Derbyshire Wedding Band
Hire HARD TO HANDLE as your Derbyshire wedding band – rock, indie pop and more + a free DJ for one affordable fee. Or, you could spend hours looking at all of the wedding bands in Derbyshire for wedding receptions advertised on wedding entertainment agency websites.
It’s your choice of course, but unlike other wedding bands in Derbyshire, we have no sliding scale of charges. No confusing line up options; just an amazing wedding band Derbyshire music experience. It’s as simple as that! HARD TO HANDLE provide:
- Wedding band music for Derbyshire
- Perfect for small to midsized venues
- Over 500 wedding reception gigs performed
- 2 hours of classic and contemporary dance floor-friendly music
- Professional wedding musicians
- More cost effective than a large party band
- 100% live band music, no backing tracks
- 350 song playlist – indie rock, classic rock, pop, soul and more
- Request your own favourite songs for us to perform (including your first dance song)
- Free live DJ with every booking direct via our website
- Non-stop music all night
- No wedding entertainment agency commission or fees
- Contract for stress-free booking
- Sound system and lights
- Speak to the band direct
- Fully insured
- A full dance floor!
Our comprehensive website features videos, music, and more information such as frequently asked questions. Also, just a quick word about our video reviews – on our Reviews page you will find lots of videos where brides and grooms we have just performed for tell us what they think of HARD TO HANDLE BAND. As you will see, they say they love our mix of music, onstage energy and the fact that we play the music they want to hear and keep the dance floor full, all night! Take a look at our video reviews here. You can call us direct on 0796 433 5657 or use our Contact page. We look forward to hearing from you!
How do I find a band to play at my wedding?
There are two main ways to hire a wedding band for your wedding reception – through a wedding entertainment agency or by contacting a wedding band direct. As you have probably discovered, most of the Google search results you can see are entertainment agencies rather than bands playing live music. These are the type of websites that declare that they have the best wedding bands, and bands for hire.
Now don’t get us wrong – entertainment agencies can be a good live band option for brides and grooms who believe that they need the assurance of consulting a large music organisation in order to secure the services of bands for hire.
But after a little more research, for wedding bands Derbyshire brides and groom often discover that entertainment agencies aren’t the only booking option. Savvy brides, grooms and other Derby party music planners are realising that you can hire Derbyshire wedding band entertainment by contacting a professional function band direct.
So what are the benefits? First and foremost, when you hire HARD TO HANDLE as a function band for your Derbyshire wedding reception, you will be saving money because you won’t have to pay a commission to the agency as well as the wedding band. Secondly, you will be able to talk to the band direct straight away, which is not always possible when you hire wedding bands through an agency.
Also, when you hire us, you are hiring a real live wedding band. Often, entertainment agencies will take a booking from a bride and groom and then hastily form a wedding band or party band from a pool of musicians from local function bands just to fill that booking – so you won’t necessarily know which musicians you’re getting until they arrive on the day. If you’d prefer not to have to wait and see whether the musicians who arrive are actually good, it’s better to hire a band direct.
How do I find a local wedding band?
Given that you are unlikely to be able to just walk into your nearest wedding venue uninvited and ask for the bands’ contact details, you might be tempted to Google “local wedding bands”. A cursory glance at the results Google gives you for this search will leave you even less enlightened than when you first started. You could of course ask for friends’ recommendations – some will tell you about their mates’ band who play at the local pub, and other will praise the band they had at their own wedding reception. You’re likely to find that neither of those options are appealing. Our advice is to take a step back. Is there a reason why you are searching for local bands? Some brides and grooms make the assumption that “local” means “cheaper”, but it often doesn’t – for example, a band like HARD TO HANDLE will travel to Derbyshire and will still be more cost effective than many other bands.
350 song playlist, requests happily learnt and performed
We have performed at many wedding venues in Derbyshire such as Shottle Hall, Makeney Hall Hotel, Breadsall Priory, Tissington Hall, The White Hart Inn, Kegworth Hotel, Osmaston Park, Stancliffe Hall, The Priest House, Yeldersley Hall, The Pudding Room, Newton House Barns – probably more than most Derbyshire wedding bands.
When we arrive at your venue on the big day you can be confident that we will have liaised with yourselves and the venue manager to ensure we know when to arrive, where to set up, what time your evening guests are arriving, the song you would like us to perform for your first dance and when to play it, what time you would like our sets to be performed, and crucially what music you would like us to play.
We allow you to pick and choose songs to build up a set list from our large, eclectic 350 song playlist featuring music from the 1960s to modern charts.
You can even ask your guests to requests songs in advance, because the best way to get your friends guests dancing is for them to dance to music that they have requested – it’s a simple idea but not all Derbyshire wedding bands are happy to do this. We are also happy to build our DJ sets with your song requests in mind
Should I hire my Derbyshire wedding band through an entertainment agency?
Being able to speak to the wedding musicians direct is a good way of getting a flavour of who you will be hiring, but it also makes sense to take a look at what the very best wedding bands can offer from their videos, music, playlist, information and reviews.
