Instant is now even faster!

We have added more “instant” to instant gratification.  Add the instant upload option to your photo booth or other photography related product booked through our company and guests are now able to:

• E-mail the pictures they just took to themselves and up to three other friends.
• Post their pictures directly from our iPad to their Facebook profile.
• Tweet their pictures using Twitter directly from our iPad.
• All of this in seconds!

When you add the instant upload option, we include an internet connected iPad and software that allows guests to be able to do these uploads right on the spot.

This works with all of the Picstrips.com photography products, including our beautiful photo booth, the white hot photo lounge, green screen photos, candids or event photos taken by one of our roaming photographers, or red carpet photos taken by one of our paparazzi photographers.

Call 817-410-8399 or 214-206-1724 to add this option to your photo booth today!

The members of American Association of Certified Wedding Planners have nominated me for the “My Favorite Vendor” award for 2012 in the disc jockey category.  This is the third year in a row that I have received the prestigious honor of being nominated, and won the award in 2010.

Members of the AACWP vote to decide which of the people in the area they enjoy working with the most in all categories, including favorite venue, photographer, florist, disc jockey, live band, lighting and many more.  Nothing feels better than the planners themselves nominating you for their own version of the academy awards, let me tell you!  There are usually  three nominees per category.  If you think about the number of professionals in our area, just getting nominated by group is such an honor.

The award presentation will be held in late February at the Rosewood Crescent Hotel.  We will be there, ready to see all of our friends of the AACWP and hopefully take home the award!  Thank you to all of the planners that we have had a chance to work with over the past year.  It is because of you that I get to do what I love to do and make it a living.

Success to all of us in 2012!  Let’s help those brides!

We received a call for the marketing firm responsible for many political events in the North Texas area to help with a fundraiser that was held in Fort Worth for Texas State Senator Wendy Davis.

The revitalized Magnolia Green Park in Fort Worth was the location. David Husbands with Rental Stop provided the tenting and power for the event.

RSE provided audio for the entire program including wireless microphones for the presentors and band FOH for Sarah Hickman, who performed on our stage. Plasma screens were hung in the room for guests to be able to see the videos shown during the presentation. Lighting included ambient lighting in the tent and stage lighting, both intense color lighting for the musical performance and corrected stage wash for promotional pictures during the presentation.

RSE worked hand-in-hand with the marketing team running stage, music and lighting cues. From small meetings to large general sessions, we can handle your event. Please call 817-410-8399 to speak with Randal for more information.

We received a call from Pillar Hotel and Resorts to help them with an event they had coming up at one of our favorite places, Austin Ranch in Grapevine.  Apparently they had a less-than-pleasant experience with the disc jockey they had last year and wanted to make sure that their awards banquet and party were over the top.

Enter us… We’re not just a “disc jockey”!  In speaking with our client, we were able to determine where the short-comings had started–there wasn’t enough planning with the last party.  To that end, we figured out what they wished to accomplish and came up with a program that would more than over the top!

In my opinion, awards presentations need to be done right.  That means:  we need to be able to hear the person who is presenting, we need to know what the award is about and we need to be able to make a lot of noise when the winner is announced.  To that end, we make sure that there is a script ahead of time.  Then we choose the right music to bring each recipient up and make the evening run flawlessly.  Picture the academy awards–they have a high level of production value, and so should any awards presentation.

Pillar decided that they wished to have a talent show for their employees following the awards presentation.  Not just any type of talent show, this one ended up becoming a mash-up between America’s Got Talent and American Idol.  The managers were game to be a part of the show and we ended up having someone to play the role of Ryan Seacrest and for judges, someone to be Simon, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler.  Not only did they play the part, they dressed the part, which took the event up several notches in fun for the employees.  When management types play along, it really inspires their employees.

What was even better, out of a group of 200 people, there were nearly 25 employees who participated in the talent show.  That is an incredibly high percentage of participants for the total number of people!  There were solo acts, duos, and several group acts.  Some were comedy, some were singing, and some were acting skits.  You can tell by the video that they really took this seriously–after all, there was $1000 on the line–$500 in cash and $500 in the form of a donation to their favorite charity.

Talk about the ultimate in team building!  The entire company is going to be talking about this party until next year, when we do it again.

Thanks Pillar for letting us help and be a part!  Our thanks to Colin Shubitz of Camera2Productions for helping with the video and providing us the demo reel!

If you are interested in having a spectacular corporate party for your company, call us at 817-410-8399 or 214-206-1724 and lets start planning!

Perfect date, check. Great location, check. Great MC/DJ, check. Custom linens, lighting, big cake, awesome food and signature drink, check.

What’s missing? Oh yeah, a few dance lessons. Greg Michaels can help. Greg is a skilled ballroom dancer and in a former life he was a professional “Fred Astaire” dance instructor. Greg utilizes his talent again at a dance studio in Grapevine called “Dance On The Vine”.

