Last week’s bookings!

BANDS:

Heart & Soul at Shaker Country Club for a wedding.

JAZZ & SPECIALTY

Esto Jazz at the Skyline Hotel for a Corporate event.

Esto Jazz at the Ritz-Carlton for a Corporate event.

Being a professional singer who has gone through many quick-changes of black dresses in cramped dressing areas, I love my Gal Pal sponges. They were given to me by someone who understands – the other girl singer in my band, The Avenue – and they are a life savor when you need to remove deodorant marks off your clothes in a hurry. Amazing how sometimes the smallest and simplest gifts are the best gifts!

The original deodorant remover sponge is available at Gal-Pal.com or from your local Target store.

In tribute to this wonderful product, I thought I’d create a list of other helpful products to have on hand for the day of the wedding. Read the rest of this entry »

Thank you to wedding and event planner Eileen Benson of Elegance by Elm for these wonderful day-of wedding planning tips.

One of the most important tips is to have a plan for a time-line for the day of the wedding. But, leave it up to the planning professionals that you hire and just enjoy your day.

Make out a checklist of everything you need for the wedding and reception. Have a safety kit or tool box, and circle the things you want someone to gather at the end of the evening and put with the wedding gifts.

Regarding the tool box, I never do a wedding with out my emergency kit. Have these things set up ahead of time in case something should occur.  Just a few of the items include:

• Tylenol
• sewing kit
• super glue
• moleskin
• band aid
• mints
• Shout wipes
• scissors
• double sided tape for dresses (sold at dress shops)
• safety pins

I also always pack up cake to go for the bride and groom, as they never get to eat the cake.

If all the bridesmaids go to Church or a Synagogue to dress, have large, white shopping bags with the girls names painted on them and have the girls bring all the items they need in these bags. Once dressed, they can put all their items back into their bag and nothing is lost. The bags can be loaded into a limo and taken to the club or hotel, and it is so much easier to keep track of everyone’s things.

Eileen Benson’s Sample Day-Of Checklist

• rings
• marriage license
• wedding programs
• guest book
• favors
• seating list and floor plan (copy)
• cake knife and server
• place cards
• menu card

BONUS TIPS from Eileen:

Get to know professional jazz singer Evelyn Wright this Thursday when she appears on the PBS program Applause.

The Emmy award-winning TV show celebrates artists and cultural groups around Cleveland and Northeast Ohio.

Evelyn will perform with pianist Joe Hunter, and discuss her decades-spanning music career Thursday night at 7:30 pm on WVIZ PBS.

Here are our bookings for last weekend!

BANDS

Jerry Bruno’s “The ‘A’ Band” at Edgewater Yacht Club for a member’s party.

DJs

DJ Scott E. Jones at Windows on the River for a wedding.

CEREMONY MUSICIANS

Appassionata String Quartet at Williams on the Lake, Medina, for a wedding.

JAZZ & SPECIALTY ACTS

Pianist Roger Friedman at the Marriott Key Center for a wedding cocktail hour.

What good are awards for if you don’t boast about them, right?  In the past week we’ve found out we won the following:

A “Best of Weddings 2010″ Award from The Knot for Best Wedding Band goes to The Bottom Line band! As an office, we have been honored with this award for the past three years. This year, however, the “Best Wedding Music” category was split it into two: “Best Band” and “Best DJ.” We are still honored that one of our bands was named by the readers of The Knot!

Cleveland Business Connects Connector’s Choice Awards: We have been nominated for Best Cleveland Entertainment for the second year in a row. Readers of the magazine cast 1,948 total ballots between Nov. 15 and Dec. 31, 2009. Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on Wednesday, March 3rd at the House of Blues.

And finally, WeddingWire named us as a winner of their Bride’s Choice Award for 2010. This is the second time we’ve been given this award, which recognizes the top 5 percent of local wedding professionals from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service and professionalism.

The Bride’s Choice Awards™ are determined exclusively by recent newlyweds (brides and grooms) through extensive surveys and reviews.

Here are our band bookings for the week of January 18, 2010:

Jerry Bruno’s “The ‘A’ Band” at the House of Blues for a COSE event

The Rockin’ Ravers at the Sheraton Suites Cuyahoga Falls for a wedding

Sherena Wynn at the Western Reserve Historical Society Museum for their Somewhere in Time fundraiser

Here are our bookings for the Jan. 16th weekend:

BANDS

The Orchestra at Allen Theater for a wedding.

DJs

DJ Scott Jones at Brookside Country Club for a wedding

DJ Mike Alexander at the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame for a Progressive Insurance event.

DJ Gaz at St. Mary Magdalene Church Hall for a wedding.

Here are our artist bookings for the second week of 2010!

DJs

Scott Jones at Walden Country Inn for a wedding.

Bill Bowen at Ridge Manor Party Center for a wedding.

JAZZ & SPECIALTY

Ray Porrello’s Fine Jazz Trio at Ridge Manor Party Center for a wedding.

Our most popular wedding and event band, The Orchestra, just wrapped a brand new video shoot for 2010, and the first cut of this hot new batch of material is I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas!

Watch for the rest of the video from The Orchestra soon!