Picking the Right DJ

The main ingredient of a good wedding, or any party for that matter, is GOOD MUSIC. It can make or break the party. Sure, all weddings are going to have healthy portions of food and booze, but any good wedding's status, in my humble experience, is decided by the music. Whether it's a band or a DJ, a wedding NEEDS quality tunes. So for Dana and I, finding the right musical entertainment for our reception was one of our top priorities.

Almost immediately we ruled out the idea of having a live band at our wedding, mostly because of the cost, but also because we both agreed that hearing our favorite records AS IS was something we both wanted. Also, we're not having the hugest party, there are going to be fewer than 200 people there, so we felt a DJ would be our best option rather than bringing in some 10-piece band that would overpower the intimacy of the room.

Being a rap artist, I know a lot of hip-hop DJs, so at first, I thought I would ask one of my DJ buddies to do the party. The thing is, I don't want any of my close friends like DJ Destro or DJ Roz (Big up, Big up!) to be WORKING the night of our wedding; I want them to enjoy the party as guests. Also, Dana and I wanted to find someone who specialized in wedding receptions, that had the right set-up, that knew how to host the event, that had experience working at local weddings, that had the insurance necessary to work with our venue, and that would keep the crowd dancing all night to SONGS WE LIKE.

Cue NEXT GENERATION, from Yorktown Heights. I was introduced to Sonny at Next Generation by my friend Josh, a local clothing designer (shout out to Dirty Jax) and college buddy of mine. Josh recently used them for his wedding (which I unfortunately missed because I was out of town), and had nothing but great things to say about Sonny and his team. To top it off, Josh got married at the V.I.P. Club in New Rochelle too, in the same room as our upcoming reception, so Next Generation was familiar with the venue and the people who run the show at the V.I.P. Josh highly recommended them, and gave Sonny a heads up that I would be contacting him.

I called Sonny and right off the bat we hit it off. We set up a time for Dana and me to sit down with him at his office in Yorktown. And by coincidence, it turned out Sonny and I were connected by more than Josh; my co-worker Tony was coincidentally using Next Generation for his upcoming wedding, and the one photographer that we were interested in was one of his partners (stay tuned I'll get to him soon). AND, to top it off, his cousin Vinnie at Plush in White Plains cuts my hair! All Sonny kept saying over the phone was, "Whatever you need bro, whatever you need.." I loved it.

So Dana and I went up to his office. Sonny is a young guy, about my age. His price was more than fair. He also agreed to host the wedding himself rather than assigning another one of his DJs to run the event, and said he’d have a team of three other guys with him on hand, which made us feel very comfortable. COMFORT IS KEY.

Next Generation's set-up includes two flat-screen TVs along with all the other audio and lighting necessities, which is like a new twist for weddings. At first we weren't sure we NEEDED all that, but then we said "HEY IT'S 2008." Plus, we just attended Dana's cousin's wedding ,where their DJ company had a similar set-up, and it was actually pretty cool.

The other great thing about Sonny is that he is super-organized. He had a reference sheet we could use as our BIG DAY got closer for our music selections, listing our entrance music, first dance song, father/bride dance song, mother/groom dance song, and all our requests for the night. Dana's been hunting through her bridal magazines looking for great wedding songs, and we've been starting to make a lists of dance songs we'd like to play at the reception, and Sonny gave us lists of popular requests too. I think we've got our first dance song set, BUT I WON'T LEAK THAT JUST YET. We danced to to it over a bottle of wine in our apartment a few weeks ago and it felt right. But I know secretly she's still weighing her options, looking for other possible songs in magazines. It's all good, we've still got a while to select our music.

Dana and I mostly like soulful music, hip-hop, and oldies too. We're not so big on techno music and classic rock, and all that "Sweet Caroline" type stuff. As much as I liked Poison in 4th grade, I don't want to hear "Pour Some Sugar on Me" at our wedding. I do want to hear BBD's song "Poison." You know, some Justin Timberlake, Kanye West, Jay-Z, sneak in maybe one Biggie, Amy Winehouse, Rihanna, and then bring it back with some Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, a little "Twist and Shout," you see where I'm going with this? Sonny totally understands, which is important, and we appreciate that. Plus he told us we could give him whatever music we wanted to hear on CD or MP3 that he didn't have in his database, though he seemed to have a pretty HUGE SELECTION of songs.

So we've got our DJ locked and loaded, which is a good feeling. So no, what's next my dear?