From day one we knew we were going to DJ our own wedding, mostly because we *could.* As far as we were concerned, ipod's were a small gift from the wedding gods. Halfway through the planning process though, I started to get nervous about our ipod DJ plan. You see, David and I like to dance, or more precisely we like to daaaaaaaaaaaaannnncccceeee. If you're playing dancing music, you will not be able to get me off the dance floor. The hora? Hip-hop? The electric slide? I'm there. Heck, I'll do country line dances, and I'll lead a dance floor full of people in a funky Macarana if I'm forced into it. So I started to get very concerned, because people said, without a DJ there is no flow, without a DJ there is no energy, without a DJ people will take over your play list, without a DJ you have to work at your own wedding.
In sum: without a DJ, no one will dance. And I believe the technical term for that story is Bullsh*t.
In fact, not only will everyone dance, but you'll have the playlist for the rest of your lives (we re-lived our wedding a bit on the honeymoon by listening to our mix). But to calm your nerves I'm going to give you my best tips for DJing your own wedding. I'm far from an expert, so feel free to add your best tips in the comments.
- Amplification matters. If I had to pick one thing that makes the difference between a successful ipod dance party, and one that falls flat, it would be this. You need your music to be loud. We paid roughly $300 to rent a professional amplification system that we could run with our computer, and it was worth every penny. Weddings I've been to where the music wasn't quite loud enough, well, I never lost myself in the music. And that's what you need.
- Cross-fade, cross-fade, cross-fade. You can set up your itunes playlist to do this, and you should. Just like dance parties don't like quiet music, they don't like dead air. Also, if the song is endless (I'm looking at you Michael Jackson) feel free to cut out the last 8 minutes of vamping.
- Play music people know. I might be the only wedding blogger in the history of time that has ever admitted this, but David and I are *not* music snobs. David's tastes run a bit towards more classic stuff, whether it's jazz or rock. As for me, when it comes to the dance floor, I'm not above Beyonce. And love to dance to some Justin Timberlake, and I'm not even ashamed of that. So our playlist was a mix of Tina Turner, Sir-Mix-Alot, Nina Simone, the Black Eyed Peas, The Beatles, Lauren Hill, Frank Sinatra, House of Pain, and yes, Dolly Parton. And people stayed on the dance floor. You may have much better taste in music than I do. You may listen to bands that don't even exist yet. But if you load up your playlist with tons of songs people don't know at all, you're going to send up with a rousing bar scene, but probably not with a packed dance floor.
- Play a mix of music for all ages. Yeah, you and I might like Arrested Development, but I'm pretty sure your granny likes Billie Holiday singing the standards, so mix it up.
- Think about the flow of your play-list. Cate of Project Subrosa made me think about this pre-wedding, with her talk of building it up, and easing it down, building it up higher, dropping it down, and then building it up into a frenzy right at the end. She was 100% right.
- Have a music guard. Guests don't get to adjust the playlist, no, no, no. Make someone your music bouncer, and make them tough.
- That said, don't be afraid to screw with your own playlist mid-stream. YOU can play with the playlist during the wedding. We had more music than we needed, so there were times when we skipped further down the list. We also got to a point in the afternoon where no one over 30 was dancing. You know what I said about mixing it up? Yeah. If you don't dance, we don't play Frank Sinatra. At that point in the day we skipped straight to the hip-hop set, and people sweat through their shirts. And let me just cut off the people who say, "See? If you DJ your wedding you have to WORK at your wedding!" We spend about as much time on our playlist as we would have spent chatting to the DJ about requests or timing. We knew our playlist backwards and forwards, and could adjust it with a flick of our fingers.
- And finally, don't be afraid to pick a few emotional and obscure favorites. We ended our day with this medley Sam Cooke, and that was when I finally let go, tears streaming down my cheeks.
Our friends might not have known the song before our wedding, but they sang with all their hearts in those last moments as they formed a circle around us, which throbbed with some of the most powerful love that I've ever felt. And you can't buy that.
Pictures: First by our wedding warrior and chief, the fabulous Kate , second byOne Love Photo (yay)
Ugh, Meg I freaking love oyu. Thank you for this post. We're going to do the same thing to save a few bucks and to have some artistic control, but I was worried about doing a good job. This rocks! thank you :D
October 1, 2009 9:10 pm
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we are doing this at our wedding! On the invitations we are asking people to mail back requests on the RSVP card.
October 2, 2009 10:10 am
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Thank you sooo much for this!! We had already planned to iPod our music. We went to friend's wedding a couple of weeks ago and she didn't have enough music on her playlist, so people started fiddling with the iPod. We decided to assign a guardian like you said–my younger cousin and a sign that says "Do NOT touch!!" I hadn't thought of the cross fading though–thanks for that!! My fiance has also called me anal-retentive–I've started a list already and we're not getting married till next August!
