Weddingbee Blog

[Disclaimer: this post is dramatic and rant-y, but it has a happy ending, promise!]

Now that you’ve seen some of our little details (I’ve got a few left up my sleeve to share next week!), let’s PARTY!

As you may or may not remember, I was a crazy person about our reception music. Burger and I have super-strong feelings about music at weddings and the behavior of DJs in general, so I was anxiously awaiting the dancing to begin. In fact, we had worked out our reception timing so that we had 4 and a half hours of nothing but dancing! Not everyone made it to the end, but we sure did.

These little ones got things kicked off as most people were still eating dinner—my kind of kids!

Soon after, our DJ started playing the carefully-chosen songs from our list of what I like to call “generation neutral” music—basically, songs that people of all ages enjoy. And they did!

People were seriously having an absolute blast, and so were Burger and I!

Dancing had been moving along at an amazing pace for about an hour (it was around 9:00)—the dance floor was packed, and everyone was saying how great the music was! And then, I heard this come on:

And I literally stopped and stared in disbelief.

Now, you’re probably wondering what the big deal is - “Shout is an awesome wedding song, why is this girl being so dramatic?!”

Well, friends, that’s just it - Shout is an awesome wedding song. In fact, it is my FAVORITE wedding song. To me, it is SYNONYMOUS with weddings. It is invariably my favorite part of any wedding I have ever been to.

Which is why it was supposed to be our LAST SONG. LAST. At MIDNIGHT. NOT at 9:00 PM at the beginning of our reception.

Burger stared back at me—we were both silent. He knew how upset I would be, and how much I wanted to dance to it for our last moments of our wedding reception. So I decided it was an excellent time for me to take a break and freshen up (/be furious).

Good news, though! Everyone ELSE was dancing and having a grand old time dancing to an awesome song! I am glad for that…at least it was an error that only I knew about.

Eventually, I calmed down enough to go back into the reception, where I noticed that the tone of the entire reception had changed. The music was suddenly…RAP. ALL Rap. It was Usher’s Yeah followed by Get Low, followed by Still Not A Player, followed by THIS SONG (OMG ARE YOU SERIOUS?! Do you all REMEMBER how this song starts?! Even if it IS edited?!).

Yes, I had wanted all of those songs to be played (except Ja Rule, obviously), but I FIGURED they would be played, oh I don’t know, at like 11:00 when our Grandparents were in bed and our Aunts and Uncles would be too drunk to care?! 9:30 was a liiiiiiittle too early for all that. In fact, one Uncle (who is really cool, by the way!) was even heard saying “WELP, that’s MY cue to leave,” when all the rap started up after Shout.

I hadn’t approached the DJ after his Shout screw up, but this was just too much for me to handle. So, I calmly approached his table and said, “Hey, do you think we can go back to the stuff you were playing before? You know, music that everyone can relate to? I think it’s a little early in the evening to be playing so much rap.”

To which he responded “Well, you told me I could ONLY play the songs YOU PICKED, and YOU PICKED THOSE SONGS, and I’m RUNNING OUT OF CHOICES.”

Now, this just wasn’t the case. I had sent him a spreadsheet with our chosen songs and their lengths which totaled 140 minutes (or 2.5 hours). In what universe would I tell someone that they could ONLY play these songs, leaving almost 2 full hours of silence?

This claim was completely outrageous and infuriated me further, prompting my second “break” from my own wedding reception. This time, I found Burger, who basically told me I was being ridiculous and to stop pouting and go have fun at our reception.

Though I didn’t want to hear it at the time, he was right.

And though our DJ was incredibly rude and unprofessional in that moment, he did turn things around. He took my suggestion and started playing the classics again, with only a few more “WTF is he thinking with this one” songs. And, to give him full credit, he did an excellent job on the introductions and coordinating speeches and our parent dances, which I kept changing at the last minute.

The moral of the story is this: regardless of what happens on your big day, roll with it. This was supposed to be my mantra all along, but I am obviously too uptight to roll with certain punches.

But I did have an amazing time during the remainder of our reception, and I think everyone else did too! Plus, we got to have an amazing last song regardless—stay tuned!

Cheeseburger Tip: On Music - if I could go back in time, I would have done one of two things: a) iPod reception or b) given our DJ an exact list of the songs I wanted played and in what order. Here is my rationale - people worry about the logistics and technical aspects of an iPod reception, but if you have someone who can serve as an MC, and you have plenty of back up equipment, I think you’d really be fine. As for the ordered song list… All along I had this fear of becoming too much of a control freak bridezilla, but after reacting the way I did to his mistakes, I wish I had been more controlling during planning. DJs always sell themselves as ’the people who analyze what the crowd is into, playing just the right song for that moment.’ I’m calling bullshit. If you are picky about music, then JUST BE PICKY ABOUT YOUR MUSIC. It’s YOUR wedding, NOT your DJ’s.

Did you have any musical mishaps on your big day? Or are any of you being a super-control freak about your music (go you!)?

Catch up!

• Grow Old Along With Me: We moved to Happy Valley!
• Grow Old Along With Me: The Good, Bad, & Ugly
• Grow Old Along With Me: The Girls Get Prettier
• Grow Old Along With Me: We Exchanged Gifts
• Grow Old Along With Me: Burger Got Dressed
• Grow Old Along With Me: Bridal Suite & Flowers Galore
• Grow Old Along With Me: I Became A Bride!
• Grow Old Along With Me: We Made it to the Church
• Grow Old Along With Me: Down the Aisle They Went!
• Grow Old Along With Me: We Got MARRIED!
• Grow Old Along With Me: It Was Picture Time
• Grow Old Along With Me: We Took a Trolley Ride
• Grow Old Along With Me: Burger and I had our Close Up
• Grow Old Along With Me: There Were Blessings and Speeches and Dances, too!
• Grow Old Along With Me: We had a Blast in Our Photobooth!
• Grow Old Along With Me: I Showed You Our Details!

all photographs by the lovely and talented Jessica Ames