Good DJ etiquette is incredibly important when it comes to hosting a great event. Before you hire that DJ for your next event, you should consider asking some preliminary questions about their line of work.
Knowing how they conduct business with customers and event organizers and how they intend to bring life to your party are just a few examples of doing your due diligence in securing the right DJ. Here are some pointers on spotting good DJ etiquette ahead of your big event.
Do Your Due Diligence
In looking for a DJ for your next event, doing your due diligence will better help inform your decisions. You’ll want to look out for good DJ etiquette, which can often be heard about through customer reviews, testimonials, and first-hand impressions. But before you begin gathering that research, you have to decide: what exactly is good DJ etiquette?
Look for traits such as timeliness (being punctual to meetings with you and to their events), how they treat event guests and staff, and how communicative they are with their clients.
With that being said, you can keep an eye out for such traits when reading reviews on a potential DJ. You can even reach out to local venue owners to get an idea of how certain DJs in your area conduct business. On top of customer reviews, venue owners often provide a valuable barometer of good DJ etiquette.
Understand How They Work Alongside Clients
Another core tenet of good DJ etiquette is how they operate with potential clients. Are they willing to work alongside clients to ensure event success? Or do they march to the beat of their own drum?
A DJ that demonstrates good DJ etiquette should be able to balance working alongside clients while also using their experience to make informed decisions — all without trampling over potential clients’ wants and needs. This skill in particular requires good listening and communication skills, so that DJs can hear clients out and provide essential feedback that’ll allow their events to run smoothly.
If a DJ has a reputation of doing whatever they want without taking the client’s needs into account should be avoided. On top of that, good DJs also are respectful to other musicians who they may share the stage with throughout the night.
What Does the Community Have to Say?
DJs often operate within the same circle as other DJs. In turn, there’s a big chance you’ll see other DJs work in conjunction with each other from time to time. Whether it’s opening for a fellow musician or headlining, good DJ etiquette also translates to what the music community has to say about them.
This can be seen especially in how a DJ functions as an opener. In opening for another DJ, there’s a huge responsibility to warm the crowd up, but not to over-hype them. Playing mid-tempo tracks and avoiding the hugely popular songs are crucial here.
If an opening act fails to do this, it’s considered disrespectful and does a disservice to the following acts, as the opener just took away the majority of the headliner’s work. This can lead to a bad reputation and venues will not invite them back — signifying poor DJ etiquette.
What is Their Preparation Regimen Like?
Preparation is an important aspect of good DJ etiquette. Signs of peak preparation include having a setlist ready to go, as well as a malleability to adapt to the changing dynamics of the room. Another important aspect, which often goes understated, is showing up to the venue early.
Showing up early to a gig will allow for a DJ to get set up, get acclimated to the crowd, and feel comfortable with their upcoming set. Not showing up early can throw a wrench into venue owners’ plans, as they may have to scramble to find a replacement or postpone your set — thus potentially postponing all sets that follow.
This is also a skill that inherently ties into good communication. If a DJ has good communication skills, they’ll prepare ahead of time by coordinating the setlists and tailoring their performance to the client’s needs.
Everlasting Productions’ Commitment to Good DJ Etiquette
At Everlasting Productions, we pride ourselves on our commitment to good DJ etiquette. With a team of devoted DJs, we communicate with clients and venue owners to ensure the utmost professionalism. With Everlasting Productions, we work hard to ensure your event is a success.
To learn more about how Everlasting Productions can take your events to the next level, visit our website and get in touch with us today!
Curating a soundtrack for your special event can be challenging. Whether it’s a wedding, birthday party, or graduation, establishing a song selection with your DJ is crucial to ensuring a successful event.
Catering to everyone — from the young child to the grandparents in attendance — and maintaining the room’s energy comes down to a carefully-chosen song selection. Here are some tips you should consider in creating that perfect soundtrack!
Set a Meeting with Your DJ
Before your special event, it’s best practice to schedule a consultation with your DJ to go over the song selection. There are plenty of fine details to be ironed out to host a successful event, so holding a meeting with your DJ can help remediate any issues beforehand.
Common issues that can spring up during an event include an energy lull, not maintaining the interest of the crowd, and haphazardly playing songs on the fly. In meeting with your DJ before the event, you should establish a song selection that will avoid these pitfalls. Preparation is key!
