For any brides considering doing your own DJ, it is possible to go great! We just got married last weekend and it went perfectly. Everywhere I've looked online about iPod DJs say it's a horrible idea, so I wanted to provide some encouraging words to those considering it.
Our wedding was around 55 people, mostly young/young at heart, so I wanted "popular dance music," the kind of stuff I like to dance to. I put in a few slow songs, but I really wasn't concerned about pleasing everyone's tastes because the old people wouldn't be dancing anyway. Mostly a mix of Pitbull, Rihanna, David Guetta.. that sort of thing. Once I collected a few hours of dance songs, I organized them into a playlist that had a good flow. The program I used allowed me to level the volumes and remove the 2 second gap between songs (very important). For dinner, cocktail hour, and while people were arriving for the ceremony, I played a shuffled mix of Jack Johnson and Death Cab for Cutie. And of course we picked out specific songs for Processional, Recessional, First Dance, etc.
Next, I organized all of my songs into different playlists to make it easy to operate without fiddling. I numbered the playlists so it would be clear which order to play them in, like this:
0- Arrival/Cocktail/Dinner
1- Processional
2- Recessional
3-First Dance
4- Father/Daugter Dance
5- Bouquet/Garter Toss
Some of these playlists only have 1 song in them, but it made it very easy that way.
Now the most important part-- RENT PROFESSIONAL SOUND EQUIPMENT. There is really no way around this. There is a great rental place in Tampa we rented from (A-Aardvark Music Rental, for any local gals!), where we got a 6-channel mixer, 2 cabinet speakers, a subwoofer, mic, mic stand, 2 speaker stands, and cables for $97 (rented for 5 days). Once we figured out how to set it up, we labeled every cord and where to plug in each end. We had the system set up for our outdoor ceremony, had a few boys break it down and move it to the reception room. It was very easy to set up and only took minutes.
The other do-it-yourself aspect is you need an emcee for announcements and to change playlists. We had one of my fiance's good friends do this. It is a very important job, so it needs to be someone who is confident and won't be distracted from drinking too much or getting overly emotional. Our friend did a great job staying on task and constantly checking with us to see when we are ready for the next "event".
We put a lot of thought into our playlists and it turned out great with people on the dance floor every song except one (we needed a song to rest!) The music had great flow so no one thought to mess with the playlist. The sound was great, professional quality. It was exactly what we wanted and I am so so glad we did go through with this! Hope this helps!
