The 1960’s were a great time for American traditions like rock n’roll and cocktails. Now timeless, these two traditions lay the foundation for an innovative fundraiser, Dancing in the Street Charity Concert and Auction, benefiting Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights Aids.

Dancing in the Street is an annual event held in a different city every year. This year, Chicago was the choice locale for the national touring cast of the stunning Broadway Musical Jersey Boys. The event was hosted by the cast’s own Frankie Valli (Joe Leo Bwari) and held at Kimpton’s Hotel Allegro Grand Walnut room.

Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights Aids is the nation’s leading industry based HIV/AIDS fundraising and grant-making organization. The cast and crew of Jersey Boys Chicago has been honored two years in a row by Broadway Cares for being the top fundraiser in the Tour category. Jersey Boys Chicago raised $220,000 in 2008 alone.

MDM Entertainment Special Event Lighting helped set the mood for cocktail hour with a soft hue of color created by uplights spaced around the room. Each table looked as if it were glowing with the help of pinspotting, giving the room a little brightness and warmth. Guests munched on great 1960 inspired hors d’oeuvres like mini burgers, French fries, reuben sandwiches, and chicken salad – just like what grandma used to make!

During cocktail hour guests were also able to mingle with Jersey Boys cast members and encouraged to bid on silent auction items.  A little less silent was the show, featuring a live band and the first national tour cast of Jersey Boys themselves. The group sang many Motown hits, crooning mostly songs of the Four Seasons.

After a short intermission, Patra, the hilarious auctioneer, continued the evening with a live auction. It featured some amazing items like autographed sheet music of “Sherry” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”, signed by Frankie Valli and Bob Goudio, tickets to a Chicago Blackhawks game (with a ride in a Zambonie!), tickets to Jersey Boys with a backstage tour, and a walk on role in Jersey Boys complete with rehearsals, watching the show from the directors area, and tickets for a few of the highest bidders personal fans.

Cast of Jersey Boys singing “I Want You Back”

The event was just as unforgettable as the charm and success of The Four Seasons themselves!

If you are looking to make your charity event, fundraiser, or wedding a little more rock n’ roll, contact us at 773-253-4986

When you work in the wedding world, you see it all, hear it all, and prepare for all. As a bride-to-be, wouldn’t you want some advice coming straight from the experts?

Starting this week, we will be bringing you posts written by some of our favorite vendors.

DJ’s, photographers, and more, will be giving their personal perspective on some of the most important factors to one of the most important days. This week we start with Karolina Warren of Weddings by Karolina. Karolina is a charismatic and knowledgeable wedding coordinator we have the pleasure of working with frequently.

Here are a few things Karolina finds most important when picking your own wedding coordinator!

1.  Wedding Coordinators can save you money! You cannot put a price on experience. Since we’re constantly working with different vendors we know who can give you a great deal, who the best vendors are, and more importantly, who the best vendors are for you! You also want to enjoy your day and be stress free the weeks leading up to your special day. Why not put it into the Wedding Coordinator’s hands, and just enjoy it like you’ve always dreamed about. Don’t worry about calling your vendors, setting up place cards, making sure your florist is setting up centerpieces. Sit back get pampered and marry the love of your life. Time is money! Having a partner in planning with the professional know-how will cut down on time significantly.
2. Make sure you’re hiring a Certified Wedding Coordinator like me, certified from the Association of Bridal Consultants.  All members need to meet (and often surpass) guidelines, so you know you are getting a quality coordinator.
3. Meet the Coordinator in person to look at her portfolio and get all the information on what exactly is included in their package pricing and contracts. You want to make sure both your styles blend.
4.  Make sure you get along with the coordinator and like their personality because remember, you may be working with this person throughout your entire wedding planning process.

Talk to Karolina or MDM Entertainment about how you can incorporate personalize lighting into your plans for a magical wedding.

