Picking a Wedding DJ, also known as your master of ceremonies, is yet another important decision you want to make early on in the wedding planning process. And, you’ll want to choose with care.
When I originally got engaged and started thinking about a wedding, I admit that picking the DJ didn’t really seem like that big of a deal to me. In fact, I figured that was where we’d even get to cut some costs.
However, I realize now that I was quite wrong about this. My fiancé, Brooke, had told me more than once that I was thinking about this incorrectly. Where I thought the DJ was the person who hits play on the music and makes a few PSA’s for the guests, Brooke was telling me that it wasn’t like that at all. And of course, she is right.
You Will Probably Get What You Pay For
We’ve been invited to a few weddings in the past couple of years and it can be quite apparent when you have a budget DJ. One wedding we went to had a guy who dressed in a graphic tee that looked really cheap in the sense that, for a formal occasion where families and potentially friends are paying hundreds and thousands of dollars to provide a beautiful occasion, it just seems weird to dress like how I would if I was a night time janitor where I didn’t have to worry about presenting myself in a particularly cleaned up kind of way. It just struck me as odd because the look clashed with the atmosphere that the family and venue had created.
Brooke has also experienced weddings where the DJ could not really read the crowd and hardly anyone was willing to get out of their seats and move even a little on the dance floor.
Lastly, I’ve seen some technical issues arise that I don’t think would have arisen at weddings if the DJ was prepared. Truthfully, it took me a while, (probably because I’m frugal and wanted to cut some cost somewhere) but eventually I realized that the DJ has quite a lot of responsibility at one’s wedding and they will be in charge of sticking to the schedule, reading the energy of the crowd, and quite a few other important things you will want to be aware of.
What exactly does a Wedding DJ/MC do?
The DJ, or MC, is the person who is responsible for:
-staying on schedule with music and announcements
-directing guests/voicing directions
-introductions of the wedding party
-extra activities such as games for the married couple that gets the guests interacting
-mixing music, reading the energy of the room
-Keeping the energy wherever it needs to be throughout all hours of the night.
-Making sure all lighting and extras are set up and ready for operation
In addition to all that, it is about how they carry these things out.
On the music side, they need to read the room. On the announcements side, personality really needs to shine. They need to be emotionally intelligent. I’ve seen some that haven’t been very good at weddings and it can really effect the energy in the room, and even lead to awkward moments.
How to find your DG
Similar to finding a photographer, there are a few places and ways you can go about honing in on a good DG:
-word of mouth
-google (pick some potential options out and reach out to them for package prices.)
-vendor recemmendations (always ask your venu if they have a list of trusted DJs, Photographers, florists, and more.)
-social media (look around on facebook and instagram for some great local DJs)
How to pick the right one
Once you have a few prospective DJs, you’ll want to reach out to them and schedule a consultation.
For every DJ that we looked into, none of them displayed their prices. Many had a promo video and a contact form, but truly, info was limited.
Note: I also used google reviews to get more of an idea of how people rated their services and how many ratings there were. A person can have 10 five-star reviews, but if there is another company with 150 4.5 stars, I might consider talking to both because 4.5 stars is pretty good, and 150 reviews tells me they’ve been in the business for a while, have experience, and 150 reviews will provide me a more accurate quality estimate than a small survey of just 10 different ratings. In fact, my interest would probably lean towards the company with 150 reviews because that speaks more strongly to me as far as reliability goes.
What Questions should I ask a DJ?
Here are some practical questions I would ask if they do not provide you the answer right away during the consultation.
-Are they LGBTQ friendly?
-What is the package pricing and al la carte pricing?
-What is their experience in the industry?
-Have they worked at your venue?
-Are they insured? If they are not insured, you will want to get insurance to prevent potentially having to pay for accidental damages to the DJ equipment.
-What kind of extras do they offer? ie. Sparkler machines, extra lights, cloud machine, photobooth, etc…
-How much would it cost for the addition of extra hours of service?
-Do they offer payment plans?
Hopefully, they will have sent you pricing information and packaging information prior to the consultation, but if not, make sure you get copies of those things and a copy of a contract your can read through. You really want to make sure they are insured and that there isn’t anything that concerns you.
Another important thing to note is that someone who is organized is a really good sign. When we had our consultation with our chosen DJ, he showed us the site we would have an account for and all that it enabled us to do.
For instance, we could log in and in addition to making our payments through this portal, we could make our itinerary, recommend songs we want, songs we absolutely don’t want, our preferences, our songs for our father daughter dances, activities such as games we wanted incorporated into the reception, and so on. It was really nice to have one place where you could handle everything having to do with your MC and keep it organized and open for editing whenever you wanted to access it. It felt like a relief to see something like that. So my tip here would be to see what your prospective DJs offer in terms of planning, song requests, and so on. Some may not have all of that because they are newer to the business and haven’t invested in a nice online platform yet. That is totally okay because they might still be very good at what they do and cheaper than a company that offers a user friendly platform.
In conclusion, once you have your consultations with some DJs, you can decide which one has the price, the personality, and the expertise you are looking for. And if you haven’t picked out your photographer yet, I suggest you take a look at the photographer post I wrote to help you tackle the process.