Weddingbee Blog

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Unfortunately, we will not be having dancing at our wedding.

(source)

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I am in need of a DJ, and according to my friend (and enemy) Martha Stewart, this is something that should have been done a month ago. But, Martha, to be fair, it’s not like I haven’t been TRYING to book a DJ! I’ve done a lot of Internet research to find a reputable DJ that won’t break the bank, and the last time I was in Dallas, Mama Hippo and I met with two DJs, both of whom were recommended to me by other vendors. Let’s just say the appointments were less than successful. Actually, they were a huge fail.

So, I’m going to sound like the most superficial person ever, HOWEVER, the first DJ showed up looking completely disheveled. He was sweating and couldn’t seem to stop sweating. O.k., so it may have been June in Texas, but we were meeting indoors, with central air conditioning…I think at some point he should have stopped sweating, no?! I think he would have been completely fine at the job of playing music and making announcements, but the sweating…not o.k.

The second DJ rubbed me the wrong way immediately. He had his canned “this is how a wedding works” PowerPoint presentation and mentioned something about giving out the centerpieces during the reception…What??! Like a raffle??!? Ummm…no. He was over-the-top cheesy, although he kept telling us how he hated cheesy DJs. Ummmm…Glass houses? Stones?

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I’ve talked about our decision to have live music at the reception instead of a deejay, as well as our first dance. Now I thought I would offer a couple of tips for finding the right band at the right price.

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I wanna rock and roll all night!

That is the theme for our wedding entertainment. I want it to be a party. I want people on the dance floor the entire time. I want to shake my groove thang and fist pump to Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’.

My dilemma was how to go about making this happen. I love live music, but a DJ can play anything we want. So, like the little organized wedding maestro that I am, I sat down and made a list of the pros and cons of both.

Live Band

Pros

• Awesome atmosphere
• Provides a party feelings
• Adds own twist on songs
• Furthers sing-a-longs (a must, in my book!)

Cons

• Expensive
• Can’t play everything we want
• Can be difficult to negotiate with
• More people to deal with and house and feed
• Band requires more space (which means possibly renting a bigger tent)

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For some couples, choosing a first dance song is easy. They’ve always had “their song” and so their search for the appropriate song lasts about five minutes. For Mr. Dragon and I, this particular search was not so easy. Our favorite songs were either totally wedding-inappropriate OR they were TOO emotionally meaningful to us. I do not want to be crying all over the dance floor - I am kind of private about some things (shocking, I know). Over the course of several months, we went back and forth, trying to find something that felt right. Well, we finally found something that feels perfect! I am not going to share the song because… I have to keep some things a surprise!!

In the course of our search, however, we found several songs that might be fantastic at YOUR wedding! So, without further ado… great first dance songs not-for-Snapdragons.

So Small - Carrie Underwood

This is the song we didn’t choose because I would be sobbing the whole way through! There is “pretty cry” and “ugly cry.” This is my ugly cry song, so NO GO!

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I have to be honest with you all—Mr. Powder Puff is not all that involved with wedding planning. He helped pick out the venue and date, but when his eyes would glaze over while I was discussing shades of white, I figured that he might not be the type of guy to give a lot of input into the nitty-gritty of the planning process. So we had a discussion, he told me he trusted my judgment, and I told him he was released from his taffeta prison.

Lo and behold, after a few months of planning, the mister told me that actually, there was one thing he wanted complete and total control over—our first dance.

Now, if you know anything at all about me, you know that I am, above all, a control freak. A major, uptight, crazy control freak. So when Mr. Powder Puff told me that he wanted to surprise me with our first dance song, I panicked a little. On the inside, of course.

“Um… are you sure about that?” I asked, tentatively.

“Yeah, I really want to pick it. It’ll be romantic!”

“Okaaayyyy…” I agreed. Change is good, I told myself. Surprises are good. This will be good, and I can relax and let the man pick a song. It’s only a song!

Over the months, though, I have not been able to sit back and let this issue go. At all. Every chance I get I “casually” suggest songs. “Ooo, this would be a great first dance song!” Or, the much more subtle, “You know, this would make a wonderful song for our first dance…” Every time, I’m met with a rebuff. “It’s a surprise,” he reminds me, “I can’t let you help me.”

Humph!

Here are my ideal suggestions for a first dance.
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Mr. Quiche and I are such “music” people, that I don’t trust leaving the song decisions up to a Jamaican DJ. We don’t want the same old song and dance (Electric Slide, Shout!, you get the point…).

The resort provides a Jamaican Mento band (I had no idea what one was, either!) as part of our general wedding package. I am glad that we’re going to have some Jamaican music for the ceremony, but I don’t want that to be the sole source of entertainment for the reception.
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Mr. G and I have been through a lot in our relationship. At times, it has been like a roller coaster, fun but also scary and unpredictable. We have been “that couple” fighting outside a bar on Saturday night. We’ve been on the infamous “break” (not the holiday kind, think more Ross and Rachel). We have pushed each other to the brink of madness and back. I can’t say that I am proud of some of my past behaviors. But you live and you learn. Bad days pass and you try your best to make tomorrow a better one. Today, we take one day at a time always with an appreciation for where we have been and where we want to go from here.

