The Sing Along Waiters: From Pontins, Pranks & Petrol Receipts to Wedding Fame

This week on The Aisle Diaries Podcast, Joella and Sophie are joined by the incredible team behind The Sing Along Waiters to uncover what really goes on behind one of the UK's most memorable wedding entertainment acts.

From surprise performances and unforgettable wedding moments to celebrity events, awkward requests and the songs guaranteed to fill a dance floor, this episode is packed with behind-the-scenes stories and plenty of laughs.

In this episode, we discuss:

✨ How The Sing Along Waiters got started
✨ The biggest misconceptions about singing waiters
✨ The funniest and most memorable wedding moments they've experienced
✨ Weddings with over 300 guests and performing under pressure
✨ Celebrity weddings and famous faces they've performed for
✨ The most requested wedding songs (and one they don't recommend for your first dance!)
✨ What makes great wedding entertainment
✨ Advice for couples choosing live entertainment for their wedding

Plus, we chat about performing at huge weddings, surprise reveals that leave guests speechless, and why live entertainment can completely transform your wedding day.

Whether you're planning your wedding, looking for unique entertainment ideas, or simply love hearing what happens behind the scenes in the wedding industry, this episode is full of stories you won't hear anywhere else.

🎧 Follow The Aisle Diaries Podcast for weekly wedding planning tips, supplier insights, bridal spirals and honest conversations from behind the chaos and confetti.

Produced by TAEPodcast - www.taepodcast.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_08 0:02

Welcome to the IOL Diaries Podcast. The place where you find out what really happens behind the chaos and confetti. Because someone's got to tell you the truth, and it's never boring. With tips for your big day, I'm Sophie. And I'm Joella.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

But I've been super sad if I don't like that.

SPEAKER_08 0:21

You say this all the time though. You've you've come in here and sat in jeans and you've been like, I feel like I'm a criminal, Sal.

SPEAKER_05 0:27

Yeah, you're an absolute psycho if you sit on the sofa in jeans and just say it. Like when Ethan does it home, I'm like, do you want to get in your comfies? Because that's freaking me out.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

I'm guilty of that.

SPEAKER_05 0:37

Oh yeah, yeah, I think it's a man thing.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

They used to have a white leather sofa as well. It was a blue leather.

SPEAKER_05 0:44

My OCD would fly off the show. Surely you'd stick to the sofa.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

I have a thing at home, it's like going the the immediate second that I know that you have to leave. Can I get in comfies in the house?

SPEAKER_05 0:52

Yeah, I literally am like comfy all the time. Absolutely. Ethan's grandma rips me to shreds because I will get in, get in the shower, and get my PJs no matter what the time is. And then obviously if I go out, I'll get changed again. But like in the same clothes I've worn, I just you've got to be in your comfies anyway. Especially in this weather. Yeah. Big time. Right, enough about Ethan's grandma.

SPEAKER_06 1:12

Shall we get started?

SPEAKER_08 1:25

Um welcome back to this week's episode. Hello.

SPEAKER_07 1:31

Oh, but you want to do it now. I've said that. As you can tell, we've got a guest. Do you want a drink of it as well?

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Have a drink, have a drink. I'm a bit worried. No, do it.

SPEAKER_08 1:41

Down in one, down in the wonderful guests for this week. So please could you introduce yourselves? Who you are, what you do, where you've come from. I feel like it sounds like a song sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

But sounds like the start of blind day. I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

No one will know what blind day is. We are all night, do we?

SPEAKER_03 2:03

No, we do. My name's Morris, and this is Darren. My name's Darren. Ummy. And uh yeah, we're uh uh the sing along waiters is the name of it. Four words, the sing along waiters.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Yeah. Four words. Some people put the the sing along as one word.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

It's not one word, it's not words. Which we don't like. Yeah. And uh yeah, what do we do? We uh we perform uh people's weddings and other events, but mainly mainly weddings. Um yeah, it happens in that lull point during the day when everyone's full of lovely food and drink, and uh there's perfect sort of real estate there to um have some fun.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Yeah, as I said, as the the uh it suggests, we act act as waiters prior to the show. Um yeah, so I assume that most people would know exactly what it's like. Well the singular way does it go.

SPEAKER_05 2:55

You've never you've never seen it. I've seen lots of views and like footage and Instagram and whatever, but I've never unfortunately gonna get. Yeah, and I'd I would love it, but I know because we're in the industry, I'd be like, I feel like I could suss it out. If it was you two, I know exactly what would go on.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

It's not hugely dissimilar to um other suppliers, everyone does it in their own unique kind of way.

SPEAKER_05 3:22

Yeah, so maybe I wouldn't then.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

Um so yeah, we are we try and keep low-key.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Yeah, we're quite particular about how we do things. Although when we started, we try we tried loads of different things. Yeah, yeah. So I come, I remember coming out once at a wedding uh with a chicken breast in my mouth, like as if to say, he's that wacky waiter. Yeah, and it just didn't work.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

I'll ditch that. It was still a good show. The random thing is I think people think about seeing a waiters is that whole surprise element, it's about sixty seconds of the actual show, and then it's the show that happens afterwards.

SPEAKER_05 3:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

People think people think it's all about the reveal, it's not about the reels on this like that.

SPEAKER_05 4:01

That's so true because I instantly just think of the first sixty seconds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:05

And the the I suppose the um the show lasts for like an hour. Wow, honestly, we're you guys are really good. But again, we don't consider ourselves really as singing waiters in the the traditional sense of what that might be construed as, but mainly because our background is music and comedy. So all the stuff that we've done in the years preceding when we started um being singing waiters and doing a singing waiter show, we've just basically morphed from one thing into a different thing. So that has our show has like structure, so we kind of know where we're going with it and things like that.

SPEAKER_05 4:40

I love that. So is that your background like writing, singing, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 4:45

We started to be fair, we went to school together.

SPEAKER_08 4:47

I was gonna say that how did you team meet?

SPEAKER_02 4:49

So, yeah, so we went to school together, so we're in the same class. Right. Even in the it literally in the same class.

SPEAKER_08 4:53

Well, you have known each other for a very long time.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

So we did our first five years. We're not very old. So there's left. We're just yeah. It's been an hour prompt.

SPEAKER_05 5:04

I thought I'd recognise you from doing your makeup.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Exactly, you may have done my makeup. But yeah, no, we um we did our first uh paid uh job together in 1994.

SPEAKER_06 5:14

Wow, that's before we were born.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

No.

SPEAKER_06 5:18

In 96 So there you go. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

We were still we were still uh in college uh in in 19 years.

SPEAKER_05 5:27

So what was that? Can you remember what it was?

SPEAKER_03 5:28

It was I think that might have been a wedding. Yeah, it was a last year.

SPEAKER_08 5:31

Was it terrified? How did you first of all, yeah, were you terrified but happened?

SPEAKER_03 5:35

It was very different to what weddings are now.

SPEAKER_08 5:37

Yeah, how did you even like get into that conversation with each other? Like, how did that happen?

SPEAKER_02 5:42

I can answer this. Okay, so we were at school, I was mainly into football. So I was on the football team, I had trials and I was with a club, and it was I was gonna be. On the bench, I had to I had to sort of get yeah, talk to the manager to let him have a go in the changing rooms, yeah. But anyway, um so we I was into foot. Yeah, I was in the I was in the football team, so I was all for that, and then we started to talk because uh Moz used to uh used to live well you were brought up in Chelmsford, weren't you? You were born here but brought up in Chelmsford, so you moved to uh the same school uh when you were 13, and I was 13 obviously, um but when he joined our class you had long hair, didn't you? I did have long hair. Stop you had a ponytail, check our socials and pictures of when we're at school and he's got a ponytail or long sort of curtains. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 6:32

I can't imagine you were longer for reference if anyone's listening on this ball. Squeaky clean balls.

SPEAKER_03 6:43

Contextually, though, that was the style at the time.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

It was the style, so but it but yeah, so it um and we were chatting and we had this sort of like common interest of comedy and music, and we got chatting, and then we become best mates really uh for the last two years of the of of school, and then uh uh yeah, have you got so yeah that that's not that's that's that's a little bit that's in 1986.

SPEAKER_07 7:04

Yeah, so that's is that you yeah. Oh my god, looking ponytail on the phone!

SPEAKER_03 7:13

No, that's that's that's a production of Greece. Oh, I can't say yeah, so that was probably early 2004, Panto, yeah. We did Panto, yeah. That was 20. That's been about 2010 or something like that, 12, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 2010.

SPEAKER_06 7:28

Oh my god, your hair's so long.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

Yeah, no, it was it was very long.

SPEAKER_06 7:31

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

So so yeah, so we we we we become like best mates. So we went to the same college, yeah. Well that's it. My football career sort of went like that.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

Um discovered beer and cheese.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Yeah, and then went out and women didn't have to be a good thing. Two really great priorities. So we stopped that, so I stopped that and we went did a performing arts course together at college for three years.

SPEAKER_05 7:51

How was that doing that all that time ago? Performing arts, like what did your family say?

