Eddie and Amber saw us TWO years ago at a bridal show and said “we HAVE to have you… and the BOSE… and that sub!” They are a young, Christian, enthusiastic couple who had MANY ideas about an exciting New Year’s Eve wedding celebration with their closest friends and family.

So the challenge? The location was a church gym; A gym with a balcony that allowed some of the lighting to have a higher vantage point.

The easy part? I worked with Joette from Party People Celebration Company and Marilyn with Flowers by Marilyn. EASY WORK! These two ladies, coupled with Monica (my lead lighting designer) and Derek (senior tech) made the gym transformation super easy. I promise you won’t even recognize that it’s a gym!

Oh yeah, and there was a WICKED COOL balloon drop!!

So what did the lighting include?

• Well, we had 4 totems around the dance floor lit in a cool white (camera didn’t show it as cool) with a moving head on top of each one.
• Baby blue uplights adorned the entire room, even warming up the swag and drapes that Joette set up
• White trussing held scanners (which were used as spotlights), special requested effects lights, and dance floor floods. Trussing was lit up in wedding colors.
• The balcony held two leikos which projected a really nice pattern on the wall. The pattern rotated super slowly!
• The balcony also held floods which lit the entire area where the tables were placed. A couple of blacklights gave the white décor a very subtle pop. We didn’t want to saturate it.
• Blue and green stars grazed the area between the balloon drops.
• A blue liquid sky made a special appearance that transformed this beautiful wedding into a chic night club!

LOTS of beautiful pics and three videos… two timelapses and an event recap! What an AMAZING New Year’s Eve!!!!!!!

Oh yes, and a Snap Yourself Silly Photobooth added to the perfect ambiance!!!

First time lapse (from up high):

Second time lapse (floor level):

And the event itself!

Sometimes, simple looks better! Keith and Areej hosted their reception at the Winter Park Farmer’s Market (past Orlando). This is a former train station surrounded by brick, adorned sparingly but the charm is certainly visible.

They requested all white uplights and an all white light show, which blended perfetly with the venue.

Their family and guests were big partiers, dancing to everything from Top 40, club, oldies, and a large array of Arabic music, especially Dabke. Monica and I had a great time! Check out the pics and video below!

Package chosen:

Entertainment Coordinator
Uplighting
Dance Lighting
Under-Table Lighting

I gotta admit, this was a wicked cool wedding. Sean and Jennifer are an awesome couple who love to have fun and wanted to have a wedding celebration that reflects just that. With a very diverse playlist (Soulja Boy to Steve Earl), they were open to all ideas I had for them.

The Huntington Hills Golf & Country Club (Northside Lakeland) looked beautiful thanks to swags and drapes by Flowers by Marilyn. Our lighting décor also gave the perfect touch. Both Sean and Jennifer were awed by how beautiful the room looked!

Package chosen:
*Entertainment Coordinator
*Ceremony System
*Dance Under Stars
*Dance Lighting
*Full room uplighting
*Under-table lighting
*Pinspot Lighting (to highlight the cake cutting)

See the awesome pics and video below! Thanks to Tim Hicklin from Storybook Weddings for encouraging my wife to piggyback the camera behind his so we can take advantage of his camera light!

Leeanne and Paul are an awesome couple. I love people who I can joke with and not worry so much about being a stuffy professional– I felt like I was able to relax and really have fun with this whole crowd. The whole night was amazing as we got to set up an entire nightclub at this wedding. Here’s the list of what we set up:

• 4 lit up columns around the dance floor with moving heads on them
• Blue laser
• Color-changing uplighting
• LED Floods
• Aerial effects lights
• Haze to bring it all together
• 2 Realistic Water Reflection Effects on the dance  floor.
• Game Show system customized with questions about Leeanne and Paul
• …and slide shows!

Chrissy and Chas had some of the coolest wedding colors ever: Royal Blue and Silver. However, Sebring-based Kennilworth Lodge has a lot of brown colors in the room…. Thus they opted for our awesome blue uplighting to paint the walls as well as flood lighting to enhance the white linens and later create an inviting atmosphere on the dance floor. To complement everything, a classy monogram was projected in front of their head table.

