Virtual Planning

Introduction Video

Hi. My name is Ryan Burger and I’m one of the co-owners of BCP Weddings. Since 1986, I’ve operated BCP Weddings with the goal of making wedding days very special for people like yourselves. We are owned by the same crew that owns a national disc jockey trade magazine that educates disc jockeys on doing exactly what we’re doing here.

Yes, we have all the tools. We have the office like what you see here. And we have the professional equipment to take care of you on your wedding day. But most of all, we care. This is all about education. These virtual meetings, that I hope you watch all the way through, will educate you on everything you need for your wedding day, the little touches that matter.

When we were planning out these videos, it kind of hit me. A couple that I worked with last week, absolutely phenomenal couple. The wedding party was great. We had a lot of fun with them all day long, involved in the ceremony and the reception. One of the bridesmaids came up to me later in the night, after seeing how I spent the entire day with them and knowing a little bit about the pre-planning process we go through, and she just said, “I didn’t know a disc jockey could take care of me like that; that they would take care of the little things; finding the cake-cutting knife; finding the bouquet, getting it in the right place; and taking care of all those little things.” She said had she known that a disc jockey was like this, she would have chosen us for her special day.

Enjoy these videos and somewhere down the line we’ll sit and meet in this office and plan your wedding day.

Your Wedding Ceremony

You’re having a traditional wedding reception at your local church. That’s not enough information for us to know about your wedding day.

Say, for example, you’re having a 3:00 ceremony. You’re also going to dismiss all of your friends from the pews afterwards. That’s going to take another 30 minutes after the ceremony. You’re also going to get pictures taken afterwards. That’s easily going to get us to 4:30, 4:45, which thus means your wedding reception’s not going to start until around 5:00, with you doing your grand entrance around 5:30, as we’ll discuss later. Those are things we need to know when helping to plan your day.

Say on the other side of the equation you’re doing an onsite ceremony. I did one down at the Simon Estes Amphitheater in downtown Des Moines just a couple weeks ago and it was fantastic. We worked with them on a bunch of different things. We had the maid of honor doing a reading. We had her also singing a song. We had a three-piece orchestra come in. We had a microphone on the officiate. Your wedding ceremony may not be that complicated, but do know that that’s something we can help take care of you on.

An onsite ceremony sound system — something to consider and something for us to talk about when we get together.

The Meal

Dinner is ready. Grace has been said. Let’s talk about the styles of music can be played for your dinner. We don’t just play Kenny G. We don’t play just music that’s going to put your guests to sleep. Let’s put a little bit of a mix of styles of music in there. Let’s put some Michael Bublé in. Let’s put some Dean Martin in. A little bit of different styles or keep with one style, it’s all up to you. It’s something that we can customize for your day.

Let me give you two ideas on what we can do for dismissing tables at the buffet. We can do trivia about the bride and groom, about the two of you guys. People know things about you and we can make a little bit of a trivia game out of it. Where did you guys first meet? Where was your first kiss? Where’s your honeymoon going to be? What’s your dog’s name? That kind of stuff.

Or we can go with something creative like singing for your supper. There’s always an outgoing person at about every table that’ll get up and they have to sing a love song to you for that table to then move on and grab a bite to eat.

Let us customize this part of your day for you when we sit down and meet in person.

Making Dinner Fun

Okay. The meal has started. Now you hear the clinking of the glasses. So what do you do? This is something we can be a little bit more creative with and work with you on customizing into your wedding reception. You can do something basic on that “wow” factor scale that we talked about earlier. Up in the 2 area, you can just do a basic kiss for you guys. We direct attention to you guys, you kiss, and we turn the music right back up.

Or you want to be a little bit more creative, something we’ve done a couple times recently is we’ll do a kissing bowl. You give us a list of names of couples that are there at the wedding reception, we put them in a bowl. The first time someone tinks that glass from the other side of the room, we’re actually going to call them up and explain to them what we’re doing. They’re going to have to pull a name out of the bowl; and, look, it happens to be the bride’s parents. They’re going to have to kiss, show the bride and groom how they have to replicate the kiss. And we do that a couple times and then we go back to music again.

