In planning the early stages for a wedding of mine at the end of this month, the client shot me an email with some concerns and dislikes about a recent negative dj experience she had at another wedding, and that she wanted to steer clear of.
She had alluded to this negative experience in general during the hiring process, and I explicitly asked her to please name some of the negative aspects of that experience both for her benefit and mine moving forward.
I thought it might be an interesting post, since it touches on a LOT of areas, and I included my responses to her as well.
It is a great example of a client who is paying attention, has learned from the past, and definitely knows what they do and do not want.
The couple is so fun, and their personalities will definitely shine through in the wedding itself - I'm looking forward to this one!
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Hi Justin,
There's a lot on this thread so I guess I'll first start with my dislikes about the DJ (and just the setup) at Andres' cousin's wedding (also I had a bad experience with my sister's wedding, another DJ, but part of my concerns):
Oh my gosh!
1. No music while we waited. The reception was in another city than the ceremony, and we waited about 3 hours for the bride and groom (due to pictures, happened at my sisters wedding too). Anyways, they had a live mariachi band playing, but they couldn't go around table to table forever, so there was over a full hour with NO music, while we still waited for the bride and groom. I would very much like there to be a little background music as our guests wait for Andres and I take pictures (we love jazz! and/or possibly some Andres Borcelli playing during this time; we have a lot of his music).
Of course there will be music while guests are mingling this is the cocktail hour and is generally best served by light stuff in the background like cocktail piano, light jazz, or Andres like you mentioned. We would go over your preferences. There will never be any "down-time."
2. The speakers some how got crossed. For some reason during the reception, instead of music we would hear a person calling out bingo numbers, it was very annoying, but it didn't stop for about half an hour. Also, it seemed that NO one was trying to do something about it. That's why I want someone who is a professional and has a technical background in these things to be present, so problems get fixed quickly.
I have never had this kind of problem with my equipment, and the bleed-through might have been (just my guess) the results of a bad or cheap wireless mic system picking up another frequency? Hard to tell but definitely not an issue here. I'm actually always upgrading the components in my system, and have over the last few months, and so am always dealing with professional/newer stuff.
3. My family is much more conservative than Andres' family, so I want to find a balance when it comes to music. The DJ at his cousin's wedding did play a lot of hard core hip-hop, very sexually explicit, and used many cuss words. Out of all things, we CANNOT have this type of music playing, Plus, we don't plan on having a lot of hormonal teenagers at our wedding like his cousin did. This is why we're kind of afraid to have the DJ his parents are recommended because he is Andres' uncle's nephew, we can't be very clear that we DON'T want this type of music, otherwise it's like offending his cousin that allowed that music at his reception. Plus with a family member, we'd get a lot more opinions from every other family member trying to help instead of them just listening to us.
Your wedding, your music! We will definitely talk about the right and wrong music. Its about you guys and what you want or find appropriate- NOT what the dj wants to play! I might have suggestions based on experience or whatnot as to what types of things work for certain parts of an event or whatever, but the final call is always yours, and my feelings are never "hurt." LOL. As for hip-hop, if you don't want it, there wont be any. We can do light hip-hop, (or not) if you'd like - stuff like you might hear on the radio, but only as much of it as you would like, if any at all. Even if we played any, all my versions are "clean" radio edits, so everything has cuss-words removed.
4. It didn't even look like there was a DJ there. I don't even know what the guy looked like, I just saw a laptop on a table, with family or friends going up to just scrolling and choosing songs. I've seen this done at college parties, and really I want it to be I and Andres who regulate the music, again to keep a balance between our families, and plus because though we might not know a lot about who sings what, we do know what kind of music we like, and we want it to be eclectic, not just one extreme. We were actually thinking about alternatiing between the latin genres we do like (Marc Anthony, we have a ton of our own Putamayo CDs, etc) with genres we enjoy, jazz, oldies (Andres' personal favorite), swing (which a lot of girlfriends like), and selected r&b artists, and even introduce some brazilian samba and bossa nova which is my personal favorite.
Controlling the music and getting a mix/balance is cool and we'll go over that too. No reason to listen to one thing all night. I have plenty of jazz, r&b and swing.
