Bunn DJ Company

Ashley and Zach have been together since the 8th grade. They stuck together through school and even Zach being deployed to Iraq in the military. On Saturday, they finally made it official with their marriage at the Doubletree in RTP. Ashley is the niece of Dom & Laura with Forever Bridal. They asked me to do this wedding many months ago. I was honored since they had a huge list of DJs to chose from. In any case, their ceremony outside was very hot, but was very sweet. They each had vows that they said to each other which I thought was a nice touch. After the ceremony, we did the introductions almost right away. Their first dance was to “I’ll Be Here” by Steven Curtis Chapman. Ashley danced with her dad to “The Way You Look Tonight” by Sinatra, and Zach and his mom’s dance was “I Am Your Child” by Barry Manilow. After the two dads gave a welcome and blessing, the buffet started and the food was great! After everyone had a few drinks, the dance party started and the requests were all over the map from “Love Shack” to the new Black Eyed Peas single. This crowd came to party and the reception was great! Congrats guys and thanks to Zach for serving his country!

I was hired to do a 40th birthday party for Ray Carroll this past Friday. Little did I know, I had done an engagement party (or maybe it was their rehearsal dinner) in 1995 for Ray and his wife at Spanky’s in Chapel Hill! I told you all that I had been doing this forever! Anyway, the party was at Macgregor Downs Country Club in Cary, NC. It started off with a lot of drinking outside where I ran a speaker, but shortly after Ray cut his 40th birthday cake (UNC themed, Go Heels!), the dancing started. Ray loves the king of pop and since his untimely death was the day before, I did some hot mixes using a lot of Michael Jackson’s classics! This was a great crowd and great dance party and I’m glad I got a chance to be the DJ for the Carrolls again!

As I DJ’ed a corporate event tonight, my phone continuously vibrated in my pocket. I knew that something had to be wrong. I peeked at all of the texts and emails coming in to find out that one of my musical heroes had died. I’ll never forget today, where I was, what I was doing. As the awards portion at my gig ended, I kicked into “PYT” and 10 people came up to me saying “did you know that Michael Jackson died? Is that why you played this?” It was why, my own personal tribute. When I stop and think about all of his songs from “ABC” that he recorded as a little kid, to the unbelievable “Thriller” video, it astounds me. I am truly saddened about the death of Michael Jackson. The media will portray him as a freak and a monster, but he was a musical genius. I just finished my show, and I played no less than 3 MJ songs that mixed right in with brand new songs by the Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga. I didn’t play the songs to honor Michael, I played them because I always do. They are classics, and when they are played, the crowd goes nuts. The man was and always will be an icon and his songs will carry on forever. Do me a favor and don’t remember him for the negative images, remember him moonwalking across a stage wearing one sparkly glove. Legendary.

Becca and Sten are an awesome couple that had their reception Saturday at Cary’s amazing hotel The Umstead Hotel & Spa. Ami Wheeler over there is always great to work with and this past Saturday was no exception. The day was VERY HOT for an outdoor ceremony, but as it started, a nice breeze came in and made it tolerable. The hotel handled the mics and I handled the music. They picked some great songs for the ceremony, mostly movie themes! I loved it, and Kayelilly Middleton performed an excellent service. Afterwards, everyone came inside for the cocktail hour and cooled off. The ballroom doors opened and I announced only the bride and groom. They went right to their seats and then a real treat started. Lion Dancers came out and did a routine! It was amazing as you’ll see from the pictures below. Becca’s mom gave a great toast afterwards and then dinner began. The food was amazing, as usual, and dancing followed soon afterwards. The dance floor kicked off with Becca and Sten’s first dance to “Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green. A true classic! I will have to say, that their song selections were not anything like most Saturdays. There were tons of real dance songs on there, Top 40, hip hop, house, and even some techno! I love playing things not normally on the wedding playlist! The guests, from all over the world, literally, had a ball and this was a really great reception. I got to work with my man Shane Snider, and as you can see from the pictures here, he really delivered again! Thanks for the quick pix Shane!

Sara and Taylor had a great reception Saturday at Sister’s Garden. I love this place not only because it has the easiest load in in town, but Marc D. and the staff over there are always doing a great job. After lining up the bridal party, it was time to get them into the reception. The bridal party entered to “Accidentally in Love” by the Counting Crows and then Sara and Taylor came in to “Back in Black” by AC/DC. Great song choices and it got the guests energized. The father of the bride gave a quick welcome and blessing and then a lovely seated dinner was served. The head table on the stage was truly gorgeous and guess who did it? Lyn Graves with Fresh Affairs of course. Another awesome job by FA! After dinner, we moved into their special dances. Their first dance was to “All You Need is Love”. Sara then danced with her dad to “Lullabye” by Billy Joel and then Taylor danced with his mom to “You’ve Got a Friend”. As soon as that song ended, they wanted me to kick into “ABC” by the Jackson 5 and that got the party started! There wasn’t a dull moment on that dance floor. We did the cake cutting a little later and then Sara and Taylor MC’d a dance for their parents to “The Wedding Song” by Paul Stookey. The great part was that Sara’s parents’ anniversary was 33 years ago on June 13th. Awesome! On to much more dancing and the bouquet and garter. The best part of this was right after Taylor tossed the garter, I gave him the mic. Apparently, his thing over the years had been really trying hard to get the tossed garter. So, at his own wedding, he returned 3 of them to his buddies and said “I no longer need these since I’m now married”. It was really cool. The night ended with “Hey Ya”, “Shout”, and “At Last”. This was a fantastic reception as evidenced by the killer pictures below. I have to thank April from Evoke Photography for them!

