What Happens If Your Wedding DJ Fails To Show On The Big Day

You are marrying the love of your life.  You've picked out one of the most beautiful wedding venues.  You envision all your family and closest friends celebrating with you and having the time of your life with this incredibly grand affair.  After all is said and done and the last payment is made, you will have invested close to $40,000 on this truly amazing day.  After you get engaged, you went through all the motions with the usual planning details. You secured your wedding venue, your caterer, wedding planner, and flowers but did not seem to hire your wedding entertainment (or take it seriously) like you did with all the other moving parts of this most special day.  You made an effort to attend a tasting with your caterer to get a feel for all the delicious food you and your guests would be indulging in. You stopped by one of the top florists in the area to see some of the flowers and bouquets that will dot the landscape throughout your wedding venue.  But even after all these investments to enhance the beauty of this most memorable day, you decided to cut corners and not take your entertainment seriously. You waited until the last minute when you hired your wedding DJ.

 Why shouldn't you hire your wedding DJ at the last minute? Simply put, it's the entertainment that everyone is going to remember about your wedding, not the food or flowers unless Oprah's personal chef cooked it or Martha Stewart created that beautiful bouquet.  Hiring your wedding DJ should be done almost immediately after you save your wedding date and book your venue.  Hiring your wedding DJ is not a process that is to be done in haste. Modern brides and grooms will want to interview numerous wedding DJs to see which one will have a style that is in line with their personality and musical tastes. You'll find helpful tips all over this blog about how to find the best wedding DJ for your big day.  You can also find me wherever you get your podcasts like Apple or Google Play with The Mike Bills Podcast.   In the meantime, the context of this blog post is centered around the fact your wedding DJ is not showing up.   This is a serious situation. It's a situation that happens more often than you think, but if you choose to hire a true professional wedding DJ, this simply will not happen.

All dressed up and no wedding DJ! Do not EVER be this couple. (Adobe Stock Image)

My Personal Viewpoints About No-Show Wedding DJs

Odds are I have a radically different viewpoint and take this profession much more seriously than other wedding DJs. You'll learn in this post just how seriously I take being a wedding DJ. I guess this is because from the moment I decided to enter the wedding industry, I saw hiring ANY wedding vendor, for that matter as a serious transaction. I've never aspired at the beginning of my wedding DJ journey to become a wedding DJ that does everything, or one that hires every college kid with a Spotify account or can DJ with their Iphone. Having a large company comes with it a tremendous liability and even more responsibility.  Even though a large company might be able to create some type of mission statement as to how their wedding DJs are supposed to act, each and every wedding DJ has their own personality, so it would be a tough thing to track and enforce.

In order to provide my clients with the best possible service and performance as a top wedding DJ, I have kept my company smallish. Why is it that I choose to describe my company as "smallish"? My wedding DJ company consists ONLY of just ME. Having a professional wedding DJ company that is composed of just "ME" keeps the moving parts to a bare minimum. Also, being "smallish" has allowed me to garner an impeccable reputation by you guessed it, being "smallish". Being "smallish" allows me to give my clients total focus on a clients wedding day. When you book me for your wedding day, you get me for the ENTIRE day, so you don't have to EVER worry about what I am going to be talking about down below.

No bride should EVER have her wedding day ruined by a "No Show Wedding DJ"

Contractually Obligated To Be Your Wedding DJ

Over the past several months as the threat of COVID-19 continues to lessen it's grip on the wedding industry, I've been getting contacted more and more by future clients who have taken the time to read about me before looking at the price.  More and more modern brides and grooms have taken notice at my approach as a wedding DJ, where when you book me, you WILL get me as your wedding DJ.  Only the most professional wedding vendors will provide a detailed contract for you to sign with their services. Read over your contract with a fine tooth comb and ask questions if you should have any.  When modern brides and grooms sign a contract with me, I take it very seriously because you have spent thousands of dollars to make sure this day is the best possible and most memorable.

About a month ago, I was contacted by a bride whose wedding DJ had cancelled on her. On the contact form, it says she had found me by way of a "vendor referral". When we spoke on the phone, she told me who her former wedding DJ was and I had not heard of this guy. Apparently he decided to cancel on this bride and groom because his wife was having a baby.  While it's difficult to put myself into this guys shoes, it's my belief that it was poor planning to book any weddings around the due date of the baby.  Not being married, I've certainly not been in this situation, but he could have planned things much better to avoid a cancellation.  To be honest with you, I was a little weirded out that any wedding DJ who would bail on a client would bring my name into their negative situation. While it might look like a friendly referral to them, I am VERY particular who I associate with in this oversaturated wedding industry. <--For more information about why the wedding industry is oversaturated, click on this link. Even though this bride appeared to be "understanding" he was cancelling to be with his wife, this is NOT acceptable behavior by any serious wedding DJ. 

YOUR Wedding DJ Does Not Show. What Are Your Next Steps?

Because everyone can create a Facebook or Instagram profile or cheap website, "everyone" is a wedding vendor these days. Due to this alarming statistic, there are still a fair amount of no-shows in the wedding industry. This is why I recently put together a post to remind modern brides and grooms to go over to a wedding DJs website before making any hiring decisions.  <--Click HERE for more information. Serious business owners are going to put forth resources on a professionally-designed website because they want to find you and continue to bolster their stellar reputation, not just take a deposit and not show up for dumb reasons. 

