Weddingbee Blog

“Music is what life sounds like.” - Eric Olson

source: the flashdance

This post goes out to my music lovin’ brides out there.

When the wedding planning bonanza began, and after seeing the outrageous wedding DJ rates (DUDE), we chose the iPod DJ route. We made a looooong, radical list of our fave tunes, asked our wedding peoples for their “OMGthissongismyJAM!” songs, loaded this list up into 4 separate playlists—ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner and dancing—and made a “bust out in case of emergency” backup CD. Oh, and one of my favorite high school pals volunteered to be our emcee! It was way too easy.

And up until now, I’ve been a straight shootin’ bride.

Make a choice, don’t look back! But as the days dwindled down and I read this thought-provoking Weddingbee board post, seeds of doubt were planted in my wedding brain…and they grew grew grew. And before you knew it, the bridal nightmares returned full force…about our wedding peoples listening to the entire length of one of our dance songs and looking like this:

“’80s, Motown and hip hop? LAME”

source: marketingtrenches.com

One HUGE plus of hiring a DJ—or band—for your special day is they have an innate ability to read the crowd and flex the song list to keep the party goin’ all night long. Like, if people run on the dance floor for Billy Idol’s  Dancing With Myself, Mr. DJ-guy would probably mix it up with Modern English’s Melt With You and round out the ’80s set with Erasure’s super awesome A Little Respect.

But what if the ’80s weren’t doin’ it? iPod DJ would have no clue and would keep playing the songs one by one, and our guests would make a feeble attempt to shuffle along to the beat…or, my worst nightmare, stand around and just talk to each other. But real, living breathing Mr. DJ-guy could quickly scan the dance floor and within a minute, pump up the bass with a little Paper Planes remix…and all would be good again.

And my fears of Mr. DJ-guy hijacking our song list and playing all his own awful, cheesy stuff? This isn’t the case for all wedding DJs, only the terrible ones. We (ok, I - who am I kidding?) found out that there are a lot of said record spinners/iTunes mixers that will ONLY play the songs you list, if you’re into something like that. It turns out, these Wedding DJ-guys aren’t horrible—they’re your dance party shepherds.

But they still cost $$$$—well, the good ones that have awesome reviews from past brides, at least. And now that Mr. O and I agreed to abandon Operation iPod DJ, we were on the hunt for a super awesome, flexible and reasonably-priced DJ that was available—less than 2 months away—for our wedding.

I shot some hail mary emails to a few of our top choices and held my breath (I think I even prayed). And then I got the email that made me yelp as loudly as the day I got accepted as a bee. Our numero uno DJ pick, the amazingly talented and incredibly awesome DJ Tony So, said he was available. And within minutes, he gave me a call…we hit it off instantly…and he said he’d be honored to be the music maestro for our big day. And even better? He was the magic behind the dance party craze at Mrs. Piglet’s wedding, too! It was Weddingbee fate.

So the contract has been signed and DJ Tony is officially on Team Ostrich Wedding. And I’m thrilled because that investment gave us peace of mind. But every now and then, I still wonder if we could’ve pulled off the best iPod wedding of all time. Maybe. I know they exist! But it wasn’t worth the stress for this wedding duo. But I’d still love to be an iPod DJ for someone else’s wedding one day.

Sooooo, the great debate: iPod DJ or real, human Mr. DJ-guy? OR, if you’re pulling out all the stops, a live band??? What did you choose to make sweet music at your wedding? I’m dying to know!