I first met Brad Schroeder at a friend of mine’s wedding.  He did a pretty good job and seemed professional. When my wife and I were planning our wedding we got a long list of potential DJ services with a wide range of prices.  I talked to lots of them and we ended up deciding on Brad Schroeder’s DJ Service for two primary reasons.  First, he offered a relatively good price comparatively.  Even though he was charging us extra for travel (the wedding was in Glen Ellyn, IL) he still came out a bit cheaper than most of the other services we were looking at.  And secondly, he was the only DJ service that we had seen / heard at a wedding before, and we were happy with his services there (as were our friends who hired him for the most part).

This turned out to be a big mistake though.  We had several problems leading up to the wedding.  He was very difficult to get a hold of by phone in the weeks leading up to the wedding, he kept forgetting things we’d discussed, etc.  It was on the day of the wedding though that the size of the mistake really came to light.  Not only was Brad not coming himself to DJ our wedding (which he had told me he would), but the “other guy” he sent to DJ the wedding was sent to the wrong hotel.  And not just a little wrong, but a lot wrong.  The hotel he went to was more than 3 hours away from the hotel where our wedding was located. This was hard to believe because Brad Schroeder had written the hotel in Glen Ellyn in our contract himself and had charged me extra travel expenses to get to it.  Even worse – we didn’t find this out until about an hour before our wedding when we got a call from the very confused DJ that was sent to the wrong hotel.

Needless to say this put us in a pretty tough situation, especially since Brad Schroeder’s service didn’t even offer a replacement DJ.  We were trying to do pictures and get the last details of the wedding sorted out when we were faced with the option of waiting for this DJ to drive the 3 hours to get to the correct hotel (and 1.5 – 2 hours of reception without music or a DJ) or trying to find another DJ at the last minute that we know nothing about.  Luckily the hotel’s wedding coordinator had a DJ that was trying to get on their recommended vendors list and we were able to get someone on our short notice, although he was double the price we were originally paying Brad Schroeder’s DJ Service in Springfield, IL.  We decided to risk it and figured an unknown, possibly bad DJ was better than no DJ.

Against all odds the last minute replacement, Carl Linder of Linder Productions, turned out to be great.  He was nice, professional, and still managed to accommodate most of our requests (even a few unusual ones) with the short notice he had.  My wife had also prepared a CD of most of our special songs (cake cutting, first dance, etc) because we had had so many issues with Brad Schroeder’s DJ Service before – which also turned out to be a life saver.  In the end we had a great wedding and our replacement DJ was even better than Schroerder’s DJ Service ever would’ve been.

Unfortunately the story doesn’t end there, though.  We had paid Brad Schroeder’s DJ Service up front at a previous meeting at a Denny’s in Springfield, IL.  Needless to say we felt we deserved to get our money back, and the difference in DJ fees, after he failed to show up to the correct location and perform his services.  You’d think after such a horrible mistake that was clearly his fault (the location was listed on the contract that he wrote and we both signed) that he’d be very apologetic and accommodating.  However, you would be wrong.  While initially he sounded like he’d be willing to correct his mistake, it wasn’t long before he wasn’t returning my calls and I started getting called by his attorney instead.

Luckily my brother is a licensed attorney in Illinois and was willing to help me out.  Long story short, it took a lawsuit filing and 10 months before I was able to get my money back from this guy.  We still ended up losing the court costs to file, but were eventually able to settle out of court to get our money back.  What a terrible way to do business.

If you’re planning a wedding or other event in Jacksonville, Springfield, or the surrounding area in IL and looking for a DJ, look elsewhere.  Brad Schroeder’s DJ Service in Springfield, IL nearly ruined my wedding and was a huge pain to get my money back from later.

Sorry for the rant, but it needed to be said.

First, many people don’t want as much food as the default offers. Maybe I’m not that hungry tonight…maybe it’s just the restaurant has huge portions. In either case I think a lot of people would like this option.

The second is for people that can’t decide between multiple dishes or want to have more variety. I’ve definitely had occasions where I’d love to have 2 different entrees and being able to order 2 different 1/2 orders would make a lot of sense to me.

Many other industries are moving to more personalization and more options. I really think this relatively minor change could have a significant impact on the restaurant business. Who wouldn’t love the ability to better customize their portions or mix and match food?