that was what we always wanted. And, uh, like two days ago, we were out at Topgolf on Monday yeah, monday. And they're like oh yeah, what's your dream? And I'm like, guys, I'm already living, be where we are right now. You have an amazing team that works with you.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, you know they do everything. I feel like they do everything, yeah. So, as owner of C West entertainment, which employee would you take to a Coldplay concert?
Speaker 3:Oh, dude, honestly, you guys met Zach. Have you guys met Zach I?
Speaker 1:don't know, is he tall? Yup, yup.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got. We had a share of bed for the last couple of days, so I'll just put it that way.
Speaker 1:All right, Zach, you're the one invited to the Coldplay concert.
Speaker 3:Yeah, arturo and his wife are going to be the that couple for Halloween this year. You already told me we were working on it the other day.
Speaker 2:There's going to be so many Halloween memes for that. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, we went to a and even just already. Like baseball teams and stuff were like making like parodies I was like what is going on.
Speaker 2:I said people just take it off and they make it into something crazy. So cool, yes, okay. So next question With yes, okay. So next question. Um, with having you know all these cool enhancements, how do you help your clients choose the right ones for their event Whether that's I mean mainly, obviously we're talking about like weddings. How do you help couples decide?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that there's kind of two sides to it. You know, firstly, it's exposure or even knowing that we do stuff like that, because I've done, you know, a wedding even recently and they didn't even know that we did the CO2 gun and the tank and they bought something and I showed up and they handed it to me and I'm like what the heck is this? I didn't even know about this first off.
Speaker 3:I'm like oh, my dad just saw it in Mexico. Here you go. And I was like, oh, I was like I don't know how this works because this isn't mine, but I'll try to figure it out. It didn't work first off and then afterwards I was like I'm so sorry that this thing didn't work. They tried their best to make it work and I was like we rent that and I wish I would have known, because they bought it.
Speaker 3:And these things aren't cheap either. Our guns are like I think $400 to $500, plus the tanks and to fill up, so it's not cheap. We do give a rental price, so it is lower cost. But firstly, I think clients just have to be aware that you do stuff like that. So we do a lot of messaging and we try not to make it too in their face of like, oh, book this, because ultimately that's the second part.
Speaker 3:I don't care what they add on or don't add on. I think whatever is best for the client at the end of the day is what we should focus on. If they don't want an extravagant wedding with all this extra stuff, then let's not do that. Let's make it whatever you guys want to do and we try to keep our clients' needs and priorities first, because they are other people. It's the way that I would want to be treated and that's the way that we treat them, but if they don't know, they'll buy some stupid gun thing that doesn't work and it looks super cool but it didn't work yeah, they were like waiting for it to come out and it just didn't work.
Speaker 1:They said, oh this, I've seen that with the cold sparks, like off amazon too, like you get the boxes and they think you're supposed to be, press the button and it's like a dud, yeah, so well, we have those go out all the time.
Speaker 3:That doesn't work. The generic one.
Speaker 2:It's giving like a gender reveal that like they're trying to do the thing and they're like, oh, it just like doesn't work. That's what it's giving. When the cold sports don't work, is a gender reveal gone bad? That's what it made me think of.
Speaker 3:I mean we've had oh you would not believe it. I'd say like one in four cold sparks don't work and we have like 20 of them. So our plan now, or at least since the last season, we always bring two sets, no matter what Just in case?
Speaker 3:And I've had them, like you know, they work just fine when they go for the test and they don't work when they're supposed to go off and it's like it's so frustrating because there's nothing. I could have done different. I brought the backups, we tested it, it should have worked and then it doesn't go off and it's like that recently happened to me to like a personal friend of mine, they they got married in.
Speaker 1:March and I walked up to her and I was like Lisa. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2:Like it worked for the test and she's like oh, javier, I don't care.
Speaker 3:And I'm like well, I care, so we're going to redo it so can you redo your first dance, so I can just get the cold sparks please so we just set up the other one for the final send off.
