Over the years, I have seen a lot of trepidation from customers who want to hire a DJ for their wedding. They have already decided that hiring a band is limiting, but they don’t know really what extra stuff a DJ will bring to the table. It is true. There are a ton of people out there who consider themselves “Disc Jockeys,” but they all offer many different things. There are a number of things to look for, to make sure you pick the right DJ for your wedding ceremony and/or wedding reception.
If you are in The Capital District, you are already going to hire me of course! So the rest of this article is for the rest of the world. (Just kidding!) …There are a number of questions and things to think about when hiring a DJ. Here is my Top 10 list of topics:
1. DO THEY KNOW MUSIC? Make sure they know about the music you like, and also the music your guests like. This is very important. If they are not very familiar with songs or artists across many genres, the music you get may not be what you are looking for.
2. PERSONALITY. Are they fun? Are they professional? Are they willing to meet you face to face if possible before hiring them? Will they share stories of experience, or pictures of them DJ’ing in action?
3. REQUESTS Do they have a huge library? If so and they are able to provide your party with pretty much any song ever, how good is their ability to screen requests? Make sure they are willing to take requests and customize the night for you and your guests. However, make sure they have a plan on eliminating song that people may ask for that you do not want at your reception.
4. CUSTOMIZABILITY. Can they cater to your specific needs, or do they force you into buying everything by saying everything is included? Individual packages are the key to finding an affordable DJ. If you don’t care about karaoke and lights and a smoke machine, but it is all including, you are probably being charged for it. Ala carte when the prices are reasonable could save you good money and get you exactly what you want without paying more.
5. EXPERIENCE ACROSS THE BOARD. Weddings have a little bit of every demographic. Try to find someone who has been doing it at least 3-5 years, and not only at a bar scene. Bars these days hire ANYONE, and the demographic is not exactly what you will find at your wedding.
Your DJ should have experience across the board and be able to tell you stories about all kinds of different parties that they have worked for. Sweet sixteen’s and school dances mean they can handle your young guests without a problem. Holiday Parties and other events may prove young to middle age is no problem. Anniversary and retirement parties mean they have experience in catering to older clientele. Make sure they have good experience in all categories and all your guests will be satisfied!
6. FAIR PRICE. Look around and see what other experienced DJ’s are charging. Find the DJ who seems right for you and in the ballpark.
Cheap DJ – Very cheap quotes may spell inexperience or desperation and could destroy your party. Make sure you know exactly what kind of gear the DJ uses, and also what kind of experience they have. Do they have different packages available? What do they do at weddings that make them worth looking at?
Expensive DJ – Overpriced DJ’s, on the other hand, may warn you not to go with any DJ who charges under, say $700, or whatever the overpriced DJ wants to charge you. They may say that under a certain price means a DJ is “not a professional” or “will do a lousy job.” This is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE. This only said to command more money and scare you into hiring them. Using fear tactics and negativity to try and secure your business is NOT GOOD BUSINESS. Trash talking other DJ’s openly is also a bad sign.
7. PROFESSIONALISM. Can they actually blend the music together? Some DJ’s have moved over to laptop set ups which can be great, but if they do not have professional DJ programs, then there could be gaps of “dead air” between songs. Ask about this first, as dead air in any dose can kill your party.
Do they offer something in writing? Do they have professional gear? Do they have a web site or something you can look at? Do they have a business card? Do they have back up DJ’s and or equipment available? Or is it only them with one set up? Can you see them publicly in action somewhere?
8. FLEXIBILTY. The DJ cannot be “stubborn” or “set in his own way.” They are there to serve you and do what you want. If you do not want The Dreaded Chicken Dance, then don’t let him tell you that is going to happen!
Are they okay with playing music that they do not like? Some DJ’s refuse to play certain songs, because they feel it may not get them gigs by potential customers at your party. However, if this is the case, then they are more worried about their image than they are doing a good job for you. They are there to work for you, not be a commercial for themselves. Make sure they will do what you ask them to, within reason. At the same time, make sure they do also know what is appropriate to play and professional. As Ali G says, “Respect!”
