I DJ'd a wedding in the lobby of a Hotel...

[baimun]

In downtown South Bend there's a building that's currently owned by Hilton... it has a Doubletree Hotel, a bank headquarters, a Starbucks, and some restaurants. I DJ'd a wedding there this weekend where most of that open area was corded off for the event.

During setup

After setup

Good thing I lit the walls and the main pillars because my 12 foot wide truss looked teeny tiny in that cavernous room.

The Groom and his Groomsmen did a dance to "Everybody" by the Backstreet Boys which was pretty hillarious.
The dancefloor was full all night as I kept mixing it up between old school funk, 80's rock, 90's dance music, current hip hop, country, and slow dance songs. The one bartender was like 6' 4" and had this deep voice... he walked past me and I hear "You are killin' it out there, Mr. DJ man....."

The lady who hired me kept bringing me beer so I didn't even have to go over to the bar, but the coordinator made several snide comments about them "not paying for me to drink". ??? I told her "The lady who hired me is the one bringing me the drinks". "Well you don't need to drink them!"

Wow, apparently someone wasn't hugged enough as a child.

All in all, a productive night where everyone but that one lady had a great time.

 

[OGG]

Wedding coordinators are the scum of the earth. The one from our recent wedding gig is exceptionally lucky that the wedding couple are our closest friends. I only mildly lit her up after several hours of her abusive bullshit that included sending my band mates out into the pitch black woods in their nice clothes to gather kindling for the fire pit that the groom had already personally stocked with a complete starter kit. She had her own staff there, that did jack shit all night while she went around roping guests and other vendors into performing menial tasks.

When she came and informed me that she had just talked the woefully bad and grossly under equipped DJ into staying past the time they had PAID her for, and that we would have to delay our final set for an hour (within 5 minutes of me talking to the DJ and her insisting that she MUST leave on time) I nearly lost my shit entirely.

Not only were we doing that gig for FREE as a favor and gift to my friends, but I spent a fuck ton of money out of pocket to make it happen. Bitch.

Our bass player had to up and on his way to the airport at 3:30 AM to catch a flight. Keeping him there until midnight was not going to happen.

From now on, weddings are $5K period. If there's a coordinator, it's $6K.

Don't like it? Don't call.

 

[baimun]

A couple of years ago a coordinator at an event hall asked if her staff could "help me" get packed up quicker. Their idea of "helping me" was to carry all of my stuff out to the loading dock, setting it down on the concrete, and once I was back there with my gear, saying "Good night" and locking me out there while I loaded.

I dissuaded several brides from using that hall and refused to work there until one wedding that I had accepted before I found out they were at that hall. Surprisingly, the coordinator and hall owner gushed over me at that event and were really super nice. I've since decided to not carry long grudges with shit like that because perhaps I just caught them on a bad night the first time.

Smile and move forward.

 

[jbj]

Very nice. What were you running sound wise? That#s a lot of room to fill...

I was booked for my last wedding of the year on Saturday. An all day shot with MCing and moodlighting and the client paid a pretty penny.

It's a venue where the duty manager acts as co-ordinator and is also a bitch and wants everything done her way so instead of the full bhoona package they had booked me for they ended up with:

half a dozen of the venue's shitty lights that were set to independently spazz out in time to the music plus another handful of units that were broke so just flickered away or sat on a random colour all night.

The co-ordinator doing "MC" duties which consisted of (with not much in the way of gravitas or anything) introduce the top tables, the cake and the first dance.

I usually get people G'd up for that and half a semi scripted spiel for each part to make it a bit personal - they got "UMMMM I'D LIKE TO INTRODUCE THE BRIDE AND GROOM TO CUT THE CAKE, AFTER THAT THEY'LL HAVE THE FIRST DANCE"

I comped the couple £50 back for not taking the moodlighting but they spent A LOT of money to have me standing around pressing buttons all day. It was a great day and night and I went over and above with the banter and getting everyone into it for the evening DJ set but it could have been so much better if the co-ordinator just let her ego go for the sake of her cients.

They actually had to borrow my mic for the speeches too as their battery had died and this 5* award winnign hotel didn't have a single spare 9v lying around

Could have been worse, my brother got lumped with a bridezilla on Saturday who's dad shut the party down an hour early. My bro got an e-mail from her yesterday demanding £100 to comp the late licence they'd paid for because he'd "played tunes she didn't want which killed the night." - he's showed me his playlist and he dropped 3 dance tunes late on because a large potion of their friends kept asking for them. Dad's taken umbridge to this and the bride's used it as an excuse to try and claw some dough back. She moaned about the pictures he took too. She literally typed out "I know you're not a professional photographer and you offer them as a free add on to your service, but I'm not happy with your photos either." :rolleyes: He takes a damn good photo btw - he's had stuff published in wedding mags and had a couple of big time pro togs give him hassle because he's good enough that they think he's stealing their thunder...