Speaker 3:we just kept shooting them off and shooting them off for like 15 minutes and I was just like Lisa, you're going to get the full thing, because I feel like I didn't know what we were supposed to do. But I mean, that's out of their control. We try to tell that to clients, but they don't understand that. They don't care about that. They're cared about getting married, so just struggle.
Speaker 1:Are there any considerations or restrictions when using effects like cold sparks or the fog machines, CO2 guns?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd say it always goes down to the venue first there's specific venues that don't want stuff like that. They just label everything as smoke, even though it's not. Yeah, they said, I ain't going to pay for that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so they think it's always going to set off the fire alarms and certain effects do. A traditional fog machine. For what is it called? A haunted house? Geez, I couldn't remember that word. A haunted house fog machine that typically does that off a fire alarm because that puts a lot of liquid and oil in the air, that tricks fire alarms and it thinks that it's smoke. But a lot of the other effects that we do, you know, cold sparks do create a little bit of dust in the air. Um, the co2 gun is just literally co2 gas like that's just just don't spray it in somebody's mouth and let them breathe in. Like come on, yeah, let's think you said be smart, please, like know. Sometimes it's always, like I said to that other part, it's like education first, because people don't know what it is, and it's like whoa, what the heck is that Whoa? So you?
Speaker 2:said I'm scared.
Speaker 3:I think it always goes down to the venue where it takes place.
Speaker 2:Okay, next thing with your add-ons. What's the most creative way? You've seen a couple, or even maybe just a planner, like use those things. Have you seen anything like crazy, or even if you don't even have something or whatever.
Speaker 3:I have a non-wedding specific thing. Can I share that? Yeah, sure, we have an experience that we're working on for a jet engine at the NASCAR raceway. I don't know how much of this I could share.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm not under any kind of disclosure. Yet you said I didn't sign an NDA or anything.
Speaker 3:They want to create an immersive experience where you walk in and it's like a jet engine company. So they want us to shoot the cold sparks off and then have the CO2 come out and then have it rumble really loud in this truss box. So it feels like you're in a jet engine without obviously being in a jet engine. But that's kind of cool because you're just kind of layering things You've got the sound.
Speaker 3:You've got the visual. You feel the smoke, you feel the bass. I mean that's kind of cool, or wetting those specifically. A lot of the times it's like the dancing on the cloud, which is the nice cloud on the dance floor with the sparklers going off on each side. What does that mean? Cloud?
Speaker 3:on the floor yeah, so the dancing on the cloud machine. It's hard to use at outdoor venues but perfect for indoor venues where you can control the climate, because what the dancing on the cloud is is hot water with dry ice, so it creates a reaction. It's kind of like you guys ever been always back to the haunted house. You ever been to a haunted house or a Halloween party?
Speaker 1:it's not my preference, but have done it.
Speaker 2:I know I wouldn't step in it not this year, but I think it's like a witch's cauldron oh yeah, like the drink and it looks like smoking out, so it's just that on a much larger scale.
Speaker 3:So super hot boiling water plus that creates this cloud. I mean it's. It's super cool because it kind of creates this like mystical cloud and then the cold sparks come off on either side and it just kind of creates like a really whimsical fairytale feel.
Speaker 2:Ooh, actually, I feel like, now that you explained it, I feel like I've seen that and it's like, yeah, it looks like they're just dancing, not even dancing on the floor Cause it's like so cloudy.
Speaker 1:I would almost add, cause I've seen you do it it's the glass dance floor in the way that you redo the lights and redo the lights, and so there's like glass dance floor with the lights and then the clouds and the cold sparks, like it is.
Speaker 2:So we got the whole combo kind of like it, like lights it from below yeah, and so, like the clouds, almost like glow, the different colors in a sense kind of like the didn't when we go to, when we went to the az bride yes, yeah, just like that the yes, okay, but then with the yeah a little magical, I should have done that fancy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty. Um, I only have one pet peeve of the glass uh, dance floors, oh really. Um, oh, we talked about this. Actually I remember now, like when you're in a short dress and you look down at the glass, you realize that it reflects you said oh, you want to hear something bad.
Speaker 2:I just want to tell you that that's like an internal thought process.
Speaker 1:That's my feedback for you.