Every once in a while I like to make a blog post about a wedding that I didn’t actually DJ. These are some great pictures from Brian Mullins Photography of a wedding that one of my DJs, Randy Bennett, did. Check out the amazing photos from the Manchester/Ha reception!

I actually took most of last week off hence the lack of a wedding post here. Sorry, all you brides to be, but I guess this one is for the fellas. I grabbed an old college buddy, Kevin Edmiston, who now lives in Charlotte and we met up in Islamorada Florida for some fishing. We had a guide in Key Largo one day and then another in Islamorada the next. The fishing was ok, not great, but we had a ball catching up on old times and reminiscing. I took a few pics, but the highlight is the video of Kevin catching the tarpon (check out below). I wish I could post the unedited version with all of the cussing and me falling down, but it’s just not appropriate for public viewing so I put a song over it!

Me with Capt. George

Kevin and his snapper

Lindsey and Brandon’s reception was at Brier Creek this past Saturday. They are a young couple with young friends and a great family that likes to party! You gotta love that as a DJ. From the beginning and their intro to “You Shook Me All Night Long”, I could tell this was going to be fun. Their first dance was to a great Dave Matthews song “Steady As We Go”. It was perfect. After the blessing, the seated dinner started. Dinner was handled fast by the staff at Brier Creek and we picked back up with the parent dances. As soon as those were done, we did the father of the bride toast and cake cutting. And then, on to the party! They had no other interruptions for 2 full hours of dancing. They even skipped the bouquet and garter so they could have a long dance set. As usual, I started with my oldies and Motown, did some 80’s, and then by the end of the night, I was rocking hip hop. At the very end I did “Let Me Clear My Throat” into “Jump Around” into “Shout”. It was madness. This was a great reception with alot of dancing. I loved it! Check out the amazing photos below from Allison with Sandfoot Photography.

I have been DJ’ing for 24 years. I was getting hauled around to gigs by my mom because I didn’t have a license yet. It is what I do, yet every day I run into someone that goes “Are you really still doing that?” or “What else do you do?”. This is it. I’m a full time pro DJ and I love it. I get paid to play music. I get paid to make people dance. After doing weddings like the one on Sunday and reading postings and emails like the one below, I realize that this is what I was put on this earth to do. Some people become doctors and save lives, some people are contractors and build homes, others teach. My job is to entertain. And when I get older and don’t wish to be out in front of the crowd any longer, I hope that I’ll have built a legacy with my DJ company and trained other great DJs. I think I have.

From Renata’s blog post-

God bless this man- He has the ability to change the atmosphere in a room with just his voice. Joe was DJing our cocktail hour when 15 minutes into it- we lost power. The man wasn’t worried about his speakers (even though he heard a pop go through those bad boys- which is never good) he was worried about our reception. He sent off a groomsman and Cara’s assistant with his credit card to buy a generator to get things moving again asap.

With them gone on a mission to harness some power from gasoline…. he continued to DJ- even without a system… gathering our 100 person strong crowd together and getting them good and ready for our entrance. People were cheering for the full 2 minutes it took us to climb the stairs to get to them… and when we finally did – the energy was amazing!

I was so happy that even with no power and no music, people were still having a great time!

Soon after they returned with a generator & Joe got the music started…. and kept managing the flow of the evening flawlessly. You wouldn’t think of that kind of thing as an art – but this man is an artist! All the songs we requested were spot on & we had some funky ones. He got the right artists- everything was perfect. As the night went on it only got better as he filled the request for an east coast/west coast dance off that promptly went into a soul train line where people left it all on the floor! LOL I know people say this all the time- but he literally had to kick people off the dancefloor!

If you don’t get Joe to DJ your party – you will really be missing out on something special.

Julianne and Glenn’s wedding Sunday was at Sister’s Garden in Raleigh. I was hired to do the ceremony and reception, so I arrived extra early to set up all of the gear. The ceremony went off without a hitch and the music provided by Florian Trio was beautiful. Great ceremony! Afterwards, the guests moved into the AC and narrowly missed a rainstorm. After Chris from Azul Photography got his formal shots, I lined everyone up for their big introduction to “Bittersweet Symphony”. Once they entered, Julianne and Glenn went right into their first dance “Sea of Love” by Cat Power. An old song, but I had never heard this version before. It worked perfectly. Julianne then danced with her father to “I Loved Her First” by Heartland and Glenn danced with his mom to “My Wish” by Rascal Flatts. After that, they actually went ahead and cut the cake and then Julianne’s father gave a brief welcome. Sister’s staff immediately brought out salads and entrees. I love working with Marc and his crew over there, top notch! Once dinner was done, we got into dancing and it only took a couple of songs to get the party started. I played from their list and threw in some of my favorites and everyone was having a great time. The party really hit the next level after the bouquet and garter toss. Julianne’s family is Russian and she had given me four Russian songs to play. There were dances to all of them and they were great! It was the highlight of the night for me. The night ended with the whole crowd surrounding the newlyweds and singing “Piano Man”. It was awesome! I am looking forward to Chris’ pictures to post here.