At Van Dev Weddings, we are dedicated to sourcing vendors who will elevate our clients wedding experience. In our pursuit of excellence, we recently had the pleasure of visiting a vendor who is not just a Celebrant, Wedding Dance Instructor, DJ and MC but an expert in seamlessly blending these elements.
To ensure our discerning clients love the vendors we recommend, we put ourselves in their shoes and experience first-hand the services offered. Having already witnessed Mark’s DJing skills, we decided to delve into the heart of his expertise by visiting his Wedding Centre and Private Dance Studio. Our first-hand experience, including a dance lesson with my husband, left us thoroughly impressed. We can confidently confirm that Mark at Let’s Marry is a skilful professional with a wealth of experience, and, above all, he makes the process incredibly enjoyable.
To further enhance your understanding of Mark’s capabilities and the many services he offers, we asked him a series of questions. These questions and Mark’s answers are listed below. Discover Special Bonus!
Q 1. What inspired you to offer multiple services as a Wedding Celebrant, Private Dance Instructor, MC, DJ and more, and how does this enhance the overall wedding experience for couples seeking luxury celebrations?
Answer: In a high-stress and emotional time for wedding couples, I wanted to be able to offer them the ultimate convenience and peace of mind. If they wish to book multiple services, these can be performed by a single professional thus streamlining the entire process, delivering exceptional time efficiency for wedding couples.
This approach allows me to promptly address any inquiries my clients may have in one cohesive conversation or meeting, eliminating the need for them to schedule multiple appointments with multiple vendors. Moreover, if a couple chooses to have private dance lessons with me, at the same time they can discuss other aspects for their wedding in which I’m also involved or can otherwise assist. The stability and trust of one vendor for an array of services ensures that the entire event unfolds cohesively. This means seamlessly guiding both the couple through their pre-wedding journey. Then, on the special day, I continue to provide support to the couple, plus their friends and family starting from when the guests arrive pre-ceremony, all the way through to the conclusion of the reception.
Q 2. How do you approach crafting a personalised ceremony that reflects the unique love story of each couple?
Answer: In the creation of the ceremony script, I’m interactive in leading my clients in the process to ensure that the wording, inflections, tones, music, traditions and symbolisms align perfectly with their story and preferences. I ask them about how they met, their journey together, their interests and so on to better know them personally, plus I offer to help them customise their unique, personal wedding vows to each other. The ceremonies I perform are naturally light-hearted, romantic and fun, but as needed, I also create the more serious and sensitive moments. I tailor each ceremony to my clients' wishes, including their music choices before, during and after their ceremony. I’m more than happy to incorporate any traditions, symbolisms, cultural elements, pets, etc into their special day anywhere in Australia.
Q 3. As a private Wedding Dance Instructor, how do you tailor dance routines to match the personalities, preferences and capabilities of each couple?
Answer: In support of tailoring dance routines for my amazing wedding couples, I’ve written approximately 1,500 wedding dance choreographies to music ranging from Tchaikovsky to Ed Sheeran to Daft Punk. To quickly take a couple from being 'beginners' to 'confident dancers', I adopt a crawl-walk-run approach. Firstly, I adaptively match dance steps to the rhythms of a couple’s chosen song to then teach the “mechanics” of each step to the couple. Then, I use these steps to write a choreography to the chosen song, and for this routine to be taught in stages to each couple. The final touches then focus on styling, contingency management, wedding dance attire, the best time during the reception to do the dance, etc.
To help every dance couple best, I provide four teaching aids:
1. A detailed five-minute, take-home instructor video summary per lesson in which I alone am videoed dancing and explaining every step just taught for the Lead and Follower
2. Free after-hours phone support from me when the couple is practicing at home
3. Printed illustrations of the footwork for the dance steps taught
4. Stationary for note-taking by each couple during the dance lessons
When combined, these four teaching aids ensure frustration-free lessons for all of my wonderful couples, and the rapid learning of their Wedding Dance!
Over many years, I’ve taught so many unique and amazing wedding couples including professionals like surgeons, barristers, engineers, athletes, fellow dance instructors, etc. I’ve supported those with special needs and have worked with couples of various backgrounds and beliefs from Australia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, New Zealand, USA, and beyond. In supporting those with special needs, I tailor the dance steps to enhance their strengths as a couple. In supporting same-sex couples, very early I help to establish who (regarding the dancing only) will be the Lead and Follower. With couples who learn rapidly, I simply increase the tempo of the private lessons. With couples needing some more tender-loving-care, I discreetly slow down the tempo of the lessons and teach easier dance steps to support their learning journey.
