Inspirations for songs

One of the toughest things Brides and Grooms go through in the planning process with a DJ company is picking the formality songs, this is no easy task you want the stories later, you want something to share with your kids, "that was mommy and daddy's song" so what does 1st Carolina DJ's suggest? Easy: Make it your own....
It cracks me up when someone says "we have this great original idea we want to use Lonestar Amazed as our 1st Dance Song" or "Daddy's little girl" as the father/daughter song. Recently we've had some really good ones:
David Gray "This years love"
Ray LaMontagne "You are the best thing"
Jason Mraz "I'm Yours"
The Moldy Peaches "Anyone else but you" from the movie Juno. These are great, original and creative. The only thing about picking a relatively new song is staying power, naturally in 2028 when you're having your 20th anniversary party the likeliness that "I'm Yours" is going to come on your favorite radio station may be slim to none but nonetheless very special. You'll call Dellilah (yeah when she's 70) and ask her to play your song. It doesn't matter it's your song.
Think about the story, what is the story in the song. We did an awesome wedding for a young black couple and we did the intros to T.I. Whatever You Like, it was quite romantic because this couple was overflowing with love and giddiness and that was their saying they could each have whatever they liked. Again though, in 20 years it'll be a great loving laugh at that move...
I personally try to stay away from helping with the 1st Dance, in fact when my wife and I got married I wouldve been like "you dont know us how can you even begin to think what we'd like" our song was "You're still the one" because we courted for 10 years and went through a lot of strife before getting to that day. That's why we picked our song.. Why will you pick yours...

90210 is back and so are the songs

Soooo the new Beverly Hills 90210 was renewed for the remainder of the season and all of the sudden, Jamie Walters, and Shanice are back on the wedding song lists these are great great songs for those bride and grooms in their late 20's

Click the following to hear "Hold On" by Jamie Walters from our 50,000 song music database
http://www.1stcarolinadj.djintelligence.com/music/index.asp?artistsearch=Walters%2C+Jamie&sort=artist&start=1#results


And follow this link to "Saving forever for you" by Shanice
http://www.1stcarolinadj.djintelligence.com/music/sample.asp?sample=1&artistsearch=Shanice&songsearch=Saving+Forever+For+You


If you grew up in the 90210 era these may be songs you want to add to your music list today.


Kyle

Sample Wedding Format

We're constantly asked "what format do you follow" and the easy answer the true answer is yours.

Here is just one Format Example

5:00 Ceremony
5:20 Bride/Groom Bridal Party Photos. Guests Cocktail Hour
6:20 Guests to Reception area or seats - DJ Assistant lines up bridal party
6:30 Bridal Party Introductions
6:35 1st Dances
6:50 Blessing over food
7:00 Dinner
8:00 Toasts
8:10 Cake Cutting (while cake is cut opt for Bouquet/Garter)
8:15 Bouquet/Garter
8:30 Bridal Party Dance or/Couples in love dance
8:35 general dancing
9:50 Last Dance
10:00 departure

A Couple of things about this timeline.
- No Matter what the photographer says ALWAYS budget an Hour if you go early no problem but you want to have an hour laid out so guests aren't waiting and waiting
- This timeline is more about flow than actual time
- even if you didn't book us feel free to use this format or anything we put here we firmly believe that everyone is entitled to have more fun.

Lost another prospect due to pricing...

We lost another prospect due to pricing the other day. It's not that big a deal we do over 700 events per year, however this scenario often gets me going so to speak.

We lost this prospect because we were priced too low.

Why are our prices so low? That's a really good question. The simple answer is because we can and do more events per weekend than most other djs and dj companies in North Carolina. I have a lot of local dj friends who own "Single Operator" businesses meaning they are the dj and the company. This works out great for them they work a day job and do one or two events per weekend. They often charge a lot more than we do because they need to make the money in one job that we do for 2 or 3.

Does that mean you get any less service or value, absolutely not in fact here are some of the advantages to booking 1st Carolina DJs.

