Every bride-to-be has dreamed about getting married practically since they were little girls. Some brides remember drawing themselves with veils in crayon in preschool. Others remember practicing a new surname on the back of a a high school notebook.. No matter how you cut the wedding cake, every bride-to-be wants their wedding to be considered happy, special, and sometimes “THE BEST THERE EVER WILL BE.” However, the reality is …dreams do not always unfold into reality. So, what exactly can a bride do to help her happy visions actually come to life?
The Perfect Wedding
DO YOUR HOMEWORK!
A wedding reception is like a research paper. To make for a great one, research has to be done. But before you do any research, you need to focus on finding the right questions, before you can try to find answers. First off, the bride and groom should identify “The Big Question” and then decide on a thesis (an answer) they are both comfortable with.
THE REAL QUESTION IS…
The only real way to be happy with your reception is if all the people around you are happy. The big question, therefore, then should not be “What do I want?” but rather, “What do I want for my guests?”
By formulating this question every time you plan an aspect of your party, you are planning from the guests’ perspective. Planning using the “Big Question” instead of something more selfish and meaningful to only you, will spawn a number of sub-questions that go along with it like, “what do I want my guests to say when they sit down?” and also, “what do I want my guests to say when they walk out the door?”
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?
Demographics is everything. Thinking about who is going to be there before you actually plan, will make your reception “the best wedding of all time.” Different people like different things and you have to have a happy medium of what they will like and what you will like too.
BEING A GOOD WEDDING HOST MEANS BEING UNSELFISH –
Realizing that you are trying to accommodate all of your guests’ wishes from a great wedding reception is only the first step. Next, you have to do your research. Your homework is to find what really makes you happy, and also makes every guest attending happy as well. Because wedding receptions happen everywhere everyday, it is safe to say thousands of reception options have been created and your answers are out there. You just have to find them. Using this planning philosophy can work in every area including food, entertainment, music and even the overall look & layout of the decor.
Fun With Design
THINK OF EVERYONE AT YOUR RECEPTION –
Don’t force eating restrictions on your guest. It causes friction.
Let’s apply this unselfish planning thinking from the guests’ perspective to one particular aspect of the reception: The Cake. While you may absolutely love the idea of a classy cream cheese carrot cake, Uncle Charlie may absolutely HATE IT. That doesn’t mean you have to be unselfish and not have carrot cake, it only means you have to think outside of the box. What would my guests like to see in a cake? How can I make everyone happy? In this case, why not TRY WEDDING CUPCAKES. Have you heard of this? You tier up a wedding cake display with many different types of cup cakes, in displayed in the shape of a traditional wedding cake. Everyone, including you and Uncle Charlie is now happy.
Same goes for the seating. Putting older folks close to the DJ is usually a bad idea!
As a wedding DJ specialist in Upstate New York, I tell my clients that if you really want to have your guests look back at attending “the best wedding ever,” keep them in mind as much as yourself. Happiness breeds happiness. Playing your favorite songs is important and fine, but remember to always involve some of your guests’ favorite songs as well-even when they might not involve the same types of musical tastes.
Find the happy medium, it is out there.
CAKE
Speaking of the cake… Here is something else to think about: Try to make the cake as late as possible as this is often a point of exit for many guests. No matter what anyone says, dessert feels like the end and if your reluctant party-goer guests get this feeling, they may leave early!
No idea what to do for a guestbook at your wedding? Why not go for the sampler platter?!
Here are some pictures from a wedding I did at The Stockade Inn in Schenectady NY.
They did a great job decorating. I particularly liked their guestbook area, where they took three ideas off my site and blended them together. The did a wishing tree, a record signing and also a traditional guest book.
CLICK TO THE LEFT AND TAKE OUR VIRTUAL TOUR FROM DJ KENNY CASANOVA OF A GREAT WEDDING BARN OPTION PERFECT FOR A RUSTIC WEDDING
Only about 15 minutes from Albany, NY this could be the perfect wedding barn option for you.
They have fields and fields of beautiful green for your ceremony, a great rustic barn for the reception, and even livestock down the path for endless photo options! Kenny got to play music, and also play with the goats. Now what more could you ask! But seriously it is elegant and rustic at the same time and really worth looking into. Watch the video above to see the layout in our virtual tour form.
