Catherine Hollis and Michael Littleton Wedding

April 28, 2018 James Guzzi

80’s alternative and goth wedding, Dunsmuir-Hellman House, Oakland, CA.

“Jamie is the best DJ you could possibly hire, especially if good music and fun dancing is part of your wedding plan. We were looking to have an 80’s dance party at our wedding and Jamie cooked up a magical set for us. He handled two locations (an outdoor meadow for the ceremony and an indoor space for the reception) without a break in the music. We had fun talking and planning with him ahead of time. It was a really seamless and easy experience. And though we wanted 80’s music, Jamie is such a cool music nerd that he can handle or create whatever kind of mood you are looking for. Now stop reading reviews and call DJ Jamie!!”

An Elegant 80’s Alternative and Goth Wedding at The Dunsmuir Hellman House

Catherine and I hit it off, right off the bat. She immediately gravitated towards all of the most obscure indie things on our catalog list, and I think it was immediately apparent to everyone involved that it was not only a really great fit for her event, but we were going to have a lot of fun doing it.

A Particularly Punk Couple

As you can see from Catherine and Michael’s wedding invite above, they are totally punk rock and have been since the 80’s. Catherine is an aficionado of all things UK indie rock, and Michael is straight up British if I remember correctly. So already we’ve got the makings of something pretty cool right there. And all their friends are really, really goth. So from the start, we knew it could be pretty cool.

An 80’s Throwback Theme

Catherine and Michael had the idea to riff on a lot of the music they loved in high school, and a lot of the guests were straight up club types, so we decided to go balls to the wall with obscure post punk, goth, indiepop, indie rock and c86 right off the bat.

A C86 Ceremony

The plan was to do The Smith’s “Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” for the processional, Primal Scream “Movin’ On Up” for the recessional and The Cure “Lovecats” for the first dance, so that really laid down a marker as far as how underground we could be. We decided to do classic UK indie for the ceremony with songs like The Jesus and Mary Chain “Up to High”, My Bloody Valentine “Never Say Goodbye” and The Field Mice “Emma’s House” near the start. For the cocktail hour we made it a little more baggy beat, with songs like Happy Monday’s “Kinky Afro” and Saint Ettienne “Nothing Can Stop Us Now” to liven things up.

A 80’s UK Indie Dinner Party

During the dinner, we went even deeper with underground UK cuts like The Close Lobsters “Let’s Make Some Plans”, The Go-Betweens “Streets of Your Town”, and Stawberry Switchbalde “Since Yesterday”. I think we also did some things like The Pastels “Million Tears” and The Mighty Lemon Drops “Happy Head”. This was of course interspersed with slightly more recognizable ones like The Smiths “What Difference Does It Make”, The Cure “A Forest” and Echo and The Bunnymen “Do It Clean”.

An 80’s Club Remix Dance Party

For the dancing we went full on 80’s club and I spent weeks, not only transferring all our vinyl into the computer, but rinsing Discogs for all the sickest 12 inch remixes of every song. So even when it was a really familiar song like New Order “Bizarre Love Triangle” or Madonna “Get into the Groove” it was the super long, big intro, extended breakdown version that had everyone raging through the normal parts and doing crazy dance contests during the extended breakdowns.

I did my best to goth it up for people, though in retrospect it could’ve possibly been even more goth than I played it. I was mostly thinking of keeping it light for the ceremony, but looking back it might have been really funny to just play up the darker elements for comedy value. These guys had Robert Smith and Siouxsie Sioux on their menu and seating signs, so there was maybe room to make it a little darker right there.

In any case, there were a lot of great ones I enjoyed, and hopefully everyone else did too! We did the long version of Roxy Music “More Than This” towards the end and I think we also did some stuff like Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark “If You Leave" and Simple Minds “Don’t You Forget About Me.” Oh, and we played New Order “Ceremony” for last song, which is one of only a handful of times we’ve actually gotten to do that, considering that’s the song the company is named after.

Big Ups & Shout Outs

In conclusion, goth wedding is totally a thing we can do!

Special shout out to Blue Heron for being our favorite caterer and sending us all of their hippest clients.

Special shout out to Becca Henry Photography for being so nice and hopefully getting a lot of great dancing shots.

Special shout out to Dunsmuir House for being one of my favorite venues in the East Bay Parks and Recreation system.

Next time, I’ll make it even darker!

Ceremony Songs

An Elegant 80’s Alternative and Goth Wedding at The Dunsmuir Hellman House

A Particularly Punk Couple

An 80’s Throwback Theme

A C86 Ceremony

A 80’s UK Indie Dinner Party

An 80’s Club Remix Dance Party

Big Ups & Shout Outs

Ceremony Songs

Seating:

Prelude:

Processional:

Recessional:

First Dance:

Requests:

Jamie’s Extended Remix Set: