Wedding DJ Work and the lessons I’m Learning

Wedding DJ work has been a steep learning curve for me as a musician. Historically, I’m used to fronting bands, playing the guitar, and singing. That has taken a long time and hundreds of weddings to get to the point to where I feel extremely confident about getting a good result each time, I play a wedding. Admittedly, I went into the wedding DJ arena significantly ignorant about the skills involved in making sure the wedding dancefloor goes well. In this article I’m going to look at some of the lessons that I’ve learned that have made a big difference in making sure the DJ sets go well.

Wedding DJ work is made is significantly easier when you know your equipment, get to the venue early, and make sure everything is working properly. This seems like a given but it is easy to overlook and just expect the gear to work well. As a trained pilot, I’ve learned the importance of checklist and I’ve implemented this into my wedding DJ work too. It’s so easy to forget one little thing that can easily bring the whole thing down. It might be an adaptor, or an internet connection, or a lead, or the laptop. Making sure that I have everything I need for the day to succeed is the first thing that I’ve learned helps to make the day a success.

Wedding DJ work is about choosing the right songs for the crowd that you’re playing to. What makes a wedding DJ set so complex is that weddings are largely cross-generational events. There are oldies and young ones and making sure that they’re all happy with music is a fine art. To do this it’s important to have a good idea of genres and which songs in those genres are guaranteed to get the dancefloor going. The reality is that each genre does have a few bangers that you know will hit the spot every time. It’s important for a wedding DJ to do the research, find those tunes, and have them easily available when they’re needed.

The hardest part that I’ve found about being a wedding DJ is transitioning between different styles and genres. This is very much the part where people are kept or lost on the dance floor. A basic crossfade just doesn’t seem to cut the mustard. Some crowds at weddings are very versed in good DJ work because EDM and DJ-type music is what they listen to on a regular basis. You can’t get anything past these people, so you need to make sure the transitions are world class.

A good wedding DJ will take the audience on a journey. The reality is that the beginning of the dancing sets is going to be very different from the end of the night. In most cases the crowd will be a little more drunk and so at the end of the dance sets they are more will to want to sing along with songs. I try and have the first 75% of the dancing up-tempo with a lot of energy. In the last stages of the night, I’ll introduce some songs that people are going to want to sing along with as the night comes to a close.

Hopefully this article has shed some light on what makes a good wedding DJ. For more information on our wedding DJ services contact us at info@bigthanksband.com.au or call me on 0408 300 402. Happy to chat through your up-and-coming event!

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