MILFORD HEIGHTS — Gary Dunmore, a wedding DJ who has played “Mr. Brightside” at 11,000 consecutive receptions, retired Saturday at age 65 in a modest ceremony attended by 34 colleagues, two sheet cakes, and a man named Uncle Dennis who was not on the guest list.

The ceremony, held in the Knights of Columbus banquet hall where Dunmore worked his first gig in 1997, featured a slideshow, a commemorative laminated certificate, and brief remarks from fellow DJs, caterers, and a photo booth attendant who said Dunmore “always tipped the photo booth guy, which people forget.”

Dunmore, who has reportedly heard the song’s opening guitar riff roughly 11,000 times, accepted a plaque, a gift card to a mid-priced steakhouse, and a standing ovation that lasted approximately nine seconds.

“Gary never missed a night,” said Pamela Oyelaran-Voss, regional director of the Tri-County Association of Mobile Entertainment Professionals. “Not for a blizzard, not for a gallbladder, not for his own wedding, where he was also the DJ and also played it. His wife has asked us not to elaborate.”

According to Dunmore’s own logbook, the song has been requested at every event he has worked, usually between 9:40 and 10:15 p.m., typically by a groomsman who “has just realized he’s allowed to scream.”

Dr. Alistair Fenwick-Mbeki, a senior fellow in applied nostalgia at the Institute for the Study of Mid-Tempo Communal Shouting, said Dunmore’s streak is without precedent. “We’ve documented lesser streaks, such as a Tulsa man who played ‘Sweet Caroline’ 4,000 times, but he took a sabbatical in 2011 to ‘be with his thoughts,’” Fenwick-Mbeki said. “Mr. Dunmore never once reflected.”

“I’ve never needed to look at the crowd. I just look at the first guy who stands up and puts his arm around another guy’s shoulder. That’s the signal.”

Dunmore told attendees he had no regrets, though he admitted that around the 6,000th play he began hearing the song “in the hum of refrigerators, and occasionally in my wife’s sighing.” He said he plans to spend retirement fishing, tending a small vegetable garden, and listening to nothing.

Moments after the plaque presentation, Uncle Dennis, 58, a cousin-in-law of the banquet hall’s caterer, approached the DJ table, loosened his tie, and asked whether Dunmore could “do the Killers one more time, for old times’ sake.”

Witnesses said Dunmore stared at the laptop for several seconds. Then, without speaking, he opened the file.

The room reportedly erupted. Colleagues who had spent the previous hour speaking in hushed, respectful tones linked arms and screamed the first verse at the drop ceiling. One caterer wept openly. Dunmore, who stood motionless behind the console with his hands at his sides, was heard to say only, “Same as ever.”

At press time, Dunmore had played the song 11,001 times, and Uncle Dennis had requested “Don’t Stop Believin’.”