2011 wrap-up

2011 was quite a year for Platinum Mix. We were busier then we’ve ever been. We were blessed with so many amazing clients. But the best part for me was watching many years of hard work FINALLY come together. It only took 10 years…. :)

That said, for 2012 we are going to slow down a bit. As a team we did 264 events in 2011. The DJs can handle that work load no problem, but I admit I over-booked our photography and videography teams. To be honest, we got dangerously close to being late on delivery a few times. I know I’m being paranoid. I could probably just lengthen our delivery time, but I really don’t want to do that. Its important to me to get people their finished product in a reasonable time frame (45-days guaranteed or your money back!). Working 16 hour days to get wedding photos, albums, and videos delivered on time just isn’t much fun for the editing team. The classic question: Live to work, or work to live? I’ve spent the last decade living to work. But now its time to try it the other way. So, I’m limiting my own personal bookings for the year, and slowing the photo and video team down to a more manageable workload. I’m looking forward to having time for more travel, lots of reading, long distance biking, and perhaps even a few more tango lessons…..

A couple highlights from 2011:

February

Bree and Andy’s vintage inspired winter wedding. We loved Bree’s handmade bouquet, and all the thought they put into the details. And I love the old camera Bree’s mom gave me. I have it on my fireplace now so I’ll never forget photographing Bree and Andy’s wedding.

April

The launch of DIY Uplighting. It really started as an experiment. More on this later.

May

My van getting stuck in a ditch at Melvin and Katie's wedding. Okay, this wasn't really a "highlight", more of an extremely embarrassing moment that will provide years of material for jokes about what a crappy driver I am. But. Making it a highlight for me personally was the fact that I wasn't worried at all about Melvin and Katie's photos because I knew my team was so strong that they would be well taken care of. As soon as I realized I was stuck, my first thought was "no problem, Evis is already at the reception, he can do the reception photos, and Eric can handle the video by himself until somebody shows up to tow me out of this ditch". This is the power of having a strong crew. Melvin's dad just happened to have a handy tractor laying around and I made it to the reception on time, so all ended well. :)

Meeting Rob and learning off-camera flash at Tom and Amy's wedding. There's what I call old school photographers, and there's new school photographers. In my opinion, new school photographers have the "cooler" style, but old school photographers have mad skill. Lighting skills, posing skills....these guys have been shooting professionally since before digital existed. They had to get it right in camera in a reasonable number of tries so they didn't waste film. My goal is to have old school skill, with a new school style. There is very few photographers with this ability. I'm still working on it. Meeting Rob and bringing him along to photograph Tom and Amy's wedding really gave me a jump on reception off-camera lighting though. I spent the rest of the year working on that.


June

Evis and Nertila's wedding! Always an honor to work the wedding of a fellow photographer, teammate, and friend. Evis and Nertila really are made for each other, and documenting their wedding was a pleasure.

After his own wedding, Evis and his beautiful new wife jetted off to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where they enjoyed a relaxing week together. On week two, I showed up to crash the party so we could work Karen and Christina's wedding. How awesome is it to shoot a wedding in Mexico? Awesome. Sooooo awesome. Somebody hire me so I can go back please?




August

Keisha and Larry's video marks the start of a new, more cinematic direction in our wedding video recap clips. This is all thanks to the artistic vision of Eric. Also known as "Cutmaster E". I used to make everyone edit at my house. I've found this to be the most efficient way of getting work done. Eric convinced me that he could do a better job from home. I've been blown away by the creativity and improvement in his work ever since.

Another favorite example from August: Chris and Sarah's wedding video.

September

Labor day weekend was the moment I realized I was doing way too much and I needed to slow Platinum Mix down a tad. This might have had to do with photographing a wedding Friday, another Saturday and then leaving the wedding Saturday night and driving 4 hours north to Bellaire, Michigan to be able to arrive in time to shoot Jenny and Jeff's wedding Sunday. I was actually downloading and backing up photo and video footage from Saturday's wedding while driving up north. I would pull over every 15 minutes to change the memory card and hit the copy button. It was totally worth it, Jenny and Jeffs wedding was amazing and I got some shots I'm proud of. I really love this one of Jenny while she was getting dressed:




October

DJing Homecomings kept us busy starting the end of September and throughout October. I'm also thrilled with the work we did for Ronnie and Meryl at their downtown Chicago wedding. http://vimeo.com/31668629

Also, congrats to Andrew (videographer) who had a baby boy! Isn't he a cutie?