October 2, 2009 3:30 pm
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This is GREAT advice, because I have been to "that" wedding – where there was the 3 second pause between each song where everyone stood there awkwardly, everyone was huddling around the computer messing with the playlist the bride and groom created, and would switch the song after 30 seconds of a song if they didn't like it…it was kind of disaster. I have given the advice to my friends who are doing it in the future – make sure NO ONE else can go near the computer, and make sure to do the fade thing.
So truth be told – there have been some pretty bad weddings, but also I would hope that everyone can learn from those!
October 19, 2009 2:44 pm
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Thinking about iPod-ing my wedding too, but really nervous about it, since I don’t know how it’s supposed to go, and how much music to put in, and what kind of music? This is such a boost to the iPod idea though, I’m more excited to try and do it! Anyone has any tips on how long it’s supposed to be and how to make everything flow into each other? :)
April 12, 2010 2:09 am
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i love what you said about music-snobbery. I went to a wedding recently where the bride and groom played only indie music- it was SO awkward. I could tell they were so disappointed during the reception, and actually started to walk from group to group asking guests to dance. I tried to oblige- but the music was awful and slow and picky guitars and the usual lot. I’m a firm believer that every wedding should have brick house played. HA!
April 12, 2010 8:09 am
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This is sort of a late request, but how amazing would it be if all of the APW readers who did the whole iPod DJ-thing posted their playlists somewhere? That would be really helpful.
May 3, 2010 10:23 am
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I so beat you to the punch on that idea, I’ve been thinking of that for awhile. I just… need… to…. find…. TIME to make this stuff happen :)
May 3, 2010 6:43 pm
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Any chance it will happen in the next couple weeks? Because I’m sure you have tons and tons of free time to get that done. :)
I am selfishly asking this because our wedding is 5/29 and we are iPod DJ-ing it and it’s totally stressing me out. (can you hear my anxiety level rising? Scary, I am usually a calm person, I swear.) It’s that one detail that is just killing me.
May 3, 2010 7:44 pm
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Ha ha ha ha ha. No. Working 40 hours a week and another 20 on the site and… no. It’s going to take some major programming power, cash, and time. Go look on The Flashdance’s site already.
May 3, 2010 7:50 pm
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Oh, my!
Thank you ever so much!!!
We’re doing the laptop DJ stuff (a cross faded playlist adjusted to the different moods throughout the evening) and I loved your post! I’ve been told that this is madness but I know I’d be much more nervous if someone else was to be in charge of the music. You see I like things my way and I so want to go on saying I LOVE THIS SONG, I love this song! lol
That said, I’m still a bit nervous. But I know it’s gonna turn out the party of a lifetime. Well, we can temper with the music any time! ;)
May 11, 2010 3:08 am
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[...] 34. IPod music selections for after dinner. We have the Mariachis through dinner; we will want some music for the party part afterward. Must figure out how to arrange the music and set up the cross-fades. Must review Meg’s iPod DJ tutorial. [...]
June 12, 2010 1:44 pm
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This is awesome! In fact this post alone pushed us over the edge in deciding to skip a DJ and ipod it ourselves…wish us luck!
July 7, 2010 9:28 pm
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Thanks for all the info, Meg!
Since my fiance is a musician, we’re selecting our music ourselves and putting it on an iPod. Our reception is pretty short – just two hours – which made us decide to get a DJ to keep the evening on schedule. A friend of a friend is bringing speakers, etc. and agreed to follow our (detailed) playlist, script, and schedule for the evening. We’re paying $300, which is a bargain and lets us put more money to food!
July 19, 2010 10:29 pm
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As someone who tried to set up a great playlist for their wedding, I have a different story than most of you – after attending some really great weddings and some not so good, and gathering lots of tips and suggestions from the internet we really thought we were ready to put together a smashing playlist for our reception!
We were so wrong and disappointed that we chose to go this route. Sure some people danced, we danced, it was some of our music after all, but what we missed was the dynamic feel – things changed from moment to moment; when we actually ended up toasting turned out to be 30 minutes later than we had originally thought, we decided to hold off on our first dance till later too and on top of that our playlist wasn’t really up to making the changes for all our wrong guesses about timing of how many fast to slow songs, style of music etc.
We misjudged the success of certain types of music – too much country and classics not enough top 40 and hip hop – at least for my friends :). Anyway, the bottom line for us was that we thought we were prepared, knew what we were doing and ended up failing miserably – just like all those “Wedding DJs’” said we would – the same ones everyone here are complaining about. Was it OK, sure, was it really great….No. All night long, instead of focusing our attention on each other and our friends we were worried about how to change the music to fix our reception – argh!