- By Karolina Warren

The Basics

Wedding Rings: Some historians suggest that the first attempt at, “trying to put a ring on it” stemmed from the early days of man. The archaic grooms would use plaited circles to bind their new Bride’s wrist and ankles to keep her spirit from running off. Egyptians used twine to symbolize that their love had no beginning and no end. Unfortunately, wear and tear would force an end to these rings, so it was the Romans who took the idea a step further and used iron. Italians, who believed diamonds were created from the flames of life, started incorporating the stone into their wedding bands.

Fun fact: Some European cultures wear their ring on the right hand. During the reformation, the placement of your wedding ring was a sign that you were Catholic (left) or Protestant (right).

Bouquet: Holding an arrangement of flowers has not always been a great way to tie the bride’s look into the décor of her wedding. Rather, it was traditionally composed by scent, not by color palette, because they performed two important functions. First, the strong aromas covered up the smell of the wedding party and guests who had not had a chance to bathe in the past few..er… weeks or so. Our ancestors reserved the occasion on a need-be basis – clean water was limited and hygiene was not seen as a high priority. Incorporating strong herbs like thyme and garlic were also used to ward away evil spirits.

Fun fact: In ancient times, the bride was thought to be especially lucky on her wedding day. Guests would want a piece of her luck and would often try to take part of her outfit. So, the bouquet was tossed to keep the bride from getting bombarded.

Bridal Veil: In the time when most marriages were arranged, newlyweds were rarely allowed to see each other. In a time where dowries were so vital to prosperity, the bride’s family would fear a change of heart in the groom based on her appearance. The veil allowed for the father of the bride to wait till the final moment to reveal her.

Fun fact: Some early civilizations like the Greeks and Romans would use yellow or red to convey fire, warding off any evil demons lurking by.

I always wonder who came up with that…

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”: The combination of these four elements was, like many other traditions, based on the fear of evil spirits. Putting together something to symbolize the continuation of love from another generation (old), the transition into adulthood (new), good fortune from a successful marriage (borrowed), and an image of purity and fidelity (blue), ensured the safety and happiness of the bride.

“Tying the knot”: Literally, a reference to the bridal girdle of the Roman Empire. The undergarment was tied prior to the ceremony (and later untied by the groom to consummate it!).

Tossing rice: Originally, nuts and grains were thrown to show the happy couple that their guests wished them luck and fertility. In years where the harvest didn’t yield a plentiful harvest, rice was substituted.

Popular wedding traditions have roots in centuries of culture and beliefs. Brides have their own interpretation of veils, bouquets, and more. While they differ, the continuation of these traditions allows them to flourish today.

We have plenty of ways to make your wedding day special, whether you prefer classic and traditional or chic and modern. Contact us at 773-253-4986 to find out more.

For the vast majority of a wedding, the bride and groom are the focus of the moment. Every guest is constantly staring, taking in the dress, the tuxedo, and never-ending smiles. But the time comes in the evening where the guests are seated and instead of looking at the happy couple, they are positioned in a circle where the focus becomes that little something in the middle: the centerpiece. These small, but effective, additions to your décor can reflect that special sort of atmosphere you’ve always dreamed about for your special day. Here are some tips to get you centered on your ideas.

Keep in mind that while these decorations are supposed to be at the center, they are just a piece there-of. You do not want your centerpieces to get in the way of your guests and become the center of attention in a negative way Instead, opt for a really tall or really short piece. For shorter floral arrangements, incorporate a fishbowl-style vase.  If you go for tall, note that the base should be thin or see through as well. Choose something like a classic glass vase, or a romantically styled iron candlestick. That way, guests can easily converse over the table without craning their necks and feeling terribly awkward.

Note: You don’t have to just do one or the other – consider having both short and tall arrangements to create an interesting dynamic to your décor. Emphasize the difference with subtle lighting techniques like tea candles or pin spotting.

A great example of this would be from the Viella’s wedding that took place just this past weekend at the Millennium Knickbocker Hotel in downtown Chicago. The pairing of low and high arrangements came to life with some tea candles and pin spotting.

