“Jamie was so awesome to work with from the beginning. He met with my husband and I to get a sense of our individual music tastes and to see how he could fuse them together. We appreciate his openness to our requests and understanding of what kind of vibes we wanted to set for our reception. We had a much smaller wedding reception and it still felt like a huge party! The original timeline of events didn't quite go as planned but Jamie was great at going with the flow and reading the crowd to see what was best. Our families love to dance and so 99% of the night consisted of us dancing.” - Camille Cuentas

A Romantic, Old Fashioned Wedding in a Church

I haven’t gotten to do too many good old fashioned weddings in a church, but this event combined all of the elements of a traditional church wedding ceremony with a hip, modern twist.

Patrick and Camille are super sweet and they both spend a great deal of time in the service of their local parish, actively participating in the church’s youth group, volunteer events and other activities. But they also like cool music and host their Young Adult Ministry meetings at the local micro-brew pub, so we wanted to incorporate both their love of faith and service and their warm, unique and artistic personalities into the event.

A Hip Couple of Faith

When he’s not hard at work as an architect, Patrick does great landscape and portrait illustrations in his spare time and listens to all sorts of cool music like LCD Soundsystem, Tame Impala and The Growlers. Camille also liked some stuff bordering on alternative like Say Hi, Vance Joy and Johnnyswim as well as some more soulful numbers like Leon Bridges “Coming Home”.

They mentioned liking a lot of classic stuff like Bob Dylan, The Band, and Van Morrison and were doing their grand entrance to a cover of King Harvest “Dancing in the Moonlight”, so we wanted to tease out a connection between the classic San Francisco summer of love type stuff they liked and the newer stuff.

A 60’s Folk Cocktail Hour

The ceremony was in the main body of the church and was all in Latin, which apparently is both rare and not easy to do. I’m pretty sure these guys spent weeks learning all the lines, so kudos to them on that!

Our responsibility this time began with the grand entrance, so we really wanted to lighten the mood as everyone decamped from the service to the event hall next door and I did my best to warm up the crowd with some fun folk ones like Crosby Stills and Nash “Suite Judy Blue Eyes” and Van Morrison “Glad Tidings”.

Once everyone was assembled, we slowly eased into some more soulful ones starting with classic ones like Joe Cocker “Feelin’ Alright” and Ray Charles “What’d I Say Pt. 1 & 2”. and then warming up to their more modern requests that had soul elements like James Morrison “You Give Me Something” and Ray Lamontagne “You Are the Best Thing”.

A Neo-Soul and Indie Dinner

If I recall correctly, Johnnyswim “Touching Heaven” was something of a special song in their relationship and right about then a spontaneous first dance erupted along with much of the crowd joining in and we just continued rocking to a run of Camille’s favorites like Benji Hughes “All You've Got To Do Is Fall In Love” and Wayne Wonder “No Letting Go” through a good portion of the dinner.

I’m always saying at the meetings “There’s two places where you go off schedule at the wedding and one is if the speeches are too long and the other is if you guys are just having too much fun and no one wants to stop you!” This was definitely a “having too much fun” kind of moment, so we just kept rolling with the spontaneous dance party through much of what should’ve been the speeches.

When it seemed like a good moment, we slowly massaged it back on schedule with the speeches and official first dance. Then it was time for the real dancing.

A Chill 80’s Dance Party

We opened with some classic 80’s ones like Talking Heads “This Must Be the Place”, Fleetwood Mac “Everywhere”, Michael Jackson “Billie Jean (Instrumental)”, Hall and Oates “I Can’t Go For That” and Queen feat. David Bowie “Under Pressure” and used that as kind of a set up to segue into newer stuff like LCD Soundsystem “All My Friends”, Cut Copy “Hearts on Fire (Holy Ghost Remix)” and Tame Impala “Borderline”.

A Mostly G Rated Hip Hop Set

Things however quickly devolved into 90’s hip hop and R&B for the closer. It’s pretty funny, because we had talked earlier about how it was cool, as long as it wasn’t the hardcore gangsta rap, a lot of swear words versions. Even the clean hip hop songs have a bit of a suggestive undertone, but we kept it PG and it came off great.