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Still the best years, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:58

But were they like all for it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I know when I went to college and told my mum I was studying makeup, she went, and where you're gonna go with that.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Get a real job for it. We've been really lucky that our our families for our whole uh lives really have never sort of said get a proper job. The weird thing is, I suppose, because after college, we were both a little bit unsure what to do. We were very much in the view of maybe we'll go to university, maybe we'll take it. We all go to No, because honestly, we had that thing of going back, it was like we had uh a double act kind of going through through college in that way. So um we actually went to uh an audition in Manchester for uh Pontins, didn't we? And um we did that, and about two days after they kind of phoned up and went, Do you want to come and like work the summer season? And we went, Well, we've still got some stuff we need to do at college, but when did it start? And we went for Easter and then came back and finished our course and then went back for the summer. Um which was ninety six.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Honestly, I remember than it is now. Yeah. I remember at Pontins, right? We because don't look for Pontins, it's not there anymore. Um and um we were blue coats, so we were an entertainment team. Uh you know, we went as singers. It was great because I had a house band, so it was like a six-piece band. But I remember on our first night, okay, we went there and we got put in a chalet, so we shared a chalet, and I remember it was like high five, you're like, Yay, we've made it.

SPEAKER_07 9:22

Oh, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 9:24

And we got the kid cracked the guitar out. You know, it was like 19 years old moving away from home. Yeah, together, living living in the same sort of like chalet together. It was like this is just dream.

SPEAKER_08 9:34

So you've kind of seen each other through every single kind of phase in life then, from being so young, the marriage, everything.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

Yeah, totally. In 1997, we sort of went um because we used to watch all the cabarets come in to uh to work at uh at Pontins and we were going, How much are they getting paid? They come in and do 45 minutes and go, and we're going, it's quite good that. Because we always had the idea of taste. We always had the idea that we wouldn't about the money, but it was about well, slightly about the money. We always assumed that we would do or be more inclined to be actors and that kind of thing, because that's kind of what we'd trained for in that way. Um but knowing that if you're gonna do acting, you're gonna be out of work quite a lot, the idea of actually having another job where if we sang we'd be able to still earn was um appealing.

SPEAKER_04 10:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

Um and then not too long, the the acting just kind of filtered off and the singing went out in that way. So by the time we got into the sort of 2000s, we had um we had our own swing and soul uh band, I think I would bring musicians in and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:40

Um and then probably something that was uh quite pivotal. It was a bit of yeah, this is 2003, wasn't it? We went to an audition for an agency down south. Um and it was in Bedford.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:55

Dunstable. Dunstable, yeah, yeah. And um it was in uh old Jumping, it was I don't know it's there anymore, Jumping Jacks. Do you remember Jumping Jacks? Yeah, I probably don't remember Jumping Jackson.

SPEAKER_08 11:04

No, actually do.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

Um yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh we didn't get in there a lot. Um but um yeah, they had um essentially um this audition day and it was for Thompson to week. Yeah and um because they didn't have enough microphones, they had a band on, and then we used their equipment because everyone asked for that was a solo singer and uh we auditioned.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

And just got engaged at this point as well and moved into a house and got a dog.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

So I was quite quite settled. So he's quite difficult to tell your story. We auditioned and then we came through and uh went to thank them and say thanks very much for having us, and they went, okay, so you got the job. Um and we were like going, What everyone's auditioning for here? They're like, Oh yeah, we use that for other things, but yeah, you've got the job. Um can you go to Cyprus for um at the back end of the year basically? Um we need you to replace a production team, and we were like, we're not a production team, but the two of us. I went, no no, we'll put some we'll put another singer and some dancers with you, it'll be great.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

And we kind of went, okay, I'll have to ask my uh then fiance, uh, because I'm just just moved into a house, got a dog, uh, and we had to approach it and she was really supportive.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

And the random thing was the other singer that they put us with is my wife. That's how we met. No so we were the first two people there who held the door open for the the the the two of us in.

SPEAKER_05 12:28

Did your fiance wife who or whoever she is now, did she go with you? No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

No, or was she stayed at home in the house and run like we had with a dog, uh, but we had we we we went there for six weeks, so it wasn't like months. Just for six weeks. We have six weeks we were two weeks of rehearsal, didn't we? We had two months in Coventry and then um we went there. But she visited for like I think she came out for a week as well, and had a bit of a holiday.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

But it it felt a lot longer, I think, being out there.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Yeah, and I remember the final day being quite sad, yeah because we were based in Limersol, so right in the centre, they gave us a car. Two cars, two cars. We only used one, but then claimed a petrol shh. And now you've just been found out in Cyprus. In Cyprus, what you do is you go to a petrol station. I don't know if it's the same now because I've not been for a few years, but in Cyprus you go to a petrol station and it's all self-service, so you don't go inside. Yeah. So you press. I've never been to Cyprus. Yeah, it's a good one. It's amazing. Drive on the left as well. So you fill up and then it gives you a receipt. So we used to take these receipts to the office. Oh, you don't have to find someone.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Find someone with the bigger receipt.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

So what we used to do is just go. No, no, what we used to do is you used to pull up and then go. I used to go around all the other pumps and get all the receipts. Because everyone used to forget them and be like, it's a good one. There we go. I hope we don't get in trouble. There was a guy called Gavin who was over there. So sorry, Gavin, if you watch it.

SPEAKER_06 13:53

We're watching the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Never know. He follows us, he follows us to you. Sorry, Gavin.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

Hi Gavin. Hi Gavin. Um yeah, from there we we just continued. So they got the contract. The company that we work for got the contract for Tui for a lot of other places, so we started to go around different sort of um you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Well, in context in context, we did uh it was called flybacks. So we'd fly out to somewhere, do a show, stay there for like two, three days, and then fly back. They're called flybacks, yeah, and we did that for 14 years. Yeah, something like that. We did a we've done over, I don't know, I've been to Egypt 73 times. Oh my word.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

We lost track of flights about six hundred, I can't remember, I don't know. A lot. Been to Cyprus 50 odd, uh, Portugal 20 odd, Tunisia, Spain, and the city.

SPEAKER_05 14:47

And was it like um shows? Was it hotels? Just yeah, just us. Meaning like where did they book you for?

SPEAKER_03 14:53

Yeah, do you know? So if you went to somewhere like um uh It's like with a two-e all inclusive camera.

SPEAKER_08 14:59

Yeah, like the entertainment basically. Devin Habare, yeah. Yes, I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

They have different um sort of hotel categories. So they had Thompson Gold, which I don't think they have anymore. No, uh Thompson Blue that now.

SPEAKER_08 15:09

I was about to say that.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

Yeah, Thompson Gold weird. Yeah, uh Family Club. Yeah. And then the main ones we did were Holiday Village and Sensatory. Amazing.

SPEAKER_05 15:20

You've got to have some confidence to do your job, I tell you.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

So it's quite nice, but we were together, so it's dead easy. Yeah, just go there. Little adventures go in there, you know, you get a car in a lot of places and then they go, right, go to that hotel, that hotel, and that hotel.

SPEAKER_08 15:31

It's not as it you're getting paid to do something you love, but at the same time you're doing it with one well, doing it with your best friend at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

Like and all the way through ask for much more, can you? Yeah, and all the way through that time, we were still doing jobs at weddings and all that kind of stuff. People would hire as well.

SPEAKER_05 15:45

What happens if your voice goes?

SPEAKER_03 15:47

The other one, yeah. It was quite easy when there's two of you because you can double-in rough or something.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Well, you might be able to hear it, but I've got a sinus issue, I've had it for about three months at the moment. Wow. So yeah, but most covers, if I can't reach notes your cover, or and we just really go and we can just you know, no one notices realistically at the shows that we do.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

It's a lot easier now. I mean, when we were a lot younger and I had like full head hair, we would do all of the places that you know you were going on a holiday in this country, so all of the the the havens and the pantes and the park resorts and all those different holiday places, you know. We have a a bit of a thing of um there's not many not many uh places where we haven't done a show and some of the most random out-of-the-way places you can think of, and we'd be sitting there going, What are we doing in here?

SPEAKER_08 16:32

What is the most random place you've ever done one?

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Um a market store. We did a market store once, yeah. That was in the 90s.

SPEAKER_08 16:39

What is in like just a surprise singing waiters?

SPEAKER_03 16:41

No, no, no, it was singing, yeah. It was a surprise for them, uh people in the market.

SPEAKER_06 16:45

Um just imagine you doing your boy.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_06 16:52

I'll tell you who are. Excuse me a second.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

There's a venue. There's a venue. Um what was the one where the tide comes in?

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Oh, it's in the Something Island. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

Basically, you've got to go to this show. You do the show, but if you don't get across because the tide comes in and covers the road, you've got to explain.

SPEAKER_08 17:09

Isn't it in Cornwall? Yeah, because Gordon Ramsay did his one of his episodes.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

I can't think.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

It's but it is when they want to get there. Yeah, you've got to get there.

SPEAKER_08 17:17

There's like only 12 recipes on the island.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

If you if you don't get back, then you're there for the night. So these holiday places.

SPEAKER_08 17:24

So like we'll be driving back when the seas come up over the road.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

That was a bit weird.

SPEAKER_08 17:27

Yeah, I remember. Because we we actually I went with my partner last year and we didn't get back in time.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

So you've got to stay.

SPEAKER_08 17:34

I was like, it wasn't last year, it was the year before. I was like eight weeks pregnant on this boat like sick.

SPEAKER_05 17:39

Yeah. No, because it's like this, no, I would be panicking. I'd be crying and everything, thinking that's it.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

I'm stuck in like cast away.

