Special Occasions DJ & Lighting

Ajay was AMAZING — and this is coming from a very particular bride with a vision of the night! Ajay did not require much guidance and still new EXACTLY what we wanted for our wedding. Not only did he handle everything from lighting, sound to MC beyond our expectations, he was professional and organized.
He created a romantic lighting environment that perfectly complemented our wedding décor. Additionally, we were given many compliments on the music selection and the way he organized the reception program. As an MC, he always used the perfect tone and kept the show running smoothly and under control! Such a relief to have an expert handle the biz so the bride can enjoy!
Next time we throw an event, I will definitely be calling Ajay and team. I highly recommend them!

I would highly recommend Special Occasions for your event. Ajay worked with us for many months prior to my daughter and son-​in-​laws wedding on December 5, 2105. He was always extremely professional, witty and listened carefully to our requests. Ajay was available for a quick question or a lengthy meeting always contributing excellent ideas and suggestions.
He and Parag came through on the wedding day and did a fantastic job with the baraat, the lighting, the ceremony music that my daughter and her husband had requested and finally DJ services during the reception.
I have never experienced such a rocking baraat! Our horse was late arriving but Paraag used this time to teach the non-​Indian baraat moves and rhythm making it so lively and great fun!
The lighting both at the ceremony area and in the reception ballroom were done in excellent style. We were more than happy!
Ajay’s DJ abilities are his forte and he lived up to his reputation and promises keeping our dance floor packed when he took over from the band.
Thanks Ajay and Parag for making my daughters wedding memorable and for being so consistent, reliable and steadfast in your delivery of so many aspects that evening.
All the best to you for continued success in the years to come!

5 Stars isn’t enough. Ajay and Bhavin provided the lighting, sound equipment, and most importantly their fun outgoing personalities on my wedding day. They took my wife’s grand entrance idea, and built upon it with spotlights, and music edits. They even helped us with our first dance song, with edits that made a huge difference in the overall experience. Their ability to fill in the gaps between speeches/​dances with ad lib commentary/​jokes was noticed by all of our guests.
The Special Occasions team also provided a photobooth (more like a photobooth backdrop which lets you have a large group of people) set up and even got us our digital copies of all the pictures within a few days.
Their team was easy to get a long with, provided their expert input, and most importantly delivered on one of the most important days of my life. They knew how to read the crowd to keep the dance floor filled. They made me (the one who hates being in the spotlight) comfortable with my bharat entrance.
I cannot thank them enough.
Book them before they get taken!

These guys are amazing! We hired Special Occasions for our Wedding on 8.29.15– used them for the lighting and DJ services for Sangeet, Wedding and Reception. They are a first class service. They might be a bit more expensive than others out there, but the extra money is made up in the ease of working with them and their impeccable delivery of product. The ballroom looked amazing with their dance floor and lighting. Parag Shah is such a great guy at heart and he made the entire event so fun. He was so helpful during the week of wedding preparations and had so many great recommendations for us. Praneel and Parag lit up the dance floor like no other on Saturday night. It was more poppin than any LA club with their dope music selection. Highly recommend these guys. Good people and they know what they are doing.

Never have I been to an event where the dance floor was packed until 1 am. And people had to actually be kicked off the floor.
They’re amazing. Hire them. I love them. I want to get married again just so I can hire them again and have the best time of my life!!!

Special Occasions did an awesome job with our wedding. They provided lighting and DJ-​ing for our Friday night welcome reception and our Saturday post-​wedding reception.
We talked with them well ahead of our wedding. They were easy to work with. We explained the feel that we wanted for Friday night, and the different feel we wanted for Saturday, and they were happy to work with all of our suggestions. They have a pretty extensive web system for getting song requests from you and your family/​friends ahead of time. They also have some pre-​set playlists you can choose from. To be honest, we didn’t give them a whole lot of specific input — Parag just made it work.
On the day of, they were totally flexible with the ebb and flow of our event. I noticed it in particular on Saturday. At some point, most of my friends and cousins were just enjoying the evening light and hanging around and talking, and Parag totally shifted the music to cater to the aunts and uncles who were on the dance floor, taking it back a couple decades. I could tell they enjoyed it, and I could tell Parag was totally happy with whatever was going on (i.e., wasn’t bothered that the younger people were outside).
Also, they did a really great job with the lighting setup, which makes a big difference to the look and feel of the décor.
Overall — high quality, professional, and easy to work with. Highly recommended.

Parag just finished our wedding last weekend, July 26^th, 2015. He did an awesome job with the lighting and being an entertaining MC and DJ. The music was spot on and really got the crowd into it! As an MC he really knew how and when to pump up the crowd and made the reception as smooth as it can be. The lighting was also perfect, it really made the entire hall stand out and complimented the theme very well. I will post some pictures of their work once we get the pictures! Special shout out to Ajay for helping us as well!
I would highly recommend Parag and the team to all of my friends and family!

