Jill Morlock & Ryan Rood

When: Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Where: Eagles Club, Valley City, ND
1st Dance Song: "Faithfully" by Journey

I'll be honest and say I don't really like working at the Eagles. Its my third or fourth time there and the dance floor area where I setup is about 50 yards from the start of the dinner area where guests are seated. I ran all my speaker cords so I could have two speakers in the other room for speeches and background music. It also means a very long walk to make simple adjustsments to the volume during speeches.


Jill and her mom put together a very cool guest book. A large photo album scrap book using pics of Jill and Ryan with space for guests to write. Votive candles on all the tables had Jill and Ryan's name and wedding date on them. Beer can cozys for the favors. A candy table setup for guests until dinner.

Dinner was delayed about 40 minutes when the party bus carrying our wedding party was delayed. The Eagles had four buffet lines so once we did start, all the guests were through quickly.


Its always fun to learn things about people... like Ryan recently hosting an impromptu 80's party at 2 in the morning. His passion for 80's music led me to play Huey Lewis' 'Power of Love' which I've certainly never done before... The best man, Cory, kept trying to panic the maid of honor about her speech. Repeating 'crickets', as in, that will be the only sound when its over, it will be so bad. On the contrary, hers was excellent and her delivery was almost relaxed (though I doubt she'd say that).

Shannon Woods & DeeJay Johnson

When: Saturday, February 13th, 2010

Where: American Legion, Park River, ND
1st Dance Song: "She's Everything" by Brad Paisley

Hi Robert, Thank you so much---you did a great job, we had many compliments about the job you did!!! Thanks" - Shannon and Dee Jay Johnson



I had an assistant with me, James. This leaves me hands free for a few more things I like to do during a reception and not have to worry about starting the next song.

To the left, pictures of Shannon and DeeJay in a wedding when they were young.

No dollar dance, again, tonight. Bouquet toss and a garter raffle. For the raffle, the groomsmen sold decks of cards (tear them in half and you have tickets). They sold through three decks in only about 20 minutes. Easily the fastest I've ever seen. This setup a little game to give away the garter instead of drawing only one winner.

For the second week in a row we did a quick compatibility quiz for the bride and groom. See the video for what I'm talking about.

The cake was a barn with animals in between the tiers. They didn't cut it up, but served cheesecake in the buffet instead. Her son, Tucker, tried to feed frosting to one of the cows and you could see the kids' finger pokes in the frosting after about 10 minutes at the hall.

One of the groomsmen, Kelly, filled their car with shredded paper, covered their windows with spray snow. Apparently as revenge for DeeJay filling his car's heater unit with flour (when you turn the car on it *poof* sprays all over). Kelly's only mistake was admitting all this on camera. Woops.

Dance was fairly typical except that DeeJay wanted to add two extra hours and go until 1am. When your day starts at 1pm (or for the bride, 6am) that is one long day. But its not up to me and they were having fun. We also had some singing. First was Shannon's daughter, Jaylie. Then DeeJay sang two John Michael Montgomery songs (about an hour apart).

Lindsay & Justin Shulz

When: Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Where: A Touch of Magic, EGF, MN
1st Dance Song: "Only You Can Love Me This Way" by Keith Urban

Lindsay & Justin were actually married on January 11th, in Jamaica. Today was a reception only, but they dressed up. Bad weather was a concern, but they still had most of their guests arrive on time.

I'll admit, though, I wasn't happy with myself. There wasn't much dancing at all. I know the guests were still enjoying themselves but I always feel I can do better if there isn't a packed floor (and I mean packed). In this case we weren't even close. I also had a container with some party and emergency supplies go missing. Nothing too vital (backup toss bouquet, garter, etc), but it meant our plans to embarras the groomsmen weren't gonna happen. We did manage an air guitar contest, though.

Fun for me were two past clients, Katie & Ryer Stark (August 1st, 2009) and Greta & Tom Beard (November 21, 2009).

We skipped several traditions... no speeches, no dollar dance, no bouquet. They hired me to put together a short video, combining pictures and video from the wedding ceremony. We also raffled the garter off.