Weddings Wedding DJ Help

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I

invididual

New DJ
Sep 26, 2011
1
0
46
I was asked by my wife's best friend to operate a tablet with music on it at her wedding/reception. I told her that I would "DJ" the wedding/reception, but not with a tablet, I would be using my laptop (I'm told the venue already has a compatible sound system).

Now assuming that I was informed correctly about the equipment, what I'm asking here is:

1: Is there a specific piece of software I should get, or will WinAmp do the trick?
2: What is a typical wedding timeline?
3: What type of music should be played at what times?
4: Do I act as an MC as well (1st Dance, Cake Cutting, Garter Toss, etc)?
5: If I am the reception MC as well, how would I go about announcing events?

Please be gentle, I am truly green at this and need pointers.

Thanks in Advance
 
Welcome abord. My advise and most here would be to decline. If you have done other gigs as a dj you may have a chance, if not your first gig should not be someones wedding. To much can go wrong and you dont want ruin their special day. Even the seasoned among us get nervous at weddings.
 
drzinc said:
Welcome abord. My advise and most here would be to decline. If you have done other gigs as a dj you may have a chance, if not your first gig should not be someones wedding. To much can go wrong and you dont want ruin their special day. Even the seasoned among us get newvous at weddings.
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I'll second the above quote. I've done over 500 weddings, and still do not sleep well the night before. This is the Bride's one day for everything to go right. Unless you're her brother or a close family member, and she is fully aware of what may go wrong, I'd cheerfully decline.

Best,

Paul
 
I'll chime in with a few thoughts. First, I agree with the others, this is not the time to be jumping into being a DJ. Unlike other vendors, we DJs get one shot at doing it right, there is no editing afterwards, no having the kitchen remake something, etc.

Just out of curiousity, where are you located. If this truly is your first time out for a wedding, maybe one of the members on here would be willing to help you out if you lived close enough.

Also, why not tell us about yourself. Trust me, it'll get you a lot further on this board if we know who we're talking to, otherwise, some of the folks here can be pretty scary.
 
yeah - I hate not knowing who is stealing ideas...
 
Stay away from weddings for a while and let more seasoned pros do them. Weddings are highly stressful events. Everything must work 100% or you risk ruining a big day for someone and a negative rep. I still get super nervous when doing weddings, and even with plenty under your belt, you will get the shakes.

A lot of young folks think that weddings are easy pickings, but there's a reason why so many of us put the time and effort into training, prep, and other items before we do them.

I had a wedding yesterday that was all sorts of messed up. We had a tornado, which caused the ceremony to be moved inside, we had a string quartet playing music for the ceremony, along with a singer and keyboard player doing a few songs for the bride and groom, and on top of that, a huge crowd (over 300). Without the prep I had done prior and the large amount of prior experience, things could have gone badly.
 
unless you are using the actual DJAY app on a tablet, what she wants is nothing more than someone to stand there and make sure no one runs off with it. I would tell her to simply put the songs she wants played in a playlist and then push play when people get there. This way, you will have no responsibility when everything goes wrong...and trust me....by her asking you to do what she is asking...everything is going to go wrong.
 
1- agree with others, sounds like a rough way to lose your "virginity"
this is no time for you to try something new, and "see how it goes"...
2- on the other hand, if they are okay with an "Ipad" wedding...
they are obviously not as concedrned about the music as most brides.
either that, or they want total control of EVERY song played

at the very least, TALK TO THEM and explain your lack of experience, and your concern to not ruin their day
if they are still okay with the idea, ask them to please allow you to use your laptop.
at least you will be more comfortable
 
Like they say on the television just before the man lights himself on fire and drives his car off the cliff--"Don't try this at home!"
 
Is this one of those things where you're doing it no matter what? It sounds like she wants a body in the corner, and if it's not you, it's someone else.

If that's true, you have offered a good thing. I wonder how many of your back-up candidates would actually do this type of research. Google some wedding time lines. Find out the songs that she wants for the various events, what she wants for dinner music, what she wants to dance to, what she doesn't want to hear at her wedding. That should be a good start.

That being said, I have to agree with the other posters. It's not one of those things that I recommend a person go into lightly. It's a huge thing, and you're the most visible part of the production of the day. You do well and the wedding is a success. You screw up, and you're the wedding story the next ten years.
 
Going off of Hugh's post. I would if nothing else, find out the first dance and what the couple doesn't want to hear.
 
Some of you guys simply amaze me. Falling all over yourselves to give hard earned experience and information to people who are totally unprepared for the task at hand.
ODJT will soon become the laughing stock of the DJ Forums on the Internet. Haven't you all noticed the proliferation of the kind of posts we have been receiving? Its almost like someone is making up profiles and posting these questions so they can get a big laugh from the responses.
 
Canute, I don't see any hard earned experience / info being given to the OP. The advice was to stay away from it and / or if you cannot, do research previous to it. No specific answers other than that.
 
ittigger said:
Canute, I don't see any hard earned experience / info being given to the OP. The advice was to stay away from it and / or if you cannot, do research previous to it. No specific answers other than that.
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Well I was referring to Posts #10 & #11
My advise would be to NOT DO IT, period! No "but ifs"
 
here's my 2 cents, not do it, but if its a you got to do it, its not that hard, and it is hard, if your just doing the reception and I hope it is in this case, just do some lite jazz for the dinner hour, get the 1st dance song down, bride/father, groom/ mother a cake cutting song, garter/bouquet and then just mesh the dance music accordingly,, put it down on a sheet, yes you are the mc, and dont forget the intoductions, to a hot song coming in the door,,,, also a nice dj app works better than a win namp , such as Rockit on here by softjock, that way , you could put the wedding in folders and be ready to go on the day of , you are more pre planned,,good luck
 
Before taking on the event, you would be doing everyone a favor by obtaining wedding DJ experience first. (assist/shadow some professional wedding DJs)
 
I am an old fuddy duddy, but now doing it is something else,, hell I still mess up,, sometimes had so many wedding booked in a row I prounced the wrong couple, and make a joke out of it and get by with,,
 
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