Shakermaker Promotions
15-03-2009, 03:46 PM
Hi all,
Here we go. Sit back for another Shakermaker review of a wedding I did last night.
It was booked in January by a guy that was at a christmas party I was doing at my hotel residency. The couple were got married in February in St Lucia and booked me to do their wedding disco along with photo projection and uplighting. Nice young couple who were really looking forward to the evening.
I set up the uplighting first of all and put them on a pink/lilac/purple setting. 8 units in total in a very long room but it looked very nice. Then I set up the projector and screen and that looked pretty cool too tucked away in an alcove and it was on a loop all night. I could see guests gathering around it and it seemed to work well.
Set up the Disco, quite a large set up and everything looked and sounded great.
So, on to the night itself....well, I arrived at 6.45pm to turn everything on, the Disco, Uplights and Projector. I had a quick look around to make sure everything was ok and then started to play some background music as the guests arrived. All was going ok and a nice atmosphere. It was around 8.00pm when the room was almost full of guests that the wedding co-ordinator approached me and said "Can you announce to everybody that the bride and groom want to cut the cake". I announced it and no'one moved...so I announced it again, this time louder about 5 minutes later...still no movement. I was then approached by the co-ordinator again who looked baffled to say the least. She made a comment that all her plans were going out of the window as no'one was co-operating with her. She said it was weird as the bride and groom wanted to cut the cake at 8.00pm and then the buffet would follow. It was now about 8.20pm.
The best man then came over and said "Have you told everyone that they are cutting the cake?"..I told him I had said it twice but would do it again and this time they heard me and everyone gathered around to watch the bride and groom do their thing. After I had congratulated them both, I also announced that the buffet was now available and everybody rushed to get some food. I kept up with the music, lowering the volume slightly and it seemed to take ages for them to finish. In my meeting with the bride and groom weeks ago, they asked me for advice as to when to do their first dances so I advised them that around 9.00pm would be great as everyone that was invited should be there.
It was around 9.30pm ish when (apologies for the description), this big, fat horrible looking woman stormed across the dancefloor and up to my decks. She stood over me looking quite drunk trying to hold on to her glass of champagne and shouted "Oi, give me the mic, I wanna make a speech"...I shook my head and said "Sorry, No"...she then shouted louder.."Oi you! I wanna make a speech now!"...I told her that she wasn't using the mic. I didn't know who she was or what she would say whilst drunk. I later found out that she was the chief bridesmaid and she stormed off shaking her head.
That moment put me on edge to be honest, well that was until a group of about 8 very nice looking girls came in and sat on a table about 10ft away. They were there about 5 minutes when one of them came over and said "When are you going to play their first dance then mate, it's getting late". I explained that I was waiting for the nod from the bride and groom and that they were already late. I felt as if for the last 2 and a half hours, I had been stood there like a plum with no'one taking any notice of what I was doing. Kids were sliding across the dancefloor, people had their backs to me either chatting or scoffing their faces and it seemed like a waste of time. Now and then the odd couple of people would come up and have a boogie for one or two songs but then go and sit back down.
I eventually played the first dance (Aerosmith - Don't wanna miss a thing), at 9.55pm. This was after the bride had asked me when I was going to do it. I told her that I was waiting for them to confirm and had asked the groom about 30 minutes ago. She said "He aint told me anything" and laughed. To be fair, the first dances went well with everyone taking notice but as soon as they had finished, the table full of fit girls left and so did a few others and it felt as if the room had been emptied of half the guests. When I looked at the clock and it said 10.30pm, I knew that I was in for a long night. I was booked until midnight. I played all the usual stuff and all of their requests yet it didn't seem like it clicked properly at any point during the evening. It was only in the last hour when I thought I would try the party classics (that hadn't been requested) along with the likes of Kaiser Chiefs, Madness and Reef etc that the dancefloor looked half decent.
The last song was 'Time of my life' from Dirty Dancing and almost everyone got up. During the fade out I thanked everyone, wished the couple all the best and then there was silence. No applause, no thanks...nothing.
Yes, I was there to do a job and I did it. I didn't expect applause and to be honest with you, the groom came up afterwards and thanked me but the bride didn't say a word. Nights like this knock my confidence as it doesn't happen that often. I can see that it went ok from the grooms point of view as he acknowledged it but...oh, I dunno...just one of those times I expect. It took me 90 minutes to get everything down and in the van which is ages for me and I woke up this morning aching big time. I would like to be a fly on the wall in their house at the moment to see what they actually thought of the night.
If I am totally honest though, it may sound bad but I think it was mainly down to them having...dare I say it, boring guests? Harsh? Yes, but when you go through an hour of total guaranteed floorfillers and just one or two people get up...well, what can you do? I'm thinking that maybe some of the people there hadn't seen eachother for a while and wanted to chat etc...that's fair enough but the table full of fit girls who turned up for half and hour were obviously stopping by on their way to somewhere else.
