Posts Page

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.

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.

As many of you know, before becoming a DJ, I was a ring announcer with experience at WWE wrestling. This past weekend, I had the “pleasure” of having dinner with The WWE Champions The Nasty Boys in Cohoes, New York on Sunday, January 8th, 2012, at The Black Cat Tavern. Let it be known, The Black Cat was not so nasty!

After a fun autograph signing and successful training seminar at the “In Your Face” Wrestling Gym of Cohoes, we gathered up the former WWE Tag Team Champions, Brian Knobbs & Jerry Saggs, for some wings and Polish food at the famous sports bar.

The Nasty Boys enjoyed the homemade perogies smothered in onions and downed a massive nasty-size order in record time. Then we enjoyed the Giants game before they headed out for the airport.

The food at The Black Cat was great. At $3.99 for about a dozen wings, $5 for steamers, and great deals on pub fair and Polish food, The Nasty Boys found themselves right at home. While it is a small bar, it does have a bigger eating area in the back that I am sure would work well for an engagement party, or wedding rehearsal party.

Many of The Black Cat bar’s older patrons recognized The nasty Boys for their former WWE Tag Team championship reign back in 1991. Some of the younger people recognized Brian Knobbs for his many more recent appearances on VH1’s reality series “Hulk Knows Best” & spinoff “Brooke Knows Best.”

Aside from my business partner, Marty “The Party,” having to provide the ravished 320 plus pound Nasty Boys with Hot Sauce on demand, a good time was had by all.

In Your Face Wrestling will also be having one of their own shows featuring WWE Legend Tony Atlas this Saturday in Ballston Spa, NY. See http://www.iyfwrestling.com/ for more information.

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.

TOP 10 LIST For Wedding Centerpiece Giveaways

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.

If you are contemplating having a theme wedding for your special day, this can open up all kinds of fun. It really gives your wedding direction and personality. Everything comes together so much easier. The tone and decoration ideas just fall right into place, with people offering ideas and help that you wouldn’t normally get in a traditional wedding.

However, here is just a thought: wear the white dress.

While this may not matter in all cases according to the actual taste of the bride, there is some logic behind having the traditional dress kept sacred. While choosing to where the white gown may hinder some of the creative possibilities that can go a long with the chosen theme, the symbolization behind the dress may be more important.

For one, the dress symbolizes purity and class. The older guests will apprciate that the traditional bridal garb has not been kicked to the wayside.

The second important reason for the white dress is you don’t want the theme wedding to just feel like a really big costume party. At many good theme weddings, the guests are encouraged to wear something to go along with the theme. For example, if you were going to a pirate wedding, a beach wedding, or a halloween theme wedding, you can be sure that most people will dress a certain way. Having the bride still wear the white dress makes her stand out as being special.

Finally, as little girls, most bride’s envision walking the aisle and looking like a princess. On your wedding day, you still want it to feel like like a wedding and despite all the other other theme related things, the white dress will make this happen.