Part of a DJ/mc’s Job is to create an evening of fun and ongoing events where there is no dead time in a wedding. Even in the middle to end of dinner you should be playing some more upbeat music. The transition between dinner and dancing is EVERYTHING. If your guests are bored because too much time passed, then chances are they will become more bored/tired and less likely to get up and dance.

If you keep the evening running smoothly and build up the music and atmosphere, it will surely get all age groups up and dancing. The common denominator is the “fun atmosphere”

With the atmosphere in fun mode, everyone from grandma Marge to your young friends in college will see how contagious the fun is.

As a Cleveland wedding dj for 24 years, I utilize the input of the bride and groom in regards to some must plays and play if possibles and they give me a better feel for what they want and I mix that in with the reaction of your guests.

A Cleveland wedding Dj Selective Sound Entertainment.

If your reading this article, I will lead you through the truth behind what makes a successful reception when it comes to music. The biggest misconception of all brides and grooms is that they are required to choose the music for their reception. TRUTH=NO WAY (see below)

1st of all, you should be meeting with your DJ/MC 4 to 5 weeks before the reception to discuss the music. Yes, you will have access to your online planner and get a chance to choose some must plays, do not plays, ect.. but you should have trust in your DJ that their talent and experience, balanced with your input on the music for your wedding reception will make for a great mix of music for all.

When choosing music: THINK DANCE MUSIC NOT your favorite listening songs. Most do not realize this and just put down music they want to hear, but truth be told, how are your guests going to react to those songs. We as DJ’s need to build an atmosphere of fun music for all age-groups.

DO NOT: submit a playlist with your own songs for the reception. If you do this, there is no room for error and your guests surely and most likey arent going to react the way you had hoped. If this happens, you better have a plan B for your DJ.

A do not play list should be discussed with your DJ. Most wedding DJ’s stay away from: corny novelty (discuss), rap, heavy metal, explicitlyrics, suggested lyrices ect… But go a little further and dig.. ask them questions about where they went to college, where did they like to go dancing,, oh, they aren’t dancers, ask them if they like to karaoke, go see bands,, ect.. This will way better tell us what they like music wise.

If submitting a Do not play list, only list about 5 or 6 of your most favorite. If the DJ has a do not play list of 10 songs or more, it does get more difficult as each song has to be run through the do not play list..

Interaction: should you or shouldn’t you………..we reccomend, but it can be done on a “if needed” basis

Trust your DJ/Mc,, utilizing their talent, your experience and taking requests from the guests, should make for an amazing night.

1. Having the Bar outside of the room from where the reception is. The atmosphere is in the room and on the dance floor. If your guests are old

wedding bar set up

college roommates and they haven’t seen each other in a while, they will be hanging out in the bar area and most likely can’t see or hear the dance floor. Keep the energy and focus in your room

Utilize the Djs talent and experience

2. Controlling the entire music selection. The goal in hiring quality entertainment is to utilize their knowledge, talent and skill along with your input in creating the perfect mix of music. If you are in too much control and you don’t have any experience with choosing wedding music, then how are your guests going to react if it’s not working. Trust the pros, but give them input.

Elegant wedding cake

3. Cutting the cake after dinner: too much time goes by and by the time they serve it, 1/2 of your guests either don’t remember the cake cutting or don’t even get to enjoy it, cause the festivities and dancing have started. Cut the cake after the introductions. Everyone sees it, and they are cutting it up while the guests are enjoying dinner so it can be served immediately following dinner. (providing you are having it for dessert or serving it)

4. Party favors:  one of the biggest wastes at a reception. Here’s the hint: do something that they can use and won’t

wedding party favors? do they really care?

sit in the bottom of their drawer for years to come. No to picture frames, yes to candy.. The best and newest trend is to make a monetary donation to a cause in your guests honor and not only will they furnish little cards to place at the table, but it is a very classy gesture.

5. Top shelf Bar.. Unless of course you are rich and have extra money. Middle to lower shelf is fine. The money is the same in the envelopes and unless you’re trying to impress someone, you don’t need it.

6. Huge, expensive cake: really? Why not just get a small beautiful looking cake and have sheet cakes in the kitchen where the venue can serve. Think anyone will notice? no one except you and your mother in law? so unless you have extra money and the cake us THAT important to you?

7. Doing shots with your guests: Truthfully we say, don’t allow shots at your wedding at all. In the past 5 years, we have had more than a dozen weddings end early or get closed down because of drunkenness. IN addition to that, we have had countless brides and grooms over the years, pass out, get sick and even not make it to their own reception because of excessive drinking.

8. Greeting guests at tables after dinner: Here is one that we will get the most frowns upon. take this into consideration.. 30 seconds you may spend with each guests, 100 guests, that 50 minutes JUST for 100 guests. WOW! and to top it off, your guests are sitting there after dinner with nothing to do. If you must greet guests at each table after dinner, do 1/3 of the room, then get into some dancing and go back and finish. DO NOT go through the entire room and EVERY table, It will kill the mood and your guests WILL be bored to tears.

