60’s pop and french yeh yeh wedding, Olympic Club, San Francisco, CA. Photo: Christy McCarter
"If you’re looking for a thoughtful, professional, and an unbridled showman—stop reading this review and hire Jamie as your DJ. But if you’re here for the review, I’ll elaborate. Thoughtful – Jamie provides the kind of attention that can’t be replicated. He gets to know you and what your expectations are for your event, and he lets that inform the structure and vibe. For my wedding, we told him to focus on Motown, 60s rock, power-pop and 90s hip-hop. He then worked with us to connect the dots, to experiment in finding a way to make these moods track seamlessly throughout the night. In a way, it felt like we were sculpting the vibe with him, rather than rely on some Spotify algorithm. His encyclopedic knowledge of music is unmatched—he finds a way to suggest things that will surprise you—and is unafraid of getting creative. He brings you into the process because he’s thoughtful in a way most DJs won’t be. Professional – Jamie brings his own gear and he * knows * his gear. He arrives earlier than early and keeps everything above board with venue staff. Jamie may have a laid-back demeanor, but he’s hyper focused on the details (you know, where the devil lives). And when the show’s over? He’s gone. Like a ghost. Our venue staff noted how efficient he is when it comes to set up and teardown. He won’t leave you in the lurch. Jamie’s prepared for every contingency. Showmanship – I’m not a dancer but Jamie had me on the floor all night. It is a non-stop party when he’s spinning. And when the mood changes, he changes with it. When our folks and family got tuckered out, Jamie skewed contemporary, which give our wedding about 5 different lives of its own. The result? We all left exhausted. Jamie had us on our feet all night and kept things moving as the night went on. tl;dr I saw my 62-year old father dance to Lil Jon…and love it. Thank you Jamie. I hope you can give someone else a memory like that." - Michael DiGrande
“Jamie did an absolutely amazing job at our wedding!! We had a pretty specific idea in mind of how we wanted our evening to play out, and some of the genres of music we picked were a bit unfamiliar to him, but he dove headfirst into researching and compiling a fantastic playlistfor us, including some songs I’d never even heard of but totally fit with the vibe. He kept our guests up and out of their seats (even the old folks!) and we got SO many compliments on our music. Jamie is an artist and a veteran of the club circuit in SF, so he puts a lot of thought into curating an entire evening for you and making sure it flows, rather than just taking Top 40 requests all night long. There are plenty of DJs that can do that—if you want something unique and memorable, you should contact Jamie and the team at Ceremony. Worth every penny." - Shayna Rader
60’s Pop and French Yeh-Yeh Wedding at The Olympic Club
Shayna and Michael’s wedding was one of our first attempts at doing the music completely from scratch. I know Shayna from indie shows and events and they were already familiar with a lot of what we do in the club scene. But their event was at San Francisco’s Olympic Club, one of our most storied, old school, high society type venues, and it was just way too fancy. Indie rock was not going to fly.
The plan was for Shayna and Michael to walk down the aisle to a song by the indie band Tennis, so we didn’t want to lose that element entirely, but we were really going to have to build something from scratch out of those influences if it was going to be sufficiently fancy for the venue. The club had a dress code, the banquet hall was opulent and many of the guests were from San Francisco’s legal community. We wanted it to be nice.
A Well to Do Family
Shayna and Michael’s families weren’t too far off your average wedding clients of a certain age as far as taste. Their dads liked classic rock. Their moms liked soul and girl groups. Michael’s grandfather like old fashioned things like the Inkspots and Shayna’s sister liked French stuff like Edith Piaf. So we decided to completely deconstruct modern indiepop into its core influences, 60’s pop, 60’s rock and girl groups with an eye towards giving it an international pop cocktail feel and the result was pretty amazing.
At first, I thought we were going to focus on the orchestral pop stuff like Nancy Sinatra or Scott Walker, but as we got deeper and deeper into all the French music, it turned out there was just loads and loads of good usable stuff. Serge Gainsbourg, Frances Gall, Francois Hardy, but also international versions of all the famous soul and rock songs of the era, so “Son of a Preacher Man” but in French. Or “Inagadadavida” but the extended instrumental bongo version. By the time I finished rounding up all the French stuff, it looked like we might be able to do almost the entire event in French, and when it came down it, that’s basically what we did.
A 60’s Pop Ceremony
For the ceremony we warmed things up with things like the Sergio Mendes version of “Get By with a Little Help from My Friends.” For the cocktail hour we turned the temperature up a little more with some more upbeat stuff like Sonny and Cher “And The Beat Goes On” or The Just Brothers “Sliced Tomatoes” which is the break from Fatboy Slim’s “Rockafeller Skank.” There were some hometown call outs like Marlena Shaw “California Soul” and The Mamas and the Papas “California Dreamin’”.
A French Yeh-Yeh Dinner
For the dinner, we managed to do practically all French Yeh Yeh, with artists like Jaques DuTronc, who some people call the French Elvis. Crazy french versions of “Paint It Black” by The Stones. Really great, happenin’ stuff. We had so much fancy, french, international pop stuff that it lasted all the way through dinner to the dancing. And then we dropped the hammer on the English.
A Soul and Girl Groups Dance Party
Dancing opened with all Mowtown and girl groups, and we managed to work in a few more rare Northern Soul ones alongside both standards and more rare tracks that might have been sampled in hip hop songs.
A 2000’s Hip Hop After Party
For the afterparty, we did all hip hop songs with soul and oldies breaks. So like early 2000’s era Roc-a-fella Records stuff. All the Kanye West produced tracks with the sped up oldies samples. Sort of the hip hop version of what had been happening the rest of the night. We closed with all dirty south, hip hop and crunk, since that’s the era that most of Michael’s friends grew up in. It was pretty funny.
All and all, I think it was sufficiently fancy!
Big Ups & Shout Outs
Special shout out to Shayna and Michael for being some of our earliest clients.
Special shout out to the Olympic Club for being such great hosts and helping with the timing on the ceremony and speeches.
Special shout out to Sweetness and Light for the wedding vendor pep talk. The flowers looked great!
And lastly, shout out to Christy McCarter for the amazing photos. I’ll have to shoehorn a few more of those in this post at some point.
Ceremony Songs
Prelude:
The Beatles “Here There and Everywhere”
Processional:
Recessional:
First Dance:
60’s International Pop Hits:
Mina “Be Bop A Lula”
Violaine “J'ai des problemas decidement”
Michael Polnareff “L'oiseau de nuit”
Brigitte Bardot “Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus”
Serge Gainsbourg “Shu Ba Du Ba Loo Ba”
Charlotte Leslie “Les filles c'est fait”
Betina “El Tiempo Ha de Pasar”
Jacques Dutronc “Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi”
Rita Pavone “Datemi Un Martello”
Eileen “Ces bottes sant faites pour marcher (These Boots Are Made for Walking)”
Nicoletta “La Grand Amour (Son of a Preacher Man)”
Venue: Olympic Club / Photographer: Christy McCarter / DJ: Ceremony DJs / Florist: Sweetness and Light
