The first of my trips to the Ithaca area this wedding season took me just north of the city, to the Lake Watch Inn. Nestled high atop the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake, this historic facility provided a wonderful backdrop for Kelsey and Keyan's ceremony and reception. Even though most of the day was planned to take place inside "just in case," the weather proved to be clear, sunny and quite warm, so many guests spent a good chunk of the day on the porch outside.
Kelsey and Keyan started off planning everything from out-of-state, so our initial conversations were mostly via email and Skype video chat. By the time the wedding date got closer, they were also closer to the area, so we were able to hold our second planning meeting in-person, followed-up by a few more emails to tie-up some loose ends before the big day. Thanks to all the planning, everything went exactly according to plan!
While the layout only required one sound system which did not need to be moved, there were a few other moving parts throughout the event. The original set-up consisted of one speaker indoors for the ceremony and one outdoors for the cocktail hour which immediately followed. Once Kelsey and Keyan said "I do" and headed outside for photos, the rest of the guests headed to the outdoor covered porch area for cocktail hour. Once everyone was outside, I moved my lights closer to the dance floor while the servers moved all of the chairs (originally set-up in chapel-like rows) to the individual tables for dinner and the rest of the night. Once cocktail hour was over, the outdoor speaker was moved inside to provide stereo coverage for the dance floor.
Here were Kelsey and Keyan's picks for the key songs of the night:
- Ceremony Processional: Pachelbel / Canon in D
- Ceremony Bridal Entrance: Vitamin String Quartet / The Luckiest
- Ceremony Recessional: Mendelsshohn / Wedding March
- Wedding Party Intros: Coldplay / Sky Full of Stars (DJ's choice)
- Bride and Groom Entrance: Goo Goo Dolls / Come to Me (custom-edited to begin at about 2:50, where the lyrics mention getting married)
- Bride / Father Dance: Imagine Dragons / Stand By Me
- Groom / Mother Dance: Brandon Heath / Love Never Fails (after a surprise dance to the Spongebob SquarePants theme song, which Keyan's mother arranged directly with me in advance as a surprise!)
- First Dance: Ron Pope / Perfect for Me (live and unplugged version)
- Bride / Stepfather Dance: Rascal Flatts / My Wish
- Cake Cutting: James Taylor / How Sweet It Is (DJ's choice)
- Last Dance of the Night for Everyone: Ed Sheeran / Thinking Out Loud
And now, here are some of my photos from the night! If you were there, feel free to hop over to my Facebook page and tag yourself or anyone else you know!
Update 5/28/15: Thank you very much, Kelsey, for the wonderful, 5-star review on WeddingWire! Here's what she wrote:
"Peter did a fantastic job as the DJ for our wedding! Being new to wedding planning, Peter helped walk us through the process, offering suggestions and really listening to what we wanted for our big day. He was friendly, personable, responsive, and great throughout the whole process. Not to mention he really kept the dance floor moving! Couldn't have asked for a better Dj for our wedding!"
Thanks again to Kelsey and Keyan for choosing me as your wedding DJ! It was a blast and I can't wait to drive down to the beautiful Finger Lakes region again for my next Ithaca wedding, which is coming up in June. But I've got a few other weddings in between to prepare for, and it's David Letterman's final night on TV in just a bit, so I'm going to wrap this up for now. Good night, everyone!
