One of the most asked questions I hear by prospective brides is how much does a wedding DJ cost for a 4 hour, 5 hour, 6 hour or sometimes longer wedding?  If you google this question, you can find a gazillion answers all over the web with answers provided by wedding planners, other brides and a lot of other DJs and honestly, every one of them provides a different answer.  So how do you know which answer to accept?  My suggestions to budget 15-20% of your entire wedding budget for your DJ.  Why?  Here are some things you should know.

1) Your wedding DJ will make or break your reception. – Undoubtedly, you will hear just about everyone tell you this.  If you hire a bad DJ, everyone will know it and more importantly, you will be reminded about it your entire life by people recalling all of the bad things that happen.  Unfortunately, people love to talk about the bad stuff more than the good stuff.  For more information on just how much of an impact a wedding DJ can have check out our blog post “what exactly does a wedding DJ do?‘.

2)  Your photographer and/or videographer will be capturing your memories for you of this day and presenting them to you afterwards for you to cherish for the rest of your lives.  This being said, if you didn’t budget correctly for the DJ, the memories they capture aren’t going to be ones you want to revisit.  So this money will be wasted.  Photographers and videographers love great DJs as they really do help them deliver a better product to their clients.

Here are some things to consider while looking at some of the DJ prices on the web.

Wedding DJs – Everyone with a large music collection (and a means to play them loudly), claims to be a professional Wedding DJ.  When in all reality, they really aren’t.  Because of this, you really have to be careful other wise your wedding reception could end up on YouTube as a prime example of a wedding DJ disaster.  Is this what you want?  Probably not!  In all reality, the wedding DJ that is going to care enough about your wedding isn’t going to be at the lower end.  Just like any job, you can find all kinds of cheap labor but sacrifice quality.  Keeping this in mind its safer to over-budget than to under-budget.

Also, keep in mind that because you budget this, doesn’t mean you have to spend all of it.  Instead this will allow you to afford the DJ you want, versus only the DJ you can afford.

For more information on how much the DJ you would want costs, check out my blog post http://orangecountyweddingdj.co/how-to-hire-the-right-dj-for-your-wedding/.  Good luck and if you handle your budgeting and hiring process correctly, you will have an amazing wedding reception and will love the DJ you hire.

Mark Cherney is a 27 year veteran Wedding DJ and owner of the award winning Music Man Event Professionals DJ company.  For more information about him and his company’s services, visit their website at http://www.OrangeCountyWeddingDJ.co