These guys are absolutely amazing! The lighting was better then we ever imagined it would be, and the MC/​DJ, Parag, brought life to our wedding. These guys were a big hit, very impressive. Professional, classy, hard working, full of life… we didn’t have a second for a dull moment. With limited direction, these guys pumped it up when they needed to and took it down when they needed to. We highly recommend them! Thank you Special Occasions, and thank you Parag!

Recently hired Parag & Special Occasions Dj & Lighting (SODL) for my wedding reception and was extremely impressed! Parag was professional and very detailed through out the whole process. The lighting and sound came out great! I hired a string quartet for my cocktail hour and SODL did a fantastic job coordinating with the musicians and ensuring they had the necessary audio equipment to project their sound. In addition to coordinate everything, Parag also Dj’d the reception himself and was awesome. He definitely rocked the crowd with the dance floor packed until we closed it down at 1am! I even received a few compliments after the event about the music selection.
Hire this company, you won’t regret it.

Bad customer service skills and place their needs over the needs of their clients. Flaky and unresponsive to our emails and queries, maybe good when/​if you ever nail them down, but we had a negative experience and ended up going with a DJ with a similar price point, was much more responsive and friendlier, and down to earth than these guys!

Thank you Special Occasions (DJ Chirag and Vinay) for making our wedding fun and entertaining. DJ Chirag was absolutely amazing ! He knew exactly what song to play for what occasion, and he even had south indian wedding soundtracks ! All our guests had an amazing time during the dance, and the background music for the ceremony and reception was perfect ! Vinay did a really awesome job planning the events, and stepping us through the process. Chirag was also really good emcee, he got the guests all pumped up and cheering for our entrances. He also made sure event during the ceremony and reception was complemented with the perfect soundtrack ! Our guests are still raving about how great the DJ was !!

This is a company that lives up to its name — we had our three day wedding celebration in Long Beach, CA. And the Special Occasions team walked the whole journey with us, offering a comforting hand when it was overwhelming, and helping us with valuable insight when we had no idea we needed it.
Our time with the team started at the beginning of our planning process. With prompt and professional responses to emails and investing the time to explain their different services and options, we were certain of our decision to go with them from the onset. Throughout the planning process, we had access to a wonderful website that’s easy to use and allowed us to list those songs we wanted for the evening. In our final walkthrough, Ajay went beyond expectations to provide valuable insight into the overall flow of events and some decoration considerations, demonstrating his vast experience.
At our mehndi, the team did all the lighting for the event, as well as DJ services for the evening. From facilitating our family sharing throughout the evening to navigating special requests from our family, the event had a liveliness to it that met our vision perfectly. The reception is where their true mastery was evident –the dance floor was constantly full, with friends and family raving what an amazing evening they had dancing the night away and wishing it didn’t have to stop. Ajay was funny, upbeat, energetic and never cheesy or inappropriate. He kept everything moving along at a perfect pace, and accommodated requests from our guests masterfully. The addition of Vinay playing the dhol during the reception elevated the whole evening and brought that special touch everyone looks. Not to mention the ambiance and warmth the lighting, white dance floor and personalized gobo brought to the whole room and made the event feel more intimate than the 400 person count would encourage.
The day of the wedding was no exception — from the baraat and dhol inspiring family and friends to dance all the way to the ceremony, the caliber of execution and professionalism was evident. With the assistance of the team, the overrun timeline and entropy of a Hindu wedding were not felt by our guests or our family. The praise from our family and friends reinforced what we already knew — that we had made the right decision in going with Special Occasions and trusting our special weekend to their expertise.
We can’t say enough about how happy we are with the Special Occasions family and how much you all cared about every detail for our special weekend. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Thank you Special Occasions (Chirag & AJ) for playing at our work’s Holiday Casino party. The crowed loved the songs you played, and your emcee services were fun and energetic. Also the dance you taught at the end, had the dance floor bursting at the seams with people.
I was beyond impressed with your interactive event planning web-​page and music selection. And we especially enjoyed the screen you placed in front of the DJ Table; the glow from the screen gave the event a classy look.
Vinay was also a great help while we were in the planning phase of the event.
Also, thank you so very much for sharing your super sticky tape with us. You saved the day and our decorations.
Thank for the wonderful service.

We worked with Parag for our wedding at the Nixon Library as a recommendation from our photographs «Brandon Wong Photography» and they did a great job. It was great to work with him and he was so nice and patient with all of our questions, really honest about what we did and did not need, and worked with us and our budget. In the end our lighting was phenomenal, particularly the bistro lighting out in the gardens. At the beginning of our wedding day while we were taking some pictures, I noticed that the lighting in the gardens didn’t stretch out the entire way and he came to us a little later to talk to us about the logistics of why that was. After some discussion and understanding what we wanted — he immediately changed them after our guests were inside for dinner so that they spanned a larger portion of the gardens. Our guests LOVED the lighting and made lots of comments on how beautiful they made the venue :) Would highly recommend them!

