My family friend, we’ll call him R, has always epitomized the phrase “march to the beat of your own drummer.” When he met his wife, C, it was clear that he had met his perfect match – she’s creative, funny and warm just like he is – we just knew a she’d be around for the long haul.

I heard a while before their wedding that they had decided to do a “first jam” together in lieu of a first dance, and while I was intrigued I decided not to ask and just be surprised. It did not disappoint – it was hands down one of the most original and bad ass things I’ve ever seen at a wedding. More importantly, it was so special and authentically them – very few people could have pulled it off so well.

When I started this blog, I immediately reached out to them – it was such an inspired addition to the day and I just had to share it. Luckily for me, they were in.

1. How did you come up with an idea for a “first jam.”
C: Music is so important to both of us and it became a huge theme of our wedding.  When we were talking about all the parts of the wedding we decided that a first dance just seemed forced and “not us” and so we thought, “what if we rocked out instead?”  And the rest is history.
R: I am a big Grateful Dead fan and the term “Jam” is a pretty common term used to describe their music. I THINK it started as a conversation about what song we wanted to play for our first dance, and we kept joking about how conventional the idea of the first dance is and also that the song I’d want to choose would take up most of the evening because of how long the jam would be.
She then said “We should totally play a first JAM!!”

2. Why did you choose the song that you did? (“Loving Cup”, the Rolling Stones)
C: The Rolling Stones is one of our favorite bands and the song “Loving Cup” sort of became a love anthem of ours from the very beginning.  It is also a song that is covered by a lot of our favorite bands and so it was naturally a song that would sound good with just the drums and the guitar and had a lot of meaning for us.
R: It’s a song I put on the first mix I ever made for her way back when. She said the lyrics reminded her of me. It’s been our song ever since.

3. What kind of effort was involved with preparing for your first jam?
C: We had little to no experience playing instruments.  He could play the guitar a little, but I had NO EXPERIENCE. So, we each took music lessons individually for almost a year, we not only had to learn how to play our respective instruments (I learned the drums and he learned the guitar) we had to learn the song.  Playing the song on your own to the music is one thing, but playing it together without any supporting music is a whole other thing, so we spent months in “band practice” practicing together…we even had a few sessions with our teachers to help us bring it all together. He and I developed the beginning and ending ourselves, which we were super proud of.
R: She started taking drum lessons close to a year before the wedding. I, being a habitual procrastinator, started playing in early June. Once the two of us learned the song on our respective instruments, we started disagreeing…wait!! I mean practicing in her drum teacher’s studio.

4. What advice would you give to anyone who wants to do this at their wedding?
C: Make sure you are doing it because it has meaning to you, not just because you think it’s cool.  Also PRACTICE A LOT!  Of all of the things that day I was the most nervous for our performance…if we hadn’t practiced it wouldn’t have rocked as much as it did.
R: I would tell anyone who wants to do this that learning how to play music, ESPECIALLY with the person you’re in love with, is one of the greatest decisions both of us have ever made. My wife plays the drums- how f******* cool is that?