If you've started looking for a wedding DJ, you'll probably have noticed that almost every website contains the same reassuring collection of phrases: professional equipment, fully insured, PAT tested, years of experience. All of those things matter, obviously, but they're also the basics. They're rather like a restaurant proudly announcing that it has chairs. You'd be alarmed if it didn't, but it's probably not the reason you're booking a table.
What those things don't tell you is what it will actually feel like having that DJ at your wedding. Will they understand the kind of party you want? Will they know when to change direction? Will they talk too much? Will they disappear behind a rigid playlist the moment something unexpected happens? If I were choosing a wedding DJ myself, these are the questions I'd find much more useful.
## 1. How Would You Describe Your Style?
This would probably be my first question, because every DJ has one whether they realise it or not. Some are brilliant at recreating the energy of a nightclub. Some are fast, technical open-format DJs who move quickly between genres. Some specialise in particular styles of music. Others are much more about selection and letting records breathe. None of those approaches is inherently better than the others. You're simply trying to work out whether their instincts resemble yours.
Personally, I like wedding parties that feel relaxed, inclusive and slightly unpredictable. The obvious records absolutely have their place, but some of my favourite moments come from playing something nobody expected and watching somebody on the other side of the room suddenly realise what it is. That's the sort of thing I enjoy. Another DJ may be completely different. Good. Find the one whose answer makes you think, Yes, that sounds like us.
## 2. How Much Freedom Do You Like On The Night?
This is more revealing than it sounds. Some DJs are happiest working from a carefully prepared playlist. Others would rather arrive with almost complete freedom. I'm somewhere in the middle. I want to know what you love, what you dislike, which songs matter to you and whether there's anything that absolutely must not happen.
But once the evening starts, I also want enough freedom to respond to the actual wedding rather than the theoretical wedding we discussed three months earlier. Maybe your friends unexpectedly go mad for disco. Maybe the soul records I thought would work don't. Maybe somebody asks for something apparently ridiculous and it turns out to be exactly right. Those decisions are difficult to make if every song has already been agreed in advance.
## 3. How Do You Read A Dancefloor?
There isn't really a textbook answer to this, which is exactly why I'd ask it. For me, reading a room is mostly watching people constantly and noticing small changes. Who's singing along? Who has just arrived back from outside? Which group keeps reacting to particular records? Who has been dancing for forty minutes and looks like they could do with sitting down?
A dancefloor isn't something you “read” once and then consider the job finished. It changes every few minutes. Sometimes the useful information isn't even coming from the dancefloor at all. It's coming from the bar, the terrace, the couple, the people hovering near the edge or the sudden appearance of eighty Cornish pasties. I'd be interested to hear what another DJ notices.
## 4. What Happens If Nobody Dances?
Every wedding DJ has had quiet dancefloors. Anyone who claims otherwise has either done very few weddings or is being economical with the truth.
The important question is what they do about it. Do they panic and immediately start firing the five biggest records they own at an empty room? Or do they try to understand why people aren't dancing? Perhaps everyone has just eaten. Perhaps the couple are outside having photographs taken. Perhaps people are perfectly happy talking for another twenty minutes. Perhaps the DJ has simply got it wrong and needs to change direction. All of those require different answers.
I've written a whole article about this because couples understandably worry about it. The short version is that a temporary empty dancefloor is usually much less dramatic than it looks from behind the wedding-planning spreadsheet.
## 5. How Do You Handle Song Requests?
This tells you quite a lot about a DJ. Some will play almost anything they're asked for. Others barely entertain requests at all. Personally, I like them, provided they make sense.
A request can give you information you'd never have discovered otherwise. “There are twelve of us here who used to go mad for this at university” immediately has my attention. Somebody simply walking over, saying Cotton Eye Joe and staring at me is rather less persuasive. Sometimes requests create enormous moments. Sometimes they're terrible ideas delivered with magnificent confidence. A good DJ should be able to tell the difference.
## 6. What's Your Favourite Part Of A Wedding?
This sounds like a slightly odd question, but I'd definitely ask it. The answer tells you what somebody actually finds interesting about the job.
For me, it's often the warm-up: that untidy period after dinner when people are getting drinks, wandering outside, finding friends and nobody is quite sure whether the party has officially started. That's when I get to experiment a bit, watch the room and gradually work out what sort of evening we're going to have. I love the moment when the first little dancefloor appears without anyone having been instructed to create one.
Another DJ might love the first dance, the final twenty minutes or that point when the whole room is completely losing its mind. Whatever they say, you're learning something about what motivates them.
## 7. What's One Thing Couples Often Get Wrong?
Anyone who has worked at enough weddings will have developed at least a few opinions about this. Probably quite a lot of them.
Mine would be trying to control every song before the wedding. I completely understand the instinct: you've spent months organising everything else, so why wouldn't you organise the music too? But music doesn't really behave itself like table plans and catering numbers do. A song that looks perfect on a playlist in February may be completely wrong at 10.36pm in August, while something nobody considered beforehand might suddenly be exactly what the room needs.
I'd be interested in the answer because it tells you what lessons that DJ has actually taken from their experience, rather than merely how many years they've been doing it.
## The Best Question Of All...
Finally, I'd ask:
What excites you about DJing weddings?
Not what equipment they use. Not how many weddings they've done. Not whether their cables were last PAT tested in March.
What do they actually like about it?
I think you'll learn more from the way somebody answers that than almost anything else. You don't necessarily need them to give the same answer I would. You just want to hear that there's something about the job they still find genuinely interesting.
Choosing a wedding DJ isn't really about finding somebody who owns speakers and knows a lot of songs. Plenty of people meet that description. It's about finding someone whose personality, musical instincts and way of thinking fit the kind of party you want to have.
Ask the sensible questions, absolutely.
But ask the interesting ones too.
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