Should I hire a DJ?

funsize2u

I was planning on hiring a DJ for my wedding but the more I have thought about it I'm not sure if I should.
My fiance and I are having a summer wedding with an outdoor ceremony and indoor reception with our family and closest friends.
However, both of our families consist of an older crowd (roughly late 30's and up) which greatly outnumbers our 20-something friends.
If I did hire a DJ, I'm not sure if anyone would be dancing during the reception and then both I and the DJ would feel like time and money are being wasted just watching people sit and tap their feet to the music.
Any advice?

peachy13

You might be surprised to see some of the older crowd getting up to dance. Chances are, many of them haven't been to a wedding in a while and are looking forward to putting on their dance shoes -- well, that's people in my family at least. And you can definitely tell the DJ what kind of crowd it is and maybe he/she will be more inclined to playing classic hits rather than playing whatever Lourde and Justin Beiber have on the radio.

And having a DJ is nice because he or she will also be emceeing your reception.. announcing your entrance, the toasts, etc. It's nice for someone to have a mic and announce what's happening rather than no structure, in my opinion.

vmj23

I had about 75 at my wedding and  majority were over 30...there was still plenty of dancing.  Probably not as much/crowded dance floor as if there was a younger crowd, but even people tehir 50s/60s were up and dancing when certain songs came on.    if you have a DJ just make sure they know the age group of your guests and tell them waht you want played. 

Denise40

We're probably going to have 50-60 guests and having a DJ. Age range from 16-75

CMGragain

You can do just fine without the DJ's patter.   Pre-record your music on an Ipod and play it at the ceremony and reception.  Same music, without the smarmy jokes.  (I hate DJs!)
If you select a few slow dances, older people might dance,

cafarrie

CMGragain said:

You can do just fine without the DJ's patter.   Pre-record your music on an Ipod and play it at the ceremony and reception.  Same music, without the smarmy jokes.  (I hate DJs!)
If you select a few slow dances, older people might dance,

I also really really dislike DJ's.  We put all our music in iTunes, made our own playlist and put all our music in the order we wanted and paid a friend to change our lists when we were transitioning from "cocktails" to "dinner" to "spotlight dances" to "dance portion".  We got so many compliments on not only our music choices, but how awesome people thought it was that once we started music, it didn't stop (for stupid DJ jokes, forcing audience participation, we didn't do a garter/bouquet toss, etc).  We did have access to a high quality sound system (we literally just plugged my computer in and it was perfect) so i would rent one if your venue doesn't have one you can use.  

ETA:  We were able to keep in mind our musical tastes and the attitude/age of quests and had a good mix of music styles to appease everyone.  

iloveu4ever

Hire a dj. They might have songs that relate to other age groups.

jenijoyk

We had about 140 people at our wedding, only about 10 of which were people younger than 30. The dance floor was crazy the entire reception.