In a week which began with the cold snap and snowfall which brings the usual chaos to the UK, the week ended on a much warmer note on a mild evening at The Gallivant Hotel in Camber Sands.

It was our first visit to this venue, set in the heart of an area best known for its sand dunes, pontins and watersports …The couple met when Jayne ran her own pub, “The 8 Bells” in  Tenterden, however today the guests were served up a feast in the shape of the bride and grooms favourite party songs, with particular emphasis on the 80’s and a few guest requests thrown in for good measure for the younger element of the crowd.

We didn’t see anything of the hotel except the disco area, but it was an excellent environment and had a beach hut type of feel with its white wood reception desk, lobster paintings on the wall and the mirror frames which appeared to be made of driftwood. The full wooden floor throughout encourages dancing and there’s a great bar built into the room,with its venetian blinds set behind Cambers famous sand dunes its a well thought out and unique seaside wedding venue.

From a DJ’s perspective the access is excellent, with parking right outside your straight into the disco area so no steps to navigate …and no sound limiter (woop woop), we had a really enjoyable time at this one ! The tartan kilt clad groom spent pretty much the entire gig with a huge smile listening to a lot of his old favourites, I love the personal aspect of DJ’ing when a client loves their music …and it’s great to watch the guests really buy into that too on the night (btw watch this space in February for a very unique music idea which I havn’t experienced before)

The highlight for me of this one (other than a very poor attempt to balance a pint glass on my head – btw someone else tried it and I felt I had to try) …was the last hour where I got to play some different 80s stuff to the norm with back to back Deacon Blue, U2, INXS, EMF, ACDC and Simple Minds all present on the playlist, fortunately it was so good that my failed stunt went unnoticed except for the poor member of staff who had to clear up the debris, sorry about that (never to be attempted again) … the grooms final request to finish off the evening was for Snow Patrol which I was happy to cue up as the last song, although I managed a couple of encores with Ultravox and Aha which brought to an end a cracking first wedding of 2013

It’s been a whirlwind couple of months for the newleyweds who got engaged on December 1st …if Christmas, New Year and a wedding to plan wasn’t enough the couple are moving out to Australia for a year on Monday (28th) so we wish them both all the very best and hope that goes well for them.

 

Here’s the set list from Saturday, if you were at the wedding how about leaving us a comment.