So, it's been a little while (no surprises there) but here I am again. It's the holiday season, everyone's merry and... I'm totally stressed out since it's the end of another semester and I've got a huge stack of papers to grade. Yikes. To help break up the monotony, I've been listening to lots of old favorites lately: Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts Christmas album (best holiday album evah), Band of Horses' 2006 release Everything All the Time, and the playlists from our wedding. Yep, I'm kinda sappy like that, 'specially since our one-year wedding anniversary is coming up in just a couple short weeks!

I know all that time ago, I promised some tips on how to create a good iPod playlist.
In lieu of some major post on how to choosing the "right" music (because, really, your taste is yours and I'm not trying to be Emily Post over here), I'll leave you with a few tips, some considerations to keep in mind, that might help you when putting together that music to cocktail/ eat dinner/shake your booty to.


Here we go!

1. Just because they like it, doesn't mean you have to play it.
Your wedding, your playlist. For us, that meant no line dances (Electric slide, chicken dance, whatever), much to the chagrin of my large Filipino family. It meant no sappy ballads, no country music, basically we had nothing on the playlists that we wouldn't listen to of our own free will. That was a no brainer for the Mister and I, and we didn't budge for anything. Having set playlists helped too, because there was no DJ my family could try to pay off to play the Macarena. That being said...

2. Don't only play super obscure music that less than 1% of your guests will recognize, at least not if you expect people to dance.
The Mister and I are music snobs. What do you expect-- I used to be a music writer, and he went to film school. We lived in Brooklyn for two years, for chrissakes. Of course we're total indie rock and hip-hop a*holes. But we're not cruel people, and we love disco, pop, and r&b classics too. This is called compromise. You don't play Sigur Ros for two hours if you want to get down, sorry. Mixing genres is wonderful, I wish more weddings had varied music-- commercial pop and dance gets old after a while, and so does non-stop hip-hop, rock, etc. Put a few things that you know the moms will love, that will get your family in a dance circle. Once they're all danced out (30-40 mins max.), get onto playing the booty music. Everyone will be happy, even your friends, who I swear don't want to be at a listening party unless they are just that pretentious and/or boring. At the same time, when considering what dance music to play...

3. Watch the profanity and sexually explicit language, unless you just enjoy shocking your grandparents that much.
It was a pain, but we did it: the Mister and I found clean versions of all the dance music we used-- do you know how long we looked for the radio version of the Method Man / Mary J. Blige thug love ballad "All I Need"?! I've been to weddings with bumping, grinding, lots of ass-slapping... at 7pm. Call me a prude, but I'm not comfortable seeing older family members' eyes bug out at watching little niece Chrissy bending over and touching her toes. What worked for us: hip-hop and r&b songs from the late '80s / early '90s. The beats were tight, everyone of our friends remembered the songs and relived them, and they're sexy without being over-the-top raunchy (just don't play 2 Live Crew). "Candy Rain" and "Poison" were HUGE hits, even with my family.

4. Tempo, tempo, tempo
The secret to a good playlist is the flow. The Mister can post about this in more depth, but it just makes sense-- don't waste the good dance music during sit-down dinner time. And during dance time, don't forget to intersperse some slow(er) songs so people can, you know, rest. You don't want folks passing out from over-exertion, do you?

and finally:

5. Putting in several songs you don't love might actually be a good thing.
This is something I realized in hindsight. I fought with the Mister about some of his selections since they weren't my favorite, but I'm actually glad he kept them in. Those "time out" songs-- ones I knew I wouldn't dance to-- were the perfect time for me to catch up with older guests and generally mingle with folks I hadn't yet had the chance to. I love to dance, so if every song was a winner, I just may never have left the dance floor!


Without further ado, here's the playlist for dinner. It's only 30 minutes long since we had stations and not a long drawn-out sit down dinner. Lots of mellowed out soul classics, chill enough to talk over. Click on link to download, and please don't use for commercial purposes. Enjoy!