You should also let the DJ know what kind of songs you want to hear, as well as songs you don’t want to hear. A “Do Not Play” list goes a long way!
You’ll also want to highlight the range of demographics of your party’s attendance. Consider factors like age, race, ethnicity, and gender when establishing a song selection. What gets the 5-year-old in attendance pumped up will most likely differ from what’ll get the 70-year-old grandfather excited. Try to find a sonic middle ground that’ll bridge the gap for all those in attendance!
Establish the Tone of the Event
Once you have the demographics sorted, the next step in curating the perfect song selection is establishing the tone of the event. What exactly is the occasion? Is it a birthday party for a 10-year-old? A party for a college graduate? A quinceanera? Informing the DJ of this will allow the performer to make the most informed decisions regarding the song selection.
As a DJ, you should then consider song qualities that’ll keep the crowd dynamics leveled throughout the night. Throw in a healthy mix of upbeat songs to have the room jumping. Keep the slow jams for when the audience begins to tire out (you’ll notice this when the dance floor begins clearing out and people start sitting down). Mid-tempo songs are perfect to segue from high-energy to low-energy music, and vice versa.
Another element to consider is the timeframe of your song selection’s release. Are you catering to millennials? Throwing in some iconic throwback songs from the 1990s and 2000s, for example, can ensure a big reaction from the audience. On the other hand, if it’s a party of Gen Z’ers, you can throw on some 2000s and 2010s hits. And who can forget about the TikTok crowd?!
Set Boundaries with Your DJ
Lastly, one of the biggest steps you can take in establishing a song selection is setting boundaries with your DJ. This mainly is a timing issue, which can partially be circumvented by choosing songs that are of appropriate length. DJs should also be hypervigilant of their allotted amount of time and should coordinate with the event hosts and venue to remain within their appropriate timeframe.
On top of that, if your event calls for multiple DJs, you should make it very clear about set times and what songs will be played by other DJs. If there’s an opening act, that opener should avoid playing the top hits that should be reserved for the headliner. Instead, openers should rely on throwbacks and mid-tempo tracks while ultimately setting the tone for the night.
Establishing a Song Selection with Everlasting Productions
Everlasting Productions is a DJ service based out of Melville, New York. With over a decade of experience and a team of fully dedicated professionals, Everlasting Productions is sure to bring you a memorable experience — curated song selection and beyond!
We even offer services such as a photo booth and giveaways alongside dedicated photography and videography — thus making your party last a lifetime! One satisfied customer said of Everlasting Productions, “They did music for my ceremony, cocktail hour and reception. My family and friends were on the dance floor the whole time and only had amazing things to say.”
Reading the room is one of the most important things you can do as a musician and as a DJ. Whether you’re there for a wedding or a birthday party, the hosts have spent their hard-earned money on you, and it’s up to you to deliver a memorable experience!
Remember — you’re not there just to play songs. You’re a multifaceted entertainer whose job transcends having to crank a few tunes to get the crowd going. As a performer, you need to understand an encompassing range of elements in order to read a room and gauge whether you’re doing a successful job or not.
In this blog, we’ll take a look at what said elements go into reading the room so you can be the best performer possible!
Doing Due Diligence
As with most professions, doing your due diligence will only serve you better in your endeavors, especially as a DJ. As you prepare for your upcoming gig, you want to be as observant as possible about your upcoming situation.
Where is your next gig going to be? Is it family-oriented? College-themed? Factor in as many key demographic details as possible, so you can easily tailor a set around the people in attendance.
Communicate with the Client
Another important step in reading the room is the hired DJ communicating with the client. Hosts and DJs should meet (ideally several times) to hash out all details and ensure smooth sailing during their big events. Some ideas to potentially discuss between host and DJ include song selection, a “do not” playlist, and demographic information for the upcoming event.
It can be challenging to curate content for an event when demographics are so widely encompassing. To entertain the 4-year-old all the way to the 90-year-old at the party requires an attentive and hyper-observant eye and ear to the dance floor. Discussing with the client to ensure the meeting of all guest needs will save a lot of time and demonstrate one’s commitment to putting on a great performance for all.
On top of that, shaping a schedule with the client is imperative to an event’s success. Appropriately timing slow dance numbers, energetic songs (and maintaining that tempo!), and segueing out for other festivities like cake-cutting and speeches will allow for a seamless event free of hiccups and other distractions.
