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DJing a wedding...

What general advice would you give to someone DJing a wedding? What advice do you have towards playing to a mixed crowd, mostly 2/3rds old folks. I'm going to be mostly playing to the ballroom crowd since that seems to be the majority crowd there. I think I have the stuff for the young folks.

I have a few questions: how should i transition from different genres and dramatically different BPMs? Will hard cut fades cut it?

major props to you all in advance.

stay away from dubstep

what sort of songs did you have in mind?

I'm sticking to top 40, top 40 remixes, old disco, Macarena and YMCA type songs where the crowd does a dance, swing, samba, salsa, cha cha, 80s.

80s disco, latin stuff and top 40 for the young people, in all the weddings i've seen that djs always play the same songs, people is drunk and dance to whatever they know previously so don't be original. Honestly i feel that djing at a wedding is the worst scenario for a dj

edit: some grammar typos

spin some david guetta

quote:

Originally posted by CalvP There was a great thread: Some help on wedding dj stuff on wedding Dj'ing a few months back - definitely worth a look. Have fun

Thanks for the link!

I'm doing this for a family member too, my cousin to be exact. And Rordi, you are right, this wedding DJ thing is a horrible scenario for a DJ. I asked for requests from family members, and they all have conflicting tastes. One wants Avicii, old folks want cha cha music, bride wants 80s, groom wants boys 2 men type rnb, one thinks the songs get played too long, others want the whole song played, etc.

one thing we tried once and worked pretty good is that i enabled bluetooth on the laptop and people could send me the songs they wanted to be played, i received low quality stuff in all the possible meanings but also some good music that i didn't mind to play. It's cool because the crowd send you precise information of whats going on and they excite a lot when they see their request played.

I got asked to play a wedding for a good friend of my dads and just played load of old disco,funk and Motown all night. Also played a bit of basement jaxx, Groove armada and fatboy slim. Went down a treat and meant i could stay away from all the top 40 stuff.

Just be ready for the drunk bridesmaid's coming up and demanding shit.

I typed a long essay length post but ended up deleting it. All I'll say is i got heat from everywhere for playing my set. So I am basically juggling 80s fans, 70s fans, cha cha fans, salsa fans, young people, old people, top 40 fans, etc. and one from each area went up to me and told me subtly and even directly that I suck. Some drunks say it even more directly. They should try DJing a place with a large mix of people who would never meet each other except at a wedding.

After the set, my momma accused me of playing stuff I liked. I did not play stuff I like at all, and she was basically there 1/3rd of the time to help read the old folks crowd so I let her take the wheel. Note that I had around 25-50 songs from the mobile top 200 requests in my HD, songs for my mom's crowd, and top 40. My sister said the same stuff too. I told them to basically get out of their solipsistic view and look at it from a dj's booth. this is the worst situation for a dj period.

Seriously though, shout outs to mobile DJs. And I also understand why everyone who's ever gone to a wedding thinks the music sucks. Lots of angry drunk people also in my booth... Rordi you are right, this is the worst situation ever for a DJ.

Basically here's my word of advice to people who are going to dj a wedding or mobile gig: Someone will hate your set. You will offend a lot of people. Don't be afriad to suck because when was the last time you went to a wedding where you enjoyed the whole set? Just enjoy it. You're either the lame old guy who's out of touch with the young folks or the lame young guy who doesn't know real music. And everyone will think you suck and think they can do better.

that said i think people enjoyed themselves.

quote:

Originally posted by -FSP- I typed a long essay length post but ended up deleting it. All I'll say is i got heat from everywhere for playing my set. So I am basically juggling 80s fans, 70s fans, cha cha fans, salsa fans, young people, old people, top 40 fans, etc. and one from each area went up to me and told me subtly and even directly that I suck. Some drunks say it even more directly. They should try DJing a place with a large mix of people who would never meet each other except at a wedding. After the set, my momma accused me of playing stuff I liked. I did not play stuff I like at all, and she was basically there 1/3rd of the time to help read the old folks crowd so I let her take the wheel. Note that I had around 25-50 songs from the mobile top 200 requests in my HD, songs for my mom's crowd, and top 40. My sister said the same stuff too. I told them to basically get out of their solipsistic view and look at it from a dj's booth. this is the worst situation for a dj period. Seriously though, shout outs to mobile DJs. And I also understand why everyone who's ever gone to a wedding thinks the music sucks. Lots of angry drunk people also in my booth... Rordi you are right, this is the worst situation ever for a DJ. Basically here's my word of advice to people who are going to dj a wedding or mobile gig: Someone will hate your set. You will offend a lot of people. Don't be afriad to suck because when was the last time you went to a wedding where you enjoyed the whole set? Just enjoy it. You're either the lame old guy who's out of touch with the young folks or the lame young guy who doesn't know real music. And everyone will think you suck and think they can do better. that said i think people enjoyed themselves.

