I just had the pleasure of DJing for a couple at Franklin Plaza in Troy, NY, which is a great hall with some really cooling lighting.
They had inflatable baseball bats and balls, a baseball cake topper and a first base guestbook that I really liked. The first base guest book was literally just that, a baseball base that all the guests could sign to be latter hung up on their wall.
Just picture the possibilities. You can serve popcorn and Crackerjacks. You can play the song before your intro. You can sign jerseys or bats for the guestbooks. You can use tickets or balls for place cards. You can do anything!
BASEBALL WEDDING THEME PICTURES IN ALBANY, NY
They also posted up the seating chart on a really great baseball themed directory that made you feel like you were looking for your seats right at Yankee Stadium in New York City.
Here are a look a t a few of the nifty things they did to pull it off!
Above is a video of my first time DJ’ing at Holiday Inn Express of Latham NY, this weekend. It’s a great place for a wedding reception with modern fixtures, multiple chandlers, ample seating and dance room for a medium sized wedding of maybe 150 or so.
Located right off of the Northway Route 87, Latham NY as a town is a great place to have a wedding; not too far from Albany, Schenectady and Troy, NY.
The Holiday Inn as a venue is a great place covering all bases for your ceremony and reception. At the wedding that I was the DJ for on Saturday, the bride & groom got married right on site, had a great photo shoot in the courtyard, and moved into the reception without a glitch. All inclusive is the key to easy transition and success for your special day.
At this particular wedding, the bride & groom had cake pops (another thing I am relatively new to), and wedding photobooth action provided by www.bryerphotography.com .
Holiday Inn Express Wedding of Latham, NY
A LOOK AT THE VENUE…
CEREMONY – The ceremony can take place in the Gazebo room or outside in the courtyard with a real gazebo.
For this particular wedding, it was overcast with a chance of rain early here in October, so the venue had a great backup plan all ready to go inside. This was good in the end because it did rain. However, everything still came off just fine.
COCKTAIL HOUR – Your cocktail hour can take place in a separate room, just outside the reception hall. In this room, there is a small fountain as a centerpiece for appetizers. The room is a little narrow, but has multiple doors for means of exit. The room is also right off of the reception hall, itself.
RECEPTION HALL – In the middle of the facility, the hall is easy to get to and very accommodating. They have a separate dance floor and the floor plan that the venue went with at this particular wedding was very effective, with entertainment in mind, as well as food service. (This is not always the case.)
Anyhow, without hesitation, I would recommend taking a look at this venue for your wedding.
Mountain View Fire Hall – A great place to reserve for your small / medium party
Planning a party of under 100 people or so? Looking for a hall with kitchen access? Want to keep the party affordable?
If you are in the Wynantskill / Troy, NY area and are looking for a good hall for a sweet 16 party, class reunion or engagement party, this may be the place for you. Both DJ Maria and myself have had the pleasure of serving as in-house go-to DJs for 90% of the firehouse banquet functions and we can safely say these are great people to do with business with.
Seating a small to medium party or event comfortably, Mountain View Volunteer Fire Company has a great recreational room for rent.
DJ Maria one foot out in the back starting the dance
Mountain View VFC has a full kitchen and allows outside catering. The idea of a venue allowing you to have full control of the food creates a potential for super savings for any party planner. There is a full kitchen set off to the side with two serving windows into the room.
There is comfortable seating for about 100 people still with room for dancing with plenty of additional tables and chairs available.
The hall is also ground level and handicap accessible. Here is the contact information:
Mountain View Volunteer Fire Company / Mountain View VFC 2 Shafter Avenue Troy, New York 12180 518/283-4530
Recently, we had a wedding venue coordinator bring us into the room of a well-known wedding reception hall over in Albany, NY. The room was beautiful, as always. This particular venue has great lighting, superb decor, and has a really nice dance floor entirely surrounded by well-decorated tables. Everything on this particular day was just great, except for one common thing…
…Poor Placement of The DJ booth.
The DJ table was about 75 feet away from the dance floor. The entertainment was buried by at least four dinning tables, off in a distant corner of the room.
“Uggghhh!” I thought to myself before speaking. “Is there anywhere else I can set up?” I asked, as politely as I could.
She answered, “No. That is where we ALWAYS put the DJ.”
“If the wedding party has a band, do you put them in the same place?” I asked.
“Well, not really. We usually put them right next to the dance floor.”
This is a common problem with wedding venues.
Schenectady – At this hall, a Wedding DJ is often placed high on a balcony in the background. While this may look good, it is not a good option. It sounds like absolute $#*%! and leaves no opportunity for guests to make requests.
