iWedding

Everybody's had their experience with a wedding or special event that is marred by a truly horrid band or DJ. For me, there was the bar mitzvah where the "band" (an older duo crooning a la Marty and Elayne from Swingers) drove me to drink, which led to an extended chat with the 19-year-old coat check girl that is often recalled at family gatherings. These embarrassing consequences are slowly being eliminated as more people replace DJ's with an iPod, pre-programmed with their own set list.

That's exactly what we did for our wedding six months ago. We weren't necessarily trying to low-ball the whole affair, but a band was way too pricey and we didn't want some up-with-people DJ jackass trying to "pump up" Grandma with Sir Mix-a-lot. I knew a handful of songs I wanted for dancing or ambience, and figured I could pound out a song list that would represent us and still entertain the crowd. The iPod was the perfect resource, and we only had to spend another $50 for a PA system. Genius!

Except, of course, it really wasn't that easy. Predictably, I waited until the last minute, programming the song list the day of the wedding. Some songs I had envisioned as "perfect" turned out to be too long, too harsh, too dumb, or (cruelly) not even available through iTunes. Then I not only had to figure out the perfect progression, but also how to force the iPod to play it in order. Finally, there was the moment of dread when we hit "play" and nothing came out of the PA; Larry quickly figured out that the iPod volume was too low, but not before a few bullets were sweat.

All of our struggles were vindicated when, in the middle of Wilco's "I'm the Man Who Loves You," the photographer ran by yelling "this is the coolest wedding, GREAT MUSIC!" Perhaps the only regret was picking "Tupelo Honey" as our opening dance number ... 7 minutes is way, WAY too long to make everyone sit around feigning enchantment.