MOSTOV'S MUSINGS

After a year and a half of publishing a new blog every Thursday, I've suddenly gone silent for three weeks. The reason? I've finally begun pursuing a dream I've carried since I was sixteen: writing a novel worthy of publication. After decades of teaching literature, encouraging future authors, and watching friends and former students achieve their own literary success, I've decided it's time to finish the story I've always wanted to tell. And what began as a single novel has

Give the groom’s best friend a microphone and you never quite know what will happen next. After 28 years of weddings, I’ve heard Best Man speeches that brought entire rooms to tears, speeches that nearly brought marriages to an end, and plenty that landed somewhere wonderfully in between. The best ones embarrass the groom, make everyone laugh, celebrate the couple, and reveal exactly why this particular friendship matters.

That is the extraordinary thing about music. Photographs can show us what something looked like. Video can show us what happened. Stories can remind us of things we once knew. Music can do something stranger. Music can return the feeling. A handful of notes can collapse decades with absolutely no warning. Suddenly you don't merely remember being twenty-one; for a moment, you remember what twenty-one felt like.

Every wedding has a timeline. Then there’s the other timeline—the one nobody planned, nobody put on paper, and somehow every wedding DJ recognizes. After nearly three decades behind the booth, I’ve stopped being surprised by the disappearing guests, wandering children, mysteriously relocated bouquets, questionable requests, and perfectly predictable chaos. At this point, I might as well bring a bingo card. And given enough time, I’m pretty sure I’ll fill the whole thing.

Cupcakes may be convenient, delicious, and wonderfully easy to serve, but I remain convinced they cost weddings something more important than anyone realized. For decades, I’ve watched wedding cakes shrink, dessert tables expand, and one of my favorite little pieces of wedding personality slowly disappear along the way: the cake topper. From buttercream permanently attached to my mustache to the five-tiered cake Gail and I smashed into each other’s faces, this is my love lett

June 27 reminded me once again just how lucky I am. That Saturday, I found myself in Dover, Ohio, to DJ the wedding of Madyson and Jesse Irons. The venue was Yellowbrick on 39, a beautiful venue tucked away in the rolling hills of Amish country. The location calls itself a "barn venue," but Yellowbrick feels far more intentional than that. It occupies a space between worlds. It isn't rustic in the way many Ohio barn venues embrace rough-hewn beams and weathered antiques, nor

Celebrating my birthday at Starflyer Brewing Company this year. I celebrated my 53rd birthday this evening while hosting DJ Trivia at Starflyer Brewing Co. As birthdays go, this one was fairly uneventful. Not bad, exactly. Just uneventful. I spent my birthday asking people questions, keeping score, playing music, awarding prizes, and pretending, with moderate success, that I was not another year older and one year closer to death. The players did sing “Happy Birthday” to me b

This is part IV of a five-part series titled The Five Assets That Define an Extraordinary Wedding DJ. A veteran wedding DJ explains why integrity—not just music knowledge or personality—is the most important quality couples should consider when choosing their wedding DJ. Integrity protects the couple’s vision. Discernment helps defend it when competing priorities begin pulling it in different directions. April 30, 2026 Trust Is the Foundation of a Wedding When couples begin

I spent hours making the perfect mixtape, carefully choosing every song, timing every pause, and praying the DJ wouldn't talk over the intro. Decades later, I realized those homemade cassettes taught me something important about music, memory, and why some songs stay with us forever.

Every wedding begins as a possibility before it becomes a reality. January 15, 2026 Last Saturday, sometime during the grand entrance, I found myself thinking about a wedding that didn't happen. Not the wedding I was working. That wedding was very much happening. The bridal party was lined up outside the ballroom doors. The photographer was crouched in position waiting for the reactions. The guests were standing and applauding. The bride was laughing. The groom looked equal p

Music has a way of becoming attached to our memories. For Gail and me, Jimmy Buffett became inseparable from summer itself. For my son Joel, however, a Buffett concert became memorable for an entirely different reason. This is the story of Riverbend, childhood innocence, mistaken assumptions, and the year I thought I had raised a Parrothead. October 30, 2025 After twenty-eight years behind microphones, turntables, mixing consoles, and DJ booths, I have become convinced that m

After 28 years of DJing and zero troll encounters, one found me—and accused me of lying about DJing in West Virginia. This post tells the whole ridiculous story, explains what trolling actually is, and shares how to recognize—and deal with—real trolls without getting sucked into the drama, losing your sanity, or losing your lunch (from Pickles Eatery). The front entrance of Pickles Eatery & Bar, a local gathering spot known for casual dining, cold drinks, and small-town charm

If you think people only choose upbeat, feel-good songs for their grand entrance… oh, friend. You’re in for a treat. Some couples are determined to enter their receptions like a breakup montage or a villain reveal. In this post, I recall pure musical mayhem—some of the most head-scratching, mood-killing grand entrance songs I’ve ever seen used in the wild—and yes, they’re all real. Not every wedding music disaster begins on the dance floor. Sometimes it starts with a song

I started DJing weddings in the 1990s, back when a packed dance floor didn’t need convincing—it just needed the newest hit single. When the chorus hit, people didn’t hesitate, overthink, or wait to see who else would go first. They moved. Together. That kind of shared reaction wasn’t accidental. It was built into the culture of the time, and after almost 700 weddings, I’ve watched what happens when that culture changes—and what it now takes to bring a room back to life. A sh

Ever wonder what really happens behind the DJ booth beyond the playlists, packed dance floors, and late-night road trips? This blog is my way of pulling back the curtain. After 27 years, 600+ weddings, countless venues across Ohio, and a lifetime’s worth of unbelievable stories, I’m finally sharing the wild, heartfelt, hilarious, and downright unbelievable moments that come with being a mobile wedding DJ. If you’ve ever been curious about the DJ life—or you’re planning a wedd