6 Ways To Ruin Your Wedding Day
What are 6 Ways To Ruin Your Wedding Day? We have been involved in the wedding days of 1000’s of couples over the past 30+ years. Although weddings have changed drastically over those years (and even in the past 5 years), there are some simple things that you need to avoid so you don’t ruin your wedding day. We will always cater to your needs and wishes, but our extensive experience will help guide you away from the landmines if you heed our warnings. Believe me – we have seen many weddings end up flopping because a couple thought that they would be the exception. Let us help you create an amazing wedding day that you and your guests will rave about for years. Let’s get started in avoiding the 6 common ways to ruin your wedding day.
1. Blinded By The Light
Whether you are in a ballroom, under a tent or in a barn – it is critical that lighting be able to be DIMMED for dancing time. If your venue does not have dimmable lights – FIND ANOTHER VENUE. Yes – there are many wedding venues and tent lighting companies that don’t have dimmable lighting. Be sure to ask the question before booking your wedding date with them.
If your tent lighting is not going to be able to be adjusted – find another lighting company. It is human nature – we just don’t dance as much in a bright room as we will when the lights are dimmed.
That also means that you should check when the sun will be setting on your wedding date. If you can plan your wedding timeline so that end of dinner is as close as possible to sunset, you can get the most dancing in the dark as possible.
2. Bore Your Wedding Guests
Your wedding guests want to be entertained at your wedding. There are things that inevitably will bore your guests. First – no long speeches or toasts. If you are having more than 3 people give toasts, break them up over the course of social hour and dinner. Don’t stop dancing to give more toasts.
Your social hour and dinner are not made for instrumental music. Keep things upbeat for your guests. The style of music for these two hours will set the tone for your party. Make sure you send an upbeat message to your wedding guests.
Your guests will love to eat at your wedding but a dragged out meal that lasts more than an hour is going to drain the energy in the room. Many times we recommend dancing between courses to keep the energy up throughout your dinner time. We can naturally fill the dead time between fruit cup and salad or salad and entre with a few upbeat tunes to get people moving.
3. Extreme Hot and Cold At Your Wedding
Weather can drastically affect your guests. If you are having your wedding ceremony outside, be sure to have a backup plan in case it’s too hot or too cold. We’ve seen an entire wedding ruined by having a 45-minute ceremony under 95-degree direct sunlight. Guests sweat through their clothes, hair, and makeup ruined and it took guests the rest of the night just to recover. No one wanted to dance. They were wiped out.
Think SHADE and AIR CONDITIONING as a way to protect your wedding guests from extreme heat. The same goes for those winter weddings – if it’s too cold – move your ceremony inside. You can always go out and take photos outside, but your grandparents and older guests will thank, you for not exposing them to extreme heat, cold (or windy weather or swarms of bugs, etc.)
If you are doing a tent wedding – CLEAR TOP TENT is another way of describing a GREEN HOUSE. They get extremely hot in the sun. Watch sunset times and the timeline of your wedding. We’ve seen temperatures in excess of 100 degrees when setting up in these tents during the afternoons.
4. The Music You Love v. The Music Your Guests Will Dance To
We always want to reflect your music style in everything we do at your wedding, but at the same time – we all want your guests to have a great time and dance.
The truth is – your guests won’t dance to music that they don’t know. So, it might be great to fill your social hour with that Indie Rock music that the two of you love, but you probably should consider playing a more diverse mix of music for dancing so your guests have a great time as well. No one wants only 10 of your 150 guests dancing at a time. Don’t forget your older relatives and even your friends might have different music interests than the two of you. We will help you balance playing your MUST PLAY songs as well as avoiding those NO PLAY SONGS that drive you nuts. Our goal is to keep as many people dancing at the same time in staying true to your individual style. It takes years of experience as a wedding DJ to perfect this – that’s why we are the best at what we do. All our DJs have been cross-trained with Rob Alberti to help them learn this way of keeping everyone up and dancing at your wedding.
5. Noise Ordinance
It’s perfectly OK if your wedding venue tells you that music has to stop by 11 pm, but it’s not OK if they monitor music volume with a sound meter.
During their venue tour, they will tell you that it’s OK and music will be more than loud enough for dancing but their goal is to get you to book your wedding at their venue. We are not saying that you need to have ear-bleeding high volume music at your wedding that shakes the paint off the walls, but if the music is not loud enough, guests just don’t dance as much. We rely on that bass thump to drive dancing – if your dance music is not any louder than your cocktail hour music, then your wedding guests will tend to do just like they did during cocktail hour – they will stand around and bob their heads to the music but it is much harder to get them to dance at such low volumes. We see this at some Barn and Aquarium wedding venues in the area. If you are more interested in having a cocktail style wedding and dancing is not on your priority list for your wedding reception, then noise ordinances should not be a concern for you. If you are all about the party atmosphere at your wedding – find a venue with acceptable noise ordinance rules.
6. Weddings Should Be Unique
We are not a wedding factory. We don’t play the same music in the same order at every wedding. There was actually a national DJ that was selling his “Guaranteed Wedding Music Playlist” that he uses at every one of his weddings. God, that must be SO BORING.
An experienced and talented wedding DJ knows how to mix things up and read the crowd. We’ll use your WEDDING PLAYLIST and NO PLAYLIST as our guide, but it’s up to us to guide your guests on this musical journey that is uniquely your own. Our goal is to keep your guests entertained and create a magical soundtrack to your wedding day that is a reflection of your styles with maximum dance time for you and your guests.
Avoid The 6 Ways To Ruin Your Wedding Day
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