Rahul's Song Approval

Guests at the reception ask for a song from their own phone, and nothing goes into the queue until Rahul says yes.

Who this is for

Rahul Bhoyar plays weddings around Nagpur with his brother Sagar on the mixer and two boys who carry the speakers. Between November and February he does about forty nights. The moment this matters is around eleven, when the bride's uncles have finished eating, the floor is full, and six people are leaning over the console at once, each one saying their song is the next one.

How the job is done today

People shout it into his ear over the speakers. Some send it to his number on WhatsApp, which he cannot read with a torch in his eyes. Somebody's nephew holds up a phone with a video already open and expects him to plug it in. A cousin writes four names on the back of a card wala envelope and leaves it on the mixer, where it gets a glass of cold drink on it by half past eleven. Rahul forgets two of them and one aunty is upset for the rest of the night. Sagar keeps saying yes to everyone because he cannot say no to a guest, and then Rahul has to break it to them.

The screens, in order

1. Open the wedding — Rahul starts a night for one wedding and gets a short link and a QR square the family can print for the tables.
2. Ask for a song — A guest types their name and the song they want, and that is the whole page.
3. Rahul's list — Every request sits here, oldest at the top, waiting for him to accept it or let it go.
4. Coming up — Guests see the songs Rahul has accepted, in the order they will play, so they stop walking up to the console.
5. Close the night — Rahul shuts the wedding so no more requests come in while the boys are winding cables.

What it keeps track of

• Wedding — whose wedding, which date, which hall, the short link, open or closed
• Request — guest name, the song they wrote, film or singer if they added it, what time it came, waiting or accepted or dropped
• Coming up — which accepted song, what position in the order, played or not yet
• Never play — songs the couple asked him to keep out, and one line saying why so Sagar does not argue

The one decision that matters

The real choice is whether a guest ever sees the word no. One way, the request page tells them plainly that Rahul dropped their song. That is honest and saves them asking twice. The other way, the guest only ever sees the accepted list, and a dropped song simply never appears there. Go with the second. This is a wedding. The man who asked is the groom's mama and he is standing next to his wife. A refusal with his name on a screen is a story that gets told at the next family function. Rahul saying nothing is understood by everyone. Silence is a full sentence at a wedding, and the software should be able to speak it.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out song search and any music library. Do not try to match what the guest types against a list of tracks. Guests spell names in every possible way, half will type in Hindi and half in English, and matching will be wrong at the worst moment. Let them type free text and let Rahul read it. He has the songs. He has had them for eleven years. Also leave out dedications and long messages, because someone will write a paragraph and Rahul will have to read it on a phone in the dark.

How you would know it worked

By midnight nobody is standing at the mixer. Rahul finishes the wedding without a single envelope on the console, and Sagar has not once had to shout kya bola over the speakers.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I play at weddings around Nagpur with my brother. Make me a website where I open a page for one wedding and it gives me a short link and a QR square the family can print for the tables. A guest opens that link on their phone, types their name and the song they want, and that is all. On my phone I see everything that has come in, oldest first, and I press one big button to accept it or drop it. Whatever I accept shows on the guest page as coming up next, in order. If I drop something, the guest should just not see it anywhere, nothing about it being refused. Nothing goes into the list until I say yes. Make the writing very large and black on white, because I am standing under lights outside and my brother's phone is five years old. At the end I want to close the wedding so no more requests come in.