I’m fairly certain that the only times I dance are A) at weddings and B) when intoxicated.  It seems to me that on my wedding day, I may have a little bit of both going on, so good music is necessary.  We initially discussed doing an iPod wedding to cut costs, but from the get go my mom’s beau offered to pay for our music.  He wanted to make sure we’d have good music as well.  When we told him we were planning on handling it ourselves, he pointed out all the reasons why we shouldn’t: we want to be introduced, we want to do a first dance, we want to do mother/daughter and mother/son dances.  And while we’d thought about asking a friend to emcee, we also didn’t want that friend stuck behind our computer all night with our music either.  So while I think we could have made it work, I folded and allowed ourselves to open up to professional music possibilities.

My mom’s partner, Bobby, originally wanted us to get a band.  I knew he really wanted this because he’s a fan of live music and jazz and loves to listen to local bands.  Because he was paying for it, we listened to his suggestions and priced out a few.  But in the back of our heads we knew it would have to be a DJ what with our relatively small guest list, trying to keep it budget friendly, and my very demanding need for a bunch of specific songs.  When he realized how expensive bands were, we started pricing out some DJs in the area and found one specific service that was more than happy to accommodate the fact that we were across the country.  We set up a phone meeting on Monday night at 7 my time, which was 10 his time.  He put us on speaker phone to play a bunch of songs for us to give us a feel of how he runs a wedding.  All went pretty well and it ended up being a nearly 2 hour phone call, but he dropped a bomb on us when he told us how much he was going to cost- nearly $400 more than he had quoted me and $600 over the budget I gave him.  As an alternative, he gave me a few names of guys that work for him that were cheaper.  Still, we couldn’t help but feel kind of slighted considering we’d spent 2 hours talking to the guy and getting into the stuff he was playing us.  That being said, he was far more accommodating than the DJ that learned I was in CA and said “We don’t have to meet- I just need a $500 deposit to hold the date.”  Um, okay, how presumptuous of you to assume I’d hire a DJ who I’ve exchanged all of 2 e-mails with and have never met or spoken to.

So we’re a bit torn at the moment, but I was recommended one more place to look into by a past bride who used our venue.  I’ll see how they handle the long distance and how we feel about them and then we’ll make our decision.

Did you/will you do DJ, band, or iPod at your wedding?  Did you meet with anyone or just hire on good faith?  How did you make your decision?