I feel like I need to share this nightmare of an experience with as many brides as possible. This post reflects MY PERSONAL experience with Sensory Sound / Solid Gold Sound DJ's and in no way speaks to any other person's experience.
After writing all the glowing reviews of my other vendors, it makes my heart pound with dread just thinking about my experience with Sensory Sound DJ company. We found them through a referral website and since they were the first on the list, they were the first vendor we called. Their prices were too good to be true and we booked their services in September for a March wedding. They assured us that they would send the contract for us to sign ASAP: we put a deposit down.
The next time I heard from them was in late October: an email saying if we paid in full they would throw in some free lighting or a wireless microphone or something like that. I called them and paid my balance and inquired after the contract. It was "in the mail". Meanwhile, they gave me a subscription to a music request website, where I was to enter in my music requests, event timeline and other special instructions for the DJ the day of the event. About December was the first time the website crashed and I lost everything and had to re-submit it: that should have been my first warning.
Around the end of February, after the website crashed the second time, I tried to call them to see what could be done to fix the issue. Their local (813 area code) phone number had been disconnected. My heart started to pound as it does as I am writing this. Cold panic set in. I called their 1-800 number. It was disconnected too. I thought I dialed it wrong. I painstakingly looked it up from our email correspondence and I dialed it again. Disconnected. I restarted my phone. Still disconnected. I then checked their national website: there was a completely NEW phone number! I called them and asked about the website. Jesse (my contact) said there was nothing to be done about it and I would have to answer the questions all over again. When I asked about the change of phone numbers, he laughed at me and told me they were having problems with the old number so they switched. I asked him if he realized how nervous he made me and probably other brides as well and he just laughed. I should have realized then, that I should be looking for a new DJ, it was my second warning. The contract was still "on its way".
About 2 weeks before my event, with no contract in hand I started to get really nervous. This is the last thing I need to be worrying about this close to my wedding. I still had no contract, and I had yet to speak personally to my DJ about any day of questions or name pronunciations ANYTHING. So I decide to call them at their new 1-800 number listed on their website . . .(drum roll please) it was disconnected!!! At this point in time, I started calling every known phone number this company had given me to date and nothing! I had 5 different friends try calling from both cell phones and land lines. Every time we dialed, it was disconnected. They were all disconnected. I can only imagine this company is nothing but a sham, or they have their heads stuck up their butts and are that incompetent.
At this point, I started doing the research I should have been doing at the very beginning: I looked at Better Business Bureau (40 complaints!), Yahoo, Google, and websites like this. All of them told of horror stories of brides not having a DJ show up on her event day, or having them show up in jeans and a tee shirt 3 hours late; paying these people and never getting service, losing money and never seeing it again.
I am horrified that a company like this can even exist. It is up to each of us, who have these experiences to pass on the knowledge of complete and utter douchebags like these people. They could have seriously ruined my day like other brides, but luckily, I caught it in time.
I can't tell you what a relief it was to actually find a professional DJ after this experience. I had no idea the lack of professionalism, lack of responsiveness, and the overall LACK of quality of service I was dealing with, until I found my new DJ company.
My advice for any bride, is to get a referral. Got lots of referrals. All of the vendors we used that were referred to us from friends and family, were amazing and professional.