The Hit Man DJ

Thank you for your letter, and for the opportunity to respond to the complaint filed by Mr. and Mrs. [redacted]. I apologize for not replying sooner, however I just received your letter on Thursday, July 21st, and we had events on the following Friday and Saturday. I had family obligations on Sunday, and...

Monday and most of today have been spent running the business, and preparing our house for my and my wife’s first baby, due August 4th.  Let me start by saying that their wedding was fine. We started on time, provided the services that we were contracted for, we ended the night after midnight, and there were no complaints to me by anyone other than the Groom’s sister, who was extremely intoxicated. In the 21 years I have been a wedding DJ, I have never dealt with a group of people quite like these folks. Their poor preparation, incomplete and scattered communication, behavior, and subsequent lack-ofwillingness to accept any responsibility whatsoever has weighed very heavily on me. I take people’s weddings VERY seriously, and the things done and said by Mr. and Mrs. [redacted], their wedding party, and two of their guests, has been extremely hurtful to me personally; not to mention the damage it has done to the business.  Although no one is perfect, the [redacted]s were very poor planners and communicators, yet seem to have unmet after-the-fact expectations that were never communicated prior to, or even the day of, the wedding.  When a customer books with us, they’re sent a link to access our online client center. From there, they can complete their customer profile, give us basic info about the event, select music, and complete important worksheets that give us specific information about the day, timeline, specific songs to be played, etc. While this online portal is extremely robust and information-packed, it does not replace our preparation process with the customer; rather it enhances and streamlines it.  At times, a customer won’t complete everything, or be lackadaisical about entering data. The [redacted]s were this kind of customer, so a lot of our conversations were spent trying to get Mrs. [redacted] to decide on a detail, or the order in which we were going to do things, etc. While she was indecisive and changed her mind a lot, she wasn’t all that different from many brides who flip-flop between details. In fact, she and Mr. [redacted] both said, “we trust you” and “just do your thing” quite a bit during our multiple phone conversations, which again, also was not abnormal from what at least half of my customers do.  The Monogram  During these phone conversations, I ask A LOT OF questions. I cover every detail of the night, from arrival to exit. I use the info they have submitted through the Client Center as a guide for our conversation, and there are three worksheets that the customer has access to: The Wedding Planner Worksheet; The Ceremony Details and Song Selection Worksheet; and The Custom Monogram Worksheet. They had only completed the first two worksheets, and although the info was incomplete on both, there was at least SOME information. The Custom Monogram Worksheet had been accessed but no data was put in and no selections were made. At no time did they mention the custom monogram light that is included in their package during our conversations… where it would be displayed, what it would look like, etc. The final question in our final prep call was, “So, anything else I didn’t cover, forgot about, or you want to add-in now?”   I simply assumed they simply didn’t want it. Some clients think it’s hokey. Some think it’s amazing. If a client doesn’t at least make a basic selection on the worksheet (which automatically saves; they wouldn’t need to save it themselves), we’re not going to make one for them, and risk displaying something at their venue that they 1.) didn’t approve, and 2.) didn’t even ask for.  My assumption was confirmed to me, when they said nothing the day of the wedding. No, “Hey, where’s the monogram” or “Weren’t we supposed to have a monogram” or any kind of complaint, period. No mention of the monogram was made until a Facebook comment from Mrs. [redacted] the day after the wedding.  The frustrating part about this is that I did have a non-custom monogram I could have displayed if they had asked for it.   The Text-Request System  Their complaint about a text requesting feature also illustrates their poor planning. This is a feature that is FREE for any client, no matter what package they choose. All they need to do is ask for it, because it (like the monogram) is a custom feature. Here’s how it works:  ? The guest texts a custom phrase to a short-code o i.e. – Text “[redacted] Party” to 57682 ? They get an auto-generated response, that includes event-specific info ? The guest is able to then make music requests with the DJ via text  This is a novelty feature, as any guest can walk up to the DJ at any time and make a request. I and my other DJs will announce this at events, and encourage people to make requests. However, if a customer wants this feature, they need to tell us what they want their custom phrase to be, what they want their event-specific info to be, and what (if any) restrictions they want on requests made, or the number of requests coming from a certain number, etc. We’ll also bring 8x11 paper signs with the custom phrase and short-code on it, so guests know what to do for the text-request system. Neither [redacted] or [redacted] ever made any mention of it to me, nor did they even say they wanted it. I brought it up during the sales process with them, and explained it to them the same way I explain it to every customer, and the same way I’m explaining it in this letter.  