Apologies for the long post, on a bit of a downer today and may pay a visit to my local drinking establishment.:beer1:
Here we go. Sit back for another Shakermaker review of a wedding I did last night.
It was booked in January by a guy that was at a christmas party I was doing at my hotel residency. The couple were got married in February in St Lucia and booked me to do their wedding disco along with photo projection and uplighting. Nice young couple who were really looking forward to the evening.
I set up the uplighting first of all and put them on a pink/lilac/purple setting. 8 units in total in a very long room but it looked very nice. Then I set up the projector and screen and that looked pretty cool too tucked away in an alcove and it was on a loop all night. I could see guests gathering around it and it seemed to work well.
Set up the Disco, quite a large set up and everything looked and sounded great.
So, on to the night itself....well, I arrived at 6.45pm to turn everything on, the Disco, Uplights and Projector. I had a quick look around to make sure everything was ok and then started to play some background music as the guests arrived. All was going ok and a nice atmosphere. It was around 8.00pm when the room was almost full of guests that the wedding co-ordinator approached me and said "Can you announce to everybody that the bride and groom want to cut the cake". I announced it and no'one moved...so I announced it again, this time louder about 5 minutes later...still no movement. I was then approached by the co-ordinator again who looked baffled to say the least. She made a comment that all her plans were going out of the window as no'one was co-operating with her. She said it was weird as the bride and groom wanted to cut the cake at 8.00pm and then the buffet would follow. It was now about 8.20pm.
The best man then came over and said "Have you told everyone that they are cutting the cake?"..I told him I had said it twice but would do it again and this time they heard me and everyone gathered around to watch the bride and groom do their thing. After I had congratulated them both, I also announced that the buffet was now available and everybody rushed to get some food. I kept up with the music, lowering the volume slightly and it seemed to take ages for them to finish. In my meeting with the bride and groom weeks ago, they asked me for advice as to when to do their first dances so I advised them that around 9.00pm would be great as everyone that was invited should be there.
It was around 9.30pm ish when (apologies for the description), this big, fat horrible looking woman stormed across the dancefloor and up to my decks. She stood over me looking quite drunk trying to hold on to her glass of champagne and shouted "Oi, give me the mic, I wanna make a speech"...I shook my head and said "Sorry, No"...she then shouted louder.."Oi you! I wanna make a speech now!"...I told her that she wasn't using the mic. I didn't know who she was or what she would say whilst drunk. I later found out that she was the chief bridesmaid and she stormed off shaking her head.
That moment put me on edge to be honest, well that was until a group of about 8 very nice looking girls came in and sat on a table about 10ft away. They were there about 5 minutes when one of them came over and said "When are you going to play their first dance then mate, it's getting late". I explained that I was waiting for the nod from the bride and groom and that they were already late. I felt as if for the last 2 and a half hours, I had been stood there like a plum with no'one taking any notice of what I was doing. Kids were sliding across the dancefloor, people had their backs to me either chatting or scoffing their faces and it seemed like a waste of time. Now and then the odd couple of people would come up and have a boogie for one or two songs but then go and sit back down.
I eventually played the first dance (Aerosmith - Don't wanna miss a thing), at 9.55pm. This was after the bride had asked me when I was going to do it. I told her that I was waiting for them to confirm and had asked the groom about 30 minutes ago. She said "He aint told me anything" and laughed. To be fair, the first dances went well with everyone taking notice but as soon as they had finished, the table full of fit girls left and so did a few others and it felt as if the room had been emptied of half the guests. When I looked at the clock and it said 10.30pm, I knew that I was in for a long night. I was booked until midnight. I played all the usual stuff and all of their requests yet it didn't seem like it clicked properly at any point during the evening. It was only in the last hour when I thought I would try the party classics (that hadn't been requested) along with the likes of Kaiser Chiefs, Madness and Reef etc that the dancefloor looked half decent.
The last song was 'Time of my life' from Dirty Dancing and almost everyone got up. During the fade out I thanked everyone, wished the couple all the best and then there was silence. No applause, no thanks...nothing.
Yes, I was there to do a job and I did it. I didn't expect applause and to be honest with you, the groom came up afterwards and thanked me but the bride didn't say a word. Nights like this knock my confidence as it doesn't happen that often. I can see that it went ok from the grooms point of view as he acknowledged it but...oh, I dunno...just one of those times I expect. It took me 90 minutes to get everything down and in the van which is ages for me and I woke up this morning aching big time. I would like to be a fly on the wall in their house at the moment to see what they actually thought of the night.
If I am totally honest though, it may sound bad but I think it was mainly down to them having...dare I say it, boring guests? Harsh? Yes, but when you go through an hour of total guaranteed floorfillers and just one or two people get up...well, what can you do? I'm thinking that maybe some of the people there hadn't seen eachother for a while and wanted to chat etc...that's fair enough but the table full of fit girls who turned up for half and hour were obviously stopping by on their way to somewhere else.
Apologies for the long post, on a bit of a downer today and may pay a visit to my local drinking establishment.:beer1: