Like anyone, you want your wedding to be special. By taking song selection out of the hands of the professionals, you can curate an amazing and eclectic party playlist and save a lot of cash in the process. But if it were that easy, everyone would do it, right? Before you go it alone, here’s what to know about DJing your own wedding. Will it work for you?
mp3? Yeah, You Know Me
Your wedding reception may not have an old-school theme, but when it comes to the equipment for DJing your own wedding, you may want to turn back the clock a bit—not all the way back to vinyl and turntables, but just to the recent past of 2017, when mp3s were alive and well. Today, most of us rely on cloud-based streaming services for our listening needs, but when you rely on Wi-Fi and the cloud, you’re leaving a lot to chance. An interruption in signal could mean an interruption in music, bringing the dance floor to a screeching halt. By running off mp3s with no need for an internet connection, you have one fewer thing to worry about.
Watch Out for iJackers
So you’ve curated the perfect playlist, with every song having a meaning, every sequence and segue just right, transitions enabled so that there are no awkward fadeouts and pauses—all you have to do now is press play. Well, that, and make sure your music-snob guest doesn’t start fiddling with iTunes and pulling up his own personal favorites. Look: there are some people in our lives whom we love dearly, even if they don’t know when it is and isn’t appropriate to play a six-minute Radiohead song. The request line is not open, and you can’t tolerate any attempts to open it by force. Keep the device hidden—under lock and key, if necessary—to prevent both inebriated attendees and finicky music lovers from tampering with your hard work.
Isn’t That What Friends Are For?
There’s a lot to know about DJing your own wedding here—perhaps too much to consider on your own. Can you keep your DJing in-house without having to worry about every single detail yourself? Absolutely. Perhaps if you can’t truly do it yourself, you can pass the aux cord, so to speak, to a trusted friend—one who won’t commandeer the playlist or trip on a cord. Their services can be an intangible but valuable wedding gift in lieu of something to wrap up in a box. In fact, turning some of the wedding responsibilities like music and photography over to your friends can keep your wedding reception affordable and involve the people closest to you.
