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What Does a Boston Wedding DJ Cost, and Why? And Related Issues with Other Wedding Vendors

More and more “professional” green-thumbed (and often part-time) DJs enter the Boston wedding marketplace each and every day, armed with hard drives of music freshly copied from their friends or the Internet, gleefully ready to showcase for you brides and grooms their months of seasoned experience, and anxiously beating up very trustworthy and reputable, truly professional DJs, on the basis of pricing. As such, I feel it is my duty as one of the latter-referenced professionals to help educate you, the bride and groom, or family member or friend assisting in the planning process, on what genuinely goes into a genuine professional’s performance, and what the real end-of-the-day fiscal takeaway is for your DJ (or other wedding vendors, for that matter) after all the hard work is finished.

I’ve been a full-time DJ in the Greater Boston wedding (as well as corporate and private event) market for more than two and a half years now. I was part-time for more than eight years prior to 2010. Making this switch, from operating in a part-time capacity while working a steady 9-to-5 during the week, to putting everything — especially my family’s financial well-being — on the line, was and remains to be an often risky and scary proposition.

I am proud to run my own small business. I am proud of the services I provide, the vast majority of my customers are a joy to work with and for, and the testimonials I receive from brides and grooms (and their parents and other family members and guests alike) drive me to keep doing what I am doing. I’m even more proud to say I’ve managed to grow into a full-time venture despite a down economy. But I cannot say it has been easy, or will grow much easier moving forward. As I mentioned earlier, there has been quite a lot of competition lately, mostly on the basis of vendor pricing.

Let’s get down to brass tacks: dollars and cents. Most truly professional wedding DJs nowadays in the Greater Boston and Massachusetts markets, are charging in the range of $1,200 to $4,000+ per wedding for their packages, all depending of course on many details, including but not limited to: venue, travel, size of wedding, time of year, date, last-minute scheduling availability, length of day’s events (number of hours), specific setup complexity and requirements, and specific services needed or requested such as number of system setups for ceremony, cocktail hour, and the main reception area, dance floor lighting, uplighting, photo booths, slideshow services, and more.

Not even being specific to weddings, have you ever overheard someone say (or even said yourself), “Where does this guy get off charging so much to play music off a laptop for a few hours?”

First off, so you know from the start, when a full-time career wedding DJ receives a check from you for all the time and effort put into your wedding day, he or she does not run to the bank, cash the check,  abandon all of life’s responsibilities (including paying taxes and bills), and jump on a plane to the Bahamas for a week in the sun.

Hypothetically, let’s say that the professional DJ you have hired has quoted you the minimal $1,200 for a bare-bones five-hour wedding package, which you feel is reasonable. You actually shopped around, and in the process, turned down a few other folks quoting $1,500, $1,700, $2,000. Let’s presume this is the DJ’s career and sole means of surviving — how he takes care of his family, feeds and clothes his kids, pays his mortgage. While most people with a 9-to-5 job have a steady paycheck year-round, hopefully and generally have half-decent health benefits, paid sick and vacation time, and a basic company-matched retirement plan, many professional wedding DJs in the Boston area do not enjoy these “luxuries,” including the DJ you’re hypothetically hiring here.

In addition, these DJs do not usually have five or six available days to work each week, in order to make a decent year’s wages; it is more like only a couple of “bread-and-butter” days (i.e. Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays). [Note: This is not to say these are the only “work days” for the DJ, which we’ll discuss a bit later.] So, even if the wedding DJ was fortunate enough to book a wedding on every weekend date, it would be a maximum of 156 bookings per year — which, so you realize straight away, never happens, especially in New England, considering only a brave few decide to marry during the potentially treacherous winter months, and most couples avoid getting married on or near certain other dates, such as Thanksgiving, Mother’s and Father’s Day, Easter, etc. Also playing a role in a limited number of potential wedding dates for a DJ: many couples wind up choosing the same handful of most popular dates each year, which are usually Saturday evenings, holiday weekends, and quirky dates like 10-11-12, or 9-10-11.

