How Much Time Do You Need to Plan a Wedding?

It’s that time of year again when we have an onslaught of inquiries from couples who just got engaged. Between the holidays, New Years Eve and Valentines Day it seems that December, January and February may not necessarily be a time of year for weddings but the office is bustling with phone calls and emails about availability. So you may ask yourself “how much time do I need to plan for my wedding celebration?” The truth of the matter is that everyone is different. Some couples can do it in 3 months (which we wouldn’t advise) and others need a whole year depending on work/school schedules, how organized they are and if they are planning a wedding outside their area.

Honestly, we think one full year will do it. As a wedding entertainment company our wedding DJ/MCs and Bands can be booked on events as far as 2 years in advance. The earlier you book the better your chances are of getting the vendors you really want! More importantly it will eliminate an enormous amount of stress that really starts to build up as you get closer to the big day. The more you have finished ahead of time the less of a “to do list” you will have 3 weeks prior to your event when you really want to be enjoying the experience. You don’t want to be running around like a chicken with your head cut off, seriously. Each Month we will be sharing with you some very easy steps in planning your wedding reception as well as our favorite vendors we love to work with. So let’s get started!

Finding your Wedding Venue

First step is to find your venue and set the date. It’s much more difficult to hire your vendors without the date set in stone. Take some time to visit the places on your “fav” list. Usually they will all be in the same area so you can schedule a few tours in one day. Remember, if you can only do a tour on the weekends because of work schedules, plan on getting up bright and early Saturday morning and heading out the door as a venue may not be able do a tour in the afternoon. Most places are preparing for a wedding that evening. Make sure you bring lots of questions including…

Do they have your date available?
How many guests can the room (area) hold?
What does the site fee include?
Is there a sound ordinance?
How many hours does the package include and how late can the party go?
Is there an on sight coordinator and if not do they require you to hire a coordinator ?

After seeing a few venues and asking the important questions, you will be able to make a conscious decision on the property that best suites your needs. Here are a few of our favorite wedding venues in the Ventura and Los Angeles area!

Westlake Village Inn, Westlake Village, CA

Sunset Hills Country Club, Thousand Oaks, CA

Wedding Cheers-ful Vendor - Rachel Rose Photography

Who are the Cheers-ful Vendors...Only the best wedding professionals this Los Angeles Wedding DJ company has the pleasure of working with. Rachel Rose is one of our friends and friendors in Ventura Ca and soon to be moving her operation to the Big Island. We recently had the pleasure of sitting down with her for breakfast and mimosas and talking about her move and her love of wedding photography. The minute you meet her, she makes you feel so comfortable. Between her genuine charisma and zest for life, and of course her impeccable eye and creativity results in amazingly beautiful images. We look forward to many future events together and… Mimosas. Read more about Rachel and her wonderful company here:

From Rachel: We are a professional destination wedding photography company and specialize in storytelling photography. We have a very modern style, with a photo-journalistic and candid approach. We have a pay it forward mentality and enjoy connecting with each person we have the opportunity to work with to capture their special event. Our photos have a timeless feel and our clients feedback often reveals we are extremely easy going and are very comfortable to work with.

With over ten years experience, we began our career in photography in 2003 and established "Rachel Rose Photography" in 2009 when we were working weddings full time. Our company branched out to the Hawaiian Islands as well in 2011, hiring another lead photographer and expanding our services. Published in Alaska Airlines Magazine, Hawaii Bride and Groom Magazine, SnapWeddings, etc.

We are wedding professional experts and can help you plan your perfect day. Experienced, dependable, and personable! We care!

"Some people work to live, I myself, live to work." It is in an incredible feeling to be part of something so special and be able to create a timeless product for our clients that will forever hold those memories for them to look back on. -Rachel Rose, owner/ lead photographer

Please visit www.RachelRosePhotography.com for more information!

How Much Time Does It Take To Plan A Wedding: Part 5

So this is the last part to our series of blogs on this particular subject. You probably have three to four months left to go and now emotions are starting to build. There is excitement, anticipation, stress, wonder and quite possibly a little exhaustion from the whole experience. This is where you start tying up all the loose ends and hiring the vendors that you felt could wait until the home stretch for your wedding reception. Three of these vendors are your invitations/print materials vendor, videographer and hair and makeup.

All three vendors are very important but by this time most couples go over their budget and have to start making decisions on if these vendors are really important for their event. Let me shed some light and it will probably help you in the decision making for your final round of spending.

