Live at the Notebaert!

Sarah and Brad were married on Sunday at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. We dj’d along with a band… and a singer... and a band… and a singer… and a singer… and a guitar player… and another singer… The crazy thing about this night is that we went in without much of a game plan. We had a brief outline for the beginning of dinner. Intros into the cake cutting into a blessing of the food and wine into salads into speeches. Outside of that, we were winging it. Improv baby, one thing I'm great at. I was kinda freakin' out while we were setting up because we didn't have much of an agenda, but at some point I realized that as long as I'm checking in with everyone and seeing where their at, everything would work out. And it did. Beautifully! The bride's family hired a band to play during the ceremony, dinner, and part of dancing. We were hired to do some emcee'ing and dj when the band wasn't playing. During our initial meetings, the bride's family were talking about different people that wanted to perform something during the night. We weren't sure what the best placement of everything was and decided to play it by ear. My main concerns were the band they hired, and the bride's brother's band. Things were running a little late, but that worked out to our advantage. I came up with a basic plan for the after dinner music, and then changed it after talking with the different people involved. I checked out where they were at, if they were ready, as well as their thoughts on what should happen. Once I collected all the data, I formed a better plan. After seeing the dynamics of this new plan, I would check in with people again and then readjust. I would keep readjusting as the night went along. We started off dancing with the bride and groom's first dance, invited everyone else to join for a few while the band grabbed some dinner. When the band came back, they went into some Jewish music. After the band played, the bride's brother's band started setting up while another guest played a guitar and sang. After he played, another person sang a song, then two more people sang a song, then the band came on. It was the perfect build up which crescendo'd into a fantastic performance that I could not (and did not) top. After the band played, I went into some music, but it was difficult to get people dancing again. I played some funky stuff and then went into some motown which brought people out. Twist and Shout into Shout! packed the dancefloor again. It was an awesome night! Improv, baby. I love it.

--Jonathan