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Business Attributes
- Black-owned Business
Reviews
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4.6
out of 5.09 reviews
Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the DJ services for my wedding.
Pre-wedding:
Leading up to the event, Donnell was extremely responsive, professional, and kind over the phon...
e and email. However, as the wedding got closer, I was surprised to learn that he didn’t have any standard touchpoints or phone calls built into his process. For such an important vendor who needs to handle specific announcements, cues, and emceeing throughout the night, I found that unusual. I ended up creating a very detailed document outlining every cue and announcement and specifically requested a phone call to review it. I can’t imagine how the day would’ve gone without that call—because even with it, several cues were still missed.
Ceremony:
The microphone cut in and out throughout my vows, even though I had asked for a sound check beforehand. I also asked for him to start music at a specific cue (the officiant would say a particular sentence and exit the platform we were standing on). He missed that cue and we stood there in several long moments of silence. Luckily the officiant was my best friend and was still able to maneuver the proper timing for us so that we kissed at the right moment in the song.
Reception:
During the reception, I asked for a surprise dance floor opening after taking a large group photo with all the guests. We went over my vision several times, but he completely botched it. Then, the microphones weren't working well for the speeches. Throughout the rest of the night, his energy was completely flat. To give him the benefit of the doubt, I did have a smaller crowd, and people weren’t as eager to dance as I expected. But I felt he didn’t read the room well or adjust accordingly. He played several songs that weren’t even on my “play” list, rarely spoke on the microphone, and didn’t make any effort to encourage guests to dance or stay engaged.
End of the night:
I had planned a “last dance of the night” for all our guests, but about fifteen minutes before 10PM, people were already gathering their coats and leaving. Instead of jumping to the final song or encouraging guests to stay, he said nothing. I ended up having to personally ask people to stay and send my maid of honor to tell him to play the last song so we could have that final dance. Again, just didn't read the room.
Communication and attitude:
Whenever I tried to give feedback during the night about music choices, he came across as rude and dismissive. While I understand that it was a challenging crowd, as the bride who knows the guests best, I wish he had been more receptive, friendly, and enthusiastic.
Overall, if you're more of a type B bride who doesn't have any specific cues or requests for him, and you have an easy crowd who you know will dance (I thought my guests would - I was surprised - makes me wonder if it was them or him) then you might be fine. But overall I would say I got what I paid for as he was the cheapest DJ option we found; I regret not splurging on a DJ. Luckily our wedding day was still beautiful, but it was definitely in spite of the DJ services.
One of the things I have heard about weddings are that DJs can make or break your wedding. This, in our experience, is very true. We knew our DJ would play a pivotal role in our me...
mories of the day, and Donnell couldn't have been any better to fit that role. Donnell took so much care and gave so much attention to detail leading up to and during our wedding to tailor everything on our day to our tastes and make sure that our day went as smoothly as possible. Nothing ever goes 100% right on your wedding day- it is so important to have people around you that can assess, react, and adapt to challenges on one of the most stressful and emotional days of your life. Donnell faced challenges at our wedding (through absolutely no fault of his own), and he quickly took charge to ensure that everything was fixed without stressing us out. What was important to us was that we had a DJ that could fill in the blanks for us when we had decision fatigue and that we had a DJ that could read the dance floor and keeps things going all night. He made a custom dance mashup for us that was so special and a HUGE hit at our wedding. I'm sure the mashup required a ton of work but Donnell never shied away from the challenge or made us feel like we were asking for too much. When we changed our minds about details, he was flexible and encouraging. He was always quick and detailed with his responses and answered all of our questions. We are so appreciative of him and would definitely recommend!!
Donnell was amazing! He played everything we requested and MC services were great! He was on time and everything went with no hiccups.
Donnell is VERY kind. Understanding with mixups and bride brain.
We had asked to schedule a call to go over the spreadsheet he sent for us to fill out as we had some specific vers...
ions of songs we wanted played so just wanted to make sure that was ok. Didn’t seem like it was part of normal practice for him (which is fine I was certainly a bit type A and just wanted to make sure we had our ducks in a row) I am glad we did chat tho because turns out I wasn’t clear on some things and there was some miscommunication but luckily it all worked out and sounded like it was good to go. On the day upon entrance into the reception and around the bigger events and toasts there were some awkward lulls like music going too long or being a random song. I think going over the timeline over the phone should be part of practice. We had done so but still had these issues. Not sure what happened. Also we did have a lengthy must play list and other suggestions to pull from and of course we don’t want to be dictating but it seems like there were some songs that were very off energy and had the crowd stop dancing in the middle of a great run. Eventually it was hit after hit and everyone was dancing but felt like it took a while and unfortunately a lot of our must plays were played during dinner so we couldn’t even dance to them.
We hired Donnell for our wedding, and he lived up to all of our expectations! Completely professional and so helpful in all of our interactions, and made planning a breeze. My fian...
ce and I are not music people, so when we put together our checklist for him, there were lots of blanks. But he was able to take what little direction we gave him, and knocked it out of the park! There was never a dull moment, and we received so many compliments on how fun it was! Highly recommended!
Donnell is fantastic! We were fortunate to have him as our wedding DJ. He was great communicating prior to the day of and was very easy to work with - Seemed like he’s been doing ...
this for decades! We had a blast on the dance floor. His services are very reasonably priced too! Highly recommend Donnell for any event!
Our DJ was the best. He performed everything we had asked for, and then some. We could not have asked for him to do much more or be any better. And he did it all on his own, we nev...
er had to worry about him, or how our night was going!
Fantastic event DJ. On the day of the event, this man set up, changed clothing to fit in properly and expertly managed the soundtrack of my wedding. He made few announcements (only...
spoke when required, meaning he wasn’t the annoying DJ that shouts their title and contact information) and was so focused one knitting the songs together he silently required written requests. Very reasonably priced in comparison for the others in the area. Quick to respond to messages and communicated very well.
Overall, great skill, read the room well, had all the equipment we needed for the event. Great job.
Professional, reasonably priced DJ who helped make our wedding day incredibly special!
Contact
Reston, VA
Chi Dr Productions