70’s rock and salsa wedding, Bolzano Restaurant, Congers, NY.
“The most amazing experience you could ask for in a DJ. These guys really really know music. I did a lot of DIY/nontraditional things for my wedding (a friend took photos, not a professional, I had no cake, I didn't have a wedding party--that kind of thing), and I was intending to make my own playlist. But as I did more planning, I realized how much WORK goes into that, and knowing what to play, and how could I change songs in the middle of my own wedding? Plus, my wedding combined people who liked 70's rock with Puerto Ricans who love merengue and friends who love indie. So, I decided to hire Jamie because I used to go to his Debaser DJ shows in San Francisco and loved them. I'm so glad I went with him--it made me feel so relieved and took a lot of stress off. He did a consultation where he asked us about our friends and family's music tastes, and about what my now husband and I really liked and wanted to hear. He saw threads through those totally disparate sounding genres that we never would have seen, and he crafted a beautiful, seamless evening of music that kept everyone stoked, dancing, and in the best moods ever, from pre-ceremony through reception. Even my sister-in-law's DJ boyfriend couldn't believe the transitions. Also, he knew way more about weddings than I or my husband did. Jamie's wedding experience actually helped us plan our schedule so the day flowed perfectly, and music never stopped. We requested a mash-up for our first dance, and a specific part of a song for exiting the aisle, and he nailed it. At the end of the night, we got permission from the venue to stay an hour later, and I don't know how, but he kept the seamless flow of music going that whole hour. Lastly, he's an awesome awesome person, who is flexible, down to earth, energetic, and great to work with. In sum: everything was just absolutely amazing.” - Christine Goffredo
A Romantic, Lakeside Baroque Pop Wedding
Christine is like my best friend ever. But don’t let that detract from the fact that there were a number of things about this wedding that were extremely hard to pull off! First off, this was truly a destination wedding. We obviously live in San Francisco and Christine and Julian live in Congers, NY.
A Remote Rental Challenge
So right there you’ve got a situation where we’re not just flying in for the set, but renting equipment from another company on the east coast, and trying to find vendors that won’t rip them off on the price. We kind of lucked out that their venue happened to be a half hour from my father’s house in New Jersey and my father’s, girlfriend’s kids happened to have a set of turntables they got for Christmas they never used.
Just getting all the equipment together remotely was a challenge. But that wasn’t even the first hard part, or the last hard part!
A Diverse Family
Christine’s family is from Florida and they love 70’s rock. Classic rock, yacht rock. It’s Florida, so Jimmy Buffett “Margaritaville” wouldn’t even be out of line. But Julian’s family was from Puerto Rico and they were only going to dance to one thing - Salsa.
Now I’m not a salsa DJ, nor are Christine and Julian salsa dancers. But we all decided we were going to put in the work to really fake it and surprise the family out of nowhere by suddenly turning out to be really good at it.
A Surprise Salsa Set
Christine and Julian took salsa dancing lessons for like six months and didn’t tell anyone and I had their salsa teacher load us up with piles and piles of standards and requests. Rocky’s family is from Colombia, so we asked the moms, aunts and uncles and cousins for as many ideas as we could get from them as well.
When the day came, we played it straight for most of the event. The setting along the lake and Christine’s dress were really kind of springtime and 60’s, so we did some real Wes Anderson, 60’s stuff for the ceremony. Played it straight for the Florida side of the family through the dinner with some cool 70’s rock cuts Rolling Stone’s “Miss You” into Doobie Brothers “What a Fool Believes” or something. But when it came time for the dancing, it was like Dancing with the Stars.
A Real Dancing with the Stars Performance
These guys came out to Elvis Presley like everyone else for the cute slow dance and then record scratch, full salsa. And they blew it out of the water. Dips and flips and everything you’re imagining. And nobody knew any of us had learned any of it.
We had discussed the limits of where their fake dance powers were going to run out, so we could stop, and they were like “On the third dip, that’s it”. But to be honest we were all laughing so hard and everyone was going nuts and they were dipping and flipping all over the place so much I lost track of which dip we were on.
And everybody’s cheering and I fade the music down, and hilariously it’s the wrong dip. Like the second to last one. But as we bring the music back in, it looks like they are doing an encore and again, another round of dips and flips, so funny. So by the time they take a bow, everyone thinks they just freestyled out an encore, but really it was just us all getting carried away and jumping the gun on the final cue.
An All Salsa Dance Party
Anyway, after that people are pumped and they are ready to salsa, and I was most definitely ready to deliver. When you’ve been DJ’ing a long time, you understand the underlying music theory of how the songs work together and as long as you have a really solid request list, you can follow the changes like reading music and totally fake it. And fake it we did! So much so that when Christine extended the party an additional hour, I was still in the game with the Puerto Rican family.
A Classic Hip Hop After Party
For the final hour we did some pop ones with a latin flavor like Luis Fonsi “Despacito” but also hip hop ones like Frankie Cutlass “Puerto Rico” (“Ho!”) and Jay Z and R Kelly “Fiesta” remix (“After the show it’s the after party and after the party it’s the hotel lobby”).
The thing I most enjoyed though, was for last song we did R. Kelly “Step in the Name of Love” and I didn’t realize this, but there’s actually a dance and everyone knew it! So there was a whole spontaneous line dance at the end with everyone doing the whole “Step, step, step, step. Round and round. Bring it back.”
Amazing.
A Rain Set We Never Performed
And I even left out the craziest part. The night before after we had all finished setting up, the weather forecast came in and it was like all thunderstorms. We had planned the whole thing around the idea of a summertime barbecue with lawn games and what not, and suddenly it was looking like it was going to get fully rained out.
I panicked and stayed up until 3am completely re-doing the music to lean into the rain theme so it seemed like we meant to do that (I was going to open with The Doors “Riders on the Storm” before the ceremony) and then what do you know… it didn’t rain at all! Completely sunny.
In any case, if your wedding ever gets rained out, please know that I will completely rewrite your whole set list in an emergency and also, I’ve got an amazing 60’s themed rain set that never happened.
So backups for days!
Big Ups & Shout Outs
Shout out to Christine and Julian for being great friends.
Shout out to Bolzano Restaurant for being our first truly away wedding.
Rolling rock, same as it ever was.
Ceremony Songs
Processional:
Recessional:
First Dance, Slow Dance Version:
Elvis Presley “Can’t Help Falling in Love”
First Dance, Salsa Version:
Ralph Mercado “Come Together (A Tropical Tribute to the Beatles)”
Requests:
Joe Arroyo “En Barranquilla Me Quedo”
Marc Anthony “Vivir Mi Vida”
Cosculluela El Principe “Sube y Baja”
Buena Vista Social Club “Chan Chan”
Oscar De Leon “Lloraras”
Ruben Blades “Pedro Navaja”
Willie Colon “El Gran Varon”
Luis Enrique “Yo No Se Manana”
Marc Anthony “Tu Amor Me Hace Bien (Salsa Version)”
Miguel Enriquez “Abre Que Voy”
Gloria Estefan “Mi Tierra”
Celia Cruz “La Negra Tiena Tumbao”
Shakira “Loca”
Celia Cruz “Guantanamera”
DLG “Magdalena Mi Amor Quimbara”
Hector Lavoe “Aguanile”
Eddy Herrera “Pegame Tu Vicio”
Venue: Bolzano Restaurant / DJ: Ceremony DJs