Dinner Music Playlist
1."Don't Worry Baby" - The Beach Boys
2. "Blue Suede Shoes" - Carl Perkins
3. "Hard to Handle" - Otis Redding
4. "Here I Am (Come and take Me)" - Al Green
5. "I Second That Emotion" - Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
6. "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours"- Stevie Wonder
7. "Shotgun" - Junior Walker & The All Stars
8. "Ooh Child" - Five Stairsteps
9. "Baby Love" - The Supremes
10. "What'd I Say, Pts. 1 and 2" - Ray Charles
11. "Stand by Me"- Ben E. King

So when I said I had unfinished business, writing about the music for our reception was one of the big things I still wanted to do. I'm hardly up for being eloquent these days, but I'm hoping that this upcoming series of posts can help some of you planning to do an iPod reception, and hopefully will help you freak out a little less about it.

First up: Cocktail hour music

I should start by saying that the biggest snafu of the entire reception was around the cocktail hour (actually, 45 minutes, but who's counting?). As you might recall, our reception was at the Musee Conti, a historical wax museum in New Orleans. While our reception was upstairs in the private party space, we wanted our guests to be able to enjoy the creepy wonders of the wax museum proper, so we arranged to have our cocktail hour there. Guests would mingle among the historical tableaus while being passed hors d'oeuvres and our signature cocktail, the "Kali Libre" (named after one of our kitties), as sweet music filled their ears. During our site visit, one of my first questions was about the in-house sound system. We were promised that the entire place was wired for sound, and that they had done iPod receptions before without a hitch. Uh-huh...

Cut to the day before the wedding, when the Mister and one of his Best Men (our MC for the night, more on this in the next post) went to the Wax for a sound check. As they were setting up the mics in the upstairs party space, the Mister had the foresight to ask how they would cue up the cocktail hour playlist... and was matter-of-factly told that the Wax hasn't had sound downstairs in the main museum "for the past decade." ?*@&^!(%&!!!

We had two choices at that point: move the cocktail hour upstairs to the main party room, which was wired for sound, or have our cocktail in the main museum as planned, sans music. Experience trumped ambience, so we had a music-less cocktail hour.

As our dear guest S., wife of N. of Two Chicks Nest, illustrated for us in a series of photos, the cocktail hour was... well... creepy. How could it not be, considering it was in a dark wax museum at night? The total silence in the hallways certainly didn't help matters in the least. So much for romatic and vintage there, it was all giggles and bizarre wax men in bathtubs.

(remember this shot from before?)



Looking back on it, it was pretty damn funny that we had such a macabre cocktail hour, especially since I hate wax museums. Karmic retribution for verbally maligning the wax museum gods, I guess!

To help you avoid or manage a similar snafu, here are some quick tips for you soon-to-be-weds:

1. Double, nay, triple-check with your venue to make sure all your areas are properly wired for sound and that they can support your iPod connection. And FOLLOW UP to make sure you and/or they have the right cables to connect, a power source nearby to plug in your iPod (so it doesn't die mid-evening!)

2. Back up copies of all your playlists on a flash drive/computer, another iPod, burned DVDs... basically, make as many copies as it takes to make sure you've got your music in case your main iPod dies.

3. If, on the day of the wedding, something gets screwy with your music anyway, just laugh it off. No use getting your panties in a bunch, and enjoy singing loudly with your friends and family instead! (Not that we did that, but you know...)

Now, I present you the playlist for the cocktail reception music that never was... Sigh. It was one of my favorites, featuring a lot of classic New Orleans jazz and other ambient music, including a Nouvelle Vague cover of one of my favorite Depeche Mode songs.

Music for Cocktails

Take the A Train- Duke Ellington

Linger in My Arms a Little Longer, Baby- Louis Armstrong

Sugar- Louis Armstrong

Doralice- Getz & Gilberto

La Cumbancha- Omara Portuondo

Orixa & Iemanja- Smokey & Miho

I Just Can't Get Enough- Nouvelle Vague

Linus and Lucy- Vince Guaraldi

A Sunday Kind of Love- Etta James

Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year- James Brown

Creole Rhapsody- Duke Ellington

Love is Here to Stay- Ella Fitzgerald

A Fool For You- Ray Charles

Greensleeves- Vince Guaraldi

I still like listening to this playlist when I'm studying or to relax me on my morning commute.. whenever I get to the James Brown song, I have to giggle. We added it since we got married right before Christmas, but if you've ever heard the James Brown Christmas album, you know what I mean. It's just too much craziness to take seriously.

