Real Weddings

March 6, 2020. You are probably asking me why I begin this look back at Kate & Ben's special day out at The Stables At Boals Farm with that date. It was the date I would meet Kate & Ben to begin discussing the music for their wedding. We met over at Low Tide Brewing near the fire pit, which was actually the night before the last wedding I would do before COVID 19 would shut down the spring wedding season in Charleston.  If we fast forward a few weeks, COVID 19 would begin to shut down pretty much the entire spring wedding season. Since no one had ever been in a pandemic, we had no idea how much longer we would be affected. When I was contracted by Kate + Ben, they were planning on getting married back on May 30. As the weddings of the spring continued to be postponed, Kate contacted me to let me know that her and Ben were going to move their date to September 12.    On September 12, Kate + Ben would be married 

The drought is finally over. 174 days. That's how long it had been since I DJ'ed my last wedding. I still remember that crisp and cold early March evening at Upstairs At Midtown.  <---Click HERE For a Pre-COVID flashback to Courtney & Logan's wedding. During this new normal over the past 6 months, that night had been the only memory I was able to remember of how things used to be in the wedding DJ world.  For the first time since I have owned my company, I experienced my first cancellation back on August 7. This had been a wedding that had been rescheduled from May 2020.  However in mid - late July, cases were still exploding in South Carolina and like a lot of brides and grooms, they made the decision to cancel their wedding.  As the calendar flipped over to August, there was a glimmer of hope that COVID-19 was beginning to slow down just a tad.  So, my next wedding would be Friday, August 28 at the truly lovely and fabulous Cannon Green.  Back in January of 2019, I was given a tour of this truly fabulous venue in the heart of the city, but it was not until this summer evening in August that I would perform for the first time here. If you are looking for an amazing wedding venue that gives you all the Charleston feels, be sure to take a tour of Cannon Green. <---Click HERE for my January 2019 tour of Cannon Green.

You are probably looking at the title of this post and are wondering what exactly a "BC Wedding" is.  Well you probably learned in history class that BC was to mean Before Christ, but for the sake of this post and the new era that we live in, I am changing it's meaning to Before Coronavirus. I cannot take credit for the "re-coining" of BC as I first heard it from a former colleague I worked with years ago on the radio, Richard Todd. Richard does mornings on The Sound Of Charleston, 105.5 The Bridge. I do remember waking up to a chilly, crisp March day back on March 7, 2020. Courtney & Logan had booked me back in the fall of 2019 for a small destination wedding to be held on this first Saturday in March 2020 at Upstairs At Midtown.  Courtney & Logan had chosen Charleston, SC as a wedding destination by way of their home state of New Hampshire.  They brought with them a nice and small destination crowd as well, mostly from the New England as well.  But let me tell you, Courtney & Logan's wedding at Upstairs At Midtown proved once again you don't need 250 guests at your wedding to have the time of your life. 

The beginning of my Charleston wedding season happened back on March 1, and on this sunny, pleasantly cool Easter morning in in the Holy City, we are still very much in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. Sadly, no one knows when this terrible nightmare will be over. Over the past month, our news feeds on all of our social media have been filled with so much negativity that we all seem to be looking for "just" a glimmer of hope that we will eventually get through this.  During the course of this downturn that has halted ALL weddings in Charleston for the spring, and for the foreseeable future, I've been hard at work refreshing a lot of the content on my blog.  At the end of this past Friday afternoon (which was the end of another negative week), I received an email from the photographer about photos from my first wedding of the year, over at Alhambra Hall, one of the most requested Charleston wedding venues.  Immediately when I opened the email and went over to catch a glimpse at how the photos turned out, my frown turned into a smile. I was immediately taken back to that brisk and sunny Sunday afternoon at Alhambra Hall, where Ripley and Alaina would be married with their family and closest friends nearby to see their love.  