Invitations: This is yet another DIY category and it can go either way. I personally think that printing your own invites is not the way to go. They look homemade and this is your formal invitation for your wedding day. Even going on line can be a little unpredictable and sometimes costly because what is mailed to you may not be exactly what you ordered on line like color or actual size. When you hire someone to do your invites it’s up close and personal. They will spend the time to design something special for the two of you. There are some really talented invitation vendors that won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Occasions to Celerbrate is by far my favorite vendor for invitations.

Videographer: This is a decision you really need to think about because it is the memory of your special day. From a personal standpoint, I wish I had a video of my wedding day. All I have are little snippets in my mind of what I remember about the day because I have nothing documented. I wish I had our vows, grand entrance, 1st dance, parents’ dances and mostly the toasts that were given that night. With each year that goes by the memories get shorter and shorter. Food for thought.

Hair and Makeup: For the bride this is a must and you need someone who is versatile. Someone who can “do you up” for not only for the live experience but for print as well. He or she should be able to create exactly what you envision and most likely that vision will be shown through pictures you bring to that very important run through meeting. This way you can see their talents and also get an idea of what your hair and make up will look like before the big day. My all time favorite hair and makeup artist is Kathleen Hagen Beau Ideal

So that’s it in a nutshell. I hope this was valuable information. Remember, start early! If anyone pokes fun at you because you are starting the planning process early, just ignore them. This is your day and ultimately you want it to be a great memory from start to finish.

By Lisa Capitanelli Kasberg

How Much Time Does It Take to Plan a Wedding: Part 4

You are now six months away from the big day. At this point you might feel like you have all the major vendors booked and can take a little break from the planning. Not so much. You may ask “who am I missing” or you may say “I’ve got this” but believe me there are still a few vendors to hire and a big handful of things to do! I still believe strongly in getting tasks completed earlier than later. You will enjoy the two weeks prior to your event so much more and be in the moment instead of after the fact feeling like you don’t know what just happened. Here are the next two vendors in line.

Officiant

The officiant is a very important vendor for your event for one main reason, its your wedding day! You can’t get married without an officiant. Right? Lately there is a trend of couples having their friends marry them by getting ordained on line. So, this doesn’t make sense to me. Unless your friend is a pastor or officiant, you will see the pitfalls happening right in front of you while you are standing at the alter, side by side with your soon to be spouse and your friend is in a panic not knowing what to do next! I have seen this happen so many times (but not all the time) and the biggest issues are:

• The person is typically nervous because it is his/her first wedding • He or she will read verbatim from a pamphlet that has no personal content • They don’t speak clearly and closely into the mic • They may forget one part of the ceremony that could be very important to the bride and groom.

I DJ’d a wedding and the officiant was a friend. He totally forgot the sand ceremony they had especially made for their wedding. The bride was so upset after the ceremony I didn’t think she would recover. We managed to add it in at the reception and all was good again! Now that was almost disastrous! My all time favorite officiant is Barbara Laughrey. She is the best of the best and will create a ceremony that is very personal to the couple.

Wedding Cake, Cup Cake, and Dessert Bar

The cake/dessert is important. It is one of the showpieces at the reception. I can’t begin to tell you how many folks take a picture of the wedding cake or dessert display before the cake cutting ceremony. There are so many things to choose from when it comes to your dessert. Anything goes these days. If I could give you my best advice on cakes, please, by all means schedule a tasting. The design may be absolutely beautiful but you want it to be delicious too.

Written by Lisa Capitanelli Kasberg

Outdoor Wedding Receptions and The Infamous Sound Ordinance

In the last five years we seem to be DJ-ing at a lot more wedding receptions at outdoor venues. It has become way more fashionable to have an outdoor event as opposed to throwing a party in a ballroom at a hotel. There are as many pros and cons to having your wedding day outside as there are to having it indoors but any way you slice it there will always be pros and cons.

One of the possible challenges of having your event outside can be a local noise ordinance to contend with. Every venue is different based on the location and its direct proportion to the surrounding residential area but honestly, noise does not need to be an issue if you do your due diligence in finding the perfect solution to create that outdoor experience that you’ve been dreaming of without it stifling your party. Here are a couple ideas to help you along the way.