On a tight budget? Double your flowers as favors or nametags. Instead of creating one large piece for every table, make smaller arrangements to fit at each place setting. Personalize it with your wedding colors or initials of the bride and groom. Keep in mind you will have to find 8-12 per table depending of the size of the table at your venue – petite and portable is the way to go.

Though the traditional choice of flowers is classic and beautiful, don’t eliminate other plants. Incorporate a different aesthetic by using thin tall leaves, bamboo, or whimsical branches (think cherry blossom or maple tree). Or, eliminate plant life all together and choose a centerpiece a little more unique to the couple. Stack a few of your favorite books or a significant statue or piece of memorabilia. Pictures are always a great conversation starter, so correlate the table number with a picture of the bride and groom from that year of their life.

If the non-traditional centerpiece is what you fancy, take it a step further by making them interactive with your guests. Leave a box and paper on the table for well wishes as an alternative to a guest book. Instead of putting a number in the center of your table, put labels on the wine bottles used for dinner. There are hundreds of possibilities when you look outside the garden.

Centerpieces are great focal points for your wedding reception. From classic and traditional floral arrangements to fresh new ideas, centerpieces are a great way to carry your theme to the eyes of every guest.

For more ideas, check out our centerpiece Pinterest board, or contact us at 773-253-4986

April 22 is a day reserved to celebrate and show our appreciation for Mother Earth. GreenBrideGuide.com tells us that of the 2.5 million weddings that will take place this year, each event will produce 400 to 600 pounds of garbage and an average of 62 tons of carbon dioxide.

Here are a few simple tips to make your wedding uniquely earth conscious, as well as unforgettable. You may just make your friends go green with envy!

Whether you’re focusing on your wedding ceremony or reception, the venue you choose is a major factor. While large indoor banquet halls are the most widely used locations, they are not exactly the most eco-friendly. High powered lighting, heating or air conditioning, and water usage all contribute to a mass amount of energy usage. Instead, consider an outdoor wedding.

LED lightingis a simple way to personalize your décor. This type of lighting can drastically decrease the amount of energy used without decreasing the ambience that a lighting scheme can bring. In fact, LED “intelligent” lighting can be programmed in millions of ways. From color to intensity, LED lighting can be used for any event to create a dim romantic candle-lit look or bright vibrant colors to compliment the colors of your flowers, linens, etc. A well-placed up-lighting fixture can splash a gorgeous column of light against any wall, flower arrangement, or building fixture; it provides a stunning way to transform any space to match your décor. By exchanging typical bulbs for the more efficient LED variety, you can keep your lighting dreams intact, as well as the environment.

Invite efficiency, not excess: Invitations are a necessary evil to your big day. While email may seem like a good green option, the older guests on your list may not be dialed in. Instead, opt for recycled paper. Check out sites like Minted or Earthy Invitations for some affordable options. You can always design your own, but keep your information and required RSVP sweet, yet succinct. While pretty to look at, the paper-inside-an-envelope-inside-a- card-tied- to-an-index-card invite is just a wee bit unnecessary. Use design rather then paper accessories to keep your invites inspiring.

Your wedding will bring the day you will wear the most important dress you will ever put on…once. The photos, the ceremony – the dress needs to be unforgettable. What you shouldn’t forget is that even a used dress can be made new. Don’t neglect resale shops or vintage dress. The price you save on the dress can be put towards alterations and accessories to customize the dress to your style. Oftentimes, “eco-friendly” is synonymous with “expensive” and “over-priced”. But watching out for the environment doesn’t mean you have to watch out for the green in your wallet too.

Major event factors like location, lighting, invites, dress choice and more are key to any wedding.  Don’t just toss your ideas in the trash because they aren’t so eco-friendly – recycle them instead. Instead, consider how you can make your wedding a little more earth-positive by talking over some “green options” with your local vendors.

Check out our LED  lighting options or call us today at 773-253-4986 to see how our team can enhance the look of your eco-friendly nuptials!

“Add Husband Here”, “Something Borrowed, Something Blue…” and “My Future”, are just some of the titles you may come across while scrolling through Pinterest, the blossoming social media website. Users “pin” fun DIY projects, meme’s, recipes, and more to their feed, sharing it with the online community. In its two-year time span, Pinterest has become one of the web’s simplest way to share future wedding aspirations and wedding ideas.