November

We shot Candice and Ahmad's Love Story video in November. Our first attempt at creating a love story. Candice is a good friend, I've known her since the 9th grade. I remember when Ahmad started coming around when were about 18/19, and I am thrilled they are getting married. I'm pretty happy with the way the video came out: Love Story Video

Eric also headed out to LA to shoot a music video. Can't wait to show it off, he got some amazing shots!

December

I'm proud of the photography I did for Brittany and Nick's wedding, because all the work I did practicing with off-camera lighting is now starting to pay off. I shot their church formals at f/11 which was my goal. For the non-camera geeks, that makes all the faces in a big group of family members come out nice and sharp. Next thing to focus on is lighting the background just as nice as the foreground. Also, their video is awesome.

After Brittany and Nicks wedding, I took off to San Francisco. The launch of Platinum Mix SF is coming soon!

cheers to a new year!

My last update to this blog was September 2010. Pathetic. I’d call that an epic fail. It’s a poor excuse, but I’ve just been so incredibly busy the past ummm.... 16 months. That’s my logical reason. The “real” excuse is……I guess you can say I lost interest in blogging. It was super exciting to me when nobody else was doing it. But then all my competitors started a blog. And when EVERYONE is doing something, well…I like to look for something different to do. So I switched to showing off our work on facebook. Quicker. Less writing. Easier for people to share. And now, [sigh] EVERYONE is doing that too. So to make sure I stay different, here I am back to blogging. But this time, instead of writing just about recent weddings we’ve done, I think I’m going to get a little more personal, maybe spread the topics out a bit to include other things I’m passionate about. This resolution might not last past January. We shall see. Till then, in the words of Oprah: “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right”.

remember kids, do as i say. not as i do. how NOT to began your career as a mobile DJ.

December 1995. My 16th birthday. I lived with my father at the time who had a work hard and party even harder philosophy of life. This was an ideal living situation for my teenage years. I had recently purchased my first DJ mixer (a Gemini "ScratchMaster" for all you DJ nerds reading this - the ORIGINAL version, with the orange graffiti logo of course), and my first pair of Technic 1200 turntables. All my spare time was spent in my bedroom trying to figure out how to get two records to sound good together. My father had informed me that he was going to be out of town the week of my birthday, and so I decided this was the perfect opportunity to have a "little" party to show off my newly acquired DJ skills to my friends. The problem was that I only had like 4 friends. There was lots of kids that said hi to me in school, but I couldn't count on them to come to my birthday party and I was TERRIFIED that only my 4 actual friends would show up. Thus began my party promotion career.

Every day at school for the two weeks-ish I was planning this little gathering, I scribbled my home address down on notebook paper for all those random kids that said hi to me in the hallways, and invited them to my party. In addition, I recruited the help of my 4 friends, who invited all of their friends (early lessons in the power of social networking). Me, being my paranoid self, I decided that just to be safe, I would also invite people that came into my work. I was a waitress at Big Boy and our customer base included plenty of kids from the neighboring high schools. My friend Candice worked there with me. She was the hostess. She would seat tables of cute boys in my section and then I would work up the nerve to invite them to my party.

It didn't take long before my pager (ha! remember pagers?!), started blowing up with people beeping about when to show up for the party and "is the party still going on?". When I found out the entire football team was coming, I decided that maybe it was a good idea to bring in a more experienced DJ with a better sound system. DJ Eternal, DJ Tech-Nine, and DJ X-Factor volunteered. To this day, I am still grateful to those 3 guys for helping to get me on the right (or wrong?...lol) track...but thats another story.

Anyway, so my birthday arrives, and Eternal, Tech-Nine and X-Factor show up with a booming sound system and plenty of vinyl. I am now getting incredibly nervous as we all work on setting up my house for the party. Setting up consisted of hiding all the valuables, blocking off areas of the house by piling furniture up, and of course hooking up the DJ gear. Guests started to arrive. There's about 20 people hanging out and I decide its time for my very first public DJ set. I put on the headphones, put the needle down on the record, and mixed my first song in. I think I was pretty off-beat. In fact, I'm sure it sounded like a train-wreck. But it didn't matter to me - I was hooked. I don't remember how long that first set lasted, all I know was there was nothing going on when I started mixing, and when I passed the headphones on to the next DJ, my living room was packed full of gyrating, sweaty teenagers dancing and partying. I got completely lost in the music and I loved every minute of it.

