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I am a freak about music selection. I know what I like, I know what my family/friends like. At weddings I attend as a guest, I make mental notes of the songs that flop and the songs that elicit a “Wooo!” from the other guests. It’s really important to me that we actually like our reception music, and I feel really confident that I know what will go over well on the dance floor. I am planning to design my wedding playlists, top to bottom, for Cocktail, Dinner, and Dancing, and I want very little deviation from these lists.
I am seriously considering the iPod-wedding route…but I think I’d feel more secure having a DJ. But…I fear the over-the-top, cheesy DJ stereotype that you see in movies.
My “PRO” lists are neck and neck.
iPod
DJ
Please, please, please tell me your stories. iPod weddings gone awry? Gone swimmingly? DJ’ed wedding success and failure? I am genuinely planning to make my decision based on your experiences, so holla at me. This is edging toward a bridal freak-out and must be nipped in the bud.
re: the announcements thing.. do you have a somewhat animated friend that’d be willing to help out? The reason I feel so confident going the ipod route is because a good friend of mine (who is totally hilarious and awesome) is going to be our MC. I know he’ll do a great job making announcements and sticking to our schedule.
I totally understand your dilemma. I went the DJ route because our venue had no sound hookups what-so-ever and I didn’t have enough dance song ideas. But if your place already has that all set up and all you have to do is plop an iPod on there (make sure it has a charge the whole time…), I’d say go for it! You could totally make it work. I would designate someone to take care of the iPod, if there does happen to be a technoligical snafu, or something needs to be paused or changed. I’m sure someone would be willing to do it for you! Think of the money you’ll be saving!
Our iPod reception was amazing. We actually used an iPod for our processional, cocktail hour, and dinner/dancing music. We had one friend working the iPod and her very charismatic husband was our MC. We actually had people clapping after songs, it went soooo well! (we had 3 backups that we never needed….can never be too careful, and so easy to add playlists to a friend’s iPhone or iPod!)
We went the Ipod route, the venue was setup for it. We asked a friend and my DH’s best man to do the announcing by giving them an itinerary of what we needed, which was only a couple of things like announcing our entrance, cake cutting and our first dance.
It went off without a hitch and we had no problems whatsoever, we saved so much money and no one noticed. Mind you we only used our Ipod for the reception dinner and our first dance.
We hired a live band for dancing which was really affordable since it was a friend.
We setup our playlists accordingly ie. entrance, reception dinner and first song.
I agree with CorgiTales. We are planning to go the iPod route and my FI is in charge of that project. Saves $$$ and less “cheese factor” of some DJs. He says he even found some simple “voice over” sound files to use for the announcements. For example: “Ladies and Gentlemen, please turn your attention to the dance floor for the Father/Daughter dance.” I haven’t heard them yet, so as a back up we are thinking of asking a friend or cousin to queue annoucements.
I have a friend who was really annoyed when all of his reception pictures came back and 95% of them featured the banner advertising the DJ on the front of his booth, so if you go the DJ route, ensure they won’t insist on hanging signs or banners in the reception space.
My DJ horror story is too long to write here but I’ll just refer you to this post - http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/the-dj-ruined-my-wedding
I wish that I had gone the iPod route!
our dj kind of sucked. we gave him the playlists but he still messed up. he played some songs twice. he didn’t cut in and out of the songs correctly. and the worst moment was when he played an 18 minute meat loaf song that he claimed someone requested. absolutely no one was on the dance floor then and i was pretty upset and wanted to go up to him and tell him to turn it off but i just let it blow over. he also told us he would wear khakis with a dress shirt and a tie and he ended up wearing jeans and sneakers and went outside all the time for cigarette breaks.
i would have rather had a different DJ or gone the ipod route if I knew someone who could make a few announcements!
I went to one iPod wedding and it was okay but definitely wish they had a DJ. The entire crowd would be out dancing and then a slower song would come on, or something different, and it would throw off the pace. People were running to the iPod to change the songs in the middle. I feel like with a DJ they can read the crowd to know if people are ready for a slow song or if everyone is having a great time they want to continue with the same type of music. They also had the charismatic friend, who did a great job, it was just the tempo of the wedding that was off! We went to 8 weddings this year and did not have a single bad DJ experience!
If you can find a good DJ (and there are plenty of non-cheesy Djs out there) I would go that route. I have never been t an iPod wedding where the music for the dancing portion was amazing. It has always varied from okay to not quite a disaster to godawful. I don’t really think anything can take the place of a brilliant DJ reading the crowd and figuring out when to speed things up, slow them down, revive the crowd etc. Just my 0.02 cents.
We did an iPod wedding, but had a really great friend do the announcements and check in on the iPod every once in a while. Luckily, I’m a band director so 1) I had all the electronic equipment (speakers, mic, sound board, etc.) and 2) my friends are performers.