The DJ pays higher taxes right off the top: 9-to-5’ers pay 50% of the Social Security and Medicare pool contributions while their companies put in the other half; this is not true for sole proprietors, who pay 100% of those taxes themselves. So, the $1,200 paycheck comes in, and 30-35% goes right to estimated tax payments. So, now the “big payday” is down to, say, $780. This DJ then needs to put aside a small piece, toward his own retirement planning, because no one else will help with that: let’s call it only a minimal 5% (read: not enough).  Now, the score is $720. He hasn’t yet paid his even modest monthly advertising bills, monthly liability and disability insurance premiums, monthly website expenses, monthly equipment purchases and maintenance expenses, and other expenses related to the wedding services he’s providing you (e.g. $35 for a roll of extra wide tape to ensure your guests don’t trip on any wires and get hurt; $15 to get the tuxedo dry cleaned; the $25-$60 in gas, tolls, and lofty Boston parking garage fees; $10 on fresh reliable high-end batteries for the wireless microphone on which your best man and maid of honor will deliver their toasts;  $5-$25 on unique to your day mp3 purchases, and more). This is not an exhaustive list by any means. For the sake of argument, the DJ is now taking home just under $450, and needs to help run the house hold, and finally try to squeeze out a few bucks left somewhere to actually spend on something fun and leisurely.

Something to bear in mind: this may have been his only booking of the week. This is not to say he did not bust his behind on the other days: the methods he employed to help you find him in the first place; the time he spent on meeting you, helping you feel comfortable during the initial conversations and booking process, via phone calls, emails, and/or in-person meetings; the time he spent during the weeks leading up to your big day, helping you plan the flow, your music, your tastes and preferences; the time he took to reach out and coordinate everything with your other vendors; the time to load his vehicle the day of your wedding, hours before he plays the first song; the time traveling to your venue, loading in, setting up, on hands and knees taping wires across the floors, sound checking, all, again, hours before the first announcement is made or song is played.

Then, it’s show time, and your DJ musters every bit of experience and confidence he has, to strive to justify the immense trust you have placed in him for making the biggest day of your life, absolutely perfect — this is a pressure few people may ever experience in their 9-to-5 job.

After five or six or seven hours of giving his all to you and your guests, everyone heads home (or continues the after-party, hopefully!) — well, everyone except the DJ. He remains up to an hour after your party ends, packing up, staying later than even some of the catering/wait staff, and then getting ready for the seemingly long night-ride back home.

If you chose a career self-employed photographer, videographer, wedding planner, florist, or other vendor, please keep in mind that in many respects, the time and care spent on your wedding day (and for some, like photographers and videographers, the hours and hours of post-production time spent after your wedding day, too!), and the subsequent final financial benefit to the professional, are similar to those I’ve expressed above.

So, please take care to be conscious of all that will go into your wedding day, and while understanding the budgeting concern we all share, remember how valuable your chosen vendors will be one of the most important days of your life — please try to do right by them. (And my wife just told me to add a final note, based on many conversations she’s had with me over the years: a hand shake and sincere eye-to-eye “thank you” at night’s end goes a very long way!)

For more information, or to connect with me further:

http://www.DJJohnDudley.com
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-dudley/21/811/39a
http://www.youtube.com/user/DJJohnDudley
http://local.weddingchannel.com/Wedding-Vendors/DJ-John-Dudley-Entertainment-Wedding-Reviews?ProfileId=406669
http://www.weddingwire.com/reviews/dj-john-dudley-entertainment-chelsea/8964866f08b90265.html

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Chris & Dinah’s Picture Perfect Outdoor Wedding in Concord, MA

On the first Saturday of September, on the historic, lush green grounds of The Old Manse in Concord, MA, Christian and Dinah were set to be married. For a couple who together appreciated the outdoors and all it had to offer, this was the perfect site for their wedding day. The gravel drive brought you to the front doors of the modest home where famous American philosophers Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau did some of their finest thinking and writing. Adjacent was the white tent topped with sails waving joyfully in the light breeze, under which the couple’s wedding guests would enjoy an evening of food, music, and celebration. Down the soft path to the lower yard we went, strolling between small apple trees, arriving at a fairytale ceremony site, stream and antique boathouse in the rear, set in the foreground with a large stone, representing the strong foundation on which this marriage was being built. Just steps beyond lay the site of the first shots of the American Revolution. The sun was bright; the air was fair.

