COCKTAILS & CONVERSATIONS: Part 2
Featuring Aimee Griffin, with A. Griffin Events , Sarah Nickens, with SG3 Events, at the Conrad Washington. Cocktails provided by Molecular Food & Cocktails.
February 16, 2021
REBECCA: And another thing I thought 2020 has taught us is, who is your tribe? Who do you really enjoy working with? Who do you click with? When we’ve had to deal with all of these interesting situations, and you know, adjusting on-site and having restrictions change daily sometimes, who knows what’s happening? You know? Aimee has been a really amazing person to work with as well and we had a unique wedding with her that we all worked on together. Do we want to talk a little bit about that?
AIMEE: So I think just listening to Sarah and, describing your couple and bride, their top priority sounded like it was music and it’s hard when they have a very wide range, but also all has to be exceptional and you can only use four people to do it with so, to find musicians that can do it at that depth and width was really tough and also at the same time to get your bride who loves music to trust the vendors that, yes, we'll deliver. You know, we will deliver, you know, this the top priority to you. So that's something that just echoes that relationship being really exceptional and it makes it that much more impressive. I think my situation was similar, but different in some ways because my couple absolutely loves music. They have a very high standard, but they didn’t really know what they wanted. They had a vision for their day that had already been postponed, so this was just going to be a family wedding bringing two sides together and just having a really laid-back, but beautiful night together. So, they wanted music to initially form the background for the event - that this would just be the common theme kind of uniting everyone and she said, how about jazz? That sounds good. Jazz would be great. So I was trying to get some ideas.
REBECCA: This is a theme this year. Play some jazz.
AIMEE: Yeah.
SARAH: It’s calm and soothing.
AIMEE: So, time was getting shorter, we were leaving details because we might get postponed again. So as the planning went along, we are still trying to figure out what it is that they actually wanted. We knew that it had to be excellent. We also knew space was at a premium and it wasn’t a huge wedding, it was less than twenty-five people so it couldn’t overpower. So we really were limited in a lot of different ways. So I think I called you guys and I was like, I just need something great. I need it to be great. I think it’s jazz. Let’s book a jazz trio because a trio sounds like the right size. I don’t know. Let’s go with that for now and we’ll just keep kind of building it as we go. Not realizing where we would end up. I think at the end of the day, through song requests and other things, we ended up with a very wide variety of music from Classic Rock to Motown.
LAUREN: Yeah, Bruce Springsteen, totally jazz.
AIMEE: Bruce Springsteen. Yeah.
REBECCA: And we did a lot of jazz.
AIMEE: We did. We did a ton of jazz. But to get the jazz musicians, I know just enough to be dangerous, that’s not the same thing as classic rock. That’s not the same skill set.
REBECCA: Oh and the hora.
AIMEE: And the hora at the end. So, I loved those, you know. We’d committed to working with you all, but then getting the bride on the phone with you guys and having you ask the right questions. Where I'd ask them 100 times but I didn’t know how to ask the right questions to get to the heart of it. So, where we start at the beginning of the conversation with jazz and I’m thinking, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, we end up with Springsteen, Motown, Hava Nagila. That’s one of your huge strengths is just being able to ask those questions that I might not know exactly how to ask. What’s really possible too? I mean, can we have a musician play this? And what musician is it? Because we had initially said you know this set, but maybe we need to change it altogether. So, that was an interesting start to it. So, after that call, I think we ended up with a keyboardist, a bassist, and a saxophone because that would carry some really beautiful melodies. And about three weeks later the bride called me and said I need to have “Shallow” at the wedding and it needs to be on acoustic guitar.
LAUREN: Lady Gaga.
AIMEE: Yep, I was like - II’ll ask, great. Why not?
REBECCA: Well, and it started as just one song that they wanted the guitar on, but I remember when you called, I was like we’ve got a lot of music. Like, maybe keeping them all night would be a good idea. Are they open to that?
AIMEE: Yes, so then you go back and you say how important is this song? And again, they love music. The song, it turns out, the bride’s been learning to play guitar and this is the song she’s been trying to play, learning to play. And it was a song that meant a lot to them as a couple, so...
REBECCA: Because it was in their larger wedding as well, right?
AIMEE: Yes, yes, and then everything had been stripped down to so, I mean, to so minimal in this way that trying to, you just want to give them some of this and that’s what I feel like we were all partnering so well on is just because it’s small doesn’t mean it has to be you know sad and minimized. It can still be absolutely exceptional and amazing and beautiful and fun. And so, at the walk-through then you all got to meet the groom.
REBECCA: Who was so nice.
AIMEE: Really, yes. The nicest couple, but I think he threw a couple more song requests your way, as well.
REBECCA: Our challenge is, we're now looking at a ceremony that includes Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Bill Withers - which is in our wheelhouse no problem. No problem.
AIMEE: But the same, what, three-four musicians?
REBECCA: With the same musicians and then we go with the same people into cocktails doing jazz, going into the rest of the night with Neil diamond. I’m trying to remember, was it, it wasn’t Patsy Cline.
AIMEE: But there was definitely some Taylor Swift in there too.
REBECCA: There was. There was and there was, it was just a whole gambit. James Taylor was definitely on there, which I adore.
AIMEE: I know. It helps that I love all this music too so.
REBECCA: And then they were like, and Michael Jackson and maybe we could do some Whitney and the hora. So what we are really trying to figure out, for Lauren and I, was how do you take what a cover band will do and reduce it down to four people who can provide great entertainment the whole night?
LAUREN: Seamlessly transitioning into these genres and not making it feel crazy.
AIMEE: This experience that brings two families together. I mean that was the theme of that whole evening was just how do we bring people together? And the music needed to be this uniting theme with a million different genres and no singers.
