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IPOD: IT'S ABOUT CONTROL
The do-it-yourself wedding soundtrack
By Angela Rozas / CHICAGO TRIBUNE 8/13/2006

I sat in an elegant ballroom of a fine New Orleans French Quarter hotel not long ago, watching my friend Steve Ritea take a big plunge.

As he and his bride moved through the traditions they had chosen for their interfaith marriage, I marveled at how intricately they had planned each element: Filling a glass with sand to signify their union. Lighting a candle. Reading about the Ketubah, the Jewish wedding contract.

Throughout it all, beautiful and carefully chosen music played - - all from an iPod.

This was not my first iPod wedding. In what seems like an instant, the iPod has gone from ubiquitous personal accessory to special occasion personal disc jockey. Wedding experts, in fact, say they are seeing many couples opt for iPods or other personal digital music devices as a cheaper means of setting the musical tone of their wedding.

It is all part of a cultural revolution: having everything the way you want it. Choose your own payment plan, TiVo your TV, customize your ring tone, get your personalized newspaper delivered to your e-mail in-box. IPod weddings are the next logical step.

In this age of do-it-yourself everything, though, I wonder if we aren't actually burdening ourselves even more for the sake of convenience and, more important, control.

Control was not the order of the day at Steve's wedding.

The ceremony was halted midway through when the "iPod Attendant," as he was listed in the wedding program, could not figure out how to stop a song from playing.

Steve, who was holding his bride's hand, turned to make the international "Turn it off!" sign, sliding his finger across his throat.

Another friend jumped up to help. No luck. With 70 pairs of eyes on him, the groom left the bride and walked over to fix the iPod.

It wasn't the only glitch. The start of the wedding had been delayed until someone could figure out how to cue the right song for the bride to march down the aisle. During the reception, the iPod's downloads were playing at uneven volumes, forcing another friend to run back and forth to the music table to adjust the sound.

Still, the perception of control seems to be what lures many to the iPod wedding. Picking exactly the songs you want, in the order you want. No self-obsessed poseur band, no over-the-hill, outlandish disc jockey. Just you, your guests and the 8-minute-23-second "Shot Gun Mix" of Billy Idol's "White Wedding."

"I think there are people who are afraid of having the super cheesy wedding with the deejay making the people do the Chicken Dance. So the iPod does get you around that." said Nina Callaway, wedding guide for About.com.

Callaway sees the iPod wedding as part of a cultural shift caused, in part, by first-time brides and grooms who are older and do more of their own planning - - and paying. Add societal pressures and booming wedding market, and you get couples with high expectations for uber-personalized and flawless weddings.

"Brides and grooms feel pressure to have the perfect setting, the perfect dress, the most original invitation and perfect every detail," Callaway said.

Steve, a 30-something reporter who lives in New Orleans, said he chose the iPod because it saved him money.

"Why do we want to pay some dopey deejay $3,000 to press play on a CD changer when we can spend that money on something more important than that?" he said.

His wife, Alisa Trout, was more direct.

"I'll tell you the truth. In my case, it was controlling," she said. "All the weddings I've been to, I've never liked a deejay enough to hire. I haven't seen or heard any live bands that would make me want to swing that way."

Still, Steve admitted he did feel pressure to make the wedding flawless. And, of course, it wasn't.

"Absolutely not," he said. "In a way, you put a positive spin on it. If everything was perfect, it would be air-brushed and it wouldn't be real.

"I mean, after I actually got married, it didn't matter to me anymore what songs were played. I was like, 'I just got married!' I would have danced to the Barney theme song if I had to."

The iPod wedding seems simple, cheap, modern. If I ever get married, maybe that's the route I'd go too.

Then again, there's something bordering on kitschy-cool about a live band or wisecracking deejay. I'd hate to miss out on the chance to see my father two-stepping to a wedding singer's version of Gnarls Barkley's summer hit, "Crazy."

But when it comes down to it, those details really aren't that important. iPod or string quartet, personalized ice sculpture or back-yard barbecue, I'd hope the one thing people would remember being perfect about my wedding would be this: That my man and I are perfect for each other.

Angela Rozas is a Chicago Tribune Staff reporter.
arozas@tribune.com

For more, see THE TRUTH ABOUT IPOD WEDDINGS.

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