Spinning Truths & Dropping Wedding Bombs: DJ ESG’s No-BS Guide to Your Big Day

Lighting Love: DJ ESG's Guide to Creating a Magical Wedding Ambiance with Radiant Trends

DJ ESG Season 13 Episode 1

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Kick off 2025 by mastering the art of wedding lighting with DJ ESG's honest advice, as we explore the hottest trends set to light up your big day. Ever wondered if those glowing DJ light bars are a hit or miss? Join me as I break down their impact and explore how the right lighting choices can make your venue shine. From rustic barns to elegant hotels, discover why symmetry and strategic lighting are the secrets to creating a visually stunning reception. Drawing inspiration from Disney World's enchanting lighting techniques, I'll guide you through crafting a magical ambiance with warm, inviting tones.

Reflecting on a fantastic 2024, I extend heartfelt thanks to all the diverse couples I had the pleasure of working with, from the LGBTQ community to the vibrant generations of Millennials and Gen Z. Using insights from recent weddings, I'll discuss how the type of venue and its spatial dynamics can influence your lighting decisions. Get practical tips and examples to ensure every element of your wedding, from lights to layout, aligns perfectly with your vision. Let's make sure your big day isn't just memorable, but truly breathtaking.

Peace, Love & God Above! :-)

Speaker 1:

What's up guys? Dj ESG 2025 Honest Wedding Advice the new podcast is starting and I have well, even before I start, 2024 was a fantastic year. I had such a blast. So if you were one of my clients, if you were a bride, a groom, two brides, two grooms, anything LGBTQ community, young, old, millennial, gen Z, gen X and we work together. Thank you, thank you so much for having me this year. I had a blast.

Speaker 1:

Some of the trends for 2025. I'm just going to get right into it. Why waste time with all the fluffy foo-foo? So, these light bars a lot of the DJs are bringing up these tubes that glow and there's like four of them or six of them, or eight of them, and they're all around the DJ booth and they glow and they do LED and all this stuff, versus having lasers and having weird dot lights all over you because photographers, honest to to god, they hate them. Um, I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. You know it's. It's cool in certain spots, but I don't think it's cool everywhere. I think it looks good in certain rooms. I think, honest to God, each room, regardless of barn, country, club, hotel, whatever you book recessed lighting, non-recessed lighting. Google that it really depends on the vibe of the room. You know like what specific lighting-wise I believe works Symmetric being symmetric also makes a big difference.

Speaker 1:

Like if you're not centered on the dance floor and you have three on these, uh, three of these tube lights on this side and three of those tube lights on that side, and now you have a bar in the middle and it's not centered, it doesn't work either. Like if you in a corner, if you're shooting over a table. You know, this past weekend I had a wedding this past Saturday and I was in a corner, sort of shooting over top of table. I don't know why people do that, it's a space thing, I guess. But you know you're killing people's ears in front of you and the lights are hitting them in the head and I guess it forces them to get out of their seat. I guess that's the best way of putting it. But um, so poles like that, even a front board, a facade, just didn't work. It was just not. It just didn't look right, it wasn't symmetrical. So when you're centered, when everything is sort of you know in its place, you know middle of everything, that's when you can have lights that look like that and they look dope, you know, in its place, you know, middle of everything. That's when you can have lights that look like that and they look dope, you know. But when you have space, that you know.

Speaker 1:

Let's say you have a barn. Okay, so a barn, you got wooden planks everywhere and you have wooden ceilings and it's brown. What the fuck would you put pink and purple lights around that? It looks like shit, it looks terrible. You know Like barns are. I mean, I'm hoping they're brown. For the most part some of them are white, but you know, wood traditionally comes from trees and most of the trees I know of are brown, unless we're in france or something I don't fucking know. But, um, you know you would put white or yellow to kind of contrast the colors. Why would you put pink and purple up a side of a barn wall for like uplighting or this looks like that's not the whole point.

Speaker 1:

You booked the barn anyway because you wanted a candlelight feel. Let me give you an example Disney World. They understand how you're supposed to. You know, light up a space. You know those lights. They're not white, they're like a. They call them an amber color, like a candlelight amber because it's supposed to be a magical vibe. You know you don't put purple and pink tube lights in a barn. It just looks like shit.