The dance music was amazing, as I got to do a huge megamix of old-school bass music, including my favorite: 69 Boyz. The last song of the night was BEP’s “The Time (Dirty Bit)” and I got the opportunity to really mix with 4 decks as I dropped in several backbeats.. this is a must-listen!

Monica was also there handling our SnapYourselfSilly Photobooth while Jenny took some amazing photos!

Check out some of the photos and video I shot below!

Watch in HD!

What happens when you take our popular Video Explosion package used for homecomings and proms and modify it for a Sweet 16 to blow out all Sweet 16s?

Let’s talk about the decorations- beautiful! All done by Jillian’s mom, Judy. Judy gave us a very detailed planner that was beyond professional. All the vendors were impressed by her thoroughly thought-out planning! Speaking of vendors, the Embassy Suites on International drive couldn’t have been more accommodating. Monica and I were beyond impressed by all the work they put in to make things easy for us and the client. If you’re looking for a Sweet 16/wedding hall in Orlando– this is THE place!

We brought out lighting; uplighting; dance on the clouds; projected stars with our Source 4s; monogram; uplighting; table lighting; a 12′ video screen for music videos, custom videos, and photos; and of course, a crazy amount of bass. The entire hotel could hear the bass rattle so we had to keep the bass down, haha.

The choreographer, Billy, was incredibly easy to work with and adapted his ideas and work with some last-minute changes and ideas for lighting. The overall production was very VERY sharp!

Check out the photos I took below as well as three video clips. The first video is the custom video we did for Jillian’s grand entrance; the second video was shoutouts from her friends and a couple music artists; the third video is the event log!

Amazing stuff! Check it out!!

Shortly after we calle Jillian’s court in, the lights dimmed and all attention was focused on the screen.. check out her CUSTOM intro I made to hype everyone up before she walked in!

Watch in HD!

Next video shows some special shoutouts played on the big screen at Jillian’s Birthday from her friends… and a few music artists too:
Acafool, from the hot track Hatablockas.
TREAL (Not Locked Down, Swag On, Spaceship)
Thrill da Playa (With the 69 Boyz, makers of Tootsee Roll, Kitty Kitty… helped with C’Mon Ride the Train, Whoot There It Is, Space Jam)
And another shoutout from Cupid from the world-famous Cupid Shuffle!

Watch in HD!

And the event log!

Watch in HD!

Dances can’t be much tougher to beat. Not only did they exceed their “we hope we can sell this many” ticket count by 500 (1200+ total!), but the energy was BEYOND intense. Lots of fistpumping, and sing alongs. Yes, these students sang along to every song!

So what did we provide:

Infamous Original Showstopper:

2 Big Screens
Lots of lighting
Live Video
Insanely loud system

And how did we create the theme?

500 Red Glowsticks
500 Blue Glowsticks
Leiko projections of fire and ice on either wall
Red and blue uplighting
Custom ambients
Lobby had a “tunnel” made of two screens with Fire and Ice on it
Lobby had Fire and Ice effects on the floor
Lobby was flooded with red and blue washes

I was told this school had a parent DJ beforehand. Looks like this year they ROCKED WITH THE BEST!

Watch in HD!

This was an early reception, spanning from 5 to 9… but after 9:00 rolled around, Charles and I were beyond tired! Why? This was a pure party crowd. Then again, I knew most of the guests from school or from the Lakeland Skate Center. Adam and Bethany were good friends, current clients (their wedding is in October 16, 2010), but Adam also works fun us… Sarah, Stephanie and Josh are all friends from back in the rink days; Sarah and Josh worked alongside me there.

I’m used to plenty of dancing during afternoon receptions; but this wedding transcended beyond that. Charles and I worked up quite a sweat watching this crowd. Even Michele and Rachel from R&M Photography were scrambling to get the action which spanned all over the Cleveland Heights Golf and Country club.

As usual, I enjoyed the food there followed by an amazing dessert by Its a Piece of Cake by Maggi. Delish! Thanks to Casey and Jeff for the extended invitation for the food!

So yes, check out the photos and AWESOME video below!! Please leave a comment– I’d love to hear your thoughts!!

And of course , the video! Click the link below it to watch it in HD!

