Knotty Advise Please - DJ or not

MKStar

We are getting married in the afternoon at 2pm at the myriad gardens. We are having a reception afterwards and of course I want music for us to have our dance to and just for general atmosphere. We will have the area for about 3 1/2 hours. What do you ladies think... should I get a DJ for an afternoon reception or do you think I would be ok with an Ipod setup and someone to mc the events of the reception like cake, garter, toss, and all that. Suggestions and thoughts are appreciated.

stephers_7

I am in the same predicament that you are in. I just dont know. All the dj's that I have spoken to want to charge me almost $500 for their services and I just can't do it. That's more than I paid for my dress!  I'm hoping I can find someone who will just play some music and not screw me out of a ton of money.

lauly06

I think an I pod would work great. Unless you are looking for a dance type reception where you have a dj who involves the crowd a lot. If not, I don't think your guests will mind where the music is coming from!

MelB228

I think a lot of it depends on your crowd and what type of reception you want. For ours we knew we wanted a definite dance/party reception verses mingling with music in the background while people look at the dance floor when events are going on, so a DJ was important. He got the crowd involved and got people up for dances that weren't even in the group of people I figured would get on the dance floor, so that was a lot of fun. The dance floor was full from the first song to the last and everyone had a blast, which was exactly what we hoped for. Most weddings I've been to that just have ipods/cd's, etc. People will look at the planned dances (bride/groom; bride/father; groom/mother; etc), and mabe dance 2-4 songs after that but then that's it for the dancing. Mainly because the bride & groom are usually mingling with everyone and their mother who has came and so you can't really encourage people to get out on the dance floor. They also seem to end up a little shorter than others I've been to. (not saying these things are always the case, just what I've experienced) So, it just depends on what type of atmosphere you want based on the crowd you have coming to your wedding, because they'll dictate how the dancing ends up.

Steven&Jamie

I agree, it depends on your crowd, but we didn't have a DJ and it worked fine.  I knew we wouldn't have a lot of dancing (our family/friends aren't the dancing kind unless there's a bar and alcohol involved lol).I made a few CD's and one of the DOC's played them during the reception (I let her know which #'s were for the special dances and tosses), and a family friend acted as emcee. 

Steven&Jamie

We had an afternoon wedding too, our ceremony was at 1:00.

bake2312

We are having a night wedding, but doing the iPod with little brother (19 yrs old) as our announcer. FIs side of the family is Southern Baptist and don't allow dancing, so we are already kinda breaking the rules by doing our dances, but its our day, so they can suffer. We figure most people won't be "bustin' a move" so we will mostly just have some oldies and things like that playing and spend most of the time socializing. Good luck deciding, I am a little nervous about my little bro getting shy and not wanting to do it, but I think it will work out either way.

lmf2010

MelB228, who was your DJ?  It sounds like they did a great job.  Would you recommend them?Also, I am new to the boards, is there a way to do private messaging for things like this, or do you just posted a reply like I'm doing now?Thanks!~Rach