Every single client that I’ve referred to Greg has given rave reviews on their dance instruction (and DJ too!) Greg takes time to get to know you, watches you dance a little to see what your skill level might be (and your trainability) and helps create a first dance for you that won’t be forgotten. Whether you wish to learn the basics of dance, learn the basics of the song you are going to dance to for your first dance or bring your whole bridal party in for lessons so that your wedding looks like a choreographed high school movie, Greg has the skills to help.

Some people choose three lessons and learn the basic dance steps for their song. In those lessons Greg can teach you the basic pattern, a turn or two, a way to get out onto the dance floor and a way to end the dance to make you look like a hero. If you consider yourself more advanced, he can teach you a complete choroeographed routine in five lessons.

Either way, you are going to impress your friends and have a wedding video worth remembering! Open your mind and get ready to have some fun. Greg is available evenings and some weekends to teach. His dance website can be found here: www.gregmichaels.biz Give him a call at 469-877-8709 and schedule your lessons today.

You never know what you’re going to find on the internet but when I was going through fellow DJ Brandon Steward’s You Tube channel, I came up with a piece of video we didn’t even know that he recorded!

Brandon is famous for his “gig logs” on YouTube and works at Countrywide Mortgage (now Bank of America Mortgage Services) during the day. He recorded this footage at their Fort Worth campus while we were there working for our friends Monica Puckett, Belinda Williams and Elena Celestine.

The premise of the gig was simple, make the place look like a rock star set. To accomplish that, we brought in a 12′ x 8′ stage, covered it with our road cases and then put a truss over it with moving lights and a plasma screen. Elsewhere in the room were more lights and more plasma screens. While the event was happening and Belinda was acting as the Master of Ceremonies, we had two cameramen aiming cameras at the action while it was simulcast onto the screens. In addition, for the awards that were being presented, we had video overlays showing the names of the awards and the recipients. Very cool and a lot of fun to do.

The crowd there at Countrywide is known for breaking out into dance, so before the actual event starts, we usually had a 20-30 warm up where everyone would sing and dance along. The latest line dance craze, in this case the Cupid Shuffle, broke out when the song was played.

Involvement is key when it comes to corporate entertainment. This client knew that they had to get people involved and having fun, from letting us play music that got the crowd motivated to giving away door prizes to letting people stand up in front of their peers and show off.

As always, a great time and in this case, a great memory. Thanks Brandon!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Randal Stout of Randal Stout Entertainment (RSE) was named The Knot Best of Weddings 2011 for Disc Jockeys in the North Texas area.

Our friend Jessica Dillion of The Knot called us today to tell us that we had received Best of Weddings for 2009, a continuation of the award that Randal Stout had received for 2008.

The text below was copied from The Knot website in regards to how the voting for this prestigious award was handled:

We recently surveyed more than 21,000 recent brides to get real reviews on the top wedding vendors and venues across the country. The Knot Best of Weddings magazine is a compilation of these results. It’s your one-stop planning guide chock full of real brides’ reviews and insider tips. And now that the results are out, we’re here to tackle your biggest questions (what does that check mark mean again?). Read on to find out.

THE BASICS

Q: Who was invited to participate in the survey?
A: This survey was a partnership between TheKnot.com and WeddingChannel.com. In order to receive an invitation to participate, members had to meet the following criteria:
Registered on either site as of September 2010,
Got married on or before September 30, 2010, and
Opted-in to receive communications from either site. Those members who participated in last year’s survey were not invited to participate in this year’s study.

Q: Who conducted the survey?
A: Harris Interactive, a well-respected third-party research firm, worked with us to create this survey. For more information on Harris Interactive, please visit harrisinteractive.com.

Q: Was the survey conducted the same way as last year?
A: Yes; however there were some refinements on the results. Based on the data that was received, some markets or categories may have fluctuated in length. But the same general procedure and selection process was adhered to this year.

Q: How did brides rate the vendors?
A: Brides were able to select their wedding service providers from a drop-down supplied list or they could write in the name, based on the geographic location of the vendors they used. Brides could then rate those vendors both overall and by certain attributes. Additionally, brides were encouraged to include specific comments about each of their vendors.

Q: Do you have to be an advertiser to be rated?
A: No. Our drop-down list of vendors is a comprehensive list of wedding vendors throughout the US. However, brides also had the opportunity to write in the names of any vendors they used that were not featured on the list.

Q: How were the rankings determined?
A:The survey results supplied us with an average score for every vendor. Obviously, the highest ranked vendors were those that were selected to run in the magazine and stars were assigned based on their score.

Q: What’s an editor’s pick?
A: It’s simply that. We tossed aside the votes for those vendors we feel rank above and beyond for outstanding service and noted them as such by designating them with a check mark. We have worked with these vendors and were very impressed with their skill and service.