SPEAKER_05 17:50

It's really close to the shore, it's not that bad. And it's probably really bad seasickness though, as well.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

That's not cool. See, that's the reason why we did um, you know, like if you like do cruise ships.

SPEAKER_08 18:01

I was gonna say if you ever done a cruise ship.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

For ages we went to go on a cruise ship and we went on a cruise ship and we went, I don't like it.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

No, do you know why? Because we were in the middle of a show and they started the engines up. Nah, literally on stage and I'm going, oh god, oh what's going on?

SPEAKER_03 18:15

And then like and all the audience are like and all people that like you know do them a lot going, oh that's fine, we're just moving, but we were like going, I don't like it. Yeah, put the show and done my equilibrium's off. Um so yeah, it because I think probably because we got used to working for a company that had their own airline and had their own places, we just it was just very, very straightforward. We were all sort of striving to to go on a cruise ship, and when we went on, it was like, yeah, it's alright.

SPEAKER_05 18:41

Yeah, yeah. How amazing that you've done all that though.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

You have to do a lot of um again when you have your own airline, we just go to Manchester Airport, go to the Swiss port desk, don't even go to the Tui one, they go, where do you want to sit? And we go, you know, I mean a lady. They give us a roll of uh fast.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

You know, like the fast pass when we used to get them.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 18:58

No, I don't remember when we got them.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

Yeah, so you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

But yeah, what they used to do is you used to give on uh when it used to be cardboard pack, older viewers would know this.

SPEAKER_08 19:07

When it used to be the actual boarding patch used to be on a card. And what they put sticker on. Surely you can remember when the boarding patch used to be on cards. Yeah, I remember that. They give a sticker a fast pass.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

So basically with everyone else, you just haven't scroll in.

SPEAKER_06 19:22

Making me sound like a porpete. I've never had one, but I knew I'd like to. My mum used to travel for work that all the time, so that's probably how I knew it was.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

So if you paid more money, you get a little sticker to go through all the security quicker. So we give us a roll and went, just put them on. Yeah, so we didn't at the time, and we could pick where we sat.

SPEAKER_08 19:45

Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

So yes, because we knew everyone at Manchester Airport.

SPEAKER_08 19:48

That's brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

Well, Swissport who looked after a lot of the seats and so on. So that was that was kind of cool. Um, but obviously, it does sort of, you know, it's fun for a long time, but then you kind of go over at the airport again.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Oh well, what wasn't fun is I remember one time we got back from was it Greece? We got back from Greece and we hit the arrivals, and then my wife brought cases and we give her a case and we went to Portugal.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

No, we didn't really go home, we just went up the escalator and waited for two hours and then checked in.

SPEAKER_05 20:19

Yeah, and when you like I was saying, I bet that must have been hard.

SPEAKER_03 20:22

So we had families then as well.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

So it wasn't because we've done it for you did it a few years.

SPEAKER_05 20:26

Yeah, so you're like the older you get, the more wholesome vibes you want, and you want to slow down a bit. Exactly. We had young children.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

We were we were lucky in a lot of ways because we did have when most people weren't nine to five and and that kind of thing, we are still essentially self-employed in the sense where we might have busy moments but then have like, you know, four days off four days off in midweek, which we could take our kids to school and I I watched my daughter and son to school every single day. That's amazing. You just have those those little sections where you kind of go, you were away for this amount of times.

SPEAKER_08 20:58

Yeah. But for 14 years, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Yeah, and then probably it crossed over, didn't it, doing um the Singing Waiters show. Yeah, it was it was a friend of ours recommended said, Oh, you should do a singing waiter show.

SPEAKER_08 21:12

That's what I was gonna do. I was just gonna ask, I was gonna say, how did you then stop doing that to then start doing the Singing Waiters?

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Well it wasn't our idea, and we'd never heard of them. Well, we had heard of Singing Waiters because one of our friends videoed one in France and it was the three waiters.

SPEAKER_03 21:29

The original fantastic, but uh they're operating, very different show, very specific show. They do short sets, yeah, big impact, you know, three songs, four songs maybe, whatever. Um they come in and but they've been everywhere, they've done everything. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:43

They've done shows at the White House and back and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

So they'd like you know they they um performed for the original three tenors. So these guys were like top, top notch. So we were kind of going, well someone said, Oh, you should do something like that, and we're like, We don't sing opera. We kind of Make people laugh and you know walk about and sing silly songs or something.

SPEAKER_05 22:03

But then that's relatable, isn't it? That's at weddings.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

Yeah, like it can alien if you go, Oh wow, Nesson Dorma, that's wonderful, you know. And then another one, and then you go, Oh another opera one and I don't know it. Yeah, or I'd be like, um Whereas everything to do with it is about making people feel really good.

SPEAKER_08 22:20

And used to do songs that are people do know. Yeah, people can sing along too.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

And it's sp very specifically done as well.

SPEAKER_05 22:28

Do you uh plan those or do you speak to the couple and like is there anything in particular?

SPEAKER_03 22:32

We we like their input. Yeah, we love the feedback, yeah. We like to know if they love a song or they hate a song. Obviously, you know, we have had it before and then they've said, you know, I've had a bride saying, Don't sing that song, and we'll say we always say don't sing this song, and I'll say, Okay, do you not like it? And they go, Oh, it was my first dance at my first wedding.

SPEAKER_06 22:49

Right. Yeah. So we're all too.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

If you hadn't told us that, that would have been super awkward.

SPEAKER_06 22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

So it's about and obviously over the course of years you get more uh slicker at doing it, but it's making sure that um those little details aren't overlooked because it's the little things that do make a wedding, big things look after themselves.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

So generally we'll say to the brides and grooms, look, leave the show to us, it's a it's got a structure to it.

SPEAKER_05 23:13

Yeah, and a surprise element for them as well.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Well, exactly, yeah. Yeah, so there, but a lot of a lot of brides and grooms say, right, so when do we choose the songs? Like, you don't leave it to us. If there's like things you love, if there's certain songs that you want, and we can do and we've had what was that? Is it not Nell of the Elephant? We have had that one. Was it Nell of the Elephant? Nelly the Elephant.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

It's like the rock was like the family song, you know, the Nelly the Elephant back to drunk because it's like a rock version from the 80s. So we looked like their family song, and we went.

SPEAKER_05 23:42

And did it go did it go out?

SPEAKER_03 23:43

Oh yeah, they loved it. If it if it's something that will work well, that's always really great information. If they say if you sing this song for an entertainment park, it will go really well because of XYZ, or don't sing that one because you know, whatever reason. So it's good to know that. You know, sometimes you know, we sing Sweet Caroline a lot, some people hate it. It's good at this time of year because it gets everybody up, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_08 24:05

The football's on at the moment, so no matter what everyone answers to it, yeah, even if you hate it, you can't help yourself but sing a lot.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

We've had brides that say, Please don't sing it, and then when we're actually performing, going, Yeah, go on then.

SPEAKER_05 24:16

So, just quickly, I'm gonna ask you a few personal questions before we move on to other things. So, individually, like what's your favourite part of the job?

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Um being with me. No, probably I didn't answer it. You did say yes, you didn't say no, pushed over that. Um yeah, beam with you. No, um, probably uh there is a a a good element in terms of it's the people. Yeah, you meet loads of people, and obviously, if you think anything between in a daytime show, anything between sort of 50 and 100 people is about average, if you're doing that two, three, four times a week in the in the you know, you meet a lot of people, yeah, and all the venues that you go around to and the suppliers that you meet and all that kind of stuff, invariably everyone's like, you know, we're all in a similar sort of situation, especially suppliers, in a very similar sort of situation. We just want everything to go right and move on to the next one kind of thing. So probably, you know, the fact that we go under our own steam, we can work together, uh so it's nice to work with your best friend. Yeah, uh, you know, we don't have you know neither of us are ever late to the office because it was you know yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:19

What about what about yourself? Is there anything different?

SPEAKER_02 25:22

The the best thing about it, I think it I said this to my kids, I think um because my wife works for for like school admissions, so she's got to be on the clock and she's flexi time, but yeah, and I said, Look, I didn't have a job. I always say this to my children, I didn't have a job, so I made one up. So do that, do yourself, go into your own Steam. So having that that we can just go to the gym, not that we go to the gym a lot, but we're gonna go. Yeah, yeah. I mean AI's gonna take it.

SPEAKER_03 25:51

Yeah, AI's you are.

SPEAKER_05 25:53

I'm self-employed, but I'm not getting the benefits. So if he doesn't like saying no, I'm horrendous. I'm learning, I'm learning. Ten years in.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

Eventually, AI will take all of our jobs anyway. Um bring it down. So no, but if you can go if you can go on do your own steam, you've got far more chance of being able to sort of match things in that sort of way. So for us, I I I think we're a long way off like robots that are you know professional. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:22

What's what's the most challenging side of it then?

SPEAKER_03 26:25

There's a degree of pressure. Um we are quite particular, I think, in how we do stuff. So we want everything to be right, and if it's not right, we kinda it kinda grates on us. Other things that people go, no, that'll be fine. But we don't like that. Perfect. So we want to make sure that we know we can't make it perfect, but that doesn't mean the day won't be perfect. And so having that um responsibility of someone you know, we've done loads of performances at loads of uh venues and situations that you go, oh this is a big one, let's make sure you don't you get it right. But there's something very specific and particular about somebody's wedding going, if this goes wrong, we can't come back tomorrow and try again.

