Of all the things my fiancee and I worried about before our wedding reception, the music was close…read moreto the top of the list. Our guestlist was comprised of a lot of people who are a little more Beastie Boys, a little less Backstreet Boys. As connoisseurs of great pop music, we would not, could not, have anything less than complete creative control over what would be played.
After talking with several prospective DJ's, we finally settled on Jayson from Hard At Play because the price was right, he was insured, he carried backup gear, and, most importantly, he assured us he was very cool with playing whatever we wanted. Unlike other wedding DJ's, he seemed happy to check his ego and his Lou Bega jams at the door. All we needed to do was tell him what we wanted played and he would play it. Perfect! This is all we wanted: a middleman to play our favorite songs and make sure nothing went wrong with the equipment. I was a bit thrown by the fact that he was drinking at our initial meeting (which, by the way, was held at 10 AM), but whatever.
Over the next few months, my fiancee and I worked really hard to get a playlist together. First, we created a mix of songs we loved for the cocktail hour and dinner, which we burned to CD. Next, we came up with almost 100 songs we (and our friends and families) loved to dance to, both classics and Top 40 jams. Anything we thought Hard at Play might not have in their library, we burned to CD for them. Essentially, we did the work for Jayson.
A week before our wedding, we met with Jayson, who, on a side note, openly admitted to being "totally hungover" for the meeting. Sweet, dude. Real professional. As we explained our playlist and schedule of events, he seemed to half-listen and assured us again that, yes, we were going to have control.
Come the reception, I was already fielding tons of compliments about the cocktail hour mix from guests of all ages. Several people even asked me for copies! We were pumped that we were already successfully playing to the crowd and couldn't wait until the dancing started.
This is where things went awry. About 20 minutes in, it became clear that Jayson hadn't even looked at our suggestions. None of our songs (besides the slow ones) were receiving play and, worse, he was dropping his own awful off-playlist fodder, including Def Leppard and Garth f'ing Brooks. Sorry, but those are really weird choices at a wedding where, during dinner, a bunch of guests were singing along to Neutral Milk Hotel. Furthermore, Jayson continually refused to play requests from members of the wedding party, leaving people generally confused about what the hell was going on when he dropped ABBA out of nowhere. The maid of honor literally had to park herself next to the DJ Booth just to get her request played. It seemed like Jayson was much more interested in taking advantage of our open bar than actually reading the room. Meanwhile, any Top 40 he played was at least 6 months old and totally stale.
After the reception, I thanked him for his work out of courtesy and he replied, "Yeah, man, just tried to play to everyone." It was all I could do to not tear him a new one right there, considering how much work we had put into selecting songs that "everyone" would enjoy a hell of a lot more than a minor Black Eyed Peas hit from three years ago. "Everyone" isn't paying you thousands of dollars.
Don't get me wrong, people had a great time. Several people told me it was one of the craziest weddings they had been to. And, yes, he played some surprising jams that worked. (The fact that everybody went crazy to House of Pain is where the second star comes from.) But people were also very drunk, happy, and ready to dance to anything. This was thanks to hard alcohol, not Hard at Play.
The point is, I wasn't angry about the songs that WERE played. It was one of the best parties I've ever been to. (Of course! All my friends were there!) I just don't understand why he chose to lead us on as though we had complete control over what was played, only to ambush us with friggin' "Pour Some Sugar on Me." If I wanted a DJ to play crappy music that gets played at every other wedding, I would have never initiated the conversation or provided him with such an in-depth description of the music we wanted. Don't pretend your service is going to be one thing and then pull a 180 without asking the customer after the check has been cashed. That's what hack DJ's do.