Take Note of Body Language
The ultimate rule of thumb in reading any room — body language! There is absolutely nothing more important than body language.
Are people bobbing their heads to your curated soundtrack? Are they full-on dancing and getting down to the grooves you’re laying down? Or are they just standing around — meandering on their phones, waiting for the next track to come…
On top of that, your interjections play a crucial role, so know your personality type. If you’re a funnyman, use that to your advantage — but know your audience before making any wisecrack remarks! If you’re witty or energetic, use that to pump the crowd up if you enter a lull. People do get fatigued from dancing all night, after all.
Look for “Party Starters”
Yes, like the classic Will Smith track — keep an eye out for what we refer to as “party starters.” These are the high-energy individuals on the dance floor, who seemingly have their finger on the pulse of the room and can have other attendees eating out of the palm of their hands.
Party starters are an important guidepost for your performance. If they can get down to what you’re playing, then they’ll undoubtedly shepherd other partygoers to the dance floor. So if you’re struggling to read the room, pinpoint these individuals and you’ll be golden!
Everlasting Productions’ Commitment to Quality
If you’re looking for a team of seasoned DJs that have no problem reading the room, look no further than Everlasting Productions! Our expert DJs have spent years reading the room, perfecting their sounds, and cultivating their techniques.
With our multiple services offered, we promise the highest quality delivered for all of our clients. So if you’re looking to have some spectacular sounds for your next event, visit our website and contact us today!
Every party needs a good DJ curating the soundtrack and being aware of the dynamic, ever-changing environment they’re in. In fact, ensuring client comfort and happiness are essential to the job! And despite how it looks, being a DJ is quite a demanding gig.
It’s not as easy as getting up there and pushing a few buttons on your laptop and calling it a night — your DJ must be able to bring a lot more to the table than just playing those popular tunes throughout the night. From understanding crowd dynamics to developing charisma and a persona, this article will show you what makes a DJ great and how a DJ can make or break your party.
The Importance of a Good DJ
Not only does a good DJ play the appropriate songs for any given occasion, but they also understand the fundamentals of human communication and the party environment. They can make you laugh, fill you with joy at the opportune moment, and bring smiles to everyone’s faces.
On the other hand, a subpar DJ won’t adhere to these elements. It may be easy to “fake it till you make it” by playing the latest hits — but chances are the crowd won’t be left with any lasting memories beyond the tunes.
However, with these elements in mind, a good DJ can supercharge a party with the proper know-how.
Understanding the Crowd and Pop Culture
Reading the room is crucial to being a good DJ! Are you at a wedding? Are you at a Sweet 16? Taking stock in what kind of environment you are in, along with the crowd demographics, will help you dictate the culture and ultimately your own actions as a DJ.
Who’s in the room? Take into consideration key elements like gender, age group, race, and ethnicity. This will come in handy as it’ll help you choose your setlist for the night. For example, if you’re playing to a group of younger people, you’ll probably want to check out what’s trending on TikTok and Spotify to get a grasp of what to play. Tokboard is a great resource to see what’s popular on the Tok in real time.
If you’re at a wedding, throwbacks are certainly a move! Throw on some of the biggest hits of yesteryear (maybe even bring along a Walkman for the aesthetic) and you’ll be golden. It also helps if you have a playlist of “safe” songs that are instantly recognizable to the majority of people. Who can’t get down to The Killers’ classics “Somebody Told Me” and “Mr. Brightside?!”
Incorporating Dynamics
If there’s a DJ at a social gathering, chances are people want to turn up. Bring the energy with songs that are fast in tempo! Songs that are 170 BPM and above are good for getting the energy flowing in the room.
But, of course, people are people — and people get tired after a while. Some DJs probably won’t read the room and take this into account, but not Everlasting Productions!
A good DJ won’t have an endless barrage of noise throughout the entire party, so turn it down a notch with some slower jams once you see people filtering away from the dance floor and getting tired. Songs from 65 to 85 BPM are good.
And don’t be afraid to consider the “bathroom break.” As the night progresses, people will filter in and out of bathrooms — a good DJ will take notice of when people start disappearing for longer periods than not. At this point in the night, save all of the big banger tracks and either play some lesser known music and/or slower music. You don’t want bathroom-goers to miss out on a big moment when you’re three-quarters into the night and front-loaded the soundtrack.