OUT OF SIGHT – OUT OF MIND
There is also a very popular wedding hall in the Schenectady, NY area that likes to put the DJ way up high on a balcony. This looks great to your venue hall, and may look neat in the final pictures too. However, this idea is all about visual. It doesn’t take sound quality or guest interation into consideration. Therefore, in a number of words, this option on an entertainment perspective actually totally SUCKS!
Just a tip… treat the DJ as your entertainmant for the night, as you would any other performer that interacts with your crowd. It really is best to have what ever entertainment that you choose to provide for your guests very close to the dance floor. This is important for a number of reasons.
Make sure and discuss this request with your venue provider’s event organizer. Quite often, their agenda is very food & service-driven. This means they do not always have in mind the best interests of optimal entertainment requirements.
Here is a list of things to think about when making your seating plan and placing your entertainment spotlight for the night:
1) IS THE DJ CLOSE ENOUGH TO THE DANCE FLOOR? – No matter what your hall organizer says, the entertainment should ALWAYS be right near the dance floor, period. They should also have a clean path with no seating in front of them.
A wedding venue knows food, and knows how to treat their guests, but they are not entertainers, nor do they know much about music equipment placement. Ask any good DJ and they will tell you it is not a good idea to be far away from the dance floor.
2)NEVER PUT TABLES IN FRONT OF THE DJ – First off, the sound quality will be terrible when ever you put something in front of a speaker. Obstacles will hinder the sound from reaching the dance floor properly. Secondly, the guests sitting in front of the DJ booth will be blasted by sound all night. Those will then be considered the worst seats in the house.
A DJ on a balcony will get NO requests and have little interaction with your guests.
3) CAN THE DJ BE SEEN BY ALL? – The DJ or band often makes announcements. You don’t want your guests wondering where this mystery voice is coming from like a blue light special announcement at K-mart.
4) CAN THE DJ CONNECT WITH THE CROWD? – It is very important for the DJ, much like a band, to connect with the crowd. Seeing what is working and what is not is a huge part of being a mobile disc jockey.
5) WILL THE DJ BE ABLE TO INTERACT WITH THE CROWD ? – If your wedding DJ is placed far away, requests become very difficult, or sometimes almost impossible.
A balcony set up typically doesn’t work well for a mobile DJ. (Balcony DJ booths only work in night clubs because the place is hard wired with smaller speakers everywhere in the hard to reach dead zones.)
BELOW IS AN EXAMPLE OF A BAD WEDDING HALL LAYOUT:
🙁
In the picture above, I would have just switched the table to the right of the DJ and the cake. This would leave enough space so that the DJ booth could have been strategically tilted so that the soundwaves travel to the dance floor with no hindering obstacles.
In a big hall, it is impossible to do a 75 feet away corner set up, facing the back of your guests with tables in front of you blocking the sound. In the picture above, 24 people are being blasted by the DJ. They wouldn’t be happy either.
Overall, in a wedding reception setting, your DJ/MC placement is critical. Do not let the hall put your entertainment in a closet.
When it comes to dancing, “The King of Dirty Dancing” Patrick Swayze once said, “Nobody puts baby in the corner.” The same should go for your wedding DJ.
Keep this in mind when laying out your wedding seating charts. For more on this common problem, check out our article, How To Seat Your Wedding Guests.
This summer, I did a number of gigs in Altamont. One venue I particular like is at Helderview Weddings at Orchard Creek Golf club. It is a great place to hold your wedding in Altamont, NY.
Hidden in the foothills of the Helderberg mountains in Altamont, NY, Helderview at Orchard Creek Golf Club provides the perfect setting for both a great wedding ceremony and reception. With the full wedding celebration at one location, you can have an elegant indoor or outdoor ceremony with lots of greenery anda mountainous background, with a reception in a modern pavillion that closes up to brave the elements when needed. Orchard Creek Golf Club Wedding Review
Besides the ability to customize to just what you are looking for in a venue, the food is great. I had an awesome prime rib there, and also a chicken dish this summer when I was the DJ for a few weddings.
Also, I was the DJ for a really cool corporate country-themed event. At that gig, the caterers did a great job customizing their menu for the event at hand. Getting the country theme menu right they featured ribs, BBQ brisket, fried chicken and all kinds of good ‘ole country eats for the guests to grub on.
No matter how you look at it, if you are interested in having your wedding in or around Altamont, check this place out, Orchard Creek!
Planning a wedding with great flowers in the Albany NY region or beyond? If the answer to that question is “yes,” then maybe you will want to try this idea out… “Tiny Flower Pot Wedding Place Cards’
What a better way than to kick off your rustic wedding with little tiny live flowers as the place cards to show your beloved guests to their seats!?
What this couple did was they went to a craft store and bought loads of little vase-like jars, but super small. The next step is easy: Just get some nice flowers, chop them up. Stuck them into little bottles like these, and add the place card tag – and you are done!
