There are a number of reasons I enjoy running a wedding DJ service and wedding photography service and below I will explain a little bit about why I, with my team, go above and beyond to keep the floor bouncing in deepest darkest Cornwall. The recipe is the three P’s: planning, planning and more planning. But then if things don’t go to plan it comes down to professionalism and integrity to save the day…
Reasons the party never stops for a Wedding DJ
The overall sense of satisfaction of a well-executed wedding party is a buzz that keeps you going for days after the event. In the run up to the wedding there are always so many details to tie down to make sure the party is a success, making sure the bride and groom are confident everything is taken care of is all part of the remit for a wedding DJ service. Having solid contingency plans in place is all part of this.
The enjoyment of the wedding guests at the party is as much down to the DJ as the guests themselves and with that comes a great sense of responsibility. When the night takes off, all of the weeks of planning come together and the sense of achievement is fantastic. Managing the expectations of the bride and groom and helping remove the weight from decision making is all part of the service that never really gets considered but from our point of view is a balance that is essential for a premium wedding DJ service to focus on.
But what happens when things don’t go to plan like in the Covid Lockdown? Well, that’s when you need a good wedding DJ service to get you out of the doo doo as we showed with our response to the pandemic and the weddings that needed to be cancelled.
Managing the Covid Pandemic
We were expecting our busiest year in 2020, but in March, Covid struck! The question on everyone’s lips was how long will it last? Nobody knew, and we were inundated with anxious couples looking for the same answers. It was an extremely stressful period for both couples and suppliers alike. We were swamped with couples rearranging dates and we naturally felt a responsibility of service to accommodate everyone so that no-one lost out.
One of our couples rescheduled seven times with us. In contrast, other couples took two years out and rearranged for 2022. We did our utmost to accommodate everyone’s wishes, which was very challenging but in almost every case we were able to make this happen. In order to prevent disappointment for our customers we contacted other wedding DJ’s we knew provided great service to distribute some booking where necessary.
Looking back on these difficult times we are very proud of how we conducted ourselves and worked to ease everyone’s pain and worry. One step we took was to reimburse the deposits of those we couldn’t accommodate. This was financially challenging since deposits come in the business year prior to the wedding and our re-imbursements totalled £9,700. Without financial support from the government we had to juggle our income since previous year’s desposits are quickly consumed by the overheads of running the DJ service.
All part of the DJ service
Fortunately, my army pension provided the buffer for the repayments after we emptied the business account. Needless to say, it was getting somewhat difficult financially over this period. While the business was dormant, ourselves working doing admin, we were juggling 75 couples with no income, which didn’t stop our annual expenditure, insurance and storage etc.
But as is the case sometimes in times of difficulty, we made a change to our service that benefited the business going forward. We made a bold decision that Leon, who had been working alongside me for four years, would go out separately to me, meaning we could accommodate more couples and reschedule weddings.
Adapt and Overcome
During Lockdown, we stayed productive and proactive. Leon and I started doing Live Streams on our Mixcloud platform and built a strong following. Let’s face it when the chips are down; music has a great way of giving you a lift! On occasions delivering 3 to 4 live streams weekly. The idea was to push ourselves to showcase the business and our skills to potential customers and followers alike by mixing all genres of music across all decades.
It’s very rare if you know the DJ, and how good his DJ skills are and this platform gave us and our followers the opportunity to meet online. All in all, we delivered over 90 streams by the time we came out of Lockdown. We also got more proactive with the camera, continually developing our wedding photography and editing skills.
Sadly, many DJ’s businesses went bust during this period and didn’t refund deposits, and many wedding insurance companies were not settling claims. We feel very fortunate that we managed to survive and bring everyone through with us. The one thing the army installs in you is survival, and we always knew that at the end of Covid, we would be ready to deliver our DJ services again.
New services, new beginnings
As time moved on we developed new services: affordable wedding photography and completed 12 wedding photography shoots the following season. We also now provide Neon Wedding Signs available for our couples.
We love what we do, and so do our couples; reading through their testimonials, we are very enthusiastic and proud of our business model and how happy we make our couples by delivering them the ultimate wedding party celebration.
As we near the end of 2022, it’s been a jam-packed year, nevertheless gratifying. There was one period where we delivered 10 wedding parties in a week, and we have delivered over 100 wedding party celebrations this year; not bad going considering our season didn’t really kick-off untill the end of May!
Yet again we have gone the extra mile to deliver a wedding DJ service that is utterly unique, outstanding and one that provides the wow factor that our customers have come to expect.
If this is the first time you have heard of us please get in touch with your enquiry using the contact form below. We would absolutely love to hear from you.
Kind regards
Allan Cross, DJ & Army Major