Author: Kenny Casanova

(518) 506-3305 – For an Affordable Wedding DJ in Albany NY… Party Planning Tips & Advice Blog.

Each and every time that I meet up with a bride and her groom for what they might want to hear at their wedding, Steve Jobs plays a big part. THe bride plays me a song on her iPod, I pull up the contract on my iPad and her husband-to-be breaks out some photo ideas on his Mac.

Then when the wedding happens, the majority of the music we hear is the direct product of iTunes.

Steve Jobs was the Michelangelo Buonarroti of our lifetime and we can only hope he left notes behind to continue his impactful ways on technology in the years to come.

In the last year, I have become an iPad 2 user. It really is great and I can’t live without it. I use it for calander planning, syncing information with my phone, bringing up song samples, providing photograph samples for customers and also enjoy capabilities and to surf the net. I even watched Toy Story 3 on it the other day, and enjoy a great Scrabble Game called “Words WIth Friends” from time to time. All of this in an easy compact tool that Steve Jobs dedicated his life to, in this great finale release.

Steve Jobs will always be remembered for making modern computing simple, seamless with other mediums and a very satisfying experience. The co-founder of Apple created the old school Apple I & II computers in the 70s. Later, he gave us the Macintosh and the iMac. Then people wanted better music capabilites on the computer so he added music to loop with the creation of iTunes and then the iPod. Then peopl wanted to make connections, so he added phone call capabilities with the iPhone, and then bundled it all together in the end with the Star Trek-like iPad.

Who knows where exactly things will be for apple in the future? I can only imagine Jobs has left his company behind a truck load of ideas for the years to come, and I can only hope that they will see the ideas through.

I just jumped on the apple band wagon the last couple of years, but know that people have been here a long time. Either way, many in the country agree that Steve Jobs will, in fact, be very missed.

Clifton Park Elks Lodge # 2466 – Wedding Venue Review

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of being the DJ once again at The Clifton Park Elks Lodge. Aside from some really good home-made cooking and tasty food, the people are very easy to work with at the lodge. They offer a decent nice venue at very reasonable pricing. They also really allow a lot of freedom to the bride and groom in the outline of the night’s events.

The Lodge’s facilities at the Clifton Park Elks are a great place to have the wedding of your dreams or enjoy a great barbecue. Guests can choose from their indoor facilities with 2 connecting rooms, dance floor and complete bar, or their out-door pavilion with a large grill and on-site sporting games. The Elks Lodge can also custom create a combination package of both.

The food really is great considering they cook all their own food without a cateror. It has a more homey-like feel to it, rather than the mass-produced feel that some of the bigger venues have, and I think that the guests appreciate that.

They do serve their guests the buffet food portions which slows down their buffet line to some degree. However, the hand-carved prime rib was high quality and great for a smaller-to-medium sized venue. The sides were really good, as well, and they even featured their own home-made sauces, like a great bistro horse-radish for the beef.

If I could change one thing, I would probably open the buffet line up to both sides of the table to speed up the serving, and set up a separate station for the hand-carving roasts. However, because it is a smaller venue, maybe 80-120 guests in full capacity for the dinning room, it is possible that space is an issue.

There is a nice little bar in a separate room for the drinking enthusists, as well as a small bar in dining room.

One more thing I really like is that they are super easy to work with. For example, the lodge doesn’t force the cake, or toast on you. In a lot of cases, wedding halls and catering venues really push to have the cake cutting activity very soon after the dinner. This helps them organize the employees’ duties in the back and an early cake activity can actually maximize employee potential and save the hall money. However, an early cake is not always in the best interest of the party, as many people leave right after the cake, and the activity can really slow down the fun. At the lodge, they are really cool with letting it happen later. I also don’t think they try and soak the bride and groom with a cutting fee.

The lodge is conveniently located at 695 Macelroy Road in Ballston Lake NY. This location is right on the border of Clifton Park and is an easy place to get to. It is still far enough away from the commericialism right off of the 87 exit.

If you are interested in booking your small to medium sized wedding there, the phone number is (518) 877-5200.

The whole idea of having a wedding cake tradition with music and couple feeding really has been around forever, though it has transformed more into what we know it as today in recent times.

During the ancient Roman Empire, the groom would cbreak up a bread-like cake and sprinkle the crumbs all over his bride’s head. In the 17th century, a large decorated wedding pie was uhe dessert of choice, with one main ingredient: a glass ring hidden inside to symbolize that the finder was the next to be married. After the 19th century came about, we really started to see the big frosting giants with multi-layering.

