Essex Weddings

Getting Started As A Mobile Disco – The Set-Up

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:23:43 +0200

Becoming a successful DJ with your own mobile disco depends on one very important thing to begin with.....a love of music.

All kinds of music too, as your work will be as diverse as a wedding reception one week to an 18th birthday party the next. There is no substitute for enthusiasm in any career, so just providing a mobile disco service purely for money is ultimately doomed as you won’t enjoy it and that transmits to your audience.

So....you’ve probably helped out a mate with his mobile disco and now want to give it a shot yourself. You’ll need a decent kit then and with the massive array of mobile disco equipment available, you are very spoilt for choice. My advice is to go down the MP3/CD route from the start – vinyl does look very funky but the music available is extremely limited (and expensive). Avoid using a laptop for MP3s by purchasing a specialist twin-deck MP3 player, purpose-built for DJing on the road. Try to buy the best mixer you can afford as this makes all the difference to your overall sound quality, as does a decent amplifier. A good benchmark for mobile disco set-ups is to have at least 300w of speaker power per channel. Select your speakers carefully... plastic ABS speakers are lightweight and easy to carry but don’t produce great bass. Wooden cabinets are heavier and generally larger, but their overall sound quality is usually better.

Moving on to mobile disco lighting effects, there are literally thousands to choose from. The new fashion is for LED lighting, which has incredibly low power consumption and you can effectively run your entire mobile disco rig from one 13amp plug using these! Always test them out in a shop – buying ‘blind’ on the internet can leave you disappointed with the overall effect. Finally, invest in some good solid metal stands for your speakers and a ‘goalpost’ stand for your mobile disco rig and lighting.

And the rough cost of a half-decent mobile disco rig? Around £1500 would give you a very respectable sound and light show. When you can earn as much as £500 per night, that seems such a wise investment for your mobile disco!

By Ian Scott - Mobile Disco Essex

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Create a wedding website

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:30:47 +0200

These days your wedding guests may well be traveling to your wedding day from far-flung destinations.
If you, or your intended, have spent time abroad, or been to university, or even just moved around then you will of made many friends from all over the world.
Therefore, keeping your wedding guests informed of all your wedding plans can be quite difficult, and sending blanket emails to all your guests just won't do.
Therefore we think the best way of keeping all your wedding guests informed, and maintaining a great log of everything that is going on is to start a wedding website.

As you know, websites can hold as much information, photos or video as you like - the sort of stuff your wedding guests will love to read before and after the wedding day.

Some of the best features you can get on your wedding website are; guest books to allow all the wedding guests to leave comments, photo albums to show off your pre-wedding photos (hen & stag parties) and actual wedding photos, video clips, just upload them onto YouTube and embed them into your wedding website.

Along with those features, you can have plenty of information about the wedding, such as the wedding venue, local hotels, maps, honeymoon details. All of these things will be interesting for your guests to read, and for you to compile.

When you have your wedding invitations printed, get your wedding website domain name printed on them. Just have something like "for further details, see our wedding website..."

You can also allow your guests to send their invitation acceptances through the website, this will make it immediately interactive for them, and counts as a "green" way of saving paper and postage for them.

Making your wedding website fun for the guests is also easy, you could have polls asking the guests questions about how well they know the bride or groom. Have background music, perhaps the music that you're planning on using in your wedding ? A countdown to the wedding day, so you can see how many minutes there are left of your single life !! Perhaps even a weather forecast for the area where your wedding is located, that way your guests can see whether to bring an umbrella or not.

Making a wedding website needn't be hard, and with today's content management systems available, it's as easy as writing an email to update it.
You could have your own domain name, such as johnandmandy.co.uk (or whatever your names are) and it's just great fun, cheap, and lasts a lot longer then most of the other services you'll pay for on your wedding day.

Enjoy yourselves, share your stories and photos and keep all your wedding guests up to date with your own wedding website.

