Frederick DJs

Good value, some communication regrets

We recently had Robert DJ our June wedding. Pros were that he was on time and friendly. He handled little hiccups smoothly and w/o complaint. Prices are reasonable and he offers a lot of services, like ceremony recordings and fun add-ons. He really can be a one-stop shop for a lot of wedding entertainment. While I think he is a good all-purpose DJ, I'm not sure that he was the right fit for us in the end. Specifically our two biggest concerns were that 1) he didn't consistently use the language we had asked him to use to address guests and 2) communication leading up to the wedding was less organized than I would have preferred. In our case, we really prioritized communicating with vendors about our desire for an affirming, somewhat non-traditional wedding. From the onset when we hired vendors, we asked about comfort and experience working with a diverse range of guests and requested that vendors be attentive to using inclusive language, especially as it relates to including LGBTQ folks. In the case of DJ services, we requested he not use gendered language like "ladies and gentlemen" due to the gender diversity of our guests. We also had an integrated wedding party so we weren't using some of the traditional wedding party language. I get that this is a specific and maybe unusual request, so we wanted to be really sure our vendors were okay with it, and Robert was super friendly and agreeable when we talked about it. I think Robert's intentions were really good here -- he expressed a lot of desire to make sure he got this right and willingness to be careful. Maybe those requests were made too long ago though, because when we got to the day of, we had a lot of issues here. Our coordinator had to talk to him about using less gendered language, which did not seem to result in much improvement (there was definitely effort...at one point he said "ladies and....guests....esteemed guests" but then he went right back to "ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls"), and it was really frustrating for both us and her. He also told us we'd have a ceremony recording the day after. There was really no rush, but that was what he told us would happen. Instead, we got the recording a week later than he had originally stated, and we were not told it would be delayed until I asked twice. I think it's also worth noting that the ceremony recording did not include the music for procession and recession. (This is on us, we should have confirmed that would be included, but it was disappointing) Communication tended to be a little last-minute and unscheduled -- e.g., spontaneous phone calls rather than putting something on the calendar. Followups were sometimes required. He also texted me (bride) the morning of asking if he could bring an assistant and requesting we add a meal for that additional person. Not a big deal, but I do wish he would have communicated in advance/not while we were all trying to get ready. Otherwise, I thought/heard feedback that some of the music transitions were a bit awkward, but not to an extent that was too disruptive. None of these are big issues, but the multitude of small communication inconveniences and frustrations did add up to where I would not feel comfortable recommending Frederick DJs to a friend. Robert is nice, but I'm not sure he was the right call for our needs. He might be a better fit for someone else, particularly if you are looking to include a number of add-ons and want to use one, reasonably-priced company