Choosing a wedding DJ is a problematic task… there are so many on the market, and the prices certainly do vary from as little as £50 to £800 – £1000+.
Whilst researching this subject in a little more detail online, I came across the quote “Hiring a DJ is a little like buying a car…do you want a Skoda, or a Bentley?”
A lot of couples choose to book a DJ rather than a live band because of cost implications, and it’s true, it generally is cheaper! However, in my experience if you’re booking a DJ (especially if they are the only entertainment and there’s no band) it’s well worth keeping aside a considerable amount of money for this. If you consider just how much you are spending on the rest of the day (the venue, the food, the drinks, the photography, flowers etc), you don’t want to cut back on this and have the reception ruined by entertainment that just isn’t good enough. This is the part of your wedding that could make or break the day, not only for you and your partner but for your guests as well. You have gathered together all your friends and family from numerous walks of life, and when the evening reception comes, they all want nothing more than to celebrate this wonderful day with you! So in my opinion, it’s worth spending some time and money on making sure you have something fantastic for the party.
When it comes to the music choice, I think it’s certainly important to make sure your DJ will be playing music that you like. When you consider that the DJ has access to a huge range of genres, it would be a real shame if your DJ decided he wanted to hear an hour of Deep House, when you and your guests just want some good old Wham and Dire Straits! I think it’s important to find a DJ that is sympathetic of what you want to hear. Take a look at the variety of tunes I play at the different events in my blog
I think it’s nice to get a mix between someone who is understanding of your tastes, but also has a lot of perception and experience as to what works, how to structure the dynamics of an evening, and how to work in styles/genres that will suit all the guests. If you can imagine a dinner party of say 8 guests, and a discussion of their music tastes, imagine the diversity in artistes that would be brought to the table. Now envisage this, but with all 200 or so of your wedding guests! Everyone has different tastes, so I think it’s important for DJ’s to try to respect that as much as possible and play something for everyone, but arranging that diversity is quite a tough task, and it takes a lot of experience to be able to take your guests on a journey through these different styles in a unified and smooth manner! It is a lot different to a DJ playing in a club who would be playing one or 2 different genres
The general idea is, the more you pay for a DJ, the more gear they should have… this isn’t always true, but it’s a good idea to find out how much lighting they will bring, and how large their PA system is. If you want to get even thorough, find out what make their PA system is, and do a little online investigation to see if it’s a good brand. Sounds silly, but there’s nothing worse than a DJ blasting out music through a cheap and overdriven speaker system… excruciating stuff! Look for names like Pioneer, JBL, and Crown.
Its 100% imperative to ensure that your DJ will provide you with a contract for your booking. Imagine how awful it would be if they let you down at the last minute, when you’ve paid a big deposit or even paid the whole amount in advance. This should really detail timings (so you know if there are extra charges past a certain time), their requirements for the day, and of course cancelation fees.
It’s something that works both ways – once you’ve signed their contract, you are committed to using them, so any DJ (or any wedding supplier for that matter) that doesn’t offer you a contract should set alarm bells ringing.
Hope that helps, at the end of the day, people buy people. So make sure your wedding DJ is somebody you feel comfortable with…..