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Wedding near Birmingham

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:24:47 +0200

Must be my age or something, but I've been to more weddings in the last 3 years then most people would in a lifetime.
This weekend we're travelling to my cousin's wedding, he lives in North London, but has decided to get married just South of Birmingham.... not sure why.

Anyway, today's wedding related post is about their wedding invitation. Now, I gather that it's going to be a big affair. The bride has a large family and there's going to be a big wedding guest list, all very traditional.
The invitation arrived not that long ago, and when I opened it I was a little surprised to see the cover of the invitation had a photo of the happy couple in fancy dress !

This leads me to think about the perfect wedding invitations, and if there is such a thing?
This particular wedding invite, opened up and had several cards inside, packed with information for the wedding guests, including how to get to the ceremony, details about the hotel and wedding present list info. It was a great wedding invitation, I was just a little surprised to see some dodgy fancy dress photo on the front cover.

My wife hand made every single wedding invitation for our wedding, even all the evening invitations. They were lovely, nice little flowers glued to the front, there were very personal and attractive.
Some of my other mates sent a card from a shop with two cartoon bride and groom frogs on the front, and the words "we're getting hitched" Not quite as much effort, but they looked nice and of course we got the point - we were invited to their wedding day !

So today's ramblings in conclusion, if you're sending out wedding invitations to your guests, don't worry so much about what you think the guests opinion of them are, just send your invites out and the recipients will be equally as happy to of been invited to your wedding day !

Happy Wedding Planning !

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In the digital age, do you really need a wedding photographer ?

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:06:19 +0200

I was recently at a wedding of one of my friends, they had a fairly big family between them, and invited plenty of friends along to the wedding too.
About half way through the ceremony it suddenly occurred to me that there was something missing...... they had no official wedding photographer.

Strange as it seemed to me, I asked my wife what the reason was. She was just as surprised as me, and thought the same, surely one of the first services you booked for your wedding day was the photographer?

Later on in the day, I walked up to the new bride and groom and congratulated them on their fantastic wedding. They were both delighted with their day, and all the wedding guests seemed to be having a great time.
I used the opportunity to ask them both why they chose to have no wedding photographer, I was a bit concerned that maybe the photographer had let them down and was half expecting to upset the bride with my question.
"We're surrounded by wedding photographers" came the bride's response.
With that, almost on request, an auntie barged me to one side and asked to take a photo of the happy couple.
They smiled, she took the snap, and I thought it was ok - it was their choice not to have a wedding photographer.

Anyway, as the day went on the wedding guests snapped away, as they do. Photos of the couple cutting the wedding cake, photos of them with their parents, kissing in an archway - the list goes on.

The interesting thing was that, there was no single person ordering family and friends around to pose this way or that. The newlyweds simply took a pose and a bundle of paparazzi style wedding guests snapped away.

At the end of the night, the wedding DJ announced that everybody who had a digital camera had to come to the DJ booth.
At the request of the bride and groom, every wedding guest who'd taken digital photos of the couple was handed a credit card style note requesting that they email the full set of their images to the new husband and wife.

Genius I thought, this way they get to flick through literally hundreds and hundreds of wedding photos, choose their very favorites and get them printed at a tiny fraction of the cost of an official wedding photographer.

So, if you want a traditional wedding photographer for your special day, of course you should in theory get a lot of high quality images to treasure from your wedding day.
But, if your budget doesn't quite stretch to an expensive professional wedding photographer, consider printing up these little cards with information on where your wedding guests can send their digital snaps to !

Happy Wedding Planning !

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Wedding Fayres - are they worth the entrance fee ?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:42:29 +0200

I went to a large wedding fayre with my (now) wife a couple of years ago.
There must of been 200 stalls crammed into the exhibition centre, more stalls in a marquee, and plenty of wedding cars and even a red double decker bus parked outside.

We were getting married in around a year's time, and we were looking for ideas for our wedding. The perfect solution for engaged couples has to be to head to a wedding fayre, with so many different wedding services together in one place you could wander around speaking with wedding professionals, get handed a few freebies and go home with lots of new contacts and ideas for your perfect wedding day......or so we thought.