We're in the midst of another busy spring wedding season here in Charleston, and as always I've fallen a little behind in my blog entries. Mackenzee & Adam are a couple I won't soon forget. They were one of the funnest clients I've had recently, and I would call them a "textbook" client. You are probably asking yourself, "Why is Mike talking about textbooks, he's a wedding DJ, not a teacher?" :) Well, I'll explain that in a few. Mackenzee & Adam originally booked me back in the spring of 2018 while living in the northern Virginia area.  By the end of the summer, they would relocate to the Charleston area for work purposes. I ended up meeting Mackenzee & Adam back in October and I could tell within a few minutes that they were really into their music. They wanted a completely different vibe and feel with the music for their Charleston wedding. The customization of a couple's wedding playlist is one of my biggest mantras and one of the big draws for couple's in securing me to be their wedding DJ.  In becoming one of the best Charleston Wedding DJs, it's been a recurring theme that  a lot of couples do not want their wedding to sound like the wedding they went to last weekend or last year.

Being one of the best Charleston Wedding DJs has become a very rewarding passion of mine over the years.  When a bride and groom hire me to be the DJ at their wedding, they are inviting me to be a part of one of the most special days of their lives. Out of respect for my clients, I'll never look at their wedding day as a "gig", but instead a day in their lives that I curate a soundtrack of music that fits their likes and allows for the creation of lasting memories for them and their family and guests.  Millie & Adam found me online last year from Virginia.  When Millie sent her signed contract over, I saw that her and Adam were going to be married at Brookland Plantation.  Truth be told, I had to do a quick Google search to see where Brookland Plantation was located.  Located on St Pierre Creek,  Brookland Plantation sits on Edisto Island, and at one time was a part of Millie's family, when Dr. Charles and Betty Wannamaker purchased the land in 1968.  During Millie's upbringing, her and her family would frequent Brookland Plantation for recreation, making for lasting memories on those family trips.  It was during those early years that Millie formed those hopes and dreams in her mind that she would have her wedding at Brookland Plantation when she met the man of her dreams.

As one of the top Charleston wedding DJs, it tends to be a pretty rare occurrance that I leave the greater Charleston area for a wedding.  While I've been known to travel up the Carolina coast to Georgetown and Myrtle Beach, as well as south along the coast to Beaufort and Hilton Head, I tend to stay in Charleston, as that's where most of my clients are having their weddings. This was until earlier this year.  :) Luciana & Ty had contacted me earlier this year about being the DJ for their wedding ceremony and reception up in Murrell's Inlet.  Murrell's Inlet is about 97 miles from my home, and roughly 15 miles from the downtown area of Myrtle Beach.  In some of my first correspondance with Luciana, she said she had read over my blog and really liked some of the content I had produced.  With as hard as I work on this content, I was completely tickled by her words about my blog.  Up until this point, I might have only had one compliment on my blogging, and actually back when that occurred, I was not nearly as active as I am now.  What's that old saying? "Flattery will get you everywhere." I think that's how that saying goes. Well, flattery got me to drive all the way up to Wachesaw Plantation for Luciana & Ty.   Be sure to read on to see how their beautiful wedding ceremony went outside on a crisp November day up against the Waccamaw River, as well as their very fun wedding reception with a lot of dancing.

Through the power of internet web search and one of my best friend's (Google), Christy's mother found me last summer and inquired about my services. Christy and Clayton had met here in Charleston while the both of them were in college. Christy had been attending the College Of Charleston, and Clayton was attending the Citadel. After graduation, they moved to Atlanta, and that is actually where they are living currently. They had their wedding ceremony at the Summerall Chapel, which is on the campus of the Citadel on the afternoon of Saturday, April 21, and I had the pleasure of being their DJ for their cocktail hour and wedding reception. Their wedding reception was held at Marion's In The French Quarter, which is located at 159 East Bay Street. It had been a while since I had been to Marion's, but it didn't take me long to remember what a beautiful place it is to hold a Charleston wedding reception or private event. Marion's literally is right smack dab in the middle of the historic downtown Charleston district. It's just a quick walk away from the beautiful Charleston harbor, and those famous cobblestone streets that tell you that you are in Charleston. Read on for some of the great songs that Christy & Clayton chose for their playlist,