DJ my own wedding with an Ipod

[corall]

Like all brides and their mothers, we are having a disaggreement. My fiance and I want to eliminate having a cheesy DJ and program our Ipod for the music entertainment. With the availability of downloading any song from the internet, we will be able to have a wide variety of music. As for the announcements, a couple of our friends and family members said they would participate in announcing some of the events (i.e. our entrance, cake cutting, bouquet/garter toss, etc...) However, my mom thinks that if we eliminate the DJ, that it won't go smoothly. Can anyone comment on whether or not they have been to wedding that did not have a DJ or band? How did it work out? I have searched the internet and I have found some postivie feedback and some negative feedback, but all the negative feedback were from professional wedding DJ's that are loosing business.

[foreverinlove]

My mother had a band there(friends oft he family), but unless they wanted to play they didnt. It was one of those happy go lucky weddings. there were relitives announcing, and the radio was our music

[BrideDesign]

I've been to two weddings where the couple had no DJ, and provided the music via their i macs. Both worked out well, with friends announcing, a trusted person to keep an eye on the playlist (guests like to make requests and this wedding was no different) and queue up special songs (first dance, father/daughter dance etc.) and professional sound equipment. I think having a proper speaker set up could help your Mom feel at ease. My husband and I toyed with the same idea and ended up going with a DJ, only because our wedding was pretty large. But I think providing the music yourself is an awesome mnoney-saving idea as long as you are organized and have some committed friends to help. Good luck.

[DJTim]

As a professional DJ, I couldn't help but chime in on this topic. There's absolutely nothing wrong with programming your own music for the night. If you are comfortable with it, enjoy. Many times, I'll have a bride and groom program a night, and just have me play their playlist.

However, to make it a success, I recommend one major thing. Rather than having the entire evening pre-programmed, have someone in charge of the music that can change songs in the event something is not working. There's no way to predict that at 9:47, 3 slows dances will work. 2 oldies in a row may be a hit, but the third one clears the floor. That 4th and 5th one in the preprogammed list are sure to fail as well... at that time.

I live DJ adjusts and tweaks all through the night based on the response of the crowd. Those 3 slows songs, and that 4th an 5th oldie will probably still get played, just maybe 15 minutes later, after the bride and groom have finished saying goodbye to Aunt Joan out in the lobby.

I'd love to hear how it goes. I'd predict a better success with a DJ, but that could be because I am a DJ. However, I would never say that not having a DJ is a guaranteed failure. The IPod thing might be a success, and you could put me out of business (I'm gettin' too old for this anyway) :-)

[Kelly1Mickey]

The first time I read your post, I thought that I couldn't imagine a wedding done with an ipod. I still personally would prefer a band or DJ. BUT, my FH and I just started dance lessons and the instructor uses an ipod attached to a sound system. It sounds a lot better than I would have expected. You would still need someone to act as the master of ceremonies. And I agree with DJTim's post, you might want to have someone that switch the music around a little.

[JDee]

My fiance and I were just talking about this! I, being the bride, would absolutely love to have an ipod wedding and have the wedding party doing the DJing/Mic people! We already have many if not most of the songs we want at our wedding already on our ipod. Our only concern is the equipment. We are currently looking around the area to see if we can rent speakers, mics, etc. the DJing equipment.

So if anyone has any info on renting equipment please let me know! I'm so excited about this idea!

[serge]

I have also decided that I would like to dj my own wedding. I might use my Powerbook laptop instead of the ipod mainly for visiblilty of playlists and also it allows for more audio options. I am looking into renting some pro-audio equiptment and have found that it is quite reasonable. I am going to rent the equiptment for a week (usally is 3x the daily rate) so I can pre proof the audio setup. We are going to have the ceremony outside, and I know that auio in outdoor locations can be tricky. I just want to make sure it does not get washed out. As far as the reception, we are going to just play background music, may not have any dancing. So the need for constant music changes won't really be needed. We will designate one of our wedding guests with the task of pressing play and monitoring the sound levels. We have someone very detail oriented for this task, so we feel very comfortable about it.

I would love to hear from anybody who has had similar experiences already!

[candgirl]

Hi I'm thinking of DJ my own wedding off my laptop, but I don't know how to put my music. Could you send a sample list of how you would play the song by type of music.
Thanks
candgirl

Originally Posted by DJTim

As a professional DJ, I couldn't help but chime in on this topic. There's absolutely nothing wrong with programming your own music for the night. If you are comfortable with it, enjoy. Many times, I'll have a bride and groom program a night, and just have me play their playlist.

However, to make it a success, I recommend one major thing. Rather than having the entire evening pre-programmed, have someone in charge of the music that can change songs in the event something is not working. There's no way to predict that at 9:47, 3 slows dances will work. 2 oldies in a row may be a hit, but the third one clears the floor. That 4th and 5th one in the preprogammed list are sure to fail as well... at that time.

I live DJ adjusts and tweaks all through the night based on the response of the crowd. Those 3 slows songs, and that 4th an 5th oldie will probably still get played, just maybe 15 minutes later, after the bride and groom have finished saying goodbye to Aunt Joan out in the lobby.

I'd love to hear how it goes. I'd predict a better success with a DJ, but that could be because I am a DJ. However, I would never say that not having a DJ is a guaranteed failure. The IPod thing might be a success, and you could put me out of business (I'm gettin' too old for this anyway) :-)

[Arien]

Most of the weddings I've been to did not have a DJ. Most had background music on CD (which is what we are doing), but some didn't have any music at all, and no one seemed to notice.

[mouchsi]

My honey and I just had this conversation. Our wedding will be taking place back home (in Ontario and we're in Alberta) and he is back visiting for 2 weeks. The big job for him to do while in Ontario was to look for a DJ for the wedding. Well, I guess he and his parents (who are co-planning and co-paying for everything with my parents, which is awesome, by the way) talked about it, and they thought that since Jeff and I are such music snobs (we've been making a list of songs we want played at the wedding, and its already over 6 hours of music) rather than fight with a DJ or search endlessly to find one that will cater to our every whim, that we will do the iTunes route. Jeff's dad has been wanting a kick-butt new stereo system for years and years now, so they can put the money that would have gone to a DJ into that instead! I think its a great idea. We already know that one of our closest friends will be our MC and be fantabulous at it, and we have another friend who is a big music/techie geek, so he can be our unofficial music-watcher....

Anyways, I'm posting on this ancient thread cuz I'd love to hear from anyone who has actually done this to any kind of success..... I'm not super concerned about perfection of the evening/smoothnes.... Its really just a big party, and I don't think people will notice/remember/care if things go minorly awry.

- Liz