Steve and I just had our engagement party with DJ Thomas Ulrich on May 11, 2024. We could not have asked for a better experience with him overall! He was recommended by a friend who had him for several of their family weddings and loved him! He was a true professional and was supportive in helping with suggestions when we weren't sure about what song to use for each item, etc. We danced all night and people were so impressed with the music and his professionalism. Our photographer cancelled last minute and he helped take pictures! We highly recommend Thomas! The DJ is one of the most important parts of a party, make sure you get a great one! Thanks Thomas! Yolanda and Steve read more

Hiring a DJ for a wedding is a stressful situation. Can you imagine? If it goes wrong, nobody is dancing, people are weirdly standing around, and the party's vibe is totally ruined. The DJ has about a 20 minute window to set the tone for the entire event, before guests get bored or, even worse, check out early. So early in my search for a DJ, I went through and found the top rated Chicago (not suburban) companies. I was nearly set on Toast & Jam - they were expensive, but they seemed unique, if a little pushy, and exciting, and are definitely very trendy. Before I could book any more vendors, though, I had to stand up in a friend's wedding, which was time consuming and crazy - but also led me to the world's PERFECT wedding entertainment. Rich had DJ'd my friend's event and no one sat down the entire night. Even in my drunken haze I knew the music was rockin, and what I REALLY appreciated was he had found a bunch of polish popular music for the groom's family to enjoy - a thoughtful and above and beyond kind of touch. I booked a meeting with Essence Entertainment the week following. From the first meeting we had with Rich, I knew he was going to be our DJ. He's charismatic and hilarious, sets you right at ease about the whole wedding planning process, offers suggestions on what to add to your wedding package and how each additional item would effect our evening. He was realistic and never pushy. We opted for his DJ services plus his photo montage package, and signed the contract that night. Despite our REALLY long engagement, Rich checked in with us all the time to make sure planning was going well and provided us all the log-in information for our online portal so we could slowly build our three lists of music for the night: must play (Journey!) maybe play (Eminem!) and do not play (cha cha now, y'all). The online planner let us save our work as we went and do just a little at a time, which saved a lot of stress and hassle. The week of the wedding, Rich was amazing, calling to finalize all details, assuring us our photo montage was together and ready to go, and even reminding us of the little important things, like don't freak out about little stuff and take time to enjoy the evening. He arrived at our venue WAY early the day of and was ready to go right when guests arrived. He and his assistant ROCKED. Our cocktail hour was an awesome blend of Celtic tunes for my Scottish hubs. Dinner was jazz, exactly as husband wanted it. Our introductions were perfect - the music was exactly as I envisioned it and the entrances were perfectly timed. Our speeches were well paced due to Rich's organizational brilliance, and the photo montage Essence put together for us was FLAWLESS. 25 photos of Dom, 25 photos of me, and 25 photos of us together, all set to our choice of music. I'd seen the photos all a million times and seeing it all together, even *I* cried. My mother was obsessed with the whole thing, and the crowd LOVED it. I wish I could have that moment of the whole room enjoying that photo montage forever. Right before our first dance, I panicked and decided I didn't want to do it anymore. Rich jumped on it and after 30 seconds of awkward dancing, called all other couples to the dance floor and saved the day (and my dignity!) and the pace of the evening was on. No one wanted to sit down the ENTIRE night. From conservative coworkers to college friends to aunts and uncles, every single person was enjoying themselves and dancing it OUT. The best part about Essence Entertainment was how well they read the room - I couldn't believe in 6.5 hours he never once flopped onto a "whoops, everyone sat down" song. We've been married for two weeks now and I still have people calling, texting, and coming up to me to ask WHO that amazing DJ was. Rich and his team created the atmosphere I dreamed of for my wedding and made it look effortless - all at a price that was thousands of dollars cheaper than I expected to have to pay. I had a fantastic group of wedding vendors, but if I had to do it all over again, the very first call I'd make would be to Essence Entertainment. They MADE our wedding the unforgettable, amazing, partyriffic evening I dreamed of, and I can't imagine it getting any better than that. read more

