The pic was from a wedding I did on the last day we were allowed to have weddings at all in Dallas / Fort Worth (March 21), and the parameters actually changed again about 30 minutes after this event was complete.
This is at Brik Venue, one of my favorite spots to perform. The wedding was allowed to have 10 people, including staff. The staff rotated who they could have in certain parts of the venue. On the top floor, the ceremony took place. A venue coordinator stuck her head out the door and gave me hand signals as cues for starting and stopping ceremony tracks. They were live streaming on a delay, so it had to be an in person ‘thumbs up’.
A venue coordinator stuck her head out the door and gave me hand signals as cues for starting and stopping ceremony tracks.
The reception was short. First dance, father daughter dance, mother son dance, and a cake cutting. The caterer showed up at the very end with to-go boxes and people took them home with them (Magdalena’s, the caterer, is pretty exceptional food). The owner of the company dropped them off himself.
I’ve done about 2,000 weddings in my career. Some extremely unique. But I’ve never done an entire event without ever having seen it.
I was sad for the couple. The technology worked great. I ran my mixer into a Sennheiser IEM broadcaster that I built into my road case. There were two speakers, one on each floor, with a hard-wired receiver unit. I was able to set up the previous day and test it out with nobody around. Signal quality was flawless. I’m just used to having a close connection to my events and I had to make best blind guesses. I received a nice ‘thank you’ from a distance, so I guess it worked. 🙂
Signal quality was flawless. I’m just used to having a close connection to my events and I had to make best blind guesses.
As far as now, the new DFW restrictions are 25% capacity. I’m putting in motion a number of protocols for distance. I’m also working on ways to keep things interesting with ‘social distanced dance floors’. That will be the intermediate challenge until we get to return to some kind of normalcy. My first event is on June 12, at this same venue.
The picture still kind of sits with me, and I think it always will. I have pictures of euphoria at different points of my career, some insightfully and symbolically meaningful. I’ll always remember this one!
Rod Baker owns DFW Parties in Dallas-Forth Worth. A native Texan who graduated from Oklahoma State University with a degree in journalism/advertising, he’s been full-time since 2009.
Photo courtesy of Elisabeth Anne Photo.
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