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The Right DJ For Your Wedding - The Perfect Playlist

12 November 2016

Every time I sit down with a prospective client, there is always at least one story from them about how they went to a friend’s wedding and their DJ ruined their wedding.  The DJ ruined one of the biggest days of their lives because they either played music the bride and groom did not want to hear OR the DJ played music from their own personal collection that they assumed the crowd would want to hear. That assumption comes from the club DJs trying to make that crossover for the bigger money into weddings. As you may have read in my previous entries as a part of this blog series, only a fraction actually successfully make that smooth transition.

Honestly, the success I have seen as a professional wedding DJ comes from giving my brides and grooms the latitude to hear what they want and provide a list of songs or genres of music that they don’t want to hear.  While there are list upon lists of common wedding dance songs, allowing the bride and groom to hear exactly what they want makes for the best and most memorable times. There are those DJs who come back with the attitude that they have something to prove because the couple didn’t provide a list that they liked so they take it upon themselves to pull out a bunch of music that may or may not be suitable for your wedding reception. Case in point, a friend told me recently that she wished she had been more upfront and honest about what they wanted for music. She had told her DJ they wanted “dance music”.  “Dance” music is a pretty broad topic and spans many, many genres. So apparently the DJ she hired took this as let’s pull out the Calvin Harris greatest hits and put on repeat. Professional wedding DJs play to the crowd, NOT to what they personally like and they don’t “assume” their personal collections are going to be the right mix for every wedding. Professional wedding DJs give their brides and grooms the latitude to choose and select songs they would like to hear, and also those songs that they do not want to hear. Whether or not you decide to book me as your wedding DJ, one of the first questions that you should be asking your DJ is whether or not you and your fiancé will have the ability to craft YOUR own perfect playlist.  Professional wedding DJs ask questions about musical tastes, as well as musical tastes of the guests and family. At the end of the day, the playlist selection should be about the bride and groom, but also consider your guests. Sometimes in an effort to get a feel for what your guests may like, brides and grooms put a request for one song on their RSVP responses. This could be done to get a good feel for what direction to go when creating your playlist.

Care to get a headstart on the planning of your 2017 wedding? Click this link. Contact Mike