Rich and John thank you for all your hard work! You have a great company and I was VERY pleased with your service!! John was very pleasant, up-lighting and truss system were AMAZING; a total wedding must! They even stayed 30min pass 12 for my guests who still wanted to DANCE!! We packed the floor all night long! I feel that my feedback & comment sections for the company survey really encompasses what others should know about the service rendered and the company as a whole. I added a little here and there to make it more complete and voice some of my personal preferences and explanations for some dislikes. 1) Quality of Customer Service before your wedding? (initial meeting, phone and Internet communication) They were Excellent; they were very attentive to the details of my vision, they met with us at our chosen location, instead of making us drive to downers. Huge plus since we lived in the city and had 4 other wedding vendor appointments that day!! 2) Friendliness/Promptness/Appearance of your DJ? (DJ John) Excellent! My wedding was more formal and my DJ had a tux/suit and his assistant was presentable as well. John was very nice and always had a smile on his face, even when reminding me that we deviating from our timeline. ( we had a few hiccups in our day..) 3) Your DJs overall performance? (Professionalism, Music selection,Cooperation, etc.) Good :D. I would have said excellent, but John did not play some really important songs requested by me for my family/culture :( I strongly believe that this may have been a direct result because the music selection was not All English. However, we did let Rich and John know what genre/styles of music and special cultural dance music we wanted. It just came down to getting the music file itself. Further, we would have liked the DJ to follow up with us before the week of the wedding, when we were occupied everyday with wedding appointments. Had we met sooner we could have potentially avoided the music selection miscommunication ( did not play important songs or confused the meaning of a song e.g. La Vibora de la Mar, El Muerto and no Rancheras..etc.). When everything is top priority, often enough people don't react, remember, or re-prioritize tasks until its made known that you may run out of time.. We were so Stressed that we never felt like we had any time to do anything.. everything was a priority and had to be done right away. My husband and I tried to load the songs onto the website and sometimes we'd make it all the way to the bottom and it turned out that it didn't save! Needless to say ,since we were under a severe time crunch, due to the short engagement (6mo from "yes" to "I do"), we got to as much as we could done on the website and moved on... It would have been nicer had the site been more user-friendly or if the DJ's could get some of the work out of the way based on genre input we had initially given them and only left us to tweak up the details. For example. it would have been nice, if I did not feel like I had to pick every song I wanted played at my wedding. I know they meant well, by trying to assure that they played all of our favorite songs when we were in the room; I just felt that the level of detail they wanted from us was too much ( this is a general statement for some of the industry vendors). I know a lot of the things i just mentioned sound harsh, but since they deal with weddings, they should expect chaos and rushed schedules and should plan to follow up or aid more. Still was very happy with the service, and had I been able to clone myself 4Xs it would have not been a problem, but since that was not the case.. I could have used a little more sanity when planning the wedding and less demand from all the vendors to micromanage the job. 4) Sound and lighting equipment - sound quality, sound system appearance, lighting effects appearance. Excellent! They had great lighting effects. I would have liked a little more, but the effect was great anyways and everyone liked it! There was rain during the lighting setup so it was decided that no out outdoor lighting could be set up - I was really sad to have not been able to complete my vision because the rain stopped just before guests were to arrive and after the setup had left :'( ! 5) Overall performance rating of our services? I still say Excellent, because they were really nice and tried really HARD to make everything wonderful. My guests were very pleased and no one knew about these little details, except me and you now. 6) Is there anything we can improve upon? Communication with the future bride and groom, more flexible hours to plan the event ahead of time. Make every attempt to fully understand bride and groom's requests and deliver on them. Follow-up more frequently, unless requested not to and try to minimize the work a couple has to do to have good music and setup. 7) Would you recommend our service to others? I highly recommend Essence Entertainment :D !! read more

Rich and Essence Entertainment came highly recommended by my father. From the first time we met Rich, it was clear he is passionate about what he does. We decided to hire him for our wedding and we couldn't be happier with our decision. Not only did he make our planning experience simple and easy, but he truly performed when it counted. One of our biggest concerns would be our ability to get our relatively conservative families out and active on the dance floor. By the end of the night, even my wife's grandmother was tearing up the dance floor. Rich kept everyone dancing until the very last minute. He even alerted me when he noticed people trying to crash our wedding (and there were more than a few). He truly took pride in making the night perfect for us. Thanks again Rich, were still getting texts from guests remarking on how fun our wedding was! read more

Tom Ulrich! Thank you so much for all your work! It was great working with you and everyone had a great time! Not only was he great planning a wedding with from 1000+ miles away, but he was super communicative, detail oriented, and dependable. When you are planning a wedding or a major event near or far, you need a professional, personable, reliable vendor, and he was it! Not only was he great to work with, but he worked his magic for the dance floor. It is almost unheard of that the DJ could play music to pack the dance floor for 5 hours straight, but Tom did it! Tom read the crowd and got the dance floor going for 5 hours straight. There were always at least 10-20 people on the dance floor. At times, the dance floor got to be 70+ people. I highly recommend working with Tom if you need a DJ who is accommodating and affordable. I would definitely use him for future parties. read more

WOW these guys are top notch! What truly made this DJ service great is their prep work prior to the wedding. The online form you fill out with song selection, schedule etc is great! It was really easy to work with and allowed you to fill out some at a time so it wasn't so daunting. My DJ, Tom Ulrich, was amazing! He kept things moving smoothly. He was so fun, energetic and exactly what we needed. BOOK THIS PLACE and save yourself the hassle of searching for a DJ! read more

Rich and his team were fantastic from day one! Throughout the planning process Rich was very patient and helpful as we planned for our special day. The tools that Essence provides are also extremely helpful at ensuring all of details are communicated with your DJ ahead of time, including your song preferences. A couple months ahead of our big day, Rich realized he had a family conflict and said his next best DJ in the company would be providing DJ services for our wedding. While we were slightly bummed, Rich did offer us free uplighting for our entire reception room due to the change, which he definitely did not have to do. Our reception room looked beautiful and Casey did a great job the night of our wedding! The only hiccup was on some timeline adjustments, but overall everything went as great as one could hope for. I would highly recommend Rich and his team for your wedding day. You will not be disappointed! read more