If you are getting married during a peak wedding month (spring or fall), the odds are NOT in your favor of finding a quality replacement should your wedding DJ decide to NOT show up.  First and foremost, if you've already had meetings about music and timings with one wedding DJ, how would you be able to find a replacement and have those types of conversations in short order? What if you gave your wedding DJ who decided not to show up a CD of custom songs that you had no other copy of to give to a replacement wedding DJ? Do you see where I'm going with this?  The best wedding DJs will develop a relationship with you during your wedding music planning. The best wedding DJs are going to get to know your musical tastes throughout the months and days leading up to your wedding day. Hiring one of the top wedding DJs is not a simple phone call like ordering a pizza, it's actually the process of creating a trust getting to know you by way of unlimited consultations. Not having your wedding DJ will derail your wedding day. It will RUIN your wedding day. Trying to find someone at the last minute to take the place of that "supposed" professional wedding DJ will be a tall order. Do you know anyone with any stereo equipment? Perhaps your uncle who was known to be an "ok" wedding DJ about 25 years ago can bring in his older, more antiquated equipment that won't be powerful enough for everyone to hear at your wedding venue?  If you have a timeline created right now, put it on your computer or tablet. Imagine having everything delayed by at least 2 hours. And to be honest with you, 2 hours could be conservative as you attempt to find someone who could come in and save the day. Imagine, if you will trying to call the wedding DJ who you've "contracted" and "paid in full" and you get a FULL voice mail box or maybe a voice mail that has not even been set up yet?

This bride is thinking some HORRIBLE things about her wedding DJ that failed to show.

I Will Be YOUR Wedding DJ No Matter What; Until YOU Cancel

No one wants to talk about the "what ifs" when they book their wedding vendors. The biggest logisitical nightmare that a lot of brides and grooms  think about is what to do if it rains. Click HERE For The Best Playlist For Rain On Your Wedding Day. Should I rent a tent or not? Should we have a rain plan? I personally believe that asking your wedding DJ or any other wedding vendor what will happen if they are sick and cannot make it to your wedding is a question that SHOULD NEVER be asked.  Because I chose to operate my company in that "smallish" manner I described up above, I've gone up and beyond the call of duty to NEVER miss a wedding.  It took a global pandemic like COVID-19  to have one of my weddings cancelled. When we sign a contract for me to be your wedding DJ, I am there for you throughout the entire process from the time that you book until the last song plays.  There won't be ANY conversations in the months leading up to your wedding about canceling our contract because the wife I never told you about is pregnant.  While you may understand and be disappointed that this wedding DJ won't be coming to your wedding, this is a lousy excuse. An absolutely lousy excuse that will continue to make the wedding DJ industry look bad. Only an amateur who does not take the wedding industry seriously would try to bail on a client they've taken money from with a dumb excuse like this.  

Back To Your Wedding WITHOUT A Wedding DJ

So, let's get back to your wedding "without" the wedding DJ you hired. You still CANNOT get a hold of them. The fact you cannot get a hold means you made a horrible judgement call in the hiring of one of the most important wedding vendors on the biggest day of your life. Simply put, THERE ARE no excuses for a professional wedding DJ to NOT show up.  A wedding DJs dog dying or a family member passing is STILL NO excuse to bail on any client. They'll have time to grieve on those losses AFTER they DJ your wedding that you signed a contract for well over a year ago. Odds are not in your favor that you are going to find a great wedding DJ to come in and rescue you from this terrible experience.  You've got 100 guests and 75% of them have flown in and invested at least $400 on a roundtrip plane ticket. Now, because your wedding DJ did not show up, they won't be having any fun.  Imagine spending $40,000 on your wedding and not having a wedding DJ? You almost feel obligated to refund some of the money for the out-of town guests who spent all that money on plane tickets.  

Be a happy bride arriving to your wedding venue because you hired a DJ who showed up

You Can Avoid ALL Of This By Hiring A Wedding DJ Like Mike Bills

I'm still insulted a wedding DJ who would bail on their client would refer their clients to me.  If you look at the both of ours websites, you can clearly tell he should "never" have referred me. His website was absolutely pathetic.  If two wedding DJs don't operate their businesses in the same manner with the same equipment and pricing, odds are they are not a good fit for working together. I've been burned before by booking agencies who either tried to destroy my reputation or just flat out should not be in business because they double or triple booked a couple's wedding day and then tried to salvage or maintain their website by contracting someone like me.  I'm dead serious about protecting the reputation I've worked hard about creating over the years. Trust me when I tell you this, you will want a wedding DJ who won't bail on you at the last moment. Any wedding DJ who bails on a client at the last minute for any reason except being hit by a bus should be reported to the Better Business Bureau. Serious wedding DJs will never bail on you, EVER. They should NEVER have been in business, but since they were, they pressured you into paying a deposit and NOW your wedding day has been totally ruined. $40,000 down the drain, plus you still haven't quite finished paying for the big day, so you'll have some debt to pay off afterwards.  I made mention up above that I was burned by a competitor. Find out more about this experience and why I specialize in performing at one wedding per day <---Click HERE - I'll never know if that competitor was trying to destroy my business, but some shady moves on social media in the years following that experience told me that they were probably trying to kill my business.   I hope I did not scare with you this post. It's a discussion that needs to happen as you begin to plan your wedding. It's a post that was designed to make you think more seriously about who it is you will hire to be your wedding DJ.  DO NOT HIRE just anyone. As a matter of fact, the odds are in your favor that I might have your wedding date on my calendar since I am a "smallish" and don't double or triple book wedding dates. Let's set up a time to discuss your wedding day. I love speaking with modern brides and grooms about music and would love to speak with you. All you need to do is click on the link up above to be taken over to my contact form. There, you'll provide me with some basic details about your wedding day and we'll set up a time to talk. Thank you so very much for finding me. I look forward to speaking with you. 

One Final Thing.
Do NOT Ever Pay A Booking Or Agency Fee! Find out why by clicking HERE