“Golden Eagles” …Camilla & Jake – 21st Dec (Tithe Barn, Petersfield)
Client: Camilla & Jake Davis
Event: Wedding
Venue: Tithe Barn, Petersfield
Date: 21st December 2012
Package: Total Music
Upgades: Creative Mood Lighting, Civil Ceremony Music, Background Music, Mic Hire
Our final wedding before Christmas saw us take the long drive down to East Hampshire for Camilla & Jakes wedding at Tithe Barn just outside of Petersfield …our first trip to this particular venue. As luck would have it the day before the wedding fate had decided to strike me down with the latest virus sweeping the nation ensuring that my longest working day of the year was going to be a test of endurance with 18 hours ahead of me. Todays additional services included the install of 8 Creative Mood Lighting units, Civil Ceremony Music and a Microphone for the speeches, plus I was also providing the PA for an acoustic duo who were going to play during the meal and following the first dance.
We arrived in Petersfield just after 11am, on walking into the venue I was immediately impressed with Camilla & Jakes attention to detail. It must be easy to get carried away and overdo it with the decoration as Tithe Barn is essentially a huge blank canvas adorned with stunning stone archways and a mezzanine level at one end, but this was a very minimal and classy look. The ceremony takes place at one end of the barn, the couple had laced the floor with artificial snow leading up the aisle along with a number of frosted branches, once the blue uplighters were installed the icy blue winter wonderland scene was set. I also took this opportunity to run the wired microphone down to that end of the room where the top table was due to go, this ended up being around 35 metres.
We set up our brand new booth, archway and speakers for the Ceremony at the other end of the barn next to the mobile bar behind a number of concertina screens, this hid everything for the first part of the day and also gave the caterers a chance to set up all the tables for the meal. The bar had a lovely led colour changing paneled front as well as a huge array of beers, wines, spirits and shots, I’ve never seen so many flavours of Sambuca, click here to visit their website, definately one of the nicest mobile bars I’ve seen at a wedding.
At 2.42 I pressed the play button for the bridal march and the day was under way, due to the concertina screens blocking my view of the service everything was done by hand signals with one the venue management acting as the middle man between myself and the registrar, the ceremony service also included 3 songs for the signing of the register before the new Mr & Mrs Davis made their exit as man and wife to the mezzanine level along with their guests for congratulations and a few glasses of bubbly with a backdrop of background music which I played through the system courtesy of a CD provided by Jake beforehand. After a sackful of artificial snow had been cleared from the floor the caterers then moved all the pre laid tables down to the ceremony part of the room and at just after 5pm the speeches got the wedding breakfast off to a lively start.
Highlight of the speeches was the grooms speech, definately one of the most amusing I have heard this year. He was a bit of a natural on the microphone not an easy task by any means, the speech contained a few cliches but an incredible amount of humour too and sometimes its just the manner of the person that makes it so much funnier. I particularly liked the moment he thanked his own Mum for creating such a wonderful son 😀 However when Jake began to explain how he and his new wife had met as employees of Crystal Palace my face began to take a turn for the worst lol …it’s common knowledge on my blogs that I am a massive Charlton supporter, there’s nothing that gives me greater pleasure in footballing terms than remembering the day we relegated them a few years ago, although this season “The Eagles” are unfortunately looking a good bet for promotion. I must admit at this point I was starting to worry as to how many of them were in the room and I was starting to get a sweat on worrying I was going to get inundated with requests for Palaces “Glad All Over” anthem, that would of been too much to take for a man already under the weather. Fortunately this fear never materialised and as the acoustic duo reproduced a number of tracks by Oasis during the meal it became clear that Jake’s taste in music was far better than his taste in football clubs 😀 sorry Jake …I had to get a polite dig in somehow 😉
Camilla & Jake took their first dance just before 8pm to Jason Mraz, I’d already guessed from the playlist that the bride was very much into her girly pop tunes and the groom into his rock and this proved to be the case once the acoustic duo had completed their second set around 9pm. The Holt Brothers were excellent and got the evening off to a great start and at no time through till 1130 did the dance floor stop with a noticeable amount of bridal love for Girls Aloud, the 25min garage set around 1015 also proved to be a major highlight on the evening.
