Los Angeles Wedding DJ Company Celebrates 5th Year in Business

It’s hard to believe we are beginning our 5th year in business branded as “Elegant Event Entertainment.” I’m Jason Jones, the co-founder of this company, and I wanted to write a little bit about how we formed and what we’ve accomplished to date. Perhaps you’re a Bride or Groom looking for a DJ, perhaps this or other articles on our Blog will help you in making your decision. We hope you’ll enjoy and appreciate this short story of our recent successes and we welcome your comments and appreciate your support.
In February of 2006, I moved from a small town called Asheville, North Carolina to Los Angeles. I was self employed as a Wedding and party DJ in Asheville since 2000, I had been a professional voiceover actor since 1996, and I owned a small house painting business which I started in 2001. My businesses were beginning to thrive, but something was amiss in my life. As much as I loved my hometown, my friends and family, and the work I was doing, I felt I needed a change of pace. From the time I was a very young boy, I dreamed of moving to Hollywood. Obviously, a lot of people dream the same dream, but I felt I could come here and make it work out, whether in the entertainment industry, or some other type of business. I had no idea how big the wedding industry was in LA, but I would soon meet my business partner and we would be swept away in a stream of success in the world of Los Angeles Weddings.
I literally sold nearly everything I had, my home included, and in the dead of winter, I drove my truck and my dog and all my DJ and recording equipment across the country to start a new life.
I was working freelance for a few LA Wedding DJ companies when, in late 2006 I met DJ Chris Mortillaro. He was an unassuming, yet, talented Wedding and party DJ and a super nice guy. I was a fire-ey, wide-eyed, eager young DJ and former small business owner on a mission. Chris had a one man DJ company called “Lets Jam Productions” and had been running that purely as a side business for over 12 years. We decided to meet and it was pretty much an instant decision to begin working together. We were similar in our philosophy about the craft of DJing and Emceeing or running an event, weddings in particular, but I think I speak for him when I say, we both felt that we brought certain individual strengths to the table and were eager to see where the combination of those talents would take us.
We changed our name to “Elegant Event DJs” in the summer of 2007 and began drumming up business and getting the word out. Luckily, both Chris and I DJ’d numerous events in the West San Fernando Valley and throughout Ventura county, so we made an impression on several people who would later prove instrumental to our success. When some of those people learned that Chris and I started our own business, they were eager to add us to their preferred vendor lists.
In January of 2008, Chris and I decided to change our name to “Elegant Event Entertainment” and we incorporated under that name and became “majority shareholders”, “CEOs” and “CFOs” and “President” and all those “grown-up titles” we dreamed of as children. We began our sales and marketing strategies by attacking on the ground at Bridal Shows in Los Angeles and Ventura County. We met and talked with fellow vendors and colleagues and were determined to grow our brand and draw attention to our services. In our first full year we completed almost 70 events of which I think about 54 were weddings. We brought a few talented fellow DJs and young assistant DJs to help us cover the multiple event dates and workload. Several of those gentlemen are still with us today and they’ve helped us in so many ways by providing a great DJ service to our clients; We’re really grateful to them for that.
In 2009, you’ll remember that the economy tanked! Luckily, we weren’t heavily indebted to anyone or anything, but with the markets failing, we knew that Wedding DJ sales would be tough. So, we reinvested in our company and our brand. We hired a web marketing company in Asheville, North Carolina called Sparkdog Better Findability, and along with it’s owner Clark Mackey, we set out to innovate and dominate our industry as wedding DJs who were young, talented and cutting edge, who were attractive and relevant, and actively involved in our business online and in social media, as well as on the ground and at live events.
The first six months of running our new website and Blog proved successful and we were climbing in google rankings across numerous key search terms, when suddenly, we were hacked, and our website fell out of site on Google. This was a serious blow to our progress, but Chris and Clark and I never wavered. We pushed forward and worked harder. Today, you can find us all over the search engines for so many relevant search terms. We’ve become the top Wedding DJ Blog in the country. We’ve written hundreds of helpful advice articles on Wedding Planning and Wedding DJs, and we’ve got a very large audience of visitors to this site and our social media sites each and every month who recognize us as experts in our field.
Our name was gaining some recognition, so in 2009, I decided to trademark “Elegant Event Entertainment”. We’re now the only company in the world who can name ourselves that!
In the span of time from our rebranding as Elegant Event Entertainment in January 2008 to today, we’ve DJ’d over 400 events, and almost 350 of them were weddings. Our 2012 season is shaping up to be our best yet, as we currently have over 65 weddings already on the books as of this entry.
If you read our reviews online, you’ll see that past customers have had a tremendously positive experience working with our DJs. Our fellow vendors, such as caterers, photographers, florists and cake bakers, videographers, wedding coordinators, and venue owners and managers alike, have come to know us personally, to know our work as DJs and Emcee’s, and they like our work enough to tell all their friends and clients about us. There is no greater compliment than that. We have so many vendors who prefer and refer us it’s impossible to name them all, but we offer a special thanks to Command Performance Catering, Maravilla Gardens, Hartley’s Botanica, Walnut Grove at Tiera Rajada Ranch, Malibou Lake Mountain Club, Westlake Village Inn, Westlake Hyatt, Camarillo Ranch, Eden Gardens, Mia Bella Weddings, Bridal Premier, Photographers Charise Proctor, Kimberlee Miller, Heidi Ryder, and Mi Belle Photography, also Skyline Videography, Buckley Video, Mr. Loki Productions, and Moonlight Videography and so many more!
Chris and I and our DJs have worked our tails off, we’ve given everything we have night after night, one wedding and party after another, and we’ve enjoyed the success of all the word-of-mouth referrals.
If you’re reading this and we were the DJs at your event, or we’re going to be at your upcoming event, we thank you for your business from the bottom of our hearts. As much as we hope we provide you with joy and entertainment, you should know that you’ve provided us with a great deal of joy and success. If you’re considering hiring us, I can assure you, you’re not going to find a group of people who are more dedicated to our craft and to the success of your event, who are more highly referred, more talented and passionate or experienced than we are. There may be some who compare, but there are few. I say this with full confidence, because there are hundreds and hundreds of others who voice this to us consistently. I hope we’ll get to be a part of your special day and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

With all the gratitude I can give, and on behalf of my business partner and co-founder DJ Chris Mortillaro, We wish to thank our clients and colleagues, our friends, our families, and our business mentors for their love and support. Here’s to many more awesome years of success along the road with us. I hope you’ll celebrate our 5th year in business with us. We couldn’t have gotten here without you.

Jason Jones- Co founder and DJ/MC
Elegant Event Entertainment, inc.