Outdoor Wedding Advice

Man alive! The past two years, as a wedding DJ, I have seen some pretty rainy outdoor weddings. While an outdoor wedding can be totally awesome, when the weather does not cooperate, it can be a disaster if you do not have some planning, in order.

1. Dress for the elements. Choose fabrics that ensure comfort on the big day. Think about the later hours of the event as well. Will you need to be warm at any point? Will it maybe get to warm, after the dancing starts?

2. Keep your guests' comfort in mind. Also, make sure to let your guests know that the wedding will be outdoors. Prepare them so that they may dress appropriately.

3. Decorations. Wet streamers look like wet toilet paper. Remember, decorations have to brave the elements, and sometimes they may ruin photos, as well. Look for natural or built-in points of beauty for great backdrops and photo opportunities, rather than to try and plot lots of unnecessary decorations.

4. Invest in a good tent. You get what you pay for and you do not want to be dodging downpour streams in the middle of the dance floor. Take no shortcuts when renting a tent, or deal with sunburns and tidal waves.

5. Plan well. While you have to plan ahead and cannot know what the weather will be on a particular date exactly, you can still try for the right season. Plan your outdoor wedding day for a time of the year that averages good weather that is comfortable.

6. Have a Backup Plan. Ever hear of "Plan B"? Make one! You can't predict what the weather is going to be. Rather than stress about it, plan for a site which will allow you to move the entire wedding to an inside location easily.

7. Alert your vendors! All of your vendors should know that it is an outdoor wedding. It sounds easy, but often this is forgotten and sometimes certain precautions need to be taken by your professionals to make everything work out well.

Wedding Bouquet Toss Song Ideas

The glowing spotlight is shinning softly on you and all eyes casted your way. Your hands hold a modest, yet gorgeous bundle of flowers and you are about to throw it all away, and move on to the next wonderful chapter in your book. It is now that magical moment for you, the bride in white.

Everything is just how you imagined it would be. Your dress is perfect. Your hair is lovely. However, the silly DJ cracks a stupid joke to match his song choice and plays something ridiculous and seemingly unrelated, all because you didn't specify and left it up to him.

You bite your lip and think, "I knew I should have told him what to play!"

Don't worry! If you are still planning, there is still time.

There are countless songs out there, and it is overwhelming, but you do not half to reinvent the wheel. So what can you actually pick for a song? Here is a popular listing of Top Bouquet Tossing Songs where you cannot go wrong!

• Another One Bites The Dust - Queen
• Dancing Queen - Abba Girls
• Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper
• I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
• Ladies Night - Kool & The Gang
• Man! I Feel Like A Woman - Shania Twain
• Respect - Aretha Franklin
• All I Wanna Do - Cheryl Crow
• Chapel of Love - Dixie Cups
• Hot Stuff - Donna Summer
• Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
• So Many Men, So Little Time - Miquel Brown
• Single Ladies - Beyonce
•This one is for the girls - Martina McBride
•Wishin' and Hopin' Ani Difranco (My Best Friends Wedding Soundtrack)
•"Sex in the City" theme song
• American Woman - The Guess Who
•Bootylicious - Destiny's Child
• Diamonds are a girls best friend - Marilyn Monroe
• Dirty - Christina aguilera
• Don't want no Scrub - TLC
• Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - The Police
• Express Yourself - Madonna
• Funky Town - Lipps Inc.
• Girls, Girls, Girls - Motley Cruew
• Hey Ladies - The Beastie Boys
• Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar
• Its Getting Hot in Herre - Nelly
• Its Raining Men - The Weather Girls
• Just a girl - No Doubt
• Ladies Night - Kool & The Gang
• Lady Marmalade - Pink, Mia, Lil' Kim, Christina Aguilera
• Let's Get Loud - Jenifer Lopez
• Like a Virgin - Madonna
• Milkshake - Kelis
• Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman - Britney Spears
• Oh Its so Quiet, Shhh (Zing-Boom) Bjork
• One way or another blondie
• Our Day Will Come - Ruby and the Romantics
• Perfect Day Hoku - Legally Blonde Soundtrack
• Red Neck Woman - Gretchen Wilson
• Shoop Shoop Song - Cher
• Single White Female - Chely Wright
• This one's for the Girls - Martina Mc Bride
• Touch Me, Tease Me Case - Foxy Brown
• What a Girl Wants - Christina Aguillera

Plan The Perfect Wedding - Thinking of your guests on your day

"Can I have the perfect wedding?" Yes, but you may have to give a little. 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?"

All little girls write their names on their notebooks in school with their crush's last name instead of their own. And they all picture the perfect white wedding as well. Creating the best wedding reception as an adult, however, is like writing a term paper for school. You have to do some research and focus on finding answers to the right questions, first. Therefore, you actually have to pick the right questions.

Finding the answers to, "what do I like?" may come off selfish and create moments that are only meaningful to you. What you should rather do isl 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 IS GOING TO BE THERE? - 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 also.
HOW CAN I BE A GOOD HOST? - Be a good host and your party will be good. It is just that smimple. What can you do to accommodate all of your guests' wishes? Your homework is to find what really makes you happy, and also makes every guest attending happy as well.

HOW CAN I MAKE MY WEDDING STAND OUT? - Because loads of different wedding receptions happen everyday across the globe, it is safe to say thousands of alternative 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.

Be unselfish and be kind and fill in the blanks with stuff you love and things that symbolize who you are. The rest will be perfect.

