This weekend, I had the pleasure of being the disc jockey at a fun wedding at Key Hall at Proctors of Schenectady NY. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this venue, it is conveniently located to the left of Proctor’s on State Street in downtown Schenectady, NY.
This hall is the former Key Bank who many may remember as being decked out in stone and marble flooring, now making an interesting backdrop for weddings and other events, alike.
For this particular wedding of about 100 guests or so, the front of the hall was curtained off to provide accommodations for a cozy ceremony. After the ceremony, the chairs are lifted and shifted back to the tables and the cocktail hour is ready to go.
Comfortably seating 200 guests for a sit-down dinner at Key Hall at Proctors, this hall is somewhat narrow, but is still very spacious. There is also a nice bar in the opposite corner of where the ceremony was set.
The food was great! The caterers had four different stations featuring a carving station, a pasta station, a nice buffet selection, and a hamburger slider table with homemade milkshakes to order.
If you are thinking about booking this hall for your wedding, the high ceilings and the original vaults from the old-fashioned bank make for some great picture opportunities, as well.
The acoustics are quite a bit tricky in this hall, but can be dealt with. I have found that an L1 Model2 BOSE System (not a model 1) is ideal to use for this venue. The Model 2 may be the best option for sound, due to the stone walls making it kind of gymnasium-like. Therefore, if you are looking at this hall, you may want to see if the BOSE L1 Model 2 is an option from your DJ.
This particular BOSE system (L1 Model2) has many, many small speakers (rather than one large one) that are tilted in many different directions and aligned into a sound bar-like position. This enables the speakers to send out a blanket of sound waves further at lower levels. This means you don’t have to crank the sound very loud to reach the back of the hall. What your DJ should probably do is turn the bass down a bit, as well, so that it doesn’t echo too much, as the acoustics in this hall will accentuate the bass that is already there.
In the end, Key Hall at Proctors is a good option where you can have your ceremony, cocktail hour and reception all in the same place.
DJ Kenny Casanova is Mayor Lou Rosamilia approvedThe community around Stowe Ave in Troy, NY had another great annual summer block party this past Saturday, August, 11, 2012.
There was so much going on at this block party that there really was a little bit of something for everyone. Families, food and fun were the predominating forces for this bright sunny day of celebration.
Having had some ring announcer experience for professional wrestling, including two times at the Times Union Arena in Albany NY with The WWE, I had the pleasure of being named the special emcee for a new feauture this year; championship sumo matches. The inflatible sumo costume challenge was good fun with the participants making their ways to the circle of competition accompanied with theme music and a ridiculous professional ring announcer providing live commentary to boot.
Additionally, there was this year’s installment of the traditional “No Hands Needed Mega Meatball Eating Contest.” There was also a tag team water balloon tossing contest.
A free BBQ was provided to all including hotdogs, hamburgers, cotton candy, sno-cones, sausage & peppers, and watermellon. Mayor Lou Rosamilia even joined in the fun at the grill. He cooked and served the community members of Stowe Avenue all they could eat.
In the end, it was a great success. A great time was had by all.
So the ring has been given, now, what next? Is there anything important you need to think of when choosing your actual wedding date? How to choose a wedding date, is difficult and should not be taken lightly.
How to optimize the selection of the actual calendar date for your wedding is easy when you eliminate your competion.
When you are picking a date to throw a big event like a wedding, one should approach things with a good business mind. That means, KNOW YOUR COMPETITION. Like any other important date, be smart about selection. You should act like a real good planner and think of all the reasons your guests may not be able to come on that particular day. Believe it or not, people may not make your most special date their top priority.
You probably can understand that planning a wedding on Superbowl Sunday is probably not the best idea, if you have a lot of sports fans on either side of the family. So when do you plan it?
Choosing the actual day of the week is tough, but it is not the biggest battle. Most people will agree that a Sunday or a Friday is a good idea, but Saturday seems to be even better due to commute issues for your guests either before or after the ceremony and reception. If this is true, then what you really need to focus on is which Saturday on the calendar is best to choose? To figure this out, think about which Saturday will pose the least amount of distrations to the majority of your guests.
STAY AWAY FROM HOLIDAYS – Face it. Aside from your one uncle that farts a lot, and the one cousin who gets extremely drunk even at communion, for the most part, you really want your all of your friends and family to be able to make it. However, there is one mistake that a lot of party planners seem to make… PUTTING THE DATE ON A HOLIDAY, figuring that your guests have the date off anyway.
AVOID CAUSING A BREAK IN YOUR GUEST’S POSSIBLE TRADITIONS – Yes, at first, selecting a holiday as your wedding date seems like a novel idea; getting married on Christmas Eve, or The Fourth of July, perhaps. You probably figure that most people already have that date off, and it is fun to be able to say, “we are getting married and starting our NEW lives together on NEW Years Eve!” …or something to that effect. However, placing your special date on a day where other people may already have plans, or traditions is quite often a really bad thing to do.
For one, it sometimes can make some very important people in your lives have to pick between attending either their yearly plan/tradition, or attending your function. This can upset your guests or even you when you see what their decision is. It is a bad position to put people in on both sides.
I was the DJ for one wedding that actually fell on Halloween. It was also a “no kids allowed” wedding. This meant that some of their guests had to get babysitters and also, could not go trick-or-treating with their children. So what ended up happening? Many guest with younger children left way too early for the success of the wedding reception. When it came time to dance, a large portion of the guest list had left.
AVOID PLACING YOUR DATE ON A FUN DAY – Another reason chosing a fun calendar day for your special day is not a good idea is you may loose some of the fun people who might have attended that are not all that close to you. If they are not your very best friends, but you do want them to attend, it is possible that they may succumb to the temptation of your calendar date’s competition. That can mean less people you haven’t seen in a long time, or even worse, less of a good time overall.
A good example of this might be placing your wedding date on Saint Patrick’s day. While it is not traditionally a day that people may get off of work, it is a day that many other parties and events plan on.
An Irish Wedding theme can be great! However, choosing the actual Saint Patrick’s day date for your wedding will make some of your lesser important guests to have to choose between you, and that nice pint of green beer that is waiting for them down the street at their favorite pub. Again, as a rule of thumb, keep in mind that your most special day is not always going to be THEIR most special day. And you do not want to lose guests that you value simply because you picked one day, when you could have picked another. (For some ideas on Irish theme weddings check out my blog here.)
So think twice before choosing that holiday for your special day. If you create competion for your event by choosing a bad day from the start, you are only setting yourself up for potential heartache.
Interested in having good low key dinner or cocktail hour music, but don’t want to fall too heavily on music of the old? One option is to find artists that take modern songs and cover them in a loungy/acoustic twist. There are some good modern alternatives that I really enjoy playing at parties.
Jack Johnson and Michael Bublé are two more famous singers, known for some great acoustic and jazzy tracks. They are certainly worth taking a listen to. However there are a few others out there that are lesser known.
Boyce Avenue is an fairly new American acoustic rock band incidentally, named after a combination of two streets the brothers lived on as children. Formed in Sarasota, FL by three brothers Alejandro, Daniel and Fabian Manzano, this group does a great job giving modern pop music and a new acoustic life.
BRUCE LASH – Another cover tune track that I find interesting was featured in the 2008 box office hit Marley & Me. “Lithium” is performed by Bruce Lash and written by Kurt Cobain founder of Nirvana.
A great speech can happen with a little preparation.
As a DJ in the Albany, NY area, I have seen some great best man speeches and some ones that really tank. As a high school English teacher, as well, it is immediately obvious for me to identify which person has done their homework before setting down their glass.
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.
