Meet the Sound By Design Team
THE NAME SOUND BY DESIGN (SBD) immediately conveys a sense of creativity. Something that is designed specifically is, by name, customized. Personalized. Suited specifically for you. at entire concept is exactly what the team behind Sound By Design aims to do: give you a completely customized entertainment for you, your guests, and your senses. And because entertainment is such a gigantic part of your wedding day, you want to make sure the people you hire to make that happen are intensely genuine about you, your day, and your desires. Creating an exhilarating experience for you and your guests is paramount to the team inside Sound By Design, and they each have their own specialties that have been cultivated to perfection to make sure your day is seamlessly perfect.
When Paul Hackbarth, owner and president, started Sound By Design, he curated a group of loyal, honest, and passionate people to learn, and then grow, the business with him. They began by providing stylish and present disc jockey music and Master of Ceremonies services for weddings - an award winning service that continues to be what drives couples to speak with Sound By Design. What many brides and grooms don’t expect is a DJ service that comes with many entertainment options rolled together in one package. Torie Gamez, the Director of Operations at SBD, spends a lot of one-on-one time with couples who come in looking for said amazing DJ entertainment. “Even after 13 years in the industry, I still love hearing about couples’ wedding days when I first meet them,” he admits. “And I get to share with them how SBD can help with so many aspects of entertainment.” Once you’ve received an overview of Sound By Design’s capabilities from Torie, you’ll establish a very full, personal and warm relationship with Josh Erickson, the Director of Client Services. “I provide couples with a carefree experience once they come on board with us,” he explains. “Planning a wedding can be a daunting task, and my goal is to make the entertainment side as easy as possible, from helping the Lighting Division design the reception room or recommending vendors.” With the family oriented baseline that is SBD’s mantra, Josh strives to make couples feel like part of that family as well. “You should never feel like a number,” he says. “We’ll stay away from the gimmicks and let the music do the talking.” Paul, looking at the business from over 19 years in the industry, also advises couples to be budget conscious about your wedding at all times, “But make sure you allocate your funds to the most important areas. Make sure you invest in the entertainment because that truly is the backbone of the reception.”
But sometimes entertainment for your wedding reception needs to be even more interactive, because entertaining is most definitely a myriad of dynamic pieces beyond music. “We do an open concept photobooth or standard inclosed one,” Torie says. “But we have a modern approach that uses a backdrop and allows for more movement, bigger groups, and can let guests leave video messages for the couple.” Josh agrees. “People love them and the quality is great.”
With that evolving, unique, modern approach to entertainment, Sound By Design really does customize a wedding package to help create a day with all the elements handled. Entertaining your guests is of course important - providing a killer sound and music experience is what can make a reception memorable. But there are the other parts of entertainment that all come together to make the overarching day that much better. David Hackbarth is the Director and Founder of Sound By Design’s Lighting Division. He works to create lighting design that is customized to your colors, your overall wedding vibe and be smashingly gorgeous all without breaking the bank. “I help clients put together lighting packages that will make the most impact for the budget they can a ord,” he explains. “And I love problem solving and learning how to make things happen in some of the most impossible lighting situations.”
This, once again, is how SBD’s team strives to entertain you and your guests - lighting can be a feast for the eye, and give an entirely new meaning to a space that might have usually been quite ordinary. Plus, the product is top notch and plays with the newest up and coming options. “We are very careful about selecting the lights,” David says. “By buying the newest equipment in uplighting, we’re able to provide a lot of light with very little hassle.” Some of those ideas are whole room washes, which almost ‘paint’ a room with an intense wash of color, or using creative cording to light the interior of a tent with unique chandeliers. “Lighting is a compliment and a statement to illuminate the most important aspects of a wedding and it’s design,” describes David.
Lighting is essential to creating that high energy entertaining vibe, which dovetails nicely into Sound By Design’s overall prerogative for your wedding; they want the whole room to feel the music, get caught up in the party atmosphere, and feel as though they’ve been transported into a wedding fantasy exclusively yours.
And what better way to make sure that entertainment vibe is exactly what you wish for yourselves, your memories, or your guests than with an extraordinarily professional and warm group of individuals, who together make a seamless team? Sound By Design will have worked with, and followed you, through the whole wedding process - from lighting decor, planning photobooths and coordinating speeches and introductions, to the dance party itself. They have an innate understanding of who you are and what makes your love story special. How more personal and customized to your style can it get? Plus, everyone is invested in your entertaining experience from Day One, which is a huge part of why Sound By Design is so well loved in Wisconsin.
“Each and every person has so much pride and passion for this company that it really shows in the end result,” reveals Josh. “We are so much more than the guys who push play.” Paul, who makes the big management decisions at Sound By Design, agrees wholeheartedly. “SBD’s backbone is our amazing staff. We continue to employ only those that are closest to us, who are willing to look forward to how to make SBD better, so that we can continue to guarantee premier quality in every avenue of entertainment we offer.”
