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Planning a wedding takes a lot of work, and you need to coordinate with vendors well ahead of time.
What would you do if you had booked your DJ well in advance, but the day before your wedding, he called to say he couldn’t come because he has active warrants in your state (which he has long known about)?
That is what happened to the couple in this story, so after dismissing some crazy suggestions from the DJ, they had to scramble to find someone new.
I would be so upset about this situation, especially since it should have never happened. Read through the full story below and see what you think should happen.
Our vendor couldn’t enter our state due to felony charges
My now husband and I got married on September 6. It was a beautiful ceremony and one of the best days of my life, but there was one little snag of hiring a bad DJ.
It is great to hire someone whom you know will do a good job.
We hired a DJ who we met in 2022 at my now BIL’s wedding. He did a great job, was communicative, showed up on time, followed their requests and was overall a great vendor for them to work with.
It was almost a no-brainer that my now-husband and I would hire the same DJ, as his rates were good and we had seen his job performance before and he had a good reference. We hired him and paid in full nine months in advance.
No issues so far.
Two weeks before the wedding he is texting my now husband, confirming all the details. He asks about lighting configurations, outlets at the venue, parking for his trailer. He’s acting normal and my now husband and I think everything is fine, we have no reason to believe otherwise.
The day before our wedding we’re confirming final details, calling people to make sure they know where to go and what to do, and making all our final contacts to our vendors.
What is happening?
My husband gets a text at nine in the morning, the DAY BEFORE OUR WEDDING, that our DJ is afraid to come to our state due to “threats made against his person.”
The DJ sends a long text telling my husband about his worries about his health and safety, the unfairness of the situation, and how a refund would be coming if we’d like.
This is certainly not something he just found out about.
Now, it’s a little over 24 hours before we walk down the aisle, so we both freak out. My husband calls the DJ and he admits that instead of the mafia being after him (which was our initial thoughts) he’s wanted on felony charges in our state and has an active arrest warrant.
He assures us they are nonviolent crimes and we tell him we’ll have to call him back.
While the charges aren’t dangerous, the fact that he has a warrant out for his arrest really is.
So, we look him up in our state’s open records, and we find that it is mostly petty charges. Driving without insurance multiple times since 2023, unpaid speeding tickets.
Then comes the bigger charge: possession of the devil’s lettuce. Not a lot was found in his car based on the level of misdemeanor, but then he takes it a step further and two months before our wedding decides to JUMP HIS BAIL AND FLEE THE STATE.
The DJ is way out of line for not telling this couple well ahead of time. Why did he even accept the job?
He’s now just taken a misdemeanor to a felony by crossing state lines, and he now has an active arrest warrant out for him.
We’re both very upset at this point. This DJ knows the industry, knows how hard it is to find a replacement short-term, and he’s known for months that he is not able to enter our state legally.
Do you really want to risk having the police bust into your wedding reception?
Had he told us earlier, we could have prepared better. These are the consequences of his own actions, warrants don’t just pop up out of nowhere. It’s not like someone forced him to jump his bail or forced him to not tell us earlier than nine in the morning the day before we get married.
We call him back and his first solution is this: his sister will drive him and his equipment over the state line in the late afternoon on Friday so he can perform the work laid out in the contract.
These are not serious options.
And he can’t check into a hotel due to his warrant so he’ll just sleep in the woods behind our venue. Then the next morning he’ll wake up and do the whole DJ thing. He also offers that he’d be more than happy to stay with us at our home.
Since he doesn’t have a valid license and is running from the law, he can’t drive himself home, so he plans on just having my now husband just bring him back over the state line, essentially the crime of aiding and abetting.
Great, hopefully they have someone who can step in last minute.
He assures us this is a great plan, and the pressure is building on our end. It is now noon the day before our wedding and we start making frantic calls to family and friends to see who might have equipment or knowledge about how to run said equipment.
My husband calls his best friend since middle school, and he has a friend who has the full DJ setup with speakers and lights.
Thank God this all worked out in the end.
My husband was worried that the original DJ wouldn’t get our taste in music right, so he’s already built the perfect playlist for our wedding, so it’s essentially just plug and play from this point forward.
In the end, the day was saved by having great friends, the power of friendship wins again!
I would be shocked if they ever get their money.
We’ll be getting our refund around Christmas, but if we don’t then we’re just out the money. Obviously the DJ doesn’t show up for court, so no point in small claims court.
We had the suggestion made to call him to our state and have him arrested by local law enforcement, but we decided against it as that’s not the kind of entertainment we want at our wedding.
At least they have a good sense of humor about the whole thing.
We had a song called “degenerates” on our wedding playlist, and we asked our new and improved DJ with no active warrants to make a quick announcement that this song was dedicated to our old DJ.
This really could have been a huge problem, and it is all because the DJ didn’t talk to them ahead of time. I can’t even believe that the DJ thought his suggestions were valid.
Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this story.
Of course the guy thought it was a great idea.
This commenter says they should get their money back immediately.
I can’t believe he even suggested this.
Nah, they don’t want their money back.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who got back at slacking coworkers with fresh-baked treats.
This commenter also says they should sue in small claims court.
This DJ was way out of line, but at least things worked out for the happy couple in the end. I do agree with the commenters, though. They should definitely sue him in small claims court if he doesn’t give a refund.
It is crazy that the DJ did this to them, but he clearly doesn’t make good choices in life.