This wedding site option is highly recommended for the rustic wedding seeker. Also, check out our pictures from on location below:
Welcome to Indian Ladder Farms
Indian Ladder Wedding Location
Wedding Food Truck Rustic Option
Trendy Food Truck Friendly
Indian Ladder Wedding Cake Time
Outdoor Wedding Blanket Idea
Fun Country Theme Wedding Head Table
Indian Ladder ALtamont NY Wedding Dining Hall in The Barn
Great Altamont Wedding Location
Indian Ladder Altamont NY Wedding Ceremony Site Guests
The French-Canadian Trough Dance by Albany NY DJ Kenny Casanova
In an earlier article, I discussed how the tradition of the French-Canadian Ugly sock dance (click here to read) was making a comeback and beginning to flourish once again, throughout Ontario Canada and other French-speaking parts of the country.
Subsequently, this odd sock dance tradition that punishes single siblings for not already being married has bled some into the states. Today, brides and grooms in the Capital Region and specifically Albany and Saratoga Springs, NY who come from our northern neighbors have been working the custom into their wedding planning. Now, another odd Canadian tradition related to the Ugly Wedding Sock Dance is making its way into our wedding halls. This one is called “The Hog Trough Dance.”
The overall philosophy behind The Trough Dance is still the same as the Sock Dance; to punish an unmarried older sibling at a younger sibling’s wedding reception by making them dance in a ridiculous manner for not being married yet. Hoever in the Hog Trough Dance, the sibling dances barefoot in a pig trough or a wash basin, sometimes full of liquid. The idea is that if you are older and still not married, you need to be thrown into the spotlight and peer pressured into tying the knot soon, to avoid the public ridicule at your next brother or sister’s wedding. Because you are not already married, you are indangering the passing down of the family name, and this is punishable by mud.
The French-Canadian Trough DanceFrom my research, I found Ethnologist Jean-Claude Dupont of New Brunswick , showing the earliest written description of the trough dance. He said that, “a musician would play a tune and the single sister had to dance in the muddy pig trough, which had been brought inside special for the event.”
Dupont went on to explain that if the sibling were a male, things would be even worse in a French-Canadian Hog Trough Dance. When it was a bachelor who was being punished for not marrying before his younger sibling, “the brother would actually be made to eat out of the same trough!”
The tradition also sometimes involved dancing in and around a trough filled with food that would be sampled after the dance. Sometimes, a variation with a basin filled with alcohol, a mixture of beer, and hard liquor that the dancer must also drink after the dance.
Hopefully it is just mud.I have learned that updated variations to this tradition that has evolved some in recent years. Early on, legitimate dirty old troughs pulled right off the farm complete with mud, steaming fresh pig droppings (or worse) were in fact used for the dance, in the most extreme cruel and unusual forms of this wedding torture tradition.
You can bet that feet covered in pig droppings would have left some really lasting impressions on guests sitting near the dancer’s piggies after the festivities. This is all the reason more to make sure that you are married before your younger sister.
However, in today’s more politically correct version of The Dreaded French-Canadian Trough Dance, we see a more forgiving version. People spend a lot of money on clothing on the big special day, and not many people will want to cooperate in such a dance knowing that they will get ridiculously dirty. Another issue, is many halls do not want confetti getting around, let alone pig $#!t, so you can imagine what their responses may be to this type of custom.
With the loosening of family constraints, we now see relatives pushing victims into the Trough Dance in a clean trough purchased just for the occasion.
Plan Your Wedding Well So you Have A Full House in Attendance All Night Long
Top 10 Wedding Planning Advice Tip List for Weddings in Albany, NY, or around the world.
If you are planning a wedding around Albany, NY, or anywhere else in the world, this “Top 10 Wedding Planning Advice Tip List” is one that can help. There are a number of tricks you can do when planning a wedding that cost absolutely nothing, in order to bring great success to your special day.
Along with the tips, our DJ Kenny Casanova has provided commentary for each point, explaining some failures he has witnessed in the Albany, NY Capital Region area that could have been avoided with some simple planning.
1) Avoid placing your wedding date on a holiday – this creates a built in competition quandary for your guests and you may find that your wedding is not everyone’s #1 priority.