So actually, I didn't voluntarily hand over the headphones. My sister interrupted me because apparently my guests had climbed over the furniture roadblocks and had taken over my dads house. I have no idea how many people showed up, but it was alot. Packed house - basement, ground floor and upstairs. There was so much smoke in the living room from people smoking cigarettes it was hard to breathe, and cars were actually parked on my dads front lawn and the lawn of the senior citizen building across the street. Chaos. This led to an infamous Sara G. temper-tantrum. First thing I did was call the police on my own party. 2nd thing I did was decide not to wait for the police, and just toss people out myself. After everyone had left, I walked around and surveyed the damage. Furniture - broken. Carpet - ruined. Silverware - missing? And then the phone rang....uh oh, it was Dad. "How's the party kid? Having a good time?" I think the neighbors called him. Either them or the police. I just braced myself for the old school ass-whooping I knew I was going to get as soon as he got home......

Ahhhh.....feeling so nostalgic tonight as I think about those early days. :)


P.S. I miss vinyl.

photography updates

So we are still working on getting a new blog design that showcases photos bigger and better than this current one. Until then, if you were looking for the latest photography work, head on over to: http://www.saramichelephoto.com Plenty of stuff is also posted at http://www.facebook.com/platinummix too.

:)

Kasie and Ryan's Wedding Recap Video!

Ryan and Kasie's Wedding Day Recap! from Sara G. on Vimeo.

And check out the pics on the photography blog.

Party Starters vs. Party Renegades

Got the best card in the mail today from a recent client. Thought it was brilliant, had to share:

Front:



Inside:



Thanks Andrea and Scott! You made my day happy today!

What a great wedding it was too. Unbelievably AMAZING crowd. I want to hire some of Andrea and Scott's guests to come to my other jobs with me. They can work at Platinum Mix as official Party Starters. At every party, there is at least 1 "party starter". This person (or group of people), dances to every song and drags other people out to dance with them. They get the party going without the DJ having to be an annoying cheeseball. I've made an entire career out of identifying the party starter in every family early on and then making them my best-est buddy for the night. This all happens on the down low of course so I can take complete credit for being an awesome DJ. I've been a DJ for going on 15 years, and I have NEVER seen a wedding crowd like Scott and Andrea had. These people were so awesome, that I don't even think party-starters is an appropriate term. These folks were more like "party renegades". Nobody really needed any encouragement or help, they rocked that dance floor individually all on their own. For example, there was the traditional bride and groom dance scheduled but these wedding guests didn't feel like waiting around for the bride and groom to stop chitty-chatting around the tables and such - they just hit the dance floor and started grooving to my background music. "Background music" technically means people don't usually dance to this stuff. Not so much the case here. Dance floor was completely packed. So much so that Andrea said to just skip her dance with Scott. An hour or so into it, photographer about to leave, and I thought that potentially, after the wedding is over, and Andrea gets her wedding photos, she *might* wish she had a nice picture of her and Scott dancing together. So I opted to go into control freak DJ mode for a minute and cleared the dance floor for Andrea and Scott (of course I checked with them first...haha). This wedding was also memorable for featuring a surprise appearance from the guy that sings the fight song at Detroit Lions games. The tasty food courtesy of the Rattlesnake Club was pretty impressive too. And as a nice bonus, Robert Bruce was the photographer. Its always so much fun to work with him. On a side note, I've noticed that every time I work with Robert Bruce, I have an awesome wedding. So either Robert is good luck OR couples that hire Robert are awesome. Hmmm.....maybe I'll camp outside Robert's Studio and sneak Platinum Mix flyers on the cars of all the couples that come to hire him. ;)

Video Camera Upgrade Complete!

Its been almost a full year of testing, buying new equipment, figuring stuff out, and more testing but we're finally completed with our switchover to HDSLR video! This means that we are now using DSLR photo cameras to film weddings in HD. For those interested in the technical end of things, specifically we have switched to a combination of the Canon 5dmkII's and the Canon 7d cameras, along with a variety of Canon lenses. The quality difference is really amazing, not to mention the creative freedom of being able to change lenses so easily. And I also dig the ability to instantly play back what we have shot - no more tape capture! The integration now between our photo and video teams is almost seamless. I posted a comparison of the quality on our facebook page located here: http://www.facebook.com/platinummix

Anyway, here are the 2 latest recap chapters from the last 2 weddings we've done ->

Kara and Mike's Wedding Video Highlights! from Sara G. on Vimeo.

and

Molly and Danny's Wedding Video Highlights! from Sara G. on Vimeo.

