E l Cortez – Barbolla Wedding
Client: Andrew and Carmen Barbolla
Venue: El Cortez – Don Room
Venue Address: 702 Ash Street, Suite A, San Diego, CA 92101
Number of guests: approximately 150
Services Provided: Wedding DJ and Master of Ceremonies, Enhanced Dance Floor Lighting, Wedding Video Montage
Wedding Coordination: Kelly Hath
This was the first of two weddings I had this week.
Carmen Mosley and Andrew Barbolla contacted me in May to inquire about wedding services. They were getting married at El Cortez, and wanted someone who could DJ and MC, knew their genres of music (70s disco & 80s funk, as well as current hits and some latin). Carmen was out of town but arranged a phone meeting with her fiancee. After talking with him, they decided to book with me.
Months later, Carmen returned to San Diego and arranged to meet in-person. At that time she learned about my wedding video montage creation service and decided to add it on to their package. For those that are not aware, I provide a service where clients can give me up to 100 pictures and I will create their montage for them, using professional video editing software to create eye-catching montages complete with custom transitions, including effects such as ken burns and book zoom. At the wedding I will then project the created montage using high-powered projectors and large projector screens.
When I arrived at El Cortez, the band that was scheduled to play had already taken up their spot. I set up my system next to theirs, and placed my speakers on either side of the stairs. Because of the shape of the room (octagonal, and rather round), bass has to be kept minimal or else you get an echo effect that ruins the sound. I set my subwoofer on “1″ and it seemed to work great.
Since I use vinyl, many times I like to ask my clients what their wedding colors are and try to match their decor with a similar shade of vinyl. They told me that their main color was purple so I brought my purple vinyl. What they didn’t mention was that their secondary color was a brownish orange. How fateful it was that the labels to my purple vinyls were almost the exact same shade! I couldn’t have planned it any better if I had tried. Check it out!
For ceremony, Carmen and Andrew went with a string quartet.
Seating Music: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
Processional Bridal Party Music: Three Divertimenti
Bride’s Processional Music: Pachelbel’s Canon in D
Recessional Music: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
After ceremony, guests went outside to enjoy a cocktail hour while I played some light listening music for anyone who might venture inside.
Introductions went well, as Carmen and Andrew chose to only have themselves introduced as “Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Barbolla”.
Dinner began, and afterwards we started toasts. This is when the rest of the bridal party was introduced. Toasts were done in the following order.
Best Man: Dennis Kavanagh
Matron of Honor: Vivian Boos
Father of Bride: Jerome Mosley
Mother of Groom: Diane Barbolla
Bridesmaid: Danielle Egan
After toasts, we began dances. Instead of using my camera, I let my video recorder run and recorded the dances. Here’s some frames from the video I captured.
First Dance Music: Adele – Make You Feel My Love
Father/Daughter Music: Frank Sinatra – The Way You Look Tonight
Mother/Son Music: Toby Lightman – Better
Halfway through the dance, the groom switched to dancing with his grandmother, and the Best Man graciously took over dancing with his mom.
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After the dances it was time for open dancing, and this was a good dance group. They shuffled their feet to 70’s, 80’s, even some 50’s.
After about 45 minutes, it was time for their friend’s band to play. They were known as Bedford Grove, and had a blues/folk sound to them. They played for about 45 mins, and then turned the dance floor back over to me. They were actually really cool people, and when they weren’t playing they were on the dance floor getting their groove on. One of two of them even made some requests, and I was able to get one of their requests into my set.
I started my second set, but with a twist. The bride and groom had arranged a “crazy half hour” in which I brought a pre-planned bag of props to the dance floor, dumped them all out, and told guests to grab whatever they wanted because we were about to do a bunch of follow-along songs in the next “crazy half hour”. The guests loved it, and it was fun to watch them dance wearing masks, hats, and other assorted apparel. I mixed songs like a madman, weaving through all the classics (cheesy and non-cheesy), and watching the dancefloor with amusement. After the crazy half hour was up, I transitioned into some good dance music and kept the floor going with guests who were even more enthusiastic than the first set. So enthusiastic, in fact, that when it came time for cake cutting, bouquet toss, and garter toss, they asked if they could just do the cake cutting and then skip the rest so they could dance more. I had no problem honoring that request. 
I actually have video of the dancing, including the “crazy half hour”. I will post it up as soon as I go through it.
Cake cutting was done to a combination of Rathergood’s “Cake” and Eileen Barton’s “If I knew you were coming (I’d have baked a cake)”.
Open dancing commenced and they danced right up til the very end, after which Carmen and Andrew were happy to pose with me for a post-reception picture. I love the fact that she still has on her mask from the crazy half hour! As a matter of fact, she never took it off during the whole time after that half hour. I think she even has it on in her cake cutting photos, but I haven’t received any to verify that yet!