WATCH IN HD

ARGH! I wish I had an assistant… just to film! I’m going to have to hit them up for a copy of their wedding video and I failed to capture the best parts from one of the most epic weddings of all time.

From my end of things, I got to try some new MC styles that involved a lot of audience-wide interaction off the mic.. of course, this would never work with 200+ person weddings, but I digress…

Patrick, Stephanie and I have been planning this party for MONTHS (just ask them, haha!) and it all paid off with a beautiful ceremony, a fun cocktail hour, the most amazing food I’ve had at a wedding (nothing beats home-cooked meals) and a packed dance floor all night.

Oh yes, and a three year old assistant! Caitlyn, the flowergirl, asked if she could help with the introductions…. it was cute and I couldn’t say no… (She’s the most adorable lil’ thing you’d ever seen). I let her start off the first dance and she felt like one-of-a-kind! She asked if she could be my helper and I realized I made a new friend.

She actually helped me dismiss tables, mingle with guests to get requests, and play music. The last part ABSOLUTELY amazes me… my set up was 200 feet away from the dance floor… not a problem if I have an assistant, but I didn’t have one of my guys with me… and my iPhone’s remote control program decided not to work today! However, Caitlyn was really enjoying her position as the head DJ for the night (I was assisting her mind you, lol) and she played all the music ON cue for each part of a VERY elaborate bouquet and garter toss (over 10 songs).. she hit every song in and out ON CUE.

Let me say this one more time… she hit the songs RIGHT ON CUE. SHE’S THREE YEARS OLD!!! Needless to say, it was the most amazing moment I’ve had as a DJ. Her parents are now on my Facebook, lol!

Such a great set of family and friends really made this wedding amazing… at the end, I enjoyed a conversation with her brother, Brian(who’s getting married– congrats), father-of-the-bride Tony, Patrick and Stephanie, and a couple other guests.

This wedding sparked something within me though… my love and passion for the wedding industry has grown anew…. stay tuned for some new ideas I’ll be implementing real soon!!

Check out photos and video below! The video does this amazing wedding no justice.. I’ll have to track more footage down!

Ceremony area.. it was later converted to the reception site in less than 20 minutes!

My setup.

Thank God I had the 4Bar lighting rig from the previous night’s gig… I needed it so I could see!

Caitlyn, getting her “wiki-wiki-phresh” on! She learned how a crossfader works and even did a simple beatmatch of two house songs…SHE’S THREE YEARS OLD!!!

We all hung out and had a good conversation during dinner and at the end of night…. Tony, Michael, Stephanie, Patrick, myself, Chris and Brian!

And now the video!

I’m still pumped up after a great evening with Zach, Helga, and their amazing friends and family! Can you imagine how amazing a wedding has to be that I pulled myself from a homecoming to be part of it?

Let me lay down the scenario for you: They’re from New Jersey. It seems that if you’re from NJ or NY, partying HARD is in your blood. Nice. Zachary is Armenian and Helga is Portuguese; I was thrilled to hear this as it stretches my knowledge and experience in ethnic weddings.

The first time I talked to Zach and Helga I was STOKED about their song choices. They wanted a club-style wedding with rap, vocal-trance, and a little old school thrown in. This was a few glowsticks short of a rave… my dream come true!

Fast forward to the evening: after a massive heatwave giving us 100º+ heat indexes, Zach and Helga where greeted with a sun-kissed beach with temperatures of 60-70º… WHOA! Is there a better sign of a wedding that was meant to be? NO! The scenery was beautiful and not one drop of sweat fell from anyone there. Could it get any better? Yes, it can! Zach & Helga came up with the perfect dress code: Casual Beach Chic: No tie. No jacket.

The DoubleTree Hotel had the room perfectly laid out sporting the new couples’ chosen colors of orange and white while our uplighting put the perfect finishing touch on the room. Britt McAllister, the photographer (and a great guy to converse with), did an amazing job capturing the beautiful scenery inside and out.

Zach & Helga treated all of us to a wonderful plated dinner of Mahi-Mahi, Chicken Marsalla, or Filet Mignon. I chose the Filet and it was DELICIOUS. We sat by the balcony and enjoyed a cool breeze, good music, Zach’s constant appreciation for our music choices, and a great conversation with fellow vendors and guests.