We’re now convinced, with all the money we spent on our wedding, the couple of hundred bucks more for a really good dj would have been well worth the cost – but that’s just our take on it.
August 13, 2010 10:10 am
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I have to agree with everything Sandy just said. Having an ipod be our DJ at our wedding was a huge mistake. I would have paid a few hundred bucks for that problem to GO AWAY. And we were on a super budget.
1. Our ipod crashed. Just crashed. We had to use someone else’s with no playlist. Nightmare.
2. The room where the ipod was plugged in, was in a different room. No one wanted to be a “guard” because they would literally NOT be at the party.
3. Who turns the music down when someone wants to make a toast? Yeah. No one. I should have PAID someone to stand over the ipod in the consol room.
4. I was stressed the f*ck out the entire time. People were getting drunk and changing the song in the middle of the song when everyone finally got dancing. The ipod we eventually had to use was lame music. People were complaining to me all night about it. It was a disaster. REALLY think about this and make sure you have a few things:
1. A backup ipod! Or a backup computer!
2. If the ipod is in the room, make someone watch it. If the ipod hook up is in another room, think about getting a DJ. Seriously.
December 17, 2010 7:21 pm
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See in the post how I said you need to have an ipod guard, and someone in charge of turning it down for toasts and not letting people mess with songs? You do. It’s your wedding, if you try to be in charge on the day of, it’s not going to be pretty. If you delegate and trust the people you delegate it will be JUST FINE.
And yes, test your technology and always have several backups. We had our playlist on two computers and two ipods, in case there were any problems. So we had three backups, and all was well.
December 19, 2010 6:12 pm
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Ah, and also, you need to have about twice the amount of music you think you need, broken out by type and flow. We skipped around. If things lagged, we just jumped to a heavy dance section of the playlist, or an oldies section. We also know what we like to dance to, and what our people like to dance to… this is KEY. Pay a whole lot of attention to this at the parties you go to and who is dancing to what, before you build your playlist.
This is a totally manageable thing, and no one should worry about failing. But you do need to be REALLY prepared, with extra music, someone in charge, and lots and lots of thought.
December 19, 2010 6:15 pm
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[...] blogger Meg from A Practical Wedding published an excellent post on the success she personally had with using a playlist instead of a DJ [...]
November 4, 2010 10:22 am
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We took all of this advice, and we worked so hard on our playlist. We had backup PCs and rented sound equipment and edited songs for length and designated a friend to be in charge of it…
… and it really didn’t work out. It was okay, but the sound was really bad and not for lack of trying. The sound equipment we rented had the wrong kind of cables and you couldn’t really hear the vocals. And six months out, relatives still like to tell me that the music failed because we were “too intellectual.” (Eff that noise, we may be intellectual about music, but we were studious about including top 40 hits and classics, etc.)
In retrospect, I would have preferred a good DJ. But also in retrospect, no DJ would be better than hearing the sheer glee in my perpetually anxious father’s voice when he announced that the sound equipment only cost $150. Oh my, that pleased him so much!
So the music didn’t work out that well. I still have a picture of my college friends dancing barefoot. My dad and I had the most unbelievable dance. My husband did “The Geoff” – his signature, seizure dance move. Everyone did The Geoff. When the words went out on the songs, everyone sang along. Then they retreated to the bar. It was still a rocking party.
January 3, 2011 10:28 am
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Hahaha!! Good story! I love how you were able to end with, “Meh, in retrospect, a DJ may have been good, but it was still an awesome party”! Waay better than the dooms-day “YOU WILL REGRET NOT HAVING A DJ” advice from others. Thanks for keeping it in persepctive :)
October 24, 2011 10:17 pm
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Good info. I’ll echo an earlier question that wasn’t answered–we have a lot of “must play” and some “must NOT play” songs, and it is implied in several places that DJs do their own thing and don’t accept super-scripted playlist options.
Anyone know for sure?
January 8, 2011 6:55 am
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For those of us who are *technologically impaired*, could someone please explain how to cross-fade in itunes? I have never seen this option before (but I admit, I am a little scared of my itunes, so that might be why).
ALSO: does cross-fading fix the problem of some songs on your playlist being much, much louder or more quiet than the previous songs? Cuz I hate that and would love a solution other than manually adjusting the volume every time it happens.
Thanks!!
March 3, 2011 10:45 am
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OMG it is so easy. Nevermind.
In case anyone else wants to know:
itunes>preferences>playback>crossfade
Bam.
