Everything about Wedding

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It must be great. You work on Saturday night for 5 hours and make $1,000 or more. What a life. It has been equated to selling drugs – the lucrative wedding disc jockey business is not what it’s cracked up to be. The reality is – this is far from the easy money that a potential wedding client thinks it is. They are shocked when they first hear the price that professional DJs charge and think that they are being ripped off because “wedding” was in their vocabulary when they called for a quote.

Here are some interesting facts to understand better what the life of a wedding disc jockey really is like:

Clients call at all times of the day – the phone rings from 8am until around 11pm virtually every day. For the most part, you must be available to answer the calls because most people won’t leave a message if you don’t.

Most weekday nights are spent away from home meeting with clients or potential clients.

Most weekends are spent away from friends and family working at your events. Forget the 4th of July picnic and New Years Eve.

Wedding Disc Jockeys are booked a year or two in advance – so that last minute call from your friend asking you to dinner or to a concert is a wasted call. You’re already booked.

Your daughter’s concert that is on a Friday in May – you will most likely miss. Again, you are already booked.

Try standing for 5 hours straight and see how your legs and feet feel.

Did you know one of the most feared things to do is speak in public? As a wedding disc jockey, that is what we do every weekend.

Most people bring a cup of coffee to work – a wedding disc jockey brings over $15,000 worth of equipment and another $20,000 or more in music to most events.

A wedding disc jockey will haul in about 1,000 pounds of equipment into and out of the reception – that means up stairs, across rickety stone paths and through parking garages, through kitchens and in the cold and rain.

A typical wedding lasts for 5 hours. Your wedding disc jockey will arrive an hour early to setup, will be there after guests leave tearing down and typically drives 30 minutes to 60 minutes each way to the event. They have to spend time preparing equipment before they leave the office. They have to unload and put away gear when they return. That adds up to between 8 and 10 hours on the day of the event alone invested in your wedding.

A wedding disc jockey will typically meet you prior to booking (pre-sales meeting) for about an hour. Most disc jockeys will drive to meet their clients. Presales and travel to and from this meeting will add about 2 hours of their time into your event.

When it’s time to discuss details, your disc jockey will again drive to meet you and spend another hour with you going over details, they’ll return to the office, type up this information and send you a copy. They’ll spend a couple hours organizing music, talking on the phone and sending/receiving emails from you over the course of the two months prior to your wedding. You can figure they’ve just invested another 5 hours into preparing for your event.

The total time invested per event will be around 17 – 20 hours when it’s all said and done. That $1,000 for 5 hours is now really $1,000 for 20 hours of time.

A wedding disc jockey will spend about $2,000 or more each year on music updates. They might invest $2,000-$6,000 in equipment, repairs and upgrades each year. They will spend $1,000 – $10,000 in advertising, bridal shows, printing, etc. They will spend $5,000 – $20,000 for office supplies, computers, and business services. They will spend $500 – $1,500 on liability insurance policies. They will spend $2,000 to $5,000 on postage. They will travel to one of the national DJ conventions to keep up to date with the industry and spend around $1,500 doing so. They will have a 800 number, cell phone, fax and voice mail services costing them around $5,000 each year. They will spend $5,000 each year on health insurance. They will spend $5,000 in gas getting back and forth to meetings and events.

A wedding disc jockey will drive 25,000 – 35,000 miles each year between meetings and back and forth to their events. That will be approximately 750 hours away from home each year just in travel time.

The reason that wedding disc jockeys charge the price that they do is simple. It is the cost of doing business. The value that a professional disc jockey brings to your event is priceless. Take away the music and you’re just inviting friends and family to eat and drink. That accounts for about 2 of the typical 5 hour wedding reception. Your professional wedding disc jockey is responsible for coordinating all the details of the flow of the event – from introductions to the cake cutting. They are the middle man between the banquet staff, your photographer and videographer. They are your wedding coordinator. Without proper quality entertainment – guests will leave soon after dinner. If a typical wedding reception costs around $25,000 (or $5,000 per hour!), and your guests leave 2 hours before the end due to poor entertainment – you’ve just wasted $10,000 of your wedding budget. If you’re debating between a cheap $500 DJ and a professional DJ costing $1,500, the decision should be easy. Trying to cut corners on entertainment could cost you $10,000. The additional $1,000 is money well spent when the big picture is in focus. The time and effort a true professional disc jockey puts into your event will be worth every penny.

Rob has been a professional mobile DJ since 1983, performing at hundreds of events each year including weddings, corporate events and school functions.

