When it comes to choosing a service, it becomes a bit more intricate. This is not only true to services at a wedding, but services in general. The main reason for this claim can be seen as the human senses that are not involved, as with the choosing of a product.
The fact that you are not familiar in the arena of wedding dj's, wedding music, dj equipment etc, as it is a service the average person does not engage with regularly.
DJ services are often associated with un-professional people making use of home-made or below-average equipment, to make a quick buck. This is a stigma that has unfortunately progressed over years, and stigmas are difficult to erase.
Let us now spend the rest of this article in providing you, the reader, and most probably, the planner of a wedding, with information that will give you insight in the arena of wedding dj's, so the above mentioned "reasons of difficulty in choosing a wedding dj" may be mitigated to a large extent, and allow you, to choose a wedding dj that will fulfill your expectations.
The information will be provided in terms of criteria that need to be considered when choosing a wedding dj.
1. Experience
Whether you have gathered a list of possible wedding dj's from the web, or from referrals, interrogate the individual dj companies. Visit their website or contact them directly to determine the experience of the company.
-Firstly you can prompt the number of years that the wedding dj company has been in business for. A good idea will be to also prompt the experience of the dj that is available for your event, which might even include the tertiary qualification, or 8 to 5 occupation of the dj. Give higher preference to companies where the available dj has some tertiary qualification or has an 8 to 5 occupation that is relevant to the "sound" industry.
-Secondly you can prompt the wedding dj company to provide you with a list of venues they have played at the last 12 months. Give higher preference to companies who played at more prestige's venues, as these venues usually have their own criteria to which sub-standard dj's usually NOT comply with.
2. Equipment
Either browse the wedding dj company websites, or prompt them directly for the make and model of the equipment that are to be used at your wedding.
Here are some equipment specific guidelines that might assist you:
Without getting to technical, do the following "rule of thumb" exercise. Use the make and model provided by the company, and do a quick search for the price of such speakers. Equipment from R4,000.00 ($475.00) and higher, per speaker, can be considered for your evaluation of the preferred wedding dj. The higher the value of the speaker, the higher the quality of sound and safety features on the speakers. With "safety features" I refer to the speakers' ability to handle power surges etc.
Remember, a speaker is not just about the power of sound, but also the quality of it, and safety features mentioned above.
Microphones
With respect to microphones, when you hear the make to be SHURE or SENHEIZER, be assured of quality.
Ensure that the dj will use wireless microphones, as this ensures mobility of the MC and other speakers.
As I do not want to only promote the above mentioned brands of microphones, as a "rule of thumb", the wireless microphone's price MUST again be higher than R4,000.00 ($475.00). You can quickly determine the price by browsing for the specific make and model of the microphone.
Lighting
Lighting can become very technical, but this is something you can get pictures for, from the wedding dj company, which make the decision on this criteria much easier.
Give preference to whatever looks the better and fits your event.
I do though want to add that if the make of lighting is "Chauvet", you can be quite at ease.
3. Personal Engagement
A number of suppliers are involved to make your wedding a memorable event. These suppliers are in fact partnering with you. Thus, the question you need to ask is "With whom do I feel comfortable to partner with?".
You may have a couple of your own criteria to answer these questions, but I would like to mention the following few:
When you first initiated communication with the dj company, how long did they take to respond, and for all communication there-after, what was their response time.
Quality of communication
Un-professionalism will quickly show itself in the type of responses you get from the dj company, whether through email, or over the telephone. Use your own judgment as to the professionalism of the dj company, but be sure to know that if you experience un-professionalism in the communication, you WILL see some sort of un-professionalism in the service.
To conclude
I do not merely suggest that you should go for the dj company with the most experience, most expensive equipment and best communication skills. I do though suggest that you give attention to these criteria when evaluating a wedding dj for your event.
I hope that this article has given you some guidelines to answer your question of "how to choose a wedding DJ".