Bringing the Charisma
Of course, a good DJ transcends the music. A good DJ knows how to speak to a crowd — speak their language, provide witty banter (depending on the circumstances), and listen to their audience in what they want. They also know what the crowd wants before the crowd wants it.
This means doing your due diligence in studying your audience and your upcoming gig — that way you can cater your personal performance to them. Not doing so can create a dull, drab performance — which a crowd can sniff from a mile away.
Smile, laugh, and be able to push the envelope with your radiant personality!
What Separates Everlasting Productions From the Rest
At Everlasting Productions, we boast a selection of seasoned DJs who have been honing their crafts for years on end. All avid music listeners, our charismatic crew here incorporates a multitude of music genres and backgrounds that will spice up any special occasion you may have. But don’t just take our word for it — just listen to our happy customers!
One client described Everlasting Productions as “An Excellent DJ Service” and wrote, “It is very easy to recommend Everlasting Productions … The flow of the reception was perfect, and they definitely brought the party and atmosphere we wanted. We only heard positive feedback from our guests, and we would choose them again in an instant.”
To learn more about Everlasting Productions, please visit our website today and contact us to turn your next event up!
BLOGS Battling the Heat During Your Summer Wedding
When we think about a summer wedding, absolute beauty comes to mind. From lush outdoor venues to the beautiful summer hues of coral, green, and pale pink, summer weddings offer elegant seasonal possibilities that will make your special day that much more incredible.
Another thing that comes to mind with a summertime weddings? The heat.
Are you planning a wedding this summer? If so, you’ve got an important task ahead of you—ensuring you and your guests battle the heat and stay cool throughout the duration of the ceremony, the reception, and well into the remainder of your beautiful (as opposed to blistering) special day.
Provide Ample Shelter and Shade
One of the simplest ways to ensure your guests stay out of the heat of the sun is to ensure ample shelter and shade throughout the venue. If you’re planning an outdoor summer wedding, consider small pop-up tents with lounge seating or umbrellas available beneath the sun-blocking fabric.
Get Strategic with Element Placement
If you’re still in the earlier stages of planning your summer wedding, now is the perfect time to narrow down your venue options. Choose an outdoor location with plenty of mingling spaces for your guests, being sure to incorporate beautiful elements that are also practical in shielding guests from the heat. Consider investing in portable A/C units for added comfort!
Marrying Practicality and Personality
One of the most iconic summer wedding staples is that of the personalized hand fan. With customized embroidered hand fans to keep as a keepsake, your guests will hold the memories they made during your special day for years to come.
Add a Delicious Shock of Cold
Keep your guests cool by incorporating frozen components into your dessert selection! Guests will appreciate the refreshing shock of cold favorites such as summer themed gelato or granita. Attendees with sweet teeth will thank you for these icy additions!
Keep the Refreshments Flowing
Never underestimate the power of refreshments to appease a warm and sweaty crowd. Icy drinks are an easy yet effective way to cool down your guests for the duration of your summer wedding ceremony.
Booking Your Summer Wedding with Everlasting Productions
Unfortunately, we can’t control the weather on your special day… but we CAN ensure you and your guests have the summer wedding experience of a lifetime. Contact us over at Everlasting Productions to book your event today!
BLOGS What Did We Learn From All These Pandemic Weddings?
What Did We Learn From All These Pandemic Weddings?
By Jamie Lee
Source: Vanity Fair
With postvaccination wedding season around the corner, writer and The Wedding Coach host Jamie Lee wonders if there are some things about pandemic weddings we’ll keep—just maybe not the lace KN95s.
“It’s not canceled, it’s postponed.”
It’s a statement that rings true for many engaged couples. A wedding date moved from April 2020 to April 2022. It was an initially disappointing, but relatively seamless shift. Because, hey, now there’s more time to ruminate! Whoops, I mean “plan.”
These days weddings look a lot different, happening on Zoom, or in a spaced-out field with the bride wearing a lace KN95 that makes her look like a Handmaid. Or, hell, depending on who you voted for, perhaps they look exactly like they did 13 months ago, minus family members who have “put up a boundary” by no longer speaking to you.
But with our vaccinated summer approaching, a lot more “normal” weddings are approaching.
