In this Episode of the Nebraska Wedding Podcast, Kelly sits down with Mara Bryan from ‘A Special Event DJ’ (ASE) to talk about events from a DJ’s perspective, and how her family began and grew their family events business.  

‘A Special Event DJ’ is a family-run business that Mara’s father Tim began back when she was in middle school, in a small town south of Des Moines. As her father took on more projects, the business soon expanded to include her Mara’s mom, Missi as their Event Planner and Marketing Manager. It all exploded from there.

Mara’s involvement in the family business began when she was 17, (3:13) when her parents decided to include photo booths as part of their services… Mara reveals the hilarious (and slightly inappropriate) reason it was then decided that booths be manned by an attendant that was 18 or older!

She then talks through her family’s business growth, and the addition of new roles and employees (3:52) and expansion into new markets including Omaha. (5:32)

She discusses what makes ASE different (7:37) the key things people remember about weddings (8:07), and how their number one priority is making sure the event is always entirely about the bride and groom.

Mara speaks about the ASE training, ensuring an outstanding level of customer service, and delivering a customized experience while ensuring a standard level of quality (9:07), as well as company culture and internal processes, and how they play in to the wedding day experience they deliver. (11:37) She also tells a few of her own experiences, and how each has taught her how to be a better service provider (15:37).

She talks about ASE’s unique gear, and how it elevated their business (20:00) their process from the couple’s perspective, (23:45) and her own awesome playlist suggestions (29:12), and her own Spotify playlists (31:57).

Finally, Kelly throws some situations at Mara to see how she would handle them (33:57), and it doesn’t disappoint! When it comes to parties, Mara is clearly a PRO.

Mara loves to pump people up to stay for the entire night – and this episode will get YOU pumped, too.

 You can check out A Special Event DJ at aspecialeventdj.com