DJ Doremixx Review - May 8, 2010 Wedding

In May of 2009, my FI and I met Ivan Gomez at a Starbucks in Cancun, Mexico. We agreed Ivan would use a playlist created by me and my FI. We made a deposit and had our WC coordinate additional services (lighting). Our WC did not receive quick responses from him during the weeks leading up to the wedding but we were not too worried. On the day of the wedding, instead of arriving at the reception site at noon, he appeared 6 hours later. This gave us ZERO time to coordinate last minute details like granting him access to our playlist (playlist was on our Mac). Good thing the wait staff were amusing our guests with tequila shooters because our 40 guests did not seem to mind Ivan spinning Miley Cyrus. My FI and I nearly asked Ivan to pack up his gear and leave. Finally, he was able to access our music and cut off our First Dance Song in half.

 

My FI and I agreed that our playlist was as important as our wedding attire. We are serious music fans and so are our friends and family. I was almost the only person on the dance floor during the after-dinner segment of the reception.

 

In retrospect, I would have rented speakers and asked our good friend Chris to DJ our wedding (he DJ'ed our rehearsal dinner).

 

Marie

Dear Marie,

I am really sorry if you don´t liked our service and I want to apologize by this way.

I really apreciate your comments good or bad this will make us learn and do our best to offer the best service as we can.


I just want to clarify,

WC: first during the meeting with your WC at Mil Amores,on past November 16th, 2009, after our meeting in cancun, I had to drive from cancun to Tulum about 1:40 minutes, I arrived to the hotel and she was not there because she went to other place knowing that we had an appoinment, so she never gave me any information about your wedding reception

There were a lot of issues since you get your WC as miscomunication, I sent her a lot of e-mails asking for detailed information, and never receive an answer from her, also she never gave you our Timeline form with the music form, we always sent this form and ask this information because is really important, I asked her about the schedule for the reception and she doesn´t knew anything she just told me that she will inform me when you will be arriving and when you will be doing your first dance.

Music: As I never receive your playlist I was playing my own music according to the music that your husband gave me in the iPod, and your guest were dancing, unfortunately we can mix the music from an iPod, we have to copy the music from the iPod to the computer, but your music was protected.

About the first dance, that was because the power generator that she rented, was not enough for all the equipment that we took. (we take all the extra lights for palm trees, wash light for walls, including the equipment from our package etc.. and when you was on your first dance the power generator get stopped.

Delay:
I accept my delay during the wedding day, but as I explained her, one of our tire burst, and we had to drive slowly to the next town, take down all the equipment from our truck, we changed the tire, take up again the complete equipment and then drive to the hotel, about these issues, we never know so that´s why we always go out early to the hotel.

Your WC told me that you needed us ready at 6:00 pm and we were ready on time.

I asked her why there was not organization, and she told me that your wedding was her first wedding as WC.

This is the first bad review that we get and I hope the last one, also I know that this forum can take us up or down but I want to clarify.

Best,

As the coordinator of the coordinator of the wedding, I'd like to add some clarifying points.

 

DJ Doremixx mixes music well. I've worked in dance clubs and have heard my share of "DJ Train Wrecks", and Ivan is not one. The beats and sounds flow well together. He has a lot of equipment and can offer couples lighting, dance floors, glow sticks.

 

Marie's wedding was complicated by a few things:

It is in Tulum - not Cancun, this requires 1 3/4 hour of driving time

it requires the use of generators, the hotels are not on city power

it was at a venue where Ivan was not familiar with the property

 

Marie had a specific set of music they wanted played

 

I think that Ivan will work out perfectly if he knows the venue, is in Cancun, and the couple does not have strong music preferences.

 

I had attempted to meet Ivan in November. I was at the hotel with a second client who was also waiting to meet Ivan. Ivan was two hours late. Unfortunately, I couldn't wait for him because the bride and I had another appointment with another vendor. However the groom (of the second couple) walked Ivan through the hotel and the layout for Marie's wedding. I trust that the groom did this. He's a wedding photographer and is an expert in weddings and lighting.