With so many possibilities, every bride-to-be can easily get overwhelmed. Take into account these tips the next time you tackle your Pinterest tack board, moving your wedding from plain to pin-teresting!

Bored with your boards? Seek out wedding-oriented Pinterest accounts to follow. Check out some popular pinners like WED: The Magazine, The Bridal Party, and BrideFinds. These users are sure to pump your feed full of fresh ideas.

Don’t limit your search just to the “wedding & events” board. Some great ideas may not be specifically for weddings and can be skipped over if they are not tagged as such by other users. Make sure to check out idea-rich categories on Pinterest like “travel and places” for theme ideas, “home décor” for lighting possibilities, or “hair and beauty” for potential style tips.

Go Pin Crazy. In the early phases of wedding planning, there is no such thing as pinning too much. Just because you don’t like everything a certain pin suggests, pin it anyways.  You can always go back and use the part of it you do like as a foundation for wedding ideas. Go back and remove the clutter later as you get a better idea of your wedding’s all around aesthetic.

Get organized! Now that you have plenty of pins, it’s time to sort it all out. Many make the mistake of keeping it all on one board. The clutter can be confusing, so it’s best to sort: cakes and food, lighting, favors, dresses, etc.

See other great ideas on websites outside of Pinterest? Use the “Pin it” feature to keep it all in one place. Not only are you in a sense “book marking” your newfound ideas, it will help you to narrow down when they are all lined up for comparison.

Get your friends opinion.  Pinterest allows you to tag fellow users when you repin. Use it to draw your friends’ attention to potential bridesmaid dresses, cake designs, and after party ideas. Your gal pals have a chance to comment directly on the pin and give you cheers or jeers.

Take away a few ideas for décor, or make your upcoming nuptials into a living testament to the promises of Pinterest. Either way, the concepts available on this creative community are sure to wow all your friends and family on your big day.  

For more wedding ideas contact the entertainment, lighting and decor experts at MDM Entertainment today at 773.253.4986!

I absolutely love tent weddings! There is something particularly elegant about the all white interior that really moves me.

From a design prospective a tent gives you a completely blank canvas to work with to create the perfect mood for your wedding or special event. A good designer can do so many things with lighting not only to set the mood but also to enhance the décor and create a visually stunning atmosphere for your guests. They can also tie all the elements of your décor together by utilizing lighting elements that correspond with your theme.

Depending on the time of year and the location you may be able to open the sides up to view a magnificent garden or allow your guests access to an outside patio. Galleria Marchetti in Chicago has a gorgeous garden and patio area that is a perfect example. This is one of my favorite Chicago wedding venues.

If you are lucky enough to have a beautiful outdoor area you can further enhance and highlight it through the use of lighting such as paper lanterns, string lights or uplighting.

Our five favorite locations for tent weddings in the Chicago area are:

1. Galleria Marchetti
2. Lincolnshire Mariott
3. Eaglewood Resort in Itasca
4. Westin Itasca

For more information on lighting your Chicago tent wedding contact the wedding lighting experts at MDM Entertainment today at 773.253.4986!

Love was most definitely in the air on March 10th as Amanda and Bobby said their “I do’s” and celebrated their beautiful wedding day. The setting for their dream wedding reception was at Venuti’s in Addison and they set the place aglow with their love… and special event lighting.

MDM Entertainment has the privilege of working at Venuti’s often, yet it never ceases to amaze us how different it looks at every event. Choosing the right decor, lighting and personal touches creates an atmosphere and environment as unique as the couple themselves.

When we first met with Amanda she had a fabulous vision for the look and feel of her wedding day. We were as excited as she was to bring it to life. Her first great ideas was to have a DJ Cabana to showcase their DJ; there was no doubt this was going to be a cool set-up.  It would give the whole wedding a contemporary, cutting-edge look, with a South Beach lounge feel.