Following the meal, as dessert is being served, we move on to the next portion of the night. We direct attention up to the best man and the maid of honor. They do toasts. Maybe Mom and Dad come up and say something. You guys say a thank you for everybody being there. More to think about and more to make a note of.

Your First Dance

Okay. It’s time to start the party. It’s all about honoring people and putting the spotlight where it needs to be put. Let’s deal with your first dance.

You guys are standing at the edge of the dance floor; the lights have been dimmed; maybe a mirror ball’s going in the corner and everybody’s looking around, waiting for a spotlight to end up on you guys. We get you out there for the first dance, start the song. But something we’ve done a little bit more creative for you guys specifically is a special edit of that first dance song, talking about how you guys first saw each other, what that first kiss was like; maybe even the vows from two hours earlier that were recorded, given to us and very quickly edited into the song. Those are some of the creative things we can do for you guys.

Father/daughter dance, mother/son dance, those special kinds of dances involving your parents or other special people in your lives. Let’s go and get them out there, put a little bit of the spotlight on them. But maybe Dad doesn’t want to be in the spotlight for more than a minute or so. So we’ll bring other father/daughter combinations up to the dance floor. You’ll have Grandpa up there with his 40-year-old daughter dancing next to you guys. It’s fantastic stuff.

Now let’s move on to the wedding party. Often, people will have whatever their second choice of their first dance track was, they’ll have that played for the wedding party. But let’s possibly consider turning that “wow” factor up to 8 or 9 or so and start with something with a little bit of energy, a little celebration, a little disco, little Black-Eyed Peas, something with a little bit more energy to it and kick that party off a little bit faster and with a little bit more energy.

Spend some good time thinking about these songs and what they mean to you and how they’re going to be remembered by you, and make some notes.

Other Events At Your Reception

Okay. We’re on to other special wedding traditions you might want to tie in with your day. Now, remember that all of this is totally up to you. If you want to do every wedding tradition that you’ve heard of, that’s up to you. But we’d really encourage you to be selective, choose what you want to, and only do the portions of the night that would really mean a lot to you. There’s a lot of things happening that night; let’s make sure every portion of it is special.

This is also an area where the “wow” factor is very important, figuring out where you want to place things.

Let’s move to the bouquet toss, one of the most popular traditional portions of the wedding reception.

A problem that we’d seen in a lot of the weddings we’ve done, especially with some of the ones recently, is a lot of the kids are out there on the dance floor and they’re getting stepped on by some of the other single ladies and single gentlemen when we get to their portion of the night. Why not do a candy toss? Get some Hershey Kisses, throw it out to the kids in a 1-2-3 style, and then the kids will gather it. They’ll move to the edges of the dance floor and we’ll bring the single ladies up there for the bouquet toss. We’ll position the photographer and videographer and make sure they’re catching all of this action. We’ll count 1-2-3, make a big deal, pop the music just in time. The bouquet flies over your shoulder. One of the ladies catch it and we get a couple pictures of it.

The ladies then head off. They are directed to bring their dates up to the dance floor because it’s usually more trouble to get the guys to come up for the garter removal. We have you sit down either in a chair or maybe use the best man as a chair or something else creative, but again in your style. The garter’s removed. It’s tossed in the same manner, catching it all on photo and video.

There’s lots of things you can do in your night. Again, it’s all up to you and what creativity you want to put behind it.

The dollar and honeymoon dance would be next. We’ve been calling it the honeymoon dance a little more commonly. And this is something that doesn’t need to last a half hour, doesn’t need to last 45 minutes like I’ve seen some of them do before and really drain down the party. It can be done in two or three songs. It’s all up to us talking with your best man and maid/matron of honor as to the pace that it’s going to go. The dollar dance basically is the guests will give one of them a buck or two and they spin around the dance floor for a little bit. It’s a time for you to socialize with everybody.

Now hopefully you’re writing down lots of notes on this kind of information and we’ll talk about it when we get together in person.

Working with all the People!

When you contract with BC Productions for us entertaining at your wedding reception, you’re doing more than just that. You’re doing more than hiring a DJ that will press Play every five minutes during the dance portion of the night. You’re bringing a wedding coordinator into your day that we can assist with almost anything involved.

