70’s soft rock and disco wedding, De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA. Photo: Julio Duffoo
"James DJ'd our wedding reception at the de Young Museum this Summer and it could not have been more perfect. James took the time to really get to know us and our tastes in music (we are both huge music fans) and used that to tailor a set list that both met our expectations but also surprised us and packed a lot of unexpected joy. The dance floor was smoking. Throughout the entire experience James was personable, organized and enthusiastic. He made himself a trusted partner in our wedding plans. Press "play" for James and his deep record collection and knowledge of music. A wonderful fellow." - Craig Daniel
Glamorous 70’s Soft Rock and Disco LGBT Wedding at The De Young
I don’t think I was really thinking about it at the time, but Craig and Rob turned out to be our first LGBT wedding clients. They go to a lot of shows and were definitely picking up what we were putting down as far as our 2000’s indie club night that focuses on a lot of things like Arcade Fire, Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem.
But for their wedding, Craig and Rob really wanted to incorporate both a queer history element and really accent the playlist with a lot of personal touches from their relationship, their youth and their experiences with friends.
I have to admit, I wasn’t exactly sure how it was all going to hang together at first, which is sort of a common theme when planning out wedding music, but the end result turned out to be really great in a lot of unexpected ways.
A 70’s Soft Rock Theme
I’m getting on the years, personally, but being a few years older than me, these guys had a lot of requests that skewed towards the late 70’s. And this was before 70’s soft rock became one of our main specialties. Folky Joni Mitchell, Carole King, James Taylor type stuff and their first dance was going to be The Carpenters “Close to You” so we definitely couldn’t lose that element.
For the dancing, we talked about bringing in a disco element, but also some fun diva type stuff from the 80’s and 90’s. This was where we might have had an opportunity to slip in some modern indie dance, italo disco remixes if that was going to happen. And they also wanted to do Hip Hop and R&B for the end of the dancing. So it became pretty clear the 70’s idea, whether it was folk, glam or disco was going to guide the proceedings.
We did a ton of requests for these guys. At the time, I think it was the most we had ever done, but in retrospect it was a pretty reasonable amount compared to some of the projects we’ve undertaken. Point being, it was really their taste that was guiding what would happen and it really opened my eyes to the idea that taking as many requests as possible was going to be central to fulfilling our vision of a great wedding should sound like.
A 70’s Folk Cocktail Hour
The day of the event, it was extremely foggy in Golden Gate Park and the fog ran the risk of obscuring the epic view from the top of De Young’s observation deck area. But despite the fog, the whole proceeding had a magical, still quality that we tried to play into with some of the lighter folkier songs like Nick Drake “Pink Moon” and Leonard Cohen “Suzanne” that I think it came off pretty well.
A 70’s Soft Rock Dinner
For the dinner, I basically mega-mixed through their request list but with an eye towards maintaining the groove from each song and accenting the melodies by mixing them all harmonically. We peppered it some certifiable soft rock dance hits like Rolling Stones “Miss You” and The Doobie Brothers “What a Fool Believes” to give things a little more of a R&B groove and slowly brought in an disco element with stuff like the long, demo version of Michael Jackson “Gonna Be Startin’ Something” that he recorded in his living room with all the band clinking on glasses and stuff in the background.
The thing I haven’t mentioned yet, is probably the best part.
An Amazing Choreographed Top Hat and Cane First Dance
For their first dance, Rob and Craig and planned out a full, choreographed surprise dance where they pulled out top hats and canes and did a whole “Putting on the Ritz” style top hat dance to The Carpenters “Close to You.”
Then they went backstage and came out with top hats and canes for everyone and everyone is singing and dancing with top hats through the finale of the song, and before you can even finish laughing…
The robot busts in.
A Legit Robot Dance Party
So Craig and Rob met on their first date in Dolores Park where our friend the dancing robot sometimes hangs out. San Francisco is loaded with magical, crazy characters that do fun spontaneous things like this and on that day, the robot had definitely brought both Craig and Rob and the Dolores Park robot dance party together.
So the dancing robot busts in, and the idea was to have him kick the whole dance party off with Daft Punk “Get Lucky.” The robot is made entirely out of bluetooth speakers, so we had him rigged into the mixer, so whatever came out of the main soundsystem speakers, would also come out of the robot.
It was pretty great.
A Disco Dance Opener
So everyone’s going nuts to Daft Punk and the music is coming out of the robot and the robot is dancing with everyone. And from there we just dropped the hammer on all the disco tracks and just mashed and mashed through them. All the tweaks and the drops and the call outs and crazy long mixes and everything in key.
It all really did come together with the 70’s folk earlier, and then the soft rock, and then the glam and then the disco with modern flourishes peppered in. Aside from the classics, I think we did some stuff like Estelle feat Kanye West “American Boy” and Stardust “Music Sounds Better with You”.
A 90’s Hip Hop and R&B After Party
To close, we did all 90’s hip hop and R&B with disco samples. Mary J Blige “Real Love”, Mariah Carey “Fantasy”, Mya feat ODB and Pras “Ghetto Superstar”. I think I might have done Naughty By Nature “Jamboree” which talks about partying with your family and has a riff in the chorus that’s a joke on my DJ name. So we brought the whole thing with 90’s divas right back to the 70’s divas.
When it was over, Craig and Rob were like “Oh my god! It was our idea, but actually good!” Hahahaha. So mission accomplished there. The venue coordinators were similarly impressed and Julio and Tim the photographers were laughing in the corner like “Where on earth did they find you?!
Apparently, Julio and Tim are always marveling at how the usual DJ’s do next to nothing and I was like cutting and scratching and mashing and tweaking my way through the whole thing.
In conclusion, I will make your bad idea good! And I really am the best. Ask your wedding vendors.
Big Ups & Shout Outs
Special shout out to the De Young Museum for having me. I hope we can do it again soon.
Special shout out to Alchemy Event Design. I’ve ended up working with these guys at a couple other events since then and they’ve turned out to be good friends and also solid, professional lighting dudes. The gold standard!
Special shout out to McCalls Catering. They run a tight ship and also are really laid back and fun to work with despite all the moving parts they handle for you. Also, the food was great!
And finally, special shout out to Julio Dufoo Photography and Tim Daw Photography. I was still new to the wedding game at this point and your support was really encouraging. Watch out, I’ve gotten even better!
See you all soon.
Ceremony Songs
First Dance:
Family Dance
Soft Rock Requests:
Elton John “Tiny Dancer”
Paul McCartney “Maybe I’m Amazed”
Bob Dylan “Tangles Up in Blue”
Rickie Lee Jones “Chuck E’s in Love”
The Carpenters “We’ve Only Just Begun”
The Eagles “Take It to The Limit”
Joni Michell “A Case of You”
Velvet Underground “Sweet Jane”
David Bowie “Changes”
The Rolling Stones “Emotional Rescue”
Rod Stewart “Downtown Train”
Jackson Browne “Somebody’s Baby”
KC and the Sunshine Band “Boogie Shoes”
Venue: De Young Museum / Caterer: McCalls Catering & Events / Photographer: Duffoo Photography & Tim Daw Photography / DJ: Ceremony DJs / Lights: Alchemy Event Design / Rentals: Bright Rentals / Cake: Butter Sugar Flour / Fun: Robot Dance Party