Debbie and Mike's reception! 4 Points Sheraton, Ann Arbor, Michigan

I used to get so nervous before DJing. My hands used to shake every time I picked up the microphone to announce a bridal party. I accepted a long time ago that I'm not a "natural" MC. A few of the DJs I work with like Emmitt, Brendan, Garret, Joey....those guys can rock the mic. I'm always in awe of Emmitt when we work together. He has no plan. He can just pick up the mic, talk, and it sounds good. But not me. I have to plan what I'm going to say. And then I practice what I'm going to say. A thousand weddings later and I don't get nervous anymore. Now its become second nature. But even now, I still like to run through bridal party introductions a few times just to make sure I got it before I do it "live". This past Saturday for Debbie and Mike's wedding, I was nervous. They had a large bridal party and wanted each bridal party member announced individually to a specific song. I thought this was a fantastic idea. I've done this before, but for much smaller bridal parties. This one came to 16 song changes. This is challenging because typically it only takes about 10/20 seconds for each person to walk in. But that can vary alot depending on how far the door is from the final destination and how fast each person walks. So I figure I have about 20 seconds to stop the previous song, load the new song, figure out which person is next to announce, and announce new person. This may sound easy, but add to the fact the pressure of having 200 strangers staring at you, a videographer's bright light and huge camera pointed at you, oh and of course the big one - avoiding large gaps of silence, and this simple task suddenly gets more challenging. Brad was working with me. I was incredibly tempted to have Brad handle the music switching while I just announced, but I'm a control-freak/perfectionist and I wanted each announcement to be timed perfectly with the music. Unless we had rehearsed, there was no way he would know exactly when to hit the play button. Thankfully, luck was on my side and the door was a decent distance away from the dance floor. Even better, the bridal party was a blast and they danced their way in. All in all, it ended up being about a 30 second intro for each person...totally manageable! I thought it went well, and overall, I wish more couples did this for their introductions because I think it really personalizes them alot more and is tons of fun for everyone. :) The rest of the party was amazing...these people knew how to get their wedding on! Full dance floor + lots of requests + high-energy crowd = very happy dj. Brad got a couple quick pics and video clips from Debbie and Mikes awesome wedding reception! - ->>

Love the bride breakin' down some "footloose" in this first clip!



A couple more of a great "Shout" and of course, some party train action:





and of course - a cake shot:



and one of the happy couple:



A couple more of our newest team member, Brad:



this one has facebook profile shot written all over it:



A couple more pics we grabbed while behind the DJ table are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/platinummix/DebbieAndMike4PointsSheratonAnnArbor


Great party! Congrats Mike and Debbie!

Go Tracie, Go Tracie, Go!

Our wedding planner friend, Tracie Morris from You're the Bride, sent me over an email with some information about a new package she has put together for day-of wedding coordination. I'm feeling really guilty about this, but I accidentally deleted the email with the actual special offer details. Sorry Tracie! However, I didn't want to have to bother her to re-send so I surfed on over to her website and took a look at her "Service Offerings" page. And was actually really surprised....Tracie has some really unique and cool packages put together for the bride and groom's seeking a little wedding planning help. She's got all your traditional wedding planner and day-of coordination packages, but she's also got this "Brainstorming Service" that I think sounds pretty cool, a "Powder Room Pampering" service (who doesn't want to be pampered right?), and even just a "Candy Buffet" service for folks looking for some help in just getting all that candy setup for their guests. The "E-Planning Ensemble" also seems like a solid deal for the computer savvy bride (and Tracie has always been super quick at responding to emails!). More guilt because I can't find the package labeled "Mini day of coordination", which is what I'm supposed to be posting about. Oh well, if you are looking for an awesome deal on a great wedding planner, click on over to http://yourthebride.com/. Contact Tracie and tell her Platinum Mix sent ya, and she'll hook you up with the goods.

