“Jamie & DJ Jackie were AMAZING! More than we could have asked for. I've had some really awful experiences with previous DJs and so I was super nervous trying to pick one for our wedding. I felt in such good hands after my thorough first chat with Jamie. He walked me through the process and when DJ Jackie got involved it was continued smooth sailing. I highly recommend Ceremony DJs. We had guests absolutely blown away by DJ Jackie. People were coming up to us all night saying they had never been anywhere with such a great DJ. (that's a great feeling on your wedding day!) I cannot say enough thanks, you were kick ass! *They did our uplighting too! It was perfect!” — Julianna Koopmans
Modern, High Energy, & Romantic, with Views for Miles and Miles
One of the great things about being a wedding DJ in the Bay Area is that no matter the time of year, odds are that the weather is going to be pretty mild. No snow storms or summer monsoons, the worst that has ever personally happened for me was a freak windstorm that moved an entire outdoor event indoors at the last minute. In fact, San Francisco is known for having a rather late “indian summer” with its warmest days often stretching well into September and October. So I was excited to book Julianna and Will’s big day for early October at the Chase Arena’s Sky Bar, knowing that the skyscraper venue would bless us with the clearest and most awesome vistas on an autumn afternoon.
The ceremony would take place on an outdoor patio overlooking the Bay Bridge with views all the way to Mount Diablo in the distance, and I needed to have some pre-ceremony music going before the event started. The newlyweds-to-be gave me a single song as a jumping off point, “Barcelona” by Juan Carlos Quintero, an acoustic Spanish guitar-style instrumental piece, modern but very romantic. This was not a lot to go on, but stakes are relatively low for the pre-ceremony, and I felt like a could round it out with a few more pieces from the same artist, a little bachata (which hails from the Dominican Republic, but has a similar romantic, Latin vibe), a little flirtatious Cubanismo from the Buena Vista Social Club, and even some Ethiopian jazz which has a similar melancholy/romantic feel.
After the ceremony and once the party had moved inside for the cocktail hour, I was tasked with keeping a speaker going on autoplay outdoors, in case guests wanted to step outside for some fresh air during the rest of the event. The music outdoors was to remain low-key and along the lines of the pre-ceremony, so I kept it going with more of the same mentioned above, adding in some Vitamin String Quartet (who do clever acoustic classical arrangements of modern pop hits) as the night progressed.
Modern Tools for Modern Wedding Music Ideas
Indoors, I wanted the cocktail hour to have a hip, modern sound to reflect the tastes of my clients. In the lead up to a wedding, I always have at least two meetings with my couples- an initial one to talk about the plans for the event as they currently stand and most importantly to get a sense of my clients’ taste in music, and a final one to, well, finalize things. With the boon of modern streaming technology, sharing information about musical tastes has become easier than ever. One tool that I find extremely efficient and helpful is asking my clients to start a Spotify playlist (or even just an email thread) to share with me, and just dumping anything and everything they like, in no particular order in there. It’s my job to listen to it all and sort it out, to know what is a dance banger and what is chill dinner time music. Julianna and Will did a great job of sending me a playlist with all kinds of great songs that I could apply to various parts of the night, knowing that I would hit just the right buttons for them, but also giving me ideas for other stuff I could play that I knew they would like. Ideal clients, really :)
A Cocktail Hour with a Hip Indie Sound
Anyways, I digress from the cocktail hour! The cocktail hour and dinner were in the same indoor location and needed to flow together seamlessly with a modern sound. Although there were some throwbacks, like “Dancing in the Moonlight” and “the Chain” by Fleetwood Mac, the soundtrack for the scene held to a very of-the-moment feel, even when I was dipping back to the ‘90s with “Le Femme D’Argent” by Air, who somehow still sound modern even though that came out pre-millennium! Think Dan + Shay, Kiiara, Gotye, Milky Chance, Billie Eilish, Kaleo, Big Wild, Drake, Harry Styles, Little Dragon, Taylor Swift’s “Lover” (a perfect wedding song btw), Beach House, Future Islands. To transition from cocktail to dinner, all that was needed was to gently slow down the pace a bit. The newlyweds made a fun grand entrance to “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd, an absolute killer of a song, which we would make a memorable callback to later in the night.
After several heartfelt speeches, it was time for the first dance and the family dances. The couple’s first dance was to “Home” by Bruno Major; listening to the lyrics of this song, I could tell how carefully chosen it was. This was a song with deep emotional meaning that they shared between them. I am someone who regularly cries at weddings, including the ones I work at, and I definitely teared up at this moment. Will and his mother danced to “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell as covered by Prince, and Julianna and her dad did an absolutely charming and hilarious choreographed dance to “She Drives Me Crazy” by the Fine Young Cannibals. This put everyone in the mood to hit the floor, so with that, the dance party began!
Leading a Killer Dance Party by Example
And what a dance party it was! I am a firm believer in leading a dancefloor by example; you will never see me behind the turntables just standing there, twiddling knobs calmly. If I want you to get up on your feet and get down, then that is exactly what I will be doing, too. Shake it, baby! If you’re having a good time, I’m having a good time, too. That’s one of the ways that I know I’m a great wedding DJ… because secretly sometimes I don’t even like the music I’m playing, but you’d never know it; I love making people dance so much that it gives me incredible energy and I find myself singing along with songs that I never listen to otherwise.
Julianna and Will’s dance party was packed to the max with jams! We heard mostly from the turn of the millennium to present day, although we dipped into the 90s a little bit with a few classics like “Everybody” by the Backstreet Boys (who doesn’t love a song that has its own zombie dance?), and “One More Time” from Daft Punk. Making mom and dad happy we threw in “Edge of Seventeen,” “You Make My Dreams Come True,” “Brown Eyed Girl” and “September.” But for the most part the dance leaned heavily on the kind of bombastic club hit that makes you jump in the air, sing along, get low, twist, shout… “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha, “Shots” by LMFAO & Lil John, Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music,” Missy Elliott’s “Lose Control”… By the end of the night I was drenched in sweat, exhausted, but didn’t want to stop!
It’s Your Special Day: You Get to Call the Shots!
The last song of the night was a reprise of “Blinding Lights” - my clients were worried about playing the same song twice, but I reassured them that in weddings there are no rules. This is your special day, you get to decide what to do. If you want to play the same song six times in a row, I’m certainly not going to stop you (although in that case, I might try to dissuade you). And I like clever callbacks; for the grand entrance, we only played the opening, for the final sendoff, we got to hear the entire retro synthpop masterpiece and dance along to it.
As a final note, I received one of the nicest compliments I have ever received in my career at Juliana and Will’s wedding. As I was packing up my equipment after the gig, sweat still pouring off of me and I’m sure smelling like a rose, one of the guests nervously approached me. “Hey,” he said, “I just wanted to tell you that you were AMAZING. I don’t normally know how to dance, but every time I didn’t know what to do, I just looked at you.”
— Jackie
