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rainbowtrout

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Has anybody done the no-DJ, no-band music route? We''re looking at ways to trim the budget, and renting nice speakers and making customized iPod playlists for the reception seems like a nice way to save a bundle of cash.

Advantages:
1) the songs we want, sung by who we want
2) SO much less expensive
Disadvantages:
1) tacky?
2) who will man the playlist, announce us, etc? We can tap one of his brothers, but it feels mean to make them do it. I kind of like the idea of a friend announcing us instead of some stranger, though
3) my dad is a musician who has played weddings his whole life. He might be disappointed. otoh, he isn''t contributing anything to the wedding and I don''t have the 2-3k to get really nice musicians on the east coast.

(for the ceremony we''re trying to recuit students from Berkeley who will work for less than professionals).
 
I really think if you do it right, people won''t even notice that there is no DJ.

That is what we are doing, except we have a person who will be manning the speakers/MCing if need be (for our introduction, first dance, boquette toss, cake cutting, etc.) So, I guess it''s sort of like having a DJ only he has no controll ove song selection.

Do any of your fiance''s realatives love the spot light? If so I don''t think they would feel "made" to help out, I think they would rather enjoy being the one to alert the crowd to the fact that something worth watching is about to happen. I would suppose that addressing problems with the play list would be part of the job description too.

I think more than anything, the play list is important. FI and I have been over our list over and over. He has shared it with some of our "party animal" friends to insure it is going to go over well. Plus, he has tweaked and tweaked it to make sure it flows well (slow songs to break up the more lively ones, popular songs mixed in with personal favorites, etc.) We basically just want to keep it totally classsy and avoid songs that we don''t love for weddings (You can probably guess the ones). They can be fun, a lot of people love em, but we would rather do without. Plus we want to be able to include some songs that DJs may not nessicarily have avaliable. Make sure you give yourselves a good selection with a lot of variety, and you should be good to go)
 
We had thought about doing something similar with just playing the music from a laptop and we are VERY good friends with the minister who married us and he said we could borrow the sound system from their church, but we found a DJ who was a very decent price. I didn''t think ahving a DJ was such a big deal but he worked along with the photographer to help her to knwo when things were going on and he pretty much ran the reception...which some people might not like but we LOVED it because we had all these thigns we wanted to do..and he planned it out and things went very smoothly. If you were in Indiana I would give you his name haha he did AMAZING.
 
rainbowtrout, we used a laptop and a set of speakers for both our ceremony and the reception to save money and because we are somewhat control freaks who did not trust anyone to play what we wanted to hear. We had a very small wedding, 24 guests.

We hired a day-of-coordinator to do the announcing because we could not bring ourselves to ask any of our friends to make the announcements, we felt it would be like putting them to work after they had flown so far to come to our wedding. The coordinator played the music during the ceremony and stopped the music to make announcements during the reception. DH and I selected all the music, designated the opening song and the last song, and had a tiny remote in DH''s pocket that we used for unscheduled pauses in the music.
 
Fancy, I don''t suppose you would want to share some of your play list ideas with us would you
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?

I have a band playing, but i am struggling with the music to play in b/w set breaks. I don''t know names of songs or who sings them so searching for titles is tedious--
 
Hmm, I''m encouraged that other people have had a sucess!

How much does a day-of-coordinator usually run?

I''ve never had a pleasant DJ experience in my life, which is another reason I''m shying away from one.
 
Ours was $250. For that, he planned the timeline with us, ran the rehearsal, coordinated the ceremony, supervised reception decorations, catering and clean up, played the music and made announcements.

He was worth every penny because all our guests were free to enjoy themselves, not even our moms had to do anything but walk us down the aisle and have a great time
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Date: 6/13/2007 10:42:13 AM
Author: Jas12
Fancy, I don't suppose you would want to share some of your play list ideas with us would you
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?


I have a band playing, but i am struggling with the music to play in b/w set breaks. I don't know names of songs or who sings them so searching for titles is tedious--

Sure! We currently have 3 main play lists and then some separate files for our intruduction, cake, etc. I wish I had FIs computer, I'd just copy the play list in order. We really have loved planning the playlist because all of the songs are significant to us somehow (I guess after 5 years, you have a lot of memories associated with music!) So the whole night will be very personal for us, and we think enjoyable for guests (cheesey, I know, but still) It has been a tedius, but nice process filtering through everything, re ordering it, etc.

The first list is "cocktail hour" aka music to entertain the guests before we get there. It's mostly love/happy songs that we love that are difficult to dance to or that weren't "good" enough for the dance cut. We have Things like: Beautiful Day by U2, A Moment Like This by Kelly Clarkson. I'd actually like to start the whole thing off with "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast, but FI still hasn't decided if that's too cheesey.