"Um...no...beating DJ Hero on your Wii does not qualify you for this position"

Recruiting. Ugh. I think this is the hardest and most frustrating part of my job. Lots of wedding vendors I talk to hate doing the sales/business part of this job, but me, I love meeting potential clients. I'd rather get rejected by 10 couples planning their wedding then go through all these DJ applications and set up interviews with them any day. Hiring photographers is new to me and honestly I thought that was going to be easier. I was wrong. Photographers are worse. Okay, maybe all that was a bit dramatic. But seriously, what a pain. Now the people that do work with Platinum Mix, are some of my best friends in the world. I love each and every one of them, and have complete trust that they will do an awesome job. Its just so hard finding those people. And then after I find them, I have to get them to the point where I trust them with my client's weddings. Trust takes time to develop. A long time. No way am I risking my hard-earned reputation on some random dude who just bought a camera yesterday and is now calling himself a professional photographer. Or the kid with some loud speakers and an internet connection fast enough to download millions of songs just in time for his saturday job. Screw that. I've worked hard at this for 15 years, not giving away my rep that easy.

Recruiting makes me feel really bad for my clients. Honestly, if it were my wedding (and I wasn't in this business), it would be really stressful for me to pick vendors. Not because of so many good choices, more because its scary out there folks. Have you ever seen the show "The Riches"? Its fantastic. It got canceled. Maybe it scared people? It scared me, because I know how true it is that people believe way too easily. If you haven't seen the show its about how a family steals the life of another (much more wealthy) family. The father becomes a lawyer. No, he does not have a law degree. And no, he does not have any experience or know anything at all about practicing law. But he excels at his job, because he's got a gift for selling. He just said he's a lawyer, so people believe him. If you want to be a wedding DJ technically its super easy to get started. Buy some equipment, put up a website, print up some business cards and just like that - you are a "professional". Essentially, just announce to the world that you are now a wedding DJ, and people will believe you. And its true, you are now a wedding DJ. However you probably suck. And you are confusing your clients, who don't know how in the world to figure out why DJ option #1 is better than DJ option #433.

I dislike the recruiting process because I have to explain to these "wedding djs" why they need to participate in Platinum Mix's training program. Or why their equipment is not up to spec. Or convince them to do something different then how they have been doing it, because its not how we do it. And while I know there are many ways to do something, I have very high standards for how things are done here, and I insist those standards are met before I will book somebody for my jobs. I have an obligation to every single one of my clients to deliver talented, skilled, trained PROFESSIONALS for their events. Finding those people though, is the hard part of my job. What I really need is an HR department.....

If you're reading this and you are a DJ, photographer, videographer, graphic designer or editor, and you feel that you are a skilled professional please fill out the application located here:
http://platinummix.com/dj_app.php
We would love to hear from you!

New Site Up! (sort of...)

Well. Got the new website up today. I would be excited, except its not working very well in Internet Explorer. Works great in Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera. but no go in IE. :( Apologies to anybody trying to check out platinummix.com using Internet Explorer...we are busy working on fixing the problems.

Back to work!

Big Changes Coming Soon! :)

So many of you know, many of you don't know yet, but finally (after 4+ years of experimentation), I'm super excited to announce that I will be officially merging my photography business with Platinum Mix. I say "officially" because we've been secretly offering under the table package deals for the past year and a half or so. Secretly, because we've been careful to spread the events out so as not to get over-loaded with all the extra work. Photography adds a substantial amount of post-production, so much so, that we've had to hire an additional dedicated photo editor last summer. Starting out with the honor of being selected to photograph and provide DJ services for special events surrounding the NCAA Final Four in April 2009, the past 10 months, we've somehow managed to offer DJ + PHOTO + VIDEO to 9 of our clients (without any advertising, business cards, fancy marketing materials or anything -- I'm pretty proud of myself for that one). In addition, I was happy to serve another 33 the past 12 months operating under "Sara Michele Photography". It took a little longer than I expected, however I now feel 100% confident in our workflow (we've consistently delivered everything on time within 30 days of our clients weddings), and I feel that our team is strong enough and ready to really grow with this. This is incredibly exciting for everybody involved for many reasons, but the biggest:: Wait until you see the totally awesome package deals we've worked out!!

There is MUCH work to be done. The entire website needs to be overhauled, all of our advertising needs to be updated, all of our printed materials, business cards, basically everything needs to be re-designed. We've all been busy around here to say the least. All of the above is in progress, and starting with this blog announcement, expect to see much to come from Platinum Mix in the coming months. With that, I'm pleased to post our brand new logo -->>

Guitar Hero Wedding Reception!!