Speaker 3:If you were a parent at a school dance, would you let your kids dance on that? Because we did it for a Christian school and we didn't even know it wasn't even a thought that somebody would do that. And then they stopped the dance and threw a big tarp over top of it because people were like taking pictures.
Speaker 2:It's so inappropriate, oh, I bet.
Speaker 3:But as, like I'm getting pictures from the team, like what the heck? Like they're like, oh, something happened. I'm like, well, what happened? And then they sent a picture of it. I'm like, is that like a like a rain tarp over the dance floor and it's still glowing? But yeah, like you just see all the kids around the dance floor, they're like, uh, this is I don't know like people like we don't think about that when we book it or when we bought it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love it, so I'm not dogging on it. It took drunk Kelsey in a short dress to look down and go. Oh, I said.
Speaker 2:Oh wait, this isn't good, oops.
Speaker 3:And, depending on the crowd, they love that stuff.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 3:We've done some weddings in Scottsdale and they're like obsessed with the way that happens.
Speaker 1:It's like okay, and so just keep the lights going. Yeah, just blind everyone. I mean it's a mirror, literally. How would you say? These add-ons changed the energy or the vibe.
Speaker 3:Well, so some of the add-ons I think are really tied to the club and tied to the experience that you have when going out. So a lot of the times when we talk about cold sparks or CO2, those I feel like are really like energy, like you visually see it, you feel it. It kind of creates like a whoa moment. So those are kind of like the whoa special effects or the enhancements that we have. On the other side we've got things that just kind of set the ambiance or help with the vibe Photo booth, uplights, monogram, which is like a projection image, kind of like the logo that we have here, like if that was shot on the wall.
Speaker 3:We call that a monogram. Those kind of just help to set the vibe right, nothing about the photobooth. Take some pictures with the homies. Got your girls, got your bride tribe you know I'm with the bride or whatever sign. So you have that Uplights kind of just set the mood for the colors. You look around on your wedding day and maybe you're in a space that's completely white and your colors are purple and you add those lights and you create a little purple color. So those are kind of like the mood vibe setting ones.
Speaker 2:and then the yeah, the wow moments.
Speaker 1:I love your guys' photo booth. Your photo booth is amazing. I do too, yeah, and have one of your staff be there to help just manage it, monitor it, help the drunkies.
Speaker 2:They're like three, two. You're just like oh God.
Speaker 1:It's going to take three pictures.
Speaker 2:And then it goes off and like, oh wait, and you're like, so that's what, the three, two, one countdown is. Yeah, yes, okay. So we kind of already like touched a little bit on this with the limits that venues require If it's like fog or haze. How do you work around that If, say, couples still want that?
Speaker 3:is there any way to go about?
Speaker 2:it, or what would you do?
Speaker 3:Sometimes there's like a legal side. So Sometimes there's like a legal side so you can get boring. But you can talk to the fire marshal, turn off the smoke alarms if that's a major concern, but then you have to pay somebody to be on fire watch. So sometimes that's a little bit not super. You know. Super great for corporate event. You know there's a little bit more flexibility with the budget because it's not your money, it's the company's money?
Speaker 2:Yeah, who cares? Just do it.
Speaker 3:You know that's more okay. Otherwise, you know it's one of those things where you better tell the couple ASAP that that's not going to work, because the last thing you want to do is show up and find out that it's not going to work. Actually, talking about that, though with restrictions, I hit so many venues this year that had like a unheard of volume limit or cutoff time that no one knew about. Like I did four weddings in a row this year that that happened too, and it was like it wasn't here in, like really in the Phoenix area. It was in oh no one was in the East Valley in Phoenix and then the other one was in Sedona. And I'm like man, this year in Sedona it's been crazy, wow, like, like I literally had people, like I had this one guy I'm sorry to get off on a tangent here.
Speaker 1:No, go for it.
Speaker 3:But I did this wedding beautiful venue, I'm not going to name it, but super high end client. You know it was a Denver Broncos cheerleader. Like the whole team was there, including like important people.
Speaker 1:You're like, hey guys, it was sick, though it was fun they had, like all these choreographed dances.
