i pod playlists instead of DJ

I want an MP3 player with music too..it will be songs that mean something to us and not music we don't like which we would get from a DJ. I'm wondering about lights now though as it'll probably be in a village hall but it'll not be like a disco with no lights so I don't know.

We are having a band but we are having an ipod playlist before they start and during their break. At our friends wedding they also did this however some of the songs on the ipod were quieter than others so be careful when downloading and just check it through a few times before the big day and it should be fine.

We had a band play at our wedding that had 2 45 min intervals, so we arranged a playlist on our i pod which they rigged through their own speakers, it was great! I don't know if I would have done it for the entire evening, I feel it would fall flat but then it totally depends on your budget and what you actually want. That said I can't stand DJ's.

Friends did this at their wedding last year. It was OK, but two things I noted are:

- Run your music files through a normaliser, so the volume is consistent

- They planned enough music to run into the wee hours, with genre-specific sections throughout. I knew they planned to play some rock/metal (my kinda thing, and the bride's), but I missed it coz it was at the end of the playlist and ended up being played around 1am, after we'd gone home (and I found out the next day there were only about 6 people left by then).

They were perfectly happy though, and I didn't hear anyone complaining at the reception.

We're having a jukebox-style music player on our tablet, with our carefully chosen playlist on it. So guests can choose what they want to listen/dance to throughout the evening, but we're controlling what they can choose from IYSWIM.

I'm hoping to just stick in on shuffle and let it go lol. The cheaper the better for us, a wedding I went to had a laptop going with songs on through the meal. No one was dancing so it didn't matter, I would like people to dance and have a good time at ours, but need a bit of atmosphere - can you hire lights at a reasonable charge does anyone know?

Arghh I would totally advise against this...unfortunately an iPod can't read the mood of the room ad by shuffling the songs you will have random ones playing...could potentially kill the party also I have seen one before where the guests kept skipping tracks as nobody was guarding it, it was awful! Sorry I just think the £200/£300 for a DJ is well worth it xx

We had this for the later part of our evening reception (we had a jazz band just to get things started) - though it was just a Spotify playlist on my laptop rather than an iPod. We tried to plan the playlist a little so it wasn't too disjointed, but weren't too fussed about it being just like a DJ. We wanted people to be able to dance - and lots of them did, but also to be able to sit and chat if they wanted, so the music was loud but not too loud and no DJ talking over it.

It worked fine for us, but if you want everyone on their feet all evening you might want to think again. I also wouldn't just put it on shuffle as that can come up with all sorts of random stuff which doesn't fit together - at least try to put some kind of playlist together.

I was considering this as our wedding is gonna be small and I can imagine our wedding party would be dwarfed by a dj or band, but being a music lover my OH doesn't want just an ipod playlist. I did a little mooching and found out that you can hire jukeboxes for under £400 that play background music constantly inbetween guests getting up and choosing songs so I think we may do that instead. To be honest a few of my friends will get up and dance regardless of if nobody else is haha so this might be nice for them to choose a song to shake their bums to.

It's worth having a read of this article http://www.weddingdjalliance.co.uk/wedding_dj_or_jukebox.php

Thanks everyone for your input.

In an ideal world I probably would have a DJ with a very perscriptive playlist but that's not an option.

We've planned seperate hours with themes like Guilty Pleasures, Indie Rock and Roll, 80's etc and the songs will be chosen so they go together and without any gaps inbetween. There will be a professional operating the sound desk to hopefully address any issues with volume etc.

All of that said, I expect there will be the odd issue but I'm not hugely concerned about that, it's a wedding not an actual night club. We've chosen lots of songs that we know our friends and family like and there's a lot of keen dancers amongst them so I'm sure it will all go well.