My couples always have the option to learn a simple dance routine to the first half of their song, or to have a full choreography to their entire song. Equally, a couple could choose to do more complex multi-part mash-up across extracts from numerous songs attracting multiple dance styles to match the array of rhythms. Using my DJ background, I’ll also provide for the couple the required song editing to slice and merge the song sections together into the one single song file. The goal, for every couple, is simply to make them feel confident and fantastic with their Wedding Dance on their special day, to then re-use the steps taught to perhaps dance together forever!
Q 4. As an MC and DJ, how do you handle last-minute changes or requests during the event to ensure flexibility while maintaining the overall flow of the celebration?
Answer: As a former National Project Manager, I professionally know the importance of thorough, prior planning with my wedding couples ahead of their special day. This includes working with them to complete a detailed Wedding Questionnaire and Run Sheet, that I’ve designed, to determine what MC and DJ considerations are needed plus the chronology of these. This pre-planning helps to give my wonderful couples more trust and certainty in the flow and fun of their wedding event.
The pre-planning also places me in the best position to respond to last-minute changes and requests during the event. These might include suddenly rearranging the run sheet to accommodate a change in guests prearranged to make speeches, or any unforeseeable delays within the event. It could also include music requests from the guests on the night. For this, my DJ laptop has over 21,000 songs in its hard-drive’s song library. Plus my iTunes account remains open during the wedding, so if needed, I can source, purchase, download and play any song within sixty-seconds. Across the event, I also regularly communicate with the wedding couple and other vendors to maintain the overall relaxed flow for the entire wedding.
Q 5. In your experience, what are some common challenges couples face when planning their ceremony, reception, dance, and music, and how do you help them overcome these challenges?
Answer: The very common challenge couples face is it’s very frequently the first time in their lives they’re organising a wedding event. There are so many waves upon waves of new considerations as they progress along their wedding planning journey. A very small example could at least include:
Compliance with the Marriage Act, 1961 (Cth) e.g. the requirements around legal documentation including the Notice of Intended Marriage (Form 13), Declaration of No Legal Impediment to Marriage (Form 14), Commemorative Marriage Certificate (Form 15), Ceremony Marriage Certificate (Form 16), etc.
The overall ceremony script, its minimal legal requirements to solemnise a marriage and choreography of the wedding party during the ceremony.
The restrictions in allowing two persons to marry in Australia (e.g. the legal implications of “consent”), how will the marriage be formally registered with the local Births, Deaths and Marriages Department and (if desired) the process to change a surname post-wedding including how to gain an Official Marriage Certificate.
Whether to dance to part of or all of their wedding dance song, the impact of their wedding attire (e.g. the train of the bride’s dress, the groom’s jacket, footwear, etc), and how a couple can be positioned perfectly for end-of-dance photos by the guests.
How to optimise the Special Effects of interactive Dance Floor Lighting, Dancing on the Cloud, a Personalised Wedding Monogram and Indoor Cold Sparklers.
What songs are to be played at possible key moments during the Ceremony (e.g. Processional, Registry Signing, Recessional, etc) and Reception (Couple’s Entrance, Wedding Dance, Cake Cutting, Parent / Child Dance, Bouquet Toss, Couple’s Departure, etc).
I always gently lead my couples through the waves of considerations via proactive consultation and planning these elements with them well ahead of time. Whilst well ahead of time, this support is spread over time to avoid an overwhelm of information for any wedding couple. Essentially, I endeavour to be a guiding mentor and friend who, in a trust-building way, aims to proactively provide solutions and reasons to a couple even before their questions come to mind.
Q 6. What advice do you have for couples who want to incorporate unique elements into their ceremony, dance, or music choices to make their wedding stand out?
Answer: Let’s make it happen! As a Celebrant, I’ve supported the ceremonies of many couples including cultural traditions, symbolisms, remote locations, personal songs, personalised ceremony scripts and vows, the involvement of pets, etc. As a private dance instructor, I’ve worked with couples from many cultures, sometimes with their chosen wedding dance song sung in a foreign language to which I’ve taught and written their personalised wedding dance routine.
