The lawns at Spanish Bay look over the dunes and the Pacific, the ballrooms are indoors, and the Inn has a bagpiper of its own. Company night, wedding or private dinner: I run the sound, the microphone and the timeline, so you don't have to hold any of it.
The Inn at Spanish Bay is a resort hotel inside the Pebble Beach gates, off 17-Mile Drive on the coast south of San Francisco. Monterey pines behind it. A Scottish-style golf links and dunes out front, then the ocean. It's low-rise and relaxed, more California coast than formal hotel, and it's part of Pebble Beach Resorts.
The ceremony sites are outdoors, on lawns and a patio that look over the links and the water, and open coast means wind on the microphone and no wall to hold the sound. Then the reception moves inside, to a ballroom or one of the smaller rooms, on two event floors the resort calls the Mezzanine level and the Fairway level. For a large wedding the resort pairs the Pèppoli Lawn for the ceremony with the Grand Ballroom and its Gallery for the reception. A company event uses the same rooms: the Gallery for registration or a standing reception, St. Andrews for a keynote, the Grand Ballroom for dinner. It all happens on one property, so nobody drives between the vows and dinner, but the sound has to be ready in two places.
And then there's the piper. He plays every evening, rain or shine: it's the Inn's tradition, and a lovely thing to have at your event. It's also a sound I don't want arriving in the middle of your vows or a toast, so I time both around him.
The largest room, on the Mezzanine level, with the Ballroom Gallery outside its doors. It runs as one room or divides into three. A room this size wants speakers placed for even coverage, not one loud corner, so the layout of the tables and the dance floor decides where the booth goes.
A mid-sized room on the Mezzanine level, with a patio beside it. If your party will move between the two, I ask whether the patio can have its own speaker, so the music follows people outside at a talking level while the dance floor inside keeps its energy.
On the Fairway level, a smaller room with ocean views and a pair of fire pits on its patio. It suits dinner and conversation: a compact setup, music kept low, and a wireless mic for the toasts.
Open lawn with a wide view of the coastline, and the largest ceremony site here. Nothing out there holds the sound in, so the seating plan decides where the speaker goes and how far it has to reach.
Two ceremony sites on the Fairway level, over the links, dunes and ocean, one a tiled patio and one a groomed lawn. The resort opens the patio only after 4 p.m., so a ceremony there happens later in the day, and I set the timeline to that from the start.
Outdoors first, indoors after, and a piper somewhere in between. That holds for a wedding and for a company night.
The ceremony sites here are open lawn and patio over the links, with ocean air and no wall behind your guests. So the ceremony gets its own setup: a speaker close in and aimed at the chairs, a mic chosen for wind, a backup already set up. I arrive early, so the reception setup is in place before the vows.
I get the piper's start time and route for your date from the events team, then place the ceremony, the cocktail hour and the toasts so he's a moment your guests enjoy, not a surprise over the vows. The 1st Fairway Patio opens only after 4 p.m., which puts a ceremony there closer to the hour he plays, so I check that first.
In my photos the booth sits at the edge of the ballroom's dance floor, a speaker on a stand at each side, close enough to read the dancers. Through dinner the far tables hear every toast and the near ones can still talk. Then the plates clear and I build.
The Inn sits inside the Pebble Beach gates. Your guests don't pay at the gate: the resort waives the charge for anyone attending a scheduled event. My own entry gets sorted before the day, not at the gate. The event rooms are on two levels, so I get the unload point and the route to your room from the events team ahead of time, along with the power out on the lawn or the fairway patio. No outlet out there? The estimate adds a generator. Backup equipment comes with me either way.
The ballroom at Inn at Spanish Bay, set up and ready
Cueing the next moment at an Inn at Spanish Bay wedding
Dance set underway, floor full from the first song
Keeping the dance floor going
From the decks: dance floor, tables and chandeliers all in view
Hands up across the ballroom floor at Spanish Bay
At the decks, a few feet from the floor
The first dance, with the whole room watching
Two sites, a gate, a piper and the resort's music hours. None of them should be yours to track on the day. Before your event we go through a planning questionnaire and planning calls: the order of things, who speaks, your must-plays and do-not-plays, the exact versions of the songs you love. By the time I arrive, I already know your event inside and out.
Then I'm the MC. Every entrance, toast and announcement comes from me, on a timeline planned to the end time you choose, so the dance floor gets its full stretch. The resort approves every outside vendor and asks to be told ahead of time about amplified music, so I send its events team my plan and my proof of insurance before the date.
The dance-floor lighting in these photos is mine. Blue, purple and magenta wash the ceiling above the floor, and points of red and green move across the dancers and the floor. The warm amber glow is the room's own, from its chandeliers and wall sconces, and what I bring works with it.
For your event I can add uplighting along the walls to set the color of the room for dinner, and pin spots to pick out the cake or the centerpieces. A monogram or pattern projection gives a big floor or wall a focal point. Each one is a choice in the instant estimate.
Spanish Bay hosts far more than weddings. Corporate meetings and conferences, galas and banquets, rehearsal dinners and private dinners all happen here, and the property has hosted golf groups and festival events too. When a conference ends with a party, I run the awards microphone first and the dance floor after.
For a welcome party, a cocktail hour or a dinner in one of the smaller rooms, a Selector Session fits: a set of my own programming, up to four hours, kept at a level made for conversation. I also play birthdays and milestones, fundraisers, holiday parties and mitzvahs. And The Journey, a live sound bath that flows into a facilitated ecstatic dance, can be its own event or one part of a bigger one.
Clubs, festival stages and every venue from Napa Valley to the coast are on one page: Places I've played.
Your date, which space you're looking at, and the feeling you want in the room. I'll take it from there.