Month: September 2009

Do you really want to win big at your wedding? How about choosing a Vegas Theme?!Not too log ago,  I was the disc jockey for a great wedding reception at The Western Turnpike Golf Club that had a “Las Vegas Night theme.”

SELECT A THEME AND SUCCEED

First off, never be afraid to select a theme for your wedding. All of the best weddings I have ever been to and really remember are the ones that had themes to them. And when you assign a theme, everything plans itself!

At this particular theme wedding, I asked the bride why they “decided to go Vegas.” The bride said that selecting and creating the details of theme was the only way she could get the groom to buy into having a hand in the time involved in wedding planning. In the end, she said her decision was the right one. By the end of the night, the guests had a blast and it was a very different and memorable party for all.

Thinking of planning something similar? You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Here are some ideas that they used, as well as a few others I have seen…

INVITE FOR THE NIGHT

So if you have chosen a Las Vegas Theme for your wedding, you need to project this rightfrom the start to your guests.

For invitations that scream Las Vegas, attach the actual invitation to a playing deck of cards, poker chips, or dice. If you are really creative, a custom caricature, kind of like the walls at Delmonico’s Steakhouse  on Central Ave might be fun. Portrait the bride and groom as casino dealers or mafia, or a lounge singer and a showgirl. The couple could also be the King of Diamonds or the Queen of Spades on the face of a playing card!

You can even mock up an Elvis Impersonator marrying you in some cheesy Las Vegas-style hotel!

ROLL IN THE GAMES

Once you are ready and have a game plan, the creation of a decoration stockpile must begin!

Can you get a slot machine for the night? Can you create an awesome roulette wheel with crazy demands fom the bride and groom on it to let your friends spin?

You really want to create a feel. You want your guests to swallow the atmoshere the moment they step in the room.

The shuffling of the cards. The rolling of the dice. Drinks being served by showgirls. Real black jack tables just for fun.

Aside from the obvious lounge lizard music like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Louis Prima and other Italian American oldies, decor will totally be your key to winning it big with your wedding.

The visual plays an enormous role part in getting over the theme and in this case, you don’t have to spend a lot to get that sweet cheesy Vegas feel.

SIMPLE ATTENTION TO FINE DETAIL

If you really want to sell the idea to your guests, don’t skimp on the easy stuff. Buy a bunch of playing cards and poker chips from the dollar store. BUT BUY A TON OF THEM!At the reception I did at The Clubhouse, the bride and groom scattered thousands of loose cards and chips everywhere around table centerpieces, by the guest book, on the gift table and on pretty much any flat surface available.Here is another idea… hire an Elvis impersonator, a showgirl, or a Chipendale to pretend to be guests! They can walk around and entertain during dinner. Maybe they could also take pictures with your guest in a photobooth, or magnet shoot.

CENTERPIECES

The great thing about a Las Vegas Theme is you can really choose from a variety of ideas to get the theme over; music, gambling, showtunes, and even food. Whatever you choose for your centerpiece, I wouldn’t go with the traditional flower arrangement. Maybe something camppy like one of those Leg Lamps in A Christmas Story would be good. Why? What’s the signifigance? I don’t know!Even a gift basket of casino like game stuff would be a great decoration for your table. It also can make for a great pastime while the guests wait for the big introduction!

No matter whatever casino-related centerpiece you may choose to dream up, one idea can be to have a special colored poker chip taped underneath one chair at each table to signify who gets to bring the masterpiece home.

DRESS TO IMPRESS

Think RAT PACK! Many black felt gangster hats and jeweled tiaras are also a must to keep in hand! Maybe even get a Money Boa for the bride.  Another idea is to put a bunch of cheap black sunglasses on the tables. Because a number of people will be wearing tuxedos, a lot of the pictures will end up having that monkey suit and sun glasses combination that The Rat Pack made famous.

GO BIG OR GO HOME

Another great idea I have seen is to make massive eight-foot cardboard cut-outs of playing card suits and put them in the corners of the room. The diamonds and clubs and spades were all made out of painted cardboard with a cross section in the back of each to help them stand. The heart was right near the head table. Each fixture was outlined and finished in glowing white Christmas lights.You can also secure two refridgerator appliance boxes, wrap them in white paper, and paint black dots on them. The bride and groom at this wedding created a gigantic pair of dice that sat off to the right of my DJ set up. It was great!

This couple also opted for a massive candy buffet table. The colors really got over the feel of the party and there were loads of packets of bogus bills and dice beads mixed throughout to keep them in the Vegas mindset! During the open dance time, it was funny to see guests throwing the money around and “make it rain in the club” to various hip hop songs, afer dinner.

The decorations really turned the hall into the Vegas strip! Aside from the playing card suits, they hung slot machine backdrops and a big Las Welcome to Vegas sign on the wall.

For Vegas themed favors, you can get custom printed poker chips, or make dice out of card stock and fill them with goodies.

Have fun with it and don’t be afraid to be different!

DJ KENNY CASANOVA – SCHOOL TEACHER

For those of you who don’t know me that well, I am a DJ, an experienced pro wrestling ring announcer, and NY certified high school English instructor for the Capital Region Career & Technical School. I like listening to music, writing unpublished novels, long walks on the beach and long trips to the Chinese Buffet.

I work my hardest to help at-risk students pass with a Regents diploma, and also prepare them to have the must-needed communication skills to survive in today’s modern workplace. Every day, my 12th graders fine-tune their assignments for me and save them. In the end they will have a professional portfolio that will make them look valuable to a prospect employer when they get out of the “hell hole” that is school.

Finding motivation with my students is a tough job. Most of them would be a another drop out, and are with me as a last chance. Many of them do not want to be there, so you have to do stuff to make it interesting to them. After all, which would you rather do? Listen to an ipod, play Rock Band, or write an argumentative essay in MLA format for me? Being a full-time DJ as well, often helps me to connect with them.

Last week, I was teaching an “Easily confused words lesson” when we came across the words “Illusion vs. Allusion.”  Students knew the term illusion, but sometimes spelled it with an “A”. With this spelling, it means to talk about someone else’s work within your own work.

Students often use the wrong word in their papers, due to a lack of practice and sometimes a lack of care. They often misappropriate “their, there, they’re”, “to, two, two”, and “your, you’re, ur” (ur, being the anti-English teacher text lingo for the word “your”.)  I would say 75 percent spell college C-O-L-L-A-G-E, and laugh when I tell them that one day they plan on going to a posterboard with ripped out magazine pictures glue-sticked all over it.

Keeping up on the music that matters to my students helps make me to provide relevant examples, as well as makes me a good DJ.

In the allusion talk, we discussed how Robbie Williams’ new hit, “Hotel Motel Holiday Inn,” was actually an allusion to old school rap band Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” Another example to help them understand the word was Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” dropping a Lynard Skynard work into the chorus, over a Warren Zevon sample.

Being a wedding DJ that is easily booked five or six times a week during the busy seasons, it is my business to know music. Knowing the new stuff that my students dig, is very advantageous as a teacher. Making fun of the whole Taylor Swift / Kanye West thing at the VMA is pop culture to them and using this topic to define vocab words and put them into sample sentences, is much better than using content that doesn’t matter to a high schooler.

It works. It also helps me find some cool sweet 16 gigs!