Haley and Dan approached Platinum Mix about a year ago with a unique and fun idea - they wanted to play Guitar Hero at their wedding reception. SWEET!! Our signature DJ package #3 fit the bill perfectly because it offers a super large video screen with rear projection. This worked great so that while 2 people were playing guitar hero, the rest of the guests could dance. We were also able to incorporate the other awesome features of this setup like playing some "growing up" photos of Dan and Haley during dinner, as well as music videos during the times that nobody was actually playing Guitar Hero.

Here are a few photos (plenty more can be found here):







I love these next two of Haley rockin' out some guitar hero at her wedding! ->




Going into it, I was slightly afraid that the video game would be such a major distraction that nobody would dance. but this group proved otherwise and the party ended up being a blast!




Not really DJ related, but I also thought it was totally pimpin' that Dan and Haley had a horse drawn carriage waiting for them as they made their exit from the ceremony. Nice!




Special thanks to Katherine for the help getting all the extra equipment set up and for taking all the pics!

Vendor List:
Venue (both ceremony and reception): Cobblestone Farm, Ann Arbor, MI Website
Photographer: Bride's Brother!
Catering: Friends of Bride and Groom (I think)
DJ: Sara G. and Katherine Moore // Platinum Mix
(If you provided services to this wedding and are not listed above, please email your info to us and we will add you.)

hot and fresh out the kitchen....

So excited to announce Platinum Mix is now accepting reservations for our new Photo Booth service! The concept is old school: enter an enclosed booth, take 4 pictures, and a few seconds later a photo strip of your 4 pictures is printed up for you to take home with you. The delivery is new skool: All your photos will be available online for your guests to view and download. Our photo booth was setup for the first time at Eli and Lori's wedding at The Best Western Sterling Inn in Sterling Heights, and it looks like their guests had a blast with it: Check out all the photo booth fun here:

Photo Booth Pictures from Lori and Eli's wedding CLICK HERE

Plenty more information and details to follow, or give us a call at 248-349-8318 to inquire about renting a photo booth for your own Michigan wedding.

What Up Facebook Peeps

Join Platinum Mix on Facebook by going to this page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Northville-MI/Platinum-Mix/69931030831

Just click the "become a fan" link to receive our updates in your news feed. :)

Quick update

Busy summer at Platinum Mix! Thought I'd take a quick second to post some of the wedding day recap videos our videography department has been keeping busy working on:

Shannon and Chris had both their ceremony and reception in August at Mystic Creek Golf & Country Club in Milford, Michigan. I really love the shots our camera crew got of Shannon driving up to the ceremony on the golf cart. Beautiful!

Chris and Shannon Wedding Day Recap from Sara G. on Vimeo.

Theresa and Eric's wedding reception was a total blast! What a fun group of people! The black eyed peas "i gotta feeling" section of this video is a little more "mtv"/faster-paced than we normally do, but the tempo seemed to fit, and I personally am diggin' it.

Eric and Theresa's Wedding Day Recap from Sara G. on Vimeo.

DJ Paul Mattis got to have some fun mixing up the music for Tricia and Kevin's reception at Kensington Court in Ann Arbor, MI. Looks like Paul, Evis and Eric got a chance to work with Dustin Francis who was the photographer for the day. Evis is totally amazing and he actually built this "Slider" device which enables our video crew to get some very unique and smooth "sliding" shots. This is the first wedding he used it at, a few of the shots are in the video. I especially like the shoe shot. :)

Tricia and Kevin's Wedding Recap! from Sara G. on Vimeo.

While the slider was still in experimental phases for the previous video, Evis really got the hang of it just in time for Kalli and Patricks big day. I totally love this video, a beautiful wedding, a beautiful couple, good music (but I'm a big dashboard confessional fan...haha), and the video footage is some of our best.

Patrick and Kalli's Wedding Day Recap! from Sara G. on Vimeo.

I'm soooooo lucky to have such talented people working with me. Shout out to the hard-working and incredibly talented videographers we have working with us: Eric, Evis, Andrew, Katherine & Nathanael.

DIY wedding reception slideshows

So you have a video slide-show that you have created yourself and would like shown at your wedding reception. Your video is finished (and looking totally awesome!), and you plan to borrow a projector from work. All set to go right? Not exactly. Here's what you will need to make it happen:

1) Video screen or large white empty wall to project on too.

2) Projector

3) Where is your video stored? Is it on a DVD? Then you'll need a DVD player. Is it on a computer? Then you will need to bring that computer. Is it on the internet? Then you'll need to get it off the internet, and then bring a computer to play that file back. Is it on an iPod? Then bring that iPod.

4) Does your presentation include audio? If yes, then you will need a way to play that audio back. Using your laptop's built-in speakers is NOT going to work very well in a crowded room of 200 guests. The proper way to do this is to either A) tap into your venue's built-in PA system (you will need to contact your venue to arrange for this) or B) use your DJs sound system (and again, you will need to discuss this with your DJ)

5) Make sure you have all the correct cables in the correct length. Projectors generally have to be at least 6-12 feet away from the projection surface. You will need a cable to connect the projector to your source (i.e. Laptop, DVD player), and the type of cable will depend on what your source is (like maybe S-Video, VGA, HDMI, etc). You will also need an RCA cable to connect your audio. Depending on how far away the audio source is located, you might need a really long cable. Its usually a good idea to plan on having your screen and projector placed within 25 feet of either the venues sound system or your DJ area (and then a 25 foot RCA cable will work great). If you're using a laptop or ipod, then you'll need a 3.5 mini plug to RCA cable, and most likely an adapter to extend your RCA cable so its long enough to reach your DJ. Other things to remember: The power cable to your projector, a long extension cord, and a power strip (to plug everything into).

If any of the above does not make sense to you, then I recommend reserving Platinum Mix's 5x7 screen & projector package. Your DJ will then take care of all the technical details. Check out this post for more info on that.

Wedding Reception Slideshows

So now that you've read my post about adding some visual entertainment to your reception, and you're all inspired to create your own video presentation, let's talk about how Platinum Mix can help you make this happen.

To keep things as simple as possible, let's assume that you want to create a growing up photo slide-show and you want it to be played back at some point during your reception.

The easiest way to do this:

1) Reserve our 5x7 screen and projector package along with your DJ services.

2) Start getting together all the photos you would like included in your slideshow.
Platinum Mix will scan/digitize up to 50 photos for free (additional photos are $1.00 each). If your photos are already in a digital form, you can use an unlimited number of photos in your slideshow.

3) Decide on 3 songs you would like included in the slide show. One for the photos of the bride, one for the photos of the groom and one for photos of the two of you together. Also think about any special text you would like included along with the photos (title screens and/or captions).

4) Put your photos in the order you want them to show. If your photos are digital, please rename them all to be 001.jpg, 002.jpg, 003.jpeg, etc. If we will need to scan your photos, please either write on the back (in a light pencil maybe) - 1, 2, 3, etc. You can also use post it notes to add a number to your photos that need scanning. Captions can be indicated in the file name too. For example: 016 my first car.jpeg or 018 going to prom!.jpeg. With photos that needed to be scanned, use those same post-it notes you wrote the numbers on to include the captions.

5) You can mail a CD with all your photos, or stop by and drop everything off to Platinum Mix.

6) Platinum Mix will create your slideshow and then upload it to the internet where you can preview it. If any changes need to be made, let us know ASAP so we can make the changes in time for your wedding.

7) Your Platinum Mix DJ will play back your finished slide show at your reception.

If you would like to create your slideshow yourself, then we ask (and strongly recommend), that you make arrangements with Platinum Mix to turn in your completed video file prior to your wedding day so we can test it on our systems and give it to the DJ along with whatever equipment is required to play it back. Please note: If you create your own video file, Platinum Mix is NOT responsible (and no, you do not get a refund) if you did not turn in your finished slide-show at least 2 weeks in advance and then we can't play it (because the file format is not compatible, or your DVD skips). This is why we strongly recommend that you either let us help you create it (included as part of the package price), or mail in your finished video 2 weeks before your reception date.

That's the basics, but we get so many questions about this, here is a quick FAQ that might help you out::

How long will my slide show be?

That depends on how many pictures you give us. We recommend no more than a 6 minute long slideshow. Too much longer and your guests will start to get bored.

How many pictures should we provide?

Based on having 5-6 minute slideshow (as recommended above), each picture will show for about 4 seconds, so that means you should provide about 60-90 photos.

How will 3 songs fit in 5-6 minutes? Do we have to find 2 minute songs?

We will fit the music to your photos. We will most likely have to fade each song out early.

