Many bridal couples are convinced that for a wedding to be successful, it is necessary to focus on a beautiful location and good food while partly neglecting the aspect that months/years later will be remembered more than the food and the location-that is, the entertainment and the musical part of the wedding.
Today, a wedding is an event within an event, so it is no longer enough just to have one person put “some music” on the day.
The bride and groom who turn to us 95% want to spare their friends and relatives from an interminable, boring, and burdensome day similar to what they experienced as guests at some wedding; They want to have and unforgettable experience that will remain positively etched in everyone’s mind for a long time.
To achieve such a result therefore, it becomes essential to plan and structure the wedding in all its aspects, agree on the entertainment moments and take care of the music aspect trying to please all different age groups;
A feat easier said than done with the times in which we are living characterized by a wide and diverse range of genres and offerings.
There are wedding couples who want a dynamic and fun wedding, while other couples want a minimal and calm wedding.
The same solution may not work for both, the same service may work for both, but event design and planning must always take into consideration the tastes, expectations, and fears of the bride and groom.
We come across couples who complain that they attended a wedding where the omnipresent DJ hammered the guests throughout the meal making conversation impossible, or find the bride and groom’s friend at the console or an impromptu DJ offering genres of music that only he likes but that do not meet with the favor of the guests making the evening party a time when the dance floor instead of exploding remains deafeningly empty!
Many cheap DJs or those who do not specialize in handling such a complex event as a wedding often find themselves unprepared during the different stages of the wedding because they do not know them or because they sell their modus operandi that often does not meet the needs and tastes of the bride and groom or their guests.
We have been in the industry for several years, and several times we have heard experiences like these from some couples of newlyweds at friends’/relatives’ weddings or personally seeing improvised, inexperienced DJs at work, just because they were friends of the bride and groom, or perhaps retrieved at the last minute, or found on the Internet at the cheapest price or recommended by others because they were good at working in some club or disco.
Can you imagine what the end result was? Could this happen to you as well?
If you have had a chance to explore our site until you come to read this article, it means that you want to understand the differences in order to be able to identify a wedding specialist DJ from an improviser.
So here are some useful tips in choosing a professional DJ.
1. Listening, not selling!
For us, this is the first and fundamental building block on which to lay the foundation for a structured musical project tailored to the bride and groom.
A professional DJ comes to the first consultation with the couple prepared, perhaps as we do, outlining the couple’s tastes, needs, and fears through a cognitive questionnaire that makes us come prepared for the first appointment.
During the meeting, the goal must be to understand the needs and tastes of the bride and groom, smooth out any doubts and fears, and tickle their fancy by proposing services that are on target with their expectations.
It does not have to be a date where the service extols its qualities, struts its stuff, discredits parallel services, and fills the couple with technical notions about instrumentation, equipment, repertoire.
For similar “professionals” your wedding is just one more date on the agenda!
2. Planning
We said it at the beginning of how important it is to structure each musical moment according to different factors: Tastes of the bride and groom, mood of the wedding, location, age of the guests, entertainment, friends’ games, work of the professionals involved such as caterers, photographer, videomaker, location manager, wedding planner, entertainers etc.
A professional, if you want to call yourself that, cannot today arrive unprepared at the wedding, without knowing who will be in charge of what, without knowing if friends have prepared games and which ones, and the bride and groom cannot leave carte blanche to the DJ or at least not completely.
Entertainment and the music aspect amplify every moment, entertain, excite, and help tell the story of the bride and groom and their wedding so they cannot just copy-paste from one wedding to another.
The unexpected is always around the corner so a professional to call himself a professional must have an aptitude for problem solving, must be able to guarantee the performance of his service in a workmanlike manner, and must be able to give result guarantees to the bride and groom.
3. Know how to interact with heterogeneous groups of people
A DJ who specializes in weddings must not only be good at mixing or adhere strictly to the bride and groom’s instructions; he or she must monitor the temperature of the dance floor and try to please all the different age groups, touching on all genres, moving from one type of music to another with a logical thread, with flair and extreme fluidity without ever causing a vacuum on the dance floor due to a wrong choice of one or more pieces of music.
She must have vocalist skills to keep the bar high at the party, she must be able to interface politely and courteously with the most diverse requests from guests even when the alcohol content leads them to be vulgar and rude, but at the same time she must be able to keep her finger on the pulse of the situation while preventing the party from escalating.
Moreover, this society that has accustomed us to having everything and everything now but not always getting the guest to understand that going from dance music to Afro, from 80s to Trap, from funky to ballroom is not so immediate.
