Wedding DJ Questionnaire: Must-Plays and Timeline Built With AI

A wedding DJ questionnaire should ask for the day's timings and venue limits, the key moments (entrances, speeches, first dance, cake), must-play, play-if-possible and never-play songs, MC details such as name pronunciations, and who to contact on the day. Paste the answers into an AI assistant to draft a run sheet, then have the couple approve it.

Blank questionnaires are easy to find. What they do not do is turn a pile of answers into a plan, and the answers rarely agree with each other: speeches straight after a dinner that finishes at 20:00, a first dance "at about eight", a last song at 23:45 and a venue music curfew at 23:30. AI is good at laying every answer on one timeline so the clashes show up on a screen instead of on the night, and the couple's approval of the final sheet is what makes it safe to follow.

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Thirty questions in five sections, and why each is asked

Thirty is enough to build a full evening without exhausting the couple. Each question below earns its place by changing something you do on the day.

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The day's shape

• Venue and sound contact. The venue's name and the person who handles sound and access. Curfews and limiters are set by the venue, and the couple may never have been told them.
• Load-in. Earliest arrival, where to park, stairs or a lift. It decides your arrival time and whether you need a helper.
• Ceremony. Place, start time, the music for the processional, the signing and the recessional, and who cues you. This is the one block you cannot restart.
• Drinks and dinner. Start times, whether you play background music and who announces dinner.
• Speeches. Who speaks, in what order, roughly how long each and where they fall in the meal. Five speakers at five minutes each is 25 minutes; at twelve minutes each it is an hour.
• Evening. When evening guests arrive, when the cake is cut, when the first dance happens, the last song and the finish time.
• Venue limits. Music curfew, noise limiter, power and whether outside speakers are allowed.

The key moments

• Entrance. Whether they want one, the song, and who is announced in what order.
• First dance. The song, whether to cut it short, and whether others join part-way through.
• Other dances. Parents, wedding party or an anniversary dance, each with a song.
• Last dance. The song, and whether it is for everyone or the couple alone.
• Anything else. Games, cultural ceremonies, a surprise performance, and who runs each one.

The music

• Genres and decades. The ones that fill the floor and the ones to avoid.
• Must-plays. A limit you set (say 12), each with the artist and the version if that matters.
• Play if possible. Songs they would love to hear if the floor is right.
• Never play. Any song at all, with no reasons required.
• Explicit lyrics. Clean edits throughout, clean before a set time, or no concern.
• Requests. Accept, accept after approval, or decline, and who may approve them.
• Playlist link. Optional, and treated as a guide to taste rather than instructions.
• Live performers. Any singer, band or instrumentalist, and what they need from your sound system.

The MC and the people

• How much talking. Minimal, standard or lively, with a prompt such as "should I announce each course?".
• Names and pronunciations. How each person should be introduced, and how their name sounds. Never guess.
• Not to mention. People or topics to avoid, kept private to you and the couple.
• Day-of contact. A name and number, usually a planner or a trusted friend rather than the couple.
• Sound needs. Guests with hearing aids, elderly guests, babies, and any area that needs to stay quiet.
• Languages. Announcements or music in more than one language.

Sign-off

• Cues for other suppliers. Moments the photographer or videographer wants you to flag, such as the start of the first dance. The wedding photographer timeline tutorial shows what they build from.
• Deadline. The date the form must be complete.
• Anything else. An open box; the best answers often land here.
• Approval. A tick to confirm they understand the freeze date and who may change things afterwards.

Building the form: tool, length and what to make compulsory

Google Forms is free and sends answers into a sheet. It has date and time question types, which matter more than they sound: "around seven-ish" cannot be added up, and a time field can. Google Forms can only branch on a multiple-choice or dropdown answer, so put each optional block behind a yes/no dropdown such as "Is there a ceremony music cue?" and send couples to the follow-up questions only when they pick yes. On Jotform, the free Starter tier covers 5 forms and 100 submissions a month, enough for a few weddings a month; its paid tiers begin at $39 a month, dropping to $34 a month on an annual plan. The DJ booking software comparison covers tools that bundle forms with contracts and song-request pages.

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Split the form into five pages that match the sections above, so nobody faces a wall of thirty boxes. Make compulsory only what the timeline cannot be built without: ceremony time, dinner time, first dance, last song, venue curfew and the day-of contact. Everything else can be skipped and chased later. Ask for song titles as "title and artist" in short answers, and keep the full song lists in a shared sheet if the couple prefer.

