About
Stan Grubbs — DJ187
Two decades behind the decks, from the LA scene to the Pacific Northwest, and now Orlando and Tampa.
Now booking Orlando, Tampa & Central Florida weddings and events for 2027 and beyond. Portland & Pacific Northwest dates remain available through April 2027.
Check availability
How I got here
I came up in the Los Angeles music scene as a composer and promoter, working with Interscope and G-Unit Records. That was the education: learning what a record does to a room, and learning that the crowd tells you what to play next if you're paying attention.
From there I spent years running weddings and corporate events across the Pacific Northwest — ballrooms, barns, yacht charters, hotel galas, and a lot of receptions where the timeline went sideways and nobody in the room noticed because it got fixed quietly.
In May 2027 I'm relocating to Central Florida, and I'm booking Orlando and Tampa weddings and events from that point forward. Portland and the Pacific Northwest stay open through April 2027 for couples already in progress there.
On being new to Florida
I'd rather say this plainly than have you work it out from the photos. Central Florida is a new market for me. The events in my gallery happened elsewhere — mostly the Pacific Northwest and California. I haven't worked a wedding at your venue, and if a DJ tells you they have when they haven't, that's worth knowing about them.
What transfers is everything that actually determines how your day goes: how to sound a room I'm walking into for the first time, what to ask a venue before load-in, how to read a crowd that isn't the crowd I expected, and what to do when the ceremony has to move indoors twenty minutes before it starts. Those are the skills. The zip code isn't.
I'm also doing the homework in public — the Orlando and Tampa venue guides and the Central Florida planning guide are useful whether or not you hire me.
Who shows up
The person you talk to is the person who shows up.
There's no roster and no dispatcher. Every inquiry, planning call, timeline, and event is Stan Grubbs — the same person, start to finish. You will never be assigned a DJ you haven't met.
This is the part of the DJ market couples tend to find out about late. Many of the larger companies in Orlando and Tampa run rosters of twenty or more DJs. You meet a salesperson or a lead DJ, sign, and get assigned someone nearer the date. It's a legitimate way to run a business and plenty of those weddings go fine — but it means the person who earned your confidence often isn't the person who does the job.
There's no roster here to be assigned from, which is a genuine limitation as much as a selling point: I can only work one event a day, so peak dates go early and sometimes the answer is that I'm not available. When that happens I'll tell you straight away instead of routing you to someone else.
How I work
One conversation, not a sales funnel
You email or call, and you get me. Not a booking coordinator, not a lead form that routes to whoever's up next. If we end up working together, the person who answered your first question is the person setting up in your venue.
The planning happens before the week of
A music questionnaire with a real do-not-play list, a timeline built with you rather than handed to you, and direct contact with your venue about load-in, sound restrictions, and end times. Most of what makes a reception work is decided weeks earlier.
Ceremony sound is not an upsell
It's in every wedding package. A ceremony is where the sound matters most and where it most often fails — wrong microphone in wind, no power at the site, vows nobody in the back row can hear. Charging extra for it never made sense to me.
MC work included, dialed to your preference
Some couples want the reception driven from the mic. Others want announcements and then silence. Both are fine, and it's a conversation we have in advance rather than something you discover during dinner.
One vendor for sound, lighting, and photo booth
Fewer handoffs, one point of contact, one setup, one invoice. It also means nothing gets dropped in the gap between two vendors who each assumed the other had it.
The practical reassurances
Five-star rated
On The Knot and WeddingWire, from couples in prior markets.
Liability insured
Certificates naming your venue as additional insured, on request.
Redundant equipment
Backup gear travels to every event, because speakers fail at 9pm.
One event at a time
No double-booking a date, and no roster to be reassigned from.
Reviews from prior events are on The Knot and WeddingWire, and the gallery has photo and video from the last several years.