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An instrumental duo provided soft music for the ceremony, and we provided the Justice of the Peace, and the couple’s guests, with wireless microphones.  Two features of this ceremony were unique to me, and I loved them both. First, the Justice of the Peace passed the wedding bands to a guest and asked they be passed around to each person in attendance and that everyone make a prayer or wish for the couple. Also, later in the ceremony, an opportunity was presented to the guests, in which they could share aloud a story or well-wishes for the couple. It was great to see so many people have the confidence to speak and make the ceremony that much more special and memorable for Dinah and Chris.

Following the ceremony, guests partook in cocktail hour on the lower lawn, as the bride posed for photos in the nearby field, the sun’s rays complementing her lovely complexion. Up the hill and under the tent, the final touches were put on the dinner and dancing area. Once everyone was there and seated (greeted by “lobsters” at their seats!), the bride and groom themselves were introduced grandly into the tent, to a long round of applause, and made their way to the dance floor for their first dance to “Moves Me Deeply” by Will Kimbrough. We then introduced the Father of the Bride for a welcome toast, who in turned brought up his new son, the groom, who introduced the rest of the head table himself (and did a tremendous job!).

Dinner music was a mix of the couple’s love for blues, classic country, and bluegrass, including a set of bluegrass cover tunes of classic rock songs that we found. This wedding was a bit offbeat, and in following suit, so was the cake cutting ceremony – they actually did a pie ceremony, with several flavors of freshly baked goodness from a farm just down the road in Concord! We helped them find the perfect song: “Country Pie” by Bob Dylan. After a joint parents’ dance, the dance floor opened up, the party went strong for several hours into the night, and the guests were able to indulge in the delectable baked treats. The last song of the night, “Home” by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, was a real hit – an upbeat song with a very sentimental touch.

Big thanks to the bride and groom, Dinah and Chris, for letting us be a small part of their big day. Shout outs to the day-of wedding coordinator Karen Murphy of Celebrations by Karen F. Murphy (http://www.celebrationsbykfm.com), Becky and crew at East Coast Grill (http://eastcoastgrill.net), photographer Matt Grazier (http://www.grazierphotography.com) who took photos a million times more amazing than those we took and display here, Sperry Tents (http://www.sperrytents.com), pie provider Verrill Farm (http://www.verrillfarm.com), and of course, the managers of The Old Manse.

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2012 Spring Weddings Recap (Part 3)

Nothing But a Party Crowd at Coco Key Hotel & Water Park Resort in Danvers, MA

Married about a year beforehand, Vickie and Paul were looking very much forward to a second ceremony, and more importantly a great party, for their family and friends. On a warm Friday evening in mid-May, they did just that. Following a lovely vow renewal ceremony, including a purple and jade (the day’s colors) sand ceremony, inside the spacious and gorgeous library of the hotel, it was off to the ballroom for the celebration.

The musical tastes of the couple were eclectic: Rat Pack and other upbeat lounge tunes for cocktail hour, and a mix of country, line dances, top 40, 90’s hip hop, and 90’s boy bands (for the bride, of course) during the reception. I lead an interactive centerpiece giveaway during dinner, which had folks dancing around the tables to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” — and the cameras were a-snapping!

The bride’s ceremony processional song was Nick Lachey’s “This I Swear.” The bridal party was grand introduced to “Give Me Everything” by Pitbull, with the bride and groom entering to “Marry You” by Bruno Mars. The cake cutting song was “Stuck Like Glue” by Sugarland. There was both a bouquet and garter toss, and the last song of the night was “Friends in Low Places” by Garth Brooks, where all the guests got in a big circle, swayed and sang.

Note: The CoCo Key Resort is currently undergoing renovations and will be re-opened as the DoubleTree by Hilton Boston North Shore in the fall of 2012.

Venue/Catering: Stefanie McCowan, http://www.cpbostonns.com/
Photography: Barbara Lynch, http://www.barbaralynchphoto.com
Photo Booth: Photo Fun Box, http://www.photofunbox.com
Uplighting: DJ John Dudley Entertainment, http://www.djjohndudley.com

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2012 Spring Weddings Recap (Part 2)

A Classy Yet Fun Affair at the Commander’s Mansion, Watertown, MA

In late April, Natalie Wu and Josh Levine joined hands in marriage, celebrating inside a historical home in Watertown. There were beautiful sites to be seen by guests as they arrived, from paintings, to classic furniture, and even a large projector screen that I provided, on which photos of the bride and groom scrolled along during cocktail hour, to the tunes of upbeat lounge music and upbeat pop songs from various decades.

There was no grand entrance for this couple, who enjoyed socializing with their guests the entire day. Toasts took place in a lovely spot, on the grand staircase, and dinner service took place upstairs in various rooms of the house. Later, downstairs, the couple performed their cake cutting ceremony to “The Sweetest Thing” by U2. Dancing commenced after that, and soon it led into a Hora, a celebratory circle dance in the Jewish tradition. The bride and groom, both seated in chairs, were raised up in the circle’s center by their strongest guests as everyone else danced around them. Guests really let loose as the night went on, ending on a high note, singing loudly in a tight circle to “Don’t Stop Believin'” by Journey.

Photography: Amanda Ambrose, http://www.amandaambrose.com
Florist: Chaba Florists
Venue Coordinator: Rae Grassia, http://www.commandersmansion.com/
Catering: Beth Heller, http://www.eastmeetswestcatering.com

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2012 Spring Weddings Recap (Part 1)

Cinco de Mayo Celebration at the Hilton Boston Logan Hotel, Boston, MA

On May 5, Alison MacDonald and Miguel Nieto tied the know in very festive style! In the spacious ballroom foyer, just at the top of the popular never-ending escalato, the bride and groom celebrated the marriage with family and friends to the sight and sounds of a full Mariachi band during cocktail hour.

After the bridal party’s grand entrance into the ballroom, guests were entertained by the bride and groom in their first dance as husband and wife, a custom mix I made for them, between Bruno Mars’ “Just The Way You Are” and a classic Merengue track, Elvis Crespo’s “Suavemente.” There were two “Best Men” and two “Maids of Honor” who proposed toasts before dinner service. Music during the night featured hits from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and today’s Top 40, along with new and classic Merengue and Salsa songs and artists.

Mariachi Band: http://www.mariachiinternacional.net
Photographer: Will Mann, http://www.wmannphotography.com
Uplighting: DJ John Dudley Entertainment, http://www.djjohndudley.com
Function’s Wedding Planner: Samantha Bevilacqua, http://bostonlogan.hilton.com

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The Passionate-Red Themed Vietnamese Wedding of Thuy & Kevin at Marriott Boston Long Wharf

On the evening of Saturday, February 25, 2012,Thuy and Kevin, both of Vietnamese descent, tied the knot and celebrated their marriage at the Marriott Boston Long Wharf.

The cocktail hour of the reception took place in the hotel’s conjoined Constitution, Faneuil, Beacon, and Haymarket rooms, overlooking the pier and New England Aquarium. Guests arrived to the laid back sound of our smooth jazz mix, and were invited to sign a traditional Vietnamese banner scroll in lieu of a guest book.

As guests mingled in the cocktail lounge, we and the exemplary staff at the Marriott put the very final touches on the recently renovated – and magnificent – Harborview Ballroom. The wedding featured red décor, from the uplighting to linens to chiffon chair pads to rose-filled centerpieces and even backlit DJ booth. As the sun went down over Boston Harbor, the room glowed with warmth and richness.

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Entering the ballroom to a bit of traditional Vietnamese instrumental music, guests awaited the grand entrance of the parents and bridal party. Because the bride and groom wished to have most of the introductions spoken in Vietnamese (to accommodate all those who traveled from afar for the wedding!), the groom’s older sister Vivian assisted with the intros. After the wedding party and couple were announced, the family made a point to recognize the siblings and several other important family members in the crowd, which was such an atypical and nice touch.

Toasts and dinner got underway. During dinner, the two sets of table centerpieces were given away. The smaller pieces were awarded to whoever had a penny under their charger plate. The larger rose pieces? Those were awarded to the folks who knew the couple best, via trivia questions provided by the matron of honor. I ran around the room like Richard Dawson on Family Fued, the numerous answers so hilariously incorrect!  After that fun came the cake cutting ceremony, set to the tune of Harry Connick, Jr.’s “Recipe For Love.” The cake was actually an arrangement of three different sized white frosted cakes donning red embellishments, atop thin golden metal pedestals of different heights. The couple was quite neat during the ceremony!

During dessert, the bride and groom shared in their first dance together as husband and wife to a wedding favorite, Etta James’s “At Last.” [Note: traditionally, the couple’s first dance often takes place either immediately following their grand entrance, or as this couple chose, following dinner to kick off dancing.] Following that, the couple simultaneously shared a dance with their respective mothers, to an older Vietnamese song entitled “Long Me” (Y Van). Quite beautiful, both in tune and meaning (find the song and translated lyrics on YouTube).

From there, it was a full-on dance party. The house lights dropped and the party lights got turned on. A little bit in the action, the bouquet was tossed to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies,” and we even played a couple of fun games (again, at the planning of the matron of honor), which were actually really fun and funny. The first was recruiting five male contestants including the groom, to stand on chairs, pull up their pant legs, and let a blind-folded bride wearing dishwashing gloves try to identify her new hubby only by the obstructed feel of his shin and calf muscle. Then, it was vice versa. It’s important to note that both bride and groom identified their mate!

The next game was set to severely embarrass both of them, as Kevin stood on chairs for the entire room to see, as Thuy ran a hard-boiled egg up one pants leg and back down the other as quickly as possible (having quite a bit of trouble at the halfway point!). And the crowd went wild!

We got everyone back to the dance party after this, there was an impromptu congo line started by the groom, and then before we all knew it, the party was at its end. The final song of the night was selected by the couple: “When You Got a Good Thing” by Lady Antebellum. All the remaining guests circled around the married couple as they danced.

A great night was had by all, including me. A big thanks and congratulations to Kevin and Thuy for inviting me to be a part of their special day. Thanks and shout out to Sonja and the always can-do (and punctual!) staff at Marriott Boston Long Wharf. Everyone, enjoy the photos from the celebration.

[This wedding experience was shared by full-time Boston-area wedding specialist, DJ John Dudley. You can find more information, tips, ideas, testimonials, videos, photos, and more at http://www.DJJohnDudley.com, http://www.YouTube.com/user/DJJohnDudley, on Facebook (DJ John Dudley Entertainment), and on Twitter (@thebostondj). We welcome your questions, comments, needs for wedding advice, etc.]

The Boston DJ’s Wedding Diary: T-Minus 315 Days: Dance and Shoot

Three hundred fifteen days left to live in Engagementland, and we are making moves. Alison and I have locked up both our DJ and photographer for the big day, after not a whole great deal of work and effort, actually. People keep joking with me when I tell them I’m planning my wedding… “So, are you going to DJ? Ha ha.” Look, I DJ’ed once for a shared birthday party for me and my brother, and it was horrible. Well, it was when I was still using CD’s, so every four minutes, I was pulled away from the fun to mix the music. Regardless, my wedding day is the one day I’m looking forward to having everyone else carry the load so I can put my feet up.

Our budget didn’t really allow for anything but a DJ, and I had just the man in mind: my colleague Craig Sutton at Sutton Entertainment [www.SuttonEntertainment.com]. Craig is a seasoned DJ and entertainment agent and event concept specialist who uses me frequently throughout the year for some of his most important corporate clients and wedding couples. He’s a fantastic guy with a really warm personality, and he’s really become a good friend. Obviously, in my stead, I would recommend using Craig to DJ your wedding. (Thinking about it now, I’m fortunate to have developed such a close relationship with Craig, because trust, comfort and personality-match do play huge roles in choosing a wedding DJ. It honestly would have been difficult for me to go through the process of vetting other DJ’s with whom I even have decent relationships. To this point in my career, I already had a deep appreciation for the comfort level – almost friendship – I try to develop with my wedding clients, and this scenario bolstered that further.)  Ideally, under different financial circumstances, Alison and I would have preferred to have a band and Craig as DJ. We’ve become huge fans of the ‘80s tribute band Fast Times here in Boston, and I’ve began developing a friendship with a couple of the guys in the band even. If you want a really fun dance party at your wedding and you’ve got the dough, look them up [www.FastTimes.biz] and tell them I sent you. You won’t be disappointed, promise.

So, with Craig’s services under lock and key (lucky he had the date free!), we moved on to picking the photographer – another apparently daunting task. When we had our first meal testing at the Hampden Country Club, they had their partner vendor in photography on hand in the room. We looked through the albums and pricing, and everything seemed reasonable at first glance. Alison sometimes tells me I should be a detective because of my attention to the tiniest details: I noticed in the only large format photo the woman had on display, featuring an entire wedding party, both a bridesmaid and the flower girl had their faces obscured by objects or other people. I thought, if this is the one piece brought along to demonstrate and sell their services, we might be better to look elsewhere. And we did. I’ve again worked with dozens and dozens of photographers on different weddings, and a couple did stand out in my mind, due both to their professionalism, personality, and methods. Unfortunately, when sharing these visual artists’ websites with my bride-to-be, their sites sadly didn’t do the photographers any justice, and I simply couldn’t talk Alison out of looking elsewhere…again. (This certainly reinforced for me the importance of the feel and user-friendliness of my own website, which is why I continue to work on it on a regular basis.)

We finally ran into a company called Classic Photographers at a wedding networking night we attended together. I had never worked with them before but we conversed with the owner of the company was very personable, attentive to our needs, and informative.  They are a “large” company with a subcontracted team of about 12-15 photographers in the Greater Boston area. The pricing (our main concern, besides skill set and personality) seemed a bit more modest than others we’d seen or heard, so we gave them a shot by setting up an appointment with their sales director, actually located at their sister-company Classic Tuxedos shop. Prior to our visit, we had been sent links to view about 8 or 9 of their photographers’ work (i.e. online albums); Alison chose her top four, and I narrowed those down to two. To our appointment, I brought along a set of 20 questions to ask your photographer, which I researched and printed out from the web. The salesman took the time to answer all of our questions are patiently and thoroughly as he could (Note: this is always a good sign, regardless of vendor). Although we hadn’t met or even spoken with our remaining frontrunner photographer (by the time we got to the appointment, one of top two had already been booked privately), we had a good feel for her work and style via the albums and the salesman’s background and familiarity with her. So, right then and there, we put down a small deposit on the services for our big day, and they set up a monthly payment plan with us (interest-free!)  up until our wedding. The total package includes six hours of wedding day shooting, an hour long engagement shoot in the summertime, 8” by 8” twenty page album, a DVD with all of our high resolution/auto corrected photos from both shoots complete full and unrestricted reprint rights. We went with Julia P., who is a personalized, artsy photographer and college photography instructor out of Salem, MA: here’s her stuff http://www.classicphotographers.com/featured/julia_p/index.php (Let me be frank here: I am generally not a big fan of “large companies” that are in the wedding business. With my business being primarily just me, when a couple hires me, they know exactly who they are getting, and what they are getting: that is, my personal care and attention, experience, and personality. To me, they’re not just another sale; you know, crunch the numbers, get the bare bones details, throw them into the computer, and leave well enough alone unless there’s an issue. Not to say some people don’t have success with the “big guys,” but generally my take on it is, quality sometimes tends to suffer with volume…and this just isn’t something you desire for your wedding day. But, with all that said, we decided to choose this company because the photographer’s work spoke to us, and definitely because the pricing was right – especially with the help of a $300 discount on the photography package when committing to use their sister-company for the groomsmen’s tuxedo rentals.)

