What should I know about music for the ceremony?

Wedding Ceremony Music – The Basics

Music for your wedding ceremony is important. This part of the day is the serious time set aside where the bride and groom express their feelings for one another and exchange their vows. That means, all in all,  the ceremony is the time set aside for the mushy stuff. Therefore, you probably want to think about slower classical wedding music, new age, or very slow classic rock or pop ballads.

No matter how you look at, there are a few stages to a wedding ceremony, before the bride and groom say I do:

PRELUDE - There should be about four or five songs played as a prelude when the guests are seated. This sets the atmosphere for the guests. If you have no music playing, it feels more like a funeral than a wedding! The music selections should be light and elegant.  A different song is often selected when the mothers of the bride and groom are seated.

PROCESSIONAL - The groomsmen and the groom usualy move to the front from the side. They do not walk down the aisle, This signifies that the ceremony is about to formally begin. There are two songs during the processional: one song is chosen for when the bridesmaids enter, and the other song is to be the most dramatic choice, selected for play when the bride walks down the aisle.

RECESSIONAL - One last song is played after the kiss for the bride and groom  to walk back up the aisle to. Think happy!  The music played in the recessional, should symbolize the happiness of the couple’s new life together.

If you are like many, you probably want the traditional classic wedding music, but have NO CLUE what the songs are called. Here is my playlist when I am told to play the traditional favorites:

1) PRELUDE: Spring, Canon in D,  Four Seasons Winter, Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,
2) PROCESSIONAL - Air of The G String
3) BRIDAL MARCH - Traditional Bridal March Song “Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin” Richard Wagner (also known as “Here Comes the Bride.“)
4) RECESSIONAL - The main one is Mendelssohn— “ Wedding March” from Midsummer Night’s Dream (Traditional Recessional), some also select Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy” from Symphony No. 9: Movement 4.

EXTRA SELECTIONS - There can be additional specialized songs selecte at different points in the ceremony, depending on the actual ceremony itself. Sometimes a special song can be played during or after the exchanging the rings and vows, and the lighting a unity candle.

RESTRICTIONS - Some churches have rules about wedding songs used during your ceremony so be sure to ask your clergy person or officiant! Remember, if you are non-traditional, you might get a kick out of white wedding, but your reverend may very well not be a Billy Idol fan.

There is a growing trend to get away from the traditional classic music. However, it is recommended that you shy away from anything upbeat. Adding too much craziness to the ceremony is not recommended, because it takes away from the seriousness of the union at hand. For your wedding ceremony, your music selections should all probably still be softer and with a slower tempo. However, that doesn’t mean you have do the same thing everyone does.

You can totally customize the song selection to fit your taste.  There is plenty of good music out there that may be better suited for you than classical music.   One of the most moving bridal marches I have seen was set to Enya’s “Only Time.”  However, the most memorable one was last summer, when I had a bride who walked down the aisle to Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire,” so go figure.

Wearing The White Dress is Important

However, here is just a thought: wear the white dress.

While this may not matter in all cases according to the actual taste of the bride, there is some logic behind having the traditional dress kept sacred. While choosing to where the white gown may hinder some of the creative possibilities that can go a long with the chosen theme, the symbolization behind the dress may be more important.

For one, the dress symbolizes purity and class. The older guests will apprciate that the traditional bridal garb has not been kicked to the wayside.

The second important reason for the white dress is you don’t want the theme wedding to just feel like a really big costume party. At many good theme weddings, the guests are encouraged to wear something to go along with the theme. For example, if you were going to a pirate wedding, a beach wedding, or a halloween theme wedding, you can be sure that most people will dress a certain way. Having the bride still wear the white dress makes her stand out as being special.

Finally, as little girls, most bride’s envision walking the aisle and looking like a princess. On your wedding day, you still want it to feel like like a wedding and despite all the other other theme related things, the white dress will make this happen.

Sing For Your Supper - Wedding Activity

Have you ever been to a wedding where the buffet line is like three miles long and they are only serving on one side of the table. If so, then you know that it can often be a lenghthy, drawn-out deal just to get your plate of food.

With this being said, do you have a buffet planned for your wedding? If so, you also have to consider that there is always the question of when the people will be served. One fun alternative table serving activity that you can try is called, “Sing For Your Supper.”

“Singing For Your Supper” is a fun activity to entertain your guests during your wedding reception that also creates an order for dinner to be served.

As with all wedding activities, this a fun game is one that is chosen specifically only upon the bride & groom at their request. While this may not be for everyone, it is a fun icebreaker that can kill the wait associaed with a buffet line of, say 150 people.

