When my then girlfriend then fiancée and now wife Monica (you follow?) and I got engaged on a cold wintery afternoon in Niketown (Props to Nike for hooking us up with shoes & an empty Niketown for our engagement shoot!) on 57th & Madison Ave in NYC back in late 2008, there was one decision about the wedding that we had already agreed on:

I was going to DJ my own wedding…*

Well, not in the traditional sense.  The plan was for me to make my own wedding mix and my comrades would handle the equipment and run the show.  So I guess more accurately put, I hired myself and my brethren to DJ my own wedding.

Don’t think it would a good idea?  Why?  I knew my clients’ musical tastes (mine!) better than anyone else, I knew my clients’ guests’ musical tastes (our friends & family!) better than anyone else, and I’m a good DJ (just being honest!).  If that’s not hitting the trifecta, I don’t know what is!

This mix reflects my style (“DANCE YOUR SOCKS OFF”) and musical tastes (Hip Hop/Pop/Rock/Funk/Disco/Reggae/90s/80s/Boy Bands [don't judge me!]/a little of everything).  Sprinkle that with my wife’s requests (Christina Aguriella, Britney, Pink, Kelly Clarkson [see a trend here?]) and my mom’s requests (YMCA and Electric Slide), you have 77 minutes of dance till you drop goodness.

[ download mp3 ]

And anytime you can have a back to back mix of Janet Jackson, Bell Bev Devoe, Nelly Furtado, Britney Spears, KC & The Sunshine Band, Flo-rida, Justin Timberlake, Rick Astley, Maroon 5, Jonas Brothers, and Michael Jackson, you gotta do it!

*Couples, don’t try this at home.  DJing your own wedding is normally a terrible idea and I would advise people against it.  If you want a smashing dance party, playing music from an IPOD all night is almost as bad as hiring a DJ that plays music from an IPOD all night.  Not to mention having nobody to guide the reception along, make announcements, and coordinate with other vendors (photographers/videographers/etc) along the way, especially if you don’t have a day of coordinator.

[ photo credits: Phat Wedding Photography ]

We spun an incredible wedding for Christine & Mike in Philadelphia last year! We blogged about it a little bit here, but am glad that Hi-Fi Weddings featured it in all its glory with loads of pictures and the awesome playlist we put together!

Reminiscing about the night makes me want to break out in a jig…  a cool jig.

A Real Hi-Fi Wedding:  Christine & Mike’s Dance Party

We’ve been getting a lot of requests from folks who want to see us in action before booking our services.  Totally understandable!  Now we can’t invite prospective clients to a wedding we’re spinning (you wouldn’t want complete strangers hanging out at your wedding, right?)  So we’ll give you the next best thing, a video clip us live in action!

I’m sure you can find plenty of wedding DJ promo clips, but I’ll bet you most of them are highly edited, polished videos with a lot of special effects (ie. slow motion), short scenes with fast cuts and a lot of close ups, and a nicely pre-mixed music track to complete the razzle dazzle.  What does that tell you about their party rocking skills? Absolutely nada.

We believe in marriage, truth, and dancing your socks off! So what we present to you is almost 20 all natural minutes of a wedding we did in Connecticut over the summer.  No video editing.  No sound fibbing.  No special effects (unless you count silly flashing texts).  100% organic & raw, worthy of approval from both your nutritionist and Ol Dirty Bastard. Enjoy!

[ photo credits: Fairy Tale Photography ]

Right before it got ICE COLD on the east coast (seemed like so long ago… brrr), I drove down and teamed up with DJ Mike to provide the soundtrack for Christine & Mike’s awesome wedding at the Hotel Palomar in Philly.  Wait, did I mention it was awesome?

Christine & Mike wanted a huge party and that’s what they got!  1 set of skyped in grandparents (impressive!), 2 hours of dancing, 3 entertaining toasts, and 110 songs later (that’s just the dancing part), it was a WRAP!  We captured so much good footage that I had to make a 4 minute edition (scroll to the bottom) in addition to the 2 minute time lapse video you see above capturing the essence of a smashing dance party!

AND we had the pleasure of meeting and working with some true wedding professionals:  Chill Weddings (hey christina!) and Our Labor of Love. Whitney (who makes a cameo in the video) and the team from OLOL were super nice and their smilebooth setup was so buttery smooth.  It was a beautiful sight to see in person!

Anyways, CONGRATS AGAIN CHRISTINE & MIKE! It was a blast!

4 minute edition:

Happy Friday!

Check out this time lapsed goodness I whipped up for my good friends Calvin and Eva. The wifey and I flew to Dallas for their celebration (I pulled triple duty as guest/DJ/emcee) on Halloween weekend and had a blast!  I loved that their wedding was an east meets west extravaganza; from the classically swaggerific first dance to the traditional chinese tea ceremony and the heartwarming bridal family serenade. And oh yeah, folks got BUSY on the dance floor!

Congratulations Calvin & Eva!

p.s.  I make a little cameo towards the end.  TAIGA!