Coming up in our next Diary entry, we will definitely be getting down to the dirty talk of budgeting (I really would have told you much earlier on, but to be honest, we’re doing things a bit ass-backwards ourselves, though we’ve tried so hard not to – hopefully it won’t come back to bite us!), and there also may be a guest-entry from my fiancée Alison on her dress shopping experience.  Thanks for reading!

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Feel free to drop us a line and learn more about us. (We’d like to learn more about you, too.)

John Dudley
Owner & Entertaining Entertainer
DJ John Dudley Entertainment
www.DJJohnDudley.com
John@DJJohnDudley.com
(617) 791-1001

~ Enlivening events throughout New England for more than 10 years ~

Proud Member of Global Mobile Entertainers Association &
Boston Young Professionals Association

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Stretching your holiday budget: celebrate the holidays a little early. Also, October’s ‘good people.’

Think outside the (gift)box

You might be busy deciding whether to be Snooki, The Situation, or someone from Dancing with the Stars, for Halloween. (Me? Mark Zuckerberg.) But, you may also be responsible for setting up your company, school, or family holiday party, and you should be doing that now if you haven’t already started.

Hotels and function halls book quickly for December. Just like wedding rates are highest in September and October as the leaves change color, and poolside cabana rental fees are highest in August, it goes without saying that December is prime time for the venues that host your holiday parties.

What, no Jack-o-lantern?

What, no Jack-o-lantern?

Now, although this all seems very reasonable (and to be fair, it is), it does not mean that you do not have options. January has gained some popularity over the last year or two (recession), but have you ever given serious thought to hosting your year-end get together in November? When you think about it, we’re only talking the difference of a couple of weeks; and this proactive approach to your festivities may pocket you some noticeable pricing breaks with the venue or caterer of your choice. It may also get you some leeway with respect to your DJ or other performer, if you choose to have one. 

Other ideas? Whether you’re firmly set in your December tradition or not, maybe consider holding the party on a weekday and/or in the early afternoon; luncheon menus are generally more affordable than evening affairs. (Again, these are the least busy times for performers as well.) You can always save a buck too by creating and bringing along your own decor (especially fun if you’ve got some spare kids hanging around).

Life size reindeer

Life size reindeer greets your guests and then takes them for a ride.

On the other hand, if you don’t find yourself pinching pennies this year (good for you, by the way), there are some insanely interesting options for excitement at your bash (Santa’s jolly ol’ self aside), including life sized rideable reindeers (they actually ride around the room; for kids and adults), indoor ‘ice-skating’ (at the function hall, not at the rink), All-Star Karaoke, a red and green themed Vegas casino night, twelve drummers drumming, and so much more. (Again, good for you, for being so darn productive.)

Whenever and however you decide to celebrate, just be sure it is fun and enjoyable — your friends, family, colleagues, or staff, and you, deserve it.

If you’d like some help planning the entertainment component of your party, just reach out to us.

October’s “good people”

Each month, we will be recognizing a few hard working and very capable professionals that can help you in planning an amazing event.

This month’s “good people” are <insert drumroll here>…

The Great Escape – Journey Tribute Band
Ask for Rich
http://www.myspace.com/journeycoverband

Fast Times – 1980’s Cover Band
Ask for Johnny
http://www.fasttimes.biz 

(Let them know John Dudley referred you, and say hello for me!)

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At some point in your life, professionally or privately, you will need entertainment for an event. From a simple DJ, to everything eye-catching, engaging, and creative: be sure to keep us in mind, to blow your mind. No event, venue, client, or concept is out of the question.

The concept we believe in: your event unique.

Feel free to drop us a line and learn more about us. (We’d like to learn more about you, too.)

John Dudley
Owner & Entertaining Entertainer
DJ John Dudley Entertainment
www.DJJohnDudley.com
John@DJJohnDudley.com
(617) 791-1001

~ Enlivening events throughout New England for more than 10 years ~

Proud Member of Global Mobile Entertainers Association &
Boston Young Professionals Association

For news, tips, contests and offers, follow us:
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