Ajay, Parag, and Bhavin (our DJ) put together a night to remember for our family. They helmed the entertainment for my Mom’s 65^th Surprise Birthday party and captured the «Bollywood Golden Age» theme beautifully. They were so respectful to our request of no dancing, yet played music that kept the atmosphere lively, fun, and very entertaining to all of our guests. With ages ranging from 30 – 75, it wasn’t an easy task.
What’s most impressive about this team is that they care about their customers and their products. Ajay and his team were all more than willing to organize the event with me over e-​mail and text — which is my only form of communication these days. They also took full responsibility when they had a confusion about uplights on their end. Mistakes happen, but it’s how a business resolves it that matters. They resolved it impeccably, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use them again when I need entertainment services.
Well done, gentlemen. Wishing you guys much success as you continue your outstanding business.

My best friend was planning an Indian wedding. She was unfamiliar with the traditions so she felt it was important to hire an Indian DJ. I went with her to the initial meeting and AJ and his team blew us away! You can tell from the beginning that they were seasoned pros! We immediately stopped looking for a DJ after meeting these guys. At the wedding the team arrived promptly at the contracted time. They were so professional and super easy to work with. They made sure to keep things on track. AJ made sure the party was pumping all the way to the end. His energy was amazing! I highly recommend using them!!!

BY FAR the best choice I made for my wedding. Bhavin was a killer MC and the dj BLEW MY MIND. We had no less than 70 people come up to us during and after the wedding and tell us it was the absolute best music they have ever experienced at a wedding. So many people asked for the playlist — I wish I could take credit for it! Nobody was in their seat once the dancing started (and people started dancing before dinner was served — it was that good!). It was exactly what I wanted for my wedding. Highly, highly recommended.

Ok, so Special Occasions was one of THE BEST INVESTMENTS for my wedding. Every time I think back at how AMAZING the party was, I can thank Parag and his team for pulling of one of the most incredible day’s of my life.
You can see for yourself in the link below, as they know how to keep one hell of a party going:
The lights, the Dhol (we’re not Indian, but we knew it was a must to keep the energy high!), the incredibly flawless emcee-​ing of the night, are a just a few of the countless amazing things that their team executed for our wedding. My husband and I are wedding photographers, and we meet tons of DJs/​lighting experts in the past 6 years of business, but Special Occasions is by far the most professional and skilled of the bunch. We wouldn’t recommend anyone else!
I’ve attached photos of the crazy reception that they put together for us, which included loads of confetti, lights, fog, and co2 canons. What more can you ask for?!
If you’re reading this, look no further since you’ve found the absolute best team in SoCal. Book them now!

This review is long over due. Ajay with Special Occasions was the dj for my wedding reception in September. I cannot recommend a better dj! The team made my event more magical than I could ever ask for.
Prior to wedding: Ajay was incredibly easy to work with. He provided an easy-​to-​use website where we were able to list the songs we loved, liked and hated. He was able to work with our preferences and come up with a general idea of a song set. He was also very accommodating when it came to arranging the music my friend made for our flashmob. The sweetest thing, however, was the fact that when I went to visit him in person, I forgot my song cd for my videographer. I was staying in Torrance at the time and my videographer was down the street from Ajay. He was awesome enough to burn a cd for me so that I didn’t have to drive back and forth.
Day of event: I am not incredibly picky when it comes to décor because frankly, despite being a girl, I suck at interior decorating. I left it up to Ajay to use his lighting talent in collaboration with Sheer Romance decorations to set up the reception hall. If I had to use one word to describe everything, it would be breathtaking. Now, you may be thinking that I’m biased, however, all of our family and friends became paparazzi when they saw the venue and how beautiful it was. I still hear about it to this day.
Speaking of other things I hear about… everyone loved loved loved the music. People (like my husband, for example) who never dance were dancing. I have been to many weddings in my day (previous to getting married you could say my life was like 28 dresses) and I have never seen that many people on the dance floor as there were at my wedding. You just didn’t have an opportunity to stop dancing because the music was so great. I am pretty sure between my 20 lb outfit combined with the amount of dancing, I lost 5 lbs that night.
Now, you may be thinking Indian dj, indian reviewer, clearly this is a good dj for indian events. Yes, that is true. I have been to a wedding where Ajay was the dj and Indian music was used a lot. However, I can assure you that he is good for any wedding. In fact my husband despises Indian music and a lot of our friends aren’t even indian! We even had wedding crashes because the music was, as the youngsters say, bumpin.‘
I can’t thank Ajay enough for everything he did for us. Please book him for your next event. You will not regret.

I got married last year, and contacted so many DJ’s– and none of them responded, except Special Occasions (which happened to be recommended to me, as it was). I wasnt at all disappointed. They did a phenomenal job with the lighting and the music. Ajay was great to work with, super helpful and friendly, and he definitely kept the music going. I recommended them to a friend of mine, and then most recently he really did a phenomenal job at my sisters wedding. That dance floor was crowded till the end of the night!
Thanks Ajay (and team!). You guys are highly recommended!