I think we did Mary J. Blige “Real Love” featuring the first appearance of the Notorious B.I.G., SWV “Anything (Old School Remix)” featuring the Wu Tang Clan, my personal favorite Naughty By Nature “Jamboree” which talks about being together with your family and a hook that sounds like they are saying my DJ name, and even a little Next “Too Close” which is a song about boners, but I don’t think Jesus would mind.

A Booty Bass Finale

We closed with some booty ones like Ghost Town DJs “My Boo” and INOJ “Love You Down” before Patrick came up and said he’d like a rebate on dancing to Tame Impala. So we did Tame Impala “Is It True” for last song and everyone circled up while Patrick and Camille cut a rug dance contest style to grand finale applause.

All and all, a really good time and proof that your wedding doesn’t have to be super huge to be great! Very much hope to see these guys around.

Special shout out to Star of the Sea Parish on Geary for being wonderful hosts, the ceremony and service were beautiful, the hall looked great and the staff were beyond helpful.

Special shout out to Swede Pea Photography and second shooter Shaun Samuels Photography who were all over the photos and really fun to hang out with both before, during and after the event.

Special shout out to the caterer, Kitchenina. The food was excellent and thank you for remembering to feed me, I get really busy slanging these records.

Ceremony Songs

Grand Entrance:

Toploader “Dancing in the Moonlight”

First Dance:

Ray Lamontagne “Hold You in My Arms”

Father Daughter Dance:

James Taylor “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)”

Mother Son Dance:

Van Morrison “Sweet Thing”

Requests:

Bob Dylan “The Man in Me”
The Band “The Weight”
Crosby Stills and Nash “Suite Judy Blue Eyes”
Van Morrison “Glad Tidings”
Cat Stevens “If You Want to Sing Out”
David Bowie “Golden Years”
Fleetwood Mac “You Make Loving Fun”
Hall and Oates “You Make My Dreams”
Queen feat. David Bowie “Under Pressure”
Johnnyswim “Touching Heaven”
Benji Hughes “All You've Got To Do Is Fall In Love”
James Morrison “You Give Me Something”
Lord Huron “Wait By the River”
Ray Lamontagne “You Are the Best Thing”
The Head and the Heart “Rivers and Roads”
Kings of Leon “Arizona”
Holy Ghost! “Some Children”
Phoenix “Lisztomania (Holy Ghost! Loves Paris Remixomania)”
Breakbot “Baby I'm Yours”
Cut Copy “Hearts on Fire (Holy Ghost Remix)”
LCD Soundsystem “All My Friends”
Tame Impala “Borderline (Single Version)”
Say Hi “Take Ya' Dancin'“
Vance Joy “Saturday Sun”
Wayne Wonder “No Letting Go”
Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber “I Don’t Care”
The Growlers “One Million Lovers”
The Head and the Heart “I Found Out”
Matthew Dear “Bad Ones (feat Tegan and Sara)”
RAC “Let Go (feat. Kele, MNDR)”
Justin Timberlake “Cant Stop The Feeling (12 Inch Single)”
Maggie Rogers “Love You For A Long Time”
Leon Bridges “Coming Home”
Rihanna “We Found Love (Calvin Harris Extended Mix)”
Langhorne Slim & The Law “The Way We Move”
Salt N Pepa “Shoop”
112 “Only You (Bad Boy Remix) (ft. The Notorious B.I.G. & Mase)”
Mary J Blige “Real Love (remix) feat Notorious B.I.G.”
Mariah Carey “Fantasy (Remix) feat Ol’ Dirty Bastard”
Robin S. “Show Me Love (Extended Mix)”
Ghost Town DJ’s “My Boo (Hitman's Remix)”
Ella Mai “Boo d Up (Remix) ft Nicki Minaj Quavo”
Drake “Nice for What”

Venue: Star of the Sea Parish / Photographer: Swede Pea Photography & Shaun Samuels Photography / Caterer: Kitchenina