Almost anything that you guys do or that we do is going to be caught on photo or video by your professional photographer or videographer, if that’s something you’ve brought into your wedding day.

It reminds me of a wedding I did a couple weeks ago out at the race track out there and the nice facilities they have. And we worked with this couple — one was the photographer, one was the videographer; they worked in tandem already. And we were able to tell them when different events were happening, when extra things that they might want to quickly catch or about to occur. It went phenomenally because of the coordination of your day that we’re able to do with other vendors. That’s why we ask for their phone numbers and contact information in advance and we introduce ourselves to them immediately upon them arriving at the reception.

A lot of also what we do is we work with the caterer or the facilities coordinator, anybody else involved in that day, and work with them to make sure everything goes perfectly smooth; making sure there’s champagne in the glasses right before the toast; making sure the tables are dismissed in order and organized. This is more information that we need to get from you guys so that we can make your day go smooth and that we’ll talk about in person.

Reception Basics

Okay. Now we’ve covered all the details. Let’s get into a little bit of the nitty-gritty of the information that we need to know.

We need to know the timeline of your day, how everything’s going to all line up. Yes, we’ll line up this whole timeline. Yes, we can vary from it that day depending on what happens. But I want to have something that I can encourage you on.

We need to know when the guests are going to arrive at the reception; when you guys are going to arrive at the reception; the approximate dinner time; and ultimately, when the room needs to be cleared for the night.

These are details we need to know. Go ahead and write them down and we’ll talk about them more in person.

Your Musical Styles and Tastes

Okay. The rest of the music for the night. This is where you can really personalize it to your event.

I did a wedding reception recently that the groom picked out every single song for the night. He picked out fantastic music for the whole night. Worked with us, it turned out phenomenal.

We’d prefer, though, that you give us a little bit of room to work with. Tell us the styles of music that you want or that you don’t want. Tell us specific songs that you want or don’t want. You can very easily use our online planning system to figure out all the different music that we have or that we can get a hold of for you.

This is an area that couples can spend a lot of time on. It’s up to you how much time you want to spend on it, but do remember that we only have about 30 to 35 songs that we’re going to get in an average wedding reception.

Keep writing down ideas, keep writing down questions for when we get together in person.

End of the Night

Okay. It’s 11:30. Your wedding reception’s due to end at midnight. Couple different options here. Often the bride and groom will just kind of slip off into the sunset and the party continues without them for a little bit longer, maybe a little bit of extra time.

Or a couple other options. Gets to be 11:45 and you’re due to end, remember, at midnight. And the pace just slows down; a little bit of swaying with your friends, a little “American Pie,” a little “Piano Man,” a little “Goodnight Sweetheart,” that kind of stuff.

Or we can take another direction. If you have the right crowd, we turn that “wow” factor up to 7 or 8. We get some energy going, we get people bouncing off the walls. We get a tie up in the air. We get people having fun, all kinds of energy all the way right until midnight. Bang, it’s midnight, the music fades, and people walk away knowing this was the best wedding reception they’ve ever been to. And the great thing is, it was your wedding.

Uplighting

Uplighting is a way of taking your wedding reception to an entirely new level. Uplighting is affordable decorating that you can make your hall look its absolute best. Just imagine simple wash lighting, off over in a couple of the corners, that slowly fades between the two colors that you’ve involved in your wedding reception. Imagine this: walking out to the dance floor, seeing your initials right in the middle of the dance floor, and looking up, seeing a starry night created by uplighting and lasers. This is stuff that can be done affordably for your wedding reception. Think about it, dream about it a little bit, and we’ll talk about it when we get in person.

A Photo Booth At A Wedding?

A popular trend in weddings that allows your guests to go home with a memento or party favor that reminds them of the day is these photo booths, having your guests go home with a picture of them and their friends having a blast at your wedding day, and then you get a copy of all of them also. This is something that will constantly remind them of all the fun they had at your wedding reception.

Availability is rather limited on this, so if you are interested, please say something to us when we get together in person.