Dancing our Faces Off

Early on in the wedding planning process, I asked Mr. C what aspect of the wedding he cared about the most. I'm pretty sure he read my mind (or had been thinking on this topic long before I ever asked the questions) because without missing a beat, he said, "the DJ". This answer definitely didn't surprise me, as my fiance is a dancing fool. In the car, at home, and especially at weddings. He's usually the first one on the dance floor and always one of the last ones to leave it. And trust me when I say Mr. C has some sick dance moves, some of which embarrassed the heck out of me at both of our senior proms. The running man, the stanky leg, the wobble...he knows 'em all, and isn't afraid to bust a move. Me? Well...I love to dance. A lot.

Naturally, his dance-inclinded self cared about the most about the DJ out of all the wedding vendors. In the beginning, we toyed around with doing an iPod Dj and just having a friend act an emcee for the night. The more we both thought about it though, the more we wanted to hire a professional who actually knows how to get a huge room of people excited and on the dance floor. Also, it's one less "DIY" aspect for us to worry about and stress over on the day of. So...the search for an awesome wedding DJ began.

Before we started contacting DJ's, we considered what we both wanted from our DJ. Some of the "musts" were: at least 5 hours coverage (to cover both ceremony and reception), the ability to request songs we didn't want played, someone who had been in the industry a couple years, and someone who really loves DJing and wants to help us have the most fun, dance-filled night ever. We also set our max budget for our DJ at $1000. While the DJ is important for both of us, we couldn't afford to take money from other areas of our budget.

We first asked around for DJ recommendations from our family and friends, and even scoured our local Craigslist when the options were looking slim. Every DJ we contacted came with either a lot of extras, like uplighting (which we don't want or need), or charged an exorbitant amount for their hourly fee. None of the DJ's I found "felt" like a good match for Mr. C and I, and while emailing with a few, I didn't feel any kind of connection (chatting with a potential DJ does kind of feels like an awkward first date, ya know). Being a wedding photographer, I know how important the DJ is setting setting the whole mood and vibe for the dancing portion of the wedding reception. A bad DJ can keep people off of the dance floor, while an awesome DJ is creative and knows how to get people dancing. 

The search continued on for a couple weeks, until one night when I was browsing a local wedding photographer's blog and noticed a DJ's name in the "vendor" section of their wedding blog post. The name of the DJ company, "The Electric Gentleman" caught my eye, and I was super impressed by their overall "vibe" as soon as I visited their website. I emailed them right away, and was thrilled when their wedding packages were all within my budget, and they were open for my wedding day.

"The Electric Gentleman" is a young husband + wife DJ team, Taylor and Kelsey, who's main goal "is to make you dance your face off". Their philosophy is hands-on in planning, and hands-off the day off. Meaning, they're super dedicated to playing the right kind of music for your event, but don't hog the microphone on your wedding day. I've seen plenty of DJ's tell corny, awkward jokes and take time during the wedding to promote their own business. It was awesome that Taylor and Kelsey put such an emphasis on making the night about us, not them. After emailing back and forth a few times, I was confident that they would be the perfect DJ's for Mr. C and I's wedding, and we went ahead and booked them last fall. We could not be more excited to have "The Electric Gentleman" as our wedding DJ's!

Screenshot via The Electric Gentleman

We are hoping to have a full dance floor the entire night, and knowing our friends and family, that's definitely a realistic goal. Since booking Taylor and Kelsey, Mr. C and I have started crafting a list of must-play songs and definitely-do-not-play songs (hate to say it, but the Cha Cha Slide is on the "do not play" list). While we'll have a small list for both of these song categories, we're leaving most of the song choices up to them. I have no doubt that they are going to do an amazing job DJing our wedding, and I'm already stoked to show you the ridiculous dancing pictures that are to come.

How did you choose your wedding DJ?

Let the Real Fun Begin!

So, this happened this past weekend...

More graduation photos to come, because I'm honestly not sure what other pictures to post...

WE'RE GRADUATES! Mr. C and I graduated on the hottest morning of this entire spring, and we both may or may not have gotten grad cap forehead sunburns. #palepeopleprobz. It's incredibly bittersweet that our undergraduate career is over, but I could not be more proud of Mr. C and all that he has accomplished. The journey was long and incredibly hard at times, but we finally reached the end of this chapter and are on to our next great adventure - marriage!

Now that college is behind us (at least for Mr. C, a master's degree may be in my future) and we have a full summer ahead of us until the wedding, it's time to get serious about putting the finishing touches on planning this thing! Most of my planning happened this past summer, when I was working full time and had a lot more free time to figure out the "big" things. I wanted to get most of the planning done before I started my senior year, so that I could concentrate on my studies and really finish my college career strong. The only "big" wedding-related things that were done during the school year were designing my save-the-dates and invitations, picking out the bridesmaids dresses, hiring a videographer, and finalizing some decorations. All fun stuff, if you ask me!

MOH Smiley, recreating a pose from my high school graduation.

I didn't have much time (or room space, let's be real) to do any of the DIY's I planned on doing, so I'm really looking forward to tackling a lot of the projects this summer. Nothing too crazy or labor-intensive, trust me. Ain't no bride-to-be got time for that! Every DIY I plan on doing is something that can save us money (our invites, for example) or is something I want to make that we can also use in our house afterward. Or, something I can potentially donate to another bride-to-be. Maybe. If they don't completely suck.

MOH Schmo! 

I'm so looking forward to tackling these mini-projects and finally doing the "fun" things for our wedding. On the agenda for the next month or so...do a table setting/centerpiece mock-up, send out the invitations (mid-June), finalize Mr. C's wedding day look, and get to work on the DIY's. There's lot of posts coming your way, and I apologize for the small gap in new posts. The last couple weeks of the semester absolutely FLEW by, but I am so excited to get back to posting more! With less than four month's 'til the big day...let's do this!