And that was it, another great night on the road in 2012 and now just the small matter of packing up, driving home and grabbing 3 hours sleep before heading off out to get a train to Sheffield Wednesday at 6am on Saturday morning to watch Charlton. (For the record we lost 2-0 and I’m now starting to contemplate waiting until we significantly improve before trying to belittle our rivals again !)
Information for DJ’s: There is a sound limiter fitted at this venue, it’s set to 94db which in a small room isnt too bad, however the acoustics in this venue maximise the bass and you will need to turn down your lows significantly in order to keep the overall sound level higher. With a full dancefloor absorbing the sound you can’t quite get the volume and balance up to what you would normally prefer, the 94db does feel quite testing if your playing garage or bass driven dance tunes …fortunately these issues are usually more noticeable to us DJ’s rather than the guests and it certainly didn’t detract from everyones enjoyment down in East Hampshire, a great end to the pre Christmas run in.
Happy Christmas to Camilla, Jake and everyone we have met over the past year !
Here’s the set list from Friday, if you were at the wedding how about leaving us a comment.
19:54 : Jason Mraz – I’m Yours
BAND SET
21:04 : BeyoncÈ – Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)
21:07 : Mark Morrison – Return of the Mack
21:10 : Bobby Brown – Two Can Play That Game
21:13 : Mark Ronson – Valerie (Feat. Amy Winehouse)
21:17 : UB40 – Red Red Wine
21:22 : Scissor Sisters – I Don’t Feel Like Dancing
21:26 : Girls Aloud – The Promise
21:30 : Estelle – American Boy
21:34 : Spice Girls – Wannabe
21:36 : Salt-N-Pepa – Push It (Radio Version)
21:40 : Robin S. – Show Me Love
21:44 : The Original – I Luv U Baby
21:47 : Take That – Relight My Fire
21:51 : T-Rex – I Love To Boogie
21:53 : Stevie Wonder – Sir Duke
21:57 : The Rolling Stones – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (Mono Version)
22:00 : Bill Haley and his Comets – Rock Around the Clock
22:02 : Jerry Lee Lewis – Shake, rattle and roll
22:05 : The Fratellis – Chelsea Daggers
22:08 : Reef – Place Your Hands
22:12 : One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful
22:15 : JLS – She Makes Me Wanna (feat. Dev)
22:16 : Florence + The Machine – Spectrum (Say My Name) [Calvin Harris Remix]
22:18 : Artful Dodger – Rewind (Radio Edit)
22:20 : Double Take & MC Kie – Love Come Down (Original Vocal Mix)
22:23 : Lonyo – Garage Girls (Sunship Mix)
22:27 : Sweet Female Attitude – Flowers (Sunship Edit)
22:30 : DJ Luck & MC Neat – Sambuca
22:33 : So Solid Crew – 21 Seconds
22:35 : Baby D – Pure Garage Platinum – Let Me Be Your Fantasy
22:38 : C.J. Bolland – Sugar Is Sweeter (Armand Van Helden’s Drum ‘n’ Bass Mix)
22:39 : Tori Amos – Professional Widow (Armand Van Helden Remix)
22:41 : Todd Terry – Keep On Jumpin’
22:43 : Strike – U Sure Do 2006 (Angel City Radio Edit)
22:46 : Wham – Last Christmas
22:51 : Fairytale of New York [featuring Kirsty McCall]
22:55 : Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Come On Eileen
22:59 : Dizzee Rascal – Dance Wiv Me
23:02 : Skee-Lo – I Wish
23:05 : Rihanna – Diamonds
23:09 : Rhianna – Umbrella
23:13 : Take That – Never Forget
23:18 : Take That – Greatest Day (Radio Mix)
23:21 : Oasis – Don’t Look Back In Anger
23:26 : Mariah Carey – All I Want for Christmas Is You
23:29 : Queen – Somebody to Love (Remastered)