The second list is just nice dinner background music (mostly instrumental or very light and quiet vocals). We're having things like Jessica by the Almond Brothers, Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straights, things like that. I can't remember all of them. We WANT the instrumental arangement of Over the Rainbow that is on the tv comercials for some kind of vacation, but I haven't found it yet.

Dancing! I remember lots of these.

Our first Dance is Steady as we Go by Dave Mathews (We have a nicely edited version that leaves out the strange stuff at the end)
After That we will have about 3 hours for dancing/other traditions like cake, etc, so....we have LOTS to fill This isn't the exact order, FI has been perfecting it, and I haven't seen the finished product yet.

Crazy little thing Called Love by Queen
Twist and Shout by The Beatles
Love Me Tender- Norah Jones version
Burning Love- Elvis
I would Walk 500 Miles- The Proclaimers (it seemed like an odd choice to me, but then a few weeks ago some friends of ours had it at their wedding, and it was a real fun one, so I'm going with it now)
In Your Eyes- By Peter Gabriel sp? (I have created a 2.5 min version)
You're in My Heart by Rod Stewart
Shout by Little Richard (So I caved and did one "wedding" song, but only because my BMs and I love wedding crashers)
I'll Do it For You by Bryan Adams (I also want I will Always Be Right There, but it may be tooooo slow and may have to be played at dinner instead.)
That's When He Told Her- The Proclaimers (This one isn't widely known, but we love it, and it's a nice slow song, so I figure people will dance to it even if it isn't familiar)
Ain't Love a Kick in the Head- I don't remember who's version we are doing.
At Last By Etta James
Meet Me at the Altar- the remix by--hmmm I don't remember. This one is def. at the request of the bridesmaids.
God Only Knows by the Beach Boys
A Song For You- Ray Charles
We have one that we're doing after the boquette and Gaurder toss twoards the end called: Stay all Night, Stay a litte Longer, that will sort of begin the "finale" of dancing.
Hey Ya by Outkast- Yeah, so this one doesn't rank high on the class factor, but it'll be fun for the end.
We have a Beatles Dance Mix that we think is fun for the end too.
Wonderful Tonight - we are closing the whole evening with this one.

I will try to remember some others.
 
we are planning on doing the same thing... ipod/laptop and nice speakers with mic.

2 of our friends are going to share the hosting duty... really it''s only starting and stopping music - playing first dance song - announcing toasts and the cake cutting (oh and that food is being served). we will have everything else set up as certain playlists and all they have to do is hit play.

i''m currently working on our playlists... we are kinda music geeks so it was sooooo important to have certain songs and we really didn''t trust someone else''s taste in music.

while i can''t tell you how it went, i can say that i wouldn''t do it any other way. people will try and scare you, but i think that''s because they are the type of people who worry about every last detail.

go with your gut and you won''t be disappointed!
 
Rainbowtrout, we''ve decided to go this route too. For the ceremony, we''ll have a violinist so it''ll all be classical. For the hors d''oeuvres and lunch, we''ll have jazz from the ipod. Then the rest of the ceremony will be a mix.

We''re having my brother be in charge of the music (whether he uses his computer or ipod). I''ll create the lists, along w/his help. I''m hoping he''ll figure out when to play what song and what time and I just provide titles. Then, I''m not sure who''ll be our announcer. I asked his FI but she hasn''t responded yet. If she doesn''t feel ok w/it, I will ask someone else.

Here''s some songs that I came across today while doing some searching for the after lunch portion:

Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
At Last - Etta James
Always & Forever - Luther Vandross
Celebration - Kool & the Gang
Love Shack - B52''s
Way You Look Tonight - Frank Sinatra
Unforgettable - Nat King Cole
Here & Now - Luther Vandross
In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel
How Sweet It Is - James Taylor
You are the Sunshine of My Life - Stevie Wonder
A Groovy Kind of Love - Phil Collins
Crazy For You - Madonna
My All - Mariah Carey
When a Man Loves a Woman - Michael Bolton
The Twist
My Girl
We Are Family
Other possible artists: Billie Holiday (although maybe she''ll be in the jazz portion), Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Norah Jones

But I''m still searching around and have to go through my cd''s too.
 
Thanks Fancy! I love that those songs have a lot of meaning for you--your enthusiasm will be contagious i am sure!. You''ve inspired me to get organized and I''ll probably steal a few of your songs...
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Date: 6/13/2007 11:02:45 PM
Author: Jas12
Thanks Fancy! I love that those songs have a lot of meaning for you--your enthusiasm will be contagious i am sure!. You''ve inspired me to get organized and I''ll probably steal a few of your songs...
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You''re welcome! I think that being organized is really the key to making it meaningful for you and fun for the guests at the same time. My FI is really the brains behind it all.
 
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