When the answers do not come in: a chase ladder

Some couples finish the form in one evening; others open it twice and leave it. Plan for both with a short ladder. Send the form when the booking is confirmed, with the deadline stated in the email. A week before the deadline, send a reminder that names only the three questions you cannot proceed without, usually the ceremony time, the dinner time and the day-of contact. At the deadline, stop asking and start drafting: build the run sheet from what you have, mark every gap as ASSUMED or ASK, and send that. Couples reply to a draft faster than to a form, because correcting a document takes less effort than facing a blank box. If the ceremony and dinner times are still missing three weeks out, phone the planner or the named day-of contact, who will know them.

The assistant can write the reminders from the same data. Paste the answers so far and ask for a friendly message under 80 words that names the three most important missing items and the deadline, then read it before it goes. The draft is also where you deal with a common non-answer such as "whatever the venue normally does" for dinner timings. Ask the venue directly and enter the time as ASSUMED, so the couple confirm a number instead of inventing one.

A filled-in set of answers, conflicts included

The block below is what a form's answers might look like for an imaginary couple, with the venue and names left as placeholders. Three of the answers cannot all be true at once, and the exercise is to see whether the assistant spots which.

Venue: [venue name]; sound and access contact: the event manager
Load-in: from 13:00; park at the rear; two flights of stairs, no lift
Ceremony: 15:00, garden room, about 40 minutes; 1 song to walk in, 2 during the signing, 1 to walk out; the officiant will nod to cue the DJ
Drinks reception: 15:45 to 18:15, quiet acoustic background, no dancing
Dinner: doors 18:15, guests seated by 18:30, three courses, finishes about 20:00; grand entrance into dinner with a song
Speeches: straight after dinner, five speakers, about 5 minutes each, handheld mic
Evening guests arrive: 20:00
Cake cutting: after the speeches, with a song
First dance: about 20:00, then open the floor
Last song: 23:45
Venue music curfew: 23:30; a noise limiter is fitted
Genres: 80s, 90s pop, soul, a little indie; no heavy dance music
Must-plays: 12 songs (list attached)
Never play: 6 songs (list attached), and nothing with swearing before 22:00
Requests: no requests from guests, we have picked everything
MC: minimal; only the entrance, dinner, speeches, cake and last song
Names: [Name 1] sounds like "[phonetic]", [Name 2] sounds like "[phonetic]"
Do not mention: [a private family matter]
Day-of contact: the planner, [number]
Hearing: two guests use hearing aids, so keep speech clear
Later note from the best man: "Can the DJ take a few requests for the late set?"

The prompt, the draft and four things wrong with it

Most of the quality comes from the rules written into the prompt, and three carry the weight: use only the times given, never invent a duration, and list conflicts instead of resolving them quietly.

You are helping a wedding DJ turn a client questionnaire into a run sheet. Use only the answers below. Rules:
1. Build a table: start time, end time, duration in minutes, block, music or cue, notes.
2. Use only times and durations the couple or venue gave. Where a duration was not given, write "ASK" and do not invent one.
3. Do not fix conflicts silently. After the table, list every conflict between answers (for example a finish time after the venue curfew, two blocks at the same time, or an event placed before the guests have arrived) and the question I should send the couple.
4. Do not add events, songs or announcements that are not in the answers.

Answers:
[paste the form responses]

Here is an illustrative draft, typical of what comes back when the rules are looser than these.

Under the table it wrote "Conflicts: none found." Four things are wrong, and the first two are the ones a careless read passes over.

• An invented duration. The couple said about five minutes per speech, so five speakers take 25 minutes, plus changeovers say 30. The draft made it 12 minutes each, a full hour.
• A quietly moved first dance. The couple said about 20:00. The draft's hour of speeches and ten minutes of cake pushed it to 21:10 without a flag, so evening guests who arrived at 20:00 have waited over an hour. The right line is a question to the couple: the first dance now falls at 20:40, is that fine?
• A finish after the curfew. The last song at 23:45 is 15 minutes past the venue's 23:30 music curfew. This one belongs in the conflicts list, with a suggested last song at 23:25.
• A requests contradiction. The couple said no requests; the best man's note asked for some. Only the couple can decide, so it becomes a question, not a guess.

The corrected evening reads: speeches 20:00-20:30, cake 20:30-20:40, first dance 20:40-20:45, open dancing 20:45-23:25 (160 minutes), music off at 23:30. Notice what the 160 minutes means for the must-play list. At about 3.5 minutes a song that is roughly 45 songs, and 12 must-plays occupy 42 minutes, just over a quarter of the floor time. That is the sum behind the limit of 12 in the form.

