Choosing a Wedding DJ Top Tip 8 - Back up plan

As a professional DJ with over 20 years experience I thought it might be helpful if I offered a few tips to help you get the right DJ for your wedding.

This is the eighth in my series of bite sized tips.

The music that’s played at your wedding can have a massive impact upon whether you and your guests enjoy the day.

A quality wedding DJ can be a source of great advice when putting together an overall plan of the music for your whole wedding celebration creating a unique and changing vibe throughout your wedding day.

A typical wedding day can be broken up into a number of parts which can be accentuated by the style and genre of music chosen for example:

1. The prelude i.e. the music playing for the arrival of your guests prior to the wedding ceremony.
2. The ceremony music usually comprising the processional music, music to be played during the signing of the register and then the recessional music.
3. Music playing during the initial reception for the wedding breakfast.
4. Background music during the wedding breakfast.
5. The evening celebration incorporating any specific music selections for key events e.g. The First Dance.

You can take your guests on a musical journey that helps define the key moments in your wedding and is just right for you and your guests.

A quality wedding DJ has to have a broad musical knowledge of all styles of music including classical music as well as party music so they can offer advice on the various options available.

When it come to the evening celebration find out what the DJ’s approach is to building the DJ set.

Many DJ’s believe they know what you and your guests will enjoy and dance to better than you. Their approach reflects this trotting out the same tired play-list week in and week out.

There is no doubt that the DJ has some valuable insight into music that is generally popular but they cannot possibly know the songs and styles of music that resonate with you and your guests and bring back memories of key times and events in your life.

So make sure the DJ welcomes song suggestions from you and your guests and find out what their overall approach is to the wedding set list.