SPEAKER_08 27:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

That kind of thing. And because they spend so long putting this all together, obviously we are not a small section, are we? We take up the middle of the day.

SPEAKER_05 27:17

So a big part of the day.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Well, people think they go, Oh, it's just a couple of singulators, but realistically, the impact we have shapes the day. Yeah. Um doesn't shape the day if they don't go ahead and do it.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

So look at three things, three things photographers point the cameras at ceremony, speeches, first dance, and cake cut. Yeah. I put them together. Um our job is to be like the four things because we know that when we start with the photographers and videographers and anyone with the phone will get photos that they want that they won't get at any other point. Um our job is to set things up so you know it's not off the cuff. We know exactly what we're gonna do, when we're gonna do it, how we're gonna do it, and if that bespoke sort of um what's the word, uh improvisation sort of happened, brilliant.

SPEAKER_08 28:00

So for anyone who doesn't know then, just talk through kind of because I obviously know when you guys come into the day, I know when you would start and what for you is the best time to perform and how does it kind of happen? Like what does your performance look like?

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Okay, so um we'll get there before the bride and groom are married. So that's when our day starts. Well, it starts prior, obviously driving there and loading up the van. Um we get to the venue. If you're getting married off site, if they're getting married off-site, uh we can set up our equipment. Um but if they're getting married on site in the same room, we wait till everyone's gone, we set up the equipment, and then we blend in. We've already organised this prior with the venue, so we know what shirts they're wearing, if we can have a.

SPEAKER_05 28:46

So when you come to set up, you're just in your casuals and you're no no, we always come dressed as well.

SPEAKER_08 28:51

No, they you guys come dressed like as they're waiters, so as they're physical. So, say for example, if a waiter's in a white top and black trousers, you guys would communicate with the venue beforehand and say, What's your uniform?

SPEAKER_05 29:01

But they're not the thing is if you tell you why is that weight to dealing with a speaker.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

But uh see, well, people don't generally see us, we wait until they're in specific.

SPEAKER_05 29:09

I know I look like alright, come on down, but I know what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

But you'd be looking for it, but they aren't. But they aren't they're concentrated on the the actual wedding. We always think that, we always think, oh god, they know, but they don't. They don't know. Yeah. So if we arrive on site prior to the wedding, once they are going to have the ceremony, then we can start moving about a bit more freely. The reason why we arrive sort of dressed is that if anyone sort of nips out and wearing jeans and a t-shirt, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_05 29:31

We've seen you before, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

So we'll stand out more in a wedding if you're wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 29:35

Whereas if you're in black or white top and black, nobody actually notices in the nicest way possible.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Again, if you're if you're at a venue that has an apron, you just nip in. Have you got an apron? You know, it's already pre-done. Yeah, they'll just give you an apron and then that's it, we're we're free now.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

And we do have quite a um reasonable dressing up sort of box now with like different colour aprons, ties, shirts. You know, because some places go, no, we will wear blue gingham, and you go, right, and you go on you know website and find out that that you know where's that blue gingham from, right? Order some. So then we don't have to pest. Wow, but you can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

It is.

SPEAKER_05 30:11

So sorry, I'm interrupting then, won't I? So you so you set up.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Set up, and then with then we integrate with the the actual staff. If we can, if we can serve, brilliant. If we can't, that's also fine.

SPEAKER_05 30:22

Have any of the staff like?

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All the time. Yeah, because they don't know who we are.

SPEAKER_03 30:27

Yeah, a lot of serving staff as well are often young people. Sometimes, you know, you get older. We're generally the oldest people there, aren't we? Yeah. I've been for quite a while. Um because often, like service staff, they're usually like, you know, um teenagers or uni and that kind of thing. So often we do look like the uh the sort of oldest ones, but we have different sort of methods to sort of get around that, really. Uh but yeah, so we hide in plain sight, essentially, so that we're prepped and ready for by the time they all come in to be seated, we're already set. If the bride and groom know about us, we can have a little chat with them when they come and give the room the final. Yeah, because sometimes the bride and groom don't know about us.

SPEAKER_05 31:04

Yeah, you've been booked by the family, are they?

SPEAKER_03 31:06

The auntie or the and then obviously the um guests come in, we can look busy, we can serve the food, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_05 31:14

Do you do that?

SPEAKER_03 31:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what? I much if we have this conversation the other day. We actually quite I prefer to serve food because it passes the time.

SPEAKER_08 31:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

We could have been on site for three hours before the food even begins, and that's quite you know, it doesn't take long to set up. Feel that out of nature.

SPEAKER_08 31:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

Yeah, so they come in, we'll try and encourage them to do the speeches first. That's our probably our preferred one. Also, if you're nervous, it's good, isn't it? It kind of gets out of the way.

SPEAKER_08 31:45

It does, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:45

Um, and then we like to start at the end of dessert. Sometimes we start at the end of the speeches, but that would be our preferred one.

SPEAKER_05 31:51

Oh, I'm getting excited. Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

As the last plates of dessert go on the table, that's when we basically take over. And the difference is when we do our particular show is we don't do anything that would be construed as negative, so we don't um uh fall over or drop stuff or make people or make people. Have you seen the ones that we've spoken about this?

SPEAKER_08 32:12

Yeah, my yeah. Um you were a friend's wedding, weren't you? Yeah. And you went and you went to Ethan, you're like, that's singing away.

SPEAKER_05 32:18

I I just sorry, but I didn't I didn't ruin it for anyone else. I just go up because he would get what's it?

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Oh, okay, cool. No, it won't it wasn't you.

SPEAKER_05 32:25

He would get up, bless him, and try and help. So I was just like, Don't you dare be that person, but someone else did, and it was a bruise, wasn't it? So so sorry for them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

We always have a thing of like it's not about us. No, we're there to make what is already a brilliant day easier.

SPEAKER_08 32:40

How you do it is so funny.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

Well, we yeah. I mean I Can you give that away or not?

SPEAKER_08 32:46

Yeah, yeah. I think it's on your social circuit.

SPEAKER_03 32:49

There's quite a lot of clips of it. It's quite a lot, yeah. So yeah, for years we absolutely didn't put anything anywhere because we found that a lot of because we're very clear.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

We were in the comedy, we were in the comedy circuit for ages doing stand-up. And the the rule was you didn't steal anyone, or you didn't put a lot of your material online because people would steal it. Steal it and copy it. Whereas now we don't care because the way we do it is very different, yeah. Even if someone tried to copy us.

SPEAKER_08 33:12

Nobody can ever replace you you as a personal.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

But yeah, we try and do it like that. But I was like, I I I dog like this, so I have my books. So I dug uh all the all the way through. I even had to do it. We did a show, our first ever public show at a restaurant the other week, and the owner didn't tell all the other staff that I was who I was, or we were. They just said, Oh, they've just got some new starters, and I was dogging like this. Hello, and this young lad had like it must have been a 20-minute conversation with me.

SPEAKER_05 33:45

And you had to go. No, no, I know.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

People say, Oh, you're from Italy or Poland or Spain, or I'm gonna I'm it kind of changes if you actually pay attention to it, it's all over the show. Oh, it's everywhere, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 33:59

So it's it's so funny though when you how you do it because you obviously come up and introduce you and do you sound like that to the couple?

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Uh well, if they know about us, yeah. No.

SPEAKER_08 34:09

If not, then if they because that's weird.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

Yeah, if they didn't know about us, then yeah, we would have the same character.

SPEAKER_05 34:15

Do you have an accent? No, just normal.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Yeah. So I but I stand on the table plan, so people walk in, they see my face, and I'm at the table plan going, Hell, please dig seed. Find your name, spend your name, and then so they'll go, I can't see it. I help you. And are we doing uh we get you know micro interaction?

SPEAKER_03 34:34

Do you just try and that like kind of go, Oh, is that is that waiter in it? Oh yeah, yeah. And if you can bring them the food and all that kind of stuff, that's quite cool as well. You know, if they go, I'll drop me next.

SPEAKER_04 34:42

Right, okay. So how how then do come on?

SPEAKER_03 34:45

So essentially I'll get the microphone, I'll say, ladies and gents, now we've come to the end of the meal service, it's tradition at this particular venue. Um, that we uh raise a toast to the happy couple on behalf of all the staff that have served you today. Um, and then basically I say, um, it's my uh we do have a member of staff that's here with us for the final time. We thought it'd be nice if he did it instead of me, although he doesn't know he's going to do it, but he's just over there um and he's called uh Sir Guy, and if you give him a clap, he'll raise his toast to the bride and groom.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

So then everyone looks at me and and I got and they go and I I've been doing that lately, going, Oh, on a microphone. So then I walk up and everyone's like, Surgey, sir guy. And it's all up late, and everyone's like, Oh, blessing.

SPEAKER_08 35:26

Yeah, you do it like you you're like you're so nervous about it.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Oh, I'm nervous, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 35:29

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

So I'll I'll I'll I'll get my voice's case. So I'll get the microphone and I'll be like I'll be sh visibly shaking.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Because if you ever look at watch a wedding speech, yeah, people hold the papers like that.

SPEAKER_05 35:44

The petrophone on an accent like you think. Oh, do it, it helps it helped. I'm really good. I'm really Willy Wheely. I love that. And I'm good at scalp. That was good. Everything else I'm not gonna scale.