Q: Why do certain categories only have lists with contact information and no reviews?
A: The same criteria, including score, were used to select these vendors, but overall we found that the review information wasn’t essential in these catergories.

I lifted this picture from Kendall’s Facebook profile picture!  It’s only been a few days since the wedding and we don’t have any images yet but I received an e-mail from the parents of the bride that made my day…

Randal,

 Sorry we didn’t get a chance to speak with you after the reception Saturday night.  I don’t know a lot about what makes a great wedding reception, but I would say ours was quite a success if you go by the amount of people out on the dance floor.  I have had so many people tell me it was one of the most entertaining and fun weddings they have ever been to.  Thank you for your part in creating such a festive atmosphere for our guests, and in turn making it the fairytale wedding Kendall and Jason dreamed of.

Dr. & Mrs. Kenneth Kirkham

It was such a pleasure working for the Kirkham family!  The evening featured an all-star cast:  reception at the City Club of Fort Worth with Amy Shackelford, Tracy Autem doing the photography, video from Adrianne Porcelli of Turquoise Video Productions, and our good friend Tami Winn with Tami Winn Events providing incredible holiday floral. 

We can’t wait to see the pictures and the video…  It’s the only way you’ll believe the evening, which started with fun introductions of nearly thirty people in the bridal party, including a surprise visit from Mr. & Mrs. TCU Santa Claus.  During the cake cutting, Kendall & Jason did a play fake where Kendall pretended to make Jason mad by putting a little cake on his face.  They ran out of the ballroom to the theme from Benny Hill at which point the song changed to “Start Wearing Purple” and the two came back in with the TCU Super Frog mascott.

After that, it was no holds barred.  Kendall and Jason wanted to dance, and that’s all we did the rest of the evening…  More to come when the pictures and video arrive.

Bri + Vincent Wedding Highlights from Elvision on Vimeo.

Talk about one of the craziest weddings of the year! I got the call from Karmen Pannell of KP::Event Designs to help with Bri & Vincent’s wedding at the Belo Mansion.

All Vincent could talk about was how crazy the party was going to be, and it didn’t disappoint.  There were to be all kinds of things that we did that night, including a dance contest for the bridesmaids and the groomsmen (keep in mind, a wedding video does not normally include groomsmen without their shirts on, but that’s where we ended up during the dance contest!)

You’ll also see that Vincent wanted an ice sculpture of himself, which is so his personality.  Next to the ice sculpture is the Gotham City cake and on the floor beside it is the bat signal that we created in light to complete it.  The bat signal was a surprise from Bri and her mother Cameron.

The rest of the evening was a huge party.  They were on the dance floor after dinner and stayed there until we wished them off at the bitter end.  This was one of the most fun weddings we have done in a long time, and it was because the bride and groom knew their guests and made sure that the entertainment fit.

Karmen did all of the coordination and also the floral for the wedding.  Elvis Bowman of ElVision was the videographer.  Thanks Elvis for the video!

God is very gracious and He can hit you upside the head when you least expect it. At the end of May last year we received a call from a bride needing a disc jockey… She had found us on Google and said, “I like what you had to say on your website. I’d like to come meet you.”

This is where it gets funny, because I am not a reality-show junkie. Michelle came to the office and explained her “backyard wedding” that was to take place at Austin Ranch in The Colony. She had simple tastes, just wanted the evening to be a movie soundtrack and wanted to enjoy things. That’s when she explained who she was, Michelle Aguilar, winner of The Biggest Loser. Now in all honesty, besides this being a God thing, I think the reason she hired me is because I didn’t know who she was and wasn’t all star struck, which in this case helped because she was just experiencing the loss of anonimity.

Little did we know that this would be a high profile wedding and become US Weekly’s “Wedding Of The Year”.

Now on to the wedding:  We provided ceremony sound for the outdoor wedding, which including putting microphones on the minister and Micah, the goom.  Dax, who is the lead singer for Fellowship Church in Grapevine was the ceremony musician. He played all the ceremony music including “Michelle” by the Beatles as the brides’ march.

From there guests made there way to the back of The Ranch House at Austin Ranch, which looks like a sprawling meadow on the top of a higher elevation.  The backyard was set with picnic tables in rows.  After the couple had finished pictures with David Edmonson we introduced them to the cheers of their friends.

The reception was then interrupted by an approaching helicopter.  The surprise had the guests worried for Michelle that it was a paparazzi trying to interfere with the day, but when it landed I played the theme from “Magnum P.I.” as Michelle and Micah ran towards it and got on for a thirty minute ride around the area.

After their return, they celebrated their first dance and the dancing continued until the end.  Such a beautiful couple and a fun day.  Wondeful coordination provided by Mary-Frances Hurt of DFW Events.