no DJ?

towed101010

Has anyone gone the no DJ route and done the ipod sound system idea? I've read about it and had a friend mention it. Whats your feelings on it?
THANKS!

september's bride

I haven't done it, but I did attend a wedding like this once. For the most part, it was fine. The only thing that was kind of missing is being able to go to the DJ and request songs. Even the best-stocked ipod won't have everything. BUT - that's only a small consideration, especially in terms of finances.

If you do choose to go with the ipod though, look into renting a sound system, or using the one that comes with your venue. Our friends forked out $500 for the rental speaker system they used, and the sound was great. That made up for the lack of a DJ, at least for me!

JohnCarrieC

My friend used her laptop with the sound system their church had (the reception was at the church).  When we tested the sound it was plenty loud, but once all the people got into the room you couldn't even hear it.  I actually forgot the music was even on.  It does beat the blasting sound coming from DJ speakers though.  I'm not much of a dancing person either so I think it was a good idea.  All in all it worked out well but could've been a bit louder.

secour

I'm planning to do the ipod also.  I think it's a good idea.  We had to consider though who would announce us into the room and things like that since it's usually the dj who does it.  We appointed a willing family member to do it.  I think that it'll be fine for the type of ceremony/reception that we're having.

kaesha

I did an ipod reception, and it was totally awesome. We didn't do the announcing stuff - we weren't interested in being showy in that way. It does require a lot of playlists, and really, you need to be able to read your crowd. We switched up playlists because people were more into some music than others.

LesPaul

We didn't have a DJ or dance floor.  The ipod will work fine, as long as you test the sound system at the venue beforehand.  Don't rely on them telling you it will work fine - test it.  Ditto pp regarding the multiple playlists.  We didn't have any announcements either - it was a small venue (a B&B), and we didn't make a grand entrance or have any tosses. 

bobstine

Definitely try to test the sound at your reception prior to your wedding! We decided to go with an iPod playlist (a live band would've overwhelmed our 30-guest wedding, unfortunately).

The speakers at our venue (they already have an iPod dock) turned out to be what I'd have at home. Great for background music, not so great if you plan on dancing.

We decided to order the iPod setup through AMS in Napa (an entertainment company) and the cost they quoted was $469 -- for speakers, dock, microphone. Sort of what we expected. The nice thing is that we'll have multiple speakers which will help.

AMS offered us an alternative though: for an extra $175, they threw in a "guy" to man music. I guess he's a DJ but not in the true sense. He'll sort of be incognito, in the background, playing songs and adjusting volume for us when necessary (using his own system rather than our actual iPod). As much as we were against a DJ, we ultimately decided that asking someone in our group to "man" the iPod might present a problem. So now we're going to have the "guy" do the work for us. The good news: we get access to their song database, which is helpful, even though we've already put together a 100 song list on our iPods. We got a discount on the rate because our wedding is in April -- one week prior to the open of wedding season, and our ceremony/reception is on a Friday. Try to negotiate the costs if you can!!

Lolly1969

We are definitely doing the Ipod thing! It's not the first wedding for either one of us and we just wanted something small and fun. I at first worried if it would be tacky, but I've heard now that TONS of people do this.