May 15, 20194 min read

Brooklyn Winery Wedding in Brooklyn, NYC for Nancy & Robby

Updated: Nov 18, 2019

Robby and Nancy had both their ceremony and reception at Brooklyn Winery and I was happy to be there for both. Their wedding started out chill and ended wild! Read on to learn more about this amazing event...

Brooklyn Winery Wedding

in Brooklyn, NYC for Nancy & Robby

by DJ Ben Boylan

The Venue

Brooklyn Winery is a big wine bar located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn that moonlights as a busy wedding venue. It has two spaces: the bar room and the atrium. The atrium is a long room that can be separated in the middle. On one side of it are windows and a skylight and on the other end are huge stainless steel wine-brewing vessels.

I'm familiar with the block because I used to DJ at a bar just a few doors down during my club-DJ career. It's in a really trendy area surrounded by cool restaurants, hotels and funky shops. Brooklyn Winery is a great nontraditional venue for a small to medium sized wedding.

Ceremony

Robby and Nancy had a lovely ceremony. The family and wedding party walked in to the instrumental version of "Turning Page" by Sleeping at Last, and Nancy entered to Sleeping Page's version of "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)." Their officiant Kaia was a pro and nailed the ceremony. Their recessional song was "There Will Be Time" by Mumford & Sons and Baaba Mal.

I had two setups for this Brooklyn Winery wedding. Two speakers and a mic in each room. I provided a mic and mic stand for the officiant and the couple used the mic to read their vows. In the bar room I also had my main DJ setup because that's where the dance set was scheduled to be.

Cocktail Hour, Intros and Speeches

After the ceremony, we moved into the bar room for cocktail hour. Nancy & Robby had chosen a great playlist for this part of the night and guests chatted and munched on snacks while I played it.

After cocktail hour finished, everyone headed back into the atrium for dinner. Once they were seated, I announced the couple into the room to the sound of John Legend's "A Good Night" and then they gave a welcome speech. During dinner, guests bobbed their head to a custom playlist I curated with the couple.

Dance Set

When dinner was finished, everyone moved into the bar room to watch Nancy and Robby do their first dance to "You and I (Nobody in the World)" by John Legend. While guests were cheering and clapping at the end of it, we moved into the dancing portion of this Brooklyn Winery wedding. And they surprised me!

I was so surprised at how much Nancy, Robby and their guests danced (over 2 hours straight). Why was I surprised? Well, some weddings are rowdy from the very start: guests are doing shots, chanting during dinner, etc... But this wedding was chill. Guests sat at their dinner tables long after they had finished their entree. No one was doing shots. It was actually pretty quiet too.

So that's why I was surprised when their guests went crazy for the music that I selected with input and feedback from the couple. We started with Motown and 60's rock, moved to 80's, then to pop and finally to old school hip-hop with classics interspersed through the night. They really ate it up and were cheering at the end of the night!

Ben was everything we wanted and nothing we didn't. We had a May wedding at Brooklyn Winery with 95 people. We scheduled 3 calls leading up to the wedding to discuss specifics and to express the "feel" of the wedding. Ben always made himself available via phone/email. He offered a structured worksheet beforehand that we gave some specific songs and asked him to improvize and feel out the rest -- we wanted some of our dancefloor and cocktail hour music to be a surprise to us, but to create a certain feel -- he accomplished this wonderfully! On specific songs (for bride walk-down song, recessional, first dance, etc), he was able to cut/blend tracks to hit all the timing we wanted on the ceremony -- (ie. "Ben, this seems too long in the chorus, could you chop 10 seconds?" = we'd often have a sample track in our email inboxes the next day) Ben also seamlessly coordinated with our officiant, wedding coordinator, photographer, and the rest of the team without us having to overmanage it -- huge upside. Ben was low-profile on Wedding Day, but always timed the music perfectly. He was creative with the space's AV constraints and acoustics, and he hit the volume just right for our different guests (grandma vs millenials). Competitive NYC price and was well worth it! - Robby