REBECCA: And no singers. Which is also a challenge. Because we realized after chatting and deciding that jazz is not actually what we were going to do all night. Not all night. Which is actually better for us honestly, not jazz all night. But even though we love jazz all night. But we're able to create more separation of moments, like, helping the guests feel like they’re moving through the night versus it being one thing and without the singers, having that energy was a challenge. But we had people dancing to “Wanna Dance With Someone”. We had the guests singing for us. We did do a hora with, I guess two people danced.
AIMEE: And you also had a planner that just wanted to throw in her own little design ideas.
REBECCA: That’s right.
AIMEE: So at the walk-through, the wedding was in a home, and so the home has a beautiful foyer and so I said, you know would it just be great to have music playing as guests enter? Because the wedding is outback, so like, maybe as people enter the house they’ll hear this music. So you guys moved the bassist upstairs and he was playing and filled the foyer with music as guests arrived, which was a great way to just set the stage.
REBECCA: And to add he was playing classical music. He played double bass and he switched to electric for the rest of the night but yeah he played upright.
LAUREN: So the aesthetic was really nice for people to come up to. The picture was beautiful.
REBECCA: 100%. It was perfect.
AIMEE: And what ended up happening was, I got to peek at it because I was moving people around, but the bride's parents stood by the double bassist and listened for like a concert as he was playing. And they were talking to him and asking questions and so that was a really memorable moment for her parents. She had been worried about them because you know just want to make sure that they felt like they had a place. Another amazing moment, for me as a planner, and thank you for always indulging me. You know, I come off these requests and usually, I don’t really know what I’m asking but I think I want to do this.
REBECCA: We like those questions, we have fun.
AIMEE: So when we had you know, “Shallow”, the request “Shallow”, and we weren’t sure where it would fit. You guys had created the whole experience with the bride but then the song request coming in was clearly important. So we brought in the acoustic guitarist for it to build into this. And make sure again you want to give them what they want you know, but it needs to make sense. So we did it right at the end of cocktail hour, the bride and groom said thank you to everyone and then invited them to dinner and then it was supposed to just be the song that kicked off dinner. Instead, the bride and groom hung back and stood and listened to him play the entire song and they had their arms around each other and just, it was just this very sweet intimate moment.
REBECCA: He didn’t even really know what was happening and he just was serenading them and didn’t realize it was just them behind him.
AIMEE: But to tribute to your musicians again he had transcribed that song for just that situation and so he had written his own sheet music for it, and then he gave it to the bride as a gift at the end of the song.
REBECCA: Which I didn’t know that was going to happen.
LAUREN: We had no idea.
REBECCA: He ran it by me before the ceremony. And he was like, what do you think? Is this too much? I thought this was nice. And I’m like, this is amazing! Like, this is beautiful. Yes. Give them a gift. This is great!
AIMEE: So she has it now and is practicing guitar with the sheet music that was played at her wedding, thanks to your musician who went above and beyond anything that we would ask. So I mean I thought I had asked plenty of above and beyond moments and you guys still exceeded what we were doing.
REBECCA: But that’s, I mean that’s part of what I love about the collaboration with you two specifically, but also so many like-minded teammates in our industry. That’s the game right? Is we want to go above and beyond and we want to get creative And if you’ve got people on-site and we can make it happen, why not? You know, it’s not like you were asking me to bring in like a whole other team of people, you know? I love it because we know that they also go above and beyond for us and it means so much because they are like family. And that’s also why we always work with them.
SARAH: And they love what they do. I don’t know if you guys saw videos from this particular wedding. When I played a few back, I saw the keyboardist just dancing and you know I was like, oh my God, he’s having fun! And that’s how I felt, so it just shows, again, you have a great team. They love what they do. They are into it so it’s organic for them to go above and beyond. It’s just what they do, but you don’t see that often.
AIMEE: And he was fine with the jazz; with everything. I mean he kept, because we did have the jazz in there you know and I was just so impressed by how we it built in. I think just to keep it in perspective you know what we’re asking of your musicians typically in “normal times“, we get two song requests - either 30 or 60 days out to ask musicians in the band. We don’t get 15 different songs. You know, I don’t get to call you and say, can I add an acoustic guitar to play the song? So that I think is what makes it so exceptional. And it’s not just in COVID, it’s also just that’s how you guys work. I’m always impressed and surprised by how far above and beyond you go.
REBECCA: And we do try and ... it’s funny because we want to always say yes, right? We really do and we have to step back and say, okay we need to talk to our team, you know? And that’s when we’re so lucky to have the teammates we have because they’re the ones that are like, yeah we got this. You know, we’re good. And then they step up and do extras that we don’t expect, you know? But again that’s why we love them and we want to keep our team happy and working and we care about them as human beings.
SARAH: And you can see it. I could see it. You know, it’s obvious when you guys are working together even doing sound check, it was just camaraderie. You can see it. It was a lot of fun. I just stopped everything and started dancing and recording. It was like, I want to be doing this. It was fun. You guys have a lot of fun.
REBECCA: We’re lucky. I mean, we don’t take that for granted. Like, even down to our sound team, who is really a core part of our team, you know, we wouldn’t be where we are without these people by our side. And you guys.
LAUREN: We just thank you guys so much seriously for joining us today to chat about these events to kind of talk about what we’ve been dealing with. And with COVID, with each other, and just how you know collaboration especially now, you know? Before it was important, but now it’s just so essential to everything that we’re doing and really creating events that are successful, and even, you know, they’re still amazing. They can be small and just incredible even with everything that we had to change.
REBECCA: Yes. Thank you guys for joining us - this was great.
ALL: Cheers!