Music To My Ears

Music is an important part of any wedding. As a wedding coordinator, it is also important to help facilitate and coordinate with your music provider. Regardless of the type of music provider i.e., DJ or band, coordinating with your vendors is an important part of the success of your wedding.

After working hundreds of weddings with the professional services of SJ's, I have found that they come prepared knowing the details of each event. These details include:

• Start times of the event (they should arrive and are set up with music playing before your guests arrive)
• Wedding Ceremony Music i.e., song for honored women, song for bridesmaids, song for bride and the recessional song
• Ceremony Instructions of readers, vocalists and/or any unique traditions
• Wedding Party & Newlywed Introductions
• Type of dinner service (making the appropriate announcements of offer your guest dinner instructions
• Champagne Toast (who will speak and is there an open mic)
• Cake Cutting/Bouquet/Garter Tosses Songs
• Spotlight Dances (1st dance, father & daughter, mother & son, honeymoon dance)
• Special Announcements
• Open Dancing (songs to play and songs NOT to play)
• Make sure to go over all these aspects with your music provider

There are many great DJ's, however we have seen our share of bad ones.....these are just a few stories:

• DJ not playing the correct songs for ceremony
• DJ driving up at the ceremony start time with his equipment in the back of his truck. We had to wait 30 minutes for the wedding to start so he could set-up. When I asked him why he was late he said that the bride didn't pay for extra set-up time
• Mispronouncing names of brides, grooms and parents
• Equipment failure
• Makes inappropriate comments
• DJ decided to give his own toast to the bride (not cool)

Your music provider should go over all of the listed items above in order to be well prepared for your wedding. It is important to let them know you do have a wedding coordinator for the event and will be present to coordinate with them about the sequence of events. We do have a certain sequence of events that works really well for our facility and encourage the music provider to contact us to go over the plan. This should be noted when coordinating with your music professional.

If you haven't picked your music professional check out

Joe Kalamaras http://www.sjsdiscjockey.com/

Happy Planning

Kelly

SPRING HAS SPRUNG!

Just a small post to update everybody who has not had the opportunity to visit in the last month or two. Spring is here and mother nature has been working her magic on the trees and gardens.

The Plum trees that line the driveway are now full of leaves as are most of the fruit trees around the parking lot.

The gardens are getting full with Day Lillies, Roses and Jasmine.

The lawns are looking lush and green.

The vineyard is all prepped and ready for another growing season. With the vines waking up from their winter hibernation and showing their first green shoots this week.

In addition to Mother Nature we have been hard at work as well.

Constructing a new solid redwood arbor and fence to replace the old one in the bottom patio area.

And not as glamorous as the arbor but just as important we are just about done remodeling the three outdoor bathrooms.

Brand new plumbing fixtures, ceramic tile, lighting, paint and decor, have made a vast improvement to our outdoor facilities.

Happy Planning,

Kelly