The lovely Ms. Cups and I have finally found a good spot for us to get married.
It’s outdoors, it’s at a hotel that mostly means something to us, and (due to the hotel circumstances) it requires us to have a brunch wedding.
Which is pretty awesome.
However, I’ve never been to a brunch wedding before, nor do I know anyone else who has, and we have a question about the music.
Do you think we need a DJ? Or would an ipod on “random” work just as well?
When I think “DJ” I think of a night-time reception where it’s dark, the lights are shining and people are partying the night away.
Our reception is going to be from noon to 3 in an outdoor pavilion. Yes, we are going to have a bar, but I can’t imagine people are going to be getting toasted in the middle of the day and willing to dance all crazy.
So I wanted to ask all ya’ll.
Do you think we still need a DJ for our brunch reception? Would a live band (shudder) be better? an ipod on shuffle?
My wife and I did a brunch reception. We had a DJ, and asked him to play a lot of Motown. We also had all the traditional mother/son, father/daughter, and longest-married-couple dances. But it wasn’t your traditional go-crazy dance marathon reception. Just Motown in the background while people ate, drank and mingled. It was nice to have the DJ tie everything together, so I’m glad we didn’t go the mp3 route.
I think that, while we aren’t going to have a go-crazy dance party, I would like to have a DJ simply to tie everything together and to MC the evening.
I don’t think she’s going to do a father/daughter dance, but my mom will definitely want to do a mother/son dance, and I think we’re going to combine our first dance with the “longest married couple” dance. But we’ll see.
I appreciate the responses so far, keep em coming.
One thing a DJ is good for, in addition to playing the music, is making those announcements – first dance, and all that sort of thing. The hotel might have suggestions for how they’ve handled it at other events – they might have an event manager that would make the announcements for you, so you don’t have to hire a DJ in addition.
Most of the brunch weddings I have been to have been more of the background music kind, and you could be just fine with a playlist. If you are doing a first dance, usually there’s some point where other couples are encouraged to join in toward the end (again, prompted by the DJ/announcer) so you might want to have a few more dancey songs in your queue in the event the crowd seems to want to.
I had a brunch wedding. We didn’t have dancing, but instead we just had a background playlist of our favourite appropriate songs (i.e., songs about love, instead of rocking-out songs about breakups).
If you go with a DJ instead, be sure to impress upon them (and put in the contract, if necessary) exactly what you want. If you want him to just emcee and play chill background music the rest of the time aside from one or two “dance” songs, be very specific in saying so. I don’t know how much success you’ll have in opening the dance floor–not a lot of people tend to like party-type dancing in the middle of the day, especially given that brunch weddings tend to be pretty chill on alcohol consumption as well. Be specific in looking for a DJ who’s done a brunch wedding before (or you can ask about afternoon punch-and-cake receptions, religious weddings without alcohol or dancing, etc.–all of these will share some requirements in terms of “background music” instead of “rocking out party time music”).
Other options would include just using an ipod on shuffle and having a trusted friend announce things (this one I tend to stay away from unless you really, really trust them); a band (frequently available for less money for a couple hours in the middle of the day, can be a nice touch); a string quartet or trio (very pleasant, especially for a brunch wedding, probably won’t encourage any dancing, though); a jazz quartet/trio/whatever. For all of these live options, if there’s a college nearby with a music program you can ask there to see if there’s student groups who are interested in performing–usually it’s cheaper and a good opportunity for them to get some experience.