Steven Tyler Begins on American Idol

Some question now whether or not Steven Tyler is softening in his old age, accepting a chair to sit behind a different microphone with no trademark scarves, at the table at American Idol. Can the Boston Bad Boy live up to his “Screamin’ Demon” image, saying words of encouragement to pop star hopefuls?

One of my earliest rock memories was sitting on a dock in summer camp listening to “Dream On.” I remember first hearing of a band that the DJ on an old transistor radio called, “The Bad Boys of Boston,” when I was probably six or seven. I remember the camp counselor saying that song wasn’t their current hit and I really needed to hear “Walk This way,” which later became one of my all time favorites. I remember him praising the group. “These guys are ahead of their time. Some people call Steven Tyler a “Mick Jagger” rip-off, but they will all be wrong, because Aerosmith is a bad-ass local band that will rock forever.”

He was right. Forty years later, they are still touring hard. However, Tyler’s new gig is making heads turn.

Stephen Victor Tallarico, better known to the rock world as Steven Tyler, has one of the most distinct voices in the music industry. He is a credited songwriter, with more hits than most bands will ever see. His high-energy performances in bright, colorful outfits with trademark scarves hanging from his microphone stand pump the crowd like no other. Can he sit and make comments on the next William Hung act and keep his hard rock legendary status?

He has been on the record to say he will not just tell someone, “You suck!” in a Simon kind of way. What will he be like then?

Time will tell. In my opinion, it could be really cool for Aerosmith fans to see him in a different light. I’m not a big American Idol fan, but I will check it out to see how he comes off.

Wedding Planning Season has Begun

In a Troy Record blog last week, I posted information that encouraged you to plan six months or more ahead of time to book your DJ, and up to a year ahead of time to secure your hall. That means if you are planning on getting married in the prime time availability slots; summer on a Saturday might, you really need to start moving now! So why now?

The holidays are now finally behind us. For most of us, we have all opened our presents, made our gift returns, made our New Year's resolutions and already broke them. People are now sensing that it is time to get back to life, and back to reality. The urgency is setting in for many soon-to-be brides and grooms; the big wedding is sneaking up fast.

Last week we had about 3 to 5 wedding inquiries/consultations a day on the average, with anxious brides looking to secure particular dates. Even with three DJ's at The A+ DJ Service, we have already experienced a few conflicts on specific dates and may have to turn a few couples away to the wolves. This means that everywhere, inquiries are being placed.

If you start planning now for a summer wedding locally, you should be all good and you will get the place and the DJ and the caterers you want, but as the saying goes, "if you snooze, you lose."

DJ Kenny Casanova

PLANNING YOUR WEDDING DATE EARLY

Just a heads up for anyone who is planning a wedding for the new year... Picking the right day and booking even six months ahead of time is not always going to guarentee you will get the location(s) or DJ that you want.


BOOKING CHURCH & HALLS - Bigger cities are easier and you do not need as much time. In medium and bigger cities, with six months advance notice, you generally can find something good, but not always the exact hall you are looking for. If you have a place in mind that you absoletly must go with, you may need to allow for more notice. In smaller towns, however it is a different story.

When there are less venues available, you definitely need to book the church and/or hall first -and much earlier than six months. If there is a popular place that you have in mind, it could be difficult to get the prime time which often is 5:30 pm and after on Saturday, during May thru October. Only about 24 people will grab up a Saturday night for any particular spot during this time frame. And if your town is very small with only one or two places that could hold a decent wedding, reports show that some people may start booking it up even a full year ahead of time, or even 18 months.

BOOKING YOUR WEDDING DISC JOCKEY or BAND - Once you have selected your reception and ceremony location contracted, you can book the entertainment. From my experience, six months advance notice for booking isn't bad when booking a DJ service that has multiple DJs at it, but it is a crap shoot when you are specifically trying to book one particular DJ name for your wedding. I find that at the six month point mark, 50 percent of the time I am already booked when a bride is requesting me by name.

For entertainment booking like Disc Jockeys and bands during the prime time season of spring to fall on a Saturday night, the early birds start planning in the fall for next early spring or summer and they usually get who they want. People who wait until after the new year sometimes grab who they want, but it doesn't always work out that way. If you are looking at a Friday or a Sunday party and/or in the ealry spring or later in fall, less booking advance time maybe needed. (You also can often save some good money as well. Make sure and ask for a discount as halls and entertainment companies often will give you something for filling empty spots or time slots that don't fall into the prime time category!)

DATE SELECTION - Now that you have this information, what should be the actual date? The safest dates usually fall between spring and fall and usually Saturday nights so that your guests have Sunday to get back to work, or recover. However, wedding dates in the North East drop off dramatically after fall. Think about it. Most brides do not want to drop $10,000 on a party where guests could potentially get snowed in. Booking in this time frame of Spring to Fall on a Saturday night means you usually have to pay full price. This is prime time for halls, catering companies, Disc Jockeys and Bands.

Anytime before May 1st and after November 1st is an easy date to get and could save you money in hall/catering due to discounts. Make sure your date doesn't conflict with Thanksgiving plans, as you do not want to compete with other plans that your guests may have. Dates that sound good like Halloween, Christmas and New Years or even the Saturday before Veteran's Day (so people can turn it into a long weekend) may seem like a good plan, but remember, that means your guests may have these dates for something else and will ultimately not make it to your special day. Always check with family members, parents or other significant people so you know that that there are no conflicts.

For example, a Halloween-themed wedding can be fun, but if it actually falls later in the day to eveneing on the 31st, think about how many parents will not come because they want to take their children out to trick-or-treat.