Kenny Says…
“I was the disc jockey for a wedding at Malozzi’s in Schenectady, NY once on an actual Halloween night, October 31st. It was really great fun with the Halloween theme and a lot of the people got into the spirit in costumes, but there was a big problem with the selection of the actual date. Two of the grooms good friends could not make it to the reception, because they had children that they wanted to go out for trick-or-treating. The other issue was that the wedding reception was NO CHILDREN, so that it put some adults into a position where they had to pick friends over family. In some cases, family won and they didn’t attend the wedding.”
2) Give plenty of time for the invitation – Some people see that up to 6 months before the event is a good heads up time to RSVP. Others say even more time is essential to the success of your guest list attendance.
…says Kenny
“For my own wedding at Birch Hill in the Kinderhook / Schodack area, we had a great turn out. However, about a few weeks before the wedding reception, a cancelation came in after we finalized our numbers and we couldn’t find anyone within that time frame to fill the seats. It’s tough these days to expect people to be able to make it to an event with very little notice.”
3) Don’t force your lifestyle on your guests – If you are vegetarian or vegan, it may not be a good idea to only offer these dishes at your wedding. A good host tries to accomodate their guests desires in order to make them happy, not force something on them. This goes for food as well as music selection.
“If you have ever been to a wedding where the DJ is playing weird music you hate off the bride’s playlist, you know exactly what I mean. I was the DJ at The Edison Club in Rexford, NY once, off Grooms Road passed Clifton Park, and the guests were about ready to kill the bride for wanting death metal as her music of choice for the evening. As much as you may not like it, think mainstream appeal and you as a host will typically keep everyone happy. ”
4) Try and always plan for Saturday Night Weddings – Fridays people sometimes have to work and Sundays people have no day to recover/travel.
…says Kenny
“I recently had a Sunday night wedding at the Glens Sanders Mansion in Scotia, NY that ended at 11:00 pm. Many people left early so that they could get home at a reasonable hour because they had to work the next day. This meant people drank less, danced less and missed the cake cutting and some fun activities later on.”
5) Keep the invite list numbers as low as possible – Don’t invite just anyone. Your biggest expense is usually your venue/catering. Keeping your numbers down can save hundreds of dollars with only a handful of guests.
“A huge wedding at Crystal Cove in Averill Park, NY that I was the DJ for had a bride in tears because of the turn out. It seemed that something happened where a bunch of people from work that she only invited out of courtesy no-showed. She learned that they decided to go to CountryFest at Spac in Saratoga Springs, in stead, subsequently costingher about $1,200.”
6) Seat older people away from the DJ – Even if Grandma has a hearing aid and can’t hear well, she sure will hear the DJ if she is placed right by the speakers. She will also want the music turned down to practically nothing.
…says Kenny
“I was the DJ for a wedding at The State Room in Albany, NY. For whatever reason, a table was very close to the DJ booth, probably due to overbooking the hall’s capacity. All night, an old woman would give me dirty looks and complain to me that the music was too loud; even during dinner. However, the bride kept coming by and asking me to turn it up.”
7) Have Back Up Plan for outside weddings – whether it is the ceremony or the reception, have a back up plan in case it rains.
“We did a wedding reception once right near The Century House in Latham, NY where I bet they wished they had booked The Century House. Trying to save money, they decided against a tent and a huge rain storm hit. Despite making the best of it, moving the party inside was difficult and cramped.”
8 ) Be careful of allowing your photographer to overshoot – While you may like many photos as possible, shooting too many is pointless and will only make you miss your reception. Signs of Overshooting could include running longer than 45 minutes during cocktail hour, or being pulled out during the dance time of your reception.
…says Kenny
“One time at a wedding at The Franklin Terrace in Troy, NY, the photographer hept pulling the bride and groom out of their reception after dinner to take some more shots. As a result, the bride and groom missed a whole lot of the dance time and they were not happy, when the hall was ready to close up on their contracted time.”
9) Create a “Do Not Playlist” for your DJ – This will ensure there are no surprises.
