DJ vs iPod

Digital technology is posing a challenge to wedding photographers as people seek to get around the prices they charge for reprints. But now their compatriots, wedding DJs, are under attack too, from MP3 players. Couples are increasingly not seeing the point of paying somebody to load up a playlist with songs when they can do the same thing themselves, and play exactly what they want. Professional DJs — like photographers before — say there’s quite a difference between an amateur loading up an iPod and the services a pro DJ can provide. Couples are discussing using their iPods instead of a DJ.

According to Kathleen Murray, senior editor for online wedding publisher TheKnot.com in New York says according to their surveys many of their brides and grooms are catching on to this trend. She says it has to do with the increasing costs of weddings these days. For some brides, TheKnot says, music may not be as important to spend the huge budget on as flowers or food. DWP would strongly disagree with this. Your music is one of your key elements to making your reception successful! An iPod isn’t going to do the normal job functions that a DJ does for a wedding.

While the shift is not exactly happening overnight and no one is claiming that wedding bands or DJs are disappearing tomorrow, it does seem like wedding planners and those in the wedding industry are grasping at straws a little bit with regards to why a bride would want to use an iPod rather than a DJ at their wedding reception. If they want the bridal party to be introduced, if they want the cake cutting announced, it wouldn’t lend itself to hooking up to an MP3 player and pressing go. Then again, you could possibly get a friend or family member to announce these things, right? Er, right? That doesn’t work well either. Who knows, maybe Aunt Midge, who was supposed to announce cake cutting, accidentally got drunk on those darn open bar sangrias beforehand and somehow managed to get lost on her way back from the bathroom. Then what?