Wedding entertainment comes in many forms – be it a magician walking around your wedding reception performing tricks and illusions, a casino table with roulette and blackjack, giant garden games like Jenga and chess, or maybe a DJ for the evening, or a band. Often it’s worth having more than one form of wedding entertainment, especially if you’re going to spend a fair amount of time having photos taken – you want to make sure that the guests that aren’t in your pictures will have something to do to entertain themselves during this ‘milling about’ time… especially if you’re having lots of young children!
It’s worth getting out to as many wedding fairs as possible as there will be a multitude of different forms of entertainment exhibiting and trying to get you to book them for your wedding. If you fancy a magician then get them to show you some of their tricks, ask how long he or she will be happy to perform and how much they charge. If you’re hiring a casino table then find out which games are available, how the whole thing works (they usually use play money) and what the arrangements would usually be in terms of dropping the equipment off, if you get a couple of people to man the tables, and again how much they will charge and how long they are happy to be there for.
When attending these wedding fairs you’ll find they put a lot of pressure on you to book them quickly (sometimes offering discounts for booking on that day). Be cautious of this – it may well be the case that the closer you get to your big day, the more likely it is that they will be unavailable, but it’s a standard hard sell designed to scare you into booking them. Have a think about it, chat with your partner and possibly your parents to see what they think. You may well be sold into the idea of having an ice cream stand at your reception, but if your wedding takes place mid December then it may take someone else pointing it out to make you realise that perhaps it won’t be that great an idea.
Most couples will have either a wedding band or a DJ, or sometimes both at their wedding reception. It’s difficult to vet a wedding DJ beforehand unless you happen t o be attending lots of local weddings, and some people aren’t too fond of the cheesy tunes and one-liners they’re synonymous with. You may also find that the venue has a recommended DJ, or they may even come with the package (as one did with my own wedding!). If you decide you’d rather have a band play, it’s definitely worth trying to get out and see them first. With modern technology and recording software it’s easy to make a demo song sound amazing, but be aware that in order to get that sound, they may well have tampered with the vocals to get them in tune etc. If you want the best wedding band Essexhas to offer, then get out to some pubs that have live music on offer and decide which band suits your wedding best – it may well be that their demo CD has music by The Beatles and Sting on it, but when they play live they crack out some heavy metal tunes as well… that may be for you or it may not be, but you can bet it won’t be your grandparents cup of tea!
The most important thing to consider when choosing your wedding entertainment is that given the huge number of options, you should spend as much time as possible researching what’s available, and don’t book anything blind – make sure you’ve seen it first-hand!