Do you want to hear just 30 dance songs at your reception?
“We just want to get to the dancing!”. We’ve been hearing this more and more when we meet with brides and grooms to talk about their receptions. It totally makes sense. If you have ever been to a reception that dragged on with a full cocktail hour, followed by an hour long dinner, slow moving specialdances, toasts and cake cutting, it can really leave guests bored and no time to party.
Surprisingly, to avoid this some couples are making the problem worse on themselves. They’re focusing on hiring a DJ company that doesn’t focus on the formal events or the MC portion of the night and DJs who mainly just focus on the music. That would make sense on the surface. The problem is that hands off DJs, that are not talented MCs, have a really hard time staying on top of the early portion of the night and keeping things moving. They are standing behind the DJ booth waiting to be told what to do rather than taking action to move the event forward. I spoke with a photographer at the Afterhours Bridal show. I will leave him nameless as to not get him introuble with the DJ. As an example, he told me the story of a couple who hired a “club DJ”. Not only did the DJ not have a plan for the night. He didn’t even bring a microphone! Obviously, that is the extreme and the exception, but I would argue that hiring a well-rounded DJ or a DJ and MC team would be the more effective solution. With our packages we offer a DJ and MC team.
The MC will be the person who meets with the bride and groom and discusses their timeline from an entertainment perspective. He gets to know them and offers solutions and helps with their vision. The night of the event he is helping the team of vendors run the show. He has his finger on the pulse of the event and keeps it moving. He is also a talented MC who can easily get a rooms attention, make things flow smoothly with less cheesy words and get people to connect to your event. A good MC will get you through the events without them feeling rushed but giving you the maximum amount of dance time possible. He should be the person driving the event forward while you have a good time enjoying your event and not worrying about everything. A well-rounded company is still going to have that DJ who can mix the music and not just a button pushing DJ who plays every song to the very end. A DJ should be able to mix seamlessly into the next song. He shouldn’t be playing every song to the very last note but often getting into a song and then after a few minutes right into the next song.
This keeps the energy high and allows you to get more music played in the time you have for dancing. This will make that time seem longer, keep the energy higher and your dance floor packed. . It’s important to note we are not talking about cutting songs off that people are really into or songs people are really singing along to. We are talking about skillfully knowing how to DJ a wedding reception. The average song is about 4 minutes long. If you have 2 hours to dance and you play every bit of every song you would get to dance to roughly 30 songs. If you’re a talented mixing DJ at a wedding, you should be able to get more than 50 songs played in that same time!
Some songs you may even play almost to the end, some you may be hearing a chorus or hook a couple times and then into the next. It’s a skill that is important to the success of your event. Every 5 minutes that MC saves you by being on top of things is two more songs you could be dancing to before the end of the night So, if you want to just get to the dancing. Hire a great MC and a DJ who can mix. If you want to know what that sounds like check out this quick little 6 ish minute sample of us mixing music at a recent wedding reception where you har 5 songs in a short period of time.
https://www.mixcloud.com/brandon-lindsey/short-clip-example-of-mixing-by-hey-mr-dj-at-a-wedding/ Brandon Lindsey Hey! Mr. DJ Event and Lighting Group HeyMrDJEntertainment.com17