Upon queuing up at the entrance we were greeted by a charming magician, showing us a few tricks and handing out his business cards. A magician is a great idea for keeping your wedding guests entertained especially during that gap between your meal and your evening guests arriving for the wedding reception.

Once we finally got to the front of the queue, my fiancee was handed a "goody bag" - I'd describe is as a bag of adverts for wedding services, and then we were asked for £6 each to enter.
This made me stop to think, here we are planning our wedding day, we come to an event to be sold services, and we have to pay to speak to them.
If you go to your local market, do you pay an entrance fee to discuss the price of bananas with the fruit stall holder ? Er......no.

Anyway, in we went, £12 lighter. We were a bit amazed by the variety of wedding services that were on display though. There was everything from dresses to discos, florists to photographers and everything else in between.
Weddings, it seemed, was a massive market, with customers tripped over themselves to spend their hard earned cash.

Our wedding day was pretty much planned, we had the date, we'd booked our wedding venue along with their caterers, we'd booked our wedding DJ and chosen the dress. However, there was still plenty of things we hadn't arranged, so we spent hours speaking with photographers, videographers, wedding florists until we were too tired and out feet ached.

The point I'm making is, why was there so many engaged couples, and often their mum's spending all that money just to get into the wedding fayre in Essex only to be sold more wedding related goods ?

I liked the wedding fayre, I hated the 3 carrier bags of flyers I was given and I left there having booked nothing, and told all the wedding services I'd look at their website and be in touch.

Happy Wedding Planning !

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Is the credit crunch changing your wedding plans ?

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:28:29 +0200

We all know weddings are a very expensive business.
The average cost of a wedding day in the UK ranges from £15,000 to a mind-blowing, pocket splitting £25,000 - depending on what articles you read.

With the ongoing credit crunch in the UK, we're wondering how big an effect this can have on your wedding day plans.

The best way to avoid any calamities when it comes to paying the final bill for your big day is effective budgetting of your wedding planning.

Never leave yourself open to falling in the trap of trying to make your wedding day a huge celebrity style event, just because you think this is what your wedding guests expect.

Ensure you're fully aware of the costs involved, double check everything you plan and ensure there are no hidden costs.
For example, a wedding venue may say they'll charge you £1,000 for exclusive access to their venue for the day. Another wedding venue 5 miles up the road may ask for £3,000 to hire.
The first thing you must ask is, what am I getting for my money? The first wedding venue may include hire of their rooms only, leaving you to plan meals, seating, drinks, table cloths & cutlery, entertainment etc.
While the second, more expensive wedding venue may include caterers, the wedding DJ, cake stand hire, all the little things that'll soon add up on your wedding day budget.

If someone is charging you a price per head, spend time to consider how many wedding guests you're planning on inviting. A catering bill of £30 per head may sound reasonable when you book it, but if you invite as little as 10 more guests - you've just spent yet another £300 on your wedding day.

It's important to recognise that it's not the amount of cash you spend on your wedding day, it's the way you spend it that counts. And as the credit crunch begins to have an affect on more and more weddings, even if you only have a £1,000 wedding day budget - with careful planning you can certainly still ensure you and your wedding guests have a fantastic day to remember.

Happy wedding planning !

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Photographers - Wedding dreams can be captured

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:48:47 +0200

We've been rambling on about the cost of high quality wedding photographers in other blogs before, but there really is no corner cutting acceptable when you're looking for your wedding photographer.

Firstly, your wedding photos will be treasured forever. They'll sit on your shelves, they'll hang on your walls, they'll sit on your relatives shelves and walls. Why would you want anything but the best wedding photographs ?

So, I guess rule number one when searching for an Essex Wedding Photographer is, never ever choose on price alone.
Speak to the photographer on the phone, go and meet them in person and most importantly spend time looking at their portfolio on wedding photographs.
Decide what sort of photos you want, whether you opt for traditional or reportage or any other specialty, chat with the photographer, they'll have plenty of ideas.