As a Wedding MC, I always suggest several fun ice-breaker party games that each couple may like to consider. As a Dance Instructor, I can also suggest a surprise 5 minute Group Salsa Lesson for the guests to get them all onto the dance floor ready to party!
Lastly, as a DJ, I’m open to completely customising the music to each couple’s desire (e.g. 80’s, 90’s, R&B, Reggae, Jazz, House Music, Country, Religious, etc) and can provide special effects (e.g. Interactive Party Lights, Dancing on the Cloud, Personalised Monograms, Cold Indoor Sparklers, etc).
Q 7. If unforeseen circumstances arise and you are no longer able to perform your services, do you have a contingency plan?
Answer: Absolutely. I will always attend a wedding event if physically able (and have not missed any occasion across ten years). However, if for any reason, I am unable to fulfil my duties, appropriate replacement vendors will be sourced. In the unfortunate event of an accident on my way to a wedding, I have a sign that I display on my windscreen whilst in-transit. This sign states that I am a registered Celebrant on my way to officiate a ceremony, with a request that first responders call the listed phone number to notify the Australian Federation of Civil Celebrants (AFCC). This notification immediately triggers a call out to all other celebrants in the area. Once the call out is accepted, all required details of your ceremony will be available to the new celebrant. The same process applies to my MC and DJing services, where the DJ Alliance Australasia (DJAA) will be promptly notified in the event of any unforeseen circumstances and a replacement vendor actively sourced.
Q 8. What are your qualifications and work experience to-date in support of wedding couples?
Answer: I graduated from Year 12 academically in the Top 1% of all Queensland schools to then earn a Bachelor of Business Degree from the Queensland University of Technology, where I then became a national Project Manager and CFO for large $100M companies. I then moved onto working full-time within the wedding industry in 2014, and earned my Certificate IV (Celebrant). I’m a fully registered, national Wedding Celebrant with the Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department, a certified member of the Australian Federation of Civil Celebrants plus am a certified member of the Alliance of Celebrants, Queensland. I’m the former Director of three dance studio locations, with twelve instructors and thousands of students. To-date, I have eighteen years of teaching experience and have written over 1,500 wedding dance choreographies across multiple Ballroom and Latin American dance styles. Lastly, I’m an accredited member of DJ Alliance Australasia (Australia and NZ) with over ten years of experience as a professional Wedding MC and DJ with special effects. To-date, I’ve supported about 2,000 weddings (in varying roles) and my business, Let’s Marry has received over 150 consecutive Five-Star Google Reviews.
Q 9. Why have you become the Wedding Specialist?
Answer: I’m a romantic at-heart who enjoys proactively removing the stresses and overwhelm for couples along their wedding journey. For each wedding couple, this means they can focus more on each other and to truly love their special day.
In conclusion, our recent collaboration with Mark at Let's Marry has been nothing short of inspiring. His meticulous processes and the personalised journey he provides for couples align seamlessly with the values we uphold here at Van Dev Weddings. Mark's commitment to creating a harmonious celebration, coupled with his extensive experience and robust contingency plan, sets a standard that is truly unparalleled in the industry.
Exciting news awaits our Van Dev Wedding clients! As a token of our collaboration, we're thrilled to announce that Mark is extending a no-obligation one-hour Celebrant consultation and information session. Step into the welcoming ambiance of his Let’s Marry home office, where Mark will provide a thorough overview of all aspects of your ceremony. From legalities, set-up, script, rehearsal, symbolisms, rituals, readings, music, paperwork, to government policies. This session is designed to address all your questions and ensure you feel well-informed and empowered to make all your important Ceremony decisions.
But that's not all … Mark is generously offering one free two-hour Wedding Dance Lesson to all couples who purchase any of our full planning packages. This is a fantastic opportunity to refine your first dance, create intimate dance moments with your fiancé, and elevate your guests' experience on your wedding day. To claim your free dance lesson, click the button below and let us know which Full Planning Package you're interested in.
Finally, to discover more about the various services Mark provides at Let's Marry, click the button below.
Written by Kodie Van Deventer and Mark David
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"I’m a romantic at-heart who enjoys proactively removing the stresses and overwhelm for couples along their wedding journey" 🤗