“At a wedding I went to as a guest recently at The Elks Club in Clifton Park, NY, the DJ played the dreaded Chicken Dance, and a bunch of cheesy non-relevent 80’s love song music that the younger couple did not recognize. If they had specified what they didn’t like, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. (BTW – here is a list of 100 modern first dance & slow wedding songs from our site to help with keeping your wedding from sounding like the Delilah Show.)”
10) Do “The Cake Cutting” as late as possible – While the hall may push for the cake cutting immediately after dinner, remember, many people leave right after the cake. The cake cutting also can slow down the flow, when you are trying to get people to dance.
…says Kenny
“One time at Michaels Banquet House in Latham, NY, they decided to do the cake right after dinner to try and speed things up. However, after doing so, they lost a huge population of their guest attendance with two hours left. Know this; The cake is a good time for people to sneak out. ”
One fun addition to your wedding celebration in recent years is including a Slideshow for all your guests. These can really be a great success when done properly and can add a great bit of mood to the atmosphere you may want to set. However, if done incorrectly, they can fall short.
TOP 10 IDEA LIST ON – HOW TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL WEDDING SLIDESHOW FOR YOUR RECEPTION
The Wedding Slideshow is one of our popular DJ packages. It has become something many couples want to add, but don’t really know how. Having been the disc jockey in countless weddings in the Albany & Saratoga Springs NY region, I have seen quite a bit of good ones and also, some really bad ones. Here is a list I have put together to help clients understand what they should think about when considering a wedding slideshow.
TOP 10 THINGS TO THINK ABOUT WHEN CREATING YOUR WEDDING SLIDESHOW
1) PRESENTATION – Do we want the slideshow to be a featured activity as an event with a start and finish, or rather a backdrop decoration on a continuous loop?
2) PICTURE COUNT – Usually around 75-100 pictures is great for an event slideshow where your guests are instructed to watch a music video-like powerpoint presentation of pictures.
If you have a lot of pictures, it is best to make your wedding slideshow a continuous loop as a decoration in the background. Having your guests watch a 10-15 minute presentation as an event is too long and they will lose interest before the end of the slideshow.
3) MUSIC SELECTION OR NOT – Featured activity should be announced as an event and works best when set to music packaging it like a music video, with maybe one or two songs. (More than three songs begins to feel too long and your audience may lose interest.)
Digital Projection for Slideshow / Video
4) WHEN TO PLAY SLIDESHOW – “What time of the night should we show it?” Wedding Slideshows played as an event tend to work better during dinner while people are still eating, as to not take away from dancing time. If you are running a continuous looping slideshow as a decorative backdrop, usually cocktail hour is a good time to run it – and maybe into dinner – shutting it off during the dancing segment of the celebration.
5) ADDING SOUNDS – It is best to “keep it simple.” Adding crazy sounds or many little pieces of tracks to your slideshow is distracting to your audience and takes away from the visual on the screen.
6) EFFECTS – Avoid distractions. Powerpoint is loaded with them and it is easy to fall into using different ones everywhere. However, multiple effects like odd slide transitions become annoying to your audience quickly.
7) PICTURE SELECTION – It is best to try and have roughly the same number of slides for both the bride and groom. Using a sequential order is also a good idea, using the oldest pictures first, building up to the most recent. Then finally, having a number of pictures of the bride and groom together at the end, is best.
A slideshow can also be effective for couples who have had a destination wedding, or an elopement and want to now share the pictures of the actually ceremony to those at the reception that were unable to attend the vow exchange.
8) PICTURE TIMING – Usually around 4 seconds (give or take) is the best period of time to use between slide transitions. If you have a really large amount of pictures, you can cut off a half a second or so to help make it move a little faster.
9) SPEAKERS – Many people I have seen have opted to go with using their little computer speakers for the event-type slideshow. This is usually, as far as I can gather, usually because they want to exactly sync up pictures with the a particular line or something in music. However, I still believe it is best to keep it simple and just select a song or two and have your DJ play the song selections – and let the pictures do their thing.
10) PREPARATION – Many people try and get by with Microsoft running a slideshow automatically, however this is not a good idea. Using a program like Powerpoint PPT or even Google presentation is better. Using software that is designed to create a slideshow better lets you select the order in which you want the pictures to appear, as well as the time the picture remains on the screen.
