Recent content by rickryan.com

Been a while, thought I'd chime in on a new purchase and compare it against competitors. Let's talk battery-powered speakers. I've owned the Bose S1 Pro. It's a good unit, no iOS app. I used one for ceremonies and cocktail hours for several years. Very solid choice although a bit weak. Next up...

I was in Guitar Center the other day and got a few minutes to check out the Evolve 70. In short, I was not impressed, at all. The 70 has a 15" sub in it and the cabinet is HUGE. I figured it was an 18. I didn't try to pick it up but specs say it's 78 lbs and the cabinet is probably too big for...

It's called "portion control". Without it, the first people pile their plate high and usually waste a bunch of it. To counter, you have to cook much more food, which also increases the cost to the client. My clients love having our people control portion sizes.

I'll 2nd that. Our caterer normally dips the food onto the guests' plate. This past wedding was a mexican bar, so he decided to let the guests dip their own. He was entirely stressed out that we'd have enough food, given the first half piled their plates high. My view, it's never good to have a...

Not buying it. You spend $2.5k on a speaker, it should d#%n well have a cover with it.

$15 per person is what I'm paying to my outside caterer. For drinks, they supply water & tea. If clients want soda, it's on them.

I guess I'll say "thanks". ;) FWIW, most of my all-inclusives end up around the $10k mark for 100 people. Incidentally also, there is a local competitor who's about 45 minutes away. Their venue is much nicer than mine and much larger. They're advertising their "successful wedding venue" (their...

I use an external HD to sync my machines. I have a .bat file setup to use RoboCopy on machine #1. I then connect the HD to the 2nd machine and use another Robocopy command to copy the updated director over to the 2nd machine. Not sure if you'll have to reindex VDJ or not. I'm guessing you will.

My take is photogs get roughly double what DJs make. $1k-$1.2k for DJs and $2k-$2.5k for photogs, at least around the Birmingham area. It was roughly the same in Nashville.

I offer regular payments but so far I've only had a single client want regular payments. Practically all of them will gather up $1000-$3000, then ask me to send them an invoice. My only condition is that the balance is paid off and we have final guest count and food choice done at the 30 day...

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking as well. Booking season has apparently already started as I'm seeing a steady stream of leads come in. I'm going to try $1000 off or $500 off a one-day rental and see what happens.

You got me to thinking over my profit margin. Here is what a basic, all-inclusive package runs me: This is an $8,500 package for 50 people. I do not have any cost in there for my DJ service. Now that I'm looking it back over, $6,770 seems excessive and maybe it's why my bookings have dropped...

Good advice, thank you. For now, I'm going to keep the drapery. I get lots of compliments on it and have yet to have a bride who wanted it removed. On the food, I'm already getting it for $15/pp and resale it at $25/pp. It makes a substantial profit for me. My son is primary photog but I do have...

I own about 45 acres, 2 houses, plus the venue building. I pay about $3k per YEAR in property taxes. When I hit 65 that will go to about $300 per year.

I don't mind. My first year, I ended up with something 32, but keep in mind I was grossly under-priced and was taking anything I could get (not just weddings). After I started doing nothing but weddings, I did 10 events that year and the next. This was at a $6500 price point for the...