Five checks before a run sheet leaves your hands

1. Add the times. Assistants slip on arithmetic. Put start times and durations in a sheet and check that each block starts exactly when the one before it ends: =B2+TIME(0,C2,0) adds the minutes in C2 to the start time in B2, giving the next start. The Google Sheets prompts tutorial shows more ways to have AI help inside a sheet.
2. Read the venue's limits against it. Curfew, limiter, load-in and load-out times, and any fixed catering times, from the venue's own event sheet rather than the couple's memory.
3. Look for anything invented. Durations, songs, announcements, a bouquet toss nobody mentioned.
4. Check every song. Match each must-play, play-if-possible and never-play entry to the couple's own list, including artist and version. Assistants mix up covers and original recordings and sometimes name tracks that do not exist.
5. Find answers that contradict each other. If the couple said two different things, do not pick one. Ask.

The MC sheet: one page to read at the decks

An MC sheet is the run sheet cut down to what you say. For each announcement it needs the cue, the words, the names with their pronunciations and anything to avoid. Give the assistant the corrected run sheet and the MC answers, and be strict about what it may not make up.

Turn the approved run sheet and the MC answers into a one-page MC sheet: a table with time, cue, what I say, names with pronunciation, and avoid. Keep to the style the couple chose (minimal). Do not invent jokes, compliments, facts about people or pronunciations; where a pronunciation was not given, write [ASK]. Keep every announcement under 25 words.

An illustrative extract of what comes back, with the placeholders left in:

Two fixes are usual. The assistant often adds a warm-up line the couple never asked for ("let's get this party started") when they chose minimal MC work, so delete it. And "Do not mention" items must stay on your private sheet only, never printed on a version the couple or other suppliers see. For scripts and announcements in a livelier style, the DJ MC script prompts tutorial has ready prompts.

Edge cases: two venues, outdoor ceremonies and evening-only gigs

Two venues. When the ceremony and the party are in different places, add the address of each, who holds the keys at the second venue and when the room is free for set-up. Then add a travel block to the run sheet: pack down, drive, set up, sound check. Assistants tend to leave it out, and you notice only when you are loading speakers into the car as the ceremony ends. Check the drive in a mapping service with the departure time set to the right time of day; Google Maps lets you set Depart at for one destination at a time, and the drive at 17:00 can differ a lot from the drive at 11:00. Add a 15-minute cushion for guests to arrive.

Outdoor ceremonies. Ask where the ceremony moves if the weather turns, who decides and by what time, and whether there is power at the outdoor site or you need a battery speaker. A weather decision at 12:00 and a set-up that takes 90 minutes belong on the same page before the day, not on the day.

A ceremony that starts late. Ask who tells you the new time and how. Build the run sheet with the buffer already in it: 15 minutes between the end of the ceremony and the start of drinks gives a late start somewhere to go without moving dinner.

Evening-only bookings. A DJ booked from 19:30 does not need the ceremony or drinks questions. Trim the form to twelve: venue and sound contact; load-in and when the room is free; evening start time; speeches and cake times if they fall in your hours; first dance; last song and curfew; must-plays and never-plays; requests policy; MC style; names and pronunciations; day-of contact; approval. The prompt stays the same, because its rules do not change with the length of the evening.

Getting the couple's approval in writing

Send the couple a client-facing version of the run sheet: times, blocks and songs, without your gear notes or private "do not mention" items. Number it and state what happens next.

Hi [first name], here is version 2 of your evening run sheet. Please read it through and reply by [date] with "approved" or your changes. Three questions need your answer: is a first dance at 20:40 fine, can the last song be at 23:25 because the venue's music curfew is 23:30, and do you want any guest requests on the night? After [freeze date] changes go through [day-of contact] in writing, and I will send the final version then. [your name]

Three habits keep this safe. Head every sheet with its version number and date, so nobody works from an old one. Keep every reply in one email thread, so approvals are findable. And agree the freeze date in the contract, along with what late changes cost; the DJ contract tutorial covers the overtime and change clauses. On the day, take changes only from the named contact.

Must-plays, maybes and nevers: sorting the song lists

Lists arrive as screenshots, notes on a phone and streaming links. Ask for titles and artists as text, and paste those into the assistant, because a link may not open for it and you should not rely on it reading one. Then ask it to do the sorting that is slow by hand: remove duplicates, group songs by era and energy, mark any entry that may have explicit lyrics, and list entries where title and artist might not match so you can check them.

