Top Wedding DJ’s in Roanoke, VA
We love great wedding receptions and one of the things that we also love are the awesome people that put themselves behind the music with great personalities. From lighting, to music and being able to put together a great, free-flowing and exciting wedding reception take a lot more than just hitting the play button on a computer.
It’s takes a certain skill to be able to pull everything off and make the wedding day go smoothly, so thats why we’ve put together a list of the top wedding DJ’s in Roanoke that we recommend.
Roy Prusak and his brother Russell run one of the largest DJ’s services in the region, RSP Entertainment. Over the years their entire team has been serving up wonderful tunes, lighting for the reception and top-quality services for couples alike.
They started Deejay-ing as a hobby back in 1996 and by the end of 1999, their father and the brothers decided that they needed a company name to continue promoting the family run business and hence RSP Entertainment, LLC was born.
I’d had the privilege of working with them countless times over the years and they have wonderful personalities, professional services and pricing that is in line with the industry standard too. They’ve easily worked close to 2,000+ weddings in the last couple of decades and are highly respected in the industry.
Perhaps the most popular of the group is Kidd Carter with Blue Ridge Entertainment, he’s also a radio DJ on the popular K-92 radio here in the Roanoke Valley. Blue Ridge Entertainment was founded in 2010 and provides professional, awesome, fun, energetic DJ’s for all occasions.
We’ve worked with Kidd and his team many times over the years and they have one of the best personalities when it comes to wedding receptions and keeping things going. (We also used to work at the same Roanoke radio station together a long time ago too!)
Mark Taylor is a veteran in the industry and hes a LOT of fun at a wedding reception. Having worked with many times, I love that he gets out onto the dance floor and truly gets the party started within a shy crowd.
We put him on the list because of his talented skills to get people to dance and help break the ice on the dance floor, he’s also a pretty cool guy too!
A Few Honorable Mentions
We have a couple of other companies that we’ve worked with before and really like their styles when it comes to weddings. Quest Entertainment is a company that brings everything together and they are worth looking at for your wedding as well as Creative Entertainment, they offer DJ services as well as a few other services like specialty acts, bands and musicians too.
What to look for in a great wedding DJ?
There are some things that we feel like you should look for when booking a wedding DJ for the big day. Here are a few things that we recommend that you look for and even ask when meeting with them.
A Fun Personality
Finding someone with a great personality is key because a good personality helps keep the ‘flow’ of the wedding reception. It’s not just having a good voice, but being able to speak with enthusiasm during parts of the day, like introductions and first dances, and being able to operate things so there is a smooth outcome. Think transitioning one song to another for example.
A Backup System
Technology is sometimes sticky and things happen so having a backup system of some type is important. Maybe it’s a laptop or speaker, wireless mics, maybe its a power-cell or generator that allows the DJ to keep things off the grid (hey, you might be in a field with no power) but in either case, having some sort of alternative solution to keep things going, even if it’s scaled back.
Experience
You’ll want to find someone with some good experience under their belt too, Carole and I believe they should have at least a couple years under their belt doing weddings.
Insurance
Most of the Deejay’s will have liability insurance, but it’s a good idea to ask and just make sure. The last thing you need is for some drunk guest to trip over the DJ equipment and have them try to use you and your new spouse because they broke their leg. Insurance will cover a professional in any sort of event like that and while it very rarely happens, it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
How much should we pay for a DJ in Roanoke?
Pricing in our region of Virginia is on average 23% less than Richmond and the DC metro area, that according to the 2019 Wedding Report, it’s a industry report used for capturing data. Couples on average spent about $728 for their wedding DJ services.
Now, this does not include things like lighting of covering the wedding ceremony for example, this is just basic DJ service and thats something to take into consideration here.
Are there any other ‘tips’ or ‘secrets’ that you can provide with wedding DJ’s?
Yes, we recommend that you if can, give them a tip at the end of the evening. A DJ is going to work hard to build everything up and many times they are by themselves after you leave, tearing everything down, so a tip is something that’s not required, but giving a wedding vendor a tip is a great way to show your appreciation for them and their work.
As far as how much you should tip a wedding DJ, we feel like 10-15% is a good amount to give when you provide a tip to them.
Inviting guests up during the parents' dances stacks the deck
Three minutes of father/daughter dancing can seem like an eternity. A pro DJ move is to ask the bride's permission to invite others onto the dance floor toward the end of the song. It cuts the tension, but more importantly gives the DJ a more crowded dance floor with which to get the action started.
And there you have it, the basics of hiring a good DJ for your wedding and our recommended picks here in the Roanoke Valley.