Using A Friend DJ Your Wedding?… Really?

Having an inexperienced friend to DJ your wedding is like
having a passenger on a plane that has never flown before
fly the plane. Your reception will crash and burn.

In todays economy I see more and more brides cutting back
on their budget by using a friend to DJ their wedding with the
thought of saving hundreds of dollars. However what they don’t
realize is that they are actually losing thousands to save hundreds.

Cheap entertainment is bad period, and when entertainment is bad
guests will not stay for the big crash. Let’s say you budget $15,000
for a 5 hour wedding. Break it down, that’s $3,000 per hour. If your
guests leave just one hour early because the entertainment is poor,
you just lost $3,000.

So I posed this question to other wedding professionals across the
country.

“What would you say to a bride if she is thinking about using a friend
to DJ her wedding?”

Christine Hussey
Director of Sales at The Inn at Longshore
“My professional advice is not to hire friends as vendors. I have seen too many lost friendships follow after the wedding. Hiring a wedding professional is always the route to go, they have the experience and knowledge to ensure that the day unfolds the exact way it is supposed to. Having people work weddings that have no experience tends to stress out the other vendors because they have to “cover” for the person who is not the professional. Experience with scenerios lends itself to anticipating an unknown on the day of and professionals are able to deal with this quickly and efficiently.”

Erin Calvimontes
Owner at Divine Celebrations Event Planners
As a professional planner, I have had this scenario come up many times before and my first question always would be;
“is your friend a professional wedding DJ?” and depending on the answer, if she actually knows, I would educate her on the important of having a professional wedding DJ.
Things can go from good to, bad to, worse, in a matter of minutes with a non-professional DJ who is not trained to “read the crowd”, react to the mood of the guests, switch up music to keep the mood lively, and actually keep the FLOW of the event running smoothly.
Educate her on the fact that a professional DJ is not just an “autopilot” IPOD with a microphone but, an entertainer with years of experience running events, a large library of music to fit everyone through all generations, and comes with a great personality at no additional cost!! LOL
You do get what you pay for!
Good luck!!”

Michelle Groom
at Mele Amore Events

“I hear this all the time and I always ask the same thing … are they experienced in DJ’ing a wedding? And how many weddings have they DJ’ed? Depending on their answer I then say … Wedding DJ’s are a lot different then party / club DJ’s. They are experienced in wedding etiquette, activities and how to get both your grandparents and best friends to enjoy the event together. Club/Party DJ’s may play great music but they struggle with the formalities at a wedding.”

PhoenixDJ.net

D.I.Y. DJ For Your  Wedding

In today’s economy many brides are cutting back on hiring
professional vendors for their wedding and doing things
themselves, or having friends help out to try and save some
money. I understand times are tuff, but if you think you’re
going to save money by playing your own music for you’re
wedding, you may want to reconsider.

Sure you may have a laptop or iPod with thousands of songs,
but there is much more you will need to buy or rent to produce
sound for a reception.

First you will need the right program in your computer to
play your music seamlessly throughout the night.
Price; $10 for a cheap program to hundreds for the better
programs. Your music need to be amplified through loud
speakers so you will also need some pro audio equipment.
2 speakers, amplifier, speaker wires, & for any
announcements you will need a microphone. If you have an
iPod you will need one more and a mixing board.

For decent gear you may pay an estimate of around $500, up to
$1,000 if you want to add lighting for dancing.
This does not include delivery, set up or break down. Now
that you got what you need to play your music, next would be to
program the music perfectly through the transitions unless you
plan on sitting behind your computer all night.

Make sure you pull out any of music with explicit lyrics,
you don’t want to offend anyone.
Start with cocktail hour into dinner hour, all the formal
music, Introductions, first dance, parents dances, cake cut,
garter & bouquet. Make sure to make announcements for each
event so your guests will know what’s taking place.

If you want your guests to dance, be sure to have all types
of dancing music from the 50’s to today’s top 40 since all wedding
receptions have diverse crowds. If you’re not sure what your
guests will like to dance to, you may want to ask for requests
before the wedding. You may need to purchase more music to
please your guests. You will also need to come with a
timeline for your events so that you can inform your guests and
make sure your reception flows smoothly. You will need to have
another person introduce you into the room and announce
the toasts & your first dance along with the parents
dances.

You could get your cousin or uncle to do this and hope he’s
not too drunk by this time. If the dancing isn’t going well
for whatever reason, your guests may get board, & leave
earlier then expected.

Mark Sanchez

Professional Mobile Entertainment