Because an entertainment agencys’ website will feature lots of wedding bands, the information displayed their wedding bands will be limited to the basics – for specific information on the band, you will need to contact the agency, who if they don’t know the answer will need to contact the function band, who will then pass on the information back to the agency and then back to yourselves…it can be a long, drawn out process. You may well have found the perfect wedding band on their website but it will feel maddeningly frustrating if you can’t actually get the information you require…trust us, booking wedding bands shouldn’t have to be so difficult!
So you can either get tired waiting for an answer from the agency about the live wedding entertainment they are offering and keep searching for the next most suitable local Derbyshire wedding band, keep waiting, or you contact HARD TO HANDLE for a quote or other information, and we will get back to you in 24 hours so you can make an informed decision about the type of live wedding bands you want.
Amazing sounding wedding music
Brides and grooms who search for Derbyshire wedding bands and choose HARD TO HANDLE BAND comment on our perfect mix of amazing sounding music or classic rock pop indie rock and more, strong vocals and onstage personality.
All three wedding musicians in the band possess strong vocals, which helps create a very full sound, layering multiple vocals on top of our classic covers band line up of guitar, bass and drums (plus some keyboards).
Because we are experienced, professional musicians, all of the music we perform as a function band sounds authentic.
Unlike some function bands and Derbyshire wedding bands, we don’t feel the need to pad out songs with endless drum and guitar solos – we just play the songs as they were meant to sound.
We like to think that this is why we have a 5* Google review rating! By the way, you might think that you need to hire large bands featuring six or more wedding musicians to entertainment your guests (Also the size of the band may not be immediately apparent; sometimes Derbyshire wedding bands hire additional musicians to fill out their sound).
How many wedding musicians should I hire?
However, not only do larger wedding bands struggle to fit into many Derbyshire wedding venues but quite often these type of wedding bands perform at music at an inappropriate volume. If your wedding reception has a guest list of 400 or less invitees, a large events band likely to be too loud – louder than and indie rock band for example – and if the music is too loud, just watch your guests vacate the dance floor to the bar, and then elsewhere in the venue because the function bands’ music is too loud.
If this does happen, you will have a hard time encouraging them back to dance, which means that you will have spent money on a Derbyshire wedding band which isn’t actually entertaining anyone!
Will the band play too loud?
Without getting too technical, there is an additional problem for wedding bands in Derbyshire who are tempted to push the volume – sound limiters. A sound limiter is a device that which has been installed in many modern Derbyshire wedding venues and it governs the maximum volume that wedding bands for hire can perform at. If a venue has one of these devices installed, it’s usually either because local environmental noise restrictions are in place which the venue has to abide by as a condition of their music license, or the venue has previously experienced problems with wedding bands in Derbyshire playing too loud. With both of these situations, it will be a non-negotiable condition of venue hire.
Unless you have hired one of the best wedding bands who have the requisite experience, you might find that the band complain that they won’t be able to perform for you properly. They may ask you to remonstrate with your venue about this, to which the manager is likely to say “all our wedding bands have to work within our volume requirements” – and quite rightly. The very best wedding bands like HARD TO HANDLE have performed at many venues with sound limiters installed so the band will sound great, the venue manager will be pleased and your night will go to plan.
If however you haven’t hired one of the best Derbyshire wedding bands (let’s not forget that there are plenty of wedding bands for hire but not all of them will be as experienced and professional as HARD TO HANDLE), you are likely to find that the band will either try to circumvent the sound limiter or will try to disregard advice and play at the same volume they are used to. If your Derbyshire wedding band perform at unacceptable volumes, three things will happen:
- The bands’ power will be cut and no wedding music will be played
- Your wedding venue manager will need to reset the power, which may take some time
- If this happens more than a couple of times, your venue manager will refuse to allow the band to continue playing
So, you will be left without any live music or entertainment for guests on your wedding day, who will become disappointed and won’t remember your wedding reception fondly, and then you will have to enter the tricky situation of talking to the band about how they plan to recompense you. Now we’re not saying that this is a regular occurrence when hiring local Derbyshire wedding bands, but it’s certainly worth thinking about when hiring live wedding music.
Hire HARD TO HANDLE BAND!
If you are worried about this, it’s far better to hire Derbyshire wedding bands like HARD TO HANDLE who can vary the performance volume to suit both venue and guests, and who can also set up more comfortably and in smaller areas than large wedding bands Derbyshire has to offer, while having the experience to “read the room”, playing party band music that will entertain everyone and keep the party atmosphere going all night.
Hopefully we have given you an idea why HARD TO HANDLE BAND are one of the best professional wedding bands to hire in Derbyshire. Feel free to take a look at our videos and listen to our MP3s (recorded with no overdubs, so what you hear is a good representation of our live sound), as well as our massive and regularly updated playlist.
Don’t forget, if you are interested in hiring us as your wedding band, wedding entertainment or party music and don’t see your favourite music featured in our set list, just ask us if we can perform it – we’ll be happy to oblige.
So with that in mind, get in touch for more information on how HARD TO HANDLE BAND can get your guests dancing and rock your party! Call us direct 0796 433 5657 or use our Contact page. We look forward to hearing from you!
Hire Hard to Handle band in Derbyshire
Get in touch! For enquiries or just to find out more about Hard to Handle band, fill in the form below. We aim to respond within 24 hours. If you haven’t heard from us by then, we may not have received your enquiry so please call us direct on 0796 433 5657.