9. Single sided buffet service: Read this closely: if having a buffet dinner for over 125-140 guests, find out if there is going to be a two sided buffet line, if not ask them if it can be done.. In addition, if you decided to add a carver for roast beef or Turkey or something like that,  there should be one carver for each 100 guests (if not, ask for 2) they may charge you an extra 50.00-75.00, but it will be WELL worth it. Your buffet line will be gone through in 1/2 the time, which means more time for dancing and having fun.

wedding disposable cameras

10. DO NOT buy or put cheap disposable cameras on the tables. Yes, you heard it, NO.. Why you ask.. Simple, there are most likely 25% of your guests that have a camera and are taking at least 20 pictures each. The way you collect these, is there are free file sharing sites that you can customize online where ALL of your guests can upload their photos and everyone can share.

These are just a few examples of some things we have learned over the years. These are opinions only and I surely welcome some opinions from everyone else.

Where did the company name come from?

Honestly, I can’t remember!

What is your role at Selective Sound?

I am the marketing director, accountant, human resource manager, scheduler, promoter, performer, worker, operator, technician and… owner!

Why did you start to DJ in Cleveland?

In 1987, I joined a youth group because I was able to play the music on the sound system at the youth group school dances. By the touch of a button I was able to make 300 people go crazy and by that same touch of a button I was able to also calm them down. For a moment I felt like a god.

How did you get your company started?

I bought my first mixer/amplifier and rented speakers. I was using cassette tapes. I made $25 for my first gig, $60 for my second gig and the rest is history. We’ve done over $2 million in gross sales since then.

Where do you DJ now?

In Northeast Ohio for private affairs. Ninety percent of our business is weddings but we also do corporate events and bar/bat mitzvahs.

How many DJs do you employ every weekend?

We can do a maximum of five weddings and two other events per evening. Our busiest weekends are usually holiday weekends and we’ve done up to 19 events in one weekend!

How many weddings does your staff work in a year?

We average about 160 weddings per year.

What does your set-up consist of?

We are more refined in the DJ world. We use the new Bose l1 series 2 systems and a few Yorkville Unity systems (for the big events), a few wash LED lights and a compact computerized touch screen DJ system. Our systems are designed to blend into the decor, not be gaudy or noticeable.

How/where do you buy music?

Once a week we get CD with the top songs from each category from TM Century Prime Cuts. We own every song we every play.

What is a common misconception about your work?

That we just show up and play music. People don’t know about the 5 to 6 hours, pre-planning, coordinating, and music programming and so forth that we do before we even set up a speaker.

next week: part 2.. About the Jay r (CEO) of Selective Sound Entertainment.

What an amazing and fun wedding this turned out to be. I mainly worked with Denise in the planning at the beginning, however when we met with Jeremi and Denise together, Jeremi became very involved. Here is their story.

We arrived at about 4.30pm to set up and as soon as we had our equipment loaded in, I looked up and guests started arriving. We were a little confused, but after about 10 minutes of set up we had some music playing so they had some form of entertainment.  After completing our set up at about 5.10 we sat down with our friends at Casa Di borally and went over the evenings agenda.

The evening was set up to be very unique food service wise. When the wedding reception officially began, they Borally’s hand passed their famous pizza for O’deuvre hour.  Dinner, however was going to be a bit unique, because they did Heavy O’Deuvre stations around the room.  There was to be an amazing spread of finger type foods of many different varieties including a Borally’s famous  chef carved Beef Tenderloin. These stations were to be set up around the room, to avoid the “buffet” style type dinner.

After the Bridal party arrived we met everyone and lined them up for the grand intro.  We did not seat the guests, because we did not want that type of atmosphere with the O’deuvre stations.

The grand introduction was high energy as the bridal party walked into Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne After the introductions we went into the cake cutting with the song Adam Sandlers When I grow old with you Following that, we had 2 Toasts from the Best man and Maid of honor and then into A blessing. We then announced for the guests to visit the O’Deuvre stations at their leisure.

Twards the end of dinner, Borallys cleared the Head table off the dance floor so we could get started right away.

First dance was done while guests were still finishing up eating and we went into Denise and Jeremi’s first dance together as husband and wife. Their First dance song was Making memories of Us By Keith Urban

We followed that with a Father daughter dance to Heartland I loved her 1st and then to some Kenny Rogers and Through the years for the mother son dance.  After the formal dances we got started right away by inviting all the guest to the dance floor to join them for a slow dance. The entire floor was packed 1st song of the night.

We then went into an array of dance music for all age groups and there was dancing the entire night. This group of guests were incredible and we played everything from the Twist to Bone Thugs and Harmony. Great Couple to work with and play for. They were very energetic and fun the entire night. Borallys was great to work with and they were very accomadating. The Bar is on the 2nd floor in that room, which is a perfect placement in my opinion. Special thanks to Greg and Kathy from the Perfect Image Photography for allowing us to post their amazing work.

Another great wedding in the books. Amazingly enough we are doing the Maid of honors wedding in October as well. She called us and didn’t even know we were the DJ’s. Here we come Nicole.