SPEAKER_03 36:21

See, we have a game sometimes, you know, when you get uh cold calls.

SPEAKER_05 36:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:24

You have to you have to basically do something different every time someone calls, otherwise it's like really boring.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Um I put one on my social where he rang us in the office and I pretended that Mozz is my wife, right? So I'm gonna- But sometimes we have backstories and everything. Oh, yeah, yeah. And he's going, um I think that on the on the other line he said, I won't do the accent, but you you can guess. And he said, uh, he said, um, you invested in crypto uh currency uh about ten years ago, and I'm like, I don't know, I can't remember. Can you remember? And I'm just gonna ask me why. And I've got a video uh sorry, I recorded the call and I went, Well, how did I invest in crypto about 10 years ago? And he went, I don't know. But it's on one of my table.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

The other thing is the one that we like at the minute is I'm not sure if you've had an AI call. Oh yeah. So we we we pretend that we're AI answerers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 37:18

That's so fun. What a cracking idea.

SPEAKER_03 37:20

That's quite funny if you just put like a bit of an accent on it. And just leave it a little gap for answering. And just leave like a like a pause where there'd be a gap, and then if money starts speaking, you talk over them. We don't do it on the work phone. First person, just on the cover.

SPEAKER_07 37:33

It's a couple of people on the wall watching you.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

If you can make each other corpse, if you can laugh whilst they're doing it as well, that's always that's always really good.

SPEAKER_08 37:43

I w I wouldn't be able to stop laughing. But we can the other day. So Sophie was in here and I was telling her the password for the Wi-Fi and I was shouting it, and it was like, okay. It went on and on and on. And it went on and on. And then I was like, and Paul in the office was like, just carry on.

SPEAKER_06 37:58

I was like, Y QTP. And I was like, I went, you mean serious? I couldn't stop laughing, and I was like, she's caught on.

SPEAKER_03 38:08

Yeah. I'm not sure if you've uh ever uh seen those um like call blockers. So when you phone up, they'll go, Yeah, hi, you've reached this number, and then they'll say, Um if you leave your name and number and reason for your call, I'll see if they're available. Yeah so if you do that, that's always a good one as well. Because they just put the phone down. So if you never want to.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

Yeah, but we it's generally when we're ringing a bride. Yeah, just ringing up to discuss your wedding.

SPEAKER_03 38:31

If you get a cold call the other way, that's always a if you pretend that you're an auto attendant. Yeah. You've just got to keep it reasonably monster.

SPEAKER_02 38:38

Put one of them blockers on just so I can hear them.

SPEAKER_05 38:40

More people have started to have them, you know. When I ring people, it must be same for me as well.

SPEAKER_08 38:45

It's like, who is it? And I'm like, it's Drella from Sarah. You have to wing it.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

I'm like, and then it'll go through. I get it, because you know, I don't have a landline. Well, I have a landline, but it's not plugged in. Because all the calls were just like robots.

SPEAKER_08 38:56

It's just spam. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

I think I've had three this morning, but well, because our numbers are 800 as well from our office. Generally we get pooping up to say, No, it's me. Where is your office?

SPEAKER_05 39:07

Is it local?

SPEAKER_02 39:07

Uh well, not to here. Oh. But it's loc it's Tilsley. It's local to where we live. Yeah, it's local to where we live. Yeah, so it is local. Uh Tilsley, which is near Worsley.

SPEAKER_08 39:17

Oh right. That's not too far. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

No.

SPEAKER_08 39:19

No.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Just under an hour away from here.

SPEAKER_08 39:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

So um, but yeah, we we've got a nice little it's a penthouse. I could call it that. Penthouse, the top you can see all all the way into Manchester on a clear day. Yeah, so it's on like a busway route. It's not so good when you've got to carry things upstairs. No, we did this morning. We had to carry a stage up this morning. So yeah, that was that wasn't fun.

SPEAKER_08 39:39

So do you provide uh would you do stage like in terms of like stages and stuff?

SPEAKER_03 39:44

Yeah, yeah, but one of the uh newer things that we is essentially when anything's popular the the the market will get flooded. Um so we kind of found that um we were constantly kind of feeling like we were being undercut quite a lot. Now we're certainly not the most expensive um show that you could book. Um we probably sit somewhere in the middle, don't we?

SPEAKER_02 40:09

Yeah, we do, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:09

But um lots of people started getting you know basically talking about being the cheapest, and we noticed it quite a bit across the across the the wedding industry, really. Cheapest, cheapest, most cost effective, and you kind of go, Do you really want the cheapest? Um quality, people will book because they like you, not because of anything, yeah, you know, but even putting from a money perspective, it's not actually that important. Um but we just essentially just felt like the time was ready to have a little change. Yeah, so we started offering we already did them, but made them more succinct in the sense that we would do evening packages so we would look after entertainment all day and night whole thing. So Robin.

SPEAKER_05 40:48

Did you stay there the whole time then? Yeah, we did that.

SPEAKER_03 40:50

We did on Saturday.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

So we did like a 17-hour day. Perform in the daytime, set a stage up. We've got a two-tier white stage, it looks amazing. Amazing because we invested quite a lot of money into that. Yeah, we we uh put we've got a DJ, we so we provide DJ service.

SPEAKER_05 41:04

So would you sing in and out of all that time?

SPEAKER_02 41:07

No, we do uh we do the daytime, so about an hour.

SPEAKER_05 41:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

And then we do a show after any sort of like food in the evening. So the the peak time, so when everyone's really ready for it.

SPEAKER_03 41:16

There is usually and you know, if you've attended a wedding from start to finish, there's sort of peaks and troughs. Yeah, yeah. So everyone's super excited for the ceremony and the drinks and the photos and the um speeches, and then once you've had food, and it's a little period of it. Everyone goes down, so that's great for our daytime show. Then you have that little gap between the day and the night, and everyone's a bit lost, and then it takes a little bit of time for the evening to sort of build up, and there's evening guests arriving in and all that kind of stuff. You've got the first dance, the cake cut, and then as you go into the evening, there's a little gap between end of first dance to the buffet or whatever the evening food is, and then after the evening food, that is another prime real estate sort of spot from sort of 9.30 to about 10.30. That's when you're gonna have all the guests still there before you know people that go, Oh, we're gonna get going for whatever reason. Um so that's a great sort of thing. So we kind of went rather than we'd do shows and we'd feel like we'd sort of commanded the daytime and then the evening we were being sort of bustled about on the dance floor or we didn't have our own space, so we went, we'll just how long ago did you decide to do the stage and all that then?

SPEAKER_05 42:20

Oh yeah, it's quite a new effect.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

Yeah, but it's good, but people are sort of like getting on that train going, you know what?

SPEAKER_05 42:26

Because we also know in my head, as if I was booking that, I'd be like, That's another thing boxed off as well.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

That's exactly what we said you can deal with us. So we're basically what we do is the show in the day, and then we'd be like packing away. Yeah, and we're and they'd be going, and and guests would be saying, Where are you going? And we're like, We haven't been booked for the evening.

SPEAKER_03 42:43

Yeah, you should just stay because people go uh after the fact and they the emails go, Oh, I wish you'd stayed, wish we'd have booked you for the line. Day sort buyer's regret kind of thing. So we wanted to do a thing where we weren't just gonna be just singing a bit in the evening with the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_08 42:57

And then leave and kind and feel like you've left it on, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

So everything was done with a view of going, we would be the replacement for a band, and that's how we've looked at it. So we've not looked at it.

SPEAKER_08 43:06

It's a bit like an ABA tribute act at the end of the day. Sometimes people book them like there's um a couple you might know them, um, well, a duo act, um, Harmony Duo, Olivia Rainer. Yeah, we work with them, we work with them. Yeah, Living Liana are amazing, fantastic, but they do our evening and they are fantastic, and but they do the they are audio.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

Yeah, we'd be if it had if it was called that we would do trade description, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 43:31

But like they do something similar, they do the acoustic from ceremony, drink wedding, uh, drink reception, wedding breakfast, and then do ABO tribute now, and that sometimes is a surprise for guests.

SPEAKER_03 43:41

I think it's that uh upselling sort of thing, or going, we can offer more, there's nothing more frustrating than you know every wedding supplier will see it if you kind of look you know from our perspective going, We could have done that.

SPEAKER_08 43:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

We could have done that and we would have done it at the sort of levels that we we uh stand for.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

That's why we bought the stage because you know, rather than just tipping up and going Right, we're just gonna sing a bit like no, look at this. We've got the two-tier white stage, the boot looks great, all the lighting we've got. We've spent thousands on lighting, it really looks amazing.

SPEAKER_03 44:09

We have a we have a little bit of a weird um uh trait where we can't do anything that's like if it's not 100%, don't do it. So when we bought the stuff, it was like all or nothing basically we go to uh places when there's you know for a DJ being set up, yeah. Um and we go, our gear's better than that, and it's in the van and we don't use it. Yeah, openness.

SPEAKER_05 44:29

So just quickly before we move on to some rapid fire questions, what should couples expect from you from like booking first inquiry all the way up until on the day?

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Oh that this is now this is getting into something special because we created an online client portal again. Yeah, so as soon as you book, you go into a WhatsApp group with me, yeah. Straight away because the the reason a lot of people it's all about trust with weddings. Yeah, people have got to trust you, and so straight away go into a WhatsApp group with me. So anytime, day or night.

