Five questions to ask a wedding DJ, and the answers I'd give you

Most of the DJ websites you're looking at right now say the same handful of things. Professional. Experienced. Passionate about your day. None of it's untrue, and none of it helps you choose between two people who both said it.

These five questions do help, because the answers are structural. They tell you how a business is built, not how it describes itself. Here's how I answer them, in the same words I'd use if you called me.

Who is actually showing up on the day of my wedding?

Ask this first, and ask for a name.

Me. I'm the only person who works under this name. The person you talk to on the phone in February is the person carrying speakers into Burlington Golf & Country Club in July. There's no roster, no assignment closer to the date, no email in the final month introducing you to somebody you've never spoken to.

That matters for a reason beyond principle. Everything you tell me during planning stays in one head. When your dad's name comes up in a speech, I know who he is because you told me about him in February and I was the one listening. When you mention that your grandmother will leave around nine, I know to move the parent dances earlier. None of that survives a handoff. Notes in a shared folder aren't the same thing as having been in the conversation.

Are you hosting the night, or only playing music?

Two different jobs. A lot of couples find out at their own reception which one they paid for.

I'm a host who DJs, not a DJ who picks up the microphone when somebody has to. The clearest place this shows up is dinner, which is the part of the night most couples worry least about and where the energy is most likely to die. Between courses at the David Springer Estate in Burlington, I told the room how the two of them met. I told it in two versions, because each of them had given me a different account of the same evening during planning, and the contradictions were the funny part. Speeches followed after each course, so the room was already warm before anyone stood up with a glass.

I get that material from you, not from a template. That's what the planning sessions are for. I ask about the first date, the proposal, the thing your partner does that drives you slightly mad, and then I tell some of it back to the room in a way that sounds like you and not like a wedding host. Light embellishment for timing, never a changed fact.

Is the ceremony included?

Ask it flatly, because on a lot of pricing pages ceremony coverage sits quietly under enhancements.

Yes, in all three of the options I offer. Ceremony audio, a microphone for your officiant, processional and recessional music, and the coordination with your photographer and officiant about when the doors actually open. It's never been an add-on here and it never will be.

The practical side is worth knowing. Outdoor ceremonies are where sound goes wrong, and it's almost always one of two things.

The first is that guests past row six can't hear the vows. So I run a separate speaker system at the ceremony space instead of trying to cover it from the reception gear, I put a speaker behind the guests rather than only in front of them, and your officiant gets a wireless microphone.

The second is power, and it's the one that catches couples out. A lot of the prettiest ceremony spots don't have any. Wineries are the clearest example: the spot with the vines behind you is usually the spot furthest from an outlet. My ceremony system runs on battery, so where you stand is a decision about the photos and not about the wiring.

Then I test all of it while the space is still empty, well before anyone's seated.

What happens when you get a request you would not have played?

The answer to this one tells you whose night the DJ thinks it is.

I'll be straight with you: I don't play everything. I know what most songs are going to do to a floor before the first bar is finished, and some of them empty it. That isn't taste, it's pattern, and it's the part of this job you can only learn by standing in the room while it happens. I've been surprised often enough to keep trying things, but you're paying me to know the difference, and pretending every request is a good idea would be the easy answer rather than the honest one.

What I do first is look for a way to make it work, because placement is most of this job. A song that would clear the floor at 9:15 can be exactly right at 11:40, when the room's a different room. Or it sits behind something with enough momentum to carry it. Plenty of requests I'd have turned down on paper end up landing fine because of where they went.

When one genuinely won't work, I tell the guest so, and I offer them something close instead. Most people take that well, because they came over wanting the floor to be good too. Two things I hold firm on: the do-not-play list you and I build during planning, and anything that would embarrass you in front of your family. And if I think one of your own picks is a mistake, I'll say so once, plainly, and then I'll play it. It's your wedding, not my set.

There's a version of this question I get asked less often and should be asked more, which is what happens when the request is in a language I don't speak. I've DJ'd Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Serbian, Croatian, Chinese, Indian and Egyptian weddings, and a good part of that work is a guest walking up with a song title I've never seen written down. I ask them to say it twice, I listen on headphones before it goes out, and I find it. The more weddings I do, the less I pretend to know every tradition. Asking is faster, and the family would rather be asked.

What happens if you get sick?

Fair question, and the honest answer has to be more than "that's never happened."

I've never missed a wedding. Not one, across more than a hundred of them. That's a track record and not a guarantee, and I'm not going to dress it up as one. The real answer is that by the time your date comes around, your wedding exists on paper in enough detail that it doesn't only live in my head.

Your planning portal holds the timeline, the running order, your song requests, the do-not-play list, the vendor contacts, the names and pronunciations for the introductions, and my notes for the microphone. That's months of work between the two of us, not a form you filled in once. I know a handful of DJs personally and trust them, and if I couldn't be there, I'd call one of them myself and hand over your plan. You'd hear it from me on the phone, not from an office. Whoever walked in would walk in with your night already written down, right through to the last song.

Worth being clear about what that is, though. It's the emergency plan, not the business model. Some companies use a bench of available DJs as the everyday answer to the first question on this list. Here, you get me, and the list exists so that one bad week can't cost you the wedding you spent a year planning.

The rest of it

There are other questions worth asking. What time do you arrive, what happens if the night runs long, what's the backup if a speaker fails. Ask those too. But these five sort people out quickly, and the answers are hard to fake.

If you want to ask me any of them directly, a consultation is free and there's no deck until you ask for one. Call or text 289-768-8677, or email [email protected].

One host. One DJ. Your whole night, start to finish.

Joe