Do I Really Need A DJ For My Wedding?

I know for a fact that because of this blog, I am going to be on the receiving end of a lot of flak from my fellow DJs. This should be one of those blog posts where I’m expected to list a million reasons why you definitely need to have a DJ at your wedding but here is the cold, honest truth: you do not need to have a mobile disco at your wedding.

Quite the revelation, isn’t it? Probably one that can be considered heresy too, especially given my chosen career path as a DJ. Well, I am going to go even further than that and give you step by step instructions on what you need to do to make your evening a success without having to hire a disco (or a band!).

Yup. I really am doing this.

There are a lot of reasons why some clients do not want to hire evening entertainment. It can be as simple as that there just isn’t enough left in the budget to hire someone, or that there are some bad memories from events that you have attended in the past where the evening entertainment hadn’t quite matched up to expectations. Whatever the reason is, there are options for you and while I do love rocking dance floors with my clients and their guests, above all else I consider myself to be a client advocate. With that said, let’s dive in!

[Quick disclaimer: this is a long post so if you want to see a quick summary, scroll down to the last paragraph]

Step one: Sourcing & sorting your music

Like a lot of the steps that I’m going to list here, this is going to be one of those jobs that you’re going to need to spend quite a bit of time on to make sure that you get it right. Of course, you both know the music that you guys love but I have found that when I meet my clients for their consultations to chat about their evening entertainment, a few probing questions prompts them to remember songs and artists that they used to love in years gone by so you’ll really need to ponder to be able to put together a bespoke soundtrack to your evening.

Then you will need to think about your guests. The easiest way to source requests from your guests is to ask for them on your invitations but be wary of doing it this way. Most of your guests will see a wedding invitation and automatically suggest a ballad which is great, but if you end up with a hundred ballads, it is not going to be a rocking party. You will also have at least one guest request a song that they know you hate with a passion so once you collate all these requests, you’ll need to go through a filtering process.

A good way to gauge what your guests love is to speak to each of them individually. Like you, they’ll probably need some probing questions to really get into the detail of what it is that they like but at least you’ll know for the big day and you can work on creating a playlist that perfectly balances out ensuring that a good time is had by all but they remember it as your wedding.

In terms of sourcing the music, the obvious places like iTunes is a good place to start. I would suggest avoiding the MP3s that you can buy from Amazon Music as they are rarely (if ever!) top quality MP3s and you’ll certainly tell the difference on the night. Depending on how you play your music, you’ll need about 100 songs to cover five hours. I’d strongly suggest at least doubling that because if you build a playlist that isn’t working on the night, you’ll need options to change things up to get your guests dancing.

Step two: Music licensing

When it comes to licenses, your venue will have the appropriate licensing so you can play music. If, however, you download a song onto your computer from iTunes and copy it over onto a laptop or burn it onto CD, you will need a Produb License – essentially a license that allows you to have two copies of the same song. There are people from the Performing Rights Society who travel around venues, make a note of the songs that have been played and check up on where performers get their music from and whether it was downloaded/ripped from a CD and copied over. In 20 years of being a DJ, I have only encountered this once so there is a good chance that you won’t encounter it yourself but it’s always good to remember that it could happen and you should be prepared for it.

One last thing: playing music from streaming services like Spotify or directly from YouTube is a big no-no, I’m afraid. Ignoring the technical side of a reliable Wi-Fi connection or the trying to avoid adverts randomly playing and spoiling the mood, it goes against the terms of service of Spotify to play music at events like weddings.

Step three: Hiring kit

There are places where you can ‘dry hire’ the kit that you need to put on a disco. In it’s most basic form, you’ll need speakers, lights and some sort of playout system. In terms of the specific kit that you need will entirely depend on the size of your setup area, the venue itself and the number of guests. Whoever you will be hiring from will be able to advise you on what they have on offer that could work best for your wedding.

For sound, you’ll need to pick the right PA system. As a whimsical example, if you have a guest list of 100 of your closest friends and family, your smart speaker is not going to give you the sound that you need for a party and hiring enough sound to fill Wembley Stadium is going to be far too much. Essentially, you’ll need to find speakers that you won’t have to push too hard to get enough sound, but also not waste your money hiring something so big that you don’t use it’s full potential (the sound equivalent of driving a Ferrari at 20mph, if you will). You’ll also need to liaise with your venue and find out if they have any noise restrictions in place, such as sound limiters. Sound limiters usually have a traffic light system and if you spend a few seconds in the red because you're too loud, the power will be cut for about 15 seconds. If your venue does have a sound limiter, then you’ll need to find out what that limiter reacts to (i.e. either the low, mid or top frequencies of sound) and you can choose the right speakers to work with that limiter.

In terms of lighting, you’ll need to decide how you want your wedding to look. You can have anything from the cheap dotty effects that you can leave on all night to do it’s own thing right through to the computer controlled intelligent lighting that replicates the sort of effect that you see in clubs and theatres. The former will be very quick to set up but the trade off for that is that it won’t look that great. The latter will look the best, but you’ll have to spend a lot more time setting it up and learning how it works. There are options in between, but don’t always assume that more is better – if you have a small setup area, packing in as much amazing lighting as possible will look as bad as one terrible light. Do a bit of research and measure up your setup area to help decide what will work best.

As for playout, that will depend on what you plan on playing your music from. If you’re playing from CDs, then obviously a couple of CD players and a mixer will do the job very nicely. If you want to play from your laptop, you’ll need to purchase something like Traktor, Virtual DJ or Serato and hire a controller (before purchasing anything, speak to your dry hire company to find out what controllers they have as certain controllers will only work with certain programmes).