SPEAKER_08 45:00

Can't just say that's music to my ears because that's exactly how I do it.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

Yeah, so you do but then we created our own client portal, so micro website is a good thing. We spent a lot of money on it because it had to be right, so it's got all our documents in there, it's got FAQs, it's got videos of our performance, it's got any questions answered. So in one spot in everything, and also upgrades as well, so you can upgrade just by clicking a button. So because you've booked us for the day, we only take one book in a day. Yeah. So for one day, that's it. Yeah, we don't you can't put yourselves in half, can you? No, so a lot of senior waiters they do shows in the day and then they just go and do other shows in the evening. Yeah. Whereas we only do if we've got one show of the day, that's it. Yeah, we're done. So we leave the door open if you want to. So weddings run late.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

You know, yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_08 45:40

You put pressure on yourself by the tries and uh why we don't know why.

SPEAKER_05 45:44

Traffic in between from one to the other.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

You never know what might happen. So it is, you know, like I said, it's that's that thing of going, like you said, the trusting. Yeah. So um when a client contacts us, you know, a couple gets in touch, we will discuss whether we're the right fit for them. Um we'll uh obviously send them towards our socials and all that kind of stuff. If they've already done that research and they just want to you know go ahead and all that kind of thing, we try and give them as much information without bombarding them. So it's that thing of going, the client portal you can look at at your own leisure. You don't need us to be chat.

SPEAKER_08 46:18

Um it's only information, go and do what you want with it, but we're contacted.

SPEAKER_03 46:23

I think one of the things that um and again it's for the feedback. The reason why we created it is because the feedback that we got from couples is the things that freak them out or upset them, stress them, it's usually a supplier somewhere in the link that isn't responsive that they send an email to and they don't hear back for a week or two. Yeah, and that client that that supplier might be really busy, but they haven't set any structure up to the code.

SPEAKER_08 46:45

Yeah, can I just say as well, emails are so far behind, like, why don't they have a voice note button on them?

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Yeah. Oh, that would be great.

SPEAKER_08 46:52

Like, could you imagine how many more people would use email for because I think that's why some people don't respond, is because they don't it's not an easy platform to use essentially.

SPEAKER_02 47:04

Well got the thing is with is ghosting is the whole thing. Yeah, exactly. That's what I mean. Do you know what what we do now as well? We've we found that we were got being ghosted uh just on emails. So what we do is when we send uh we call it the proposal, which is a quote or whatever, it comes in again in its own own uh micro website that you click and it goes to your own personal bespoke quote that I do. But you also get that on an email, via text, yeah and via WhatsApp as well. So we've paid extra just so everyone gets all the information. That's the hardest bit.

SPEAKER_08 47:32

That's exactly that's exactly how I've done it. When an inquiry comes in, I'll then WhatsApp you to say that it's gone through. Yeah. Um like if you've been at a wedding fair, we had this convo, didn't we? And um it's just because I don't know if previously was ghosting it going into the jungle. I know how busy you are organising the wedding, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 47:50

We say it's like having a full-time job.

SPEAKER_08 47:51

It is.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

And you know, people would contact us and go, I can't find that email. No, I did I did a follow-up, you know, because obviously we've got a client, um what's it called? Customer relations manager, CRM they're called, and you just drag CRM if you're not gonna do it. You drag them and it fires out text and reminders to the people. So what I did was I fired one out the other day or just dragged it across, and someone texted me back and saying, I forgot who you are, who are you? Um can you remind me? And I was like, Oh, we're the single-on waiters. Oh, right, okay, and this is all via text as well. So don't even a lot of people don't like talking. Yeah, yeah. Now, so if you uh we never ring, we never call.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

Nah, also because it's a surprise we don't know who they're with. So we've done that, and you know, in the past, we do a thing now where we let couples choose their call time with us rather than phoning them out because I suppose you don't even think of that as well. You phone someone up and they panic, and I'll go, you know, they'll just freeze and we'll say, like, say my cold called Tem Um You know Bitcoin or something like that, and then just put hang up on the and they'll hang up on Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:49

Would you try again or would you leave it? Would you get the memo?

SPEAKER_03 48:51

Just a text message and say when you're free. But now we've again we try and do a thing. If we spot a problem, now have a permanent fix for it, and then we won't bother with that problem.

SPEAKER_08 49:03

Yeah, yeah, and it's a good way of doing that.

SPEAKER_03 49:05

So business sense we go, oh that that's it.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

Well it's weird because before the before we had our office slash showroom, we'd be in separate offices. So if there's a problem email coming, um it'd be like, oh video call. Now it's like I'll turn to him there and we'll go, right, discuss this problem. Whatever it may be, and we make get a solution for it, and then we'd just write this is the the we've decided this.

SPEAKER_05 49:26

Time working on solutions at the moment, actually. You know, just like things that I've been doing for a while. I'm like, how can I work?

SPEAKER_03 49:31

They build up though as well, or the time thieves. We'd do that. I think it's like you know, it's three o'clock already. Why have we why have I not been on the thing?

SPEAKER_08 49:39

But yeah, it feels like you've done lots, but it's like it's like updating your website, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

Yeah, literally we're something we're in the middle of at the moment. Yeah, yeah. Everything just takes it just takes time, everything takes time, and you kind of go in and also going out to do shows.

SPEAKER_05 49:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:55

You know, this time of the year as well, into the summer, it is busy. Yeah, we've got a show, man.

SPEAKER_05 49:59

So shall we do a quick few quick fire questions? Let's go for it. Yeah. Do you want to start?

SPEAKER_08 50:04

What's the funniest thing that's ever happened at a wedding to you? Well, or to at the wedding.

SPEAKER_03 50:11

Funniest thing. I don't think we spend a lot of time in the summer, so we see loads of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

So anything that goes a little bit pear-shaped, there was a woman who fell through a chair, uh, which wasn't very funny. Well, it was, but it wasn't because she was mortified. So we just sort of swept this is during our show. Um so she sat on a chair and it exploded.

SPEAKER_05 50:30

Uh so which was that's happened to me and where that wasn't good three times.

SPEAKER_02 50:33

Yeah, again, you know, it's we just swear, all right, have a chair.

SPEAKER_03 50:36

Um get rid of this one.

SPEAKER_05 50:37

But then I'm not performing, I suppose.

SPEAKER_03 50:39

We have a lot of we have a lot of cake-related stuff that happens to we see a lot of um issues with cakes, especially this time of the year. Yeah, because they get hot. So like the one on Saturday melted before it was out for I don't know, 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 50:53

She was tugging me, going, I just don't like this, she merely tears.

SPEAKER_03 50:56

And it was like going, it's not your fault, it's the weather. You can't.

SPEAKER_08 50:58

I also don't know why a venue coordinator wouldn't bring it forward. Yeah, yeah. That baffles me already.

SPEAKER_03 51:03

Well they cut the cake before they even sat down, yeah. It was just in the afternoon. Quick, can it take pictures? Off you go. Yeah. Um, but yeah, we've had cakes that have melted that have kind of leaning tower pizza.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

You had one over fall over.

SPEAKER_03 51:13

Oh, yeah, loads of falling over.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Did you say leaning tower of pizza?

SPEAKER_02 51:16

Yeah, pizza. Pizza. That's what I was saying. Right.

SPEAKER_03 51:20

Um, yeah, leaning ones, um falling over ones, catching fire ones, fire ones, not arriving at all ones. Not made, not made. Forgot to be made, forgot to make it.

SPEAKER_08 51:30

Catching fire, can we just go back to that? How did that catch fire? Was it the napkins?

SPEAKER_01 51:34

No, no, those are nothing to do with us.

SPEAKER_08 51:37

No, because I so I have been at a wedding, not with you guys doing different singing waiters, napkins were in the air.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_08 51:45

It went down onto the flames, caught on fire. I literally had to pick it up and stomp it. Brian Groom obviously didn't know that it'd happened, but literally, if I hadn't been stood next to it when it happened, everything was.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

Well, we've had a venue nearly catch fire because of of not us. We were wrapping up, it was nothing to do with napkins. Our show was on a show socials where the venue nearly caught fire. It was it was basically a best man and he was he had um Pampasgrass, yeah, Pampasgrass on the top table.

SPEAKER_03 52:11

And actually, it's actually his fault because he did a really, really long speech and then candles went down a lot faster. So by the time I think his fault. He was he was banging the table and the pampas grass went up.

SPEAKER_02 52:21

It was his fault because he grabbed the pampas grass and lifted it in the air on fire. It's on our socials, honestly, it's on a real and it and it straight to the ceiling. No, put it down, and he ran off towards a curtain.

SPEAKER_03 52:35

A curtain.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

You're joking.

SPEAKER_03 52:36

And like the staff are chasing him, we're chasing him, put it down. And we had to stomp it out. Oh, so that's that's quite the cake fire was basically it it it was uh the cake was late, it was just as COVID. Cake was late. Uh I imagine at that time of the year they had millions of um you know clients that they had to uh thingy. Um Brian Grimm have been in to check the room, super happy with it. Cake's not there, it's on its way, I'm sure it's fine. Um and when they got there, the cake wasn't as glamorous as it probably should have been.

SPEAKER_02 53:08

You were being really polite there, it was rubbish.

