Fun DMC was hired by Amy & Ryan Byers to play at their wedding at the beautiful Hoogland Center for the Arts in downtown Springfield, IL.  The band was fairly familiar with the venue, as Robert had held his own reception there.  Given the intimate knowledge of the venue and the opportunity to get in the night before to set up and sound check, we tried to think of something that would make this evening extra-special for the bride and groom.  We hadn’t quite come up with anything concrete until they had mentioned to Robert during the planning meeting that one of “their songs” was 99 Red Balloons and asked if we could include it in the DJ portion of the set.

We had previously done the Goldfinger arrangement of the tune back when Brian was playing bass with us, but hadn’t done it since he left months ago.  Nonetheless, we asked if it was okay to do the slightly harder version and they agreed.  That’s when the wheels started turning.  You see, one of the unique features of the particular room we were playing in at the Hoogland was the wrap-around balcony spanning the venue.  It was easily accessible to get positioned right over the dance floor from both sides.  And if a band who loved going the extra mile so they could see the looks on a surprised bride and groom’s faces got together the night before and blew up close to 300 red balloons (by mouth, nonetheless) was so inclined, they coordinate a special event that was unique to Amy and Ryan’s wedding.

We were able to successfully sneak garbage bag after garbage bag into the reception hall and made sure the photographers, Warmowski Photography, knew what was up.  At the end of Hey Ya, Paige and Aaron’s wife, Callie, ran up to the balcony.  As soon as the drop came in for 99 Red Balloons, they started dumping hundreds of balloons over the dance floor (pushed out by two large fans that we also snuck up).  The results were better than we expected and turned into a wonderful surprise for Amy and Ryan.