Hurricane Wedding

I would have never thought that I would have to DJ a wedding and play "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and really mean it, one day.

This past weekend, I played the tunes for a fun wedding in Poestenkill, high up on the mountain. Everything was really beautiful and all was going well, until the rain started up just five minutes before the bride was about to walk the aisle. It was the first of the bands that would become the harbinger for Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene.

The actual wedding ceremony was scheduled to occur just outside a big white wedding reception tent, and underneath a gorgeous apple tree. There was an nice white arch decorated in flowers all set up and waiting. The scene was picturesque with Mother Nature as the backdrop, until the sky turned dark as the bride was stepping out of her limosine.

At show time, 6:30pm sharp, we figured we would shoot for the delay and try to wait it out. Fifteen minutes or so went by, however, and things only bega to look worse. We decided our delay tactics were to no avail. As the rain really started dumping on us, I could see that the guests were upset. I acted as wedding planner and took charge. I 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. "The guests won't be able to hear anything out there." They agreed and we were on our way.

A few guests helped me move around a few tables and we were back on. As the town justice found his place with the groomsmen, it was evident that there too, was probably no way that the people were going to hear him over the crazy hurricane raindrops hammering hard on the vinyl rooftop above. Easy fix... give the man a microphone.

So far so good, right? But just as the bride's aunt read a prayer into the mic, water began to flood the electrical panel behind my DJ Booth set-up. It seemed that the tent must have been a little off-level and all of the tent's rain water irrigated towards me, making an exit-spout out of an electical box. That is right about when the water started to short out the power surges for the bar and my set-up.

We lost microphone power for all of 20-30 seconds, but people just smiled patiently. Any other circumstancs, if your microphone were to go out when the bride was ready to say her vows, the guests would probably kill you. However, because of a hurricane, they seemed more forgiving.

I quickly re-routed the cord with the bartender to the power line that lit the tent lights and soon after, it 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, and then came and went off and on for the rest of the night. But at that point, it didn't matter. People were drinking, flowers were tossing and garters were coning off. In the end, the people all rocked like a hurricane during a hurricane, and all had a rocking great time!