Steve Spinelli did our wedding recently. (I was the groom.) Though he has a good stage presence and he played good music, I definitely would not hire him again.
He did an extremely poor job of preparing for my wedding and it seems like he did not take note of or incorporate most details that we requested. Furthermore, he does not like to use email so if you send him requests or changes through email, they probably won't be incorporated. Let me explain.
We notified Steve in mid-April that we were going to hire him for our October wedding, which was 6 months away at the time. We had met with him in person, he told us about other weddings he had done and he seemed like a nice enough guy. At the meeting, he gave us a packet and a contract to fill out. The contract states the date, time and location of the event and the total fee. The packet contains more detailed information about the specifics of the event: names of the parents, names of the bridesmaids/groomsmen, how you would like to be introduced, songs to be played/not played and other special instructions and announcements. The packet is a great idea because it organizes everything and gives the dj the information that he needs throughout the night. But Steve either forgot or didn't write down the stuff we went over in the packet and definitely did not write down or prepare for our changes along the way.
We started by filling out the contract and sending that along with a deposit check through the mail in April. At the time, we thought the reception would be from 6pm to 11pm so that's what we put in the contract. Steve assured us that he could accommodate changes and that we should just put down a guess as to the hours. Keep in mind, this is 6 months before the reception - who is going to know the exact details? Of course there will be changes. But on our wedding day, Steve didn't show up until 5:20pm (he was supposed to be there at 4pm) and he didn't answer his phone when we tried calling him during that hour and a half. He had an incredulous look on his face when I told him how late he was and his response was, ""it said 6pm on the contract and that's what I go by"". Never mind the fact that we provided him an extremely detailed timeline of events and then we spoke on the phone to go over that exact timeline and what we filled out in the packet! He arrived at the reception 10 minutes before it was supposed to start. Our friends asked if there was anything they could do to help and he rudely replied, ""get out of the way"". As if it was their fault that he was late!
So the contract and deposit check were sent out in April. We didn't send the info packet back until September (1 month before the reception). I filled it out and scanned it to a PDF document. I then emailed the PDF document along with a timeline of events (in 15 minute increments) for our reception. In the packet, I listed the start time as 4:30 pm and in the timeline of events, it said that dj setup was at 4pm. But Steve went by the contract that was filled out in April and showed up at 5:20pm, completely oblivious to what was listed in the info packet and the timeline in the email. After I sent the email, Steve and I spoke on the phone for at least an hour going over the details, line by line, so I know he received the email. We went over everything, including songs and name pronunciations, over the phone. A couple days before the event, I sent Steve another email with a request to announce some birthdays at the reception and I even copied and pasted the timeline into this message so that he'd have it again. (continued - contact me for the rest of the review)
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