How Much To Tip DJ At Wedding
Figuring out how much to tip wedding pros can be tricky, but tipping wedding vendors is an important way to show your appreciation for their hard work. To avoid scrambling on the day of, we recommend creating a list of who you tip at your wedding and organizing the cash tips into envelopes with names labeled on each well in advance of your big day. While it’s extra nice if you are able to hand the tips to your vendors on your wedding day, it might not be possible (you’re going to be super-busy!). Instead, have your wedding planner or a member of your wedding party be responsible for handing out the tips, which should be handed out after the service is rendered. Another great way to thank your vendors? Write them a great review, ask them for their links where they would like it posted.
Your wedding DJ not only plays music, but often serves as the emcee for the evening—a big role to be sure. When deciding how much you’re tipping this wedding vendor, the rule of thumb is that he or she should receive 10 to 20 percent of the total contract.
We don’t require you to tip your wedding DJ, because we believe tipping should be 100% up to the client. If the client wants to tip us/our DJ, great! If they don’t, that’s totally okay, too! We’re happy to get a “thank you,” and always very happy to get a great, 5-star review from happy clients!
Our DJ Tip Policy
We pay our DJs a great pay rate to keep them happy and we offer our own bonus programs and incentives. None of which rely on the client to pay for. We’re certainly not bashing anyone who does include mandatory tipping. We’re just choosing to do things differently.
The main reason is that tipping should always be optional, in our opinion. If you’re less than happy with the service, being forced to tip your wedding DJ for a service that you were unhappy with just doesn’t seem fair.
Our best advice is to read the contracts, thoroughly, and be sure to find out about tipping if it isn’t in the contract. If you are required to tip your wedding DJ, definitely ask about what happens if you’re not 100% happy with the service? Are you still required to tip for bad service? Hopefully not!
When to Tip Your Wedding DJ?
The bottom line is this: If you’re 100% happy with your service and feel a tip would be a great idea (if it’s not mandatory in the vendor contract) a 10% – 20% tip would certainly be appreciated by your wedding DJ! Many times, clients will simply give a $50 – $150 tip to the wedding DJ and this is more than acceptable.
We know that some wedding DJ companies can charge upwards of $2000 – $4000, which means $200 – $400 tip (for 10%) and this is a lot! We get it. Do you have to tip even 10% – 20% of the bill? No, you do not (unless it’s in the contract, of course).
How Much Do You Tip?
As stated above, $50 – $150 is the average tip we’ve seen. You can tip your wedding DJ more, or even less if you’d like. Remember, wedding DJs get paid a decent salary and are not paid $2.14 like some waitstaff may be paid at a restaurant. If your wedding DJ is not getting paid what they want to be paid and he/she expects a tip, that’s a problem for the DJ company to solve, not you.
There are not any DJs making minimum wage or less, for their work, so don’t worry if you don’t have the budget to tip 10% – 20% of the total bill. Again, your DJ will be happy with any tip that you do leave, because, at the end of the day, wedding DJs want their clients to be happy (at least they should want this).
Other Tipping Options
If you decide you cannot tip your wedding DJ, another option, and a nice gesture is to leave a 5-star review! This will make both the company and the DJ happy! Bonus: it’s FREE to leave a great, honest review. A happy client that simply says “thank you for doing a great job” is always appreciated, with or without a tip!