SPEAKER_03 53:10

It wasn't as glamorous as it should have been. Not that we can bake cakes, I have that thing if you can't do, you know, don't but yeah, this cake wasn't. Um and essentially the room decorator had dressed where the cake table was and put flowers and candles and it was all lovely. And they put the cake out and they were going, Oh, that's not so great. And they were sort of like picking flowers out to try and put on the cake to you know, juge it up a touch. And then they went in the bag and got a glitter spray. No sprayed it in front of an open flame, so it was like a flamethrower then. But the spray that went on it, it was like a little Christmas pudding, so it'd like it was like on fire. Three-tier cake on fire. Because it's after COVID, you can't we couldn't blow it.

SPEAKER_05 53:46

No.

SPEAKER_03 53:46

And was that one hitting it?

SPEAKER_05 53:49

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 53:50

So they got it out.

SPEAKER_06 53:52

This cake just sounded like bots. Yeah, it's like.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

It was one of them ones, yeah, when you're sort of like, because we weren't fully.

SPEAKER_06 53:57

Did the flames make it look better?

SPEAKER_03 53:58

No, we just kind of did that.

SPEAKER_06 53:59

Oh god. Oh, super awkward, didn't you?

SPEAKER_03 54:02

And they they they had a Barney as well. That was like a proper idea. Who had a Barney? The couple cake person. Oh no, the couple went on. The suppliers they were. The suppliers, yeah. No, when everyone's going, oh how awkward.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

It was the venue and the cake.

SPEAKER_08 54:13

You kind of want to listen, but at the same time, you like don't want to be in the room.

SPEAKER_03 54:16

Oh, we were, we were just edging.

SPEAKER_08 54:18

Um so yeah, that was um have you ever had then a bride and groom or couple um ever not want you to be there but you've been booked as a surprise?

SPEAKER_03 54:31

That's a great question, but no. No.

SPEAKER_08 54:33

Okay. That's a good question. And that's and that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 54:35

We are unbelievably thorough. If the bride and groom don't know about us, if the couple doesn't know about us, whoever's booking, one of the things that I say is, do they like surprises, do they like a laugh? Will they be get a kick out of the surprise, or is it something that's going to upset them because you know I think it's a good idea? Usually brides do the legwork of a wedding service. The last thing you want to do is sort of go there and be anything other than perfect for them.

SPEAKER_08 55:01

So let's answer some questions quick then. Sorry, whether it's a bigger one. No, no, sorry. Don't worry, it's not at all. Um what's the biggest crowd you've ever sung to?

SPEAKER_02 55:12

24,000. Oh yeah, yeah, we did a stadium. We did a before a football match. Before a football match.

SPEAKER_06 55:18

Sorry. You're just like, yeah, 24. Before a football match.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

Uh it was It was Manchester City against Wigan.

SPEAKER_05 55:24

Was it at MS Yard?

SPEAKER_02 55:25

No, it was at Wigan. It was at Wigan.

SPEAKER_05 55:27

Are you a City fan as well? Absolutely. No, oh.

SPEAKER_03 55:30

So we got nothing else.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

So we were like, well, I'm not gonna say no.

SPEAKER_03 55:34

So that was quite a big wedding-wise, probably about 300, maybe 3350, yeah, 3350. Big wedding.

SPEAKER_05 55:41

That's amazing. Yeah. Contact Jodie in the next one. Um most requested song.

SPEAKER_02 55:50

Can't take my eyes off you. Yeah, that's amazing. Because it's usually used in the f as a first dance, you know where they're doing. Oh, sometimes, yeah, yeah. Sometimes we have to sort of try and continue. So which we always say don't do it as your don't do it as your first dance. Anyone watching, don't do it as your first dance song. It's a really good bit, it's a really good bit of the show with loads of jokes and laughing and everything. And they've to change it to something else. It takes a lot of stuff like that. So it's just just don't just don't have that as your first dance. Oh, yeah, probably that. Let us do it.

SPEAKER_08 56:14

Have you ever sang at a celebrity's wedding?

SPEAKER_02 56:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 56:19

And if so, who? Can you talk about it?

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Not yet. Uh yeah, we can.

SPEAKER_08 56:22

Oh well, it was Have you sort of NDA and you haven't?

SPEAKER_02 56:26

There's a couple there's a couple of celebrities that have been at the wedding. They've been at the wedding. Oh, yeah, you're not celebrities a bit.

SPEAKER_05 56:29

But but we but who are then then? You can tell us then.

SPEAKER_02 56:33

Um celebrity. Well, what we can't, can we? Yeah. Because they're in a different industry that's not.

SPEAKER_08 56:40

Okay, so they're a bit inappropriate, but that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 56:44

Also, as well, on the same wedding they had uh what's he called? Wingman from uh Capital Radio. It was on Capital Radio.

SPEAKER_03 56:50

They do happy radio.

SPEAKER_02 56:53

Alistair Cook was there. Alistair Cook, yeah, cricketer. Um don't know him. Uh what else? Because he's a cricketer, really.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

Sir Sir Joe Cook. Sir Rasta Cook, yeah. Um I can't think of her name. Oh, Cracky. A stand's in the 1975. Oh, Denise Welsh. Yeah, Denise Welsh.

SPEAKER_08 57:16

She's supposed to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 57:18

And Denny Tealy was there as well, so he's uh, you know, him out of the 1970s.

SPEAKER_08 57:21

I love that the one that you can't talk about is probably gonna be. I'm just gonna say anyway, it's probably gonna be a porn star or something like that, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 57:30

But we didn't know which she was. We were told. We were told, we were told by the Toastmaster Certain Toastmaster. He didn't know which she wasn't either. But we just turned up and he was like, Yes, using it. And he said it and we were like, I don't know if that is really, and then he showed us, and then we looked at No, the pictures, not like the pitch, oh yeah, so but that was that was fun.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

Um we have sung for um not it wasn't the wedding, we'd done we do quite a lot of um uh charity events and you know AGMs, that kind of stuff. So obviously that what we do because it's around dinner does sort of bleed into that corporate world. So we do different times of the year, quite a lot of corporate stuff. So if this is the story I'm thinking of, that it's meant this is mental. The but the the the particular one um down south, wasn't it? Yeah, we got uh and we brought another singer actually, wouldn't we? Yeah, yeah, Rebecca. Um who's like a West End uh singer. West End. She's been in the West End and she's been a lead in the West End. Yeah, and she's amazing, she's amazing. Um we went to do this job and um it wasn't we went on till like ten o'clock at night, which is really late for us, and we're going to sure about that. Um but we got there about two o'clock in the afternoon because we had to sound check, and it was like a golf day. So um uh a big charity, massive company, like a multi-billion pound company. It's actually the the company that m gives all the food to the supermarkets to like the tier above and that kind of thing. And um there was loads of other celebrities there, yeah. Like cricketers, golfers, gear, that kind of thing. It was like older footballers, that sort of thing. In the room. We were going, oh okay, that's cool, there's some celebrities there and that kind of stuff. And uh we were being walked around the room. Yeah, the organiser decided to walk us round. And going, this is cool, they're all good for laugh. These are all our sponsors, these are cool. That's that's where you know Phil's gonna be sat and blah blah blah. So this table super loop low-key, don't you? Just leave these leave them alone, otherwise, protection officer probably will take you off. Um, okay, cool. But then we saw the name tags. And we're like, are they is that the real then?

SPEAKER_08 59:47

Okay, who was it?

SPEAKER_03 59:49

Um so we had um uh Mike Tyndall.

SPEAKER_02 59:52

Mike Tyndall, uh Peter Phillips. No way. So it was like the Royal family, and they're they were and so Mike Tyndall.

SPEAKER_08 59:57

Mike Tyndall's supposed to be incredible.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

Oh, he was he was great.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:03

Mike Tyndall is supposed to be so my other half's a massive rugby player. Yeah, and that is the one person, both me and him, would be like, we would love to be.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:10

Ginormous as well.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:11

And he looked, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:12

We've got a picture, he's hugging me, and I'm again on our socials. I'm about 5'10 five.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:16

And he's like, We spoke to him for a while, and he was because he listens to his podcast every single day.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:22

It was lovely, lovely, very nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:23

But he is and it's like he's everything and more that you think he is. Oh, yeah. It was a really weird evening. And the read the the weird evening was because we had all this, and they went, um, so how how long are you doing? About ten minutes? And we kind of went, usually we do like ages. Ten minutes, yeah. Like two songs went, Can we have three? Another singer for the West End. Can we like you know we need to do one? Then take a one, we do one together, and we'll go, Yeah. And they said, Yeah, okay, so you can do three songs. We went, Okay. And then just before we went on, there was a magician, and the magician was adept for another magician.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:53

And which is mad because the royal family organised this thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:57

You'd think it'd be all but it kind of wasn't, it was just like, well, you'll do that sort of thing. It's only it's only because it was a close up, but he said, I'm gonna do a little bit of stage magic, so it's like 10-15 minutes or whatever. And his trick, I said, What what what trick are you doing? And he said, Um, I'm doing like a mentalist thing where I'm gonna by the power of suggestion. By the way, as a caveat, they've been out on the golf course all day drinking. Oh yeah, no, no way.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:20

So they were hammered already, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:22

It started off um first first hole one shot, second hole two shots.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:28

No, all the way to the 1800s.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:29

No, they all stopped at about seven. Okay, that was about um so there were.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:34

But these all celebrities are all absolutely great crowd.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:36