So yeah co-ordinators and bridezillas - they can all get in the fucking sea.

 

[baimun]

Very nice. What were you running sound wise? That#s a lot of room to fill...

Four JBL PRX615 powered speakers and one 18" Sub with a 2000 watt crown amp hidden under the DJ table. I figured 6000 watts was adequate.

They actually had to borrow my mic for the speeches too as their battery had died and this 5* award winnign hotel didn't have a single spare 9v lying around

Fortunately I put brand new 9volts in my wireless mics before every wedding. It's worth spending the $5 to make sure that the mic doesn't die during a speech.... and the Father of the Bride speech this weekend was (I'm not even kidding) almost TWENTY MINUTES long.

The theme of his speech was about all these little decisions you make that lead you to where you are today. I joked into the mic after the speech that "Fortunately, the choice I made today was to put brand new batteries in the wireless mic" which garnered laughter from the crowd and fortunately the FOB as well.

 

[OGG]

Ugh.

The "DJ" that my friends hired and paid for at the above referenced wedding was one of those "friend of a friend" deals wherein little was known about them other than that she would be willing to do it at a cut rate.

She showed up with her "gear" on rehearsal night the day before the wedding. Her set up was a cheap 12 channel desktop mixer that she had no clue how to operate, two powered Harbinger 12s (one with a visibly smoked tweeter) that were too heavy for her to carry (enter yours truly), a cheap ass handheld wired mic with a switch and a tablet.

No mic stand, no speaker stands, no lights, no personality...

The venue was outdoors and HUGE. There was no way her tiny system could cover it. I piggybacked her into our PA for coverage. I set up my powered 15" monster at the end of the property where the ceremony was held (exactly opposite where the band was set up) and let them use my brand new in the box Shure Wireless Mic that I bought the previous day just for that show, to both use during the ceremony and for all of the toasts and random speeches throughout the night.

Since I also went ahead and used it as my vocal mic so I could leave the stage and mingle with the crowd while singing, I had Ms. Coordinator constantly grabbing it from my hand or the mic stand between songs and during breaks. Never a "please" or a "thank you" or a "may I".

To top it all off, Ms. DJ who had insisted that she be out of there at 90 PM was still there just hanging out at the end of the night.

Guess who carried her fucking speakers back to her car?

 

[baimun]

Moggo.

 

[mikesr1963]

If you do something for someone for free do a contract anyway and present it as a write off so this someone knows what the gift is worth and how the gift is going to be given. Otherwise you're a sucker working for free and your effort have zero value. Zero, and not one fuck is given.

 

[OGG]

If you do something for someone for free do a contract anyway and present it as a write off so this someone knows what the gift is worth and how the gift is going to be given. Otherwise you're a sucker working for free and your effort have zero value. Zero, and not one fuck is given.

Fair advice.

In this case, the bride and groom are our best friends, and they were super pleased with us and have been very gracious. It's the coordinator that needs a kick in the taint.

It also wasn't completely without benefit either, since we booked it through Gigmasters and got a 5 Star review across the board which instantly catapulted us to the top rated spot on the site. That alone will pay huge dividends down the road.

It was also a great learning experience for us as a band since we had not done a wedding gig before this one. Valuable experience.

So, I'm not ungrateful, just disgusted by the asshole coordinator and the "DJ" that was so Ill prepared, under equipped and completely devoid of actual skill that she makes it harder for legitimate guys like @baimun and @jbj to get work and market what they do as something that takes skill and has value.

 

[baimun]

Fortunately the Photographer got some quality pics of the setup.... I'm really glad that i used the Purple uplighting to make the event space stand out from the amber lighting of the hotel.

 

[Mark Wein]

99% of the time the other vendors I work weddings with around here are total pros. Occasionally you get an overwhelmed or bitchy coordinator but those are usually the ones that either aren't very experienced or are doing it part time.

 

[jbj]

I wish I could say the same. Id say its abt 50 / 50 - last Yuesday a candy cart and pop corn maker rocked up literally 2inutrs b4 the first dance (and an hour late) so we had to push the 1st dance until they were set up

Myself and the tog then had to tell them setting up right on the edge of the dance floor would ruin the photos and create a trip hazard for mydancers.

They then proceeded to set up right in front of the fire doors as in, if there was w fire the stuff would need to have been moved to lwt people out!!!