Do you know who is playing at your wedding?

I’ve been playing weddings as a DJ and bandleader for well over 10 years. I got my start as a guitarist playing for booking agencies, and then started singing later.

I still remember the first gig - a frantic phone call from a booking manager asking if I could play a wedding the very next day. Sure, I thought! I was a budding young musician seeking to gain experience. What I didn’t realise was that I was that manager’s last resort, and I was completely untested. I had to play 45 brand new songs in less than 24 hours. Needless to say, it wasn’t a great gig. I did my best, but I was a young musician facing an impossible task. You can’t learn that volume of material in a short space of time. So it begs the question - why did this happen? Why the last minute callup?

Agencies will book as many gigs on one night as they can get, and then pool a band together from a database of musicians in the city. But with this comes no quality control. If you’ve got a roster of 30 musicians, and you’ve booked 7 gigs on one night.. and then 4 musicians get a better offer, and 3 are unexpectedly sick.. you’re in trouble!

That’s why I got the gig. I was the last option of a stressed booking manager trying to cover a last minute replacement. And the night suffered because of it - the band didn’t sound as good as it should have for the price the client paid.

So it begs the question - do you know the musician or DJ you’re booking for your event? And if not.. why not? I play every gig I book. I know the musicians I book - they’re friends. And I only book one gig on one night. That’s the difference between an agency, and a human being.