Holiday Inn Carlsbad by the Sea Wedding – Christopher and Lisa Siegfried
Client: Christopher and Lisa Siegfried
Venue: Holiday Inn Carlsbad by the Sea- Large Gazebo and Lanai room
Venue Address: 850 Palomar Airport Rd. Carlsbad, CA 92011
Number of guests: 100
Services Provided: Wedding DJ and Master of Ceremonies, Wedding Ceremony
This has to be one of the most eventful weddings I have done in a long time. If you have ever wondered just how well an experienced professional DJ can avert disaster at a wedding (even more so than the incident at Admiral Kidds Club when the cloud cover rolled in), well, here’s your chance to find out! Although these experiences are frustrating as they are occuring, they make for great stories later, and really help to hone the problem-solving skills every professional wedding DJ should have.
I arrived at Holiday Inn by the Sea in Carlsbad about two hours before the ceremony start time. Setup went really well in the Lanai reception room. The wedding colors were pink and purple, which I had verified with Christopher and Lisa beforehand. To complement their color scheme, I brought along my limited edition collectors edition vinyl. There were only 1500 of these pressed worldwide.
The Cover of Diplo's Limited Edition Pink Serato Vinyl
Although I had never opened the vinyl, I knew it was pink and were hoping it would complement the pink that was being used. When I opened it we found a pleasant surprise– not only was the vinyl the right shade of pink, but the center record label was purple! I couldn’t have planned it better if I tried. See for yourself. Doesn’t it look great?
San Diego DJ Style Vinyl Matching Wedding Linen Colors
A closer look at the Diplo Vinyl setup with Rane TTM-57SL
The ceremony site presented me with some issues. After setting up everything, I went to do the sound check, and to my dismay I couldn’t get my system to power up! There was only one outlet in the ceremony site vicinity, and it was located behind the large gazebo. After switching out a few cables and getting nowhere, I got a hold of the front desk and asked for assistance. At first the janitor wasn’t sure that the problem was on their end, but after I went to my truck and got a PAR light, plugged it into the socket and showed him that there was no power, he was convinced that the power was not working. To rectify things he ran a power cable from a different location and I was able to get power up and going. The ceremony started a little behind schedule, but by shortening the seating time the guests hardly noticed. The ceremony was beautiful and enjoyed by all.
As any professional DJ knows to do, I went around to the other vendors and made sure the timeline I had printed out was agreed to by all. The caterer had an issue though– she had been told everything was pre-prepared but in reality all the cold appetizers were not. As such, the planned timeline of serving cold appetizers for cocktail took a bit to start. I went over to the bride and groom (who were just finishing taking pictures) an informed them of the situation. I then asked them if they wanted to postpone Introductions until the food had been out for a bit, or just get introduced and then join guests with the appetizer portion. They opted for the latter.
Now comes the biggest snag of the evening– The guest count. Tables had been set for the number of expected guests but more showed up than planned. There were so many extra that all tables were full, even the table that had been set up for the bride and groom!
Thinking fast, one of the groomsman and myself grabbed a table from outside and brought it in. We had some of the other guests go grab us matching linens and were able to make it look part of the original scheme. However, the table was huge! It was obviously way too big for just two people to sit at without looking out of place, so I came up with another idea. I went around to each member of the bridal party and explained the situation, and suggested that they help remedy the problem by coming to sit at the table also. The suggestion went over well and soon we had the table full of the wedding party, sans bride and groom of course!
Back outside I went, giving a brief explanation to the newlyweds about what we had done. Additionally, I told them that the new table was only about 6 feet from the door and it would be weird for them to walk in and stop at their seats. Instead, I suggested that they walk in, turn and walk left, stopping in the center of the edge of the dance floor. There, they should stop, let their guests applaud a bit more, and then have a seat at their table. They accepted this idea with growing trust, and the introductions commenced flawlessly. I’m sure most of the guests had no idea there was ever even a problem, which is the way it should be!
The rest of the reception went well. The bride and groom performed a ballroom dance to their first dance which the guests enjoyed. Four songs into open dancing, I played Sway, and the bride and groom performed another practiced waltz. They were amazing to watch, and I made sure the guests gave them not one but TWO enthusiastic rounds of applause for it.
Guests danced throughout the entire reception, and many had enjoyed some of the unique things I do enough to come up and request a business card. After the last dance, I had them form an exit tunnel and we sent the new couple on their way to enjoy their new life. To my surprise, after the send off, guests came back inside and asked if I was going to continue spinning because they were having fun dancing to the mix. I gave them a few more songs and then set up my iPhone with one of my many mixes available on Beezo.net and let them enjoy some cleverly mixed tunes while they broke down all the chairs and tables and I packed up my equipment.
All in all it was a wonderfully successful wedding, and a great example of why it is imperative that one should hire an experienced professional DJ if they want to ensure that their wedding goes well even if complications arise! Of course, performing disaster control left me with little time to take pictures, so unfortunately I can’t show more pictures of the reception at this time. However, the photographer (Brianne Atkinson) was great and she promised to supply me with some pictures from her work soon.
Congratulations to Christopher and Lisa Siegfried, and thanks for inviting us to participate on your special day!