MONOGAMY seems to be the word for all seasons. And the fact that its definition is continuously stretched to accommodate the changing morality of the times is par for the course. The latest addendum in the monogamy lexicon is ‘managed monogamy’, which is all about being together long-term, but allowing yourself and your spouse ‘other’ sexual encounters. In this age of ‘open’ and ‘transparent’ relationships, New Age couples are defining their out-of-marriage encounters as part of managed monogamy, where the spouse approves all external romantic and sexual encounters.

According to a report in The New York Metro, couples shouldn’t take monogamy for granted. Instead, they should take the urge to stray for granted. For couples who want to be in the ‘happily-ever-after’ category, this is the new truth, the report reiterates. Managed monogamy or this new monogamy follows the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell policy’ where you know what your spouse is doing, but you can happily do without knowing the gory details.

Managed monogamy is rampant not only in big cities but in small towns as well. One spouse doesn’t hide his or her attractions or sexual encounters from the other. It’s a positive trend, as it allows couples to look at the inadequacies in their relationship and seek sexual and romantic partners who can fulfil them. The problem arises at a later stage, when feelings of guilt and jealousy emerge.

Old-fashioned monogamists may recoil with shock at the emergence and acceptance of this new monogamy, which endorses the ‘death-do-us-apart’ belief, except every weekend, when you might want to have some fun with that hot babe or guy. Like Judy Gaman, 32, an architect, and her 35-year-old journalist husband, John Pico, both of whom practise managed monogamy. Says Judy, “We’ve been married for six years now. Yes, I’m having an affair with my colleague. I discussed this with my husband and he’s okay about my dating this guy. John has a crush of his own, so he’s actually quite preoccupied with her. We both understand our ‘other’ attractions as for us it is a mutual decision to date other people and yet remain married to each other.”

However, one wonders whether this new, managed monogamy spells a threat to the traditional bonds of marriage. On this account, we’re not emotionless. When we flirt and get physical with other people, we bond with them somewhere. And when that bond makes you start questioning your primary relationship – your marriage – then it becomes a threat.

Couples who follow this new monogamy don’t describe this emotion as ‘cheating, as for them, cheating is a secret romantic or sexual activity. Most couples explain that they’re switching to managed monogamy as short-term adventure will prevent them from straying away forever. There’s a lot of stress being with just one person. So, couples seek permission of their spouses to date others.

It seems, even in its mildest form, managed monogamy is about joking about your other temptations with your partner. For instance, London based Don and Laura Jones often tease each other about their attractions in their respective workplaces. “We talk about our attractions. We’ll have a three-week affair, some adventure in our lives… But then, we come back home and talk about it. And these days, couples discuss the concept of monogamy before they tie the knot. Everyone likes the idea of an open marriage, even though it is tough not to get jealous.

Michael Douglas is a relationship expert and marriage counselor who offers free marriage advice for common marriage problems and healthy relationship tips to help save your marriage from divorce.

The hooked and booked man is like a forbidden temptation. That’s what makes him irresistibly attractive to a woman. He stirs a challenge in her. She feels a sense of power in attracting a man who is already taken. What makes him the catch for her is his confidence, experience and authority. The excitement stems from the fact that he’s already taken.

The golden rule here is: you want what you can’t have. Soon, this man becomes an overwhelming obsession for a woman. I call it the ‘forbidden fruit obsession’.

According to me, there are two reasons for women falling for married men. Firstly, wild attraction. And secondly, vulnerability. For a woman, a married man represents a certain security she craves. A woman feels that a married man – compared to a bachelor – can meet her emotional and material needs in a better manner. Getting a married man signifies a triumph of one woman over another woman. He’s a trophy catch. To have him, is about making the impossible.

If a woman wanted a fling, she could have had it with anybody. But a married man at her beck and call makes her value herself more… that he’s willing to throw it all over for her. It increases her self-esteem. Mind you, she’s enjoying this fantasy, as much as his wooing, his experience and the way he makes her feel extra special.

Sometimes, she likes the fact that he doesn’t go weak in the knees in front of her. He’s a symbol of authority. This relationship is about adventure and fun. But this is dangerous fun. There’s a risk of running another person’s life.

Married men love playing games. They give out the vibe – ‘I’m married but I’m game’. Married men are always on the lookout for fun. These are men on the prowl. For a woman, it might be difficult to resist the vibes of attraction from a married man. He makes himself so indispensable.

A married man can give you a great time. There are times when this forbidden attraction transforms into love and romance, especially if the man doesn’t have a happy marriage. Not all married men are jerks, some even leave their wives and get married to women they love. But the fact is, men and women love playing power games with each other. This is a dangerous game. It can take you through highs and lows, like you’ve never experienced. Human beings are fragile and one learns from trial and error. So it’s you have to decide, whether it is a viable option to have a relationship with a married man.

Michael Douglas is a relationship expert who provides healthy relationship tips. He also offers free marriage advice and help people finding the secrets to building healthy relationship.