Who has had an IPOD reception??? please help.. thanks!

The only thing bad about that, other than the possibility of technical difficulties and not having any backup, who would announce the cake cutting, your entrance as a newly married couple, the 1st dance, to be seated for dinner... just some things to think about. I was considering doing the Ipod thing until people asked me all those questions and i was like.. ok maybe ill just get a dj lol. good luck. plus does your venue have its own speakers and equipment? ipod hookup? mics for the toasts? ...

Ok, thank you. Thats something to think about Lauren. I have a small place to work with since its not an ordinary venue, its a civic center (so pretty small.) They dont have its own speakers or equipment, no ipod hookups and no mics..

Not tryin 2 bash the ipod idea =] just lookin out 4 ya!

Totally agree with Brian on this one.

I was at one and The bride Kept having to yell to some one to skip the song no one would dnce to.I saw her go back herself and look for songs and arguing with her new husband about music.It was disapointing.

I didn't have any dancing at mine. So the ipod was just for background music for the dinner. It was just fine. People wouldn't have even cared if there wasn't any music. As for announcements the groomsman did that. I had a small wedding though, 40 people

We also had a small wedding (~35 people) and used my iPhone (in airplane mode, so it wouldn't ring). We had a long playlist of stuff we liked, along with some requests people had made via the website. We had a friend cue up our songs for the Mother-Son and Father-Daughter dances, as well as a song for me to hand the bouquet over to a friend of mine; that was about it.

I can see that if you wanted an organized reception with a lot of specific things that had to happen and a lot of people around, you would want either a DJ or SOMEONE announcing those things over a sound system, so the iPod might not be a good route to go. However, we were perfectly happy with it.

My reception is for about 80 ppl and I want there to be dancing..

I realize I'm highly biased on this one... but take a look at this:

http://adja.org/general/ipodwedding.asp

Take some time to read the article and check out the video. I think it might open up your eyes... especially at the end of the video.

Based on your description and your wants for your reception, I think you should look for a reasonable priced DJ who has awesome MC skills. GL. It will take a lot of time and effort to find a great one but it is very possible because there are so many out there. Look at the reviews and definitely meet them and interview and possibly try to see them in action at a real wedding similar to yours.

I guess I should also mention that my total budget for the whole wedding is $2k.

My friend for her wedding was lookin at her local college to find students studying photography and media to help with her wedding. she figured they have training but wont cost a lot. idk how many of them would have their own equipment and most wouldnt have any insurance. but its an option. ask around. i knwo you can rent equipment online also and just have a friend do announcements and such.

We had a Pandora engagement party...we typed in a play list and played all night!!!1 Great music!

Once you factor in the cost of all the equipment that you'll need for the ipod, a newer DJ might be around the same cost. I am not a fan of craigslist but in this case it might help you a lot.

Angel, I remember in another post you said you might get your old teacher to DJ? Did that fall through/not within your budget? As for guests thinking its odd, it's YOUR day :-) but ya I agree you want to not have any disasters..if you have a good friend in charge of the ipod maybe you could avoid some of those?

I recently went to a wedding that used an ipod for the reception. It went ok, except for the fact that random people kept walking up and changing the songs and we kept hearing the same songs over and over again. Also, no one knew when anything was happening because no one did announcements. We actually missed the cake cutting because of this. If you do use one, you should have someone in charge of it and also have them do announcements.

If you get a friend to do the announcing, make sure that he/she is very outgoing, can get a crowd moving, and will listen to you.

Just make sure your timeline is strictly followed.

You might even want to print out a summary timeline of things for the reception, like on the menu card to let the guests know ahead of time what will happen and they won't miss out, if they read the card at their table or on their plate.

I'm doing an ipod reception, we will be making two cds of all the music we want played for back up for the ipod. Our venue has speaker/sound systems specifically for the ipod or cds and our area is smaller (there's only going to be 30 people) so I'm not worried about the sound quality. Our DOC will be announcing our grand entrance, then she will be leaving. We will be having our music start at that point so the first song will be our first dance song. Then we'll just have the music playing. We will have dancing but a lot of our guests aren't into dancing, so we'll have it available for people who do want to dance. We will just be having our music play and my MOH said she would announce the cake cutting and the bouquet toss, so that's really all we needed. No offense to DJs but djs here in Vegas are extremely over priced, and our reception is only for 2hrs so I didn't see the need to spend 2k for only a small amount of time. Plus my budget didn't allow for it.

I did an Ipod reception, but I had someone who was there to push play and stop and to announce all the dances etc. I couldn't have imagined doing it without someone to help with that. I played music in the background during dinner and then picked songs that we liked as well as ones guests requested when the RSVP to the wedding.

I wanted to play songs that everyone would enjoy. Here is some of what I had...

LOVE

Que Sera, Sera

Bubbly

Love Song

Kiss Me

Somewhere over the rainbow

The way I am

That's Amore

The way you looked tonight

Come away with me

And then for dancing (again this is what was requested and a few of what we wanted so no harsh judgements lol)

I gotta feeling

Electric slide

good morning beautiful

Cupid shuffel

Bless the broken road

I honestly didn't expect many people to dance at our wedding and didn't prepare a lot of music. I had to actually use the receptions songs again to fill up time for the few who wanted to still dance.

I ran outta room!

I hope that list helps any. That was kinda the feel I wanted for my wedding. I got compliments on having some Frank in there lol. We had 50 people and originally started out with a 4 to 5,000 dollar budget. We went over that when we added food, but honestly I thought it was a waste to have a DJ and add even more to our budget. I hope my list helped you out...in the end it really depends on the music you like, and what will be fitting for your guests as well. =)