After reading a post by Miss Sushi, I was inspired to write about “our song”. Actually, we are too indecisive to have just one song. We consider several songs to be ours. I want to somehow incorporate all of these songs into the wedding day. I’ve yet to figure out how that will all play out, but it’s on my ‘To Do’ list.
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Confession: Mr. Fondue and I are both music snobs. One of the reasons we actually started talking and dating was because we had a love for similar bands. What we consider our first date was a concert (A Perfect Circle). That’s not to say we agree on all music, however, which can produce some mild bickering in the Fondue household (like, he’s not allowed to listen to Dave Matthews if I can’t listen to Jewel), but, for the most part, our tastes run pretty close.

So one of the things we were really looking forward to was picking songs for our reception play list. We knew our do-not-play list would be extensive, so we made sure to find a DJ we trusted to follow it. We are also giving him a list of bands/artists that are definitely okay to play, and hopefully between the two, he’ll be able to discern our tastes.

Unfortunately, a lot of our favorite bands are not wedding/dance friendly (sorry, Trent, Maynard, Thom, and Roger). We also like a lot of electronic music, but didn’t want to alienate our non-techno-loving guests. However, we did manage to come up with a decently sized list of songs that we thought would be good to hear at some point during the night and that the majority of our guests would enjoy. So, without further ado, our reception play lists:
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One of the first vendors that Mr. Spring Roll and I booked was our DJ. I absolutely love to dance, if you can call it that. I tend to throw my arms all over, and jump around. Regardless of my moves, I plan to dance the majority of our wedding reception. Therefore, good music is crucial. Our DJ has asked us to provide a list of ‘must play’, as well as ‘do not play’ songs.

Dancing at sister Spring Roll’s wedding
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I. Love. Bon. Jovi.

I know it’s such a Jersey thing, to be a Bon Jovi fan, but I can’t help it! I have just about all of their hits, and I even faithfully buy their new albums. When Living on a Prayer comes on, my arms instantly shoot up to start pounding the air and my head instinctively bangs up and down. It just never gets old.

While Mr. Martini and I were talking about our “soundtrack” for the wedding, we started shooting back and forth titles of well known love songs. Then suddenly he asked, “What about Bon Jovi?”

I responded, “What about Bon Jovi? He doesn’t really have many love songs…”

He answered, “What about Always, or Bed of Roses, or I’ll Be There for You?”

I replied, “Those aren’t really love songs at all.”

Then it got me thinking.
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Ask and ye shall receive, my friends. It’s DIY week for me, and I couldn’t be more excited to share the following projects with you. I wish I had five, because that would a be a complete workweek of projects, and it’s just a nice number, but I only have four. I am busy, so I might not even get them all posted this week. But they are going to be good ones. Well obviously I think they are, or I wouldn’t be posting them.

Let’s begin with my tutorial on how to cut your own first dance. Mr. Avocado and I will be dancing to “Meet Me By The Water” by Rachel Yamagata, but it has this 50 second intro we would have to wait through. Plus we don’t really feel like fox trotting around for four whole minutes.

Before you begin, you will need to download the program Goldwave.
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Music is one aspect of our reception that we are definitely not taking lightly. Mr. Cupcake and I have been revisiting and revising our play list for months, as we’re determined to have music that (almost) everyone can enjoy.

Choosing music has been a challenge, because a lot of the music that we like just won’t work for dancing. Currently, the six-disc rotation in my car consists of She & Him, Justin Timberlake, Regina Spektor, the Broadway soundtrack to Wicked, Ingrid Michaelson, and The Beatles White Album. Aside from Justin and some earlier Beatles songs, nothing is very danceable. We’ve had to get in touch with our inner dancing queens to compile a list that will (hopefully) have our dance floor packed all night with everyone from my 13-year-old cousin to Mr. Cupcake’s 70-something-year-old grandmother.

First, the “important songs”—entrances, first dance, parent dances, etc.:
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It’s gonna be hot at our outdoor August wedding, no doubt about it. We usually try to deal with any adverse situations with practicality and then sprinkle it with humor, and this one will be no exception. We’ll make sure drinks are plenty cold by the time guests arrive, we’re having Jamba Juice catered, and setting up market umbrellas to provide shade for dinner. Since there isn’t much more we can do to keep things cool, we decided to make light of the hot mess by playing songs with heat/fire/sun references either pre-ceremony or during the cocktail hour. Finding songs is actually a rather tough task because we need the songs to be at least somewhat well known, upbeat, with a relatively positive message, and for them to make a pretty prominent reference to the hotness. We wonder how many people will get it, but much like table 9, it’ll be worth the few chuckles regardless. Here’s what we have so far (which I’m not yet satisfied with).
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