Basically speaking, a microphone is passed from table to table when they are up, and the only way their table can move to the buffet line, is to have a volunteer break into song. In the spirit of the wedding, the song selection is usually supposed to be a chorus of a romantic song, dedicated to the bride and groom from table #6, for example.

Often times reluctant at first, wedding guests will quickly catch on to this activity, after they see how much it brings joy to the bride & groom. Once they buy into it, more times than not, the wait will become very creative and entertaining!

ALTERNATIVE GUIDELINES –
Have fun with the guidelines and make it your own. Below are just a few ideas you could go with to make this activity your own…

“LOVE” - the bride & groom may request that their guests sing any song containing the word “Love”

“DUETS” - Two people may have to sing in order for the table to move forward.

Whatever you do, have fun with it!

This past weekend, I was the DJ for a fun wedding in Poestenkill, up on the mountain. Everything was beautiful. The people came dressed nicely and were enjoying some drinks and pictures with some friends they haven’t seen in years. Yes,  all was well, until, as luck would have it,  a bastard-of-a-storm would start up hard, five minutes before the bride was to walk the aisle.

That first cold smack of rain was the first of a series of bands that would comrprise Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene.

The Original Ceremony Site

The wedding ceremony was to take place just outside a huge white wedding reception tent, underneath a pretty apple tree. There was an elegant white arch decorated in flowers and everything looked picturesque, that is until the sky turned dark as the bride was stepping out of her limosine.

So at preceisely 6:30, we figured we would try and wait it out. Fifteen minutes or so, we decided our efforts were to no avail. The rain only started coming down harder. As the rain really started to dump on us, I could see that the guests were upset and that something needed to be done so I acted as wedding planner and ran back to the log cabin where the bride and her mother were gathering umberellas.

“How about we just switch it to under the tent on the the reception intro entrance way?” I asked. We quickly shifted gears. A few guests helped me move a few tables and it was on. As the town justice took his place with the groomsmen, it was evident that there was no way the people were going to hear him over the hurricane raindrops pounding on the vinyl roof above. Easy fix; give the justice a microphone.

Everything came off perfectly, except for one thing just before the bride could say, “I do.” As the bride’s aunt read a prayer into the mic, water began to flood all around the electrical panel set up, right behind my DJ Booth set-up. It seemed that the tent was a little off-level and all of the tent’s rain water was irrigating and collecting finding its exit-spout right behind me. That is when the water started to short out the power surges for the bar and myself.

We lost microphone power for all of 20-30 seconds, but people just smiled. I quickly re-routed the cord to the power line that lit the tent lights and all came off without a hitch.

Just as Murphy’s law would have it, five minutes after the ceremony, the rain stopped for about an hour, but it didn’t matter. In the end, people had a great time!

A great speech can happen with a little preparation.

Writing a great best man or maid of honor toast requires creativity, patience, hard work, and innovation. However, do not be afraid. The bride or groom thought enough of you to ask you to be their best man. Therefore, have faith in yourself and your ability to say the right thing. You can do it, especially if you follow the one most important and often-overlooked part of the writing process.

PRE-WRITE!
Before you actually start writing, jot down some ideas that answer the BIG QUESTIONS that people might want to know. Write down questions you think people would ask you about the bride and groom, if they could. Here is a collection of questions that best comes to mind.

1. How do you know the bride and groom?
2. Why did they choose you as best man?
3. What are the first five adjectives that describe the bride or groom?
4. How has the groom changed since meeting the bride?
5. How did the couple meet? How did the groom tell you about her?
6. What is some good marriage advice you’ve received or witnessed?
7. What is a good story that illustrates the personality of the bride and/or groom is?

Once you have the above questions figured out, the hard part is done. The next step is putting the answers into some kind of order that makes sense. Aristotle once said that when writing you need, “a beginning, a middle, and an end.”    …Therefore, here are a few ideas to bring all your pre-writing thoughts together with organization in mind:

WRITE
1. The Beginning – Start with some kind of introduction. Get your audience’s attention and let them know who you are. Because everyone loves humor, it is often great to start with something that will make everyone laugh. This is also a great way to build up the courage to speak well in public.

2. The Middle – This is where the questions that you worked on before will really help. As the best man, you may know the groom better, so it is easy to talk about just the groom. However, a great toast will be evenly balanced, speaking about both of them. Avoid ex-girlfriend stories. Keep it appropriate for the parents and older folks in the room!

3. The End – It is best to wrap up your toast with some kind of wish of happy future for your bride and groom. Then finally, raise your glass in tradition to close with, “congratulations”, “cheers”, or “salud”, and don’t forget to drink from your own glass!