Speaker 3:That was cool. Now that's a choreographed dance we like for a while.
Speaker 2:Oh, I forgot about those, the cheerleaders and stuff. Those are cool though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're cute, they're in their moment, but had this guy come up from the venue just a jerk to begin with. He's going to unplug you right now. Oh, if you don't turn this like all the way down. I'm like, hey, man, I understand. I already talked to the couple. They said that I can continue doing what I'm doing. He's like no, I'm going to unplug you right now and you're going to have to leave. I'm like, okay, so I'm like playing tag with, like, the coordinator, the father of the bride, cause the father of the bride does not play around. He was not playing around and this guy who's about to unplug me and guess what happened? Did he unplug you? The caterer unplugged me by accident so we still got unplugged.
Speaker 3:You said oh because when that happened, I was like, no like wow, he actually did it yeah but and then that one also had to end early. It was like all this stuff and it was like this year I've never experienced it like ever. So I'm trying to tell couples ahead of time like double check to the venue because you don't want to know that kind of thing. Like an hour into the reception when you're like oh, I didn't even know.
Speaker 1:Like I didn't even know, and so it's just one of those tricky things.
Speaker 3:It's like it's like so beautiful there and like you want to respect the people that live there. Of course, but why are we having these crazy things the day of?
Speaker 1:Oh, I could not imagine finding out like an hour before that you had to end early, that you had to end early.
Speaker 3:Or that the music had to be this loud.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like I had music so loud or so quiet one time. I could hear the people talking on the dance floor and I mean the photographer was standing next to me. I'm like, bro, like I can hear them. What I feel? Like I could just play this off with my laptop speaker right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's awful that quiet, Jeez.
Speaker 3:Beautiful venues, beautiful places, great staff, but it's like man.
Speaker 2:It's always those ones, though it's always the bougie ones. They have like five million rules and you're like come on, like it's someone's wedding, like it's not going to be the end of the world if the music's a little loud, like je, yeah, jeez.
Speaker 1:Are there any emerging technologies or trends in the DJing or event industry that you're really excited about?
Speaker 3:Well, I think the first thing that comes to mind, at least in the DJ industry, is like the club style of DJing, which is really fun, you know, not playing the whole song, getting in, getting out, not really caring about tradition too much, and like just going. I mean, of course you have the traditional part of the reception, but like once open dancing starts, nothing else happens, just dancing. Like that's really fun, just because as a DJ it's hard to play music and then stop and be like all right, we're going to cut the cake, everybody. It's time to go over to the cake table, snap a picture with our bride and groom and cut that cake room and cut that cake.
Speaker 1:That just kills the energy.
Speaker 2:That's Javier's DJ voice, by the way. I can tell instantly hey, come on Flashbacks.
Speaker 1:That's the voice.
Speaker 3:So there's that kind of part that I really enjoy. I'm trying to think on emerging technology. We're going to have to circle back to that one. Something's going to pop up eventually.
Speaker 2:In the next few years. I'm sure someone's going to invent something Silent disco.
Speaker 3:Silent disco is fun, but that's actually been around for a little while Do you do those for more corporate events?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of corporate.
Speaker 3:So in the corporate world like an activation is a marketing term for a brand that sponsors, like a booth, or if you've ever been to a concert and you see, like I don't know, the beatbox area or the liquid death area and they have an experience that you can go to, or maybe they sponsor the VIP thing, those kind of brands will hire a marketing company. A marketing company hires us to help them with whatever the component is Silent disco, screens, speakers, whatever it is but they're using a lot of, I feel like, silent disco and we've actually used it. It's really fun too, or very inclusive, for some of the events that we've done is for special needs people that can't hear the loud music but they could put on headphones, set it to the volume that works for them and, like most of the special needs proms that we do, silent disco and that's really cool.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, that is awesome.
Speaker 3:So a lot of schools, that's what they do and I just I don't know it. Amazing, that is awesome. So a lot of schools, that's what they do and I just I don't know. It feels like I don't know. You want everybody to experience life and have some fun together and it's cool that that could be how they do that. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 3:Wait, am I allowed to ask you guys questions?
