Wedding DJ Introduction Idea - Ribbon SticksHere is a fun idea… At a recent wedding at Moscatiello’s Family Italian Restaurant, 99 North Greenbush Road Troy, NY, the guests were provided with a bunch of ribbons attached to sticks.
Prior to the official wedding party entrance, the audience was instucted to shake the tassels at their seats, as the bride and groom entered the reception.
Upon the official entrance of the newlyweds at Moscatiello’s of North Greenbush, each place setting lighted up in color.
The bridal party intro scene at Moscatiello’s Family Italian Restaurant, (99 North Greenbush Road in Troy, NY) was vibrant and full of spirit, reminding me of a fan-crazed sporting event, not unlike that of a celebratory Brazilian Soccer game. Good show!
Another idea is to use the sticks instead of the rice tossing tradition that is often practiced just before the receiving line is put together, immediately following the ceremony.
Below are a few pictures of what party decoration web sites refer to as “ribbon sticks” or “ribbon wands.” The images below can possibly give you an idea of how ribbon sticks might look at your wedding…
Ribbon Sticks Brighten Up Your Wedding Introduction
Karaoke at your wedding can be fun, but it can also be dangerous! As some of you true-believer people may recall, Spiderman once said, “with great power comes resposibility.” If you are considering adding a little karaoke to your wedding for a fun activity, realize that you really should also set some guidelines so things don’t get out of hand.
Voice is power. Handing a microphone over at your wedding to anyone is giving someone the power on your special day. If you lose power at your own wedding, it may not turn out in the end exactly as you had planned.
Therefore, with that being said and not trying to come off as a total buzzkill, know that you can have karaoke at your wedding, but it really works best when you spoon-feed the audience only in little bits. If you are going the karaoke route for your wedding, just keep in mind that you need to control it, and just do a little bit here and there, or it could spin out of hand and become, “Uncle Jimmy’s Drunken Karaoke Concert,” rather than what you had dreamed of for your wedding night.
To avoid giving away your entire wedding reception to karaoke-hungry mic-hogging people who want to sing “Love Shack” and “Paradise By The Dashboard Light,” create a few simple rules that you can live by and everything should be alright.
I dj’ed a karaoke marathon wedding once at The Franklin Terrace in Troy, NY, and also went to one in Albany at The Elks that had a few karaoke mishaps because the bride said, “anything goes.” Since then, I make sure to mention the following guidelines to anyone I hear is thinking about having karaoke at their wedding.
1) SET A TIME LIMIT – Let the DJ know you only want karaoke at the very end, maybe the last hour perhaps, so that it doesn’t scare away guests who do not like it, and it doesn’t overpower the whole night.
2) ONE SONG ONLY – If you have a load of people who want to sing but only limited time, you can control the onslaught of karaoke requests from taking over the whole night, maybe by making a “fairness rule” that a person can only sing once.
3) NO DIRTY SONGS – A wedding typically has people of all moral walks in attendence. Therefore, don’t allow your DJ to accept songs with suggestive lyrics, and you won’t upset certain other people at your party. Grandma my not want to hear, “Shake That @$$!”
4) THE BANNING OF CERTAIN GUESTS – This idea would be good, but it usually doesn’t work without hurting someone’s feelings, and the last thing you want to do is to offend a person who may have a few drinks in them. If you really don’t want certain people to sing, you may not want to do karaoke at your wedding. It is very difficult and seemingly unfair to turn someone down who would like to join in on the fun.
5) FLIP THE KILL SWTCH – If it is starting to suck, end it right away. Limit young children who can’t read fast enough, or drunk people who drone on out of tune by having the DJ switch right back to dancing at the end of a terrible vomit-inducing track. This will keep the guests around who put in earplugs.
Stay strong, home boy. Following a few simple rules like these could allow for just enough karaoke flavor to your wedding to actually add something to your special night, rather than to take away from it. Good luck!!!
Many couples spend big bucks on decorations and flowers for their wedding and it is always the attitude that letting it all go waste would be a shame. My guess is that the bride and groom certainly do not want to take home a dozen huge floral arrangements that will only just be dead by the time they get back from their honeymoon.
