I love Madonna. No Joke. So today before I scurry off with Mr. P so he can ask his BFF to be his Best Man, I'm going to talk about DJs. To put it mildly, there are over 2,000 results when I Google "Wisconsin DJs". So. There you have it. I e-mailed about 10-12 DJs for price quotes about doing our wedding. I'll be honest. I really don't care too much about the music for our wedding. I really don't. It really doesn't make that big of a difference to me. I chatted with Mr. P and he really cares. Ugh. I care about photography, he cares about music. I'm just glad he cares about something. HAHAHA. Anyway, we need a DJ for approximately 6 hours. Our "Day Of" timeline is still completely up in the air but we have the hall till midnight (then an hour to clean-up). So, we've thought, maybe, 5-6 for cocktail hour, then 6-12 for dancing. I love dancing. The more dancing. The better. Doing the initial cut-off of DJs for our budget (approximately $1000) was great. We narrowed it down to 3 or 4 at this point. Then I asked for references. A few were reluctant to give me any personal references, so they just gave me their review page on their website. Some (after asking their clients first) gave me names, phone numbers, and e-mails. I decided to e-mail the clients because I'm not all about talking to strangers over the phone. I asked the following questions of the clients:
What services he provided for you
How he performed he services
Was he a good bang for your buck
Did he show up on time/stay as late as you wanted
Was he professional
Any other information you feel like sharing
Was there anything you would change
I got a lot of feedback from the references. It was very helpful to hear from actual clients. I'm very lucky people from Wisconsin are super nice and more than willing to share all their personal experiences with me. A complete stranger. LOL. Anyhow, I wish I had asked all of these questions when I had originally e-mailed my potential DJs. Unfortunately, I did not, so now I'm doing follow up questions with them to make sure they get all of the questions right (well, in my mind anyway). This is where I got this AWESOME set of questions:
1. Do you offer a written contract?
2. Will you be the DJ at our
wedding?
3. May we meet with you in person
before we sign a contract?
4. How long will you hold our date
for us?
5. Do you work exclusively for this
company?
6. How long have you been a DJ and
how many weddings have you done?
7. How many weddings do you do each
year?
8. How many other types of events do
you do per year?
9. Do you perform for more than one
event in a day?
10. What makes you different from
your competitors?
11. Have you played at our reception
site before?
12. Do you act as the “emcee”
and make all of the announcements?
13. How would you define your
“style” when making announcements?
14. What do you do to motivate the
crowd if nobody is dancing?
15. What if something happens to you
and you can’t make it to the wedding?
16. Will we meet again before the
wedding?
17. Can we visit you at a
performance?
18. May we speak to your references?
19. How do you keep your music
collection up-to-date?
20. How involved can we be in
selecting music for our event?
21. When do we need to submit our
music requests and event details?
22. Do you take requests from our
guests?
23. Can we submit a “Do Not Play”
list?
24. When do you arrive to set up for
our wedding?
25. What will you wear to our
wedding?
26. What will you wear when you set
up and break down your equipment?
27. How much of a deposit is
required to secure our date?
28. What is included in the cost of
my event?
29. How much would you charge for
overtime?
30. What do you require from us?
31. Do you require a meal?
32. Are you insured?
33. Do you take any breaks?
34. What is your policy on alcohol
or smoking during the wedding?
35. What kind of equipment do you
use?
36. Do you bring backup equipment
with you to the wedding?
37. Do you have a wireless
microphone?
38. Do you have a “light show”?
39. Do you set up a sign or banner
with your equipment?
40. Do you belong to any
professional associations or trade groups?
So, did you ask all these questions? Did I miss any questions that are helpful to know?
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