Her fairy tale romance with baseball superstud David Eckstein culminated in their engagement last year. She started planning the wedding she’d always dreamed about, and rejoiced as everything fell into neatly into place. Everything, that is, except for the music.

“ Planning my wedding was such an enjoyable experience,” says the cute and adorable young actress Ashley Drane. “My family and bridesmaids were very supportive of me and everybody helped out a whole lot. The dresses were beautiful, the flowers were beautiful, and the cake took my breath away.” But one aspect of the wedding preparations turned out to be far more difficult than Ashley could have ever imagined.

“Deciding what music to play at our wedding was incredibly difficult!” recalls Ashley bubbly. “When you think about it, finding music to please everyone from ages eight to eighty is really tough. I had no idea it would be so challenging. It took us completely by surprise.”

It used to be that wedding DJs could get away with playing a steady diet of Frank Sinatra and Paul Anka standards, with a dash of “YMCA” thrown in to get the heart pumping. Not anymore. Today’s couples enjoy a far wider variety of music, everything from the butt-shaking grooves of Duran Duran to the ultra-modern disco-rock of LCD Soundsystem. David and Ashley successfully walked this musical tightrope at their wedding last month, as their playlist kept 250 ecstatic guests dancing into the wee hours of the morning. It was a happy conclusion to weeks of careful planning, but not without a few bumps along the way.

“For our first dance as husband and wife,” giggles Ashley adorably, “our first choice was ‘A Question of Lust’ by Depeche Mode because that was the first song we ever slow danced to. But after discussing it with my mom, I realized that our grandparents wouldn’t know that song, and neither would my cousins from Tennessee . It’s important that the first dance is a song everybody knows so that the moment is memorable for each person there. So we settled on ‘A Whole New World’ from ‘Beauty and the Beast’ instead.”

After compromising on her own wedding song, Ashley felt she’d earned the right to be more aggressive with other parts of the playlist. She insisted on adding power-pop darlings The Killers and Franz Ferdinand, even though she knew that David’s baseball buddies wouldn’t be too thrilled about dancing to music recorded by indie waifs wearing eyeliner. But they also made sure the meatheads remained happy by including jock jam anthems by the likes of AC/DC, Cream, and House of Pain.

“We were also able to find the middle ground with tracks such as Nine Inch Nails’ ‘The Hand That Feeds'”, recalls Ashley coquettishly. “It’s got a good beat so most people don’t realize it’s sung by a creepy goth freak. Nobody thinks twice about it, they just keep dancing. It’s also a very palatable NIN tune for folks who would have been a little turned off by something like ‘Happiness In Slavery’.”

Most wedding DJs see their job as an artform and believe in taking their wedding guests on a musical journey into sound. This process requires having full control over the songs in the setlist as well as the pace of the music over the course of the evening. However, due to the rising popularity of the iPod and other portable mp3 players, young couples have become more adept at designing their own playlists. It’s fitting that they now expect to exert greater control over life’s most critical playlist — the one at their wedding reception.

Fortunately, the wedding DJ profession is slowly becoming more accepting of bridal parties dictating what they want to hear on the big day. Still, couples can’t be afraid to flex some muscle in order to include the songs they want. “Our DJ really liked this Neil Diamond Greatest Hits CD,” beams Ashley delicately. “He said that songs from that CD always went over well at weddings. David and I told him we weren’t into all that wimpy crooning and asked him to bring Belle and Sebastian’s ‘The Boy With the Arab Strap’ instead. He wasn’t happy about it but he did it. I spoke to my aunt today and she said she hasn’t stopped humming ‘Sleep the Clock Around’ since she heard it at our wedding! So I definitely feel that we made the correct decision.”

What’s the most important piece of advice she can give to other couples preparing their wedding playlists? “Plan well in advance,” states Ashley radiantly. “It’s so obvious when the bride and groom didn’t bother to plan their playlist or at least give specific recommendations to their DJ. You end up dancing to ABBA and “Pump Up the Jam” all night long. It’s horrible. David and I went to a lot of parties like that and we swore that we wouldn’t stand for it at our wedding.”