It went GREAT.
I will say - I did A LOT of work in advance setting up playlists for EVERYTHING. Worth for the money we saved - IMHO.
We were going to go ipod, but my mother insisted DJ and it was a GREAT decision! He was uber animated and fun, but not too cheesy or annoying. He was great about feeling the vibe of the group and playing songs to match. We had everyone from 80 year olds to our partying friends in the 20s all dancing and laughing ALL NIGHT. Literally! If you have the right DJ, it can totally make the party.
As a fellow anal retentive control freak, I feel your pain. I’m planning to create song lists as well, but I too wanted to have someone to make announcements, etc. My genius solution? Hire a DJ for a shorter amount of time and iPod the other part of the reception. We’re using our iPod lists for Cocktail Hour and the music that will be played while everyone’s eating dinner - nobody pays that much attention then anyway. Then we hired a DJ for the last three hours of the reception - we’ll do our designated dances at the beginning of that time, the cake cutting in the middle, and hopefully get the dance floor moving with a pro. This satiated my gynormo inner control freak and saved us some money on the DJ, but still gave us the professional dance party I thought we might want later in the evening. Hope that might help!
I think the iPod would be fine, but I agree that you need to have someone in charge of it, sort of a quasi-DJ. You will want someone to be in charge of dealing with any technical problems, someone to announce you, and so forth. A gregarious friend will certainly fit the bill.
At a wedding I was recently in, the couple went the ipod/laptop route. They hired someone to “babysit” the computer (though he was not a professional). It went really well. They only played music that they picked out and everyone loved it. And they saved a boatload of cash.
As for the MC, they had a good friend help them out. They cut out introductions/dollar dance/tosses, so he didn’t do much except announce the toasts and cake cutting. Just make sure it is a friend you trust not to drink too much if you go this route.
The vast majority of DJs - especially here in Jersey - are AWFUL. Half of the ones I’ve seen look and act like they’re straight out of the cast of Jersey Shore. I know there are decent one out there, but I really don’t want to risk getting one that I thought was normal but turns out to be Snooki the Second. I also want to know that I’ll hear the songs I want to hear when I want to hear them. Not like at my best friend’s wedding, where the DJ played “Yeah!” during DINNER. Everybody was torn between eating and jumping on the dance floor; it sucked.
We’re doing iTunes (well, not iTunes, my FI hates Apple- whatever software he’s come up with to do the job). Our venue has speakers and I confirmed at our first meeting that they have done iTunes weddings before. The stuff we play will be popular songs that people know well and like to dance to - just not the popular songs I hate. (If someone has a problem with us not playing Black Eyed Peas, guess what, it’s our damn wedding!) I’ve basically gone to every wedding for the last year with my ears open for songs that got people dancing.
Our main problem is, like everyone else said, finding someone to do announcements and man the laptop. The friends we have who have the personality to do it are all invited to the wedding and we don’t want to ask them to give up their fun to do a job.
We were also torn with the DJ vs ipod situation. Our budget is tight and we definitely didn’t want to spend $800 on a cheesy DJ in a leisure suit. We feel we don’t need the light show and all the fluff that comes along with the DJ. My fiancee actually put an ad on craigslist stating our need for the equipment (speakers, microphone, cables), what we’d need the person for, and how much we were willing to pay. The rental company we’re getting our chairs/tables from has the equipment to rent for $175 and we guestimated having a “professional” control the playlist and announce first dance, wedding party (all of that) would be worth $75ish. So the ad went out for $250. We got lots of responses and met a great guy who’s going to bring his stuff, set up, and run the party, so to speak. We’re really happy with him! Fingers crossed for a great reception April 16!!!
Oh, and we’ve given him a huge list of must plays, would like to have played, and never play ever ever ever even if someone bribes you. We had a specific style of music in mind and didn’t really want to give up control of that 
we are playing it save and going the dj route but FI has gone twice to talk over the playlist and dj will play some others besides the ones we choose. our dj if a friendor so totally gets us
It’s a tough call but I think you would be fine going the ipod route if you can find a friend who is willing to be the MC!
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Mrs. Prairie Dog, Cincinnati Age and Occupation: 24, Program Coordinator Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, PhD/Biomedical Engineer Engagement Date: December 18, 2009 Wedding Date: May 2011 Venue: Glendale Lyceum About Me: I'm a pilgrim soul of a girl with a house full of books and a coffee addiction that could slay Juan Valdez. My life is a whirl of grammar correction, good music, glue-gunning, and two pets named Hazel and Winston Churchill. I'm marrying my high school boyfriend in a formal-ish spring affair, roughly themed: "Elizabeth Bennet crashes a party co-hosted by Jay Gatsby and Cath Kidston, and loves it."
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