Small wedding- DIY playlist or DJ?

[StrongInside]

Hi,

We are having around 30 guests, including kids, and apart from saving up to £500 by doing the music ourselves, I can’t help but think that it’s silly to hire a DJ for such a small group, especially since around a quarter are older family members who are very unlikely to dance to Calvin Harris etc.

I’m also struggling with the idea of someone else picking our music. We aren’t into 80s music, for example, which usually gets a lot of our friends singing along at parties, but it’s our special day, we are paying for it, so I actually want the music that we like.

On the other hand, making up our playlist is proving very time consuming and tedious, it might not get everyone dancing, and then there is a question of who will be responsible for it. Can anyone who has chosen this route please share their experience? The same goes for those with small weddings and DJs- did it work? What did you do for cocktail hour/meal music?

I think there is a PA system at the hotel already and I’m not too bothered about the disco lighting, there will be fairy lights and tealights around so I don’t mind if there aren’t party lights there.

I’m soooo undecided. Found a jukebox hire company, found contact details for DJs. I really can’t justify paying loads for someone to play music when we could put Spotify or something on, MCing can probably be done by the hotel wedding staff (I’ll ask). But then there is the headache of creating hours worth of a playlist to cater to most people’s tastes without neglecting our own. And worrying if there is a good flow in that playlist, and worrying even more about guests messing about with the playlist (the same goes for the jukebox).

@Blibbyblobby Wow, that sounds very high tech, probably too high tech for our crowd! I wouldn’t want people on their phones the whole night either, but interesting idea.

@tinselvestsparklepants I’m stuck on 15 songs, we really aren’t into listening to music like we used to so I’m finding it very time consuming to think of songs and even when I look at it, it’s really not going to be a great mix. A lot of our friends listen to the 80s, even though they were only born in that decade, some like rock or rap. I like none of those three, and I do mean none, so I wouldn’t want any of those types of music. I like reggaeton/salsa music, my partner listens to indie. What do we even do??

To add, we like some dance and pop tunes too, like Calvin Harris, Cascada. But it’s not what our friends would normally listen to whenever we have get togethers.

I wouldn’t want people on their phones the whole night either, but interesting idea.

Ah no, with limitlist you set one ipad up and people vote there, not on their phones. So a bit like a jukebox except instead of all the choices being there all the time, at any point there's only a few songs to choose between but the choice keeps changing.

One ipad up in the party room

For 30 guests including babies I really don’t see the point of a DJ at all.

We've got 50 people at ours but our venue is including a DJ. We have built our own playlist that the DJ will use, but he'll MC and build the atmosphere, and he'll also build in requests so that people dance and hear music that they like but our wedding isn't dominated by music we don't really like! And creating that flow so that the music sounds good together.

Our venue were really keen that we had a DJ and it wasn't left to a groomsman or the wedding co-ordinator as people get busy and distracted; and atmosphere is going to be what keeps people hanging around and enjoying themselves during the reception.

Not sure of the average cost of the Juke Box, it depends on the area etc but it is generally cheaper than a DJ.

I think if you are worried about music choices it might not be right for you but I think the guests enjoyment of the evening party is really important too. You can always have some light hearted rules for example (e.g. we had a live band who took requests but were instructed under no circumstances to play anything by Ed Sheeran).

@Blibbyblobby Ah, I see, I’ll look into Limitlist. I can see some guests hogging it and others not feeling confident enough to strut across the dance floor to the iPad.

@misspiggy19, that’s what I thought but I’m finding it really difficult to come up with a playlist; my choice of music isn’t going to necessarily get people dancing; and I know nothing about creating a good flow. Like @AnchorDownDeepBreath said, atmosphere is what is we need to keep our guests around. Wgat do you think I should do?

@WarriorsComeOutToPlayay I think a jukebox comes preloaded with whole albums and you can only choose what decades or genres it contains, so we wouldn’t be able to block Amy Winehouse or Bohemian Rhapsody. Big sigh, because it sounded cool.

My wedding was a similar size, made up of 38 at the evening (including a few little ones). We were also debating over hiring or going it alone.

We did want a bit of a ceilidh as part of the evening (traditional Scottish wedding 😆) so in the end what we did was hire a small 3-piece ceilidh band. We asked them to do a few small sets of ceilidh/live music during the early parts of the evening. Around this, they selected and played songs from a large playlist of suggested songs we provided them in advance. They took care of setting up and playing music so we didn’t have to bring or set up anything ourselves. They didn’t follow the list exactly as we listed more songs than the hours available for the evening, but they did pick from our list. It worked well as it kept it more of a surprise for us but still heard some of our favourites. We picked from across a number of decades to cater for all ages.

They also announced us into the room, our first dance, evening buffet and called (ran through) the ceilidh dance steps with guests.

We very nearly decided to do it ourselves due to the small size of the celebrations but after realising we’d need someone to watch it all night, have to get a good sound system, some lighting and would possibly let down guests by not providing the entertainment/interaction hiring provides, we picked the perfect balance I think.

Obviously our Scottish ceilidh tradition did factor in to our choice, so I don’t think a band would be necessary for most. We wouldn’t have hired a random band to play covers, I don’t think.

It’s really up to you, but whatever happens I’m sure with drinks and any music everyone will have a good night 😃 try not to worry too much as it’s your day after all and it should be what you want!