9. REFERENCES – Ask for references! Duh!
10. FUN AND CLASSY? – Can they do both? It takes a great DJ to be good in both departments. If it is your special day, you will probably want some seriousness, as well as craziness to remember.
Last Saturday Maria & I DJ’ed an 80th Birthday Party at Burden Lake Golf, Burden Lake, NY (which is right near Averill Park, about 15 to twenty minutes from Albany). I had never done anything at this venue, but it’s a nice little place.
They seat about 150 people comfortably, with round tables and lots of windows all around. There are some little ponds outside, streams and a lot of green, so the atmosphere is nice. They have a full long bar with seating and also they have a built in slide show arrangement in the corner so you can do powerpoints/slide shows. (I believe it is also wired for PA, though we used our own set up).
Just thought I would give them a plug, as it was a nice little place I hadn’t heard of.
I have noticed that the one big “no-no” for seating is putting the old people near the DJ. They hate it and will constantly ask you to turn the music down, even if they are half deaf.
Also, did you know that wedding caterers (who know a lot of about food, but not a lot about sound) often set tables right in front of the DJ booth? Did you know that this is bad because it blasts the guests in those tables, and creates less good sound on the dance floor, due to obstacles in front of the sound waves?
Writing a successful seating arrangement for your wedding reception sounds like an easy task, but without a little research, IT AIN’T! A working knowledge of sound equipment & where to put your DJ, family politics, friendship issues, divorces… There are a million rthings to think about.
This is a good guideline to at least think about, before going about making an effective wedding seating or floor plan:
1) Seat the Bridal Party First
Decide where you want the bride, groom, and the bridal party to sit, first, and then the rest of the tables can make sense. Do you want the whole party sitting together? Or do you want the bride and groom to sit at a table by themselves, with the bridal party members scattered among the rest of the guests? Dates of bridal party members will need to be seated with other guests, but it is nice when they can be near their loved ones.
2) Seat the Parents and Close Family
Next, lay out the tables for your families. Usually, Table #1 is for the bride’s family and Table #2 is reserved for the groom’s. These tables are for parents, grandparents, siblings, and other immediate relatives. Be careful: if you leave someone out who believes they belong at this main table, there will be hurt feelings. If you have divorced parents, stepparents, or anyone else in the immediate family who do not want to be seated together, consider using multiple tables.
BAD FLOOR PLAN: Did You Know That Tables In Front Of The DJ Booth is BAD?
3) DJ Close To Dance Floor
Always put your DJ as close to the dance floor as possible and do not put a table directly infront of the DJ booth. Ideally, you should have a clean open pathway from the DJ’s booth to the dancefloor with no obstacles in the way, and particularly no guests!
Make sure and discuss this request with your venue provider’s event organizer. Quite often, their agenda is very food & service-driven. This means they do not always have in mind the best interests of optimal entertainment requirements.
Ask any good DJ and they will tell you it is NEVER a good idea to be far away from the dance floor or have seating directly in front of the booth. For more on this common problem, check out our article, Where to Put Your Wedding DJ.
4) Get Help!
Don’t try to do the entire seating chart all by yourself. Make out a rough draft and pass it around your family, first. It’s actually even better if you can enlist one person from each side of the family, like the two mothers or perhaps a couple of siblings. Family members will know who needs to be seated where and together, and who needs to be seated on opposite sides of the room! Older family members probably know family politics better than you.
5) Put Families Together
Take your index cards and make little piles of families. If you have small groups of families who are friends with the bride, you may want to combine them other small family groups of the groom’s to encourage mingling. If you do this, try to choose families that seem similar in interests.
6) Put Random Friends, Coworkers, Neighbors, and Others Together
Take your index cards and make little piles of friendship groups. Keep these people together. To encourage mingling, seat small groups of friends together that seem compatible. Do the same thing with groups of coworkers, neighbors, people you know from a particular organization, and anyone else who knows each other as a group.
7) Kid Tables
Making kid tables is always an option. This could be risky, but also could work out best in many situations, depending on who the children are. If you have lots of children who are mature enough to sit alone, consider creating a special children’s table. Try to group kids together who are in the same age group. Depending on the age of the children, you can put some activities on the children’s table for them to complete.