No matter which way you cut it, everyone tends to agree that music makes things better, so somewhere along the line music was added to the mix.

Having a mood-setting wedding cake theme song is a great way to put the people into the mindset of the bride and groom. However, how do you pick the right song?

The best thing to think about when choosing your wedding cake theme song is to think about what kind of atmosphere you would like to set during the actual cake cutting activity. If you want “fun,” I wouldn’t go with classical music or jazz. If you want classy, I also wouldn’t pick Def Leppard. Happy, party, fun, serious, nostalgic, classy, and romantic are a bunch of moods that you could set. Remember to always pick a suitable song that goes along with the feeling you would like to convey.

Partially from an earlier blog, here is a good updated list of songs that you may want to use for your wedding reception cake cutting activity:

Ain’t That a Kick in the Head – Dean Martin
All My Life – KC & JoJo
Better Be Good To Me – Tina Turner
Better Together – Jack Johnson
Cut the Cake – Average White Band
Cuts Like A Knife – Bryan Adams
Eat It – Weird Al Yankovic
Happy Together – The Turtles
Hit Me With Your Best Shot – Pat Benatar
How Sweet It Is – James Taylor
I Do – Colbie Calliet
I Got You Babe – Sonny Bono & Cher
I Wanna Grow Old With You – Adam Sandler
Ice Cream – Sarah McLachlan
If I had A Million Dollars – Bare Naked ladies
It Had to be You – Harry Connick Jr.
It’s your Love – Tim McGraw & Faith Hill
I’m Yours – Jason Mraz
Love and Marriage – Frank Sinatra
Mack The Knife – Bobby Darin
Marry Me – Train
Pour Some Sugar on Me – Def Leppard
Recipe for Love – Harry Connick Jr
So This Is Love – Cinderella Theme
Sugar, Sugar – The Archies
That’s Amore – Dean Martin
Theme From ‘Jaws’ – Jaws Soundtrack
This Could Be The Start of Something Big – Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme
This Guy’s In Love With You – Herb Albert
When I’m 64 – Beatles

Lady Gaga’s new song sounds just like… Just like…. Hmmm.

In case Lady Gaga’s new track “You and I” seems to sound familiar or like something else to you, you are probably right for two reasons. The music sounds like one song, and the singing sound like another. It is almost as if Lady Gaga has created her own funky fresh mashup for the little monsters on this one. Can somebody say, “remix?”

So after hours of racking my brain, I think that the pop-guitar music sounds like Shania Twain “Man, I Feel Like a Woman,” and the way she sings it really, REALLY lyrics sound like Anna Nalick’s “Breath (2am).”

PRODUCTION/MUSIC – For one, the song was produced by Robert “Mutt” Lange, the producer of Shania Twain’s Come on Over (as well as countless other rock/pop blockbusters). “You and I,” the radio release, which is actually a remix from the original studio trac, is now sort of country/pop and resembles Shania’s choppy guitar riff from “Man! I Feel Like a Woman.”

LYRICAL ARRANGEMENT – Okay little monsters. Here is the big one. Just like “Born This Way” sounded like Madonna’s “Express Yourself,” listen to Anna Nalick’s “Breath (2am)” and tell me there isn’t some similarity.

INDIVIDUAL LINE SIMILARITY – There is also to line “It’s been a long time…” that bothers me. I feel like that is somewhere else, sung identically, but It is not in Nalick’s song. If anyone recognizes it, please let me know. First, I thought maybe I heard it in “What’s Up” by The 4 Non-Blondes, but that wasn’t it, though that track , too, does sound a little like Lady Gaga’s “You and I.” Your thoughts? Drop me a line if you can think of it.

LADY GAGA’s “You And I” – So here it is… Leave a comment below and tell me what you think. You can also email me at ken@theDJservice.com.

Who would have known that one day I would have to DJ a wedding and play “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and really mean 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 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!

Whenever I see something cool at a wedding that I am the disc jockey for, I feel the need to share. Are you looking for a fresh idea to dress up your tables at your wedding? Why not try jazzing things up with table sashes?

This new trend is an affordable way to really bring some color to your wedding reception.

I was the disc jockey at a wedding last week at The Franklin Terrace in Troy, NY and they had some really great sashes going on for their guest list of about 180 people.

Over black table clothes with dark pink napkin accents, their white table scarfs had black Oriental print running right down the center. This idea can really make your colors pop!

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Stunning and beautiful!