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Monday, April 13
Sunday, April 5
Wedding Stories: To the Mountain Top
One of the wedding traditions we typically do is called the
anniversary dance, and if you have never seen it before it works like this: All
of the married couples in the room are invited out to the dance floor to join
the bride and groom – and I have to give my good friend Bob credit for this
line - we tell the couples this is the Celebration of Marriage Dance, and for
every couple out in the dance floor with the newest member of the “marriage
club” that will add on year of good luck to their marriage. Sometimes, if the
guests are a little less than willing to participate, we have to nudge them a
bit into joining us on the dance floor by telling them that if they are married
and still sitting in their chair it is like wishing the bride and groom bad
luck on their wedding day (while you’re drinking their free beer).
We then play a song for all of the married couples but about
half way through we start eliminating couples by saying anyone who has not yet
been married five years can return to their seat.” Then it’s 10 … 15 … 20 … and
continues until we have one couple – the longest married couple – left on the
dance floor.
We then invite the two couples – the bride and groom and the
longest married couple – to join together for a photo op.
Now here is where it sometimes differs. Some couples have a
gift for the longest married couple, or sometimes the bride will give her bouquet
to them in lieu of tossing it to the single girls, but I like to take the
microphone to the senior couple and ask for their names, how long they’ve been married
and what advice they would give to the newlyweds to achieve that plateau. The
advice is sometimes comical, sometimes heartfelt.
My most memorable one though happened years ago in
Platteville, WI.
I first asked the wife of the senior married couple what
advice she would give the bride and groom, and it was something pretty typical,
like always listen to one another or never go to bed mad.
But when I asked her husband for his advice he just took the
microphone from me and took over the room.
“Well when we got married we went to the Smokey Mountains
for our honeymoon,” he told the guests. “We had a little cabin rented up in the
mountains but you could not get there by car so we got a horse and packed our
belongings on it for the trip up the mountain.”
About halfway up, he told his captivated audience, the horse
fell down, so he had to unpack everything, let the horse stand back up and
re-pack everything, but then he said, “I told the horse that’s once.”
“We went a little farther and the horse fell again, so again
I had to unpack everything, get the horse up and pack things again, and I said
to the horse ‘That’s two!’”
“We didn’t go much further and that horse fell again and I
said ‘that’s three!’ and I shot that horse!”
The guests gasped, but then he delivered his punchline.
“So we had to carry all of our stuff the rest of the way up
the mountain to the cabin by ourselves,” he continued, “but Marilyn was saying
‘Oh what did you do that for? That was not the horses fault. I can’t believe
you shot that horse!’ And I said ‘Marilyn – that’s one!’
“And I have never have had a problem since!”
The guests roared!! I was laughing too hard to take the
microphone back. But you want to talk about energizing the room! And I went
back to my set up and played Rocky Top.
These are the moments that make a wedding day, the moments
that will be remembered.
I can help create those moments
– and I can help enhance them with music.
What do you want your moments to be?
What do you want your moments to be?
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Monday, March 30
The Final Scene
Your wedding reception is the final scene of your wedding day.
What do you want your memories to be?
What do you want your memories to be?
(PLAY)
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Bride Tip #4
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Wedding Stories: A Silver Lining
It started out like any other wedding day. I set up earlier
in the day, arrived back thirty minutes before my scheduled time and ran
through my checklist. As the guests started to arrive I began to play some of
that toe tapping background music. About thirty minutes into the reception
someone popped in to tell me that the wedding party had arrived so I put on a
nice long song, announced to the guests that the wedding party had arrived, and
went out to meet with them and get prepped for introductions. Once out in the
hallway I encountered a couple of wedding party members, but no bride and groom.