They never asked about it, said anything about it, or brought it up the night of the event. The mother of the groom asked about it after their ceremony, but I told her neither [redacted] or [redacted] asked for it, so it was never set up to be used that night.  To be clear, the text request system IS NOT part of any package, nor does it cost the customer anything to add-on. It’s a feature that our back-end database-host offers, and it’s easy for us to take advantage of, therefore we offer this add-on for free… the customer just needs to ask for it beforehand.  The Father/Daughter Dance  Their complaint about the Father/Daughter Dance is among the strangest things I’ve ever heard. Here’s what happened that night:  ? I attempted to begin the Father/Daughter Dance by calling the bride and her step-father, [redacted], out to the dancefloor ? My plan was to explain to the crowd that, typically, the Father/Daughter Dance is done with just two people; the bride and her dad, but tonight, it was going to be a bit different ? As I would proceed with my explanation to the audience, I’d interrupt myself and call another person, couple, or entire table to the dancefloor, in an attempt to “get everyone on the dancefloor” for the Father/Daughter  When we talked on the phone about this formality, [redacted] told me that her father had passed away a few years prior, and that in place of the traditional Father/Daughter Dance, she wanted to do a song with everyone on the dancefloor with her. The song they selected was “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash.  When I attempted to begin this formality, I called [redacted] and [redacted] to the dancefloor. [redacted] went to the floor, but [redacted] didn’t. I started going into the spiel about how, “typically, the Father/Daughter Dance is done with just two people; the bride and her dad, but tonight, it was going to be a bit different” and once again asked [redacted] to the floor, because she hadn’t yet made it over there. She then yelled, “We’re not doing that!” and ran out of the room. I was stunned by her reaction, and stopped my announcement.  Then, Mr. [redacted] came up to me and said, “She’s really upset-but it’s okay, it’s okay.” I said, “What happened?” and Mr. [redacted] replied, “I don’t know, but she’s really upset. But it’s okay, it’s okay.” I then asked him if I should continue with the formality, and he said he wasn’t sure where she went. He then told me that she wasn’t going to be dancing, and that I should just call everyone to the floor except her. This wasn’t what we had talked about, so I was confused as to why [redacted] was upset. I genuinely thought she had just gotten emotional in the moment, and just kind of blurted out what she did.  I ran back into the room, made the announcement to get everyone to the floor, and that we’d be honoring [redacted]’s late father together. But then just as I started the song, [redacted] came running into the room with her arms up and a HUGE smile on her face. Again, I was really baffled, and wasn’t sure what had just happened.  If I referred to [redacted], her step-father as her father by mistake on the mic while setting up the dance, it was only because that’s how he was listed on their ceremony program. “[redacted] [redacted]” are listed as “Parents of the Bride” the same way “[redacted] and Debbi [redacted]” are listed as “Parents of the Groom.” In the moment, when you’re on a microphone in front of a couple hundred people, you want to make sure you don’t say the wrong name. So, DJs will typically keep show info or programs close by, just in case you’re in the middle of making an announcement and blank on the bride’s name.   No one ever said that I referred to [redacted] as her father, or why [redacted] ran out of the room. I didn’t speak to [redacted] the rest of the night, although she was in the reception hall almost the entire time. When they weren’t taking pictures, she was on the dancefloor, or using the photo booth.   The Photo Booth  Their complaint about the photo booth is entirely the fault of their best man and flower girls. While there was no intention on their part to cause any havoc, that’s exactly what happened because of their actions and behavior. And I don’t understand how, if you use something all night long and you apparently “don’t know of any problems” until 11 P.M., how could it be that the mother of the groom knew but they didn’t, or that “it wasn’t working properly throughout the entire reception?” But, I digress.  