Rico was our wedding DJ and I would not recommend him for DJ services. From the get-go, we had issues with how pushy he was for us to sign up with him and add additional services (which I believe we said no to about 20 times yet he would keep asking). Because he was one of the few DJs I found that offered live music with a percussionist, we decided to go with him - this is a decision I sincerely regret.
We met with Rico a couple of weeks before our wedding. At that meeting, we gave him all of the music for the cocktail hour (as in, provided him with all mp3s) and the dance portion of the night. Our instructions were simple enough, mix and play this music and don't play anything on the Do-Not-Play list. I noticed that Rico did not take any notes during our meeting, but figured maybe since he's a DJ, he understood what we were looking for. After all, I don't know many couples who put in dozens of hours of work to provide ALL OF THE MUSIC for the entire night. But since I did not have a good feeling about Rico's ability to do this, I told my husband to make it as simple as possible for him and just give him all the music.
Being that it was a fusion Indian wedding, I also provided him with the music for our Indian ceremony. I knew that getting the Indian ceremony cued correctly would be difficult for anyone, so I'm not faulting him for botching that portion of the day.
For the cocktail hour, Rico did not bother to mix any of the songs we gave him. Instead he played them alphabetically right down the list - playing the entire song (including intros and outros). What professional DJ does this? What did we pay him for? My husband finally had to tell our coordinator to tell Rico to only pay 2 minutes of each song and to mix them around. It was as if he just put them in iTunes and walked away.
The audio for the reception was the worst I've ever encountered. Because Rico did not bother to understand the layout of the venue before the wedding, I saw him scrambling the day of trying to figure out where there was electricity, wire length, etc. My venue director said she had never worked with a DJ so ill-prepared. By the time we did our speeches, no one could hear anything because as I later learned, Rico did not bother to turn the speakers towards the audience - they were facing another room. I'm still constantly hearing from our guests how horrible the audio was. I also heard from our other vendors that Rico was incredibly rude to them - even asking my videographer to go get him a drink??? Almost all of my vendors have since reached out to me saying how unprofessional Rico was to work with. Even some of our guests overheard how Rico was talking to our MCs and were amazed by how awkward it was.
The very worst part of the night, and yet the part my husband and I were looking forward to the most, was the first dance and dancing portion of the evening. Rico COMPLETELY botched the fun way we wanted to do our first dance and then did not play any of the songs we put on our dance playlist. He chose his own choice of music which caused a lot of guests to leave early. I was so angry that I even had to walk away from the dance floor. We told Rico so many times during our meeting with him that we wanted that dance floor packed at all times with the music WE CHOSE playing and instead..I don't even know what he did. He completely alienated 90% of our guests by playing music that he chose. The thing is, as a bride and groom hosting a wedding for our family and friends, this type of stuff reflects poorly on us.
Rico - I'm sorry, but you should stick to only playing live music as I will say you are a gifted musician. As a DJ and wedding vendor, you're probably the worst I've worked with and I get upset all over again when I think about how poor of a job you did and yet how much you charged us. Honestly, our wedding was perfect aside from how much we were disappointed in your services. Which is so sad because music was an incredibly important part of the day for us. I am so sad we'll never get a chance to do it over. I wish I had stuck to instincts and backed out to find someone better. I would've rather lost the deposit and hired someone with some quality.
Word of advice out there - if you want a PROFESSIONAL DJ for a one-time memorable event like your wedding, do not hire Rico. If you want a backyard BBQ DJ with some live guitar, he may be your guy....but I'd say still shop around. read more
