80’s alternative and 90’s shoegaze wedding, Copain Winery, Healdsburg, CA. Photo: Grazina Zizaite
“Jamie did a great job with our wedding. We had some special hardware needs because of our actual ceremony being on top of a hill. Jamie got the hardware that we needed and hooked us up. The rest of the party was completely on point -- the dinner was romantic and chill, the dance party was high-energy and got people moving. He spends a lot of time up front tailoring the set list to your specific tastes and needs. And the comments we got from guests were that the songs played fit exactly our style, with a lot of nuance. It was great!” - Mike Michon
A Super Hip, Wine Country Wedding
Mike has been a great supporter of ours for longer than I can remember. We have been doing indie theme parties in San Francisco for almost 20 years now, and in the club promoting game, you kind of have to know exactly who your customers are, because there are honestly only like a few dozen people that like obscure indie rock of any given micro-subgenre, so if you want to throw a dance party that’s all songs that sound like the Smiths from 1989, you better know exactly those people.
For us, Mike has always been that guy. When we were stage diving off the turntables at The Knockout, Mike was there. When we decided shoegaze was the hippest genre of the future and started trying to throw whole dance parties organized around the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Mike was there. When we decided the 90’s were completely played out and switched to all 2000’s retro like Hot Chip, Cut Copy and The Knife, Mike was there. So we knew he could hang, we knew he trusted us, and we knew he knew what we could do.
A Laid Back, Fashionable Couple
Mike is also a DJ, and I think he’s even done weddings! So it’s always kind of an honor when people like that entrust you with their special day and you really don’t want to blow it. But at the same time, DJ’ing really functions best with an element of surprise, and especially where other industry professionals are concerned. You don’t want people to feel like they are at work at their own wedding, you want them to relax and enjoy themselves as the day unfolds. Long story short, we took a ton of feedback from these guys, but at the end of the day we had to trust them, that they trusted us, to surprise them. And I wasn’t the only one doing the surprising!
Claudia did a flip on the first look idea and decided to surprise Mike with the processional song itself. She not only didn’t tell him, she actively told him it was a different song and then dropped it on him live that it was the song he most wanted Mazzy Star “Fade Into You”.
A Bucolic Vinyard Venue
Their venue was a beautiful winery overlooking rolling hills at sunset, and we had already discussed maybe doing an idea similar to the Balearic style we had done for one or two other weddings which incorporates yacht rock, italo disco, indie and classic house, which is basically the underlying influence to a lot of modern indie stuff and pop dance tracks nowadays, but once this whole Mazzy Star idea came into play, we decided to just go balls to the wall on an expanded version of the ceremony theme for the entire event. We managed to still keep some of the balearic beat feel, but incorporate a lot more bucolic, drifting guitar elements, and even deepen the groove with some soulful ones. Honestly, it came out pretty amazing.
An Epicly Heart Wrenching Ceremony
We opened before the ceremony with some folky late 80’s ones like Daniel Johnston “True Love Will Find You In the End” and Cowboy Junkie’s “Sweet Jane”. Set up the moment before the ceremony started with an incredibly tear jerking, soul exploding rendition of U2’s “All I Want Is You”. Crushed the ceremony with the surprise Mazzy Star. Brought in some soulful elements with songs like Soul II Soul “Back to Life”, Susanne Vega “Tom’s Diner” and Julee Cruise “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart”. That’s Julee Cruise from the Twin Peaks soundtrack and the remix is off the charts amazing.
A Chill 80’s Alternative Dinner
For the dinner we brought in some more classic indie and shoegaze feels, picking up the balearic beat elements with The Cure’s “Close to Me” hacienda style remix, and working through some stuff like The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now”, Ride “Leave Them All Behind” and Slowdive “Alison”. I think we even worked in some b-side My Bloody Valentine, at which point the guests started to be really blown away and come in to offer their congrats, thanks and amazement that we were even attempting to do this kind of stuff at a wedding. Again, cool clients and giant buckets of trust are big part of the story here.
At this point, even the overworked, stressed out vendors are starting to be on my side, which I further solidified with an amazing Kate Bush cover of the Elton John classic, “Rocket Man".
A Chill Yacht Rock Dance Party
For the dancing, we did some classic yacht rock type things like Rolling Stones “Miss You” and Doobie Brothers “What a Fool Believes” to kind of maintain the chill rock vibe, and incorporated some newer LCD Soundsytem type stuff that had a similar flavor and a few pop dance ones for the girls. We closed with some 90’s hip hop tracks that sampled the same chill 70’s beats, like Biggie Smalls “Juicy” or Warren G “Regulate”.
The real lesson here though is the idea of expanding the ceremony all the way through dinner. I had actually prepared a 45 minute set for before the ceremony started, in addition to everything else we had discussed, and it ended up really setting the tone for the entire event in a way that I will definitely be thinking about moving forward. It was like the ceremony never ended all night. Which come to think of it, is the name of our company! Win.
Big Ups & Shout Outs
Special shout out to Copain Winery in Healdsburg, CA. It’s a beautiful space and the staff was all really friendly and accommodating. The wine is great as well. Be sure to sign up for a membership while you’re there.
Special shout out to Milestone Events Group. These ladies work really hard for you and they’ve got decades of experience making your party happen exactly how you imagined it and then some.
And last but not least, special shout out to Mike and Claudia. The party was really great. One of my favorites. Thanks for having us be a part of it. We couldn’t have done any of this without you.
Ceremony Songs
Prelude:
Processional:
Recessional:
Beach Boys “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”
First Dance:
Parent Dance:
Stevie Wonder “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”
Requests:
Led Zeppelin “Going to California”
Cowboy Junkies “Sweet Jane”
Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”
Hall and Oates “Method of Modern Love”
The Eagles “One of These Nights”
Steely Dan “Peg”
Talking Heads “This Must Be the Place”
Phoenix “Goodbye Soleil”
Washed Out “Hard to Say Goodbye”
Gardens & Villa “Gypsy”
Venue: Copain Winery / Planner: Milestone Events Group / DJ: Ceremony DJs / Photographer: Grazina Zizaite / Rentals: Encore Event Rentals