As well as needing to hire stands for your speakers and lighting to keep them off the floor, you’ll need to work out what you plan on putting your playout system on. Your venue may be able to provide you with a table, which means that you’ll only have to work out how you can hide cables dangling out of the back of your playout system to ensure that it looks nice. If that option doesn’t work for you, or your venue cannot provide you with a table, have a chat with your dry hire company to see what DJ stands that they have. Speaking of cables (and this is a quick and obvious one to mention but one easily overlooked), be sure that not only you have enough cables, but also spares to ensure that you can replace them should any become damaged. As a matter of fact, spares of your lights, speakers and playout would also be a good shout in case any of those stops working for whatever reason.

One thing worth noting about this is that you will be accountable for any kit that you hire and if anything becomes damaged, you’ll be responsible in paying for it’s repair or replacement. If you’re going to go down the route of not hiring a DJ for your wedding, then it’s best to get some insurance to cover the kit just in case.

Step four: Transport

I’m afraid that your car – no matter the size – is not going to be suitable for transporting a mobile disco setup. Your car may become damaged in the process of loading and unloading and not only that, overloading your car in a way that it was not designed for puts massive strain on tyres, makes the vehicle less stable, difficult to steer and take longer to stop. It is also illegal. On top of that, if you do end up in an accident whilst transporting your hired kit, your car insurance policy may not pay out. Long story short: you’re going to need to hire a van. Whether you need a Berlingo, a Sprinter or anything in between will entirely depend on how much kit you’ve hired.

Step five: Nominate a guest to be in charge

With it being your wedding day, I would suggest nominating a trusted person to be responsible for the evening entertainment. With all the work that you have done leading up to your big day, it’s only right that you enjoy the fruits of your labour so nominate someone to take over. In the morning, they’ll need to put your hired kit in the hire van and park it up at the venue and depending on what your venue’s parking is like, preferably somewhere that can be kept an eye on as the van will be holding thousands of pounds worth of equipment. After your wedding breakfast, your nominated wedding guest will need to setup for your evening party and I would suggest that you use this time to go off with your photographer and get some portraits – chances are that your nominated guest will not have the experience of setting up a disco and after a day of drinking champagne and having just eaten a three course meal, the setup may take a bit longer than you’d expect.  I'd also recommend that they have a change of clothes as well as they will not want to perform all of this manual labour in a nice suit or dress.

Whoever you choose to be your nominated guest will need to be confident on the mic. By no means am I suggesting that they should be talking all night, but they will need to announce your first dance, let the guests know that the evening food is being served and announce the end of the night. They’ll also need to be at the decks for the full five or six hours to play the songs, change things up accordingly when needed and to speak to guests when they make requests - hopefully with all the hard work you’ve done collating the music based on speaking to your guests before the big day, your nominated guest will have access to the songs that are requested on the night.

There are some venues that will allow you to leave your kit setup overnight to then be taken down first thing the next morning, but the kit will remain your responsibility. For the most part though, your nominated guest will have to take down on the night, pack everything away in the van and drive away to store the kit in a safe place to then be returned to the hire company (another obvious disclaimer here: if your nominated person is having to drive at the end of the night, their alcohol consumption will need to be – to say the least - dramatically reduced).

Step six: Health & Safety

This is not the most exciting aspect of a wedding disco service, but alas it is an especially important one. To start with, the kit that you hire needs to be in good working order and safe to use. Any DJ gear should be PAT tested at least once a year but that in itself is not enough. You will also need to perform a visual check to ensure that everything is alright. PAT testing is very much like an MOT in that your car was perfectly fine and road legal on the day it was tested, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t become unsafe to drive in six months. Even the most well packed kit will get bashed about with all the moving it has to endure, so regular checks are vital and you’ll be responsible in ensuring that any kit used on the night is safe.

You’ll also need Public Liability Insurance to cover your nominated guest if you or your guests are hurt during the use of your mobile disco setup. PLI may also cover you should you accidentally cause any damage to the venue, which could easily happen whilst loading in and loading out.

Before the big day, you’ll also need to perform a risk assessment to demonstrate that you have identified what risks are there and what steps you have taken to reduce the chances of those risks from happening (i.e. taping down leads to prevent tripping). Whoever provides you with your Public Liability Insurance will want proof that you did everything that you could to prevent any accidents from happening and a PAT Test Certificate along with a Risk Assessment will certainly help your case. If you’re unable to provide this proof, then your insurers may not pay out.

It’s worth noting that PAT Testing, Risk Assessments and PLI are not legal requirements, so you do not have to have them. If, however, you’re in a situation where you need them, you’ll be glad to have them. As the old saying goes, it’s always better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. You should also know that a requirement of most (if not, all) venues is that anyone providing a wedding disco will need to show proof of PAT & PLI at the very least and if you cannot do that, it’s very unlikely that you’ll be allowed to continue.

And that’s how you do it!

So there you have it: a full step-by-step guide on what you need to do if you don’t want to hire a DJ for your wedding. As you can see, it is very doable to do all of this work yourself but if you're looking to hire a Professional DJ to take on all of that responsibility on your behalf and give you a night to remember, then click the button below to see if I'm available to rock your dance floor. Don’t forget: perfect days deserve incredible nights!

Is Benny Smyth available for my wedding?

Posted in: Advice | Wedding Disco | Worcestershire