Another Successful Wedding Season in the Books

Wow. Here we are in November! It was a busy summer, packed with some very fun weddings!

Some of the venues we performed at include: The Frog Pond in (Skaneateles), The University Sheraton (Syracuse), The Binghamton Country Club (Binghamton), Justins Grill (Syracuse), Suzanne's Fine Regional Cuisine (Fingerlakes), The Mandana Barn (Skaneateles) Anyella's (Skaneateles)... Craftsman Inn (Fayetteville), and many more.

Until next season... Thanks to all of our peak-season 2015 wedding clients who chose Select Receptions to help you celebrate your big day! 

A Packed Floor at The Binghamton Country Club

Today we had the pleasure of proving lighting and DJ services for the wedding of Jean and Matt.

It was nice to work at the Binghamton Country Club, a venue I don't get to work at often, being from the Syracuse area. The rooms architecture really lends itself well to our uplighting, with high ceilings and several tall pillars. It's a beautiful ballroom, with a great room for cocktails across the hall.

For cocktail music, we provided a 2nd Bose sound system run wirelessly.

After an elegant cocktail and dinner, guests were eager to dance!

Jean and Matt requested a lot of great music. They knew just what their guests would like ,and we filled in the blanks. The result was a packed dance floor all night long. Literally! Great crowd, and another very FUN wedding.




If you're in the area, I'd highly recommend the venue. Staff was impeccable to work with and helped facilitate all the important moments.

Thanks Jean and Matt! It was an hionor being a part of your bg day.

5 Tips to Get Wedding Guests on the Dance Floor

This is a great article, that I agree with so much- I had to repost! 

These tips are simple, but can be very effective!

Click on over to Borrowed and Blue for some great advice on what you can do to stack the odds in favor of a packed dance floor!




Heres the link:
http://www.borrowedandblue.com/all/wedding-blog/5-tips-to-get-wedding-guests-on-the-dance-floor

Think of the best wedding receptions you've been to...

Think of the best wedding receptions you've been to... 
Chances are, you remember because you had FUN. 

How was the dinner? Do you remember it?
It encompassed only about 1 hour of the evening. On average, in CNY it's around $60-$70 per plate.

For 150 guests, that's $9750.

Was the dinner amazing? 
The mandatory gratuity tacked-on was around $2000.

Our rate is currently LESS than the average mandatory gratuity for dinner. 


For us, that means around 20 hours of planning with you, preparing for, and producing on the day of. Creating timeline agendas for your other vendors, coordinating events with great detail, and compiling your favorite music so the day is personal, and never cookie-cutter.

4 or 5 hours of your wedding day will be spent with the DJ you choose. 

He or she will welcome your guests, introduce your closest friends and family, cater to your musical tastes, and get your dance-floor packed. Regardless of who you select, be sure you plan your budget proportionate to importance. We believe guests having FUN is important!

Here are a few past blog posts you may be interested in: 

• Looking for a DJ who isn't a tool
• A note about DJ presentation
• Spotlight: The discount DJ and Avoiding a Wedding Disaster

In CNY, the average wedding DJ service is around $1400. We'd never want your biggest day to be average.

The price you pay for entertainment is directly proportional to the quality you receive, which is directly proportional to the success of your event.

I hope this helps. Don't hesitate to contact me for any reason.



Thanks to my friend Carl for inspiring this post.
Best wishes in your planning!

-Kirk/Select Receptions

Advanced Microphone Technique 1 & 2

L-R: Randy Bartlett and me with my winter beard. ;)

Yesterday I joined 12 colleagues and spectators from as far as Massachusetts, and as near is Syracuse, for a continuing education workshop for Masters of Ceremonies.

Advanced Microphone Technique, Levels 1 and 2, are workshops offered by Randy Bartlett, one of the nations top trainers and mentors in the field.




The workshop was wedding specific, with a focus on one of the most important portions of the evening. This is the first 10 minutes of the reception, after cocktail hour. The entire tone of the evening is set during this very first segment, so it's important that the MC can not only command the room's attention, but can do it warmly, sincerely (not scripted), and of course serve as a well-spoken 'spokesperson' for the bride and groom. This important segment includes- Welcoming guests, thanking them for coming and letting them know what to expect of the evening, introducing the wedding party, introducing the bride and groom, introducing the first dance, and transitioning into toasts.

All too often, DJs tend to use a cheesy approach they picked up from another DJ, making themselves the center of attention, and missing the entire point of the evening along the way.

I've continued education and training under Mark Ferrell, and reaped a wealth of information through materials from Peter Merry, Todd Mitchum, Bill Herman, Mitch Taylor, Mike Walters and more. These are some of the most respected names in the industry worldwide. A workshop though, is somewhat like a trip to the gym, in that it helps an MC get exercise during the off season. A big thanks to Randy for making the trip to freezing cold Central New York in January. :)

Left to Right:

Owen Draughn - DJ By Design, Toby Varner - DJ Toby, Letitia English - The Great Music Company, Randy Bartlett, Kirk Rothrum - Select Receptions, James - The Great Music Company, CJ - Visa Versa Entertainment, Vince Liotta - Events by Cool Cat, Brian Fowler - New England DJs, Jonathan Paduano - Paduano Studios, Eric Catalano - Events by Cool Cat, Barry - Ormond Entertainment, Jimmie Malone - Exceptional Receptions, Carl Naples - DJ by Design, Ryan DeLap - Engaged Entertainment, Cindy Ormond - Ormond Entertainment

Couples Choice Awards 2015 Winner

Thank you for raving about our services~!
We're honored to be recognized by our clients, with this being the 5th award we've won in recent years! This one is from WeddingWire, one of the leading websites for planning your wedding. Winners are selected based on verified client reviews.




While there are too many to post, here is a review from Mia and Nick, one of the last weddings we did in 2014: 

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Quality of Service: 5.0   Responsiveness: 5.0   Professionalism: 5.0   Value: 5.0   Flexibility: 5.0

Words cannot express the amazing job he did! Everyone had the best time and he definitely got the party started, you should see the pictures! The uplighting was beautiful, the music was great...and the photobooth...the best! I was hesitant about the photobooth at first because it was an added expense. However, that was probably one of THE BEST decisions we made. Everyone, including grandparents, loved the photobooth. And the album we have from it was just the best. The monogram dance floor lighting was perfect for showing us off as a new couple. As an out of town bride, it was difficult to pick vendors, but this was a perfect match! He always answered my million+ calls and emails and helped me plan out the order of events for the reception. It was such a beautiful wedding thanks to him!

Services Used: Ceremony Music, DJ, Event Rentals & Photobooths, Lighting & Decor

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The WeddingWire Couples' Choice Awards® recognizes the top 5 percent of local Wedding Professionals from the WeddingWire Network throughout the United States, Canada and abroad that demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism. Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the organization, the WeddingWire Couples' Choice Awards® are awarded solely based on the reviews from over 200,000 newlyweds. Awards are determined by a combination of excellence in four factors: overall rating (quality), total number of reviews (quantity), review performance from 2014 (recency), and consistency of reviews from year to year (consistency).