Manchester Grand Hyatt Wedding – David and Jena Beane

Client: Jena (Tran) and David Beane

Venue: Manchester Grand Hyatt – Randle Terrace Ballroom
Venue Address: One Market Place, San Diego, CA 92101
Number of guests: 215+

Services Provided: Wedding DJ and Master of Ceremonies, Dance Floor Lighting, Monogram Gobo Creation, Wedding Video Montage, Event Uplighting (16 uplights)

Catering: Manchester Grand Hyatt
Photography/Videography: Amore Wedding Photography
Photography for DJ: Kendra Trapp of A Little Bit Of Handmade
Wedding Coordinator: Reshma Singh
Florist: Wedding Flowers by Melissa
Linens: Lovely Chair Covers
Cake: Manchester Grand Hyatt

In November of 2010 Jena Tran (now Beane) contacted me via email to discuss her wedding. We met at Borders in Mission Valley, and discussed creative ideas and concepts that would fit well into the wedding. They were interested in a lot of my add-on services, stating interests in a “video montage with the DVD, dance floor lighting, monogram lighting, and the uplighting/underlighting”. A few days later, Jena contacted me and told me that her and David had talked it over and wanted me as their DJ because they appreciated me “sharing [my] knowledge about music and style, but also giving us plenty of options to work with”. They booked their date, and we discussed meeting later to assess the venue and discuss lighting for the event.

After they booked. I sent over some ideas for monogram styles, and Jena hit me up with a unique idea her and David had come up with– David was a big Red Sox fan, and since his last name started with a “B” they wanted to use the Red Sox’s trademark letter B as the center of their monogram. As I’ve mentioned before, most vendors/DJs who provide this service simply hand their client a catalog of templates and fonts and have them pick between them. On the other hand, I can actually custom design pretty much anything needed since I have an IT background and decent skills with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Monogram images are fickle… they have to be done using a ‘vector format’ which is beyond the expertise of many. Needless to say, I got excited and set to work to make it happen.

Here’s the Red Sox image they sent me:

From this, I found a higher quality image on the web…

… threw it into Adobe Illustrator and used a few tools such as convert to vector …

Then added some layers to position the text around it.

Not bad, huh? It looks like this in actual use:

Jena and David (and most of their wedding party!) met with me at Manchester Grand Hyatt to discuss the lighting requirements as well as equipment setup. After reviewing their layout, we were both in agreement that their reception would look best with a minimum of 16 uplights.

On the day of their reception, I arrived at the venue and set up my equipment and lighting inside. Unlike a lot of my setups, you could actually see a wire or two on the right because the projector I set up was over 50 feet away and I decided to use wireless transmission to eliminate pesky wires. I’ll have to work on the concealment of this.

For cocktail hour, they had the Students of SCPA Quartet perform, so my part started at Grand Entrance. Working with their coordinator, Reshma Singh, we lined them up the wedding party, coached them on their roles, and started the Grand Entrance.

Grand Entrance (Wedding Party): Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes – (I’ve Had) The Time of my Life

Grand Entrance (Bride and Groom): Eric Clapton – Wonderful Tonight

Immediately after their Grand Entrance, and another enthusiastic round of applause, I instructed the guests to be seated as David and Jena went into their First Dance.

First Dance: Otis Redding-These Arms Of Mine

After their dance, we began dinner. For music, I played songs from the ‘Rat Pack’ era. It was a nice change of routine for me, and seemed to go well with this group. What’s more, the banquet manager, Julie, came over and commented on how nice it was to hear this genre.

In the middle of dinner, I faded the music out and introduced the next event, a Vietnamese Lion Dance, which was performed by Hung Vuong Sports Club.

A brief synopsis of the Lion Dance taken from Wikipedia: The story goes that once upon a time a monk had a dream in which there were many sorrows and evils plaguing the land. The monk prayed and asked the gods how he could prevent these evils from occurring. The gods told him that a lion would protect them and fight back the evils. The Chinese people had never see a lion before, but had heard stories that the lion was the king of all the other animals, so the monk combined all the lucky or magical animals he could think of and so made a lion.

