Meet Forget the Name — the live music duo my husband and I have been building together alongside this studio for a couple years.

We play acoustic-driven music with real warmth — the kind of sound that fills a room without overpowering conversation, then builds into something that gets people out of their seats. Our set list spans decades and genres, because great events aren’t one-dimensional and neither is great music. We’re equally at home setting a sophisticated tone for a cocktail hour as we are closing out a night on a high note.

We’ve played Indianapolis corporate events for companies that wanted something more memorable than a background playlist, weddings in Indianapolis where the couple wanted real emotion woven into every moment, and private parties in Indianapolis where the host simply wanted their guests to remember the night. Every event is different. Every set is built around what the moment calls for.

Why are we telling you this?

Because the families and professionals who walk through our studio doors are exactly the people planning these kinds of events. The mom who brings her kids in every year for holiday portraits is also the one organizing the neighborhood block party. The executive whose headshots we update each spring is the same person in charge of the company holiday event. The family celebrating a milestone in front of our camera this fall has a graduation party on the calendar for spring.

We already know you. We already know your family, your style, what makes you light up. Trusting us with your event’s soundtrack is a natural extension of everything we’ve already built together.

What makes a live duo different from a DJ or a playlist?

A playlist doesn’t respond to the room. A DJ doesn’t make eye contact with your grandmother when she tears up during a slow song. Live music is the difference between an event people attend and an event people remember. There’s a spontaneity to it — a back-and-forth energy between performers and guests — that simply can’t be replicated by pressing play on a device.

We’ve watched it happen at corporate events in Indianapolis that started as stiff, badge-and-lanyard affairs and ended with the CFO on the dance floor. We’ve seen it at private parties around Indianapolis where the host pulled us aside afterward to say it was the best one they’d ever thrown. And we’ve felt it at Indianapolis weddings where the music stopped being background and became part of the story the couple tells for the rest of their lives.

That’s what we’re after every single time we take the stage.

Two businesses, one creative partnership

Running a portrait studio and a live music duo as a husband-and-wife team is — to put it mildly — never boring. There are days when we’re editing sessions in the morning and loading equipment in the evening. There are weekends when the camera bag and the guitar case are both by the front door. But the through-line has always been the same: we create experiences for people that matter. Whether that’s a photograph they’ll hang on their wall for decades or a night their guests talk about for years, we bring the same level of care and attention to both.

Forget the Name is the part of us our portrait clients rarely see — and we think it’s time to change that.