Emma & Jackson

Emma and Jackson's plans came to me just four days before their wedding. Emma sent her Spotify playlists and a list of must plays for every part of the day, and two nights before the wedding, while I was DJing another wedding at the Tannenbaum, they wrote to wish me luck with it.

They got married at a private home on the shore of Lake Tahoe in Tahoe City: a big wood and stone house in the pines, a stone terrace above the water, and a long pier out into the lake. About 70 adults and 15 kids came. Panania Photography photographed the day.

The ceremony was right at the edge of the lake under string lights. Guests found their seats to string covers Emma picked, like Wildest Dreams by ViolinAround, When You Say Nothing at All by Stringspace and Married Life by Michael Giacchino. The families walked in to a string quartet version of Here Comes the Sun by Stringspace, and Emma came down the aisle to a violin and piano version of Invisible String by Paul Hankinson Covers.

After the vows they walked back up the aisle to Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and everyone headed up to the terrace for cocktail hour.

Dinner was a buffet on the stone terrace with the lake below. Emma asked me to stay close to her playlist, so dinner was songs like Bloom by The Paper Kites, Everywhere, Everything by Noah Kahan, Annie's Song by John Denver and When Emma Falls in Love by Taylor Swift. Emma's dad David, Jackson's dad John, who was also his best man, and Emma's brother Robert gave the toasts.

They kept every special dance to about a minute. Their first dance was All Your'n by Tyler Childers. Emma danced with her dad to Hold My Girl by George Ezra, and Jackson danced with his mom to Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.

Then the dance floor opened. Emma asked for no line dances and nothing too clubby, so it was songs everyone already knew: Love On Top by Beyoncé, Dancing Queen by ABBA, September by Earth, Wind & Fire, Mr. Brightside by The Killers and Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners.

The last song of the night was the one they picked, Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver. Thank you, Emma and Jackson, for having me at the lake.