Client: Laura & Robert O’Dell

Event: Wedding

Venue: Tewin Bury Farm, Welwyn, Herts

Date: April, 7 2013

Package: Total Music Package

Music Requested: Beatles Background Music, Garage, Latest Charts, RnB, Party Classics, 70s, 80s & Guest Requests

After a late pack down and short sleep following last nights wedding reception in Surrey we were back out on the road again at 1pm for the final word on the weekend, a 90 minute drive up to one of my favourite wedding venues, Tewin Bury Farm in Welwyn, Hertfordshire for the wedding of Laura & Robert.

Having been to so many venues over the past few years I usually find little things each week that I would personally have done differently, just things like the position of the bar, the size of the floor, lighting, sound limiters, timing/location of the buffet etc etc …generally minor things but they can have an impact on a wedding reception. In around 20 years time its personally one of my goals in this industry to buy my own rural wedding venue from scratch and have it designed in a way that I believe to be the ultimate set up for a wedding – with the onus on stunning views for photography, a rustic eating environment with fine dining and quality service …and the ultimate room built in for the evening entertainment. On the flip side if I was to buy or run an established wedding venue, then somewhere like Tewin Bury Farm would be very high in the list as it rocks in every way !

disco sets up under the mezzanine floor

I’d played here before in “The Stable” but its been a couple of years, in the time since I must of been to hundreds of different venues and I really felt that I appreciated coming back here. The Stable is quite a small environment suitable for up to 70 daytime guests, its a lovely converted barn full of red brick, exposed wood beams and on the approach road from the entrance the building really looks does like an original old barn rather than a purpose built one which adds to its unspoilt charm. Inside the barn there is a quirky round the corner part of the room for eating which doubles up as the buffet room in the evening, the disco sets up at the end of the barn under one of the two mezzanine floors, there’s no sound limiter and with the ceiling being quite high its possible to use water based haze for lighting effects in small sensible doses, the barn has also been discretely extended to accommodate the serviced bar area and its perfect that the bar feels close to the dancing area. I noticed the room also has its own built in rear projector with a pull down screen, which is a nice touch if you want to display photos or video as part of the speeches. The Stable is also licensed to hold Civil Ceremonies and its possible to set up the disco under the mezzanine floor before the meal if your guest numbers are slightly lower, otherwise one of the guest tables will occupy that area. What Tewin Bury Farm also has in abundance is stunning rural spots for photography – the rustic exterior of the barn wall, the pathway that runs alongside the stream, the stream bridge, red brick barn exterior and wooden gazebo were just a few spots we instantly picked up on our arrival.

We set up between 230-330 under the mezzanine floor playing background music by The Beatles during the meal, Laura had designed the whole room herself and it looked absolutely stunning, the lace chair covers complete with cameo clip looked amazing. It’s possible that in a small environment that a performer could have felt a bit intrusive at that stage of the day but the the nature of the guests and the fact there was no long top table ensured a completely relaxed feel. The bride looked amazing …loved the hair do, everything was perfect.

bouquet toss winner

The evening itself was an absolute stormer and the sound quality in the room was amazing, I used two full range speakers and two subs as I wanted to get a good bassy sound due to the nature of the music requested by Laura & Rob which mainly consisted of RnB, Garage and Dance with Party Classics thrown in during the last hour. Sometimes people can be a bit more reserved on a Sunday but certainly not this one …from the start to the finish the floor was once again packed all night long for the third time this weekend and at one point we embarked on a spell of old skool rave from the 90s including Prodigy, Liquid, Baby D, The Shamen, Underworld, U.S.U.R.A and Utah Saints before the best man embarked on a spell of requests for the groom including “Lucky Man” by The Verve and some Rolling Stones before the last hour when we wrapped it all up with requests from the mother of the bride and the Party Classics on Laura’s list.

The party certainly could have roared on long into the night but with a strict midnight finish in place it was certainly a terrific end to a very busy weekend clocking up 40 hours of work between Friday morning and Sunday night, however Laura managed to charm the venue into allowing one more song out of the blue at around 12:10 which really impressed me …they must of really liked her 🙂  but she deserved it, she laid on a fantastic day for everyone before jetting off to Ireland with new husband Robert for their honeymoon.

I’m back at Tewin Bury Farm in June and really looking forward to it …in the meantime we are back on the road next week for Lucy & Davids wedding in Canterbury with all the usual wedding reviews and photos to follow.

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