When I received Celie & Michel's completed worksheet I got really excited. There were a lot of different types of music in there! At their Brooklyn Botanic Garden wedding we played salsa, pop, afrobeat, hip-hop, dancehall, classic rock, french music, motown, bachata and more! And their guests packed the dance floor all night!
Brooklyn Botanic Garden Wedding
for Celie & Michele
by Ben Boylan
Venue
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is a beautiful oasis of trees, flowers and exotic plants in the middle of Brooklyn. It has two wedding venues and Celie and Michele chose the Atrium. The Atrium is a nice room framed by floor to ceiling windows, fronted by a spacious outdoor patio and surrounded by the gardens.
Ceremony
Celie and Michele chose the rose garden for their ceremony. The name says it all... They were surrounded by rose bushes and they couldn't have asked for better weather. I provided one mic for their officiant and another for Celie's dad who played a song on acoustic guitar.
Michel walked in to an instrumental version of "Stand by Me" and Celie entered the ceremony to a string quartet version of "So this is Love" from Cinderella. When the ceremony concluded they left to Ray Lamontagne's "You Are the Best Thing."
Cocktail Hour, Intros and First Dance
After the ceremony, guests headed back to the Atrium for cocktail hour on the patio. They enjoyed drinks and snacks while listening to a custom Spotify playlist the couple provided which spanned r&b, indie rock, bachata, french r&b, classic rock and Brazilian. Not bad!
I introduced them into dinner to the sounds of "Magic in the Air" by Magic system feat. Chawki. It's a French pop song that I hadn't heard before. It really got their guests pumped up and had everyone clapping. When they made it to the middle of the dance floor, they began their first dance to Etta James' "At Last." Both sets of parents joined them halfway through.
There was one set of toasts. All guests who spoke used my wireless mic and sounded great.
Dance Sets
There were technically three dance sets. I say "technically" because the first one was only one song: "Signed, Sealed and Delivered" by Stevie Wonder. It was right after the first dance/parent dances and got everyone out on the dance floor.
The next dance set was in between courses and I started out with some oldies like motown, classic rock and 70's tracks. Their guests all got off their seats and danced for 25 minutes before their main course was served.
The final dance set was when this Brooklyn Botanic Garden wedding really got fun. I started off with some afrobeats tracks, played some dancehall and then dropped some of the french r&b tunes the couple had requested. For the rest of the night I was alternating between French r&b, pop and hip-hop. Both sides of the family danced to everything. I really enjoyed that.
We loved working with Ben for our wedding back in June. He was both professional and fun. We had live music during our ceremony and Ben was very helpful through the entire process. He made us feel great about our music choices and our guests were dancing all night! They loved the music! We couldn't be more pleased. Working with Ben was wonderful and we highly recommend hiring him for your next event! - Celie
Thank You Celie & Michel for letting me be a part of your
Brooklyn Botanic Garden wedding!
Vendors
I had the pleasure of working with the following vendors:
Venue/Caterer: Victoria Laughton of Patina Events
Officiant: Stephanie Mercurio of Unfiltered Weddings
Photographers: Anna & Mikhail of Williamsburg Photo Studios