8) Tables for Singles
Like to match-make? Weddings are great places for singles to meet, so place singles at tables together. When making tables full of singles, try to make sure everyone present knows at least one other person so they won’t feel totally on the spot.
9 & 10) MORE RANDOM TIPS!
– Keep ex spouses or ex boyfriend/girlfriends apart.
– Keep people apart who actively dislike each other.
– Don’t mix people with highly different political opinions or religious beliefs.
– Elderly and disabled people should be near rest room, or area with least amount of walking to a destination point.
– If you have guests who are rude, silly, and obnoxious, you may want to seat them together, rather than subject a few of these bad seeds to each table. That way there is just one rude table.
– The final headcount is never perfect. Some guests who said they were coming will not, and some guests will show up unexpectedly or bring an extra person.
Karaoke at a wedding can be great in small amounts!
If you have a wedding coming up, you want it to be different. How about a little karaoke?! While it is not for everyone, it could be right for you.
If you are considering adding a nice karaoke package to your wedding reception, you are the type of bride and groom that really want your guests to get down with the music. Right? It is true. Karaoke will start of your wedding reception with something memorable, and karaoke is certainly a fun option for participants. However, as Spidey once said, “with karaoke comes great responsibility.” (Or something like that.)
First off, you really need to check out your DJ to see what his actual karaoke background is. He could be a great wedding DJ, but not that cultured in empty-orchestra performances. Has your disc jockey won any best of karaoke titles a number of times, like Kenny Casanova (shameless plug) ? Does he (or she) have great karaoke gear with sweet cordless microphones and hot current selections as well as the old classics songs that everyone loves, like DJ Kenny Casanova?
While it is hard to exactly explain what it is that makes a karaoke DJ “#1” in the eyes of his or her karaoke following it probably has to with a combination of personality and fast pacing. That is what makes us different.
Personality. It is something your DJ either has, or doesn’t have. There are no personality classes. You cannot learn this. The only way to really judge personality, is to see it for yourself
Ask to see your DJ playing karaoke music at a public venue. If you would like to see us, we ask our customers to stop by Villa Valenti Pub in Troy, NY every Friday night.
The reason we get booked for a lot of weddings and sweet 16 birthday parties is by having potential customers come to our public gigs and test them first. If they invite you, do it! You can see them in action, unannounced, uncensored and unknown. Then you can judge for yourself, without watching an edited video of only their best moments.
Musical sweetness.
How do you know, if what you are seeing will translate well for you? Your karaoke DJ should be funny and fun and keep the party going, but not a spotlight hog themselves. Some karaoke DJ’s are unbooked musicians looking for an outlet to shine. Your wedding is not the place for this. You don’t want your KJ to get on the mic and attempt stand up comedy. Your guests want to hear music, not speeches, but a little bit of quick mic work in the appropriate places after or before a strategic song can be classic.
Timing, timing, TIMING! It really is everything. No silence please. No dead air. This is important. When dead air happens – PEOPLE CRINGE, and the fun stops. People get tired and move on with their lives. The DJ kills the dance floor. Have you ever been on a dance floor and there is a quiet buffer space between songs? What do you see the dancers do? They either freeze and stand there like scared deer in headlights, or go and sit back into their dinner seats. BOTH OF THESE OUTCOMES ARE POOR! Silence equals BAD DJ!!! Look for the DJ try their hardest to keep everything moving and leave no room to sleep for the karaoke audience.
Once you have chosen the right DJ who also has karaoke, consider these precautions.
1) SCHEDULED KARAOKE TIME – Not everyone likes karaoke, so limit it to either scheduled performances by a few key players, or open up say the very last hour. If you open it up for the entire reception, it will not be special and will become more annoying than anything else.
2) SET LIMITS – Do not allow multiple songs by one guest. Maybe one or two, but you do not want your wedding reception to become a a karaoke concert staring one or two key players.
3) SCAN SONG SELECTION – Make sure your DJ runs all the songs by you, if they could be considered questionable. Some songs out there have ridiculous amounts of adult content and just are not right for a wedding. (HINT – if there is cursing, or a song by the 2 Live Crew, beware!)
