Archive for April, 2011
Being a gamer, a fan of the Halo series of games and a long time fan of author Greg Bear, I was very excited to read his new book Halo: Cryptum. I found it was a bit slow to start but I very quickly became glued to it. I don’t normally like large franchise book series, let alone recommend them, but if you like Greg Bear’s hard science fiction style and/or have any interest in the Halo story then I highly recommend checking it out.
My wife showed me the UBC LipDub video from her school this weekend. I love the Old Spice Guy parody bit at the beginning! The rest of it is pretty incredible too – one long continuous scene involving a thousand person dance mob, a bus, a swimming pool and a helicopter! I’m very impressed with the directing and production. Check out the YouTube video when you have ten minutes to spare.
Music is important to me. So for my wedding, obviously I wanted to try and incorporate as much great music into the day as possible. I wanted to find a balance between my taste in music, music that a wide variety of other people would enjoy, music that is appropriate for wedding day celebrations and a selection of fun and spontaneous choices that the crowd on the dance floor would be demanding at any point in time. After discussing this with my wife we decided our primary goal was to host a once in a lifetime party, so for that reason we hired Drew Arrington to DJ our reception. We loved his attitude and energy at a friend’s wedding in 2009; he was the perfect fit to entertain our guests!
That took care of our primary goal, but what about my secondary goals? I wanted to include some of my favourite music! This was our day after all! What could I do without turning into Groom-zilla on our DJ (or my wife)? I toyed with the idea of giving a few favourite band names to Drew to see what he’d come up with, but as I typed out some of my ideas I quickly realized that I had too many opinions; that I’m too picky; that I really had to build some sort of playlist myself and pass it on in it’s entirety.
I had a great idea: during the time between the ceremony and dinner (roughly 1.5 to 2 hours) while we’re off taking photos and the bar is just opening up why not share some of my musical selections with our guests as they mingle? I didn’t mind that I wouldn’t be able to hear most of these songs because I knew them all by heart and I’d always have the playlist to listen to whenever I felt like it. That sounds like an easy task right, an hour or two of celebration music to psych up our guests while they’re waiting for us?
Well, the playlist grew, and grew, and grew… and soon the scope of my little project included music to play during dinner as well. I was worried that Drew would feel that I was stepping on his toes, but luckily he was ok with it, he actually complimented my taste in music! His real job for the day would begin after dinner and go into the wee hours of the morning, so really, I was doing him a favour – he could sit back and relax for the first few hours!
I took inspiration from many sources, including the CBC Radio 3 Wedding Bell’s Podcast long time personal favourite artists and tracks and of course songs that had a personal meaning behind them. I tried to group the songs such that more modern, fun and upbeat songs would play earlier when the guests were arriving, getting their first drinks and mingling in the sun. Then in the middle section when we would be arriving at the reception I chose songs with some personal meaning behind them, then later in the mix some of the more quieter and romantically themed songs would come on while guests were eating.
Here it is, my wedding playlist:
You’re probably wondering what the grand finale was, the song that rose above all others and was selected to be the soundtrack for our first dance. This was a tough choice, there were many contenders, but in the end we chose Celebrate by Rose Cousins. It was wonderful and amazing; everyone loved it!
I hope you enjoy this playlist as much as I do.
I find it funny that my blog is so young and yet I’ve already taken time off from it! Oh well… I’ll try to get into a routine over the next few weeks. Anyways, over the past three weeks I have been focusing intensely on selling our townhouse and buying a house. I am happy to report that both transactions are final now and we couldn’t be happier with how things turned out! We will be moving in the summer.