Tag: wedding advice

Fill The DJ’s Dance Floor With A Wedding Flip Flop Basket – Another Albany NY wedding DJ idea!

At a very recent wedding in the Albany, NY area, I was the DJ for great number of guests sporting their bare feet by the end of the night on the dance floor. Adding in the lack of comfort factor with an outdoor ceremony where high heels sink into the ground, has lead me to suggest that adding a basket of flip-flops is a courteous “must” for many settings.

Here is an idea some of you may not have seen yet. Rather than have your guests dance in uncomfortable shoes, why not be a stand-up host and provide a basket of cheat-but-nice wedding flip flops?

Have you ever got all dressed up to go to a wedding and know fully well that your feet are going to kill you with the first ten minutes on the dance floor? You are not alone.

Many women struggle with their feet and have a terrible time finding the right balance between wearing comfortable shoes that also go with their dresses. Most high heel shoes cannot hold any woman up comfortably for a full four hours or more.

You really cannot expect the majority of your guests to make the best decisions in their footwear choices. After all, they are really putting one foot forward to look their very best for you. And getting together the perfect ensemble almost never translates into comfortable footwear.

WEAR TO BUY CHEAP WEDDING FLIP FLOPS?

It is even easier than you think! When in doubt, I am sure you can find a discount somewhere online. However, there may be savings waiting for you in your own neck of the woods allowing you to save a bundle in shipping costs.

Old Navy currently has a variety of colors for only $1.65 a piece, which is pretty reasonable. Some dollar stores even stock them. However, your favorite Walmart probably stocks what I just saw; an ultra-sweet-for-your-feet “98 cent flip flop box.”

 

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT WHEN ADDING THE FLIP FLOP BASKET TO YOUR WEDDING RECEPTION:

So, did we sell the idea to you? If you are reading this far down the page then it is possible you are thinking about using this tip! If this is the case, great. Here are a few points to think about:

 

–  Try and make them available to your guests in your wedding colors.

–  You can make them look pretty with vibrant ribbons holding pairs together.

–  Keep the basket right near the dance floor.

Once again, they ran out of prime rib just before they got to me. With no prime rib left to serve the only rockstar room, I cried my prime rib tears on a plate of replacement chicken. Why does this always happen to me? After all, I am DJ Kenny freakin’ Casanova, right? I am the one playing the tunes! Do you want me to play all Barry Manilow?

This time, despite being an officially invited guest and friend of the bride with my RSVP of beef, I still got the chicken. The waitress even stopped by my table first and asked, “what would you like; prime rib or chicken?” However, I knew her deal. I had her number. No matter what I was going to say to answer this routine question, she knew exactly what she was going to serve before she even asked the question. I was going to get the bird regardless, and knowing that made me want to give her the bird, in return.

I get no respect, and I get no prime rib.

Is this a conspiracy theory against Kenny Casanova, Prime Rib lover and enthusiast extraordinaire?

First off, I am a man. Prime Rib is my absolute favorite!!! You don’t even have to ask the question, chicken or beef. However, I think they do to somehow almost rub it in my face or something.

Granted, I know I am supposed to be working. I know I am supposed to be doing my job and technically not enjoying the same inch and a half thick mound of meat that everyone else around me is devouring. However, why do they ask me if I want the beef or chicken, and always say that they ran out, if it isn’t a power play by the man trying to hold the funk soul brother DJ down?

Just like Rodney, I get no respect.

As a wedding DJ, you would think I would get the scrumptious pink piece of meat dish every weekend, but yet somehow, I rather always get the shaft…

MY THEORY – This “chicken switch” practice is not at all unusual. Many halls ironically always run out of the prime rib, just before they get to me. Is this a coincidence? Many halls rarely give the DJ and other wedding professionals their best dishes, as a means of cutting costs and offering a discount to the bride and groom on their food bill. However, for the purpose of my blog and for the purpose of word of mouth recommendation from a wedding professional who can be influential to clients who may be looking for a recommendation, this sucks.

DON’T MAKE ME CHICKEN REVIEW YOU INSTEAD OF BEEF- I can’t speak on a hall’s very best dish and give a client an idea of whether you should book a hall or not out of delisciousness, when I am not reviewing their very best dish, EVER.

Don’t you want to put your best foot forwards, or are you afraid you can’t make a piece of beef that can get a good review?

HOW CAN I REVIEW YOUR BEST FOR MY BLOG? – Be forewarned! When a different dish than I have requested is forced on me, I don’t always eat it. Therefore, I may have to default on a drunk bridesmaid to step in, for the purpose of reviewing the hall for my blog. Maybe this bridesmaid will be one who doesn’t care much for the hall’s chicken dish served with mandarin garnish. One who will offer quotes for my blog with her opinion openly saying the chicken was, “plain, a little on the tough side, and really cold.” One who makes a Chef Ramsay food review look good…

Mind you, the drunk bridesmaid may have had so much to drink that all she could taste by dinner was probably rum. In this case, the hall can risk that my audience can either take her review or leave it, and tell everyone to just consider the source.

BOTTOM LINE: Don’t ask me what I want to eat, then say you ran out and give me something else. That $#i!! just teases me. Also, realize that I yeild the power of the pen in these blogs. If you cheap out and chicken me after offering the prime rib, know that I won’t jump to eat it right away. Then, by the time I actually get to the chicken and it actually is cold, know that this will hurt your grade even more and I will likely just bring it home for my dog.

Incidently, my dog will nine times out of ten say, “I love this piece of chicken,” when I give him the replacement cheap dish. You may think, well at least we will get a good review from the DJ’s dog, however, consider the source yourself. This is the same dog who also licks his butt on a regular basis.

