As if trying to hire and co-ordinate wedding suppliers for your wedding reception isn’t stressful enough, imagine trying to hiring a live band from the other side of the world! Shannon and Brett are the brave souls who decided to hold their wedding reception in the UK while still living in Australia. While we can only imagine how many hours in total they spent sending emails, making phone calls and generally trawling the internet, we suspect it was substantially more than the 100+ hours that’s generally recommended.
CAN I HIRE A UK WEDDING BAND FROM OVERSEAS?
Luckily, fairly early on in the process, Shannon and Brett found HARD TO HANDLE BAND + DJ to perform at their Lake District wedding reception at The Lancrigg, Cumbria. We pride ourselves on the personal touch, getting to know our brides and grooms, what they are looking for, their personal style and what they hope to achieve for their big day so wherever possible we value phone calls, not just impersonal emails. And just because you may be planning your wedding from thousands of miles away, there’s no reason you shouldn’t expect the same level of service, so we are happy to schedule a phone call, Whatsapp or Teams / Zoom calls with you to helps you get a flavour of our enthusiasm for providing personalised live entertainment for your UK wedding reception.
So it was that Shannon and Brett hired us and quicky found themselves on their big day having the time of their lives on the dance floor at The Lancrigg Ambleside, Cumbria, dancing to HARD TO HANDLE BAND + DJ. How did this come to be? Well, like many UK wedding venues, we enjoy “preferred supplier” status at The The Lancrigg. This means that we played at the venue for the first time, the venue manager and staff loved our performance and found us very accommodating and easy to deal with (which we are!) and recommended that we should be added to a list trusted service providers displayed on their website.
It was there that bride and groom found us. They also loved what they saw on our website – lots of information, lots of performance videos and lots of video reviews, just like this one. They particularly appreciated our handy FAQ page which helped answer a few questions about whether they should hire a live band for a wedding reception where the venue has a small performance room. The “are bands too big and too loud for your wedding reception” is a question we are asked regularly, and while this can depend on the type of venue, guest count (the number of guests you have invited) and the size of the band, HARD TO HANDLE BAND are suitable for almost any available space and number of guests.
WEDDING BANDS ARE TOO LOUD!
Another consideration is that a growing number of UK wedding venues have installed sound limiters to aid with volume restrictions. This can be for a number of reasons – your venue may also act as a stand alone hotel with non-wedding related guests staying over, or the local council may have placed restrictions on the volume entertainment at a venue can play at. This in turn has an impact on the equipment a band can use. The type of noise restriction in place (expressed decibels or “dB”) may determine the type of band it is appropriate to hire:
- Less than 90dB: no acoustic instruments or individual amplifiers. All instruments must be electric, ie. electric drums
- Between 90dB and 100dB: no acoustic drums, electric drums only
- Over 100dB: it’s unlikely that any noise restrictions are in place but bands should check with venues beforehand
As one can never be certain, HARD TO HANDLE BAND always perform with equipment that is appropriate to venues with sound limiters – it means that your night will go without a hitch and the music will sound great!
Words are important. Words express our feelings. But sometimes non-verbal communication is just as important. When you see your wedding guests dancing, smiling and cheering, this can tell you everything you need to know about how you made the right choice in live entertainment. And though the “ties on heads, shirts undone” move can raise a few groans, it’s a surefire way of knowing that your partner and his friends are having a great time. It’s an age-old display of male group cohesion and happiness, and sometimes you just have to let it happen.
So while Brett told us “I can not recommend this band enough!”, the fact that his groomsmen are in various states of dress, arm in arms, cheering at the camera should tell you everything you need to know about how much entertainment HARD TO HANDLE provide!
HARD TO HANDLE WEDDING BAND – 2 hours of killer indie, rock, pop and more + live DJ!
Tel: 0796 433 5657