February may be miserable for some of us, but for those crazy Valentines planning their June wedding it’s a glorious time.
In my 20 years as a DJ, I have worked more weddings than Kim Kardashian will ever have, and I’m shocked at how many lose sight of the most important ingredient: The music!
How many of you have seen the reality show Musical Weddings? No? That’s because there isn’t one.
And yet there are countless shows about dresses and shoes and chocolate fountains.
The industry will have you believe that these things are critical, when we all know that at the very heart of it all is the music. No one will even see your shoes.
On the night of the northeast blackout in 2003, I was doing a wedding. The bridal party was dressed and ready, but there was no electricity. The venue had a generator, which would provide four hours of music if we used nothing else. No flashing lights. No video. No uncle Saul belting out his karaoke rendition of My Way. Just a welcome speech, some drinking and everyone dancing until just past midnight … on a Thursday.
I used to get calls from brides who had paid $2,000 for a dress and $750 for a cake but expected to spend $500 on a DJ because that’s how much their cousins paid … in 1983.
A wedding reception is meant to be a moment of celebration between loved ones. It’s not an opportunity to hog the spotlight in front of a captive audience.
If your DJ is energetic, knows his music and observes the crowd, he’ll have her aunt Myrna from Flin Flon doing the Cha Cha Slide with his uncle Surjeet from Bombay before the night is done.
Can your cake do that?
No one wants to hear lengthy speeches about your days at summer camp, or watch a 15-minute slide show of your relationship set to the music of Celine Dion.
They want to party, and if you don’t think there’s a difference between a good DJ and a guy who’s there because he knows how to press “play,” then you might as well stock the bar with Shirley Temples and virgin daiquiris.
Magazines and wedding planners will tell you that food and decor (and wedding planners) are the most important elements of your affair, but then so will the guy that carves the fruit into animal shapes.
Some of the best weddings I’ve ever attended involved tight-knit groups of friends celebrating memories together, dancing to ’90s music without so much as a glance at the ice sculptures or gold-painted human statues.
Yes, ladies, it is your night, but it’s meant to be enjoyed with your loved ones, so feed them, keep them lubricated and hire a DJ or band that rocks.
You may actually create a memory that you and your friends will want to relive when that video you paid so much for, is done.
Just sayin’.