And, if you’re among the lucky few who not only stayed together over the hellscape that was last year, but are still going through with a wedding on the other side of it—honestly, congrats. The pandemic tested your love and you passed! Because either (a) your love is just that strong, or (b) you have a new variant strain of COVID and being a hopeless romantic is one of the symptoms. Awww so sweet/Eeek!
I myself am writing this from a plane back to New York from Los Angeles, where I lived before my husband and I separated back in December. Some people in my life tried to attribute this to the pandemic. “You were cooped up like two sad little chickens who ended up pecking away at each other’s eyes out of sheer boredom.” But, actually, no, that wasn’t us. We didn’t really fail the pandemic love test, per se. No, we just decided maybe it was time to stop taking the test, put our pencils down, and give the proctor the finger. But, as two comedians and best friends who inherently trust each other’s sensibilities, did we still collaborate on a show all about weddings and what’s actually important about them? You bet we did. It’s called The Wedding Coach, and it’s now streaming on Netflix (always be plugging).
There’s a lot to detest about modern wedding culture, and there’s a lot that the pandemic is going to make worse about it. Your uncle’s going to pull his mask down to unleash his guttural smoker’s cough. Your caterer will no-show because no one remembered to tell them the big day was pushed back a year. And, frankly, some guests who you’d always expected to be in attendance are now overbooked—if there’s one thing this supposed post-COVID boom is going to have, it’s going to be wall-to-wall wedding weekends.
But honestly? None of this is actually new. I mean, yes, hopefully there’s more emphasis now on, say, your wedding party being vaccinated versus worrying about them all wearing the same shade of rose gold. But I know I prioritized the wrong things when I got married. I became quite skilled at distracting myself with “the fun stuff” during my planning process—shopping for a wedding dress? I didn’t want it to end. Designing a tablescape with a bunch of candles and, like, gourds or whatever the fuck? A dream. Cake tasting? I love cake, and tasting it? Baby, that’s the best part! And of course, none of that kept me and my husband/producing partner on The Wedding Coach (now streaming on Netflix) from getting separated. Now I want to make sure that couples who choose a big wedding, or a small wedding, or a divorce, do so because it makes them happy, and because it comes from what they really want.
If there’s one thing we learn from these pandemic-altered weddings, it’s that a wedding can be a pageant or a no-frills (eh, some frills) chance to say how you feel about the love of your life in front of the other loves of your lives. If you lean pageant, cool! But might I suggest taking a second to ask yourself: “Am I flipping out about whether to rent 18 outdoor heaters or 19 outdoor heaters because it is actually so important, or am I deflecting because something more significant and scary is lurking beneath the surface of my soul, like an anaconda waiting to bite J.Lo?”
The Rise of the Minimony and the Postpone Micro-Wedding
By Anna Russell
Source: The New Yorker
Planning a postpone wedding is a faff at the best of times; during a pandemic, it resembles purgatory. You’ve booked the venue, the flowers, the dance floor, and the d.j., only to be told that the venue will not open this year, the florist is out of business, and dancing is illegal. You rebook at a smaller venue—someone’s back yard, maybe—pick your own flowers (“Farmhouse chic!”), and install, at key entry points, hand-sanitizing stations with tasteful signs (“Spread love, not germs”), only to learn that a quarantine has been imposed on out-of-state visitors. Your parents and siblings will no longer be able to attend. They are upset; you will need to postpone. And so it goes.
For a year and a half, my partner and I had been planning a wedding in Crete, where he grew up. We were already legally married—town-hall ceremony—but we wanted the big shebang: the long train, the complicated seating plan, loved ones from all over the world spilling wine as they danced the sirtaki. We chose a date in June and then watched anxiously as the virus spread through January, and then February. Some time into my own pandemic-wedding purgatory, I began having dreams about my dress fitting in strange and otherworldly ways. The sleeves would inexplicably droop to the floor at the elbows, cartoon-like, or extend past my hands and behind me, like white lines on a highway. One day, in late March, after a relentlessly upbeat weekend at home—quarantinis! CrossFit by Zoom!—I sat down to postpone our wedding. I knew how to write the e-mail because I had already received several, from friends in the same boat. They were always warm, and gracious, and not too self-pitying; “What’s a wedding in all this?” they seemed to say. After I sent the note, I received a flurry of messages of relief and consolation. One friend, who had moved her own wedding twice, wrote simply, “Coronavirus is an asshole.”