Another thing to consider when chatting with the wedding photographer is if they are members of professional organisations, or whether they have any awards. Both are good signs that their photography will be of a high standard. Ask them if it's their full time job, or just a hobby for them.

Mainly you need to consider what you want from the wedding photographer, do you want someone who'll blend quietly in the background, or do you prefer a loud but organised photographer ordering relatives around for the traditional posed family wedding photos.

Meet a few photographers, discuss your needs and be happy with your final choice.

Happy wedding planning !

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Wedding Planner tips

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:01:04 +0200

Welcome to Essex Weddings first ever post!

We thought we'd start with a useful wedding planner tips article, or more of a checklist to ensure you consider everything when planning your perfect wedding day.

First things first, you'll need to find a wedding venue. No point in trying to book any other wedding service just yet, as their first question will be "Where and when are you getting married" - and you'll have no answer if you haven't booked your wedding venue.

Once you've confirmed your wedding venue booking, and paid the deposit then the fun begins.
Start making a list of who you will invite to your wedding day, our suggestion is that you and your partner make a list each, agreeing roughly how many people you're considering to invite to the wedding.
Once you both have your separate lists of potential wedding guests - make sure you invite all the people you've both agreed on, and then discuss the people who have made one list, but not the other.

When you've finalised your wedding guest list, send out your wedding invitations nice and early to ensure guests don't book holidays on your wedding day.

Girls will then need to start looking for the all important wedding dress, our tip is to start early and take your mum or best friends (or both) along with you to get plenty of opinions.
Guys need to book suit hire, this needn't be planned quite as early as the wedding dress as there all always plenty of options for the guys, and most wedding suit hire companies only need a couple of months notice.

Depending on how big you want your wedding to be, you'll want to consider how you're going to get to your church or wedding venue. Are you hiring a horse and carriage, or a splendid wedding car ? Don't forget these companies have limited transport available, so we recommend booking one pretty early to avoid disappointment on your wedding day.

You'll want to capture your wedding day as much as possible, so booking a quality wedding photographer and wedding videographer is important. We recommend visiting wedding fayres to source these guys. That way you can browse through plenty of their previous work, chat to them about your wedding day, and of course compare one another's work and prices.

Find a good local wedding florist or balloonist, or both if you can afford it. Tradition seems to be that the flowers are to match the colour of the bridesmaids dresses. Both a florist and a balloonist will have endless options available for your wedding day, so speak to them with plenty of time before the big day to choose how you want to decorate your wedding venue.

The wedding cake will be in dozens of photos so make sure you get the one you really want the most, again a good place for checking out wedding cakes is at a wedding fayre. This is possibly the only place you'll see and taste their work. Even better is to get a recommendation from someone who has recently married and used that supplier for their wedding cake. You won't need to book the cake maker too long before the wedding as they'll only make it a day or two before hand, but you'll want to choose a wedding cake design and make sure the cake maker is available for your dates.

Assuming the wedding venue is organising the food and drinks for both the meal and the buffet, you just need to consider entertainment for your wedding guests.

If you're planning a wedding DJ or a wedding band, the best ones will get booked up early, especially in the summer. We don't recommend booking these through a wedding fayre unless you can actually see them perform there. The best way to find a wedding DJ or wedding band is through a recommendation. You could always try and see them perform before your wedding day, or even ask for a CD of their work. DJ's and bands can make or break your wedding reception, so make sure you book the best.

Other things you could consider for your wedding entertainment, are chocolate fountains, champagne fountains, kids entertainers, fun to play casinos, close up magicians the list can go on and on.

Hopefully this article has helped you think a bit more about your wedding planning.

For more useful wedding articles please come back and visit us soon.

Written by David Thurston, who runs Essex Wedding Services - a bright and useful directory of wedding services for Essex brides and grooms - the perfect place to find wedding venues in Essex .

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