When a customer books a package with us that includes photo booth, the timeline of the event determines the time in which the booth is open. For example, if guests are arriving at 5, dinner is at 6, and the event ends at midnight, we’ll have the booth open from 5-6, closed from 6-7, then open again from 7-12. The way it works is:  ? The guest comes up to the photo booth and hits the start button ? The booth takes four pictures, with on-screen prompts to walk the user through the experience ? The user confirms their choice to print the photo o If yes, the picture prints out of the back of the pod ? The user can then move to one of two connected iPads to print another copy, post to Facebook or other social media, text or email the pic, etc.  Before the contracted start time, guests began entering the room. This isn’t unusual, and I even had music playing for the sake of ambiance. However, the booth wasn’t done being set-up yet, and the lights for it weren’t even on. It was relatively apparent to anyone looking at it that, “it wasn’t ready yet.” There were still panels on the floor, exposing the back of the pod and its “innards.”   The booth itself is an open-air photo pod with a large touchscreen computer connected to a DSLR camera. The picture prints out of the back of the pod from an opening in one of the panels. The computer-interface was still on a technical set-up menu when I noticed people over by it (I had run back to my DJ table to tend to the music, and communicate the night’s timeline with their photographer.) I went over there and politely asked the people (the best man and the two flower girls) not to use it quite yet, but to hang around because I’d have it open in just a minute or two.  I made the approximately 30-yard-walk back to my table, when I see the same three people right back over by it, but this time, the auto-flash is going off – indicating that it’s being used, somehow. It can’t be started without first setting and confirming a number of settings, including very technical-sounding things associated with the auto-flash, the destination folder for saved images, and a number of other things. Unfortunately for us, this software isn’t all that intuitive in how the set-up part goes, but we know what has to be set to where in order for the whole experience to work properly, and have things set just so. But when the set-up wizard is run from this technical menu that was displayed on the computer screen, this undoes all the settings we’ve set the booth to and returns them to defaults, which essentially renders the booth useless for us.   After going back over and asking them AGAIN to not use the photo booth, I was horrified to see that everything had been changed back to a default setting. The set-up process is long as it is, but to completely re-do the settings – when you’re not even sure what they all are, by heart – could potentially take hours. I managed to get the booth to a point where it was taking pictures and printing them, with “[redacted] & [redacted]” and their venue name & date printed on the pictures as well. I couldn’t get the social media function to connect, due to the settings being changed. The auto-flash was only working sporadically, and I even asked their photographer for help, out of desperation.  After the event, I noticed that the destination folder for the saved images didn’t exist. It was a default name of a folder that was deleted. I changed the save-folder during my second setting up of the software, but another secondary setting changed it back to the default, due to a profile being loaded in a settings menu that wasn’t supposed to be. I didn’t know this happened until the next day, when I went to look for the pictures. I was planning on posting them online to prove how much “the photo booth didn’t work.”   All these issues happened because the best man and two little girls were, literally, open-palmslapping the screen of the photo booth; button-mashing to try to get it to start, is what it looked like. Because it’s a touchscreen interface, all those hands on the screen caused all kinds of things to be clicked, checked, unchecked, loaded, etc.  There were two issues brought to my attention about the photo booth that night. First was the mother of the bride asked about the auto-flash, because it didn’t work for one particular set of photos she took. You could clearly see everyone in the pictures, but they had colored filter-looking effects, created by the LED lights inside the pod. Again, you could clearly see everyone and the pictures didn’t look bad by any means. I explained to her what happened, and she asked me if I could fix it. I explained to her that I tried already, and that doing anything more might result in the booth being shut down for longer than we might anticipate. She was quite understanding and no one else said anything about the auto-flash.  Another time, a guest came up and said pictures weren’t printing. I went over and it appeared as though someone may have reached into the chute a little too far in going for their photo, and accidentally opened the cover of the printer. A quick close of the cover, and the queued pictures began to print out. There were four prints queued, so the printer must have been down for about 5-8 minutes. I didn’t view this as anything that affected their service level.  