This past Sunday I had the pleasure of djing a fun reception at the Columbia Firehouse in Old Town Alexandria. The building oozes with history and style, and I tried to match that vibe musically for the evening. We did a quick introduction of the bride and groom, and then moved right into dinner and toasts. The dinner was amazing, as you had a choice of scallops, steak or pork chops all professionally dressed and served piping hot. The service and staff at Columbia Firehouse was top notch, and the guest enjoyed plenty of appetizers and unique wines and beers from all over the world.

The first dance was to Jack Johnson’s “Better Together” which was followed by a father-daughter dance to Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t she lovely”. I played a couple of slow songs and then moved into some funky Motown, and some fun 80’s tunes mixed with some newer stuff to keep the dance-set interesting. We then broke for a quick birthday wish for one of the family members, along with a final toast and the cake cutting. The setting at the top of the stairs was magical for some great pictures with the bride and groom.

I then had the staff turn down the lights a bit, and began with some requested hip-hop tracks and slowly built the speed and vibe up to a fever pitch. The bride and groom sent over a long list of music, so I just picked among their long list and made a play-list that would naturally flow though to the end of the night. The parents of the bride asked that I play Blood, Sweat and Tears “You make me so very happy”, while in the middle of playing some hip hop, so I found an appropriate place to slip it in, and it worked like a charm. After their special song, I bumped up the bpm’s up a bit and we had a packed floor until the very last song. The couple had asked for a big block of rock songs, which I was afraid might not work, but I worked them in with some newer upbeat songs and they all went off perfectly. One of the more interesting mixes was from Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” into Nirvana “Smells like Teen Spirit” into Daft Punk’s “One More Time”, everyone was fist pumping through that. Overall, it was a great night and I could tell everyone had fun as everyone was sweating from head to toe.