Speaker 1:Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 3:Oh, hold on, hold on. I've been holding back loud, hold on, I'll let you finish, okay um well, we want to get into some juicy stuff. Oh, no do you want to ask us your questions before we like I know so much about you guys yeah, he's gonna expose us.
Speaker 3:I don't remember. I remember the. I was trying to remember the thing that you said you regretted about your wedding. That I remembered from the podcast. But I remember the thing that you said that you didn't regret was hiring a videographer yeah, and I regret not doing a first look. Oh, the first yeah, supposed to be a real fan, yeah, so it's like like yeah you're supposed to just like know us like that no, we are like this.
Speaker 2:I'm just kidding. Yeah, no, that is true, I've talked about that a lot, but I think, time wise, like was the biggest thing, and just like that special moment, I think I wish we would have done that.
Speaker 3:So first look rather than down the aisle.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny because, yeah, I was always adamant for years. I was like, oh yeah, the first time. And then a few months before, I kept seeing a bunch of other people getting married and doing first looks and I was like, dang, I really want to do that. And then my husband was like no, he looks. And I was like, dang, I really want to do that. And then my husband was like no, he's like, I want to see you down the aisle. And I was like it's his wedding too, obviously. And I said you know, it's, it's all good.
Speaker 2:So we did a first touch to kind of compromise and I did really love that. The pictures were great, the video and everything we caught was very emotional and that was great. But I the day flies by so quick and I I just wish we would have done that, mostly because of time wise, to like get all the like bridal portraits and like things like that out of the way, because I was like over it by the time the photos and I didn't even eat my wedding food because when did sunset portraits. And then we came back and then it's like, okay, it's now time for the toast and then let's open and we wanted lots of dancing time so it's like let's get this stuff done because we want to dance. So I think timing wise, so that's fine, but it's all good, I still have the best day.
Speaker 3:So it does matter Okay, yep. Yep. I don't think that you shared anything that I remember from the podcast. Regret was Of my wedding.
Speaker 2:She's never, no, no, that, no, I know that's why.
Speaker 1:That's why I don't think my wedding was perfect, it was everything I dreamed of it being. You said Chick-fil-A and the courthouse yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't know if I can tap you up from here?
Speaker 3:yeah, courthouse paid witnesses and split Chick-fil-A okay so I know you guys have a lot of questions to ask me, but now that you've worked in the industry, would you still do the whole traditional wedding thing? Because I feel like that's what I'm like. I don't know if I really would do it anymore, because it feels like work to me. Even at siblings' weddings, family friends, I'm like I feel like I'm at work rather than like it's about me or whatever. Like, now that you have this experience, if you got married later like, say, your wedding was like you didn't have the date yet, right, but you knew you were going to get married Would you still? Would you elope or would you still do the whole thing?
Speaker 2:I would still get married. Yeah, well, I mean not like I mean of course you would get married. No, no, no, but I would still have the wedding I would. It's funny because when I started working at a wedding venue which it's like also, I'm someone, even though there's like small things that I wish I would have changed Like, I loved my wedding and you know it's like, oh yeah, that's cool, that would have been fun to have, but that's actually really not my style. You know, that's not something that we would actually have wanted anyway. So, um, I still would have had a wedding. I know we're going to have one.
Speaker 1:No, we're not going to do a Valmina one. No, that ship has sailed.
Speaker 2:She's like, guys, I got to tell you something. No, no, I'm like, what's about to go?
Speaker 3:We got a bomb, we dropped in here.
Speaker 2:She's like so.
Speaker 1:No, we, I. What I am sad we don't have is photos to show our kids. We don't have any pictures to show our kids, so they are like you know. They see all these pictures from weddings that I do, or they see the conversations. They see the Amazon boxes show up for clients that are shipping all their stuff from out of state to my house and they ask about our wedding and there's nothing to show them Like. Here's a few pictures from the courthouse and a white I thought it was a cute white blouse and later down the years Tomas said he hated that white blouse.
Speaker 3:So you don't even have a picture of it, I just want to see it. If I could see this later like on the screen.
Speaker 2:We're going to pop up.
