Charleston Traffic May Delay Or End Up Ruining Your Wedding

Toward the end of the summer in 2018, I published an article that has since received thousands of views, and remains in the top 5 articles of reasons to get married in Charleston, SC. Since the publishing of this article, the world has changed so much. We've endured a pandemic that may have forever altered all of our lives, especially those who make a living or have a significant resources tied up in the wedding industry.  I am here to tell you that being a part of a bride and groom's wedding day is one of honor and I am still humbled by all of the brides and grooms who have chosen me over the years to be their wedding DJ.  With this honor comes a focus and attention to detail to make sure my client's visions are met through the best mix of music possible.  With the extreme focus to attention to detail I place into each and every one of my clients comes a stress that can eat away at you because you care. It's a stress that can be exacerberated by traffic.

Yes, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. I said "traffic". You know, that thing you experience in larger cities when you are commuting to work in the mornings or evenings and those same cities have a good infrastructure to handle it.  Don't get me wrong. Charleston, SC will forever hold a place in my heart. I mean, I grew up in this area and there are things about the area that will forever be part of me when I decide to part ways with the Holy City.  Before I get into my beef and a recent experience that prompted this post, please take a look at this article put together on 5 Reasons To Get Married in Charleston <---CLICK HERE. The best small city accolades have caused an explosion of growth through the greater Charleston area over the past 10-15 years. While growth is good,the way at which this growth has occurred is not sustainable, nor is it enjoyable for any locals who live here. This is mostly due to the growth that occurs annually without any significant change in the infrastructure to alleviate any traffic bottlenecks and to create a better quality of life. Simply put, Charleston has become a luxury destination for nice weekend getaways. But, I digress. Let me get into the meat of my story.

For anyone who has never been associated with the wedding industry, it's hard to put into words the immense amount of pressure that vendors are under to provide an exceptional level of service.  This pressure begins to build when vendors are loading their gear into their vehicles and begin driving over to the wedding venue.  You'd think that traveling over to a private beach house and not having to worry about the hustle and bustle of a downtown venue would alleviate some of this stress, but you would be wrong.  The new post-COVID wedding trend has seen a lot of smaller weddings being held at many private beach houses in the Charleston area. So, on this mid March weekend (before the official start of spring), I find myself heading over to the lovely and laidback Folly Beach for a small gathering among friends, often referred to as a "wedding".  Generally speaking, I always try to give myself plenty of commute time for my weddings, but over the course of the past 10 years, those times have begun to steadily increase. Seabrook Island, which in my opinion could be considered heaven on Earth is probably the furthest I go for a wedding in the greater Charleston area. On an average day, it used to take about 50-60 minutes to arrive there from my location. Now, it can easily 80-90 minutes to arrive at this beautiful location.  While I always do the responsible thing and give myself plenty of time to commute and arrive at a wedding venue, there is one thing I simply cannot control; traffic.

Really? It's March 14. The ocean water is too cold.

Apparently leaving my house approximately one hour before my arrival to begin set up for this wedding was not the proper thing to do. Really? Why would anyone go to the beach on March 14? The water temperature is still in the 50s. I mean, the temperature was in the low 70s, but just a few days later it was almost 90 degrees. So what could cause a line of cars to be entering Folly Beach on a Saturday afternoon? Oh, that's right I forgot. St. Patricks Day celebration were going to be held all over the Charleston areas during this weekend. While I am not calling for an additional route to get onto Folly, you would have thought that Folly Beach was going to be no more after this weekend by the amount of cars that were entering the island.

With a start time of 4:30pm for this lovely beach ceremony, an arrival of 2:30pm would have been perfect, but that is not what transpired. At 2:30pm, I was just beginning to approach the island. It would take an additional 30 minutes for me to get to the entrance of the island to the private beach house. I texted the bride to let her know I would be running a few minutes late. This would be the first in my entire wedding DJ career that I would be "running late".  It's a truly terrible feeling not to be in control of the situation. This bride and groom have trusted me to be there on their wedding day and I told them that I would be there at a specific date, and that is all of a sudden not going to be happening. I've forged an impeccable reputation over the years as an owner-operated DJ service who puts the focus on his clients, and at this time I feel like I was letting them down. But, why is this happening? It's the traffic and the desire for people to come to make Charleston their home without any reliable infrastructure to make our lives better.  But the story gets even more interested.

Traffic May Cause Technical Glitches For Your Wedding Vendors.

Now, with 90 minutes to set up for both the reception and beach ceremony, I was not panicking; at least not yet. As I began to unload my gear, the bride and her father came downstairs to greet me. I am an expert at setting up my gear. I mean, I've been doing it for 15 years. Well, during the set up of my reception gear, the table collapsed. Why the table collapsed is not important, as these types of accidents can happen, albeit this had been the first time ever in 15 years. My CDJs were still in their flight cases, but my beloved Pioneer mixer was actually lying on the top of the flight case cover as I like to remove it during performances to keep it from getting too hot. Unfortunately, when the table collapsed, the mixer fell and appeared to have gently hit the concrete floor. This startled me to the point of it being more of a nuisance, but when I reset everything up, I was starting to get some distortion out of many of the channels on my mixer. When this happened, panic set in because I still had to set up on the beach for the wedding ceremony. What was I going to do? After getting situated on the beach wiuth my ceremony music setup, I went back to my main setup to try to determine what the issue could be. Since I was now in panic mode, I was unable to determine what the problem was. I added another mixer and was still getting the distortion. I ended up using a spare mixer to complete my performance at this wedding reception. 

I Made It Through This Wedding Reception Nicely, But..................

I've always been one to say that all professional wedding DJs who have been in business as long as I have should be supreme experts in all of their gear.  Having set up my gear hundreds, if not thousands of times, I consider myself an expert in my gear. However, since I lost time (caused by the beach traffic), I found myself in panic mode because of being rushed into getting multiple setups erected in time for show time. Being OCD I thought about what could have caused this, but I was also thinking the worst, where a $2200 top-of-the-line mixer could be damaged and be in need of repair.  The following day after this wedding reception I spent close to 4 hours troubleshooting all of my gear. Before I powered everything up, I was extremely nervous. Was I going to experience this same distortion? You'll be happy to know that after an exhaustive round of troubleshooting, all of my mixers were fine. Because I had another wedding less than a week after this one, I continued to troubleshoot my gear during the days leading up to this next eveent just to make sure I was not imagining things. 

After this exhaustive round of troubleshooting, I landed on a cable that may have gotten pinched or tweaked somehow during the collapse of the table. Sure, the pinching of the wires inside the cable may cause this, but you know what? I never let one that I was under any kind of duress or "stress" for that matter.  But during the entire reception, I was seriously thinking the worst possible scenarios. But, I made it through. I made it through because in all of my years as a professional wedding DJ, I've always preached back-up gear and it came in handy at one of the most unlikely times.

The Traffic Was To Blame. End Of Story.

Even the most professional, expert wedding DJs may have panicked if they were in my situation. If I had those extra 30 minutes that I lost during my commute out to Folly Beach, I may not have reached panic mode during my setup, and I may have had ample time with a clear mind to determine the exact cause of the distortion in the mixer. So, yes, the traffic was to blame in this situation, and this was actually a first in my 15 years of DJing weddings in and around the Charleston, SC area.  People think that being a wedding DJ is an easy job. It's actually one of the most stressful jobs you could have. Every turn of the corner on your wedding timeline is a moment where the pressure is on for your wedding DJ to perform. Whether it's trying to achieve perfect execution during your wedding ceremony to creating the perfect vibe for your cocktail hour and dinner, to making sure you and your guests stay out on the dance floor all night, there is always pressure. So when you add in an unknown variable like "traffic", even the most seasoned wedding DJs could be rattled, especially if an unforeseen event like the untimely collapse of a DJ table. 

So, if you should be planning a wedding in Charleston, SC, please read over this post and share it with all of your wedding vendors and make sure you let them know to add extra time into their travel to your wedding venue. Charleston used to be a place where you didn't need to worry about this type of stuff, but those days are long gone and we are not getting them back anytime soon.

Ready To Speak To DJ Mike Bills About Your Wedding?

I'm not going lie. I still had a few nights where I was tossing and turning about this situation. That happened because I truly care about the success of your wedding day and always will. I would love to speak with you about your wedding. Thank you for finding my website and blog. Feel free to click on the link above and fill out a contact form and we will set up a time to speak about your wedding. Congratulations on your engagement!