DELIVERY
The very last thing you want to do before actually creating your final draft is to think about DELIVERY. Having good public speaking skills comes with time and practice, however, a few simple tips will get the inexperienced by without any problems.

1. Keep your toast relatively quick. Probably more than half of the people there do not really know you. Nobody really came to hear your speech so, if you go on forever, you may actually annoy some people if you have too much to say.
2. Eye contact. Do it.
3. Create distrations.  Don’t do it.  That means saying “Umm” or ”Ahhh” … fiddleing with papers … swaying back and forth. Things like these make people look at you instead of listen to what you have to say.
4. Try not to read everything word from word from your notes. Only write down phrases that need to be read word for word. It is actually best to write up a detailed outline of what you are going to say so that you do not simply read to your audience. You tell it from your heart.
5. Try and involve different emotions in your speech.
6. Once you are done and do not forget to raise your glass and get everyone to do the same. If you forget to drink from your own glass, people often are not sure if you are done.

Colbie Caillat - Photo by Martijn vdS

While Colbie Caillat retains her signature sound that fans have come to love on like “Bubbly” and “Falling For You,” there is one refreshing difference on this great new wedding “first dance” option.

“I Do” has that tinny acoustic guitar/ukelele sound which, in a resurgence,  is becoming popular of late in many tracks. For “I Do” this trendy instrument-choice coffee house-like sound  works perfectly and adds an additional layer of fun to a great track. This simple light sound has brought about recent success for songs like Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours,” and their duet “Lucky“, as well as the Bruno Mars hit ”Lazy Song,” “Hey Soul Sister” by Train, and Travie McCoy’s collaboration with Bruno Mars on the hit track “Billionaire.”

Enjoy!

Photo by Martijn vdS

Completing a Wedding DJ Worksheet is a must-have for success.

Though there are many disc jockey and photographer planning forms out theere on the internet, most wedding professionals provide their own custom document to help you prepared for wedding day activities and at the same time, get organized for themselves. Using a wedding professional’s own worksheet will help you better understand how they see a traditional wedding (and many non-traditional ones) will unfold. It also helps you communicate to the DJ what they need to know in a simple recognizable format, collecting everything onto a few familiar pages for the vendor.

Albany, NY Wedding DJ Kenny Casanova’s worksheet helps you get prepared for your wedding day activities. Our wedding DJ worksheet, as well as a photographer worksheet, will help you make sure that you do not forget anything on the hectic, special day when you get married. There are FOUR aspects that you will want to keep in mind when filling out your worksheet:

1) THE TONE OF YOUR RECEPTION – Some people want classy and elegant. Others are hoping to have an all out party celebration. Some people want somewhere in between. Checking off on the sheet and key songs/activities, plus the overall tone you are looking for will help us to better understand what you are looking for.

2) MUSIC PLAYLIST – Anything goes as far as options are concerned, so getting some ideas out onto paper will help customize the feel you are looking for. It is your special day so you decide how you want to plan the music for it. You can either create an involved hands-on playlist, or leave it up to us. While you do not need to write every song down that you would like to hear, writing down 10-20 might give the DJ a better idea of what you are looking for.

3) DO NOT PLAY LIST – Make sure to write down the songs you absolutely do not wish to hear, so that there are no surprizes. We hate playing The Chicken Dance, for example, and would not play it, unless you asked. However, some DJ’s love it! If you didn’t put this song down on your plan sheet as a “DO NOT PLAY,” you may end up thinking your DJ clucked everything up, watching grandma flapping her wings. You can control this!

4) ACTIVITY OPTIONS – There are so many activities that you can engage in. Our worksheet has many of them listed and you can simply crodd off or circle the ones you like.

If you would like to check out our latest worksheet draft, email me a request at ken@theDJservice.com and we will send it right over!

.

Runner Runner's "I can't Hardly Wait"

With so many old first dance songs out there, it is easy to grab up one people have heard before and seen used at a wedding somewhere. Therefore, if you really want to stand out, you really should consider it important to choose a first dance song that is both important and different.

I’m don’t know you’ve heard this one yet, but there’s a super new track option out there that you may want to look at. As a Wedding song option, and an alternative ceremony song, some people are starting to look at this new tune that is climbing the charts.

Runner Runner‘s new song, “I Can’t Hardly Wait,” is about a groom who is anxious to finally get married to his bride. The lead singer, Ryan Ogren, has explained in interviews and on stage before performing this song live that he wrote this song for his own fiancé, and their wedding.

Runner Runner, a punk band from California, is finding great success from this ballad, an unusually different sound for their norm. The band’s name originated from their love of poker. The card term ‘runner runner’ means to beat the odds and pull a winning hand in the very last possible moment.

My wife and I took a gamble and chose to wait and see what was out there before we selected this unfamiliar song for our first dance. We picked it only a week after it hit the charts. From the reaction, it looks like by holding out until the last possible minute, we too picked a winner.

Here are the lyrics for “I Can’t Wait” Lyrics, by Ryan Ogren

The way you curse while we are in traffic, A million flavors of your chapstick,
The way you keep my heart captive… The Journey concert in A.Z., Do you remember we sang faithfully?
I’ve still got that old hotel room key… This is the way I feel.

Cause I can’t wait for you, to be my wife, To live this life, together.
And I won’t let you go, I need you to know, that you are my heart, forever.

And on, and on, and on…

The way you like to sing my songs,
you always know when something’s wrong.
The way you say you miss me when I’m gone.
The things you do that show you care,
you are always down for truth or dare.
Freeze this moment, let me stop and stare.

Nothing before was real. This is the way I feel

And I can’t wait for you, to be my wife, to live this life together.
And I won’t let you go, I need you to know, that you are my heart, forever.

And on and on and on… And we’ll go on and on and on

For better or for worse, no matter how it hurts
You’ve got me to hold you hand.
I promise you the world, in your wedding dress
We’ll dance till no one’s left.

Don’t wanna blink my eyes. I Don’t wanna miss a thing

I can’t wait for you, to be my wife.
To live this life together.
And I won’t let you go, and I need you to know
That you are my heart, forever.

And on and on and on… And we’ll go on and on and on.

Petersburg Memorial Hall; a decent place for a wedding with a budget, about 30 minutes from Troy.

If you are looking for a nice event hall for a small-to-medium sized wedding that allows outside catering, you probably know that your choices are limited. Many places today, have in-house catering, as this is a big money maker for the venues. If you live in the Troy area, or nearby, and are working with a budget as many of us are, Petersburg might work for you.

“Petersburg, NY? Where the heck is that?” It’s funny. I’ve been a disc jockey for a number of years now and never heard of Petersburg Memorial Hall before, either.

I live in Wynantskill, off of Pawling. This is between Troy and Albany and I asked the same question. After I initially talked with the bride and groom about providing music for their special day, I had to run a Google map search to familiarize myself with a town that was less than 25 minutes away from me. (In case you are like me and are wondering, Petersburg is the next town down Grafton State Park.)

The reception I DJ’ed for was at a cute little place called “Petersburg Memorial Hall,” located conveniently on 71 Main Street. The venue is located right before the Petersburg Town Library. The hall provides plenty of parking and does work out to be a great little place for a great little wedding to take place. 

Someone looking for a smaller wedding with the potential to meet affordability restraints can benefit considering this venue. While many halls in and around the Capital District that house wedding receptions also provide their own dinning packages, at the Memorial Hall, this is not the case. Here, you can book any catering service that you like and also make provisions to set up your own bar. This means an incredible amount of savings, as these two expenses are quite often the largest for any wedding.

The Memorial Hall can seat  80-100 people fairly comfortably. It has two side access doors to allow easy access for vendors and also any decorating purposes you may have. It has plenty of chairs and tables and a decent linen selection resource, along with seat covers.  The hall also has very high ceilings and also a great little stage with draw curtains that could easily be used for your DJ or even a small live band.

There are a few little facility points to note. There is a decent kitchen, but it is not very large. It is probably, however, suitable for your outside caterer to make due with for what the hall can comfortably occupy. Also, it is import to note that there is only one shared bathroom. It is, however, handicap accessible, I believe.

On a technology note, the town of Petersburg is out in a rural area. It does not provide any Sprint cell phone coverage, but it does have Verizon cell phone coverage. Internet access is also provided to the hall through a wi-fi hub in the town library, nearby.

I would give it a three out of four stars for a good affordable wedding venue/hall option.

One neat tool to be able to explore the possibilities, and then make a visual representation of what you want the overall wedding theme to be is polyvore.

This online tool is is a great resource to help you get your ideas out to wedding vendors and people helping you plan your special day.

Polyvore lets you make a collage of products and images. It is most often used for fashion collages, but wedding collages are popular as well. On polyvore, you can set up the ideal feel of the wedding. You don’t have to put in the exact items you have or will purchase.   Set your budget aside, and create the dream wedding on polyvore.  Then look to reproduce that look and feel for your own event.