Speaker 1:We're going to force our producer to pop up this picture. I think I wore blue jeans and a white blouse, you and your jeans. She's the jeans queen, yeah. And then he wore an over like a baggy blue shirt and black jeans. I want to say Legend, like no cute pictures.
Speaker 1:And the other thing that we missed from eloping is we didn't have both of our family together to celebrate the like union of us and so there's always been this like separation in our families, like there's been his side and my side, because we all didn't come together at once, that we missed, because we didn't have a real like a do you?
Speaker 3:think that by having an event where everybody was there at the same time, that would cause that unity, or do you think it's more of like interpersonal relationships? I think that's.
Speaker 1:I think it's such a it's a good opportunity for everybody to at least shake hands and get to know each other, versus now. It was, you know, like my baby showers that I'd have like all the girls from my side and the girls from his side would come together, but there wasn't that early on meeting. So it's like have you been? We've met before. It was like we're getting to know each other now, or it's like this awkward tension between the two sides because there wasn't that formal everybody coming together. So I regret not having photos. I'm glad I didn't have to freaking plan my own wedding I would be a monster to bride I'd be a monster bride, she said, brides are like coming up.
Speaker 2:We're self-aware though.
Speaker 1:That's step one, and I would probably now, like we're saying, if I were planning a wedding, I would probably be like queuing my bridal party and working on my wedding day. I don't think you could have a wedding Like I would. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Because you would be like ding, ding, ding, ding, I'd be behind the scenes and I'd be like, where's the bride?
Speaker 1:Oh, she's talking to catering.
Speaker 2:She's checking in with the DJ she's making sure the bartender has eyes.
Speaker 1:She's looking for the photographer Like that would be me, but that have been a control freak. We need them. We got to have a few of them.
Speaker 3:I have more juicy questions for later, so don't worry.
Speaker 1:You're going to save the rest for later? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:Craziest client request. Oh, it's always like something mad, inappropriate, like there's a song. Can I say bad words?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:And I'm not even going to say a bad word. I don't even know why I said that. Oh my gosh. So there's this funny song. I don't remember the artist, but it's called Dick Down in Dallas.
Speaker 2:My husband just showed me that song last week.
Speaker 3:And my brother's going to want me to play Ram Ranch, which is another inappropriate song about naked cowboys. But there's like those songs and I wouldn't even classify that as the same as like WAP, because WAP's just like kind of funny and appropriate, but like those are like talking about some crazy stuff. I'm not going to put on the podcast, but listen to those songs, let it simmer for a little bit when we play stuff like that. Oh, another one too. We play stuff like that. Oh, another one too. It was called Molly Cyrus. You can look it up.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to tell you what the song is about, but it's like the lyrical content is just so not right, oh God. So I've had a couple times where somebody tells me to play it and I'm like why? Why is this random guest coming up and play it? Because that's not like a song somebody would request and they're like well, this, this and this. And then I make sure the bride and groom come up and say it because, like, as long as they're like, okay. I had this one wedding where their friend like just died and that was their favorite song. So to open up the dance floor, they wanted that song, okay. So it's like an upbeat funny country song and they danced to it. So that was great. But, like for those kind of things, I'm like let's make sure that I know exactly that that's okay, because if not, that's the kind of thing that goes in a Google review.
Speaker 1:Not the Google review.
Speaker 2:Not the Google review, it's true, though People will find anything in a nitpick. But it's funny you say that song because literally just last week John showed me that he's like have you heard this song? I was like what the hell is this song? And then we're listening to it in the car and I said don't ever play that again. I was just like why is someone singing about this? Or, oh my gosh, you don't listen to Justin Bieber. But have you listened to Justin Bieber's new song with SZA?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Please Like brand new. Yes, was it off? The news album His new album.
Speaker 1:Or one of those girly pops.
Speaker 2:He does a song, but it's like really inappropriate. I was like is this Justin Bieber? What is going on?
Speaker 1:Okay, talking about artists, can we please bring up the fact that Bruno Mars was fire for years and years and years? And now his new stuff is wild. It is.