Therefore, because you asked for it, we have decided to add the wedding centerpiece to our popular “TOP TEN LIST” articles. Here at TheDJservice.com, we have painstakingly put together our favorite centerpiece giveaway ideas that that will keep the guests happy after the last song.
1) FIND THE PENNY
Ask someone to hide a penny either under a plate or coffee mug at the table, or underneath one actual chair at each table. The person who finds the lucky penny gets to take hope the centerpiece. You can switch the penny up, if you like, to maybe a poker chip or something else that may go along with the theme of your wedding.
2) DONATION
Want to save some money? Those centerpieces became a tax deductible write off! If you are not all about the cash, it is also nice to know that you could be brightening the day of some people at an elderly home, or hospital, perhaps.
3) REWARD THE FIRST RSVPS
With this centerpiece giveaway, you reward your most prompt RSVP responders. As your RSVPs come in, simply keep track of the order. Then when you make your seating charts, you can put a sticker inside the place card of the people who sent in their RSVPs first., or just have the DJ read a list.
4) FIGHT CLUB
If you don’t want to really bother figuring out how give away your centerpieces, you can always have the DJ announce it is a free-for-all, at the end of the night. Then let your family and friends engage in a brawl.
5) ON THE DOWN LOW
If you want to play favorites, then this is the option for you. When you visit the tables, tell whomever it is you want to take the centerpiece that they can have it. This action will let you give them to specially chosen people, without having to make an announcement that might offend someone who is eyeballing the goods.
6) HOT POTATO
Have each table pass get ready to pass around an object like a napkin, dollar bill or anything. Announce that they will pass the item hot potato style around the table. Have the DJ play music and stop it randomly. When the music stops, whoever is still holding the passable object is the winner. They get to take home the centerpiece.
7) LOTTO TICKETS
Some people today like to give lotto tickets as party favors. If this idea works for you, whoever wins the highest dollar figure at the table, also wins the centerpiece.
8 ) ANNIVERSARY MATCH
Have the DJ announce that you would like to give the centerpiece to the person to the couple whose birthday is closest to today’s date.
9) TRIVIA QUESTIONS
You could always have the DJ read off a few questions and have the guests at each table compete for the centerpiece. He or she who writes down the most correct answers, wins!
10) BIRTHDAY
Let the guests know that the centerpiece will be awarded to the person at each table whose birthday is closest to the bride’s birthday.
Pick one, or leave the flowers for the janitor! Good luck!
Last week, I worked with local photographer Tony from Time Capsule Photo Booths. He did such a great job, once again as always, keeping the guests entertained that I figured it was time to share his grea service, and the idea in general with anyone who is planning a modern wedding looking for fun.
A new trend in wedding reception options to go a long with the current wedding cupcake and wedding magnet craze is to roll in a Wedding Photo Booth. “What exactly is a wedding photo booth?” you may ask.
In the corner of your reception hall, or maybe out by the bar in a separate designated area, a wedding vendor sets up a photo booth, not unlike the passport picture makers you sometimes see in the mall. Unlimited pictures are then shot as wedding favors for the guests, as well as collected in duplicate for a wedding scrapbook to be compiled throughout the night for the bride and groom.
The guests are first greeted by the vendor. Off to the side, many of the vendors provide a table loaded with silly props, hats, and costume accessories to dress up the photo shoot. Then the guests enter the photo booth with their selections and pull the curtains.
After each picture is taken, the guests inside the booth exit to be presented with typically two strip of photos within 20 seconds. One for a keepsake, and one to insert into a scrapbook being made for the bride and groom. Then the scrapbooking fun begins!
More guests enter and the fun begins all over again.
Depending on the wedding photo booth provider, specialization services to this idea may be available such as being able to add text or custom backgrounds to the pictures.
If you are interested in this idea and are in and around the Capital Region, you can check out a number of fine vendors that provide this service. One great vendor that we love working with is Tony athttp://www.timecapsulephotobooths.com/ . He is very professional, offers a number of custom packages and has a great selection of props for your guests to choose from.
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.
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:
wedding cake song list
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