Amanda’s second idea was to have a dramatic, uplit backdrop to frame the head table and two fabric-draped, uplit columns at either side. The columns added the perfect touch of decor and dimension to the space.

When Amanda and Bobby walked into the room they were thrilled to see how their vision had come together! (As were we!) That’s one of the greatest things about our job, being able to make a bride’s dream wedding come true.

Before the dancing got underway Amanda and Bobby took the mic with a few words of thanks to all of their family and friends for celebrating with them on their wedding day. They also thanked their wedding planner, Karolina Warren, for all of her hard work and putting together a “David Tutera” caliber wedding (which in the wedding industry is very high praise indeed!).

When it was time to dance the night away, DJ Alan from Okyne Media Lab, jumped right into some serious club music and kept the party rocking with a mix of house music, dub step, a touch of hip hop, and a few wedding classics thrown in for good measure. We even saw some of the older folks on the floor jamming to some hard core cuts! Alan’s tunes, along with the nightclub style intelligent lighting we provided, really turned Venuti’s ballroom into a serious nightclub.

Here is what Amanda had to say about the lighting and decor on our Facebook page after the wedding:

“Oh my god you guys did amazing!!! Way to set the mood for the whole night with the lighting!!! Hands down the best day/night of my life I will email you guys pictures when our photographer gets them back to us ”

We can’t wait to see the pictures either! The photographers and videographers were from Furla in Chicago. We’ve had the pleasure of working with them before and are big fans of their work!

This was no average wedding reception and were thrilled to have been a part of it! Congratulations on your wedding Amanda and Bobby!

Emily and her friends and family did just that on Saturday at her Bat Mitzvah. She had quite the turn out and they took up all three ballrooms at the beautiful Carlisle in Lombard for a fantastic party.

The ballroom there is lovely but Emily and her family wanted to make it a little more festive so they brought in the lighting experts at MDM Special Event Lighting to provide hot pink uplighting to match the color scheme of the event. The uplighting completely transformed the room from a banquet room to a gorgeous pink dream for the festivities.

Many of the decorations were skillfully made by Emily’s grandparents and they turned out fantastic. They definitely rivaled those I have seen done by a lot of Chicago decorators. From the custom cutout centerpieces on the tables to the hanging lanterns over the dance floor they spent countless hours making sure the room looked perfect for Emily.

MDM also provided a custom monogram gobo for Emily that was projected onto the fabric backdrop behind one of the most impressive sweet tables I have ever seen! Big time shout out to the Carlisle!

From the comments of the guests when they first entered the room and continuing throughout the afternoon (and the nice thank you note we got afterwards)I would have to say everyone was floored by the beautiful lighting and decor.

“I just wanted to let you know how absolutely spectacular the lighting and gobo were in the room! It was exactly as I hoped it would be, and my daughter was beyond thrilled! She kept repeating that the lighting made the party. It was a pleasure working with you and I will definitely be calling you for my other two children’s Bar/Bat Mitzvahs (as well as recommend you to my friends!) Thanks again!  :)”  Julie Albert

Thanks to Emily and her family for choosing MDM to be a part of her big day and such a fantastic party!

A special thanks also goes to photographer David Loeb and the staff at Chicago’s Edward Fox Photography for being so great to work with and for providing the beautiful photographs.

For more information on how lighting can transform your Chicago Bar or  Bat Mitzvah contact the lighting experts at MDM Special Event Lighting today at 773.253.4986!

We did some really cool lighting this year at quite a few Holiday parties, everything from projecting company logos to some very festive red and green uplighitng. However, I would have to say my favorite corporate lighting event this season was for the Center on Halsted.

It is a very contemporary building with a lot of glass and concrete. When you first walk into the building they have a 40 foot concrete wall opposite the doorway (as always, I forgot to take a before picture!) that we washed in a cool ice blue (pun intended) and then projected some snowflake images onto to create a festive atmosphere.

The room looked amazing from the street and even better when you walked in!

Thanks to all the companies who hired us for event lighting and DJ entertainment for their Holiday parties and Happy Holidays to everyone!