How many songs does your DJ actually need from you?

This comes up on almost every consult. Somewhere near the end, one of them asks it: "so how many songs do you want from us?"

Most couples are dreading the answer. They think we are about to hand them a two hundred song homework assignment in the middle of planning everything else.

We are not. Here is what we actually need.

The songs only you can pick

Walking down the aisle. Each member of the bridal party. The grand entrance. The first dance. The mother son and father daughter dances.

Those are yours. We cannot guess them.

And please do not choose them off a list called "best first dance songs of 2026." Your first dance should be the song that represents you two.

Maybe it is what you dance to in the kitchen on a Sunday night before the week starts again. Maybe it is a Rufus Du Sol song from a show you travelled to see.

It does not matter if nobody else in the room knows it. That is the moment people are watching your faces, not the dance floor.

Same for the parent dances. That song is going to sit in someone's memory for a very long time. Pick it for them, not for the room.

The four playlists

We send every couple a Google Sheet with a schedule template we help you fill out, and space for your music. Four things go in there.

• Dinner. Ten to twenty songs, thirty at most. Just enough that we understand what you want the room to sound like while people are eating. We build the rest around it.
• The party. Up to a hundred songs. This is not a set list, it is a compass. It tells us your taste, your era, how hard you want the night to go.
• Must play. Songs where your night would be ruined if you did not hear them. These we play, one hundred percent.
• Must not play. Same test in reverse. Ten or fifteen is plenty. Some couples have none. Both are fine.

One trap on the must not list

Do not ban something just because you have heard it at too many weddings.

Pitbull is the example I use every time. I get it, he is cheesy and everyone has heard him at a hundred weddings.

But we might have an edit you would love where the Pitbull part lasts five seconds and the rest of it goes off. Ban him and you lose that too.

So be honest with yourself. If you truly cannot stand it, put it down and it will never touch the speakers. If you are just tired of the obvious version, leave it out and let us handle it.

Some things are already off our list before you say a word. YMCA. Celebration. Conga lines. Anything with instructions for how to dance. That is not what we do and it is not how we perform.

Why we will not take a locked playlist

Honestly, no couple has ever handed us one. When people book us it is usually because they have seen us or heard about us, and they already trust us to run the night.

But it is worth saying why we could not do it anyway.

DJing is reading a room and reacting to it in real time. It is a conversation between the DJ and the dance floor and it runs all night.

Where is the energy right now, where do I want to take it, what do I play in ninety seconds to keep these people out here.

A locked playlist ends that conversation. And you almost always have to change course. We prepare in detail, then the room tells us something different at ten thirty, and the good version of that night comes from listening to it.

Guest requests

Always welcome. Funny enough, it has been years since anyone walked up to the booth to ask for something. I take that as a good sign.

Some couples tell us up front they do not want any requests taken and we respect that completely. You decide in advance, we follow it.

When we are open to them, the test is simple. Great song, fits your vision, not on your must not list, and we can play it without killing the floor. If all four are yes, of course we play it. You are hiring us to look after you, and to entertain the people you invited.

If you barely give us anything

That happens too, and it is not a problem. We have done Lebanese, Greek, Italian, Armenian, Egyptian, Moroccan, Franco Canadian and English Canadian weddings, more than I can count. We build the cultural sets ourselves. You will never have to hand us a playlist of Arabic or Greek music, that is our job.

One thing though. That set is short, usually ten to twenty songs, and we have hundreds we could put in it. I would rather those twenty be ones you love. So we ask for your top five Lebanese songs, or your top five Greek songs. Five, not fifty. Two minutes of your time and it changes that whole part of the night.

When we need it

You have until the Monday of your wedding week to update the sheet.

We start working on your night in the month before, but we finalize the playlists and how we see the whole thing running during that final week. So there is time. Add to it as songs come to you, change your mind, come back to it. Just have it where you want it by that Monday.

The short version

• Pick the songs only you can pick. Aisle, entrance, first dance, parent dances.
• Fill the four playlists in the sheet. Dinner, party, must play, must not play.
• Do not ban a song just because you are tired of it. Ban it because you cannot stand it.
• No locked playlist. The room decides at ten thirty.
• Five songs from your culture, not fifty.
• Have the sheet where you want it by the Monday of your wedding week.

What this is all for

We want the process to be easy on you. You have enough to do. But we need enough that the night could not have belonged to anyone else.

Your guests leave saying it was the best wedding they have ever been to, and they also leave feeling like it was built for you two specifically. Not a great wedding. Your wedding.

Most of that gets decided in a Google Sheet months before anyone shows up.

Next  ·  7 min read · By the crew

Your families do not dance to the same songs.

→