Speaker 1:

Now on the other um token or the other avenue or the other spectrum or over here, we'll go over here for those listening on audio. I just kind of made a straight line from my left shoulder to my right shoulder. The the tube lights are great in like a country club where there's zero vibe, because country clubs use that space for corporate funeral luncheons, golf outings. I mean they use that for everything. So you have to spice it up a little bit. You know Leroy is not dying and you're not calling the barn in Quakertown to host a luncheon. It's not happening. You know you're going to the barn in Quakertown to host a luncheon. It's not happening. You're going to the simplest, easiest space possible that holds the most people, that can be set up really easily, that has a chef there 24-7, that can put food on the table and you can have a slideshow and a presentation and that's what happens. So that's one trend. So that's one trend.

Speaker 1:

Another trend is this DJ furniture stuff that the DJs are now coming out front of the DJ booth, out in front of the DJ booth and they are putting on a show with the speakers behind them and the facade behind them, so you can literally reach out and touch the DJ. I think that's cool as hell, but you have to have the skillset and the right product to do that. Like I have been a DJ for 30 years. I know how to scratch and mix and all that stuff. Is it necessary at a wedding all the time? No, you know, you don't. It's not your show, the show is for you guys. But at the same time, is it cool? Is it cool to see that at special points? Absolutely, I mean, it's super fucking cool.

Speaker 1:

You know, and there's guys who do it really, really well. I mean I'll name drop, you know, nick spinelli does it very well. Justin the dj does it very well. You know, those two guys do it extremely well. There's a guy out in pittsburgh I forget his name, I'm sorry uh, eric roads maybe does it very, very well. But then there's guys that you can't put a unit out front onto a piece of dj furniture and hit buttons and use the fader. That's not a show, that's just. I don't even know what to call that, but again, it's bride and groom specific, you know.

Speaker 1:

Do you want the dj to be a part of your um dance floor? Do you want dj bb behind the uh facade and he? You want the DJ to be a part of your dance floor? Do you want DJ BB behind the facade and he's just the soundtrack to your event? So these are just some of the trends. Oh, and wands.

Speaker 1:

Glow wands have always been a huge thing when it comes to dancing, because people sometimes don't know what to do with their hands. Like I am doing this podcast right now and if you are listening to this on audio, you can't see this, but if you're watching me on the video, my hands are moving all over the place because I talk with my hands a little bit not crazy, but when I'm sitting here for a while, so I have a bunch of poker chips in front of me so I can play with these chips almost like a fidget machine and have something to do with my hands. A lot of people don't know when they're dancing what to do with their hands. They put them in their pockets, they go like this, they play with their, you know, they start rubbing themselves. So when you're holding something like glow wands, I'll grab my Notorious BIG pop and my Elias pop and I will you know, and then you can start moving around and dance and you feel like you're doing something with your hands outside of drinking, and it keeps people on the dance floor longer because it's just, it's more comfortable, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

It's like a hockey player skating around without a stick. You know you put a stick in his hand and he'll fly around the ice, but you take the stick out of his hand. He doesn't know what to do with his hands. You know you put a stick in his hand and he'll fly around the ice, but you take the stick out of his hand. He doesn't know what to do with his hands, you know. So he's playing around. I mean, I, I played hockey for a little bit, so that's a good analogy for me. I don't know if that's a good analogy for other people, but it's like a basketball player driving the lane. It's easier to drive the lane when you have the ball than when you don't have the ball. You know they. Let me play a little bit. Back in the day I was a token white boy.

Speaker 1:

So it's just vibes and trends for 2025. Think about it. There's going to be some more. I have a ton of different things to talk about this year, but I'm trying to make these podcasts a little bit longer so I give you guys some more detail and some more structure and some more substance, as opposed to hitting you with these quick two-minute things that helped a lot of people, but the ones that the podcasts I put out that were specific to people that wanted to hear that topic, wanted more about that topic. So I'm going to try to put out more podcasts, more content per podcast and less podcasts total. If that makes sense, I don't know. I guess it does. Anyway, I'm DJ ESG. I love you guys very much. Happy 2025. Peace, love and God above, and I'll see you soon on the next one. Bye-bye.