Questions To Ask When Finding The Best Wedding DJ

Booking a wedding DJ can be a daunting process. You want to book someone that you can rely on and trust to show up and do the job required of them, in a professional and stress-free manner for you.

But how do you find this? These questions will help you navigate those muddy waters and find the diamond in the rough. Idioms aside, here are your questions: 

What’s your experience doing weddings?

This one should be a no-brainer, wedding experience is essential. It does not matter if they have headlined a major music festival, Its an entirely different kettle of fish to play a wedding. 

Do you have videos of your work?

Ideally they will be showcasing some dance floor footage to prove that they have what it takes to get a dance floor going, and also you can see what their dance floor lighting will look like. 

Do you have insurance?

Public Liability insurance is a must. You don’t your wedding day marred by any legal proceedings from an incident with a guest accidentally tripping over a cable. It’s rare – but not impossible.

Do you have a photo of your setup?

• This will give you a good indication of how neatly they present themselves. You should be looking for:A tidy looking setup, with all the cables hidden and/or taped down

• Speakers and lights looking relatively new, clean and without too much wear or scuff marks. You don’t need to be an expert on sound equipment to spot a speaker that looks very dated or a budget style one.

• A laptop. For a wedding, it’s not enough to be using just a standalone DJ controller or decks and a mixer – this setup requires music to be transferred to a USB first, and then played on the decks via that USB. This makes it very difficult to download/update music on the fly, and also it is hard to search for music quickly without a full keyboard and screen. Decks are for night clubs – controllers with laptop are for parties and weddings.

• Less is more / quality over quantity. Don’t be fooled into thinking that a huge rig with stacked lighting and lots of speakers is inherently better. You’ve worked hard to get all your perfect little details for the room – you don’t want that undone by an obnoxious overbearing nightclub style DJ rig. A good pair of Quality PA speakers will do a better job then 8 cheap ones. If unsure, ask about the overall wattage their speakers output. You should be aiming for 5 watts per person if it’s indoors, and double if it’s outdoors or a large ballroom with high ceilings and carpet. For example a 200 person wedding in a ballroom = 200x10W = 2000W needed.
  
  
• Speakers spread out (ideally at least 5m apart) – this gives a better sound output across the dance floor, and shows that your DJ is willing to put in the extra work to run longer cables.

Is your equipment tested and tagged?

This one is not a dealbreaker, and it not overly common, but it’s certainly nice to know there is less chance of equipment failure when things are tested regularly.

Do you have a backup of equipment?

Ideally, they will have a backup of everything, including speakers, laptop, controller and mixer. They should also have an interim solution in the time it takes to swap over – e.g play a few songs from an iPad while swapping out mixer / laptop etc.

Do you have a backup DJ in case of emergency? 

I get asked this one a lot, and to be honest there is no perfect solution here. it’s not always feasible for a DJ to keep a backup person on retainer for emergencies. Practically, this would involve paying another wedding-tier DJ to not play elsewhere, and remain available for all of their bookings, resulting in likely doubling the cost to you. Having said this, a good wedding DJ will have a network of DJs they can rely on to call immediately, and there’s a great chance that at least one of them will be available. 

Have you played at this venue before?

Tricky things like loading dock if it’s in a busy street or the CBD could be a problem. In a perfect world they will know the venue, the next best thing is that they will offer to do a site inspection beforehand, and if its a fair distance away or otherwise impractical to do so, they will be getting as much info as they can from the venue about all the requirements. 

Do you have an ABN and a contract?

This is a good question to ask of all your wedding vendors, showing they are a legitimate business, and the contract keeps all parties responsible and accountable.