When you do an interview to DJ a wedding you often meet with the wedding planner, bridesmaid, sometimes the groom or even one of the MOBs (mother of the bride). This often gives you the incorrect assumption that you need to please all of these people to get the gig. So not true. The truth is that there is only one person you truly need to wow, impress and smooze. The bride. The lady in white is the one making the decisions (as are the ladies soon to be in white listening to you) so she’s the boss.
Remember that.
We all know what we have to do as DJs during interviews or auditions for gigs but when it comes to brides it’s kind of a whole different ball game. So let’s talk about what you can do to impress the bride of the day and leave an impression on all those brides to be who will soon be searching for wedding DJ of their own.
Listening
Being a wedding DJ is a lot different than a club or party DJ because you don’t have quite as much freedom to do your own thing. It’s true that sometimes wedding DJs are little more than a human jukebox, but it doesn’t have to be.
The bride wants someone willing to listen to her wants and needs. This is her special day, one she’s probably been dreaming about for years and therefore has an accompanying soundtrack. The groom wants the bride to be happy…see where I’m going with this?
Listen carefully to what she says about the tone she wants to strike, her favorite songs and artists, least favorites and what songs/artists she hates. If you listen you won’t feel so hemmed in artistically but you’ll also leave the bride beaming and willing to tell the world about her awesome wedding DJ!
Organization
Nothing will put a jittery bride to be at ease more than a wedding DJ who walks in with his sh*t together. It will settle her down as well as show that you’re a professional intent on making her special day…special.
When you meet for the first time, come armed with questions that let her know you want this day to be perfect. If that means music questionnaires then proudly hand them over. Ask questions that will help you be as organized and prepared as possible. Will you need to bring all of your equipment or come in early to familiarize yourself with theirs? Does the bride want music requests and traditional songs like the Chicken Dance?
If you’re organized then you are one less thing the bride has to fuss over, which means you are a shoo-in for the wedding DJ gig.
Experience
This goes hand in hand with organization. Do you have experience as a wedding DJ? If you have tons of experience, this will work in your favor because there are such high expectations set for this day and the DJ plays an important role. Wedding DJs with experience will want to play this up because, again, this will put the bride at ease and make her more likely to choose you.
You wedding DJs out there without much experience; start building up your wedding DJ portfolio right away. If this is where you plan to get the bulk of your income then you need to bite the bullet and take those lower paying wedding gigs so you have more gigs under your belt. The more gigs you have the more comfortable you will be performing, and the more gigs you’ll book.
Music Diversity
One of the most important things for a wedding DJ is a diverse music library. Odds are good the bride and groom won’t have similar musical tastes which means you already need to satisfy two people. Throw in the parents of the bride & groom, grandparents and younger guests and you need a music collection that spans all genres and decades. So make sure you have everything from doo wop to hip hop, Celine Dion to Ke$ha and pretty much everything in between.
You want to make sure you have special songs too like the ones always played at weddings (Congo, Chicken dance, Electric slide…) plus the ones the bride and groom request. They may want a special song played for their first dance, their entry into the reception hall and the father-daughter dance. You’ll likely get extra points if you ask this stuff during the interview!
Crowd Reading
As the musician for the wedding you have a pretty big responsibility to make the event fun, energetic and memorable. Let the bride know that you know how to handle yourself. Tell her how you’d get people dancing early and having fun, what you’d do when the old folks and the kiddies hit the dance floor at the same time.
Put her at ease with your skills as a DJ and a crowd oracle. She wants everyone to have a great time and remember this event, so tell her how you’ll do it…within reason of course.
Being a wedding DJ is a unique job so make sure you don’t just rely on these tips to get your gigs. These are the ‘big ones’ but there is so much more to building a solid reputation as a wedding DJ.
I hope I helped you figure out how to get more wedding DJ gigs. Email in the box below to get access to Free video DJ lessons that will answer all of your questions on how to become a disk jockey!
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