damn dude that sux....but that sounds about right. You cant make everyone happy. Did the bride and groom enjoy themselves? thats all that really matters in the end.

i have been sort of a mobile dj and i've played in diverse scenarios, being a mobile dj isn't really hard, in fact it's so easy, you just have to play top 40 and interact a lot with the people, be ready to play crowd suggestions, they won't ask you for something obscure, the weirdest thing i've been asked is PvD - For an Angel.

But one of my worst experiences was when i played for a friend during his birthday party from 9pm to 12pm (O.o) and the equipment of the venue he rented was quite obsolete and didn't read any mp3 so all the shit music i recorded that morning couldn't be played, people started moaning as even though we were all young some people wanted top 40, others wanted hip hop, others wanted latin music and what was worse, a lot of boyfriends coming to the booth telling "Put what my gf wants already" and giving explanations "oh my god don't you think that if i had what you are asking for i'd put it only so you shut the fuck up??" this was some years ago and i learned a lot, specially from a girl that was fucking right "you are playing music like if it was 4am but it is 10pm"

I can see perfectly how your wedding went because should have been like my experience but even worse because it's quite easy to move young people by playing top 40 stuff, still you will find that 30 out of 100 would hate it because they like true edm or are into rock and hate edm.. but top 40 stuff is in general bearable for everyone.

Problem is when you have such an age range, David Guetta for a 70 years old man must be terrible noise (age gives you wisdom) but probably loves a 60bpm bolero, thing that would kill all the party mood.

Well i would never consider djing a wedding, even your family and close friends would be upset with the outcome in someway so it's better to pay 200 bucks to a guy , and ironically never heard complaints about a wedding dj (nor people saying it was great) i think it changes when you are personally in touch with the guy playing the music, trustness sucks.

well i think everyone enjoyed it. To be honest I've been overselling my skills to my sister and mother, and I came out with an average DJ set in that I played what was expected.

you can bring Armin van Buuren to play a wedding set and people would think it's shit. if they enjoyed it's enough, to dj a wedding you need different skills , in fact i think the wedding djs aren't djs at all

Bit late for my response, but you have to look at what cross section of ages you have there.

Be prepared to wip out your Abba, Gloria Gaynor (you will always get the older drunk lady folk singing to this), Destiny's Child/ Beyonce for the bridesmaids, early 80s classics but nothing with attitude... you can't drop Eurythmics, but you can get away with Gloria Estefan,

Village People/YMCA isn't always a hit, especially if the crowd is made up of a large portion of older males (Unless you are playing Elton John's wedding).

For the lady folk, do a medly of tracks that were featured in Dirty Dancing.

Ignore requests from drunk men unless it's the bride or grooms dad as it will usually clear the floor.

Remember to have one slow dance in the middle of the night and then one at the end (Not including the first dance of the bride). Tracks for this would be things like Berlin-Take my breath away and shit by Bryan Adams.

Make an assesment of the crowd early on to work out if they are predominantly older or younger, if they are older stick mostly to older classics, if they are younger you can throw in some top 40 but you are still safe to play older classics.

70s Disco stuff always goes down well when people are drunk.

Simple rule of thumb, obscure = bad. Extreme = bad, EDM = Bad, Rap/Hip Hop = Bad, DnB/Jungle = very bad, Dubstep = very bad.

The KISS Rule applies.. Keep it simple stupid.

Play popular songs that will be familiar.

Cheers
Nem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=bZP4Ugev82I#!

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