My father/uncle/brother/cousin/sister created a slideshow for us. How do we turn that in to Platinum Mix?

You can burn the video on to a DVD and mail that in to us or if you want to put a video file onto a flash drive, you can mail that or make an appointment to drop it off.

IMPORTANT NOTES:
Please do not use PowerPoint to create your slideshows. If you do use PowerPoint, then you will need to provide a laptop to play it back on. (Our DJs do not come with extra laptops loaded with PowerPoint so we will not be able to play those).

Please do not store your completed video on the internet (i.e. youtube, myspace, facebook, etc). Most reception venues DO NOT have wi-fi available and you will be unable to access your video on the internet. If they do have wi-fi, it tends to be slow and un-reliable for video streaming. Overall, this is a very bad idea.

How long does it take for Platinum Mix to create our slideshow?

Please allow 1-4 weeks from the time we receive all of your photos.

What is the deadline for us to turn in our photos?

2 weeks, or 14 days prior to your wedding. If your photos are not received at least 2 weeks in advance, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to complete your slideshow and you will receive a refund of the package price ($199).

More questions? Feel free to email or call, or leave your questions in the comments.

Wedding Reception Ideas | Got Video?

Add a little visual entertainment to your wedding reception with some creative use of multimedia content.

Let's start with some examples of what exactly "multimedia content" means and how you can incorporate it into your reception. The most popular idea, is a "growing up" photo slide show (also sometimes referred to as a "montage"). This would be a collection of photos of the bride and groom as babies, children, teenagers, college, etc and then finished with photos of the bride and groom while dating. These can be just simply played direct from digital files on a laptop computer setup in a corner of your reception room (or maybe by the guest sign-in book?), or shown as an actual presentation complete with music and moving video at some point during your reception. Here is an example of a growing up photo slideshow Platinum Mix created for a recent client:

Alex and Stephanie's Growing Up Photo Slideshow from Sara G. on Vimeo.

Platinum Mix clients have come up with plenty of other content to play back at their reception, here are some examples:

// We had a bride who was a 1st grade teacher. The groom went to her school with a video camera and asked her students for advice on how to be a good wife. The groom knew his way around video editing software, so he edited all the footage he recorded into a very hilarious video of the 1st graders responses. Platinum Mix played back the video at the reception, right after the toasts/speeches. All of this was a total surprise for the bride (which of course she LOVED!).

// Another couple we worked for, was really big into sky-diving. They had plenty of video of the two of them sky-diving, and so we played it while all of their guests arrived to their reception and during dinner. This went along very well with the "sky" theme of their reception.

// Music Videos! For all clients who reserve our dj package #3, your DJ will not just be mixing the music, but the original music videos are also played back on a large projection screen setup near the dance floor. Here's a photo of how this looks setup at a wedding reception held recently at the Inn at St. John's Grande Ballroom in Plymouth, Michigan:





// A very talented bride and groom (both played guitar and sang), hired Platinum Mix to create a music video of them actually singing, playing, and acting out the song they selected for their first dance. Our videographers went out and recorded all the footage, we edited up their music video, and then I played it back at the reception during the first dance. Totally awesome!

// Having a destination wedding and a local party? How about video-taping your wedding ceremony and then having us play it back at the reception?

// Same-day edit videos produced by several local professional videographers (or "Instant Replay" as Platinum Mix calls it) are also huge hits at receptions. The Platinum Mix Instant Replay works like this: Our videographers record the ceremony, photo sessions, and other wedding day activities and then we do a very quick edit of that footage and play back a 3-5 minute segment on our video screens at your reception (usually toward the end).

Of course there are so many more great ideas....

If you incorporated photo, audio, or video content into your reception, feel free to leave a comment. We would love to hear what other people have come up with! :)

First HD video clip!

Platinum Mix is finally making the big switch to high definition video! We're really excited about this, but its probably going to take at least 6 months or so to completely switch over...we've got several standard def cameras that all need to be ebayed t0 help generate the funds to replace our Canon GL2's with Canon XHA1's. Anybody wanna buy a couple Canon GL2's video cameras? :)

Evis is heading up our HD switchover, and to get us rolling, he shot some quick footage at Josh and Jenna's wedding at Waldonwoods in Hartland while Jenna and her bridesmaids were getting ready. Here is a quick segment he put together:

Josh + Jenna's "Getting Ready" Bonus Chapter from Sara G. on Vimeo.

Thanks Evis!!