If you look closely at any lion, you can see a red sash tied on its horn. It is told that the lion was disrespectful to the Jade Emperor. This of course caused the Jade Emperor to get very angry, so as a punishment he chopped off his horn (The source of his life) and the lion died. The Goddess of Mercy (Guan Yin) felt bad for him so she tied his horn back on with a red sash with golden leaves and chanted to the lion and he came back to life.

After the Lion Dance was over, I announced their video montage and started it so guests could enjoy it while continuing to eat. The projector screen location was arranged in advance and worked well. We put it in a corner of the room and angled it diagonally.

And since I’ve been given permission to show their wedding montage on this post, here it is!

Following the montage, we began toasts, starting with the Best Man, Ryan Sharkey.

Next was Maid Of Honor (and little sister of the bride), Ursula Tran.

Then we heard from Jena’s best friend, Jacqueline Richardson.

And a special thanks from David and Jena to their guests…

We followed the toasts with a centerpiece giveaway game, involving each table in a game of pass the bill (think of it as hot potato with dollar bills). Guests really enjoyed this, as you can see by the following photos.

As you can see, guests really get into it and I highly recommend it if it fits the vibe of your wedding.

After the centerpiece game, we began parent dances.

Father (Hoang Kim Nguyen-Tran) & Daughter Dance: Frank Sinatra – The Way You Look Tonight

Mother (Kim Beane) & Son Dance: Boyz II Men – Mama’s Song

We then opened the dance floor up.

After a bit of dancing, we took a break and began the cake cutting. The cake was amazing looking, especially with the complementary underlighting and adjacent uplighting combined with spotlighting.

Cake Cutting Song: Marvin Gaye – How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)

To keep the celebration going and give the caterers an opportunity to cut the cake, we began the tosses. Sorry, there no pics. I was too busy managing the events!

Bouquet Toss: Beyonce – Single Ladies

Garter Toss: Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get It On

Afterwards we went back into open dance!

Last Song: Ekolu – Honestly

After the reception was over, David and Jena took the party to a bar, but not before I was able to get my post-reception snapshot.

Congratulations to David and Jena Beane and their families, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to be a part of your special night!

A scan of thank you card I received a few days later:

No ‘formal review’ yet, but I’ll be sure to post one here if they write one.

Mount Woodson Castle – Grand Re-opening Party

Client: Bridal Insider and Personal Touch Dining
Venue: Mt Woodson Castle
Venue Address: 16302 N Woodson Dr, Ramona CA 92065
Number of guests: 300+
Services Provided: Monogram Lighting, Event Uplighting (computerized)

In October of 2010 Eve and Lori of Bridal Insider contacted me to discuss the opportunity to provide lighting for their upcoming event, “An Evening At Mt. Woodson.” As many know, this year I was a featured vendor on Bridal Insider’s blogs, and they also featured one of my blogs on their ‘Real Weddings’ listings. Knowing that I’m knowledgeable with lighting, they asked if I could demonstrate lighting ideas, and I was happy to oblige.

The event took place on November 17th, 2010. To be able to effective demonstrate the flexibility of modern state-of-the-art lighting techniques, I set up 12 uplights in the Castle’s front patio area. For my more technical readers, they were all connected via DMX cable which then fed into a laptop. From the laptop, I was able to control the lights in many different ways. I spent days before the event creating different creative color patterns which changed with a click of a button. When I wasn’t consulting with a guest, I would pick a random ‘scene’ that I had set up and let the lights do their thing. When guests came over to talk, I would show them my ability to change the color of the lights instantly.

Here’s a couple pictures and some video from the event.

For those considering Mt Woodson Castle for their venue, I highly recommend good use of lighting. As you can see, it can really change the way the venue looks.

Bali Hai – Little Wedding

Client: Sarah (Yslas) and Curtis Little
Venue: Bali Hai – South Pacific Room and Bayside Patio
Venue Address: 2230 Shelter Island Drive, San Diego, CA 92106
Number of guests: Approximately 50
Services Provided: Wedding DJ and Master of Ceremonies, Wedding Video Montage Projection, Uplighting, Monogram Creation and Projection
Photographers: RHS Photo (Richard)
Linens: All Seasons Party Rentals
Officiant: Reverend Renate Daversa
Florist: Point Loma Village Florist (Nancy)
Cake: Flour Power

In June, Sarah Yslas contacted me to DJ her wedding. We discussed details over email since she was stationed out of state at the time. She showed particular interest in the monogram and uplighting, which I think was the main attraction to my services in the first place. Being that she was unable to meet in person, I instead scheduled a meeting with her fiancee, Curtis Little. Curtis and I met and instantly hit it off. Besides similar music tastes, we shared conversations of iPhones, Camaros (we both own one), and numerous other similar interests. Of course, we also discussed several details of their wedding, and Curtis was able to give me a good insight into what they were looking for, as well as the things that Sarah would be interested in. After a great meeting, we parted ways and I hit up Sarah a day later to get her input.