Ask Your Venue About the Noise Ordinance

Ask your venue if they have to comply with a noise ordinance. If so, ask them what time the reception music needs to shut down. Usually the most common time is 10:00 PM. This is not bad at all and really quite reasonable. If you start your event at four in the afternoon this will give you six hours to celebrate and plenty of time for your guests to enjoy the party from beginning to end without feeling like it ended too early in the night. One of my favorite outdoor venues that falls into this category and I work at often is Walnut Grove in Moorpark, CA. You just can’t go wrong at this site.

Decibel Requirements

Ask the venue if they have a decibel requirement. If the venue does require the DJ to stay under a certain decibel level, then you will need to get a little more creative and there is a way to do so. Anything under 70 db’s could be an issue during dancing, depending on the floor plan at the venue. You want to make sure the music is loud enough to get your folks out on the dance floor. If your guests can’t hear or feel the music they’ll have a tendency to sit down and chat instead of heading out to the dance floor to cut a rug.

Creative Solutions

You may ask your self “how can I possibly be creative in this situation”. Well the shorthand answer to this is… wireless headphones. Yes, I did say wireless headphones. These headphones are typically passed out during dancing and each person has total control over their own personal volume, allowing an individual to “turn it up “ the music that is, yet be compliant with the noise ordinance in the area because the main sound system can stay under the required db’s.

If I am at a venue that has a decibel requirement there is always a handful of guests who will come up to the DJ booth and ask me to turn up the volume. This is where the wireless headphones come into play. Not only do they solve the problem but they are so very hip that the guests walk away from the event saying that was coolest wedding they’ve ever been to.

If you have already hired your DJ and you realize that headphones are needed for your event, you can absolutely just rent the headphones. We’ve done many events where we weren’t the actual DJ but the client rented our headphones for their party. This is such an easy solution and allows the couple to have the outdoor wedding they truly desire while being freed up from any concerns of their party being shut down prematurely. I highly recommend our wireless headphonese for your upcoming outdoor event.

Lisa Capitanelli Kasberg

Hiring a "Friend" to DJ Your Wedding Reception?

Today I received an email from a potential client thanking me for my time in meeting with her to potentially DJ her wedding reception. She even thanked me for my patience and said that she “loved my fun personality”. As soon as I read that sentence I knew there was trouble ahead.

I have been working with this potential client for about 6 months and as I read on she explained that her fiancé who, by the way, didn’t come to meet me in person and had no connection with me whatsoever had decided to hire his “friend” to DJ their very exclusive wedding reception.

Of course I chuckled as I read on because this isn’t the first time I’ve received an email like this but my first thought was “Oh My, this has disaster written all over it." As I hit the reply button in hopes of trying to explain to this poor bride that she was in for some serious disappointment, I felt slightly defeated and the best way to describe this feeling would be like trying to convince my five year old twins that a 2 hour nap is still part of their daily routine. Yup, that’s not gonna happen. See what I mean?

So for those couples who are thinking about hiring your friend to DJ the most important day of your life, here are a few key questions you should ask them.

Have you DJ’ed at least 50 weddings in your career?

This is an absolute must. There are too many moving parts for your DJ to be trying to figure out what to do next or what to play next at your very important wedding reception.

Will you be willing to MC the event?

This includes the grand entrance, first dance, father/daughter, mother/son, cake cutting and bouquet and garter. Most couples don’t realize that when you are hiring a friend, the friend thinks he will only be playing music and that someone else will be doing all the announcements. Yikes!

Do you have a Wedding Reception Planning form we should fill out?

Every professional Wedding Reception DJ has a planning form. If they don’t they probably haven’t DJ’d many weddings and it will be very clear the day of your event. You and your guests may even see the panic on the DJ’s face as he is trying to figure out what he needs to do next. Usually this comes in the form of not knowing important guests names for introductions and toasts or important songs for the evening like the first dance.

Do you have enough music for all ages?

Most “friend” djs cater to a certain crowd usually in their 20’s and/or 30’s and as a result the rest of the guests are left out of the equation, ending in only a handful of people on the dance floor the whole night.

Will you keep a flow for the evening?

This is one of the biggest responsibilities of a DJ. If he can’t keep a flow going then most likely the guests will leave right after the cake is cut, which ends up being an early evening and a lot of money down the drain. Not to mention all that time and effort that went into planning a wedding you thought would go on all night long.

In short it’s just too big of a day not to hire a professional. That goes for every aspect of your wedding reception too. Would you hire a friend who likes to tinker with cars to fix your brakes? Probably not. Think twice before you sign the contract. Oh yeah that’s the most important question… does he have a contract?!

By Lisa Capitanelli-Kasberg