Mrs. Lovebug, Tucson
Age and Occupation in 06: 31, Writer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Professional Game Show Contestant
Engagement Date: February 18, 2007
Wedding Date: April 19, 2008
Venue: Historic Inn
About Me: Likes: blogging, wikis, semi-colons, cuddling, fragrant flowers, syntax, and spooning. Dislikes: typos, dangling modifiers, flypaper, citronella candles, and run-ons. If I had my druthers, I'd exchange simple vows in a candlelit library. But I lost my druthers long ago...anyone seen them?
Hopefully, My Last Major Decision
April 2nd, 2008 @ 4:43 pm by Mrs. Lovebug
The best wedding vendor meeting is the one you walk out of feeling LESS stressed than when you walked in. And so it was yesterday, meeting for the first time with DJ Luke Bishop of Satyr Entertainment. From the start, Luke has been pretty darn impressive: super prompt with correspondence, prepared, and helpful (he’s been acting as liason with our venue director to unburden me of the whole projector-slideshow equipment issue).
He’s also the perfect DJ for control-freak Lovebug, who walked in with a “master list” of five hours worth of music:
Oh yeah, I am that bride. I’ve just heard too many horror stories about music and weddings. Plus, I’m one of those people to whom music isn’t the “background” of a party. It’s what makes it. So I also burned him a CD of some maybe-less-than-mainstream tracks his collection might lack:
(…the funnest part was Xyroning the list to the cd sleeve.)
Two weeks from my wedding and I can say one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is how much easier things go when you give vendors as much direction as possible. And I don’t mean direction of the “do this or I’ll fire you” school. I mean lists, pictures - visual aids of any kind, really - even just short letters explaining your thoughts on how you visualize that aspect of your wedding.
DJs, florists, bakers - they’re not mind readers. Better to overload them with info than to leave them guessing as to your wishes.
(Tangent completed.)
One of the options Luke’s company provides is lighting of the dance floor. But I am squarely on the fence on this one. Our reception room is very elegant, with antique furniture that nicely complements our whole vintage aesthetic.
Take silverplate decor, soft colors, and lots of candlelight, and add six foot, cord-spewing lighting trees poised at the corners of the dance floor. Brightly colored lights, pin lights, and optional strobes and fog. Hmmm. The word “incongruous” comes to mind.
But then I think how fun it’d be, us and our friends dancing to a block of old school hip hop, in a champagne-and-light effects filled haze. And I know that a lit dancefloor goes a long way towards getting guests on their feet.
Luke gave us the option of setting the lights up later on, when the elder set has drifted homeward. But that would entail 25 minutes of us stepping around him and his assistant while they’re putting it all up. Plus, I just have this hangup about light trees looking…prom-y?
Bottom line: just when I thought I was done making decisions, this one pops up. I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts…
Light effects on the dance floor: a fun detail to ratchet up the party factor? or an unnecessary aesthetic killer?
32 Responses to “Hopefully, My Last Major Decision”
Make a list again!
- White and rose colored lights only
- no jerky effects - fading and spot lighting only
- no strobes
- no fog
etc., etc….
I am not sure what would work for you but I am giving a similar list to my DJ (and my photographer and I also talked about the impossibility of taking dancing pictures with certain light effects - strobes, etc.)
I like light effects except for strobe lights which make me feel weird and dizzy. I’d go for it as long as you make sure it won’t come off prom like!
Aesthetics killer! You don’t need the strobe lights to have a good time, no no.
ramona by guster? i love it.
scarily, that cd has incredible overlap with cds i made for various guys i dated in the late 90s/early 2000s. (ah, what couldn’t Rhett Miller say better than i…)
just from the snippets you’ve included, i am loving your wedding soundtrack choices.
You’d think it would be an asthetic-killer but my cousin’s DJ (and the one we picked) had light poles and swirly lights and it was an awesome party. But that’s how we roll in the midwest. 
But seriously, just ask what it entails. If you don’t want the fog machine, don’t do the fog machine! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one of those at a wedding. Our reception room is very elegant as well and we’re going to have a very nice reception (no swirly lights, just Jack Johnson in the background), until it’s time for the party to start. And then it’s going to be a very elegant room with swirly lights and a ton of people dancing and having a good time, complete with festooned YMCA dancers and the like. And I won’t even talk about the polkas.
so glad you posted this question! i’ve been struggling with the same topic. interesting to read the responses for sure (and i guess the thing is, by the dancing part of the night the entire mood changes anyway– why not embrace it?
“Indiana” by the Samples is one of my all-time FAVORITE songs! So obscure — I never see it mentioned anywhere.
love bug : ) can i get a couple of your mungo dj playlist please? i am in the midst of trying to compile one myself and feel like you would have “the goods” we are looking for!
i will owe you forever !
See? This is why I need you. It never occurred to me to ask if certain colors could be used exclusively.
