The Scratch Weddings team was honored twice in recent weeks:

• The WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards ™ recognizes the top local wedding professionals from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism. Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the organization, the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ are determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 750,000 WeddingWire newlyweds. The 2011 award recipients represent the top five percent of WeddingWire’s vendor community, which consists of over 200,000 local wedding professionals throughout the US and Canada.
• The Knot Best of Weddings 2011 provides a “by brides, for brides” guide to the top wedding professionals across the country, and is a must-have when it comes to selecting the best-of-the-best wedding resources. From New York DJs to Seattle bridal salons to DC makeup artists, engaged couples will find detailed feedback on local wedding businesses reviewed by thousands of newlyweds who had great things to say.

On top of the industry awards, Scratch Weddings has begun racking up a steady stream of accolades from users of Yelp – with ratings of 5 out of 5 in the DJ category.

It’s gratifying to our DJs and headquarters team that clients, as well as industry peers, view Scratch Weddings as a top-tier service provider.  Brides and grooms spend months planning for their special day, and the music is a critical success factor, so we view our job as vitally important.

Perhaps the only downside to all this attention is the extra time it takes to dust the trophy shelf.

Although his master’s studies were in journalism, it’s easy to mistake veteran New York DJ Qool Marv as a psychologist as he counsels brides and grooms on the topic of wedding music.

In over two decades of music, Qool Marv has played in every major American city and rocked the decks worldwide in Barcelona, Moscow, London, Glasgow, Oslo, Dublin, Dubai, Paris, and the Bahamas.

“At weddings, I put my ego and DJ persona aside and I become YOUR DJ for the evening,” Marv tells the couples with whom he works.  “I compile a running list of your requests between now and when the wedding happens – you can give me 10 songs or 50 songs – and I put them into that pool of selections and I apply my skills to your songs on the night of the wedding.”

“You know you asked for it but when I play it and it hits you, it’s a thrill because you didn’t know it was going to happen,” Marv added. “The surprise is part of the evening for me and you.”

Marv grew up in Philadelphia.  As a teenager, listening to jazz on the radio helped him get through a monotonous construction job.  Attending Emory University, frustration with a lack of musical diversity in Atlanta commercial radio made him a fixture at record stores and he quickly amassed a collection of vinyl that continues to grow to this day.  Producing mix tapes for friends allowed Marv to build a reputation for magical meshing of unconventional tracks and seemingly incongruous genres.

“The blending had to be so smooth that people listening would be a minute into the next song before they knew it,” Marv said, recalling the mixes that built his reputation.

When he moved to New York to attend Columbia , Marv’s turntable skills and ability to keep dance floors packed at East & West Village cool spots  & clubs caught the attention of Russell Simmons and HBO.  His DJ career flourished and went global, bringing his unique sound to venues in the Bahamas, Barcelona, Dubai, Dublin, London, Moscow, Oslo and Paris.  When the entertainment industry giants like HBO celebrated, Marv was manning the decks for shows like Sex in the City, The Sopranos, Oz and The Wire, and at Emmy and Golden Globe after-parties in Hollywood.

Despite his star power, Marv is steady, grounded and comfortable in the role of the laid back consultant during his frequent pre-wedding planning sessions with brides at grooms at Scratch Weddings.

“Consider me your human iPod for that night.  Don’t worry that you are imposing or affecting my artistic senses,” Marv advises.  “Feel free to let me know what you’re feeling & songs you prefer, and I will bring everything together with the technique and flow that you’d expect from a pro DJ.”

Among the helpful tidbits for couples working with their DJ:

• Don’t only think about dance floor jams.  “Think about those songs that you vibe to when you’re in the car or on the train or chilling out at home when the TV’s off and you’re cooking.  It still has a place at the wedding. It has a place at the cocktail hour, or when dinner is being served.”
• Feel good that any style of music that you enjoy will be mixed and presented with professional enthusiasm. “Your musical taste becomes my musical taste when I play your reception.”

Because guests at weddings often encompass multiple generations and cultures, Marv strives to include various tempos, decades and styles into the musical vibe.

“I really take pride at giving everybody something during the night, whether you’re 13 or 63,” he said. “I look around the room and pay attention.”

Others use the note pad on their phone to keep a running list.

Still others email themselves lyrics.

For as long as there have been weddings, the betrothed have plunged into a party-planning frenzy that involves everything from selecting the flavor of cake icing to the weight of card stock for invitations.  Music can get short shrift unless couples devise ingenious ways to remember and share with their DJ the song titles and artists they desire for their wedding reception play list.