But the booth took and printed pictures all night long, and Mr. & Mrs. [redacted] used it quite a bit, from what I could see from my vantage point. The issues with the auto-flash and the social media posting function were caused by their guests, and not by anything I did or didn’t do. I don’t feel like it would be fair to me to give them money back for something that their guests corrupted.   The Groom’s Sister & “The Music”  At one point in the night, a guest requested a polka. I played a polka, and the dancefloor filled up with older guests. Since the polka I was playing was less than two minutes long, I played a second polka. The groom’s sister came up to me and complained about the music I was playing. I told her that it was a guest request and that the older guests seemed to be enjoying it, based on the number of folks out there dancing. She was very intoxicated by this point, although it was only about 9:30 or so.  She kept making sexually derogatory comments, and emasculating statements towards me. I mostly ignored her, and told her I would play the music she wanted to hear in just a sec.  About an hour later, the best man requested a song, but I informed him I had already played the song. He said, “oh come on, play it for” the bride’s son. I could see the bride’s son sleeping under the head table, so I knew he was trying to pull a fast one. Typically, a professional DJ travels with and/or has access to a couple hundred thousand songs, and we don’t play the same song twice, unless the bride or groom tells us to. At almost every event I have done, a member of the wedding party will come up to me and say, “the bride just told me to tell you to play _____” in an attempt to get their song on right away. And also almost every time, it’s just not true, and if you go ask them, they’ll say, “no I didn’t say that.” So THAT’S how I was handing this situation.  A few minutes later, the groom’s sister came up to me again, but this time was screaming obscenities at me. I let her go on for a minute or two before telling her to go away, and that she was making me feel uncomfortable with her language. She then started to get physically aggressive, pushing up against me with her chest. She started threatening to damage my equipment, so I enacted the “Safety” clause in the contract, and stopped the music.  I pressed pause, silently looked at her as she stepped back, looked embarrassingly at the dancefloor and shrugged and pointed at me, before walking away. I re-started the music where it had left off. The music was off for approximately five seconds.  Conclusion  Although the a-la-carte price of the Custom Monogram light is $125, when it’s discounted and included in the package, it’s pretty much free. At worst, this was a miscommunication that I would have been willing to give them half of the non-discounted-$125 back for. However, they never even asked me for anything, or communicated with me in any way. It was only after Mrs. [redacted]’s posting of libelous comments our Facebook page, and Mr. [redacted] doing the same except with profanities added in, that Mrs. [redacted] said in a Facebook Messenger exchange that she thought they were entitled to a partial refund. Again – THEY NEVER ASKED ME FOR ANYTHING, OR SPOKE TO ME AT ALL, ABOUT ANY OF THEIR CONCERNS. I only knew there were complaints from them when I read about them on Facebook. And considering the things that WERE said, I made the decision that any miscommunication about the monogram is on them, and that they wouldn’t be getting $65 from me. I seriously doubt that Mr. or Mrs. [redacted] thinks their refund should be $65, however. In fact, Mr. [redacted] told me that, after talking to their lawyer, they just wanted their pictures and to “move on.” I doubt they went to their lawyer to seek a $65 refund.  The [redacted]s got a full service, and I held up my end of the deal to the fullest. Their ceremony had music and microphones, their reception had a DJ with dance lights, 20 uplighting fixtures, and a photo booth, and the night ended at 12:07 A.M., 7 minutes after the contracted end-time.   Evidence   Figure 1: Mrs. [redacted]'s comment on Facebook the next day      Figure 2: The "Safety" clause in the contract  Figure 3: Social media post from guests, saying it was a fun night  Figure 4: Mr. [redacted] claiming I was told that there would NOT be a Father/Daughter Dance  and using profanity on our Facebook page   Figure 5: The online form filled out by Mr. & Mrs. [redacted]. Note the "Father/Daughter" field.  Figure 6: Program, referring to bride's step-father as "Parents of Bride"   Figure 7: Online review to Wedding.com submitted by Mrs. [redacted] with factual inaccuracies  Figure 8: Online review submitted to TheKnot.com after being told she would not be getting a refund  Figure 9: Email sent to Mr. [redacted], after seeing [redacted]'s comment on Facebook. She was not called "a baby," although an inappropriate comment was made by me to end the email. Sent 5/15/16.   Figure 10: Email from Mr. [redacted], received June 6th  Figure 11: Partial response to Mr. [redacted] on June 7th  Figure 12: The first time either of the [redacted]s ask for a refund, May 23rd, via Facebook Messenger. For the record, we don’t offer packages with two photo towers, but I believe she was referring to the two POSTING STATIONS, which were not working due to the changes made by the best man and the flower girls.