Who do you blame when no one is having fun? Often the entertainer. The truth is that poor planning can easily be the culprit. Let’s pretend the entertainer is good and see what else might be wrong.
Possibilities:
Room too big for the number of guests? Nothing kills a party faster. Always better to err on the side of a small crowded room. Usually people feel more comfortable and less self-consicious when they are close to each other.
Bar outside of the room where you want the dancing? It takes rowdy people to really get a party going. Guess where they usually go? To the bar. Often their friends are there too, so they stay. You have now split the party leaving the (typically) more mellow group with the DJ.
Bride and Groom ask to play music that they think is fun, but it turns out that only a small percentage of the guests like it? The answer is to give the DJ permission to play requests.
Bride and groom are too shy to take the spotlight. This point can’t be emphasized enough. Your guests are not there to see the DJ. They are there to see the newly-weds. Let them.
Bride and groom rely on music alone to create the fun. Again, your guests are not there to see the DJ. There are tons of ways to help your guests enjoy the newly-weds. These range from voice-overs, custom recordings, uplighting, creative ways to do the traditional events, and activities for the guests to engage in; such as bride and groom trivia, words of wisdom contest, name the baby contest, photobooths, real-time instant slideshows, newly-wed games, etc.
What if nobody is having fun? You know what? Maybe it is partially the entertainer’s fault. But, if it is not their fault for performing badly, maybe it is their fault for not educating the bride and groom on what it really takes to help their guests have fun.
Not everything on the list will feel comfortable for everybody. However, in this day and age, music is only one of the tools a wedding DJ/MC should have in their toolbox. A bride and groom is really missing out if they don’t allow at least a few of those other tools to be used. In future blogs, I’ll attempt to explain as many “fun-tools” as I can.