5. At my sisters wedding, she had asked a friend, a lady from another church, to do her music. This woman decides the day of the wedding to go to ANOTHER wedding and sent an experienced young lady to DJ. We had NO music for the whole event.
You don't have to be worrying if I'll show, that's for sure!
"No dj in sight." You can ask Lisa - I'm always there! I have a tables and thats where Ill be unless Im with you or walking through your crowd directing things. All my music is cd-based, so I can't set up a laptop, hit play, and go get drunk (I don't even drink). I have lists that will be available for your peeps to come up and make requests as long as they fit within the guidelines you've already set.
Basically what I've learned and am trying very hard to do is to stay away from family/friends "help". Because with family and even friends, and this happens so much in Latino families, when there is a wedding the bride is told what to do. I've been very unconventional getting a wedding planner, because I do not want to have to deal with family, or even family friends disappointing me at my wedding, which I saw a lot of at the weddings I've been too. Also, another unconventional thing about this wedding is that it will be very diverse. There's my very religious conservative family which don't even dance but I would like to encourage to dance (I do want to have a dance with my father), and there's Andres' very outgoing family, that love to dance, and get drunk at weddings. And then there are our friends and mentors who are all in between. I know we can't please everybody, but since it is our wedding, I have been setting boundaries with both sides of our family, so we can at least try to have the wedding we want, and that we don't have it to the point that one person, or one family is completely thrown out of their comfort zone. I hope this was enough information lol.
Oh! And I wanted to thank you. I checked your vendor recommendation site and found Anna! The dove lady! She knows that we're both students and one a very TIGHT budget and she is giving us a great deal. Thanks for posting that online, and again thank you for working with us and within our budget.
In the end, all your concerns are valid and there's no reason you should have to "give" on any of them. You have the right idea about hiring out professionals. You are not worrying about someone else's "feelings" or introducing any of that pressure into the mix, and if you are truly hiring professionals all-round, what you want goes!
Sounds like you have learned from experience, which is good, and I think you are wise for hoping to steer clear of the drama that can be introduced by family and friends.
I'm glad you were able to find the dove release gal on my site. That's why I have links to those peeps on the page, because they are great to work with!
J....
She had alluded to this negative experience in general during the hiring process, and I explicitly asked her to please name some of the negative aspects of that experience both for her benefit and mine moving forward.
I thought it might be an interesting post, since it touches on a LOT of areas, and I included my responses to her as well.
It is a great example of a client who is paying attention, has learned from the past, and definitely knows what they do and do not want.
The couple is so fun, and their personalities will definitely shine through in the wedding itself - I'm looking forward to this one!
--------------------------------------------
Hi Justin,
There's a lot on this thread so I guess I'll first start with my dislikes about the DJ (and just the setup) at Andres' cousin's wedding (also I had a bad experience with my sister's wedding, another DJ, but part of my concerns):
Oh my gosh!
1. No music while we waited. The reception was in another city than the ceremony, and we waited about 3 hours for the bride and groom (due to pictures, happened at my sisters wedding too). Anyways, they had a live mariachi band playing, but they couldn't go around table to table forever, so there was over a full hour with NO music, while we still waited for the bride and groom. I would very much like there to be a little background music as our guests wait for Andres and I take pictures (we love jazz! and/or possibly some Andres Borcelli playing during this time; we have a lot of his music).
Of course there will be music while guests are mingling this is the cocktail hour and is generally best served by light stuff in the background like cocktail piano, light jazz, or Andres like you mentioned. We would go over your preferences. There will never be any "down-time."
2. The speakers some how got crossed. For some reason during the reception, instead of music we would hear a person calling out bingo numbers, it was very annoying, but it didn't stop for about half an hour. Also, it seemed that NO one was trying to do something about it. That's why I want someone who is a professional and has a technical background in these things to be present, so problems get fixed quickly.
I have never had this kind of problem with my equipment, and the bleed-through might have been (just my guess) the results of a bad or cheap wireless mic system picking up another frequency? Hard to tell but definitely not an issue here. I'm actually always upgrading the components in my system, and have over the last few months, and so am always dealing with professional/newer stuff.
