How Did You Select Your Dj?

Do they have videos from weddings or events they worked? When we looked for a band, we were able to find videos of their work at weddings on YouTube and Gigsalad. With a DJ, I'd want to see how they hyped up the crowd or handled the mic with guests, etc. I've seen a few local DJ video promos so that could be a good way to choose.

I felt like I picked our DJ based on his reviews and the fact that he was very personable. He wasn’t the cheapest but people raved about him. He also sent videos to give us an idea.

I went with my gut. Out of all the DJ's we talked to, the one we (I) picked just made me feel like he was going to be perfect. Maybe it was his age (older, like us) or that we spoke the same music language (tastes in music), but he was the guy I wanted. Trust your gut instincts. And btw? It's okay to be a bit of a Simon Cowell. It's your day, and YOU are these vendor's paychecks. Does your boss pay for shoddy workers? Nope, don't think so!

I based mine on reviews. The one I hired also had a few sample mixes in the website. He’s a slam dunk.

My fiance and I were lucky enough to attend a few weddings, one of which we found a DJ that we absolutely LOVED. Before finding him, we were looking at reviews, pricing options, and asking around for recommendations. We had one other DJ on our list to check out, and they ended up being around the same price range.

It came down to how much fun we had dancing and listening to the style of the DJ we hired vs hiring someone we had never seen in person. The DJ changed songs on the beat, had a solid mix of the classic wedding dance songs and newer top hits, and the friend whose wedding we attended said the DJ was an absolute joy to work with.

We’ve narrowed it down to 2. And even that was difficult.


What was important to us was:
reviews from independent sites (GoogleMaps, Instagram, etc) that don’t pay to have less than stellar reviews removed as unfortunately TheKnot/WW does. That way you get a more honest picture of what the vendors did well or what to avoid.
Flexibility: how open are they to thinking outside the box of what is “expected” at weddings? Will they just play music and not MC? The MC videos we have have seen made us cringe because we are not interested in WWE-esque announcements of any kind and that seems to the industry norm. If we did have an MC our guests would be absolutely confused because outside of the couple opening the buffet table and first dance on their own, the night flows organically without needing anyone on a microphone and the dj almost never says anything but reads the crowd perfectly. Also are they willing and able to acquire songs that are not as mainstream?
which leads to personality. Are they easily approachable? Again videos we have seen on dj websites, a lot outright say “if you don’t do X,Y and Z then the reception will be a disaster” and their personality is very “this event is all about me”. If you are hiring a vendor who makes or breaks the fun aspect, you don’t want to be dreading talking to them because they have tunnel vision. Also they need to realize that not everyone will be on the dance floor in order to have fun and pressuring them (going back to the over the top cringe MC aspect) is not acceptable.

We are in the middle of families/friends as far as first or last to get married so we don’t put stock in that. But we don’t live near any of them anymore. So we can’t rely on trusted vendors from past weddings and anniversary parties.

This is one vendor we got VERY lucky on, in that we have a family friend of my FH who is a DJ and we sat down with him and said "You're going to be invited to the wedding, and we want you to be able to enjoy your time as a guest, so if you want to say no, it's fine, but we would love to have you DJ if you're open to it." and he said yes, but he'd hire a 2nd person that he trusted, so that he wasn't the only DJ and he could still dance and enjoy himself, but also support us as the main DJ.

If he had said no, we had a list of things we wanted, and would have gone off of reviews and videos and our meetings with them.