Paid DJ vs Spotify Premium?

For me, a DJ is super important for keeping the flow of the evening going and ensuring that people get up and moving. Personally I would be too worried about who was going to manage the music in case something went wrong, etc to use a Spotify playlist.

A DJ will know how to keep people on the dance floor all night and will really influence the tone of the whole reception. Plus, like Lindsey said, what if you have a technical malfunction? Who's gonna fix it? It's definitely worth the money to get one!

It depends, if you are getting a cheap DJ to just play music all night or a friend that "DJs" then I'd say save the money and use the stadium sound system. However, if you want your wedding to be fun, memorable, and you want your guests to have a great time, dance, and stay longer then pay for a good DJ/MC who will actually help host your event, entertain your audience, and keep your event on track by going over your timeline with you and working with your other vendors and DOC. They also have a lot of experience with what music to play and when to play it.

No way would I skip the DJ, it isn't just about the music.....but what to play when, what to say and announce when, and what to have people do when....guests otherwise have trouble knowing what you want them to do and what's happening.....they keep organization and pilot the event, create mood and energy through music and their own MC skills. They're worth it.

I think the DJ is very important and maintains control of your dance floor. A DJ will see if the dance floor is empty and change the music quickly to get more and more people on the dance floor. With spotify you will lose time waiting for a whole song to play that is not being danced to. You can loose dancing momentum. The dance flow will be interrupted. I'd think to save money elsewhere and hire a good DJ

Bailey does bring up a good point about the importance of this being dependent on what your wedding is like.

FH hates dancing. So much. It makes him so so embarrassed and he's never been a fan, so we aren't doing a DJ. It doesn't totally make sense for us. But, we still are having someone MC the night.

However, if I wanted a party, you BET I would get a DJ super fast. They set the mood.

I vote for dj as well. A real person provides an energy, flow and vibe to your wedding that a music app cannot.

DJ was one of the things we knew we wanted to splurge on.

We were going to do Spotify/playlist but uncle offered us a DJ and from learning about it, so so happy we are having one!!

My reception is fairly low-key at my church's cultural hall (like a multi-purpose room), and I am just using a laptop or iPod hooked up to their sound system. I already have playlists set up. I started with You Tube lists and then just slowly downloaded the songs in the list. Having Amazon Prime helped with that.

I'm using a playlist, no one in our family or close friends are really into dancing so that's not an issue for us, we're really just using it as background music. Our officiant (who owns the venue) or best man will be making our announcements. My day of coordinator will be handling the setup and we can run sound check that morning.

Just be sure to figure out these kind of details and I would say a playlist would be fine, especially if you would rather use the money elsewhere (I definitely wanted to).

Having been part of a legit DJ team, a DJ is wayyyyyy more than just music. They keep the party alive

@Swin - FH and I are not big dancers either. I never really considered the difference between an emcee and a DJ - it's a great point! Definitely adding that to my list of "shit that I really need to ponder" lol.

We didn't want to dance ourselves and only had a handful of guests who really enjoy dancing so we went with Spotify Premium. It worked out really well for us--we kept the music loud enough to hear but soft enough to talk over during dinner/mingling, and we paused it for cake-cutting and toasting.

I am all for a DJ. It was the vendor that I felt will be the most important and I'm counting on him to keep the party atmosphere alive.