Daisy: Hahaha, awesome. I’m only marrying Mr. LB because Rhett is so taken.
jhearta (and other music fans): Don’t you love when “your” music resonates with other people? I’d be delighted to post my full list. Give me just a few more days.
This is SUCH a random side note, but I just want to say that I love the fact that you have Pink Martini on your list! I adore “Sympathique.”
Thanks Love bug!!!!
Just straining my eyes to try and read through the pic of the list : ) sounds awesome from what i can read! Cannot wait for the post!
i’m not a fan of the lights. It fits certain moods but overall I think it’s overdone, cheesy, and kills the look of the room.
Just want to say yay for The Samples. I love them - to the extent that I’ve been in pictures on their website’s ‘front row’ page and had Sean take a picture of me with my camera. ‘Little silver ring’ is my personal favorite.
I have to say that I so look forward to your posts- and I love every little element of your wedding day yet…. BUT I am very anti-light show. Everything you have says “vintage sophistication with a bit of witty tongue-in-cheek-humor”… I just don’t see the “light trees” fitting into the overall picture. However, I have come to offer a few alternatives??
-Rotating Gobo lights (These are GREAT and relatively inexpensive! Get with your local theatrical lighting supplier- and they can help you to design a gobo image- don’t start having last-minute DIY anxiety…. this can be as simple as an element already in your planning, a simple monogram, or one of their many many pre-made templates…… next, they will have you choose a color gel or leave it white…. and lastly, this little beauty will dance its way around your dance floor- offering the effect you want without the theatrics or prom-undertones of a light tree)
Another great way to change up the mood without turning it into a disco… would be to have a lighting change later in the evening that doesn’t require such a production. Have you considered simply shooting par can lighting up the walls in a soft pink hue once the dancing segment of the evening begins (it’s a simple as having to plug them in!) and they stand about a food off the ground, so no awkward wires cluttering the room…
Wishing you the best…
*foot
I heart you. Seriously. Love reading your posts about Tucson, where I briefly lived, am ever so grateful for the referral to Tara at Ephemera, who will be doing my invites as well, and now find that not only do you have Big Audio Dynamite’s “The Globe” on your playlist, but you xyroned the list to the CD sleeve. Awesome.
sounds like you don’t need it. it probably would kill the mood of the room.
i am using lighting because my venue needs better lighting. we have fluorescents which are just awful and too bright.
so we are renting some uplights which will give nice mellow lighting no strobe light though.
i get motion sickness. what if i get sick!
What if he put lights low and in front of his set-up that just filled the floor with light?
Much less obtrusive on the people not dancing, but very noticeable to those who are.
You might also want to see what your photographer has to say, if they are going to be there well into the evening. Flashing disco-type lights might be difficult for them.
Would you be at all open to either posting or emailing the master list your DJ sent? I am an ipod bride, and am making my own play list, and I’d love to see what his thoughts are. (I LOVE the Bright Eyes song you chose. Gorgeous.)
I would love to see your song list too!
yay to the full list posting! i want to do a full playlist too so ideas are *so* welcome!
Wow, I feel like Rob Gordon from High Fidelity. The pressure! l will definitely post my full list, if you guys promise to help me fill in any blaring holes!
you are hilarious.
okay, have you seen Mrs.Anayisnin’s bio? her lighting was spectacular. i actually gave our lighting guy a picture from her bio.
I totally agree with you, the lights & trees is prom-y, but uplighting and a standard gobo (with leaves or something similar) in neutral colors can do a lot for the dancing!
Miss LB, I heart Pink Martini too! Awesome!
I think your wedding will be beautiful without the lights… not necessary IMO
How ’bout this: plan for no lights, and then if (god forbid!) the room starts getting a little slow, sneak over to the DJ and frantically whisper “put on a long track and get the lights out of the truck! Run!!!”
I’ll be curious to see if the DJ listens to you. I feel like no amount of my OCD is going to control mine…maybe I have the wrong DJ…
Awesome input. Definitely intrigued by and looking into Gobo lights, and what a great thought to just have soft foot lighting. But still I’m torn. I want it to have that soft vintage vibe. BUT THEN I WANT TO BOOGY! Arrrgghhh….
Shawn: I’m pretty confident that Luke’s cool with my OCD, espeically since he’ll have a complete playlist. His words, in fact, were, “it’s your wedding. We’ll play whatever you want, and nothing you don’t.”
I am very interested in seeing the masterlist!!!
hey the master list is essential!!! I spent days… I coordinated the entire soundtrack to our wedding song by song, from ceremony, to dinner, to cake cutting, to dancing, and it was perfect! I’m sure that our DJ was bored, but we got so many compliments about how our wedding was so ‘us’. I even had a no requests unless its okay’d with the bride rule. I allowed a few, but was also able to keep ac/dc, butterfly kisses, and who let the dogs out out of my wedding day! (no offense to anyone who may like those bands/songs - p.s. play them at your own wedding)
