Large chunks of the trunk flew in all directions and one huge branch smashed into one of the loaded shuttle buses and blew out the entire windshield.
The wind blew so hard that it basically exploded a huge tree in the parking lot. At 12:00, after eight hours, they wanted more, so I played a half-hour of overtime! Great stuff…Īt the end of the night, a huge rain and wind storm blew in from off-shore. The night went on, the party raged and the hours flew by. And later, when a young lady in the audience plainly lacked the courage, even with the prodding of her mother and the groom, to ask him to dance, I stepped in, put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Heya bud, I *think* there is a young lady over here who would like a dance with you.” He dropped what he was doing, smiled and said “where?”, and then… well, the room got so bright with her smile that I was actually blinded for a moment : ) He was even clowning around with the waitstaff and actually put on a waiters coat, folded a napkin over his arm and started pouring people drinks! How cool is that? I actually got some video of that, as well as a good still shot. A *cool* guy all the way – appreciative, fun, outgoing and loving his Old School. I ended up hanging out with “the quarterback” quite a bit that night. Somehow, I was able to regain control of my own emotions and I closed the toasts gracefully and segued into the parents dedication dances into open dancing. And when it was over, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house and the entire room was up on its feet in applause. Given from his seat in his wheelchair, it was delivered deliberately and poignantly, pouring from his heart on to his daughter and new son and all else who were there. It was as much a blessing, really, as a toast. That last toast was given by the bride’s father. There were many nice toasts, and some very funny moments, but it was capped of by one of those one, maybe two toasts a year that we as DJs are all lucky enough to hear: the ones that nourish our souls and stay with us long after the wedding day itself, and the ones that remind us of what makes our job so very special and such an incredible privilege. The toasts happened right after dinner, as a prelude to the Father-Daughter & Mother-Son dances. It was just *awesome* watching this crowd slowly start realizing during this time that I understood the vibe and that this night was going to be special! The dinner set was all about Maxwell, D’Angelo, Jill Scott, Alicia Keys, Erykah Badu, John Legend… and even classics like “Westside” by TQ and “Get On Up” by Jodeci. I am a jazz nut, so when they asked me if I could play Miles, Mingus, Monk, Coltrane & Diz for cocktail hour through two separate systems inside and outside simultaneously, I just winked, nodded and smiled, and so did they.Īfter the Grand Introduction and First Dance on a Gobo’d, virgin white, gloss-finish dance floor transported up from Southern California, it was on to the dinner set.
The ceremony was expertly led by their Bishop, flown in from the East Coast. I tied into the superb venue-supplied audio and she walked down the aisle to Chrisette Michele’s “Golden”… absolutely breathtaking. The music was beautifully customized for the ceremony by the bride, and all songs had entry/exit cues. At the end of the night, the truck would then be backed in and unloaded, and by the next morning, you would never know that a wedding had been there at all!
They then brought in custom everything, transforming the private club into their wedding venue. They had every single piece of existing furniture individually blanket-wrapped and loaded by a crew onto a cross-country sized moving van, which was parked down the road. The bride and groom four-walled the place. In fact, I have been told that DJs are a relative rarity at this venue. For those of you who know, that is about as classy as classy gets. It was an 8 hour ceremony & reception to be held at a world-famous venue on the Central California Coast. He was a collegiate National Champion for a West Coast university who now plays Defensive Tackle in the pros, and his fiancee’s brother used to play for the 49ers.
#GOLDEN CHRISETTE MICHELE WEDDING PROFESSIONAL#
On March 21,2009 I had the honor of DJing a wedding for a well-known professional football player from an East Coast team and his fiancee. It is just way too personal of a thing to share in public without anonymizing the good people who were part of it and protecting their privacy. First things first: due to the nature of this story and particularly what happens in the end, I decided that the only way I would post it would be with all the names missing.
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