So that’s it. Karaoke can really be a blast, but be careful. If you are, it can really add to the final flavor and make it a great night for everyone!
It is now that magical moment for you, the bride in white. The glowing spotlight is shinning softly on you and all eyes casted your way. Your hands hold a modest, yet gorgeous bundle of flowers and you are about to throw it all away, and move on to the next wonderful chapter in your book.
Your dress is perfect. Your hair is lovely. Everything is just how you imagined it would be, but the silly DJ cracks a stupid joke to match his song choice and plays something ridiculous and seemingly unrelated, because you didn’t specify and left it up to him.
You bite your lip. “I knew shoulda told him what to play!”
Don’t worry! You are not there yet. So what can you actually pick for a song? There are countless songs out there, and it is overwhelming, but you do not half to reinvent the wheel.
Here is a popular listing of Top Bouquet Tossing Songs where you cannot go wrong!
• Single Ladies – Beyonce
• Just Wanna Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper
• I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor
• Another One Bites The Dust – Queen
• Dancing Queen – Abba Girls
• Ladies Night – Kool & The Gang
• Man! I Feel Like A Woman – Shania Twain
• Respect – Aretha Franklin
• All I Wanna Do – Cheryl Crow
• Chapel of Love – Dixie Cups
• Hot Stuff – Donna Summer
• Pretty Woman – Roy Orbison
• So Many Men, So Little Time – Miquel Brown
•This one is for the girls – Martina McBride
•Wishin’ and Hopin’ Ani Difranco (My Best Friends Wedding Soundtrack)
•”Sex in the City” theme song
• American Woman – The Guess Who
•Bootylicious – Destiny’s Child
• Diamonds are a girls best friend – Marilyn Monroe
• Dirty – Christina aguilera
• Don’t want no Scrub – TLC
• Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic – The Police
• Express Yourself – Madonna
• Funky Town – Lipps Inc.
• Girls, Girls, Girls – Motley Cruew
• Hey Ladies – The Beastie Boys
• Hit Me With Your Best Shot – Pat Benatar
• Its Getting Hot in Herre – Nelly
• Its Raining Men – The Weather Girls
• Just a girl – No Doubt
• Ladies Night – Kool & The Gang
• Lady Marmalade – Pink, Mia, Lil’ Kim, Christina Aguilera
• Let’s Get Loud – Jenifer Lopez
• Like a Virgin – Madonna
• Milkshake – Kelis
• Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman – Britney Spears
• Oh Its so Quiet, Shhh (Zing-Boom) Bjork
• One way or another blondie
• Our Day Will Come – Ruby and the Romantics
• Perfect Day Hoku – Legally Blonde Soundtrack
• Red Neck Woman – Gretchen Wilson
• Shoop Shoop Song – Cher
• Single White Female – Chely Wright
• This one’s for the Girls – Martina Mc Bride
• Touch Me, Tease Me Case – Foxy Brown
• What a Girl Wants – Christina Aguillera
The traditional cutting of the wedding cake has strange roots. Did you know that back in the Roman Empire, the groom would eat part of some barley baked especially for the nuptials and break the rest over his bride’s head.
Did you also know that the multi-tiered wedding cake was originally reserved for English royalty? Well, a lot has changed.
You are probably planning a wedding and wondering, ” what are some good songs that my DJ could play for before dessert is served?”
Here are a few I have seen in the past:
•Cut the Cake (Average White Band) – *I don’t really recommed this instrumental anymore, as no one really knows the title.
•I Wanna Grow Old With You (Adam Sandler)
•How Sweet It Is (James Taylor)
•Sugar, Sugar (The Archies)
•Hit me With Your Best Shot (Pat Benatar)
•When I’m 64 (The Beatles)
•Recipe For Love (Harry Connick Jr.)
•That’s Amore’ (Dean Martin)
•Happy Together (The Turtles)
•Pour Some Sugar On Me (Def Leppard)
•I Got You Babe (Sunny & Cher)
•Love & Marriage (Frank Sinatra)
•Oh Yeah! (Yello)
•Axel F (Harold Faltermeyer)
•Peter Gunn Theme
