When I started working as a wedding DJ in 1997, the world was damn near prehistoric.
/My partner and I started our DJ business 17 years ago on a whim. We had no experience and no equipment but thought we could make it work.
Since 1997, we’ve performed at more than 350 weddings.
Over the course of that time, I’ve also married more than a dozen couples.
We’ve done two weddings for the same groom after a divorce and second marriage.
We have many, many stories.
Though we constantly contemplate retiring, our company goes on. We’ve reached the point in our careers that we turn down many weddings. We pick-and-choose our clients and wedding venues carefully. We only work when we want to work.
It occurred to me today, as I was working at wedding #353, that when when I started my career as a DJ in 1997:
- Smoking was still permitted in most wedding venues.
- Digital photography did not exist in its current form. Every single professional photographer was still shooting with actual film. In fact, my partner and I carried two extra rolls of film with us after multiple photographers had run out of film at weddings.
- Digitized music did not exist. Every song that we played was purchased at a brick-and-mortar store.
- We still played some songs on cassette tapes.
- There was no online mapping website or software. Directions to wedding venues and client’s homes had to be taken over the phone and written down by hand.
Seventeen years is a long time to be doing anything.
