Mobile DJ: Taking Requests at Wedding Reception

Video Transcript

"Oh excuse me I was listening to Zig Zigler. Those motivational tapes? I love them. Hi I'm Marvelous Marvin professional DJ. Professionally trained I might add. I actually went to school for this. Go figure. I've been a radio DJ for 30 years. Been a mobile DJ for 30 years. And we're talking about requests. Two kinds of requests. When you meet with a bride an groom they're going to give you a list of songs that they want played at their wedding reception. Try to limit the requests. The worst scenario is some guy shows up with a list he got from the computer about wedding songs that's five hundred songs. But listen. You only get to play maybe 10, 15, 12 songs an hour at the most. So what you want to do is you want to get a list, try to limit the bride and groom to like 20 songs that you really want to have. Including the first song that they dance to. And those songs you're pretty much sure you're going to play unless you think no one's going to like this, but then, and during the wedding reception they're going to be in a different world. Unless they come up and specifically ask for a song that's on that list you may not even play it and you might not even want to. The other requests are going to come from the people at the party. You take their requests and when they make the request, say, In The Mood by Glenn Miller. No problem I'm going to play that because you know people are going to dance to it. Now if they want to hear something else that you know no one's going to dance to, even if you have it, say I'll look for it. If I have it, I'll play it. Just don't tell them, no that song no one's going to dance to it. They don't want to hear that. And if it's a song that you think people will dance to, people will like, get it, put it on as soon as possible. They're impressed by that. If it turns out no one is dancing to it you can always fade it out and put on a song that people are going to dance to which you just find out by experience. The basic way you find out what songs people like is by doing parties. That's the main thing that's going to teach you. So two kinds of requests. The bride and groom, pay attention to those. Guests at the party, pay attention to them or pretend to. And play the ones that work. But take requests or at least make it seem like you are because you're a DJ. I'm a DJ, too. I'm Marvelous Marvin and take those requests."