Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Wedding Worksheets - a must for success.


When you plan a wedding, many people end up being in charge of many different aspects of the night. It may sound simple, but it is important to communicate well, in order to get what you want. One way you can really get your points across is by mapping everything out on paper so your expectations and wishes are clearly understood and met.

When you go about hiring a wedding professional like a disk jockey, a professional photographer, or even your caterer, you should always ask if they have a planning worksheet. Most often, the vendor has their own custom document that will help you be prepared for your wedding day. Using the vendor's own custom worksheet will better help them understand what you want in their own recognizable format, perhaps collecting everything aver a few pages. This erases confusion and helps the vendor know exactly what you are looking for.

Wedding worksheets really do help you get prepared for your wedding day. A good worksheet will help you also to better understand how most traditional weddings (and even many non-traditional ones) will look in an outline form.

Using worksheets will help you make sure, in the long run, that you will not overlook anything on the hectic, special day when you get married.

Whether or not you are using a custom vendor worksheet, or just downloading one online, there are FOUR very important aspects that you will want to keep in mind when filling out your disk jockey worksheet:

1) SETTING THE TONE – Some people want class. Others want an all out party. Many people want their reception to fall somewhere in between. A good worksheet will ask you what kind of feel you are trying to acheive, and when you will want that tone met over the course of the evening.

2) CREATING A MUSIC PLAYLIST – Your wedding is your special day , therefore you really should be the one to decide how you want it to feel. Music will set the atmosphere. Getting some of your ideas down onto paper will better help to create the feel you are hoping for. While you should not attempt to write every song down that you would want to hear, providing ten or twenty might give your DJ a good idea of what you like, while giving them the room to read the crowd.

3) THE DO NOT PLAY LIST – This is very important, but quite often forgotten in the mix. You should always take the time to write down the few songs you absolutely do not like, so that there are no surprizes on your special day. Although I hate playing "The Chicken Dance," for example, some older DJ’s absolutely love it! If you failed to add this song to your worksheet as a “DON'T PLAY,” you may end up thinking your DJ clucked everything up in the end, while you watch good 'ole grandma flap her wings.

4) ACTIVITY OPTIONS – There are so many wedding activity options that you can rock at your wedding. A good worksheet will have them listed so you can easily cross off or circle the ones you want.

If you would like to check out my latest worksheet, email me a request at ken@theDJservice.com and I can email you over one.


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Monday, May 23, 2011

New Wedding First Dance Song

With so many tired old first dance options out there, it is really important to pick a song that is imporatant, and also different for your first dance. I'm not sure if you have heard it yet, but there is a great new wedding song option out there that many people are starting to look at for an alternative wedding ceremony song, and also the first dance.

Runner Runner's song, "I Can't Hardly Wait," is about a man anxious to finally get married to his bride-to-be. Ryan Ogren, the lead singer for Runner Runner, has announced that wrote this song special for his fiancé, and that she would be walking down the aisle to it.

Runner Runner is a pop-punk band from Huntington, California. The band name originated from member's Ryan Ogren and Jon Berry's love of poker. The term, 'runner runner', loosely means to beat the odds and pull off a winning hand in the last possible moment. My wife and I took a gamble and chose this song for our first dance, only a week after it hit the charts.




"I Can't Wait" Lyrics, written by Ryan Ogren

The way you curse while we are in traffic, A million flavors of your chapstick,
The way you keep my heart captive...
The Journey concert in A.Z., Do you remember we sang faithfully?
I've still got that old hotel room key... This is the way I feel.

Cause I can't wait for you, to be my wife,
To live this life, together.
And I won't let you go, I need you to know
That you are my heart, forever.

And on, and on, and on...

The way you like to sing my songs, you always know when something's wrong.
The way you say you miss me when I'm gone.
The things you do that show you care, you are always down for truth or dare.
Freeze this moment, let me stop and stare.

Nothing before was real. This is the way I feel

And I can't wait for you, to be my wife,
To live this life together.
And I won't let you go, I need you to know
That you are my heart, forever.

And on and on and on... And we'll go on and on and on

For better or for worse, no matter how it hurts
You've got me to hold you hand.
I promise you the world, in your wedding dress
We'll dance till no one's left.

Don't wanna blink my eyes. I Don't wanna miss a thing

I can't wait for you, to be my wife.
To live this life together.
And I won't let you go, and I need you to know
That you are my heart, forever.

And on and on and on... And we'll go on and on and on.


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Monday, May 16, 2011

Petersburg Memorial Hall Review (by Grafton State Park)

Looking for an affordable wedding hall, for a small wedding that allows outside catering? If you answered, “yes,” and live in the Troy area, or nearby, you may want to read on.

It is funny. I live in Wynantskill, right between Troy and Albany, NY. I have been a disc jockey for quite some time and never heard of Petersburg Memorial Hall before. When I talked with the bride and groom about doing their special day, I had to look at a map to find a place that was only 25 minutes away from me. What Google quickly taught me is that if you have ever been to Grafton State Park, Petersburg is the next town down.