(The opinions above are the exclusive opinions of DJ Kenny Casanova immediately after being handed chicken, expecting a huge piece of steak. While some of what is being expressed above is completely true yet in saterical form, the words are not the official opinions of TheDJservice.com.)

Avoid Wedding Disasters Top 10 List

There are many little things that can throw your wedding off and perhaps classify it under a “Wedding Disaster” category. However, a number of these things can be avoided with no cost at all to the bride and groom. Here is a list of things to remember when you are planning your wedding, to avoid your own wedding disaster.

1) Avoid placing your wedding date on a holiday – selecting a holiday or special day for your wedding date creates a built in competition quandary for many guests. When brides and grooms choose these type of dates, they often find from their attendance that their top priority, their wedding, is not also everyone’s #1 priority, at the same time. Making your guest choose between your special day and their special traditions does not always work out in your favor.

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.

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.

4) Try and always plan for Saturday Night Weddings – Fridays people sometimes have to work and Sundays people have no day to recover/travel.

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.

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.

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.

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.

9) Create a “Do Not Playlist” for your DJ – This will ensure there are no surprises.

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.

Picture credit – http://itsabridesworld.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/rainy-day-weddings/

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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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. ”

I hope this list helps you to avoid possible wedding disasters. To see a simplified checklist of this Top 10 List, click here.

…

Who would have known that one day I would have to DJ a wedding and play “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and really mean it?

This past weekend, I was the DJ for a fun wedding in Poestenkill, up on the mountain. Everything was beautiful. The people came dressed nicely and were enjoying some drinks and pictures with some friends they haven’t seen in years. Yes,  all was well, until, as luck would have it,  a bastard-of-a-storm would start up hard, five minutes before the bride was to walk the aisle.

That first cold smack of rain was the first of a series of bands that would comrprise Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene.

The wedding ceremony was to take place just outside a huge white wedding reception tent, underneath a pretty apple tree. There was an elegant white arch decorated in flowers and everything looked picturesque, that is until the sky turned dark as the bride was stepping out of her limosine.

So at preceisely 6:30, we figured we would try and wait it out. Fifteen minutes or so, we decided our efforts were to no avail. The rain only started coming down harder. As the rain really started to dump on us, I could see that the guests were upset and that something needed to be done so I acted as wedding planner and ran back to the log cabin where the bride and her mother were gathering umberellas.

“How about we just switch it to under the tent on the the reception intro entrance way?” I asked. We quickly shifted gears. A few guests helped me move a few tables and it was on. As the town justice took his place with the groomsmen, it was evident that there was no way the people were going to hear him over the hurricane raindrops pounding on the vinyl roof above. Easy fix; give the justice a microphone.

Everything came off perfectly, except for one thing just before the bride could say, “I do.” As the bride’s aunt read a prayer into the mic, water began to flood all around the electrical panel set up, right behind my DJ Booth set-up. It seemed that the tent was a little off-level and all of the tent’s rain water was irrigating and collecting finding its exit-spout right behind me. That is when the water started to short out the power surges for the bar and myself.

We lost microphone power for all of 20-30 seconds, but people just smiled. I quickly re-routed the cord to the power line that lit the tent lights and all came off without a hitch.

Just as Murphy’s law would have it, five minutes after the ceremony, the rain stopped for about an hour, but it didn’t matter. In the end, people had a great time!

LOOKING FOR AN ALTERNATIVE WEDDING HALL IN YOUR AREA?

If you are looking for a nice event hall for a small-to-medium sized wedding that allows outside catering, you probably know that your choices are limited. Many places today, have in-house catering, as this is a big money maker for the venues.

If you live in the Troy area, or nearby, and are working with a budget as many of us are, Petersburg might work for you.

LOCATION – “Petersburg, NY? Where the heck is that?” It’s funny. I’ve been a disc jockey for a number of years now and never heard of Petersburg Memorial Hall before, either.

I live in Wynantskill, off of Pawling. This is between Troy and Albany and I asked the same question. After I initially talked with the bride and groom about providing music for their special day, I had to run a Google map search to familiarize myself with a town that was less than 25 minutes away from me. (In case you are like me and are wondering, Petersburg is the next town down Grafton State Park.)

The reception I DJ’ed for was at a cute little place called “Petersburg Memorial Hall,” located conveniently on 71 Main Street. The venue is located right before the Petersburg Town Library. The hall provides plenty of parking and does work out to be a great little place for a great little wedding to take place.

AFFORDABILITY – Someone looking for a smaller wedding with the potential to meet affordability restraints can benefit considering this venue. While many halls in and around the Capital District that house wedding receptions also provide their own dinning packages, at the Memorial Hall, this is not the case. Here, you can book any catering service that you like and also make provisions to set up your own bar. This means an incredible amount of savings, as these two expenses are quite often the largest for any wedding.

SPECIFICS – The Memorial Hall can seat  80-100 people fairly comfortably. It has two side access doors to allow easy access for vendors and also any decorating purposes you may have. It has plenty of chairs and tables and a decent linen selection resource, along with seat covers.  The hall also has very high ceilings and also a great little stage with draw curtains that could easily be used for your DJ or even a small live band.

There are a few little facility points to note. There is a decent kitchen, but it is not very large. It is probably, however, suitable for your outside caterer to make due with for what the hall can comfortably occupy. Also, it is import to note that there is only one shared bathroom. It is, however, handicap accessible, I believe.

On a technology note, the town of Petersburg is out in a rural area. It does not provide any Sprint cell phone coverage, but it does have Verizon cell phone coverage. Internet access is also provided to the hall through a wi-fi hub in the town library, nearby.

I would give it a three out of four stars for a good affordable wedding venue/hall option.