Once the dancing began, it was non-stop… we mixed in some 80s and Freestyle and the crowd went NUTS. Check out some photos I shot (I’ll add Britt’s soon) as well as an amazing video! They are some of the nicest, most down to earth people I’ve met!

Package Chosen:

• Entertainment Coordinator
• 12 Deep-Orange Uplights

The room looked STUNNING!

The scenery was UNBEATABLE!

Now this is cool.. instead of a guestbook, everyone wrote their names and well wishes on a river rock and placed it in the wishing well. How unique!!!

They even partied outside!!!

My co-DJ Chevy, Zach, Helga, and myself!!

And now you a YouTube video!

Wow— what an amazing reception– I’m still pumped up!

I’ll be honest, the day started in my least favorite form: a 115º heat index. Really, Florida… REALLY??? Kelly and I set up our awesome BOSE sound system along with our D’Elegance lighting and Starfield at the Bilmar Beach Resort in Treasure Island, Florida. While setting up, Kelly and I had a debate on whether Treasure Island is an actual city or a suburb of St. Pete… hmmm…

As we wired our setup to their TV system for the slideshows and music videos, the weather cooled down just in time for the ceremony… beautifully laid out by the beach.

While Kelly supervised the ceremony, I created an image in Photoshop to be shown on the screens as they walked in. It was their monogram laid out as “clouds” on the beach sky. A couple of guests were so impressed they even asked “when did the skywriter come in?”

Along starts the reception and the venue laid out sushi. Truth be told, it was the most delicious sushi I’ve ever had.  Kelly did the MCing and I did the DJing and lights… we’re a good team, this was a DOUBLE Entertainment Coordinator, lol.

The dancing started out like any typical Arnoldo/Kelly wedding (which is usually amazing).. but progressed into something even more….well… amazinger! We got requests for lots of gangsta rap (Snoop Dogg, Dre, 2Pac’s California Love), Old School (This is How We Do It, Jump Jump, Bust a Move), 80s Pop (I Wear my Sunglasss at Night, Walk the Dinosaur) and my personal favorite: FREESTYLE! I felt like I was working at the skating rink again (our good friend Tony would have a chuckle as he always made a joke about us being nothing but skating rink DJs, hahahaha).

You have to watch the video and look at the awesome photos that Kelly took. I must say, I am impressed.

Package chosen:

• Entertainment Coordinator
• Outdoor Ceremony
• D’Elegance Package
• Dance under the Stars
• Video Slideshows
• Music Videos
• Custom Ambients

I have to go now… but click the link below to look at even more photos! Ciao!

The setup:

The ceremony…

The most delicious prime rib in St. Pete!

Outside the hotel:

Dancing!

Video!

Kyle MCed this wedding and I let loose DJing tonight! WOW am I still pumped up! The energy was through the room from the moment we walked in those doors. It was a beautiful sunny, yet breezy day at the Hollis Gardens and Magnolia building.

I really wish we shot more video because the crowd really turned this wedding into a night club… well, nightclubs WISH they could turn into this wedding. Mixing the hottest music remixed to house/break beats, the floor wouldn’t stop moving.

I want to focus on this picture for a minute:

What do you notice? Look how elegant the DJ setup is. Megan and Jesse wanted the head table in front of the stage with us behind them… they were confident that our setup would be clean and discreet so their photos would not be ruined. The small-footprint lightshow is part of our new D’Elegance series and has JUST AS BIG AN IMPACT as our normal light shows. Look how elegant it sits on top of the 4″ thick BOSE speakers.

The uplighting changed colors throughout the evening and was synchronized to the music and mood.

Package Chosen:

• Entertainment Coordinator
• D’Elegance Lighting (Dance Floor Lights, Monogram, Static Uplights)
• Upgraded static uplights to color-changing, wireless uplights
• Reception Under the Stars
• Ceremony System

Check out some GREAT photos taken by KC Enterprises. www.polkphoto.com. Their blog should be up soon with even more photos from one of the crunkest weddings I’ve been to.

Oh yes, and a great video, too!

Click below!