The wedding I was a DJ for in Petersburg was at a nice little place called “Memorial Hall” on 71 Main Street. The Petersburg Memorial Hall is right near the town library. It has ample parking and is a great little place for someone looking for a smaller wedding with the potential for affordability. Unlike many halls that hold frequent wedding receptions, at the Memorial, you can book any catering service that you like and set up your own bar. This means an incredible amount of savings, as these two expenses are quite often the largest for any wedding.

The hall seats about 80-120 people comfortably and has a little stage in the front which could be used for a DJ or a small live band. It has two side doors for easy access for vendors and decorating purposes.

There are a few little facility things to note. Facility-wise, there is a kitchen, but it is not very big. It probably is suitable for an outside caterer to make due with. Also, there is only one shared bathroom which is handicap accessible, I believe.

On a tech note, Petersburg does not have Sprint cell phone coverage, but it does have Verizon and Internet access provided through a wi-fi hub in the library nearby. These concerns may or may not be too important for a smaller wedding.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Alternative Nontraditional Wedding Resource

Being a wedding DJ who specializes in modern weddings, I found a resource on the world wide web that I thought stood out as being a bit different from the rest. This web site, I think, is a great option for brides who do not want their wedding to be the traditional ceremony and reception that we have grown accustomed to here in the states. They want it to be different.

Here is the url:

www.offbeatbride.com

The Offbeat Bride website launched on four years ago, now, to support the release of Ariel Meadow Stalling's book entitled, "Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides."

Since the book promotion, the web site slowly grew into a multi-writer blog with tons of photos from "offbeat" weddings and wedding advice for couples planning weddings full of originality and personality.

Let me know if you like it!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

My Pirate Wedding Report

Hey party people! DJ Kenny Casanova here, with my OWN wedding report on The DJ Kenny Casanova & Maria DJ Pirate Wedding Extravaganza.

A lot of local people from Albany, Troy and Schenectady browse my blog here at TroyRecord.com for great wedding tips and planning ideas, based on succesful weddings I have attended. Therefore, it is ironic now that I can share some fun things from my actual wedding.



As I stated in previous posts, we practiced what we preach. If you have the guts, "Theme weddings make for a better time!" ...We had a theme wedding ourselves, so that our special day would stick out and be memorable. Being a wedding DJ that has a few weddings a week, we had to go with something different so it would stay in our minds forever. My wife chose PIRATE and it was awesome!


CELEBRITY EMCEE - We brought in the most pirate-like celebrity we could think of; Glens Falls native former WWE United States Heavyweight Wrestling Champion, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan to emcee the event and mingle. Hoooo! He was great!!! Everyone loved him and he fit the bill perfectly!


CENTERPIECES - Our centerpieces were treasure chests with mardi gras beads, gold coins and large crystal gems. Here, we did not skimp on contents and also did not use any cartoony-like happy meal-like prize inserts, which would have been easy to do. The key to decorating for a fancy pirate wedding was that we tried our best to make everything look legit and as real as possible, so it didn't look like a kid's pirate birthday. Using higher quality decorations made everything feel more classy ...or at least as classy as a pirate shindig can be!

FLAGS - We hung 17 different jolly roger pirate flags up in each window bay of Birch Hill's big reception hall. (With them all being slightly different, this helped things feel more real and made things more interesting to the eye. It was way more cool to see the little variations to each flag than to quickly browse over the same print over and over again of the same skull & crossbones. There are actually many different pirate flags out there, and if you look online, you can find full real 3 x 5 foot flags for $5-$10 a piece, that may not be all that weather-sound, but perfect for the short-term; an indoor reception like ours.

FOOD - We had buffet style thick carved prime rib, lobster penne, and chicken marsella.






CAKES - Arrrghhh! Yes matey! We had two cakes; one custom pirate wedding tower by yummy local wedding cake favorite Cocodots, and a surprizing groom's cake by my own sister that was peanut butter frosting, peanut butter cake and topped with crushed reeses everything! (My favorite!) I actually fed a piece of this to my best man, the same as you feed one to your bride, in full pie-face tradition.

PHOTO MAGNET PHOTO-SHOOT - We had a green screen magnet shoot so that people could bring home high quality magnets to put on their refridgerators of the night, featuring fun with all their friends. These keepsakes were great because the photographer would change the background on the spot to match costumes and our theme. And, the sharp full color quality was also unbelievable! This extra fun was provided by Holmes Photography in the Albany, NY area.

In case you might want to walk the plank yourself at your own wedding, here are some of our guests pictures to hold you over, as the professional shots by Manny at Affordable Photography are not quite done yet.

There will be more to come soon, on how to actually plan a great pirate wedding, once we go through all the pictures.

In the meantime, we have more of our guests shots at www.kenmariapiratewedding.shutterfly.com