Oh, and soundcheck fixes the loud song/ quiet song issue apparently.
New lease on life? Yes. My car is gonna be a disco party now.
March 3, 2011 12:26 pm
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[...] people are still doing it. Prominent and influential bloggers, like Dana, and Meg at A Practical Wedding, are supporting it and encouraging it. Maybe you should take the hint. At the very least, be a [...]
April 26, 2011 7:37 am
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[...] been geeking out over A Practical Wedding, this kick-ass blog that has articles like “How to DJ Your Own Wedding with an iPod,” and “How to Self-Cater Your Wedding.” Oh, and “Homebrew Wedding [...]
May 26, 2011 7:54 pm
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Currently working furiously on my playlist; great post, but a few broken links :(
What was the Sam Cooke song? YouTube won’t tell me.
And what was the advice from Project Subrosa? That blog seems to be invite only… I’m about to start taking a huge list of songs and ordering them — any tips on that?
August 11, 2011 12:49 pm
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Imagine my surprise when I come across this blog post as I research ideas for my own wedding (October 2012) and see a reference to my fiance in your post. My future husband created the “I listen to bands that don’t even exist yet” tee for Threadless!
October 18, 2011 8:10 pm
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AWESOME!!! My husband to be and I are actually doing this same method and, to be honest, I was the one who was starting to get cold feet (our wedding is in April, so I know it’s getting a bit close to be switching everything up right now with a DJ). I started to read all of these blogs about how DJ’s were masters at the skill of “crowd-reading,” how no one would dance, how the whole reception would be ruined because no one would be keeping track, blah, blah, blah. Well, all that crap being said..THANK YOU FOR THIS ARTICLE!! I am COMPLETELY at ease now and know that we’re going to have a blast at our reception. Again, THANK YOU! :)
October 24, 2011 10:14 pm
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My husband and I did this at our wedding three weeks ago, and it was FANTASTIC!
It was free for us, because our church had a set of two speakers and an old sound board that we could borrow free of charge. The only cost to us was a cheap adapter to let the iPod plug on – which we donated afterwards.
We asked my cousin to ‘DJ’ for the important events. He and his brother ran around to check timing with us and announced the wedding party, the cutting of the pie (we didn’t have cake), and our first dance.
We had two wedding playlists to make it easier – one filled with slow quiet stuff for dinner, then our ‘dance’ list which started out with our mother/son/father/daughter dance and then our first dance, then went into full out dance mode.
The best part was building the playlist, though. The week I got engaged, I started a google spreadsheet called ‘Nicole’s Wedding Playlist’ and threw the link out to dozens of friends. They gave me names of songs and artists – and the best part is, every song on that list was a song someone had! A few weeks before the wedding everyone sent me files in Dropbox and my fiance and I spent time arranging the ones we liked into a playlist – supplemented by a few favorites of our own and some I’d gotten from the library.
We were careful to do a mix of upbeat and slow (a surprise: Etta James’ ‘At Last’, the 5th or so song up, is what packed the dance floor out) and to always do something irresistable after a slow section (there are songs that just require being on a dance floor. Electric Slide. Shout. Any version of twisting. Single Ladies. You get the idea).
Our dance floor was never empty, and had some serious surprises. My grandmother got into it in a way that I never would have guessed!
The best part was slipping in songs that are not great for dancing, but that had special meaning for certain guests. The whole room burst into song for ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, and a group of long-distance friends managed to drown everything else out singing Chicago’s ‘When Your Good to Mama’.
And because it was a ‘crowdsourced’ playlist, there was something for everyone!
I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It’s one of my favorite memories from my wedding.
In fact, it went so well that the waitresses at our venue asked for my cousin’s phone number so they could call him to DJ things in the future!
February 1, 2012 8:26 am
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Thanks , I have just been looking for information about this topic for a long time and yours is the best I’ve found out till now. But, what about the conclusion? Are you certain concerning the supply?|What i don’t understood is if truth be told how you are no longer really much more neatly-liked than you may be now. You are so intelligent.
April 1, 2012 11:35 pm
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[...] if photography is the most important aspect to you, then spend all $2500 on your photography and DJ your wedding with an [...]
April 3, 2012 6:17 am
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This is really helpful and uplifting. My fiancee and I are debating the music question now for our wedding coming up, and are curious if anyone has advice about how to select a sound system/speakers to rent that will be loud enough to fill the room. We’re celebrating with approximately 250 guests in an old wood-paneled community hall-type room. The wedding is where my fiancee grew up, but we live far away and will probably need to commit to the sound system before having a chance to test the volume in person. Any ideas? Thanks!
April 13, 2012 11:45 am
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