Program to vote on wedding music?

August 15, 2010 8:45 AM

Need a program to help me let people vote on wedding music.

So I'm DJing my sister's wedding and and I thought I remembered seeing a program that let people vote on what music they wanted to hear but I can't seem to find it now. I'm sure I could just set up a poll or a Google doc and email it to people and let them vote that way but I'd love to have some samples of the songs on there too. I'm a little hungover this morning so I'm sure there is plenty of info I'm leaving out. Suggestions?

posted by no bueno to computers & internet (15 answers total)

I don't have suggestions on software, but one way you can get feedback is to include a line on the mailed invite to the effect of "which song is most likely to get you up on the dancefloor?"

I did this for my wedding and it worked pretty well.

Failing that, you can set up something like surveymonkey, which you can use for free, but which (on the free version) limits you to something like the first 100 responses and 10 questions. If you go for the "pro version" it will cost you $30 for a month. I don't think it would let people hear samples of songs though.
posted by MuffinMan at 9:00 AM on August 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I do have subsonic set up on my computer. Is there a way I could set up a playlist and let people log in and maybe "favorite" songs or something within subsonic?
posted by no bueno at 9:04 AM on August 15, 2010

And MuffinMan good suggestion on the dancefloor. Thanks.
posted by no bueno at 9:05 AM on August 15, 2010

I'm still not sure with subsonic how you'd get the voting to link up to the music.

A bit of googling reveals that Survey Gizmo supports multimedia and if you could do it within the 14 day free trial you'd be laughing.

I guess the only question I'd have is are you getting people to vote on a predefined list of songs, or do you want it to be open ended. If predefined, how long is your list - because in my experience of surveys people get bored very quickly scrolling through stuff.

In summary: your sister's guests aren't going to care about the music nearly as much as you. If you want them to interact, it's got to be simple and quick - which would mean either getting them to vote on a short, predefined list of songs (e.g. the last dance, or a sequence of songs at a specific time) or just to submit choices open ended.
posted by MuffinMan at 9:23 AM on August 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well I planned on having a predefined list but first I was going to send out an email to get some suggestions so it's not just MY music on there.
posted by no bueno at 9:38 AM on August 15, 2010

In which case I guess you've got two options:

- Contact people twice
- Get them to vote and suggest from a predefined list.

Your software will be able to handle the second option. The first option seems a little like overkill to me, unless everyone's superexcited about the wedding music.
posted by MuffinMan at 9:40 AM on August 15, 2010

Perhaps you're thinking of iTunes DJ, which is more of a realtime thing.
posted by acidic at 9:48 AM on August 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I've used itunes DJ. Like it, but not what I'm looking for.
posted by no bueno at 9:52 AM on August 15, 2010

And I think I'm coming to the sad conclusion that MuffinMan is right and I'm probably not going to get the response I'd hoped for. Thinking it might be better just to propose a list to a few of the friends going that I know will actually give a shit and then present to the bride and groom.
posted by no bueno at 9:58 AM on August 15, 2010

As a vetern wedding iPod DJ, the fact is that few care about the music more than you and the bride and groom.

If you want people to dance 70s and 80s fun dance songs plus some recent joints (Beyonce etc.) will be good. Old AskMes should have a good list.
posted by k8t at 10:05 AM on August 15, 2010

There's a small niche of sites that let you create simple social news-style sites where users can submit suggestions and then vote them up or down. Here's a thread about it, with several suggestions. Google Moderator and Slinkset are the two that I know of that have a reasonably complete set of features for free.
posted by abcde at 10:42 AM on August 15, 2010

iTunes DJ does let you select a specific playlist which people can vote on. So that way you won't be interrupted by that non wedding friendly song.
posted by antgly at 11:03 AM on August 15, 2010

Apologies for twisting the parameters of AskMeFi: "Wedding Music" is not really a democracy where everyone votes for their favourite recent pop hit. (and if it was, I could theorize a MeFi Wedding which is wall-to-wall Lady Gaga).

Traditional Wedding-Music Disk-Jockeys understand the ebb and flow of the wedding process. When to play for the kids, and when to play for parents (& aunts, uncles, in-laws, older people) (so that they get the vauge idea that the money which they are investing in this union is not being totally wasted), when to have slow dances, y'know, stuff like that. They don't usually play the music I like (a subject I can get passionate about) but I accept these aspects of the ritual.

The structure of Wedding Music is a traditional trope: How to have fun, but not get too wasted, and acknowledge all of the generations involved.

I think asking your friends for DJ-pick suggestions is a sweet idea, and probably lots of fun for later in the party, but unless the entire guest-list is strictly limited to persons of your immediate age-group, then please, proceed with caution.
posted by ovvl at 3:41 PM on August 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I can't recall the details (my best man set it up), but we set up an inline form we sent out te everyone that was coming (and whose email we knew) that posted the results to a Google Documents spreadsheet. We already had the spreadsheet set up to collate the mix from his collection, my wife's music, and my own gigantic mp3 collection. I can share it with you if you like. I think the form is still in there, too. (we had it so recommendations could be made for different times in the reception - while eating, before we got there, for the actual dance.

I think we also just shared the document with everyone, too, so they could re-recommend things that were already on there as a way of "voting".
posted by notsnot at 4:21 PM on August 15, 2010

I would talk to the bridge and groom and both sets of parents. Those are the people you want to make happy. If anyone else enjoys the music, it's a nice bonus.
posted by empath at 8:56 PM on August 15, 2010