The team at Scratch Weddings has heard dozens of tricks from brides and grooms determined to put their personal stamp on their dance party:

• Crowd-sourcing of song requests is a new trend to make sure the DJ knows the musical preferences of guests.  A low-tech method is to use Save the Date cards to ask for song suggestions.  Techie couples often open up their wedding web site or Facebook page for requests.
• Contrarians have been known to Google “top wedding songs” and then make sure the DJ adds every one of them to the “No Play” list.
• n  While attending others’ weddings, listen for songs you like and write them down. Do the same for songs associated with that giant sucking sound of the dance floor emptying.
• Install the free Shazam app on your iPhone, Android or Blackberry.  When you hear a tune you like – on the radio, at a party or in a club — boot up Shazam to identify the song and artist.  Once you tag the song, you can email it to Scratch Weddings and we’ll add it to your play list.
• Danceable music is just part of a successful wedding reception.  Many songs that don’t have a great beat can still earn playtime during dinner and cocktails, conjuring up warm memories for the guests and setting the vibe for a rocking dance party later in the evening.

Assembling a terrific song list is just as important as deciding what music is not appropriate for your wedding.

If Dead Heads will be in the house, and you don’t think the Grateful Dead isn’t very danceable, consider a single popular track like Shakedown Street as a generous compromise.  On the other hand, if a certain artist would truly ruin the evening, your DJ can diplomatically inform requesters that the bridal couple has asked that it not be played.

Preparation along with frequent and open communication with your DJ can make music the easiest and most enjoyable part of wedding planning.

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Actually, there are hundreds of reasons.

Musical geniuses from Mozart and the Beatles to Stevie Wonder and Jay-Z knew which beats, keys and instruments were a match and which ones clashed.  A marquee DJ must have that same refined ear and deep musical knowledge to keep the dance floor bustling all night.

One of the many requisites for DJs at Scratch Weddings is the ability to collaborate with brides and grooms to assemble the audio building blocks for the most important day in a couple’s lives.  In interviews with our colleagues, the following emerged:

• There’s no such thing as “one size fits all.”  Great care must be taken to identify musical genres, artists and tracks that the best fit for the bride, groom and guests.
• Knowledge of and comfort with cultural and religious wedding traditions can make the evening’s music even more enjoyable.  Look for a DJ who is eager to incorporate these special songs – either played in full or mashed up with modern remixes.
• The “no play” list is just as important as songs that make the cut.  A good DJ can diplomatically explain to guests that “YMCA” is on the no-play list without making the requester feel bad.
• Weddings should focus on the bride and groom, not a Type-A DJ eager for the spotlight.  As you plan the evening, ask yourself if the DJ should act as emcee – tastefully introducing the wedding party and those toasting the bride and groom – or would you prefer the music to do the “talking?”  Either way is fine.

Like so many aspects of life, careful preparation and honest communication are reliable pathways to success.  The music at an extraordinarily enjoyable wedding is invariably the result of thoughtful planning and careful execution.

I promise you’ll leave the sushi bar in a better mood.

The average wedding in Japan runs $70,000, according to the Association for Wedding Planners International. Brides in the United States, in comparison, plunked down about $22,000 last year.

Whether your wedding budget is $20,000 or $200,000, it’s a challenge to decide how to allocate precisely the right amount for an event that seems to have more complexity than the Olympics. Alongside the meat, potatoes and libation are budget line items that very few brides and grooms anticipated – like the cost of the ring bearer’s pillow or the alter candelabra.

At Scratch Weddings, we speak to engaged couples every day.  Most arrive with a pretty good feel for their entertainment budget thanks, in large part, to budget calculator tools on wedding information portals.

For example, The Knot’s calculator advises brides with a $30,000 wedding budget to spend $1,800 for music at the reception, and another $300 each for music at the ceremony and cocktail hour.

For a wedding budget of $23,000, the Knot tells brides to allocate $1,380 for the reception music, and another $230 each for the ceremony and cocktail hour, for a grand total DJ spend of $1,840.

In the daunting months brides and grooms spend planning the perfect wedding, it’s easy to get caught up in cake tasting, gown fittings and reviewing table centerpieces.  Research shows that dedicating more of that planning time to picking a marquee DJ – and collaborating about the right musical genres, artists, songs and mixes – pays back when guests dance all night long.

After their wedding, 72 percent of brides said they wished they spent more time choosing their reception entertainment, and 81 percent of guests said the thing they remembered most about a wedding was the entertainment, according to St. Louis Bride & Groom magazine.