It was like 300, 300 four.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:38

Yeah, but it was all companies that are sp you know, big companies.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:40

It was fantastic, it was lovely. Great events. Um and uh this magician said, Yeah, I'm gonna use the power of my mind to uh get them that suggestion to straight away. I went, right? What is that? Anyway, basically I've got these fish hooks, uh, and they were like they were like that massive fish hook things in went. I basically have got strings tied on the end, but one of them uh they're all um uh loose apart from one. So one of them's actually tied on, and then I put them in my mouth, and then I get them to pick the right ones and then for the power of suggestion. For the power of suggestion, and we went, That's gonna work. They are they've had a few here, you know that, don't they? He went, No, that'd be cool. I went, Oh, so he went and we're watching inside on from the stage, and we're kind of watching this this sort of happen, and uh he gets two ladies and two two ladies and a gent up, and they're all really drunk.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:28

I feel sorry for him.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:29

And he goes, And he explains what it is, what the trick is. He said, Well, I'm gonna get one of uh the each of you to pull uh a thing out of my mouth, um, and he put it in a in his mouth, and this woman just went, No, no, because he said, I'm gonna get you to pull that mouth, and she just went, like that straight away, didn't it? And it was the one that was tied on, so it went through his lip. Oh, blood like it he got it out and all that kind of stuff, and I can see him he's spitting blood on the stage and that kind of stuff. And he went, and the host, the compare, come in and went, Oh, okay, ladies and gents, that's great. Woohoo! Right, and then he sort of introduced us, but the sound technician had gone off. So we went we have mics.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:03

I haven't got a microphone or anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

Well that going, he's just one minute going, please, one minute. Um and then the the sort of sound technician would sort of stroll through that, all right, and went, give us a mic, run.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:13

And then Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:14

It was great. We had it, we only sung three songs, but we absolutely I bet that was a really good day though at the time. And they asked us back the next year, but um they wanted us to dress up as policemen. And we don't do and we don't do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:25

We draw a line, it's like a bit stripper grammish, so in our opinion.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:29

Fair and it's not your it's not what you do for me for standing your ground there. Say no.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:34

And they they were gonna pay us what we wanted as well. Well, wives weren't too happy, but yeah, but again, we have it's not them have to stand there in like a rubbish.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:43

Yeah, and also if it's not on your brand as well, and it's not if you're in a fancy dress outfit, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:48

You've been a naughty boy in your accent. We're gonna get lynched. You've been naughty boy, I must punish you. No, it wouldn't be cool, would it? It wouldn't be colour.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:01

That needs to be the clip on it, the caby chunches now, the police cabby chunchins.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:09

We would do the batons.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:13

That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:14

I loved it.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:15

Sorry, this very long-winded quick following. It's fine.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:18

I think you've answered our next question, to be fair, about a kind of like a spirally story. There it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:23

Always ask, like, do you have a bridal spiral from a supplier's point of view? But yeah, would you say that is up there with one of them, or do you have do you have any more that you can add to it?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:32

Where things have gone a little bit uh.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:34

Yeah. Maybe on your part, maybe not like somebody else. Or even somebody else. While you two have been like, oh god.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:41

We're really, really, really particular. We we cover our bases. Yes, we're gonna do it. We really do, and it's I think the cake one probably could be. We've had the odd technical issue. Yeah, you had it.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:50

We did once uh there was a photographer that was using the same frequency as what our microphones are on, so we were getting a lot of cutout and we couldn't work it out what it was. So we were uh during the show, whilst the other one was like singing, we were sort of going around and we're turning like the radios off. We're going to the staff going, turn any radios you got off, and I'm unplugging stuff and all that kind of thing. And it wasn't until the end that went, Are those um flash things on like a Wi-Fi weren't you? Who was that? Same as our our microphones are on the same Wi-Fi as single. So we don't, yeah, that's something that happened, but not in the same way.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:22

And that was so frustrating for yeah. It was because we had to go on earlier as well. The the bride and groom uh requested us to go on uh not our normal time as well. So they requested us to go for the main course, which we don't like doing. We don't like doing because we're in the way of the of the kitchen, and then do service as well because you just don't know what's gonna happen. Well they started serving desserts whilst we're still on. Yeah, so which really impacts the show because it's all about you've got to be in certain places. People are trying to eat, you're trying to take people aren't kind of leaving their food, which we don't want them to eat. If you've seen our show isn't just singing, it's it's a lot of interaction interaction talking, banter. You know, we say comedy, but comedy very loosely.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:59

What would you give people agree?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

Uh not grief, but we'll just take the Mickey out of people in a nice way. Yeah, basically the secret source of what we're there to do.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:06

I will never sit on the front row of like a comedy shower. But they don't go to the front row, they'd just go everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:11

You're not safe.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:14

It would find space in the plough if it was really, really full. Yeah, yeah. Put it that way.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:18

They'd go round and down and the plough many a time and it's been absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:23

But if someone say, for instance, that he gets up to go to the toilet, we might do a little conger behind him. Is that or they might have a theme tune or something like that? No, that's or we do beatboxing or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:31

Is that going to be like Jimmy Car stuff?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:32

No, nothing to make anyone feel uncomfortable. No, if they could take it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:36

Never anything that is inappropriate or anything that would be construed as negative or inappropriate. It's not about making people feel um weird or embarrassing people. Yeah. It's that thing of because don't forget we do a lot of prep in advance. We ask all of our couples who's who. So we kind of know people.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:54

It's having fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:54

So we see where they're seated and they'll go, you know, Jeff on table three is a right laugh. And we go, Right, okay, now I know where Jeff is. Oh, amazing. So Jeff moves, I know Jeff's name.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:02

So we go, where are you going, Jeff? And we're gonna get a laugh. My name Jeff. The job really is to give the photographer and videographer things to point the camera at.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:12

That's not that it's quite simple. Yeah. You know, it doesn't add, we're we're there to kind of make it happen and control the everyone's, you know, the room in that sort of way and make sure everyone's relaxed.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:21

Um, that's mega. I feel like on that note, like that's a lovely end of the thing. I feel like if you haven't, then you need to go and book.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, totally.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:31

Our dates are going quite quickly for next year. Our next year is looking very bumper next year. Yeah. This year we've still got a few dates available this year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:37

Uh but no. Do you set um do you have a cut-off?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:40

We d sort of. Yeah, we do, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:42

Um because you can only give certain quality if you're if you're it's too much. If you're inundated, you know, in the summertime when you're busy, busy, busy. You know, if we have runs where we have like multiple days, it's like by the time you get to the end one, that's me today. You're kind of going, that's that's I think we're we're 50% booked for next year.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:59

Wow, halfway booked for next year.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:01

Next year's busy. Yeah, but it they're coming in slower. Yeah. Like I'm I'm really busy, but uh definitely we've spoken about this loads. The inquiries seems to be getting later and later in the air.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:11

I think very, very late, last minute. People are very particular about stuff. Uh there was a lot of uh talk about you know, going, oh, you know, people aren't booking and people are booking and they are spending whatever they want to spend, but they're as long as they as long as they can justify what it is. They want value and go. But you know why this is exactly what I want.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:27

It's because they're the couples if you work it back that have met during COVID.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:30

So if you actually work it back, they're the ones that have met during that time and then they're just being a little bit more curious and conscious of what they're doing.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:38

Which I don't think is a bad thing. I think you should again, if we're of um any kind of event, we always say you know, do your research, read the reviews and testimonials of everyone that you're considering to use. Yeah. If you see someone's socials and they've got great testimonials but they kind of cut off last year, yeah, that's not a red flag, but it's yeah, so far beyond. Maybe maybe an orange one or a yellow one, perhaps, or certainly worth further investigation if you like that supplier.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:02

But exactly, or meeting them in person is super important as well, whether it's not.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:06

Well now that we know because one of the things that we wanted to do, all other meetings, we'd always go, we'll meet at a cafe or a bar or whatever. Now we can inv invite the last sort of year and a half and stuff. We can say come down and office, yeah. We've got a bar. We built a bar. We built a bar.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:22

Have you shared your office on socials or not?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:24

Yeah, yeah, but yeah. There's a video on uh there's a nice little bar, there's a little seating area, there's a little stage. Yeah, so we can do performance. Amazing. So done to be.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:34

So on that note, where can everyone find you?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:36

Oh well, uh on the internet.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:38

And what's your Instagram?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:40

Instagram is oh uh at at the single on waiters. Simple that's the Instagram, yeah. We're almost on Facebook and TikTok. We love TikTok. Oh, TikTok's great, do you use TikTok?

SPEAKER_05 1:09:49

Yeah, we're trying, yeah. I actually need to get better with it. Yeah, we do on my business side. I mean the aisle diaries is popping off, but safe for our makeup.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:57

Our YouTube's actually going really well at the moment as well. So single on waiters on YouTube. We had a video go viral, haven't it? Two million views.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:04

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:04

There you go.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:05

Yeah. Yeah, watch you guys on YouTube. Go on, follow us. So we've got what? TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Facebook.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:11

And where can everyone find us though? At the aisle diaries podcast on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, um, Apple Music, Spotify, and our email addresses the aisle diaries podcast at cheatmail.com. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:24

We follow, we follow you.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:28

Thank you so much. It's been amazing. A lot of fun. We've got for ages too much.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:32

Go to Europe.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:33

No, don't go.