Those five words almost always evoke the same response when heard by a wedding professional: your hand hits your forehead and you shake your head. It’s a common hurdle almost all wedding professionals will encounter at some point in your life. You try to sell them on the benefits of using your multi award winning, multi-banquet hall recommended, a thousands-times-over reviewed company…but the couple decides to use a family friend instead. Partly due to familiarity I’m sure, but mostly to save money. But is that really the best reason to use them? Don’t get me wrong, I had friends serve as almost all of my wedding vendors, but they were all also wedding professionals. That was their job. So if your family friend does what they are hired to do for your wedding as a full time gig and not just something fun on the side for extra money, then that’s awesome. But I used to work with a girl, before I started at Elite, and one of her closest friends was a club Dj and was quite good at what he did. So she hired him for her wedding since he was a family friend. But DJing a wedding and DJing a club are two very different animals. You might be able to stick a wedding DJ in a club and have varied levels of success, but stick a club DJ in a wedding and it’s bound to not go well. And for her it didn’t. I understand the appeal of wanting to hire a family friend who DJs or photographs on the side in order to save money and because you know them…but do they know weddings? Wouldn’t you be better served hiring a professional, spending a little a more money to have peace of mind and allow your friend to just enjoy the night??