The annual Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in quality and service within the wedding industry, as determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 500,000 newlyweds.

Schiemer Entertainment is among the top five percent of all vendors in the WeddingWire community, which includes over 100,000 wedding professionals across the US and Canada. Awards were given to winners across 19 different service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers.

I would like to thank my past newlyweds for nominating me for the 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards.  Click here to read some of the generous reviews I’ve received.

Music database updated
- finally worked through a ton of issues so now my most recent catalog is now back online!

New planning form
- everyone has been upgraded to our new super detailed reception planner. If you’re new to the site, make sure to test drive the planner.

New reviews
- I’ve been extremely blessed to have received some new reviews over at WeddingWire.  My clients are the BEST!

I’ve been making a ton of other “changes under the hood” on the website as well, please let me know what you think!

Sometimes these choices are obvious, sometimes it’s a little harder to know what songs will make the day perfect. I’m pleased to announce that now integrated into the music selection area of the client area there are now extensive lists of helpful song ideas to help point you in the right direction when making music selections for your reception.

These lists are created from online requests from thousands of events from thousands of entertainers throughout the world so the choices are quite varied. You can simply click on a song on the list and add it to your request list for your big day. It’s simply perfect.

The lists featured include The Top 200 Requested Songs and five Top 100 lists from the 60′s, 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and 2000′s. These lists are great for choosing music based on your favorite decade to please every age of guest.

The best part (in my opinion) are Top 50 lists of song ideas for all the special events during the reception. You won’t need to choose a song from these lists but it helps having such great lists included right inside where you’ll be doing your planning. These Top 50 lists are:

Bride & Groom Dance
Bride & Father Dance
Groom & Mother Dance
Bridal Party Dance
Bouquet Toss
Garter Toss
Cake Cutting

Once your logged into Music Selection section of the the client area, just click the button in the upper right hand corner that says MOST REQUESTED. Double click on the song you want and it’ll perform a song search that you can add straight to your song list. This might also be a good place to find songs that you don’t want played at the reception… some times songs can be OVER requested.

I’m hoping this will help people take advantage of how much music is in my collection without having to search through every song in my database. (Which no one would ever want to do!) I hope this makes planning your music even easier, try it out and let me know what you think.

DID YOU KNOW? If your not a current client you can preview the entire client area (including the music selection lists) by going to the client login area through this link.

1. Be nice.

2. Don’t act like you know what’s going to “get the party started”. Assuming you know how to read a crowd of people better than the DJ is insulting (even if you do). Just politely ask for your song.

3. Asking for a song by the same artist that is playing is most likely going to result in not hearing your song for a long time, if at all. Try asking for a similar artist to one that’s playing and likely you will get your song played very quickly.

4. If you want to hear a song completely differently than what’s playing (say you wanna hear some country music during a big set of rap music), be patient and tell the DJ you understand that you’re asking a lot. (especially if there is a large group of people dancing – it may be a bit of a wait)

5. If there are people dancing, ask only for songs that you can and will dance to. Don’t think a DJ is going to clear a dance floor so that people can sit down and listen to your favorite medium tempo song.

6. If you’re at a wedding, the bride rules everything. Getting her to ask for your request should make it happen immediately. Only use this in extreme cases, no bride should have to run to the DJ all evening for YOUR songs.

7. Guys, ask a girl to come ask for your song. This makes it sounds as if DJs are sleezy guys, but actually it’s not for the reasons you may think. Girls are mostly likely to actually dance to the songs they request, and it’s the DJs just job to keep the dance floor full.

Just remember, that when you see a DJ somewhere, he’s doing a job and not being paid to simply act as a jukebox. It’s their job to filter through all the requests and play only those that will fit the mood and astmosphere they were hired to create. If you approach the disc jockey with a fun and friend attitude, you’ll mostly likely be able to negotiate with him to get on some selections quickly and get back to dancing.

I thought I should start with what is the most obvious and significant addition. My new sound system is a Bose L1 Model I Dual System/Quad Bass Package. Most people seem to be familiar with Bose from either home audio and car audio systems not knowing that Bose also makes similar quality systems for professional entertainers.

The most obvious advantage to this system is the small footprint it requires. What I love most about the system is that I’m able to deliver a full, rich sound system without destroying the beauty and elegance of the venue.

This system looks and sounds amazing. I’ve been using it for a little over 2 months now and have been receiving the nicest compliments on how great the music sounds. The unique design helps fill the room with clear sound like no ordinary speaker can. In comparison to a conventional audio speaker, volume and tone diminish very slowly over distance.

Depending on the size of the room and the amount of guests, some events will only require one of the speakers to fill entire room with amazing sound, taking up even less room at the venue. I’ve also been able to use the system already for a couple of wedding ceremonies and it’s so nice to know I’m not putting large ugly speakers in the same place where people are exchanging vows.

I’m very excited to be able to offer this amazing high quality sound system that delivers everything and skimps on nothing. It really is something that needs to be heard to be truly appreciated, I get excited to go set them up every week!

One of the most appealing aspects of the new site is the stunning imagery provided by Heather Lahtinen of Weddings By Heather. I’ve known Heather for many years, in fact, before she was even a professional photographer. I was the entertainer at the first wedding she shot and I’ve been amazed to watch her grow into one of (if not THE) leading photographers in the Pittsburgh Area. Heather is a great friend and deserves credit not only for the fantastic imagery on my website, but for pushing me in an entire new direction for my company. I really can’t thank her enough, but I’m going to try.

Obviously Heather’s photography speaks for itself. Sit with Heather for 10 minutes and you’ll understand how her passion for photography will become your biggest asset on your wedding day. She delivers 110% every time, and is so detail oriented that she’ll deliver images from your big day that you could never imagine. Heather also uses her people skills to interact with the other vendors that you’ve hired for you wedding. People may not realize how important this can be, but Heather uses her fun and easy going personality to coordinate with your DJ, Coordinator, Videographer, Caterer and other wedding professionals to make sure your event goes exactly how you have planned it. You only get one opportunity to hire the right photographer. Heather is well worth the investment. If you love the images on my site you owe it to yourself to jump over to Heather’s site RIGHT NOW and enjoy some more of her breath taking photos.

I loved using EricTheDJ, especially for my website address, since it was fun and easy to remember. Unfortunately that name no longer seems to truly represent me or the the full range of services that I offer now and plan to offer in the future. I needed to upgrade to something a little more robust, so today Schiemer Entertainment Services will be picking where EricTheDJ has brought me.

Both SchiemerEntertaiment.com and EricTheDJ.com will both bring you here so feel free to use either address, also I’ll be still using my ericthedj email address for quite some time during the transition.

This has been a huge change for me and how I present my business, I’d love to hear your comments, feel free to post them here or email me.

Getting ready to launch into wedding season and I thought it would be fun to post some new music. Will this be the big song of the summer? You tell me… I kinda like, makes me glad it’s almost Friday.

In case you don’t know – That’s Madonna & Justin Timberlake – 4 Minutes.