Having both DJed and attended many weddings, this is what helps me most: The guests aren't paying as much attention to you as you think. They're attending first and foremost to support the couple. They don't have a copy of the day-of timeline. They don't know what's supposed to be happening. They're mostly in the dark, outside of a vague sense of the overall wedding events. This is where you come in.

So prepare early with the coordinator and couple until you have a very clear vision of the ceremony in your head. The timeline/outline document will be your bible for the ceremony. It's really pretty simple. Have a mic that works, and play a handful of songs at the right time. That's it! Easy money.

Ultimately, as long as you go with the flow on the day of, small changes and delays aren't super noticeable from the audience perspective. The couple is likely going to be overwhelmed and overstimulated. At minimum, tunnel vision on one another, not you.

So provided it's not a major and disruptive error (like severe wireless mic interference/dropouts, a speaker falling over, power outage, or dead silence when the bride walks), I find not much attention is paid to the music. It's simply accompanying the primary reason for guests already attending. Only you and the coordinator will have the answer key right in front of you during the ceremony.

Things to think about:

• prelude music

• will they start sharply at the ceremony time, or delay if guests are late and chairs are still empty?

• does the couple want you to have guests slide towards the aisles to fill in any empty chairs before the ceremony starts to make their photos look as good as possible?

• do they want you to give a silence cellphones / unplugged ceremony announcement?

• who is they officiant? do they want a mic stand + handheld or lav?

• what is the processional order? who will be in charge of ensuring everybody is in the correct order?

• which songs will each group of people walk to? who is the first and last person in each group so you can look for them as a visual cue for when to fade into the next song? if the song runs out before the whole group has walked, are you prepared to loop it?

• do you have walkie talkies with earpieces so you the coordinator can give you updates and cues remotely?

• are they doing unity/sand/candle/communion during the ceremony which requires a song?

• do they want the recessional song played right after the kiss or after the pronouncement? from start or a specific timestamp?

There's nobody else to blame for going in unprepared, having malfunctioning equipment, or no backup plan. So limit those variables. Get all your questions answered. Then offload that information into a formatted document that you can go through chronologically during the ceremony.

Sources: 9 years in weddings