All through the spring and summer—which is to say, all through wedding season—the virus wreaked havoc on the wedding industry. “It was bedlam,” Laura Krueger, of Kleinfeld Hotel Blocks, which helps couples book accommodations for their guests, told me. “There were no protocols in place.” On March 13th, the wedding-planning Web sites the Knot and WeddingWire set up an emergency hotline for panicked brides and grooms. “We had hundreds of calls per day for two months following that,” Jeffra Trumpower, at WeddingWire, told me recently. As lockdowns and travel restrictions came into force around the country, “couples started to call and say, ‘What do I do? I’m supposed to get married next weekend.’”
At first, people postponed, thinking the pandemic couldn’t last longer than a few weeks. Then they postponed again. “There were stages where it didn’t seem like people fully understood the scope or magnitude,” Andrea Freeman, an event planner in New York, told me. Slowly, two options, both of them buzzkills, emerged: you could postpone indefinitely or hold the wedding right away, with the appropriate safety guidelines in place (festive!). “The conversations I was having with my clients were very much about, ‘What is the focus, really? Why are you really having a wedding?’ ” If the goal was to throw a big party, that wasn’t going to happen. (Although, last month, New York City’s sheriff tweeted about breaking up an indoor wedding of nearly three hundred, in Queens.) “But if the focus was really to be married, to share that with the most important people in their lives—if they were saying stuff like that to me, then we started a conversation about, O.K., here’s what that could look like in this time.”
The wedding industry, floundering through waves of postponements, has developed a suite of options—and a vocabulary—for couples wanting to still splash out on their nuptials, global crisis notwithstanding. There’s now the “micro-wedding,” a small ceremony with fifty guests or fewer. You are encouraged to follow this up with a “sequel wedding,” a larger reception, at a later date. But when even fifty guests seems optimistic (or, depending on your location, illegal), there’s a smaller option, touted enthusiastically by the industry, available: the “minimony.” A minimony might have ten guests: parents, siblings, an officiant standing at a distance. It has all the components of a normal wedding—ceremony, reception, three-tiered cake—shrunk to pandemic proportions.
This is a significant shift. In a survey conducted by Zola, the wedding-planning and registry company, of more than two thousand engaged couples planning their wedding during the pandemic, half were planning a minimony. “Smaller guest lists are definitely a trend we see into the future for some time,” Emily Forrest, Zola’s director of communications, told me. In another survey, by the Knot and WeddingWire, of six hundred and eighty-four couples in the U.S. with weddings between September and January, fifty-eight per cent planned to keep their original date, with many opting for a pared-down guest list, and just seven per cent were pulling the plug altogether. “People are not cancelling,” Trumpower said.
All that rejiggering can take a toll on the bride- and groom-to-be, Freeman, the planner, told me: “People are starting to get fatigued, and they’re going through different phases of excitement and enthusiasm, and then resignation and upset.” I recognized the symptoms. She offers her clients guided meditations and advises them to stay present. “At a certain point in time, you can’t talk about the flowers and the music anymore, or the flavor of the cake,” she said. “It’s about so much more than that. How we get through this is how we handle anything in life.”
Six months after we sent our first wedding postponement e-mail, we had another decision to make. Pandemic-wise, nothing had changed. There was still no vaccine, and cases were rising. Should we postpone again? Cancel altogether? Slash our guest list? I scrolled past images of a socially distanced wedding in which the couple had used giant Teddy bears to separate guests. Where did they get the bears? I wondered. At a certain point, I came across a podcast called “Corona Brides,” in which the host, Jordie Shepherd, a coronavirus bride herself, interviews women (and sometimes couples) navigating the wedding-planning process during the pandemic.
Shepherd launched “Corona Brides” in April, around the same time she decided to postpone her own wedding, which was supposed to take place in May. “The Las Vegas desert was my dream,” she told me. She eventually married closer to her home, in San Antonio, Texas, outdoors, under sprawling oak trees, with an indoor reception in an industrial-chic space filled to half capacity. (“People were able to go inside and sit with their quarantine family,” she said.) But she still has the occasional pang; she told her husband, “Next time we go to Vegas, I’m taking my wedding dress and getting a photo in the desert!” Since starting the podcast, she has interviewed two dozen pandemic brides. Some have postpone their weddings three times; others have married in their back yard or at their original venue, meant for ten times as many guests. Several brides held the ceremony in their kitchen. “It is a roller coaster of emotions,” she said. “You’re almost mourning the loss of a wedding you don’t know if you can have or not.”
