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• Oh please to you pro-DJ's
  We did this at our wedding last month and it was a SMASHING success. The dooms-day scenarios the professional DJ's have posted here are nauseating and far from the reality that my husband and I experienced. I understand they have a vested interest in bride and groom's not doing this but they are trying to scare people out of even considering it! This isn't for everyone, they're right, but DJ's aren't for everyone either. Some people don't care what music is played, or they just don't want to worry about it. Great, let 'em hire a DJ. Others of us do care, a lot. We love music, and have a huge music collection that we were able to draw from. What we didn't own we bought from second hand CD shops and we will forever have our wedding playlist at our fingertips. So here was our reality: finding the equipment was not difficult. We have a friend who hosts karaoke and they put us in touch with a shop that rents high quality equipment. It certainly didn't take any more time or effort than interviewing 10 DJ's would have been. Setting up the eqipment was REALLY not difficult, puh-lease everyone knows at least one techy-type who can help them out. Our best man spent about 20 minutes on set-up total which was done before the wedding so no one missed the ceremony or any photos. Our laptop did not require being "run" all evening long--it's capable of running itself amazingly enough. Our playlists were great, and flexible so the four or five times during the evening when one of our friends wanted to change it up they did. No one had to stand there all night and stare at the playlist. None of our guests were disapointed that we didn't play the chicken dance or any other song for that matter, and if they were I'm sure they can hear it at the next pro-DJ'd wedding they go to. Only wedding DJ's think people like tacky music still, and no one left our dance early because they didn't get to hear the song they wanted. We had over 50% of our guests still going strong when we shut down the bar and the music at midnight. Our dance floor was packed from start to finish. Our best man did a terrific job as emcee, he was funny and told anecdotes about us all night, which was natural for him to do since he's known us for over 10 years. Oh, and he was able to emcee AND have a good time because there are really a limited number of announcements that needed to be made: dinner being served, first dance, anniversary dance, and last dance. Not too difficult, and he added a personal note to the evening that a stranger could not have. It took another 30 minutes to take down the equipment and put it away, which was handled by one of our groomsmen before we even realized it. We didn't want or need a fancy light display or cheesy fog machine. We had a site coordinator and two personal attendant's to make sure that the day was running smoothly, we didn't need to pay a DJ $800 to do that. Our playlist was flexible because it was on the laptop and our groomsmen were able to move things around and add in songs when they wanted to. We played lots of oldies, motown, and beatles, and our guests loved it!! And that is the story of my real life DIY DJ experience, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I hope that I get to go to more weddings like it too, because I love weddings that reflect who the couple is and I don't think the Electric Slide really accomplishes that.

  November 2, 2005

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