Speaker 2:Bruno Mars.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3:What is it? But I think that that is on par with Bubble Butt Wake Up in the Sky. He always does a feature, every so often on a rap song, and that's just the one. But I'm just a Bruno Mars.
Speaker 1:I love Bruno Mars. I will defend my man no matter what.
Speaker 2:I just see that he does that every so often. Oh, is that like a rap, inappropriate song or something?
Speaker 3:Yeah, with Sexy Red, really yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's her fault. I have my phone and I have to look it up right now because it's going to drive me nuts.
Speaker 3:Wait, is he cancelled now?
Speaker 1:No, I love Bruno Mars. I just I loved all like I love Bruno Mars' music, and so then, for us and I've listened to some of his from like 2014.
Speaker 3:Please Me with Cardi B is also like that song. Oh yeah, please me.
Speaker 1:Okay, so there was, and then he did the one. Okay, I only know the lyrics. I don't know what it's called. It's like the gorilla one.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I know he has a trend.
Speaker 1:Correct, okay, so I know he has these trends, but for being gone for so many years and then hitting us with. Fat, juicy and Wet. I'm like.
Speaker 2:Sue, he was like literally had to keep playing in Vegas to pay back his gambling debts.
Speaker 1:right, yeah, he was like a prisoner. He was a prisoner of Vegas. Good thing you didn't go DJ in Vegas.
Speaker 3:You could have been a prisoner.
Speaker 2:Getting all of your gambling debts. The Justin Bieber song is a sexy red and it's called Sweet Spot. Oh, oh.
Speaker 3:Trust me. What's that about, I wonder?
Speaker 1:what that's about. I don't know. Do you ever get hit with requests that you have no idea what the songs are? So you have to like either read the lyrics or listen to it while you're playing other music Like how do you handle those?
Speaker 3:Back in the day, like every my entire DJ career up until like the last year, I would like download the song and listen to it first. But then I realized, like if I've never heard that song before and multiple people have not asked for that song, I am not going to play that song. I just had some dude walk up great artist I've come to learn he's like play this song by Boz Skaggs. I'm like what the heck is it? What'd you just say? He said what did you just call me? And I? That was the last time I downloaded a song. This was like I think in May or something, or maybe it was in April and I listened to it. I'm like what the heck is this? I'm like I'm not going to play this. So now, unless, if you know, even if they're doing it in an inappropriate way they put their phone on their head or they like shout to play a specific artist or a specific song. If the crowd wants what the crowd wants, you got to give it to the vibes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Cause I mean, you know, if a bride and groom's main objectives everybody's on the dance floor having a good time are you really you don't want to play a specific artist because you don't like them? I used to not like Bad Bunny for the longest time. This was like rap, bad Bunny. This was like pre most of the reggaeton stuff that he does. I was like he's just a whack rapper. That's what I thought.
Speaker 1:Don't get my podcast canceled because you called Bad Bunny a whack rapper.
Speaker 2:This was trap.
Speaker 3:Bad Bunny, this was like pre.
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 3:Like.
Speaker 1:It by Cardi B. Yeah, I was going to say this was trap bad bunny.
Speaker 2:This was like pre. I like it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was gonna say before, like he had danceable songs and we would have like like you'd play a song like that and like nobody would dance, and like I love morgan wallen, but there's very select morgan wallen songs you can play that people will dance to. When last night was super popular, people would ask for that song and it'd be like are you gonna dance to that song because I love that song great song to listen to. Are you going to dance to that song Because I love that song Great song to listen to. But who's going to dance to?
Speaker 2:that right now it's like depressing and shit. Yeah, it's like great, you said so. You're going to dance to this Great car music but Great for the vibe who's going to dance to that right now?
Speaker 3:so like that's, that's a little bit tricky. Now I don't like like say heck, no, but you know you try to be nice about it and I forgot what the heck was.
Speaker 1:The question um craziest client request.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, oh no, actually I did get booked at this one venue that I love, um working at, and uh, they only booked me because I told them I could play the explicit version of the songs. Like we talked to other djs, nobody could do that and I was like, really, because we download, at least for me. I download four versions the intro clean intro, dirty single, clean, single, dirty. And intro just means it has a little beginning part, that's just the beat, so you can match it with the next song. So that's what an intro is. And the clean is just like what you hear on the radio, just like the regular Press play on Spotify, because you never know who you're going to DJ for and they might want the clean or the dirty.