Shepherd connected me with Kelli and Omar Brown, who got engaged in November and planned to tie the knot quickly. “I was, like, Six-month engagement, let’s do this!” Kelli, a bridal-hair stylist, told me. They booked a whitewashed photography studio and invited around a hundred guests. But, in late March, Detroit went into lockdown and Omar’s bachelor party in Las Vegas was cancelled. Kelli threw him one at home, with a makeshift bar and slot machines purchased on Amazon. A few weeks later, Kelli’s bachelorette party was cancelled, and Omar surprised her with mimosas and a D.I.Y. nail bar. At that point, Kelli thought, We only have two months left. Still, they decided not to postpone. “We were, like, even if we have to get married in hazmat suits at the courthouse, we’ll get married on that day.”
Kelli had three contingency plans, depending on the state of the pandemic. Wedding A, she told me, “was, like, best-case scenario, a hundred people.” Wedding B would be small and socially distanced, with just family and a few friends. “Plan C was literally my husband and I going to the courthouse.” In the end, Wedding B postpone. They cut their guest list to fewer than twenty and seated households on vintage furniture nine feet apart (“Very cozy, and also very safe”). Omar’s brother, a pastor, drove in from Philadelphia to marry them, and they streamed the ceremony on Zoom. Afterward, they held a drive-through reception. They handed out individually wrapped cupcakes; friends decorated their cars and shot confetti out their windows. One guest texted them to ask, “What car should I wear?” “It was wonderful,” Kelli said.
That evening, they drove to Grand Rapids for a wedding-night getaway. They arrived late, to find a police barricade blocking the road. George Floyd had been killed just five days earlier; a protest had gathered and was being dispersed by officers in protective gear. Then the car filled with a cloud of eye-watering smoke. “My husband was, like, ‘Oh, that’s tear gas,’ ” Kelli recalled. She covered her face with the train of her dress. Omar, who is Black, briefly went outside, and Kelli, who is white, worried for his safety. Eventually, they were allowed to pass and returned home to their family.
Melissa Brown, who founded Sweet Petite Celebrations, which caters to small weddings, in May, told me minimonies can feel more intimate than larger weddings. “You can really dig in deep to each guest that’s coming and make them personally feel special,” she said. They don’t necessarily postpone come cheaper than larger weddings, though; Brown told me her minimony clients spend, on average, between ten thousand and thirty thousand dollars. One couple sent their loved ones a survey asking them to name their favorite dessert and then served each selection in individual portions. “Very Marie Antoinette,” Brown said. “Very let them eat cake.” Food takes center stage out of necessity, she added. “You’re sitting at a table having a beautiful, upscale dinner party,” she said. “You can’t get up, you can’t mingle, you can’t dance.”
The night before her wedding, Maya Posey-Pierre crouched on the living room floor of her Brooklyn apartment watching YouTube tutorials on floral design. She neatly laid out rows of orange and white roses, which she bought in bulk from Trader Joe’s. Armed with floral shears and sheer determination, she got to work.
“We wanted to go to an actual florist,” Mrs. Posey-Pierre, 29, an actress, said. “The only reason we didn’t go — timing. I believed I could do it, so I told myself, ‘I’m going to make it work.’”
“Make it work” is the unofficial mantra for many couples who planned their dream weddings for 2020, only to have the coronavirus pandemic turn everything upside down. While some postponed their nuptials to 2021 or beyond, others decided to plow through, emboldened by the “love is not canceled” philosophy that’s become somewhat of a rallying cry on social media.
Instead of lavish affairs, 2020 weddings are distinctly low key and intimate, yet very technologically advanced. But when your home becomes your venue and your main audience is a webcam, how does this affect your design decisions? We asked newlyweds and industry experts to share their best advice on beautifying any space — no matter how big or small — for a virtual wedding.
Dramatic Stairways
“The only thing I had my heart set on was using light on a stairwell,” Mrs. Posey-Pierre said. “The camera can’t see everything, so it doesn’t matter if the entire space isn’t beautifully decorated, but whatever the camera can see, you want it to look nice.”
