Tell me a little about your business!
Fireside Events is a DJ company rooted in family. Our team shares a deep love for music, performance, production, and planning. Our mission is to deliver these powerful elements to create lasting memories for Pittsburgh wedding couples and their family and friends.
The company’s mascot is the owners’ Bernese Mountain Dog, Reese, whom you can meet per request at your Fireside Chat!
What makes your work unique?
Fireside Events is wedding couple-focused. We pride ourselves in being “a planner-DJ company”. The DJ/MC is such an integral component in an intricate wedding day. Their role in the wedding vendor team is to lead the guests through the timeline that was built to reflect the precious vision that the couple created together when dreaming about their wedding day. We believe that building this entertainment timeline with the couple is crucial to the success of the event.
Along with our respect for the planning process, we also believe that technology can really make a dream wedding a reality. Our experience has taught us that lighting, video, special effects, and rigging elements have endless ways of making an event eye-catching and unforgettable. We are constantly striving to remain on top of the this very important but often overlooked/unknown (by DJ companies, planners, and couples) component to the wedding experience. The Fireside family wants to be able to provide as many folks in the area as possible with their dream day. Our technological focus can open the doors to further creative opportunities, and our planning focus ensures that these opportunities come to life!
Here are some other components of our wedding DJ packages that set us apart from the crowd:
- Meet for “Fireside Chats” so that we can have a personal relationship with the couple, build their timeline, and demo our fun add-ons!
- Meet and greet sessions with your Fireside wedding planner and Fireside DJ
- Mix/beat-match and transition our music so that the beat never stops throughout dancing
- Provide you with a DJ assistant on your wedding day to help prep your major players during big moments such as the grand entrance, processional, and toasts. Assists are walkie-talkie’d to the DJ for stress free assurance that everything will run smoothly.
What is your ideal client like?
Although we are thrilled to work with any and all of our couples, we cannot help but get extra-excited when we hear the phrase “We are big music people”. Team Fireside believes in the incredible power of music. There is a place for music in all of the moments of our lives, big and small. When given the proper thought and consideration, a song has the ability to elevate a moment and create emotional responses that make it unforgettable. That is why we take requests so seriously. We love playing what our wedding couples want to hear and what they know will get their guests on the dance floor!
Couples that appreciate the importance of the wedding MC rank high on our list as well! Fireside MC’s act as guides, making sure that all guests are aware of what is happening soon and now, so that they can celebrate comfortably and confidently. These wedding hosts also lead guests to applaud and honor the once-in-a-lifetime moments. Each moment has been carefully planned with love and anticipation by these wedding couples, so let’s “give them a round of applause!”
Couples who want to make their wedding uniquely theirs, as well as creative and experimental couples really speak our language! Our add-on options have the ability to transform and enhance a celebration in so many ways. The wedding couples that knock on our door with the desire to explore how our lighting, video, special effects, and rigging can take their venue and their wedding experience to the next level are some of our absolute favorites! These bold couples can also flex their non-conventional muscles by incorporating brand new wedding traditions or unique family/cultural traditions. These “signatures” on their day are the moments that will last a lifetime.
How do you get to know a couple’s taste in music?
Fireside Chats and homework.
We require two planning meetings with our wedding couples, and we lovingly refer to these meetings as Fireside Chats. Creating the preliminary timeline and finalizing the official entertainment timeline are primary focuses of these meetings. The crucial bonus of this time spent together is how well we all get to know each other! Teaming up with a couple means building a relationship with them. Fireside Chats allow us to become friends, to learn about the couple’s history and what they hope for in their future, and yes, to share everything there is to know about their tastes in music.
“Wedding Homework” is the playful term we use for our Wedding Information Forms. Fireside couples spend the months between our Fireside Chats filling these forms in with information that is vital to the success of their day. Along with the names of key persons that we will be interacting with, these forms collect our wedding couples’ music requests. Specific music requests for their ceremony and reception ensure that we are playing exactly what they want to hear during these oh-so-special moments. General requests for background music during cocktail hour and dinner are the perfect way for wedding couples to share their best-loved songs – ones that make up the “soundtrack of their lives” – with their family and friends. And of course, there is a page dedicated to our wedding couples’ requests for dancing. This page ends up serving as a road-map that our DJs use in order to deliver the shortest path to a party on the dance floor – a party that is filled with the songs the couple knows will keep them and their guests smiling and having fun! The dance music questionnaire ends with a “Do Not Play” section so our wedding couples can share any music that they do not want to hear on their big day. We take requests very seriously at Fireside. Our belief has always been that it is the responsibility of the wedding DJ to play the music that the wedding couple wants to hear.
What do you do to motivate guests to get on the dance floor?
In a nutshell, we have found that energy is what draws people out of their seats/away from the bar and onto the dance floor. A wedding DJ/MC has the tools to present magnetizing energy in a number of ways. The right music played at the right time has the power to bring people together. It is our DJs’ ability to read the crowd that keeps them out on the dance floor. Beat-matching/mixing music and transitioning to the next song at the right moment is the learned skill that elevates the dance floor experience to the next level!
How would you describe your emcee style?
The Fireside MC is informative, clear in tone, concise, and genuine. We take great care when choosing the words that we share. The entertainment timeline is rich with information that is delivered in a way that all guests can hear and understand, and they feel more at home as a result. Our DJs honor the wedding couple and take pride in shining the spotlight on them. They are also not afraid to call out and give props to that special someone who “just did the worm!” This allows for the ultimate connection between the DJ, the wedding couple, and guests.
