Most every time I go to a place where there's a deejay I make a request. And I am often disappointed. About 95% of the time I will ask for anything by A Tribe Called Quest just to see if s/he has it or will actually play it, knowing that most partygoers these days have no idea who that group is. Once, at a wedding when I saw the dj was in his mid-50s I requested Al Green's "Let's Stay Together." He said he had NEVER HEARD OF AL GREEN. I don't even know what to say about that.
When the dj seems to have special something, I will ask for Musto and Bones' "Dangerous on the Dancefloor,"* It's a treat if they know it, better if they have it and then amazing if they actually play it. I can only count the number of times that's happened on two fingers.
I didn't want that to happen to our guests, so we let them make requests ahead of time, on our postcard RSVPs:
Despite the "dancefloor will ROCK" language, for some reason a fair number of people thought we were only looking for slow songs. But the ones who got it requested some awesome jams, including my mom's friend, who asked for Salt N Pepa's "Push It." I've got a newfound respect for her.
We submitted a MONSTER list of songs, so I wasn't surprised our djs couldn't get to them all. In fact, people were breaking it down so much that I only heard one slow song the entire evening; I cried the entire time it was on. But I'll save that for another post.
Here's the back of the postcard:
That's a drawing done by both Jon and myself. We were just doodling one day and thought it'd be a nice touch, plus it carried the whole stick figure theme on our invites. He did the faces and I did the bodies. Some of you know may already be familiar with Jon's drawings. If not, check out last November, when a lot of his 30 posts were sketches.
This is a bit of a spoiler, as way too many of our guests have yet to receive theirs, but we also used the drawing on the thank-you cards. We're hoping we get them all out before the requisite year of forgiveness is up.
*I searched for lyrics to this song for YEARS, and someone posted them on this blog. Even after six-some years, that is one of the most popular reasons people stumble onto this web site. I am not kidding.
7 comments:
I love those stick figure drawings.
I went to a wedding recently that had one of those cards, and it just brought to the forefront my anxieties about recommending music to anyone, because I like to dance to songs people outside the Internet don't seem to know! (not a humblebrag) I had a houseparty once, and a bunch of people descended on my laptop for songs, and they made fun of me for having Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson on my iTunes? The jerks! Later that night I rage danced my anger out to Robyn.
I'm sorry, this has brought about a lot of feelings.
The number one most requested song: Party Rock Anthem.
I'd say that pretty well covers the way the music went that night. This was no reception for sissy dancers (like myself), it was hard core. The crowd did not disappoint.
The thank-you cards look great! When a little one comes along, it would be so cute to add a stick figure toddler behind the couple on your stationery.
Never heard of Al Green?! As a wedding dj?!
I didn't remember/know you were a Tribe fan. My brother and I were huge fans of theirs back in the day.
yeah, the drawing really does capture *us,* not so much that it looks like us but because it's really our style to a T.
we got a lot of interesting suggestions, even songs we'd never heard of that we had to look up. some of them were really good! jon had never heard of party rock anthem, and he liked it.
omar, i thought we had some kind of blog-comment exchange kicked off by wowhownowwowhownowbrowncow? and yes, even if you never heard of Al Green, that song is a classic. i was saddened by that dj.
You're right, I remember that now.
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