However, she and her husband, Marc Pierre, a high school teacher, live in a 400-square-foot Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment without stairs. So they reached out to the couple who owns a renovated barn in the nearby South Midwood neighborhood, where Pierre, 28, had proposed on Valentine’s Day this year. The owners, who operate the barn as an Airbnb rental, practically insisted that they host their virtual wedding there instead.
Mrs. Posey-Pierre would get her dramatic, bride-coming-down-the-stairs moment. But not without a few headaches.
“It turned out to be the most difficult thing because the wires kept getting tangled,” she said. “Then literally at the last minute while I was making all these flower arrangements, I remember thinking, ‘Flowers on the stairs would be nice.’”
BLOGS The Pandemic Wedding Redefines What’s Beautiful
The weddings of our past glorified closeness; intimacy in large numbers. They valued sharing cake and side hugging cousins after six tap beers in the early twilight hour of 6:00 p.m. Weddings have always been an expensive reminder that we can celebrate with the ones we’ve loved for life and fuse families together with sparklers, champagne flutes, and silverware tapping on china. They are the embodiment of extravagant gestures and travel. Weddings of yesteryear taught us how to be monumental, practiced, and traditional.
These are the weddings of our past because, of course, a pandemic came into play.
Before writing this, I stared at a blinking cursor for a long time. Planning a wedding, and writing about it, feels insensitive in this new world. I recognize the deep privilege I have to be readily able to plan a wedding during a pandemic. My life hasn’t changed too dramatically since March, when this all started shifting the narrative. I’m a writer, so I was able to freelance and make do after I lost my corporate job. My fiancé is in finance, a job not affected by the blow of this change. Our wedding, scheduled for late September, has experienced a facelift, but I don’t want this post to be about how we’re complaining about the changes we’ve had to make. We’re lucky. The present of our lives could certainly, certainly be heavier. Our experiences are different, and through all of it, I have this undeniable craving to document every minute of the struggle because I have to find out what I don’t want to know, especially as it pertains to the “seemingly selfish” desire to celebrate love in a world that is hurting. Weddings are still happening. Discussions with family are heavy and tough. Expectations are high and low. Fear is imminent. And we’re all experiencing the new.
Our experiences are different, and through all of it, I have this undeniable craving to document every minute of the struggle because I have to find out what I don’t want to know, especially as it pertains to the “seemingly selfish” desire to celebrate love in a world that is hurting.
Marriage has slowly become a more unlikely and unequal institution, due to the pandemic itself and unemployment and eviction and the general desire for couples to have a more intimate celebration. I mean, weddings are expensive. Oftentimes they’re more than a down payment on a home—and most certainly a decision that feels sporadic and moderately forced, depending on expectations from family. For Jake and I, we both decided we’d invest a little money in the celebration and make a bash out of it. We set a long engagement to save the money, stuck to it, and set the date almost three years out.
Then, life happened. And no one knows how to plan a wedding in a pandemic. First of all, CDC guidelines to have a wedding are loose and confusing. Vendors are adding “pandemic” clauses in contracts. Venues in some locations are allowed to host up to 150 people, while states are recommending gatherings of only up to 20. Recently, I saw a wedding invite that separated their invites into three groups: Group A, Group B, and Group C—and whoever RSVP’d first would get the invite, Group A getting first dibs and so on. I’ve heard horror stories about vendor cancellations. On the other side of the spectrum, I’ve heard beautiful stories about couples hiking up mountains and eloping in boots and high altitudes. Couples have given back to their communities and filmed uplifting, heartfelt videos for family and friends. I think perhaps the lesson here is this: Weddings are still managing to be epic, gorgeous chaos-sandwiches. The new world has simply changed how they’re dealt to us.
Our wedding has been just that. A delightful chaos-sandwich. We sent out our Save the Dates last year, when days were nothing but another 24-hour bundle that ended in “y.” When we decided in June that we were going to have a small, safer version of the wedding, we had to send out 100 letters to the people we couldn’t invite explaining our reasoning. Everyone was incredibly understanding. It was heartbreaking to tell close friends we’d be celebrating with them virtually instead, but at the end of the day, safety was our top priority. Selfishness couldn’t steer the ship for us.
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