-We have a full time staff devoted to all of our clients normal business hours every day. We're not flanked with day job tasks and the moods they create, you, the client are our day job

- We have a ton of experience, our 22 staff djs have varying experiences in different realms, can we do a country wedding, heck ya, can we do an affluent urban wedding, absolutely, can we do a wedding for a young African American couple, sure can we have black djs, white djs, male djs, female djs and the only Hawaiian Jewish DJ in the country. Either myself, operations assistant, GM or wedding coordinator will match you up with the perfect dj for your event

- We have an enormous equipment pool

- We spend hours networking and improving our craft through education, idea sharing, cross training and more

- All of our djs show up to your event with a dj's assistant who is either another dj or a dj in training. This allows your dj to spend time with you getting you ready for your cues and events and we never miss a beat. Also at the beginning of the week of your event (Monday evenings) both the dj and dj's assistant are giving your complete paperwork book so everyone is on the same page. Should the dj have a car accident or a deathly contagious sickness, the djs assistant knows exactly how to step in and make your event run flawlessly.

- Our employee dj's are constantly in competition for the BEST reviews they're bonused on it and have contests surrounding our internal review system and weddingwire.com so the success of your event is as important as it is to you, me and our dj.
Theres more and if you have additional questions please ask!

A word about Social Networking....

1st Carolina DJ's is very active with social networking, naturally we have a facebookpage at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greensboro-NC/1st-Carolina-DJs/18416477683

and we have a myspace page as well here: http://www.myspace.com/1stcarolina

We also belong to several different industry sites and monitor our companies comments on boards like "the knot" which are public boards, don't be afraid of it, I'd actually be more leery of companies that weren't tuned in.

1st Carolina Dj's does over 400 weddings in Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro and all over the state, naturally with that many brides we strive for A+ markings all the time but in some instances we know we may have seen something different than our client. No matter what our clients, customers, brides, etc are all entitled to their opinions of their events and we would never send harsh or threatning emails or calls to anyone who posted bad feedback about us. However we may want to inquire with that previous client to see what we can do to make it better for the client, the company and future clients of 1st Carolina DJ's, that's just a fraction of what makes our commitment to customer service.

We also do offer different discounts to those registered with "The Knot", "Perfect Wedding Guide" brides.com etc and we also offer discounts to any bride that links to us in their wedding bio.

So feel free to join our myspace, or facebook or add us to your wedding bio for $25 off...

Thanks,


Kyle

Catering by Ellyn

Those of you in the triad probably saw the reports today that we lost a great catering company, Catering by Ellyn. Ellyn the original owner had sold the company a couple years ago and the new owner ran it into the ground.

We are calling all of our clients that we know have Catering by Ellyn and recommending a few local companies including Tom & Jerry's catering based out of Tuscany Gardens and Pepper Moon Catering both in Greensboro.

I know Tom personally and after eating catered food every week Tom has some of the best. We work with Pepper Moon quite a bit too and I would highly recommend them as well.

I usually try to stay out of the catering world politics and not recommend anyone as to not hurt someone elses feelings however CBE closed with NO notice and hundreds of brides stuck holding the boot.

Thanks

Kyle

It's Time to Think About Holiday Parties

We have More Fun, that's our trade mark, our motto, our slogan and the truth, when you hire 1st Carolina DJ's we have more fun. We get more reviews about the fun party atmosphere that we create no matter what the event, so when you're looking for a great time call us 1st.
It's time to think about your company holiday party and now through September 30,2008 if you book a holiday party you can get $100 off (promo prices are clearly marked on the events page) whether you're planning a party for 40 or a party for 4,000 we can help. We have the experience you need to help move the party along.
At no additional cost we will help you organize the party so it will run smoothly and we can get to the fun parts. We will provide extra mics and the things you need on the night of your party to make announcements, speeches, give away prizes, do raffles, white elephants and more.
Here are some tips for a great holiday party:
- Make sure the boss says a few words to the employees, and when we say a few we mean a few and not a few hours worth, but definitely say something
- if you're doing door prizes of any kind make sure that YOU MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN and the best prizes are saved for the end of the night. We did a party 2 years ago for a client that gave away laptops and Xbox 360s about 20 minutes into the party, after dinner everyone left.
- make sure you plan things out with some time for dancing and fun
- make sure if you're having alcohol to have alternative means of transportation available to get your employees home safely
- Make sure the bosses participate in the party (dancing) and let the employees have a fun relaxing time.
We'll help you in any way we can and our knowledgeable staff is great to bounce ideas off of, give us a call at (336)899-0311 or toll free (888)71-DJNOW to discuss your party today.

