Play that funky music!

So we had our church, our photographer, and our reception hall. Now we needed to find someone to actually make it a party!

John and I felt that a DJ, rather than a band, would be the way to go for our wedding. We both felt strongly that we wanted our first-dance song, whatever it would end up being, to be sung by the original artist, not by a random person in a wedding band. I also asked my friends their opinion on the matter, and my matron of honor (then just a "maid" of honor since she was still 8 months away from her own wedding day), Paige, said that a friend of hers had a band at her wedding but it was a little restrictive, as the band could obviously only fulfill requests if the request was already part of their repertoire!

But sometimes DJs, like wedding photographers, can be so cheesy. Sometimes they try to make themselves into some sort of celebrity for the night and let their personality get in the way of everyone's fun. They might completely ignore your requests for songs that are "must plays" and "do not plays," and maybe also ignore songs that you specifically wanted for the reception "events," such as the grand entrance or cake cutting.

So how would we find a good DJ?

When we booked Grand Marquis, they gave us a list of vendors that they often work with. They made it a point to verbally recommend Dash of Class to us, and said that they are so excellent, the Grand Marquis pretty much considers them their "house DJ's." I thought the name looked familiar, and I realized that Dash of Class was also on the "recommended vendors" list given to us by The Palace! With our two favorite reception halls both strongly recommending them, we figured we might as well give them a shot!

I called the number on the sheet and spoke to Vito, one of the owners of the company. He told me that Dash of Class was holding a showcase at a reception hall in Freehold and that we were welcome to swing by and check it out. John and I met my parents there and we were led to an office on the 2nd floor, where we met Vito. We liked him right away, and he explained his philosophy of making a wedding into a great party: play the easy-to-dance-to stuff early in the night so that the older crowd gets out on the floor right away, and then play the faster stuff later when younger crowd is adequately fueled by alcohol to take over! He asked us about our general musical tastes and what we would like to hear at the wedding, and more importantly, what we would NOT like to hear at the wedding. Vito also showed us video clips and photos from previous weddings he had done, and he explained that we could make a bunch of upgrades to our package, including lighting setups, video shown on plasma screens, and more. He impressed all four of us.

And, in true Lisa fashion, we booked him a few days later, ha ha. Vito was the only DJ we interviewed.

Ironically, a few days before the wedding, I learned that Vito would not be able to DJ at our wedding due to a last minute emergency. So who would keep us rockin' all night long? Stay tuned to find out!