{Colleyville,TX} – January 24, 2012 – WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding Marketplace, is excited to announce DJ Rod Baker from DFW Parties/OKC Parties has been selected to receive the prestigious WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2012 for DJ!

The esteemed annual awards program recognizes the top local wedding vendors from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism within the wedding industry. While many industry awards are selected by the organization, DJ Rod Baker was selected based on its stellar reviews from past newlywed clients.

DJ Rod Baker is recognized as part of the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire local vendor community, comprised of over 200,000 wedding professionals throughout the United States and Canada. The Bride’s Choice Award recognizes the best local wedding vendors across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, based on their overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

“WeddingWire is thrilled to honor the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community,” said Timothy Chi, CEO, WeddingWire. “Since the launch of the Bride’s Choice Awards™ program four years ago, thousands of outstanding wedding professionals have been recognized by the bridal community for their supreme service and dedication to the wedding industry. It is with great pleasure that we congratulate DJ Rod Baker for their continued professionalism and commitment to enriching the wedding planning experience for engaged couples.”

We are happy to announce that DJ Rod Baker is one of the very best DJs within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Project Wedding, Brides.com, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Weddingbee. We would like to thank our past clients for taking the time to review our business on WeddingWire. Thanks to their positive feedback we were able to receive the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ for 2012.

For more information, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront today at http://www.weddingwire.com/dfwparties.

To learn more about the Bride’s Choice Awards™, please visit www.WeddingWire.com.

About WeddingWire, Inc.
WeddingWire™, the nation’s leading marketplace serving the $70 billion wedding industry, is the only online wedding planning resource designed to empower both engaged couples and wedding professionals. For engaged couples, WeddingWire offers the ability to search, compare and book over 200,000 reviewed wedding vendors, from wedding venues to wedding photographers. WeddingWire also offers a comprehensive suite of online planning tools for weddings, including wedding websites and wedding checklists, all at no charge. For wedding professionals, WeddingWire is the only all-in-one marketing platform for businesses online and on-the-go. WeddingWire offers one simple solution to build a professional network, improve search visibility, manage social media and reach mobile consumers. Businesses that advertise with WeddingWire appear on WeddingWire.com, ProjectWedding.com and other leading sites, including MarthaStewartWeddings.com (NYSE: MSO), Brides.com and Weddingbee.com.

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Rod,

We really did have a wonderful time and you did a great job making sure the night moved along smoothly.  I have to say I am a little sad it’s all over as I enjoyed the whole process and was fortunate to be able to work with great people like you and Michelle at the Piazza.

Here’s wishing you a prosperous New Year!

Thanks again for helping to make this an evening we will never forget.

Sincerely,
Robin (Mother of the Bride)

THANK YOU Robin.  And I think it’s pretty cool that a mother of the bride will “miss” the process of planning a wedding.  I hear stories of dread and drama.  But with the right team of vendors at your side, this process can not only have less of that type of stuff…it can actually be FUN.

Here is a quick video I put together for Devin and Kristin’s reception at Delaney Vineyard in Grapevine, TX.  They were such a fun loving couple, my ideal client actually.  What makes them ideal is that they were able to put their unique-ness (I think that’s a word) into their reception.  Devin is a hockey player, so after a little brainstorming, we incorporated a penalty box.  In the slideshow is Devin’s mom, who was penalized for excessive booty shaking (yeah, it happened).

Also, Devin and Kristin are fans of LMFAO, and thought it would be great to incorporate the robot head from the video.  Devin’s made actually constructed the robot head, an engineering masterpiece.

Cindy Crabb from Visions in White photography captured the essence of this reception, a small but very fun-filled reception.  Great times!

Off the Grid is a cool new venue in Dallas.  While it looks a little rough on the outside, it’s a VERY cool hip trendy venue on the inside.  By the way, the uplights look like a million bucks against the exposed brick look.  Extremely cool.  I’ve added a page under the venues tab, but here is a direct link to a brief description:

http://www.dfwparties.com/offthegrid

This next post is from my good friend Cody Bobay.  He is an accomplished trainer, author and all around great guy.  He has put me on the path to healthiness, and I recommend looking him up and learning more.  He is currently the fitness trainer for Teleflora in Oklahoma City.  He does fantastic work for them, motivating and helping employees reach their fitness goals.  Read what he has to say!

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To all of the women that are about to get married:

I have to admit, that you ladies are hands down my wife and I’s favorite people to work with.  I wish that I could take the discipline, focus and motivation that you all have leading up to your wedding day, bottle, and sell it!  I am very confident that these three things are areas that you are not lacking in.  I want to talk with you about something that you might be lacking…direction with fitness.  My wife and I have started a movement called Bobay Fitness and we are doing everything we can to make www.bobayfitness.com a free resource for anyone trying to achieve a life of optimal health.  We feel that the Lord has put it on our hearts to help as many people as possible…for FREE.  Check it out when you get a chance to either read through our 4 fundamentals of healthy living, or listen through them in the media section on our website.  For now, here are a few tips to get you started:

• Start drinking 64oz-128oz of water per day
• Cut out the soda…even diet if you can
• Don’t eat carbohydrates after 3pm each day
• Workout 4-6 times per week, with your heart-rate at 60%-85% of your Max Heart Rate
  • The equation for your Max Heart Rate is 220-(your age).  Then take this number and multiply it by .60 and .85 to find your correct ranges.
  • Do your best to get 7-8 hours of sleep per night
    • This will help your stress levels go down through this highly stressful time, and it will also help you to not have the desire to find comfort in food as bad.

