OMG....make sure your evening entertainment is good!!!

Im getting the venue DJ's phone number this week to ensure he knows what we want and putting together a playlist that he can then expand and adapt over the evening

I'll also be making strong suggestions about their lighting rig!!

We booked the venue DJ just for ease, so I hope he's good! We can give him a playlist or let him do his own thing, so I'm thinking we'll give him a playlist - or at least, a list of songs he has to play at some point during the night, he can fit in other things around that. As far as sound etc goes, I'm assuming it'll be a fairly good standard otherwise I doubt he would be employed by the hotel, because surely they'd get complaints, so I'm not too worried really...

I had a fab DJ for my 40th birthday last year so re-booked him on the spot to do my wedding. He gets everybody involved, remembers names and most of all plays my genre of music, mostly R&B, reggae, calypso, 80's soul and rare groove so I plan to dance all night!

Yep, I know what you mean. Some DJ's are superb, but I've been to a couple of weddings where the DJ has been shocking! Either they don't play what you've selected, or their mixing is terrible that it sounds almost like one track stops and another starts immediately.

The best way is to get personal recommendations from a few people about a good DJ in your area, and go and see them live!

Alternatively, go to their website and see if they have some live video of them doing a set

We've had a few client meetings this weekend, all were very positive.

When considering booking the resident, you really should check them out. They will normally be low paid, so often between £150-£200 for the evening (but possibly only 1 or 2 bookings per week), with the venue charging them out at a profit. If you're spending thousands on the day, investing a bit more time on the final supplier hopefully makes sense.

Most Wedding DJ's won't be able to invite you to their private bookings, but investing time in speaking to them and ideally meeting should sort the good from bad. At the meetings I had, we discussed music, and quite quickly identified what they want. This is all noted down and I'll be sending my quote, with full meeting minutes to them later.

I had a conversation last night with someone who mentioned some previously poor Wedding DJ's who played lots of older music. I explained that the DJ may have been under orders to play that style of music. I've a Wedding in 2 weeks where they have provided a 100% playlist.

This is not normally recommended (why not hire my equipment and connect an iPod?), my experience and musical knowledge will be mainly redundant that night.

However, next Weeks Wedding has only 2 songs requested, with the brief "a good family knees up please Jason".

Although I do mix where appropriate, this is rarely required. Song selection is top of the list. Picking songs just because they mix together is a bad direction to take your music selection.

Finally, most DJ's have a selection of lighting effects, if you have thoughts about what you would like - tell the DJ. I would welcome that discussion as many simple want to know that I have lights, the specific details of a certain look is rarely discussed in any detail.

This what I'm slightly worried about. We are doing an ipod disco after the band so no requests on the night. But my lot will dance to anything and OH's lot will be too drunk to notice any dodgy fading etc. Well I hope so anyway. It works at house parties or that's my theory anyway!

People are still talking about how good our band was. I'm so pleased we invested.

My wedding DJ was pants (the guests didn't really seem to think so, but it wasn't what we wanted).

We had a list (at his request) of 15 songs that we definitely wanted played as they meant something to us/our guests, he played 4.

For the songs from the stag/hen parties he decided it was a good idea to get us to down pints of beer or shots... bad idea.

He also called Mr C and I up to the dancefloor about 3 times, we've had our first dance, now leave us alone!!

Oh and the best bit... at a wedding with children, he played the uncut version of Cee-Lo Green's Forget You... ?

My birthday party DJ 6 months later however was amazing. If only we had found him first.

We are having a band which will take up a couple of hours of the night and they sound really good. The DJ we used is the resident DJ at our venue but we have been in contact with him via email and he told us to email him with a playlist if we wanted which we did, along with a list of song's we DO NOT want playing.

Our music choice is mostly modern with a few classics and no cheese which might not be to some peoples taste at all, to be frank it's our wedding and we will play what we like.

One of my Mum's friends (who I know pretty well too) is a DJ - he has great taste in music, been doing it for years and also does lots of wedding.

We've had conversations and we both agree that talking over tracks and too much cheese is a no no (so no annoucing song intros or ABBA/YMCA) but I've never seen him DJ so I'm still really worried! He's still charging us £300 as he needs to update all his insurance to play at our venue as his doesn't cover the area, but this is still the same costs of all the DJs I've come across...

I think the negatives coming out show the importance of getting the right provider in.

When you are checking out TOGs, Venues etc, I assume you met a few and did some research. DJ's (and Bands/all other suppliers) should be treated in much the same way.
Check out the local suppliers, call a few/send emails. Narrow the list down and then meet them.

The complaints about suppliers can often be due to communication. To get effective communication, there needs to be some kind of relationship;

* Do you feel you can call/email the supplier at any time and get a helpful reply?
* Does the supplier feel they can call you with questions?

If there is little communication, the outcome will be exactly the same as a TOG that doesn't know what shots they need to take or a Venue that doesn't know how you want the room decorated: a high risk of disappointment.

If you've booked a DJ, then why not keep in regular touch via email. Break the ice, and get them on your side. Talk about music, bad DJ's and generally things you do and do not want.

I would think that most suppliers would welcome any input that will help them do a better job.
Once you get that dialog going, they may be able to offer valuable advice.


A good DJ will be trying to make the first move here, actively trying to find out what you like/dislike and getting some kind of rapport. Herein lies the difference, a supplier that is always looking to do their best, and one that gets the booking and sits on their hands until the date...

We booked a DJ just because we'd seen a few bands that were pants :/ ..The DJ we booked has been great so far. He has a 'client area' to his website where he provides you with login details so you can draw up playlists and what not to play lists! Its really handy because he has his whole music archive on there and is constantly updating...I like logging on to have a nosey at the new stuff he puts up!

Hmmm - thanks for this thread - it has made me very worried we have booked the resident DJ becuase we didnt have a clue about who we might hire! but now I will contact the hotel to put me in touch with their DJ to see what he's like!

fingers crossed lol!

I have done the same. Im now waiting for the phone number so we can have a chat about all aspects of the evening.

Thanks everyone for the advice

We over stretched on the budget to afford our 5 peice band that blew everyone away! They really were amazing, there is no way I would have been happy with a DJ. I have been to quite a few weddings over the years and by far the best evenings are those that provide live music.

Some really good advise there from Jason. We had a fab DJ for our wedding (it wasn't Jason lol) he played a real mixture of songs, unfortunatly he didn't have "our" song but found something equally suitable for the first dance together. He took requests (which was kind of embarrasing when you have a family like mine lol - my brother insisted he played "Glory Glory Leeds United" (OH is a Man Utd fan, and yes brother knew this!) and my dad played a song that had the lines "wave your knickers in the air" <rolleyes> still, everyone had a brilliant time