Amazingly enough, Curtis was spot-on when it came to Sarah’s tastes! If he said she wouldn’t care about it, she didn’t care about it. If he said she’d definitely be interested, she was absolutely interested. He really knows her well!

Sarah had distinct ideas about what she wanted for her monogram. Most DJ services only have the ability to get a monogram made from list of templates, but this wouldn’t do for Sarah. She was interested in a very unique monogram. She wanted Hawaiian flowers (Hibiscus) with butterflies of different sizes peppered throughout. Lucky for her I do monograms from scratch! I had her send me several pictures and ideas she liked, and we ended up finding one that fit the bill– A combination of butterfly made in the image of the hibiscus flower! Here’s the final design I sent off to be built. Note that it uses gradients, therefore cannot be done using laser-cut metal, so Sarah went with a glass gobo. I rarely have the opportunity to do glass gobos (they are twice as expensive as metal) so I was delighted at this opportunity.

On Nov 7th, 2010, I arrived early and set up the equipment and lighting.

My equipment. Clean and professional as always.

Table underlighting.

A unique method of displaying the monogram– I projected it through the linens of the cake table. It looked great, as you can see here.

The ceremony was held at Bali Hai’s Bayside Patio. I like to be as out-of-the-scene as possible, so I used a 50ft extension cord to position myself out of the picture.

I also positioned a speaker in the direct center of the ceremony site, hidden in the foilage. A very discrete setup, in my opinion.

The ceremony was short and sweet. Sarah and Curtis both had custom vows made to say to each other, which was nice.

Guests seating (Prelude): Various string quartet
Flower Girl and Ring Bearer (dog): “Kisses and Cake” by John Powell (from P.S. I Love You)
Bridesmaids/Groomsmen entrance: “Only Time” by Enya (from Sweet November)
Bride entrance: “To Get Me to You” by Lila McCann (from Hope Floats)
Recessional: “Forrest Gump Theme” by Alan Silvestri (from Forrest Gump)

Cocktail hour was done in the patio area. For this section, I played Hawaiian and island-themed music.

Grand Entrance: Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling

Directly after Grand Entrance we began lunch. Towards the end of lunch, Sarah gave a tribute to her mom, who had recently passed away. After her speech, I played a tribute song as well.

Tribute to Mom: Carrie Underwood – Mama’s Song

We then began a video montage that was created by one of Sarah’s bridesmaids. I used my projector and screen, and even though it was daytime, the power of the projector I used was able to display the images clear and vibrant. I combined some pictures to hopefully give an idea of the layout and interest of the guests.

After the montage was done, I did a “seated introduction” of the bridal party, asking each person to stand up as their name was called. The introductions ended with the best man, which segued nicely into toasts, beginning with him. After toasts, we began the First Dance.

First Dance: Edwin McCain – I’ll Be

Father Daughter Dance: Heartland – I Loved Her First

Following the Father Daughter dance, I invited Sarah and her bridesmaids to the floor to perform their version of the Evolution of Dance. Sarah and I had worked together to put together this megamix of popular line dance songs, which took about four versions of my remixes to get just right. She then got together with her bridesmaids and they practiced a choreographed routine to the mix. Here’s some pictures of their dance.

I set up a video recorder to capture the dance as well. It’s not perfect, but still manages to capture a lot of the energy.

We had a short amount of time for open dance, and unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of it…

After the wedding I did manage to grab the bride and groom for a post-reception picture before they went out front for their grand exit in a limousine.

Congratulations to Sarah and Curtis Little, and thanks for having me along on your special day. And special thanks to Curtis for introducing me to a very cool way to display monograms that I will be demonstrating to future clients!