Knowing how to respond firmly but at the same time avoid rattling or overheating tempers requires great authority and a lot of savoir-faire that alas can only be learned over years of experience especially when dealing with people who are altered, disrespectful, vulgar and in some rare cases violent.
It is precisely in such situations that the DJ’s experience and professionalism can make all the difference.
Can you imagine the disaster if during the evening party the DJ impatient with the sometimes pedantic demands of the guests lost control?
A good DJ is, and must also be, a bit of a “party psychologist.”
The fundamental goal must be to safeguard the interests of the bride and groom while putting his own interests in the background.
4. Musical repertoire
A professional has a vast knowledge and repertoire of music, which is why he or she can accommodate the bride and groom and give them genuine advice, structuring specific musical sets together with the couple according to the moment.
He will be able to move them through those songs that accompanied them in their love story, but he will also be able to fulfill any requests from friends during the day or during the evening party.
In addition, the bride and groom should always ensure that the DJ has the ability to connect to the Internet in order to accommodate even last-minute requests from friends and relatives, either by bridging with the phone or by relying on the venue’s wi-fi network.
If the facility does not have a wi-fi network or if the signal coverage is not optimal the DJ should be notified as this situation could create quite a few problems.
5. Improvisation and dynamism
There are DJs who offer an anonymous and flat service throughout the wedding; They mix well but do not say a word into the microphone or when faced with a problem maintain a resigned and impassive attitude.
Such a figure cannot be a suitable figure to accompany such a complex event as a wedding, where the unexpected is always around the corner, where in certain situations the professional must be able to improvise, must be able to make important decisions in a very short time to turn a problem into an asset.
Experience as in all fields is very important and can actually make a difference in particular situations but the most important thing is the dynamism of the professional, the willingness to guarantee the bride and groom the service as it has been structured and that they have always dreamed of even when through the fault of the professional or third party figures this result may fail.
You have to understand that, in our view, the bride and groom should never be disturbed for any reason during the wedding, everything should have been foreseen and planned beforehand so as to Quote for any contingency, except then rely on problem solving skills of the professional when the unexpected peeps out. Knowing how to improvise by turning a problem into a chance to come up with something different without letting the guests and the bride and groom know anything will be a guarantee of success and absolute peace of mind for you throughout the wedding.
6. Quality audio/lighting
Quality, professionalism, skill, all-around music are just some of the common rumors with which many DJs/musicians on the Web fill their mouths, then you find them at the wedding with only 1 sound system that they move from one part of the venue to another, stylistically unglamorous systems, speakers that past a certain limit start scratching, minimalist lighting set probably chinoiserie that turns your party not into a dance floor but into a tacky parochial fest.
It will certainly not be the characteristics of the system that will define the skill or abilities of the DJ/musician, but it will certainly define their professionalism.
7. Bureaucratic aspect
There are, by requirement, permits to apply for if you want to freely make music during a wedding. The SIAE permit is one of them, and it matters little if there are “professionals” who advise you not to do it or provide incorrect data to save a few hundred euros.
Think about how much you invested in terms of time, stress, and effort so that this day of yours would be remembered for a long time.
Think about the financial investment you made so that everything would be as you always dreamed it would be.
And now everything goes up in smoke because of an inspection by the competent bodies just for saving 100€?
Do you really think it is conceivable to be able to take such a risk for a hundred euros? How much can it cost you to see your marriage ruined forever?
A professional would never give you such advice because they are aware of what is at stake and how the game is not worth the candle.
That said.
The Web gives you the opportunity to find hundreds of proposals that are similar to each other, and we are aware that choosing a solution often proves difficult.
It comes logical to be lured by the cheapest price, however, I hope I have given you a sense of why it is important to invest in a professional DJ and not someone posing as one.
Now with this knowledge you can devote yourself to searching for the music service that suits you best or you can visit our website www.weddingsymphony.it and go to the contact page to book a specialized consultation with our Paul and figure out what solutions to move toward to leave your guests with a pleasant, indeed, indelible memory of your wedding.
Remember that
“Marriage is a live movie. You can’t go wrong because you can’t buy a memory.”
We always say this to all our wedding couples.
A few simple tips combined with a dash of common sense in choosing the professional to whom you entrust the musical aspect of your wedding not just based on price will make your day a memorable event.
I am Paolo Furlan the first Wedding Music Planner in Veneto and founder of the Wedding Symphony music agency specializing in music for civil or religious ceremonies and music and entertainment for wedding receptions.
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