Tonight, as the sun went down, downtown Boston went Purple to create awareness for former Celtic Chris Herren’s anti-drug project called Project Purple. 5 Star Events did it’s share uplighting Boston by shining the lights on UMass Boston. At the time, we had no idea that the Prudential Tower, the gas tanks, the State House and the whole downtown went purple. We just thought we were part of a small UMass demonstration. We are now seeing references to our work all over including Boston Herald, Yahoo! News, CBS Channel 5 .
There are two comments I hear most often about the Barn at Gibbet Hill. First, “The food is amazing!!”. It clearly is outstanding. I’m by no means a food critic, but I have eaten a lot of wedding meals in my day. If you are looking for a fantastic meal, you won’t go wrong with either the Barn at Gibbet Hill or the Gibbet Hill Grill. The second comment is “How do you pronounce Gibbet?” I wasn’t sure because I’ve heard it pronounced so often two different ways. I’ve worked there quite a few times over the years so I thought I should know. At the end of the night I asked Dierdre the event coordinator. The correct pronunciation is in fact with a soft “g” like “gypsy”.
With that settled I’m going to get to what I intended on writing about and that’s the music highlights.
The intros set it apart for me. Matt & Allyson chose great songs from the late 80’s & early 90’s. We kicked off with “Got My Mind Set on You” by George Harrison for the parents. The song had great energy and got the crowd going right away. Interestingly, that song was the last number one hit by any of the ex-Beatles. You can find more about it here. We followed with Heavy D’s “Now that we found Love” for the Bride and Grooms attendants. Like in the movie “Stitch” the couples each had a great dance that worked with their entrance. Lastly the B & G entered to “What I Like About You” by the Romantics. This was a huge song for me for many years that I had all but forgotten. It was so great that I brought it back as an encore just prior to the last dance. [ continue reading ]
MIT Faculty Club is the venue of choice for my April 28th reception. This post is the 2nd of my “The Best Wedding Music” series which will highlight song choices from upcoming weddings. My hope is that the series will be interesting to other couples planning receptions. I hope you can use it as source for musical inspiration.
Venue: MIT Faculty Club
Date: April 28th, 2012
Introduction Music: “The Way You Make Me Feel” by Michael Jackson
First Dance: “Crazy Love” by Van Morrison
Cake Cutting: “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley
Father/Daughter Dance: “In my Father’s Eyes” by Martina McBride
Last Dance: “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” by Michael Jackson
This wedding will be starting and ending with MJ. What could be better??? I love the story behind “Three Little Birds” for the cake. Before he proposed Andrew recorded that song into a teddy bear alarm clock for Rona. I wish I was that creative. Wait for the pictures. The MIT Faculty Club will be rocking in a couple of weeks!!
I was preparing for my April 14th deCordova Scuplture Park wedding when an idea hit me. I think it would be helpful for couples planning weddings to see what other couples pick for their wedding songs, especially if those songs are unique, fun or interesting. I’m going to start listing them here in a very brief format. If it sees any traffic, I’ll convert it to an easier to display format possibly in list form.
Venue: deCordova Sculpture Park
Date: April 14th, 2012
Processional: “Red Barchetta” by Vitamin String Quartet
Bride’s Processional: “Closer to the Heart” by Vitamin String Quartet
Recessional: “Heavy Metal Wedding March”
Bride & Groom’s introduction music: “Love you Madly” by Cake
First Dance: “Closer to the Heart” by Rush
Cake Cutting: “21 Questions” by 50 Cent
Father/Daughter Dance: “In My Life” by the Beatles
Groom/Mother Dance: “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynard
Last Dance: “Always Look on the Bright Side” from Monty Python
I am so excited about this wedding!! The deCordova Sculpture Park is an amazing space. I love the rock/alternative feel to the music. My clients are amazing. I can’t wait.
If you’re planning a Pine Hills Golf Club wedding, please read this review.
It’s almost April and peak wedding season is almost upon us. I usually find myself traveling to Boston for weddings. I’m fine with that but it does make me appreciate some of the fantastic wedding venues in my area. Pine Hills Golf Club, a country club in my home town of Plymouth is one of those places. In that spirit, here is a reposting of a page I wrote about my experiences as a dj at Pine Hills. [ continue reading ]
A google search for “Hire a wedding dj” brings up over 2,700,000 posts -most do little to help you do that. I set out to change that.
I barricaded myself in my office for the last three days. “How to hire a wedding dj in 7 easy steps” are the fruits of my labor. The methods are mostly unconventional but will yield great results if you are trying to find a dj for your wedding. [ continue reading ]
I was looking over my upcoming schedule and was excited to see that a White Cliffs Country Club wedding was in my near future. Although, I am mostly know for my work as a Boston DJ, I’m actually a long time Plymouth resident. White Cliffs is only about a twenty minute ride and I love it when I can work that close to home.
So I’ve decided to reach back to my old website and repost some blog posts I wrote several years ago about White Cliffs. Over the years many have commented about how helpful the articles were for them. I hope they help you in some way. Here is the first of several that I’ll publish over the coming months. [ continue reading ]
I had the pleasure of working with Jamie and the JPod Productions team at the Four Seasons Boston over Valentine’s day weekend. Please check out JPod’s short teaser film at: http://jpodproductions.com/blog/2012/03/emily-andrew-wedding-trailer-four-seasons-boston-wedding-video/.
In addition, I’m happy and proud to announce that 5 Star Events was chosen as the “Vendor of the Month” by the amazing cinematographers at JPod Productions. Please follow this link to here JPod’s review of our company: http://jpodproductions.com/blog/2012/03/vendor-of-the-month-5-star-events/
First, as a dj I’m a fan of great music and Nick & Nikki picked a ton of it for their Lakeview Pavilion wedding. Here are some highlights:
First Dance: “Helpless” by Niel Young & the Band
Cake Cutting: “I Second That Emotion” by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
Introduction Music: “Long Way to the Top” by AC-DC & “Baba O’Reilly” by the Who
For dancing the request list had a predominantly classic Soul, Motown, R&B feel. The dance floor started out packed with Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t no Mountain High Enough”. The crowd went crazy to the follow up “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5. The frenzy continued right through to the very last song – “No Diggity” by Blackstreet feat. Dr. Dre. Crowd favorites included “Get up Offa That Thing” by James Brown, “California Love” by tupac, “Magic Dance” by David Bowie, “Shout” by Otis Day & the Nights & “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” by The Temptations to name a few. [ continue reading ]
Dave took the long ride to Warwick, to setup the Aldrich Mansion, RI uplighting on this past snowy Saturday. If you’re new to 5 Star Events and haven’t heard, our company offers fantastic special event lighting for weddings including uplighting, projected gobo monograms and paper hanging lanterns through our sister company Creative Uplighting. In addition to lighting options, we also provide a beautiful black & white checkerboard dance floor to complete a breathtaking lighting design.
For this event, our clients wanted white uplighting to accent their winter theme. To achieve the look, Dave created a color wash in the larger spaces with our wide beamed Color Maker uplights. Our company uses several different types of uplighting fixtures, each has a different color range, brightness and beam spread. He used our new narrow beamed Astera puck shaped lights to light the smaller or more delicate spaces and to highlight some of the architectural elements. These lights also are amazing at creating white light. They one of the few led uplights that have a dedicated white LED. Most LED uplights create white by mixing the right combination of Red, Green & Blue. The three color approach works pretty well but can’t match the light quality of the Astera fixtures. [ continue reading ]