The person behind the decks
If you've made it this far, you're probably wondering who'll actually be standing behind the decks on your wedding day.
Hi, I'm Dan (Daniel Komadina) — the owner and wedding DJ behind Groove Union.
I'm based on the NSW South Coast and have been DJing since I was 15 years old. There have been a few breaks along the way while life took me in different directions, but across it all I've spent around 14 years behind the decks performing at weddings, pubs, clubs and private events across New South Wales.
Today, weddings are my speciality.
For me, being a wedding DJ has never been about simply playing music. It's about understanding people. Every couple is different, every guest list is different, and every dancefloor deserves to feel like it couldn't have happened any other way.
The songs people forget
One of my favourite parts of DJing isn't playing the obvious songs.
It's finding the forgotten ones.
The songs that make people stop mid-conversation and say,
"I haven't heard this in years! - this is a tuunnne"
Those are my favourite moments.
I genuinely love digging through thousands of tracks to find those hidden gems that everyone knows, everyone loves, but nobody thinks to request.
Music has always been personal
People often ask how I seem to understand exactly what they're after.
The truth is, I don't think my music taste came from one place.
It came from growing up around good music.
My mum, my friends, family gatherings, road trips, school, festivals, pubs and countless nights out, discovering artists I'd never heard before all helped shape the way I listen to music today.
Every person I've met has unknowingly contributed something to my taste.
I think that's why couples often tell me afterwards that I somehow understood exactly what they wanted without them having to explain much.
It's probably the compliment I hear most.
That I managed to translate a handful of artists, playlists or ideas into a night that felt like them.
Those comments honestly mean more to me than hearing someone say I mixed well.
Declan & Hannah at Bundanoon Art Museum
Every moment starts with you
No two weddings I perform are the same.
Some couples send me hundreds of songs.
Others send me five.
Some don't know where to begin.
That's completely fine.
Your music becomes the starting point.
From there, I'll build around your taste, introducing songs that naturally fit your personalities while creating those unexpected "how did you think of that?" moments throughout the night.
I don't copy and paste playlists.
I don't press shuffle.
I prepare every wedding individually because no two couples are the same.
Why I still DJ pubs and clubs
Although weddings are my primary focus, I still enjoy performing the occasional pub, club and corporate event throughout the year.
Not because I'm chasing bigger crowds. Because music never stops changing.
Playing public events allows me to test new music, experiment with different transitions and stay connected with what's genuinely working on today's dancefloors.
Everything I learn comes back into Groove Union.
I believe that's one of the reasons couples often describe my weddings as feeling current without forgetting the classics.
What I listen to
My personal music taste is actually very different.
If I'm making mixes for myself, you'll usually find me somewhere in the underground house and techno world.
I produce and mix purely as a hobby.
It's my creative outlet. Ironically, you'll almost never hear those tracks at one of my weddings.
My weddings aren't about me. They're about you.
That said, I genuinely enjoy almost every genre.
From house and techno to Aussie pub classics, funky disco, R&B, rock and throwback pop anthems.
Good music is good music.
Groove Union isn't my entire life
During the week you'll usually find me delivering parcels as a postie.
Believe it or not, I absolutely love the job.
It gets me outdoors, keeps me active, gives me an incredible work-life balance and the chance to spend all day listening to music.
It's probably the best environment imaginable for discovering music and keeping my playlists fresh.
It also means I'm never trying to cram three or four weddings into every weekend just to make ends meet.
I deliberately limit myself to around one weekend wedding and one weekday wedding each week.
That gives me plenty of time to properly prepare every event instead of rushing from one booking to the next.
At the time of writing, I have around 40 weddings booked over the next twelve months, and I'm incredibly grateful for every couple who's trusted me with one of the biggest days of their lives.
Declan & Hannah at Bundanoon Art Museum
Before Groove Union
Before focusing on weddings, I worked as a freelance graphic and website designer within the music industry.
I created artwork, branding and websites for artists around the world.
Collectively, the artists I worked with accumulated well over 200 million streams.
While I loved the creative side of the work, I eventually realised I was spending more time convincing people why good branding mattered than actually creating it.
So I stopped freelancing.
Now I simply put those skills into my own business.
Every part of this website, the branding, the graphics, the planning systems and the content has been created by me.
I genuinely enjoy building systems that make everything feel simple, organised and professional for the couples I work with.
Outside of work
When I'm not DJing or delivering parcels, you'll usually find me:
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Exploring somewhere in my van
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Riding my bike
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Catching up with friends over a game of pool
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Playing video games
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Working out
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Sitting in my sauna
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Discovering new music
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Working on Groove Union
I'm probably a little obsessed with improving things.
Whether it's refining playlists, making my planning process smoother or finding another forgotten song that makes people lose their minds on the dancefloor.
What matters most
At the end of the day, I don't measure a successful wedding by how many songs I mixed.
I measure it by the moments.
Grandparents dancing together.
Friends with their arms around each other screaming lyrics they haven't heard in years.
Parents who haven't been on a dancefloor in decades.
A couple looking across the room and thinking,
"This is exactly how we imagined it."
If people leave saying they had fun, that's great.
If they leave saying,
"That wedding felt like them."
Then I've done my job.
Because great music isn't just heard - It's felt.
by Samuel White at Figbird Cotage
by Samuel White at Figbird Cotage