Brandon Stiles is on the show today! He reached out to us months ago to pitch his book and course, “How to DJ Your Own Wedding”. Brandon is a professional DJ and bandleader with Uptown Down Entertainment, out of Atlanta. He has a cool accent and he’s a very cool dude.

On our podcast, we talk about all kinds of weddings, including those with limited or ‘modest’ budgets - we get it! Part of the planning process can be deciding where to put the money you have, and where to cut corners, or get creative! Brandon takes us through the steps and drops some big advice about equipment, pitfalls to avoid, and song choices. (Hint - if you buy the ebook, you get access to awesome wedding playlists curated by Brandon himself!)

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Big Takeaways

Brandon teaches people how to DJ their own wedding. His book and course are comprehensive and detailed so that if you want to ‘DIY’ your own wedding, you can do it successfully - and your wedding day will go smoothly because you covered your bases. There’s a lot to think about - the wedding day timeline, song lists, emcee-ing, equipment, set-up, announcements, flow, and breakdown. It’s not as simple as plugging in your iphone and putting spotify on.

Music is really personal - what you love might not be everyone’s cup of tea. If you are going to put together your own playlists, err on the side of too many choices, so that you have options and you can read the crowd as the event goes on. Vary it up. Don’t plan on playing all 80’s hair band music...but we do validate your taste. 80s music rocks.

Listen to the episode for lots of Special Song suggestions!

Examples of Brandon’s ‘CPR Songs’ (what to play to resuscitate a crowd)

The Wobble

Stayin’ Alive

Cha Cha Slide

Cupid Shuffle

You need an MC if you don’t have a DJ. You need a friend that doesn’t mind being on the mic, making announcements, and helping to keep things moving. This friend needs to be comfortable in the spotlight, but not a total cheeseball. This friend needs to be informed of his position in advance, and this friend needs to be (fairly) sober.

Equipment: You’ll need to do some research for this part. Dimensions of the room, outlet access, is there a house system you can plug into? In Brandon’s course, there are videos that help break all of this down. Don’t be intimidated, just be informed! Basically, you need 2 inputs - 1 on the speaker and 1 more for the microphone. Two 12” speakers will cover pretty much any ‘typical’ sized reception. You can rent a sound system from Guitar Center.

Links we referenced

Brandon’s DJ Company

How to DJ Your Own Wedding a special discounted link for you, our listeners.

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Hosted and produced by Michelle Martinez 

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