Since I couldn't share it with our guests at the wedding, I'd like to share this playlist with you! If you'd like to, you can download it for free right here. (Obviously, this playlist is for personal home use only. Do not use for any commercial purposes or market in any way). I'd love to know what you think of our cocktail music!

Next up: making a solid reception playlist

It's been about two weeks now since we brought little Orby home (officially: ****'s Mister J. Orbach, after our favorite Law and Order actor). What an adjustment it's been! Dog parenting is so much different than with cats (duh!)... while we can just leave Kali and Inez to their own whims most of the time, having occassional petting-fests and lame attempts and playing catch (they like sniffing boxes and eating string better), life with puppy is so much more involved. Not that I'm complaining... I mean, look at that face:



He's been adjusting really well to the household-- doing really great with his routine, not trying to eat the cats (poor dude just wants to play with them and they HATE HIM SO BAD!), getting less nervous around strangers, etc. I just wish he would hate other dogs a little less.

You heard me. This perfect little pup turns evil around other dogs. I knew he'd probably need more socialization but I wasn't expecting the reactions I first got from him. Snarling, barking and rushing at other dogs while on walks or as they passed by our yard when he was playing inside the fence. We share a backyard with our neighbors and their dogs, and it was really embarrassing/scary at first. Thankfully, he's totally fine with our neighbors' dogs now, even trying to play with them at times, but he's still pretty scared of other dogs. We're going to a trainer soon to help address these issues, and hopefully soon you'll be seeing us with Orby at the dog park!

I promise far more interesting stories later... back to work for me! Kind of hard to stay focused when there's a little puppy snoring between your feet :)

Keepin' it short and sweet... two new things:



The Mister and I finally took our honeymoon, 8 months after the wedding, to the Philippines. This isn't the most flattering picture, but I love it anyway. Because he's that awesome, the Mister learned how to scuba dive so he could start accompanying me on my favorite hobby. Here we are in Anilao, one of the best places to dive in the PI and only two short hours from Manila, the weekend of his check-out dive.

Our trip to the Philippines was his first ever, and my first time back in two years. It was definitely hectic, as we spent A LOT of time with family, but I'm glad we were able to experience it together! Perhaps I'll share some (food-related) stories on the food blog soon, since we did SO much eating there!




Perhaps even more awesome than the honeymoon: Our new Boston Terrier puppy, Orby! We're picking him up from the breeder this Friday, and I could not be more excited. We actually found him over a month ago, but couldn't take him home since we were going to be out of the country. Orby's what I'm calling my "qualifying puppy, dissertation dog," since he's going to be my constant companion this next year as I get through another hurdle in my graduate program.

I may be weddinged-out, but perhaps I'll be sharing some puppy stories here in the coming months?

... aw, screw it. Who am I kidding? I still want to write a few things about the wedding, mostly about the DIY touches, the (FANTASTIC) music, and some thoughts on the WIC and marriage. I can't promise regularity, but if any of you are still hanging around here, you might be seeing me every now and again.

Hope you're all doing well!

I love Meg's post today about post-wedding freedom. I love it and I am totally envious, because I wish I felt that way, too.

It's this blog, see. I feel like I owe some of you things. Maybe some tips. Maybe another meme. Maybe the story of our fantastic, beyond wild afterparty. Maybe our budget.

But right now, I just can't.

On my Google reader are hundreds and hundreds of unread wedding blog posts, that I swear I'll get around to reading but probably won't. I've deleted all the photographer blogs from my reader, and I haven't missed them at all. The idea of logging into the Knot or any other wedding-related site/board/internet thing makes me cringe.

I'm wedding-ed out, folks. Just can't do it anymore. There is too much life out there to live, too many new adventures, and reliving my wedding isn't part of that. It might be time to cut the cord, y'all.

Perhaps this is a terrible, horrible, unceremonious goodbye (I should be writing you a poem, should be saying how wonderful it's been, how much I've learned from you, how much this community has meant-- all true, you know). And I feel horribly guilty about it (thanks, years of Catholic school). But, you know what? I bet I'll be seeing some of you around. And I bet I'll be writing in here every now and again.

And we'll take it from there, ok?

xoxo
Sweet T