Good luck, and look us up on Facebook and Twitter!  We would love to hear how you are doing and answer any questions that you have!

In Good Health,

Cody Bobay

I don’t post too many external links. But this one…yes, it sums it up perfectly.

Hiring a wedding DJ.

The idea that you should ‘live every day like it’s your last’ has pretty much become a cliche. But for me, it holds true.

People ask me ‘are you really that happy all the time?’ or ‘don’t you ever go to one of the wedding receptions you’re doing in a bad mood?’ To be blunt, I really am happy…and yes, I might be less than perfectly happy and life might be dealing me a raw hand…but as I’m driving to the venue, I can tell you…an electricity comes over me each and every time I’m setting up that equipment and prepping everything.

See, it’s like this…I OWE it to each and every client to be in the best state of happiness I can be. I have, at various times in my life, dealt with adversity, heartache and all the ‘fun’ that goes with it. But NONE of that belongs at a wedding reception (I’m having visions of Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer when he gets dumped lol). You can’t do that! There will be more adversity, I can promise you that. But when I arrive at the venue, and I plug in that mixer, and test that microphone…it’s game on!

I didn’t always have this outlook on life. I truly began living for each day in June of 1996. I had just moved to Texas from Bartlesville, Oklahoma. I was ambitious, driven and working my way up the corporate ladder in a media company. I was one of the youngest advertising directors in the company’s history. Nothing was going to get in my way. This was May of 1996.

My good friend Annette Delahay invited me back to Bartlesville to celebrate Sunfest, a local fair that included sun, fun…and her favorite, a bi-plane expo. She was a pilot for Phillips Petroleum, and I met her while working at the local cable television station. We became friends and started hosting local charity events as emcees. She always liked telling me I had the world by the tail.

So I loaded up my Jaguar and headed north to Oklahoma on the first of June. It was a nice symbol of my determined focus. Trouble is, it lived up to its notorious reputation. Somewhere on a back road around Sapulpa, the car started overheating. I was stuck in a town that didn’t know how to fix an exotic English car, and it was late.

What I remember most is how truly angry I was. I will never forget the intensity of anger I felt. I was ready to be back there. And although I had a bit of a fear of flying, Annette had convinced me (mainly by making fun of me), to go with her. I was furious, because I would not be able to make it until late the next day, after the Sunfest was over.

So, Saturday…the part arrives…and despite my trying to hurry the mechanic, which is never a good idea by the way, and they get me fixed up and on my way. I arrive in Bartlesville and my friends have a very somber tone.

You see, Annette did fly in the expo. She found another friend (with the same initials as me). Shortly after takeoff, she collided with another bi-plane. Both planes crashed to the ground and all four people were killed instantly.

My entire world changed.

I still think about the intensity of rage I carried that I couldn’t make it. And quite simply, it was God setting me aside for something else. I’ve spent the last fifteen years searching for an answer as to why I was set aside for another day. After all the soul searching, after all the ups and downs and ridiculous things I’ve experienced, here’s what I take away from it and the lesson I hope I’ve learned (and hope to teach).

Don’t leave anything on the table. If you knew Annette, you would see amazing similarities in how she looked at life and how I do now. She had a lot of family drama, but she lived like she didn’t have a care in the world. She was fearless, and made fun of me for being so scared of life. Since that day, I took on many of those traits. I feel I owe it to her, and myself.

It wasn’t long before I quit my job and started doing things that made more sense for my happiness. Things that I feel a geninue passion.

I hope you’re still reading. All you have is who you are and what you do. Make every moment count. No, it’s not all going to be rainbows and butterflies…but you don’t have to wallow in bad times either. Just LIVE. Look forward with an optimism, and a belief that the room, the city, the state, the country, the world…is a better place because you’re in it. We all have it in us in our own way. Don’t be afraid.

And since that day, I haven’t been.

I had the priviledge of visiting the new EM Event Center in Dallas.  They put on a posh and fun grand opening party for the event industry.  See some pictures of the EM Event Center in Dallas!

I’ve been getting to do more and more events at The Old Red Museum.  In fact, it’s becoming one of my favorite wedding venues in Dallas! 

I had to overdub the music track for youtube purposes (just think Taio Cruz lol), but you can see the fun we got to have recently on the dancefloor late in the evening.  I played the tracks for the very nice wedding ceremony, and we elegantly performed the ‘traditions’.  THEN, it was time to party.  Check it out!

DFW DJ | Weddings | Corporate

I have some cool corporate clients I work with.  I recently provided some music for Teleflora in Oklahoma City for their volunteer work with the OKC Memorial Marathon.  Check out the cool flower shoe pictures here!