 

The groom and I both tried to e-mail Ivan. Neither of us received a response. When I called him weeks before the wedding he was very short, and told me that he had not received our e-mail but he would look for it and reply to me. He didn't want to discuss any of the details. Apparently he found it because he had the e-mail at the wedding.

 

Unfortunately, Ivan was supposed to arrive at noon on the day of the wedding in order to work out all of the additional logistics. I called him at 1:00 and he had not yet left Cancun. When I called at 1:30 he had left Cancun. When I called at 3:30 he had a flat tire. He arrived at 5:00. He laid out his equipment, and had left cables all over the beach. My assistant had to bury the cables because Ivan had no intention of doing this.

 

Ivan had some initial problems setting up the sound and lighting system. He tried to say that it was due to the generator not being large enough, but in the end he got it all to work without any changes to the generator.

 

Ivan did not have time to test his sound system before the wedding party arrived at the wedding party. Because of this he was attempting to test while the guitarist was playing. I had to ask him to change the way that he was testing so that it would not disturb the party. He was able to do so.

 

At another point in the wedding he could not access the couple's play list. He didn't ask for help. Instead he waited for me to approach him, and once I knew what the problem was, I was able to correct it.

 

Just like the tire and the generator, Ivan always has an excuse. Bottom line - Ivan is a good DJ. He's not a problem solver. If you want something specific make sure that you hire a coordinator to work closely with him so that all the kinks get worked out. It's probably better to have a coordinator in Cancun that can physically chase him down and speak to him in person.

 

Regarding Ivan's personal attack and the comment that he had asked why there wasn't any organization and I had replied that this was my first wedding. Maybe there was a translation issue because we were speaking in english, which is not Ivan's native language. The actual conversation was,

Ivan: "How many wedding have you coordinated?"

Me: "This is my first for someone other than a close friend or family member."

This isn't a secret or an excuse. Ivan requires more management time than I gave him.

 

He needs someone to pick him up and deliver him at the venue. He needs someone to show him where to set up the lights and the DJ booth. He needs someone to help him test the setup. He needs someone to clean up after his set up. He needs someone to stop by if music is played that shouldn't be. He is very responsive to directions, and will do anything asked if it requires immediate action. I didn't give him that and that is probably the source of the problem.

I guess this review also explains perfectly why there are some price differences in the DJ and all the services that are provided for weddings....service, liability and quality are always important factors that most of the time are not taken in consideration.

Ivan,

I understand that bad reviews will hurt your business that is not our intent here; our intent is to inform other couples about our experience so they can be aware of the fact that maybe you’re not the best DJ for Tulum. You did not ruin our wedding everyone still had fun. You mixed your dance music well but you dropped the ball on almost every other front. You were not responsive to emails for months prior to the wedding; you showed up 5 hours later than you said you would (due to a flat tire that took hours to change apparently). You were well aware that we would be providing our own music through conversations/emails with me and our WC. When an issue with the playlist came up instead of informing someone about the issue (which by the way would have been easily solved had you showed up even 4 hours late) you went on playing music that made my ears hurt. And as for the timeline we (WC and I) discussed this with you when you showed up 30 minutes before the wedding… it was very simple everything was divided into playlists in iTunes. The order was not important except that we had an entry song which we (WC and I) showed to you and we even queued it up (as it was going to be the first song you played) and then we had a first dance. Mercifully you didn’t completely botch those two songs. Like I said in the end everyone had fun but not really thanks to you. So you got your first bad review you learn from it however, you took your unprofessionalism a step further when you attempted to place blame on our WC. She was extremely responsive with us and we spoke on an almost weekly basis. We were very aware of what was going on with you and your lack of communication and should not have been surprised at what happened. In our opinion the wedding was very well organized overall almost everything was perfect. This was her first wedding but the only thing that went wrong was you… so take some responsibility.

The groom