The Little Things You Probably Won't Notice About Your Wedding DJ

There are a lot of things I think about at a wedding that you probably won't notice.

And that's the point.

You won't notice how long I've spent getting the cables out of sight.

You won't notice that I've thought about where the speakers are pointing, or how the shape of the room is going to affect the sound.

You won't notice that I've looked at where the bar is in relation to the dancefloor.

You won't notice that I've considered where people are going to stand, sit, drink, dance and inevitably wander off to find the toilets.

You probably won't notice most of this stuff at all.

But you'll notice if I haven't.

Good equipment isn't enough

I've invested in good equipment.

But good equipment isn't enough.

You have to know what to do with it.

Take speaker placement.

It's surprisingly common to see speakers mounted on poles at a height that might look perfectly normal but isn't necessarily doing the room any favours.

Put a tweeter too low and the people at the front can end up with a rather aggressive dose of high frequencies directly in their faces, while simultaneously blocking sound from reaching the people behind them.

Then there's the subwoofer.

Putting it underneath the speaker looks tidy. It makes a nice vertical stack.

But tidy isn't necessarily optimal.

I prefer to couple my subwoofers together, placing them side by side, usually against a wall where appropriate. Done properly, this can produce a much stronger and more even bass response throughout the room.

Most wedding guests will have absolutely no idea any of this is happening.

That's fine.

They're not supposed to.

They're supposed to hear music that sounds great.

Cables are ugly. Unfortunately, they exist.

Cabling is one of those necessary inconveniences of DJing.

For now, at least.

And cables have a remarkable ability to make an otherwise polished setup look messy, cluttered and amateurish.

So I care about them.

I care where they run.

I care how they're dressed.

I care that they're secured properly.

And I care that nobody has to navigate a spaghetti junction of power and audio cables on their way to the bar.

Because there's also the slightly more important issue of safety.

The last thing I want is for someone to trip over a cable, sprain an ankle and spend the rest of the evening being remembered as “the one where Auntie Beryl had to go to hospital.”

It's a wedding.

Let's keep everyone upright.

I look at the room differently

When I arrive at a wedding venue, I'm not just looking for somewhere to put my DJ booth.

I'm looking at the room.

What's its shape?

What are the acoustics like?

Are there lots of hard surfaces?

Is there glass?

Are the ceilings unusually high or low?

Where is the bar?

Where is the dancefloor?

Where are people likely to congregate when they're not dancing?

Can people see the dancefloor from the bar?

Can they see the DJ?

Is there anything about the room that's likely to affect the way the party develops later?

These aren't things I expect a couple to think about.

You've got enough to do.

But I've done this often enough to know that the room is part of the DJ setup.

I'm not trying to make my setup the centre of attention.

But I do want to understand how it sits within the room.

That's an important distinction.

The best details disappear

There's a strange thing about doing something properly.

The better you do it, the less noticeable the work becomes.

Nobody walks into a wedding and says:

“Excellent cable management.”

Nobody gets on the dancefloor and thinks:

“That subwoofer placement is producing a pleasingly even bass response.”

Nobody gets a drink from the bar and thinks:

“Good job the DJ considered how this part of the room would interact with the dancefloor later.”

And they shouldn't.

They're there to have a bloody good time.

They're not there to inspect my work.

If I've done things properly, the setup simply looks good.

The sound simply sounds good.

The room simply works.

You experience the result, not the effort that went into it.

And that's exactly how I like it.

Attention to detail isn't about being fussy

I don't obsess over details because I enjoy making things unnecessarily complicated.

Quite the opposite.

I'm trying to remove problems before they become problems.

That's what attention to detail actually means to me.

It's arriving early enough that I'm not dragging heavy speakers through a room full of guests.

It's knowing what equipment I'm going to need before I arrive.

It's understanding the venue rather than treating every wedding as though it's the same room with different wallpaper.

It's making sure the cables aren't going to become a trip hazard.

It's positioning the speakers so the person standing three feet from them doesn't get their head blown off while the person thirty feet away can barely hear the music.

It's thinking about the little things before they become big things.

And then there's the stuff you really don't notice

Some of the most important details aren't physical at all.

It's remembering that you told me six months ago that you love a particular record.

It's knowing that another one absolutely must not be played.

It's understanding that the song you requested might be perfect at 10.30pm but completely wrong at 8.30pm.

It's noticing when the room needs more energy.

Or less.

It's recognising when a song isn't working and having the confidence to pull out.

It's knowing when to stick to the plan.

And knowing when the plan needs to go out of the window.

That's attention to detail too.

Because ultimately, I'm not there to follow a checklist.

I'm there to pay attention.

You probably won't notice any of this

And honestly, that's exactly what I want.

I don't want you looking at the DJ setup thinking about cable runs.

I don't want you wondering whether the speakers are positioned correctly.

I don't want you worrying about whether I've thought about the acoustics.

I don't want you thinking about what happens if something doesn't quite work.

You've got a wedding to enjoy.

So I'll worry about those things instead.

I'll spend the time.

I'll check the details.

I'll look at the room.

I'll think about the sound.

I'll tidy the cables.

I'll move the speakers.

I'll make the little decisions that nobody sees.

Because you won't even notice the amount of time I spend on the details.

And that's the point.