Michigan Wedding DJ Suggests Bride’s Re-think Timing

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Ok, this could get some brides thinking I am a militant hyper opinionated dj and business owner. Well, the truth is it’s really more about helping my clients have a great wedding. Here is the tip and a little background.

1) Michigan has the longest wedding receptions in the country already with 6 hours as the norm. Even New York is at 4 hours.
2) People with kids and those married over the age of 25 generally speaking, not always have some sort of internal ding that says “get to bed my midnight”. I didn’t create this ding – it just is.

So, if you do have the usual 6 hour Michigan Wedding Reception, consider that 6 hours is 2 times longer than you ever, even in your college party days, spent dancing. “Oh but Dan, my friends and I used to get to the club around 10 and dance until it closed”… OK OK – but the club didn’t have to play music for people of all ages. They often just played to that core target market and that is a whole lot easier than keeping 150 people going at a wedding where people have diverse tastes and stamina. I am not suggesting you cut back to less time but I sure hope you can see that 7 hours is for 99% of the crowds too long. The best weddings are the ones where the floor is still packed at closing time and that is way harder to do when the dance window goes from 3.5 hours to 4.5 hours. Not impossible (I’ve done it) but the law of diminishing returns comes to play.

Remember I mentioned the midnight and people’s internal ding? Here is a tricky way to use that to your advantage. Start your Michigan Wedding Reception at 5pm and go to 11pm. Now, everyone is home on time for their sitter and are surprised when the last dance comes an hour earlier than expected. Now, you have a full house at closing time. This is a good way to end. As a Michigan professional wedding dj, I am only suggesting that you’ll get more out of your night by having more people there for the entire evening than if they start rolling out to get home by midnight. For more great wedding reception tips check out the video below.

Royal Park Hotel Rochester Michigan Wedding Reception DJ Tour

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royal park hotel wedding

What can I say? This place is as good as it gets. I know of few venues in Michigan that are so truly 5 Star and I have played at nearly all of them. The grounds are perfect, the food looked to be off the charts (more on that later) and the service from what I could see looked stellar. From the time you pull up to the time you get inside it’s a class act. It is located just east of the downtown Rochester, MI “Main Street”. It is flanked on one side by a river and has trees canopied over the patio side as well. It’s truly a site to see – no sense in going on, The Royal Park Hotel in Rochester is beautiful and for a wedding or corporate event it’s a home run.

The conservatory is beautiful and I have deejayed receptions in it and ceremonies both. It is surrounded by a beautiful garden and is simply spectacular. The foyer areas are practically as big as the main ballrooms and are covered in wood, marble and leather. Anyway – just go see it.

The only solid complaint is that of all the places I attend as a vendor, this is one place that must encourage their customers to purchase a vendor platter which frankly tells the vendor they’re not quite worthy of a meal. I say encourage because this is the only place in a long time that I can remember that literally walks the vendors into a room and says here is your turkey sandwich… I play at upper end venues often and pretty much get a real meal wherever I go. The sad part is, at this wedding, the amount of food left over in the buffet could have fed a small army but the photographer and I “never got the hook up”.  I’m over it (sort of) but it’s a really tacky move you think they’d have thought through because nothing else is remotely tacky but that!

The Menu is Here

The Website is Here
The Address is: 600 East University Drive • Rochester, MI 48307
(248) 652-2600

Here is the Royal Park Hotel in Rochester, MI video tour / review: