No, I will not do the "Macarena"

April 26, 2007 1:22 PM

Non lame, no cheese, dj for my brother's wedding. Do they exist in the Seattle area? Suggestions and other advice are welcomed.
posted by engling to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

My wife and I chose all the music for our wedding reception, right down to lending the DJ the CD's for the music.

I think you can, as the customer, dictate whether a DJ is cheesy or not, simply by saying what you want them to do, what you want them to say, and what music they play.
posted by jayder at 1:25 PM on April 26, 2007

2nding jayder. our wedding was a few weeks ago. the dj had some cheese tendencies, but he played everything we wanted him to, and nothing from the no-play list. it worked out great.

wedding djs are kinda cheesy by definition. find one that is friendly and willing to play exactly what you want him to play.
posted by gnutron at 1:38 PM on April 26, 2007

Engling, I'm volunteering a friend of mine. He's DJed parties for me in the past, plus weddings for others. He's a writer in the music biz, both technically and editorially. His knowledge of music is far-reaching.

If this is a paying gig, I'm sure he'd be down. Not because he's greedy, but rather because it sets a relationship's tone, if you will.

He's in Seattle. Email me at matt at crunchgear dot com, I'll see what he says. Even if he can't, I've got a list as long as my arm of local, non-cheesy DJs.
posted by mattoly at 1:48 PM on April 26, 2007

How about filling an iPod with only the exact music they want, renting some speakers and a tuner (or whatever it's called) and not spending $ on a DJ at all?
posted by tristeza at 1:55 PM on April 26, 2007

I was engaged (for a while) and though we didn't get married, the wedding plans called for the ipod/playlist route. I'd setup a lot of big band stuff, with some personal favorites tossed in, and I generally hate dj's, but that's just me.
posted by craven_morhead at 2:02 PM on April 26, 2007

When some friends of mine got married the groom gave a big stack of CDs to the DJ and told him he could only play things from those CDs. It is the only time I didn't have to hear to the Hokey Pokey or the Chicken Dance at a reception.
posted by J-Garr at 2:29 PM on April 26, 2007

My husband and I run a DJ company in the Washington, DC area -- obviously we don't have any direct contacts in Seattle, but I wanted to suggest you check out a publication called The Knot's Best of Weddings, which just came out a few days ago (it was awfully painful waiting, since they didn't send out advance copies to their featured vendors!). This magazine actually ranks wedding vendors in most major areas based on brides' and grooms' specific testimonials -- there was no way to "buy" your way in, and in fact a lot of Knot advertisers were mad that they weren't included -- and names the "best of the best" based on client rankings. This may be a good place to start, as I've never seen cheesy or tacky vendors included in these types of publications. I hope this helps!
posted by justonegirl at 2:48 PM on April 26, 2007

Oh, I meant to say we found ours at a Borders store, but most major bookstores should have it, as does TheKnot.com.
posted by justonegirl at 2:49 PM on April 26, 2007

See if you can get a DJ from KEXP to spin for you...
posted by omnidrew at 3:42 PM on April 26, 2007

Ranking very high on my list of cheesy and unacceptable things for wedding DJ's to do, is to advertise for their services DURING the reception. I went to a wedding once where the DJ had some sort of radio-like advertisement that he would slip in between songs, that said something stupid like, "Rockin' good times with Sammy G. -- available for weddings, parties, and bar mitzvahs. Call XXX-XXXX for more information," punctuated with some sort of razzle-dazzle sound effects (as if his quality as a DJ was not enough advertisement). Also, when nobody else was dancing, he went out on the dance floor with his cordless mike, and busted some dance moves of his own.

I was astonished at the poor taste of that.
posted by jayder at 3:45 PM on April 26, 2007