Who here does weddings? Need some advice

[jsa83]

i dj, my friends dj, my cousin dj's also with me but i didn't ask them to do my wedding. the dj i hired is about $2,800-$3,000. weddings should be elegant and formal. i don't like do dj weddings because i don't want to cheapen the look of a nice wedding. unless the bride and groom are ok with it.

MCing is probably the hardest part when it comes to dj'ing a wedding. usually i see one guy dj'ing and the other one MCing. find a buddy that has charisma and a good voice

[tararan]

MCing is probably the hardest part when it comes to dj'ing a wedding. usually i see one guy dj'ing and the other one MCing. find a buddy that has charisma and a good voice

I completely agree. The MC could make or break a perfectly good wedding. Hypothetically speaking, I for one wouldn't volunteer as an MC unless its a super tight budget and the bride and groom understands that I may sound somewhat boring over the mic. MCing would be my biggest obstacle if I ever play at weddings or other party events. as much as i love playing music I am not charismatic enough to pump up the crowd naturally.

This topic is pretty awesome. Its getting me more pump up as beginner DJ.

[JuanSOLO]

I hate doing weddings, and would not do one for under 500. It's easy money but you dont know what the hell your gonna get. As stated before, you will get A LOT of varying requests, many that dont make since. More times than not, people wanna hear the same ol cupid shuffle crap.

I do my best to make it fun, by asking before hand what the bride and groom want to hear. I make them send me a list of songs that I will incorporate into my set. It's a part of the deal. Then I mix that up as I see fit, trying to make the best of their playlist.

That said, even if your killing it, sometimes weddings are just full of dull people and it seems no one would care if you are there or not, and NO one dances sometimes.

However I have played at least 2 weddings that were A LOT of fun and everyone danced. I had my friend DJ Sober spin at my wedding at it was great.

Lastly, I've always thought it to just be good practice with shit crowds. If you can rock a wedding without a hitch, you can play for any crowd.

AND it helps pay for more gear.

[sobi]

So last fall I did my first wedding ever, I wasn't super stoked on it and it was for a family friends in a small town, I felt very unprepared and since they're family friends I never set a price cause I didn't know what to charge. They ended up paying me $500 which was a shock and they told me that was pretty much the cheapest competition they found. I couldn't believe it, based on what I've seen from wedding djs I wouldn't pay anymore then $200 dollars, at least where I'm from (side note my cousin also paid around $1500 for her wedding dj).

Anyways the point is I realized I can do a much better job then the guys I've seen here. I was outraged when I heard how much my cousin paid because the guy was not djing. So I've decided to jump into that scene and actually do a damn good job and blow away the competition.

So getting more into this I feel like there is a lot of new ground to cover. Transportation costs, lighting, speaker setup. For those of you who do weddings is there standard lighting and speakers that you always use. Do you rent? Is it smarter to buy lights? I'll have more questions but for now I'm in class and also need to focus haha.

Please understand that what I'm about to say isn't criticizing you or your desire to get into this market. You should want to, as there is good money to be made, and people should always do what they like. That being said...

The fact that you feel you can do better with virtually no experience right off the bat, and admitting the one time you did it, you felt unprepared, speaks volumes of how much you really do not know about the trade you are looking to get into. The big thing is that you are going to be the entertainment for what is one of the BIGGEST events in a persons entire life. You can either make it pop off, be loved, and get references out the wazoo... OR, you can ruin the most important day in the life of a woman (only second to giving birth), be hated, and possibly sued depending on how bad you screw up.

This isn't a bad thing though. Learn. The "skills" that DJ's on this forum consider important to be a good DJ are literally the least important "skills" that a wedding DJ's have. As for the most important things for a wedding DJ, one is programming. The most important thing at the wedding is making the guests happy. Contrary to what people think, the reception (DJ part) is about the guests first, and not the bride and groom. It is, but what makes them happy (regardless of what they tell you) is a bumpin party where their guests are happy and having fun. Sure, you have to cater to the newlyweds somewhat, but there is a lot of other people. That's why programming comes in. How do you smoothly go from something like the Chubby Checkers to Tito Peunte to a commercial house song within 30 minutes? Seems ludicrous, but that's the musical range and time that weddings allow.

As for the super high prices that they charge, there's reasons for it. You should (if you want to do it on a respectable level) have a backup of EVERYTHING. That means extra speakers, laptop, hard drive, etc... Then there's the time invested. You need to be prepared to meet with the couple 2-3 before the day even happens. Initial interview to sell yourself, and another few times to go over everything. Another part leads into what you were asking about renting or buying. If your serious, you need to buy. Also, it depends on what your looking to do. If you want to do low end weddings, and offer a cheap cheesy setup, the overhead isn't too bad. If you want to do mid-level to high-end set ups, the overhead can run well above 10 thousand dollars.