I was told they were checking into their hotel room and would be arriving
shortly, but after several minutes I stepped back in to the banquet room to discover
several guests with cameras ready, eagerly awaiting their arrival. I announced
that “Tyler and Ashley’ were still taking care of some business and
would be
joining us shortly. A few more trips to
the hall in the following moments revealed still no bride and groom. By this
time the guests had returned to their seats. Finally I peeked down the hall further
and noticed a commotion by the men’s restroom. I made my way there to see what
was going on and discovered a memorable sight. A few of the groomsmen, the
bride and her mother were all gathered in
the men’s restroom with the groom sprawled out on the floor. He had just
gotten sick on himself and was way intoxicated. I returned to the banquet room
and let the guests know that the groom was feeling ill and we were getting him
some attention, by this time though word was spreading through the reception.
The minister who had performed ceremony came and spoke with me and assured me
that there was no alcohol on anyone’s breath during the ceremony. Moments later
the grooms uncle, a paramedic, was summoned for help.
“Get this guy to a hospital,” I was told he said. “He has
alcohol poisoning.” It seems in their quest to celebrate the moment, the
wedding party bar hopped from the ceremony to the reception and the groomsmen
kept buying the groom shots – and he was no drinker. One of the last
times we saw the groom on his wedding day he was being carted out on a stretcher.
We can all fail miserably on our own, but success always comes with the help of others.
But this is where the story actually gets interesting. The
families decided to go ahead with dinner and I think we all anticipated that
the reception would come to a quiet close after that. But I continued my usual
routine and began ramping up the music a bit at the conclusion of dessert. To
my surprise two young ladies came to the floor and began to dance. A song or
two later several others joined them. I took a moment to approach my first two
dancers and quizzed them on what I thought would work here. They revealed to me
that the bride and a large group of her friends went country line dancing every Wednesday
night (funny that never came up at the consultation) so I had something to start
with. In just a song or two the dance floor was packed! Then someone received a
phone call: the bride was on her way back. When she arrived we were ready for
her. As she came through the door I announced “Ladies and gentleman the bride
is in the house” and went right into “I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock
and Roll” and my two lovely assistants grabbed her, pulled her onto the dance floor
and the party was on.
We did the father/daughter dance and the dollar dance. At
one point a pair of her bridesmaids pulled her to the floor, forced her into a
chair and ripped off her garter and threw it. We followed that with the bouquet
toss. With only an hour or so left in the reception the groom appeared, came
just inside the door and waved to everyone, just to let them know that he was
okay. He disappeared down the hall and the bride followed him. Things began to
wind down after that but the minister and several others approached me to tell
me what an unbelievable job I had done and could not believe how things had
turned out.
But I knew it was not only me. I searched out my two early
dancers and asked them to step out into the hallway.
“You two,” I told them, “are as responsible as anyone to
turn what could have been tragic day into a terrific one. Go to sleep tonight
knowing you are good people!”
With tears in their eyes they said they had to do it for 'Ashley.'. Within days the phone started ringing from others at their wedding that
were planning an event and would like to meet with me.
There were a few lessons that I learned or were reinforce
from this celebration. One was that Yogi Beara must have been right, it ain’t
over til it’s over. Keep looking for that spark that will ignite a fire. The
other is that we can all fail miserably on our own, but success always comes
with the help of others. Don’t be afraid to depend on that.
What will your silver lining be?
Until next time,
Michael
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Tuesday, March 10
bridetip #65
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Wedding Stories: From the Heart
I’ll never forget that moment. I had just given the
microphone to the Father of the Bride. As he held the mic in one hand he
fetched his notes on a sheet of paper with the other. As he held onto both I
could see his hands trembling. Nerves had won over in this moment.
He looked at his notes, then the guests. The he did something I’ve never seen at a wedding before.
He put the hand holding his notes to his side, turned and
looked right at his daughter, the bride, and spoke from his heart.
“Kelly, he said, “you have been a joy since the day you were
born!” He then went on to recount many of her child hood memories, then
concluded by saying “You never gave your mother and I any cause for concern.
You’ve always made good decisions – and today you made another one by marrying
the guy right next to you. Bryan, you don’t know how much pleasure it gives me
to say Welcome to the family!”
You could have heard ice melting in the room.
These are the moments you that make a wedding day. I’ll be
honest. No one will remember your invitations, the color of your flowers or
even the food (unless it is really bad) but the moments will be remembered.
Until next time,
Michael
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