Here is a small before and after. The note as it arrived from a couple:

Must: [Title 1] - [Artist 1]; [Title 2] (the live one); [Title 3] [Artist 3], radio edit please; [Title 1] again, it's our song!; [Title 4], not sure who sings it

And the sorted result, which is illustrative:

Three things happened that you want: the duplicate was merged, the missing artist was left blank rather than guessed, and the live version stayed a requirement. The job that remains is yours: find the exact recording of each song in your library and note which version you will play.

Ask it to sort, not to add. If you ask for "ten more songs like these", it may name tracks that do not exist or give the wrong version of real ones. If you do want ideas, treat each as a lead and check it in your own library before it goes on any list. Keep the three lists separate in your file: must-plays are promises, play-if-possible songs are options, and never-plays are rules. Mixing them is how a never-play song ends up in a playlist.

Personal details in the answers, and which ones AI should see

A questionnaire holds personal details: names, family situations, phone numbers and sometimes health information such as hearing needs. The assistant does not need most of it. Use first names or labels like Partner A, leave out phone numbers and email addresses, and keep the "do not mention" notes to yourself until you write that private sheet. On a personal AI account, find the privacy option that lets your chats train the provider's models, and turn it off before you paste a couple's answers. Team and business plans usually leave your content out of training from the start, though the wording on those pages moves around, so read the current privacy page for your plan once rather than assuming. After the wedding, delete the answers you no longer need.

Wedding DJ questionnaire: what owners ask

How far ahead should I send the questionnaire?

Send it when the booking is confirmed, ask for a first pass about eight weeks before the date and final answers about three weeks before, and freeze the run sheet around ten days out. Treat those as starting points and adjust to your calendar. A short chase message at each milestone is usually enough to bring late answers in.

How many must-play songs is too many?

Count the minutes. If an average song runs about 3.5 minutes, twelve must-plays take 42 minutes, which is over a quarter of a 160-minute dance floor. Past that, there is little room to read the crowd. Ask couples to sort songs into must-play, would love and ideas, and set the must-play limit yourself.

Should a questionnaire ask for a full playlist?

Ask for a short must-play list and a never-play list, plus an optional link to an inspiration playlist. A 200-song playlist is unusable as instructions, but it is a good guide to taste, so treat it that way and tell the couple that is what you are doing.

Can AI choose the music for me?

It can sort and group songs the couple has already named, and it can suggest ideas, but it can also invent tracks or mix up versions and artists. Check every suggestion in your own library before it goes on a list. Reading the room on the night stays your job.

What if the couple change things after approving the run sheet?

Agree a freeze date in advance and put a version number on every sheet. After the freeze, changes go through one named contact, such as the planner, in writing. Your contract can say what late changes cost. On the day itself, take changes only from that contact, not from every guest who wants a different song.

Further reads

• AI for DJ Mixing: Plan Sets and Transitions for Event DJs — Plan the music itself once the run sheet is fixed.
• How Much to Charge as a DJ: Wedding, Party and Corporate Packages — Price the planning work and the evening properly.
• A Wedding Planner's AI Workflow From Enquiry to Final Timeline — See how the planner's final timeline is put together.
• Event Planner Intake Form: Capture Every Detail Before You Quote — A similar intake form, aimed at event planners.
• ChatGPT for DJs: A Month of Social Posts, Reviews and Venue Outreach — Use AI for posts, reviews and venue outreach.
• DJ Event Checklist: Gear, Timeline and Backup Plan Built With AI — The gear, timing and backup checklist that sits beside the run sheet.
• Wedding Planner Client Questionnaire: Answers to a Brief With AI — The planner's side: a client questionnaire summarised into a brief.
• Best AI for DJ Drops: Custom Voice Tags for Event DJs — How an event DJ makes custom voice tags and client name drops with AI, from script to sampler pad, with the licence and consent checks to pass first.
• ChatGPT Prompts for Wedding Photographers: Timelines, Groups, Albums — Eight copy-ready prompts for the planning side of a wedding: timeline, family groups, album spreads, captions and proof-round replies, with sample outputs.
• ChatGPT Prompts for Wedding Planners: Vendor Emails, FAQs, Thank-Yous — Nine prompts in three chains: vendor briefs and emails, guest FAQs that stay inside your fact sheet, and thank-you notes that name one real thing.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: Google Forms help and Jotform pricing pages (checked October 2026).