How to avoid wedding DJ pitfalls

In South Africa in 2018 the average wedding "DJ" packages start at R5500 depending on the number of guests you are expecting and where your venue is situated.

In order for the DJ to give you an accurate quote you would need give him the following information:

1.     How many guests you are expecting? So that the DJ can determine the type of equipment to be used.

2.     Which venue you are considering? So that the DJ can determine his travel distance.

3.     Do you have any additional requirements like: Live musicians for the ceremony or the canapés or additional programmed lighting for the dance floor? NOTE: Not lights that was bought at "china mall" but professional lighting equipment that are programmed and controlled via “DMX”

Does your DJ like taking song requests?

All of us have experienced an embarrassing bad-DJ-moment and as a result the request-line started queuing up, when you have reached this point the party will very rarely be something to remember for the right reasons.

How should a wedding DJ handle song requests?

Do they take requests? and if they do will they handle it like this.

We do take requests but that is mainly for if there are a special few songs and certainly all your personal requests as a bridal couple.

The DJ need to know what the bridal couple like, for instance if there are some sentimental songs between the bride & groom or their friends - that will be a 'trump-card-song' for the DJ that could be played at the right time. For the song choices regarding the party the DJ should be able to discerned as the evening progress.

The value of the DJ service includes the ability to discern the appropriate music at the right moment. There are contradicting blogs to this which encourage the bridal couple to ask every guest for a song - this is a terrible idea for a number of reasons but mainly that now you have everyone waiting for their song to play instead of participating -  this turn your guests into spectators.  Secondly your uncle's music choice (for example) is probably enough to make your friends go for a smoke outside and vice versa. We know of this "song-request-thing" - I think it’s intended for when you plan to get a cheap mobile disco DJ or even worse an expensive deceived DJ.

In essence you are hiring a professional DJ that should be able to choose the right COMMERCIAL music at the right moment.

DJ-ing for a wedding is the toughest gig to do because it’s the ONLY MUSIC EVENT where people are NOT gathered because of their likeness in music choice. The same song will excite some people and disappoint others.

Fortunately, we can confidently say that until now Events Engine has had very good results at the reception parties of dozens of weddings.

Hope this makes sense.