Speaker 2:Wow, Nice Well to finish us out, do you have any horror stories from any DJ events? I'm trying to move past this one.
Speaker 3:There was a week I did like four or five weddings in a row and there was one couple that would not get back to me about any information until the day before. Oh god, there was one song I did not have, which was and keep in mind nice venue. I thought they were cool people, but momzilla and I made her cry before we started the grand entrance because there was a specific song and y'all can't see how big the studio is, but since you guys are in here, the entrance of the door was right there and the dance floor was right here. So I'm playing that much of the song for her to walk in literally five seconds and I have to play a song for every member of the bridal party.
Speaker 3:Like you know, there's six couples, there's parents, there's grandparents, there's the flower girls, there's the bride and groom, and this is just for the grand entrance. That's the one song I don't have and I just get everybody lined up. I'm like, hey, we have enough time still for you to tell me what song this is, because I still don't have it. This is the only one. Then she starts crying and then the dad's like you made my wife cry Like he's like a. You know, I can still play the song. Just tell me what it is, cause I don't have it.
Speaker 3:I still played it, but of course she wrote a one-star review and we have a money back guarantee, so don't take advantage of us please. But I gave them the money back Cause I was like you know what. Clearly I didn't do something right, but that wasn't my fault. I still played the song yeah.
Speaker 3:I still played the song, tears in her eyes, like she didn't just cry. Oh so it was just a bunch of stupid small stuff like that, like it was the mom planning and the bride but like equally, and it was like I was getting two different groups of information, completely different stuff, and I'm like dude. But yeah, then then all the reviews disappeared after I gave them their money back, which I didn't care. Yeah, I don't do this because of the money or whatever, I just do it because I really enjoy it. So I was like I care, like I wish we could have not had that happen.
Speaker 2:You said I just wish you wouldn't have cried.
Speaker 3:Yeah, why you got to be so emotional, why you got to be crying about shit that you don't need to cry about.
Speaker 2:They had time to get me the song.
Speaker 3:That's what's crazy. I had like 10 other ones.
Speaker 2:Like yeah, you're like we can make it work, don't worry.
Speaker 3:And I told them I'm like it's going to play for five seconds. You're barely going to hear it over the cheer of the people until I have to switch the song to the next group of people. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I can't. Your job's impressive. I know Putting in that work. I was just stupid last year anyways.
Speaker 1:That's behind us, only good stuff now Only good vibes. Cool. Is there anything you want to share before we wrap up today?
Speaker 3:Oh share.
Speaker 1:Share any questions you have for us Well yourself come on.
Speaker 3:All right guys. Any final thoughts? Oh, final thoughts, yeah, I mean I have to say I love the Wedding Hive. I've been a supporter since day one. I'll keep being a supporter. It's really fun to watch and see everything grow from what the ideas were to like where we are now or where you guys are now. It's just cool to see like the efforts. I'd say keep it going, guys. Thank you, and if you guys want to have some delicious vodka, be sure to check out our friends here. I can't read too well, it's.
Speaker 1:Four Carrot, four Carrot, four Carrot.
Speaker 3:Vodka.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Wonderful, so Four Carrot Vodka, we love them. Thank you for joining us here at the Wedding Hive. My name's Javier from SeaWest Entertainment.
Speaker 3:If you're looking for an event production company or entertainment in here in Arizona, be your go-to people. We love to party, we love to have a good time. We don't take ourselves too seriously and I think that our ideal client. If you're looking for somebody like us in your sphere or your scope of work, look scope of work. Look for somebody that will take the job seriously, get it done but also have a great time doing it.
Speaker 2:And people can find you your Instagram C West.
Speaker 3:Yeah, c West Ent, so C-W-E-S-T-E-N-T, so C West Ent.
Speaker 1:Perfect, love it. All right, we will see you all next week. Bye, bye.