Click/Drewry Wedding at The Caroline Inn in Chapel Hill on July 5th, 2013

It was such a pleasure to play for Amanda and Josiah’s wedding reception at The Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill.  After meeting Josiah, we realized he was a customer of mine 15 years ago when I ran a record store.  We both have a true love for music, so I knew music was important to him for his wedding. For their ceremony they were having a couple musician friends play bluegrass, so we chose to play bluegrass during the cocktail hour outside the Old Well room.  Ashley and David from Story Photography were there to catch every shot and the beautiful floral arrangements by Trebella and working with Tia Jones from Erin McLean Events made everything a breeze for me.

Amanda and Josiah decided not to have the whole wedding party announced into the room for the reception, but just them.  The entered to the Caroline Mix of Lady Gaga’s “You and I” and it couldn’t have been more appropriate for them.  Amanda’s Father, Richard, made a short welcome and the food stations opened.  I chose indie rock for the dinner music to reflect some of Josiah’s musical taste. As guests were finishing eating, Amanda & Josiah had their first dance to The Avett Brothers “Swept Away (Sentimental Version)” and then came the best part of the night.  Amanda’s Father LOVES the 80's song “The Safety Dance”. He actually asked me if I had it the minute he met me that night. Amanda chose to surprise him with it during her dance with him.  I invited him to meet Amanda on the floor and played about a minute of “Stand By Me” then a record scratch sound lead into "The Safety Dance".  He got a huge grin on his face and went right into the robot dance that he does.  The wedding party instantly joined them and everyone else followed.  What a great way to open the floor!  Motown and oldies followed and the floor stayed filled.

We stopped after a while for the toasts by The Best Men (Amanda and Josiah both had one) and the opening of the gelato bar done by Sugarland. The floor opened back up and some 80’s music brought everyone back out to the floor.  Since they are world travelers, the last song was Toto’s “Africa”.  They said a farewell to everyone made their way to the front porch of the Inn for cigars. What a fun group and I hope to run into them again shortly!