Spicing up the Bouquet & Garter

Here are a couple of ideas to spice up your bouquet and garter toss, if you're using a 1st Carolina DJ we'll gladly incorporate any of these ideas free of charge of course.

"You've Lost That Loving Feeling" you know the scene from top gun right? After the bouquet toss and initial garter removal the dj calls the single guy up to the dance floor to do the normal garter toss event, however before the bride leaves the dance floor the gentlemen get down on one knee and hold their arms out and serenade the bride with "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" prior to the garter toss.

"What you got up that thing" This is usually planned out with the groom ahead of time and sometimes not the bride, other times the bride and groom plan it together and just do the routine for their guests, but with this "skit" the groom puts things down his sleeve like "Granny Panties", "keys" "cell phones" etc and when he goes under the gown to get the garter he comes out with all of these props, usually this provides for an audience rolling with laughter.

Reverse Garter, of course we still run into couples that don't know what a reverse garter is. A reverse garter is when the guy who catches the garter puts it on the leg of the girl who caught the bouquet, traditionally speaking the higher the gentleman gets the garter up the woman's leg the more luck the bride and groom will have.

and one of our recent brides was going to do a reverse bouquet and garter, She was going to toss the bouquet to the guys and the groom would toss the garter to the girls. an interesting twist that would have been great fun had we wanted to interrupt the awesome party for the Bouquet and Garter Toss.

You can do whatever you like for your bouquet and garter toss, and we'll help you make it work. Remember we do over 450 weddings per year and have a lot of experience to pick from.

How much is "MORE FUN"

More Fun is when you actually catch the photographers hired to work the same wedding with you on the dance floor dancing.
This was a great party Erika & Brad were married on August 23, 2008 in Winston Salem. We did their reception at Revolution Mill Studios in Greensboro the same night.
Revolution Mill is part of the Cone Mills family and was an old textile mill converted to one of the nicest venues in Greensboro.
Although we had 19 weddings on the 23rd of August Erika's was the one that I personally did. I haven't gotten this involved in the planning process since my single operator days. We helped Erika out the best we could with a little extra umph because her and Brad actually live in Georgia. This was also one of the first weddings at Revolution (www.revolutionmillstudio.com) and Erika is a knottie (www.theknot.com) But what made this party great was the dancefloor was packed from 7:50pm until 10:35pm and Erika chose to blow off both her Bouquet & Garter Toss to keep on dancing. (she had something original and cool planned for bouquet and garter which we'll cover in another blog)

Do people at Dry Weddings really dance?

We get quite a few inquiries about dry weddings, and the common thing we hear is that they are worried the group won't dance if it's a dry wedding. I think I touched on this in a previous post, in my honest opinion after planning the entertainment for 1000s of brides and grooms and performing at over 500 weddings myself, nourishment is ten times more important than drink.

But.. see for yourself:
This photo is of "shout" or something similar at 5pm in the afternoon at Jason & Amanda's wedding. Other than the intense heat the wedding was beautiful and magnificent. I had never played at Still Water Christian Retreat in Dunn and I wasn't even supposed to do this one but the MOB wanted me specifically and at the last minute we made that change.
Here's the great part, this picture is an hour later:
Again this is of course a line dance but the open dancing photos are just as good. We kept this crowd going with good music, fellowship, great mixing, a great crowd and just bottled water and iced tea. It was 95 degrees at start time and maybe 80 when the night ended. Even through the heat the crowd danced all night. We were able to convince the crowd at this wedding in Dunn, NC that if they danced, when they stopped dancing theyd be "cooler"
Jason & Amanda are a young bride and groom and for whatever reason, booked this wedding on July 22nd and we didn't have our face to face until this past wednesday. Since there were closest to the Raleigh/Durham area we met at the Chilis in Durham where we see our Raleigh Brides, Durham Brides, Fuquay Varina Brides etc. And for 3 days notice this was a night to remember. But more importantly these folks danced all night long at a totally Dry wedding