3. My family is much more conservative than Andres' family, so I want to find a balance when it comes to music. The DJ at his cousin's wedding did play a lot of hard core hip-hop, very sexually explicit, and used many cuss words. Out of all things, we CANNOT have this type of music playing, Plus, we don't plan on having a lot of hormonal teenagers at our wedding like his cousin did. This is why we're kind of afraid to have the DJ his parents are recommended because he is Andres' uncle's nephew, we can't be very clear that we DON'T want this type of music, otherwise it's like offending his cousin that allowed that music at his reception. Plus with a family member, we'd get a lot more opinions from every other family member trying to help instead of them just listening to us.
Your wedding, your music! We will definitely talk about the right and wrong music. Its about you guys and what you want or find appropriate- NOT what the dj wants to play! I might have suggestions based on experience or whatnot as to what types of things work for certain parts of an event or whatever, but the final call is always yours, and my feelings are never "hurt." LOL. As for hip-hop, if you don't want it, there wont be any. We can do light hip-hop, (or not) if you'd like - stuff like you might hear on the radio, but only as much of it as you would like, if any at all. Even if we played any, all my versions are "clean" radio edits, so everything has cuss-words removed.
4. It didn't even look like there was a DJ there. I don't even know what the guy looked like, I just saw a laptop on a table, with family or friends going up to just scrolling and choosing songs. I've seen this done at college parties, and really I want it to be I and Andres who regulate the music, again to keep a balance between our families, and plus because though we might not know a lot about who sings what, we do know what kind of music we like, and we want it to be eclectic, not just one extreme. We were actually thinking about alternatiing between the latin genres we do like (Marc Anthony, we have a ton of our own Putamayo CDs, etc) with genres we enjoy, jazz, oldies (Andres' personal favorite), swing (which a lot of girlfriends like), and selected r&b artists, and even introduce some brazilian samba and bossa nova which is my personal favorite.
Controlling the music and getting a mix/balance is cool and we'll go over that too. No reason to listen to one thing all night. I have plenty of jazz, r&b and swing.
5. At my sisters wedding, she had asked a friend, a lady from another church, to do her music. This woman decides the day of the wedding to go to ANOTHER wedding and sent an experienced young lady to DJ. We had NO music for the whole event.
You don't have to be worrying if I'll show, that's for sure!
"No dj in sight." You can ask Lisa - I'm always there! I have a tables and thats where Ill be unless Im with you or walking through your crowd directing things. All my music is cd-based, so I can't set up a laptop, hit play, and go get drunk (I don't even drink). I have lists that will be available for your peeps to come up and make requests as long as they fit within the guidelines you've already set.
Basically what I've learned and am trying very hard to do is to stay away from family/friends "help". Because with family and even friends, and this happens so much in Latino families, when there is a wedding the bride is told what to do. I've been very unconventional getting a wedding planner, because I do not want to have to deal with family, or even family friends disappointing me at my wedding, which I saw a lot of at the weddings I've been too. Also, another unconventional thing about this wedding is that it will be very diverse. There's my very religious conservative family which don't even dance but I would like to encourage to dance (I do want to have a dance with my father), and there's Andres' very outgoing family, that love to dance, and get drunk at weddings. And then there are our friends and mentors who are all in between. I know we can't please everybody, but since it is our wedding, I have been setting boundaries with both sides of our family, so we can at least try to have the wedding we want, and that we don't have it to the point that one person, or one family is completely thrown out of their comfort zone. I hope this was enough information lol.
Oh! And I wanted to thank you. I checked your vendor recommendation site and found Anna! The dove lady! She knows that we're both students and one a very TIGHT budget and she is giving us a great deal. Thanks for posting that online, and again thank you for working with us and within our budget.
In the end, all your concerns are valid and there's no reason you should have to "give" on any of them. You have the right idea about hiring out professionals. You are not worrying about someone else's "feelings" or introducing any of that pressure into the mix, and if you are truly hiring professionals all-round, what you want goes!
Sounds like you have learned from experience, which is good, and I think you are wise for hoping to steer clear of the drama that can be introduced by family and friends.
I'm glad you were able to find the dove release gal on my site. That's why I have links to those peeps on the page, because they are great to work with!
J....
