“Jackie absolutely KILLED IT. She was such a delight to work with and truly is an incredible DJ. We got so many compliments on how perfect the music was. It was so perfect that the recommended dance floor size was still overflowing! Not one guest was sitting the entire night. I'd absolutely recommend hiring Jackie and / or Ceremony DJs for your wedding if you're looking for something that's not your typical wedding playlist.”

- Madelyn Burkhart

Soundtracks 60s French Pop Afrobeat & Obscure Disco: No Typical Wedding Stuff!

I have some doubts about using Spotify; I’m definitely not a fan of their politics of not paying musicians fairly. But for better or for worse, it is one of the most useful tools available in the wedding DJ business. It can be hard to answer the question: “What music do you like to listen to?” Especially if you are a voracious music listener with wide ranging tastes. I have found that an easy way to get around this difficulty is to ask my clients to start a Spotify playlist (if they use the service) and share it with me. Over the course of the next few months leading up to the wedding, they can dump whatever music they think of in there as they think of it. It doesn’t have to be in any order, it doesn’t even have to necessarily be what they might think of as “wedding music.” It’s my job to listen to it, sort through it, and get a sense of what my clients like to listen to. It’s like having a running conversation that I can dip into at any time, and it takes the pressure off things. Well, when I brought this up to Madelyn and Kevin, they were ahead of the game with playlists they had already started, and wow! What playlists! Such cool, varied and unusual tastes in music that I have bookmarked and saved the playlists they made me to listen to later, long after the wedding was over.

Madelyn and Kevin’s selections impressively ran the gamut from jazzy instrumental soundtrack pieces to 60s French pop to afrobeat to obscure disco. Honestly, I was impressed and super excited to DJ this wedding. I love love love Djing for all my clients, whatever their tastes, but it is always a delight to do something a little bit out of the ordinary. In fact, in my initial consultation with the couple, when I asked them if there was anything that they didn’t want me to play, they told me “No typical wedding stuff!”

Beltane Ranch: Rustic Sonoma Charm with a Bohemian Vibe

This was my first time working at Beltane Ranch, which is a popular wedding venue, and I can see why! Although it is minutes outside of the charming village of Glen Ellen, and quite close to the more urban center of Santa Rosa, it feels far away from everything, with vistas of rolling golden hills, immaculate gardens and majestic oak trees. The historic farmhouse is a bed and breakfast, and the event was centered around this beautiful Victorian-era edifice.

The ceremony itself was held under one of the aforementioned centurion oak trees, with a string duo providing most of the soundtrack. However I did provide the recessional: “Don’t Worry Baby” by the Beach Boys, which happens to also be my personal favorite song by that band. Did I mention that I was really stoked to DJ this wedding???

Groovy Indie Cocktail Hour & Vinyl Dinner Time

Moving into the cocktail hour, this was a great time to flow into some soundtracks, French pop, and modern indie that is upbeat, groovy but * not quite * dance floor material. Think Quincy Jones, Francoise Hardy, and Parquet Courts. At this point, I was Djing off my laptop, so I was excited to move over to the main set up for the dinner time, when I could actually switch over to using vinyl, something which I knew the couple would appreciate. I had brought along a decorative wooden box in order to display the sleeves, so that it would be visible at a distance that I was playing actual vinyl records, and not just digital mp3s. This is something that I feel sets Ceremony DJs apart from other wedding DJ companies: Yes, we do digital, but we’re also vinyl nerds and use real records as often as possible.

I’m going to toot my own horn here that I had a few of the more obscure tracks the couple had earmarked on vinyl, such as “You’re a Song That I Can’t Sing” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, a 70s blue-eyed deep soul killer. Dinner time continues the groove of cocktail hour, but slows it down a notch- This is a time when people are seated, eating, talking. We heard “Strange Magic” from ELO, “Baby” from Donnie and Joe Emerson, and “My Sweet Lord” from George Harrison. The couple made their grand entrance to that romantic mid 70s soul classic “Too Late to Turn Back Now” by Cornelius and Rose.

The Dance Party: Obscurities, Dance Classics & Everything In Between

At last, the dance party! Here, I faced a bit of a conundrum: Ok, so I knew that Madelyn and Kevin had supercool obscure tastes, and also liked some more well known (but hip!) stuff too, based off of our conversations and their Spotify playlists. But what about their guests? The dance party is when that becomes really important- this is when the DJ really needs to please everybody to make people get up and dance. So this is when one of the critical skills of being a DJ comes into play, and it’s one that I don’t think you can teach, only learn with experience: how to read a room and see what your crowd wants to hear and dance to.

We began with some really lovely choices for family dances: “Here Comes the Sun” for the father/daughter dance, and “Lean on Me” for the mother/son dance. Madelyn and Kevin chose the original psychedelic “Crimson and Clover” by Tommy James and the Shondells for their first dance, narrowly beating out their first thought of “Dedicated to the One I Love” by the Mamas and the Papas, which would have also made for a great selection.

Then we moved into the full on party with classics like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Move On Up” by Curtis Mayfield, “Kiss” by Prince, “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie, and “Dancing Queen” - all specifically requested by the newlyweds. I sprinkled a few lesser-known but very accessible tunes from their playlists in, like “Funky Kingston” by Toots and the Maytals, and “Fire” by Lizzy Mercier Descloux (both on vinyl!) and we heard lots of great hits spanning the decades into the ‘70s with “You Sexy Thing” by Hot Chocolate, “Don’t You Want Me” by the Human League from the ‘80s, “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” from the ‘90s, all the way to the millenium with LCD Soundsystem’s “Dance Yrself Clean.” The final song of the night was “C’mon Eileen” which was an absolute banger to end the night on, and left everybody sweating, smiling, and begging for more!

I still listen to Madelyn and Kevin’s wedding playlists sometimes, and now not just for the fantastic music selections, but for the happy memories of this fun event that they bring me.