Nicky (2nd left) and dutch pals

Client: Zoe & Nicky Evers

Event: Wedding

Venue: Bannatyne Spa & Hotel, Hastings – website

Date: July, 7 2013

Package: Plug & Play

Music Requested: House, Latest Charts, R&B, Guest Requests

All images on this website © choicedj.co.uk & soundproofweddings.co.uk

So after yesterdays fantastic outing to Hampshire we were back out on the road again late Sunday afternoon for Zoe and Nicky’s wedding at Duncan Bannatyne’s Hotel & Spa complex in Hastings. Firstly a big thank you to the Wimbledon App for crashing as we were driving down to the venue, it couldn’t of come at a better time with Bannatyne’s fellow scot Andy Murray on match point 🙁

Anyway we got down to the Montgomerie Suite for around 630, half an hour before we were due to set up for the evening and pulled up to the elegant entrance to meet up with the event manager. It was our first visit to this complex, so if your a DJ working here this is what to expect. If the speeches or meal are still in progress when you arrive for the evening you can walk the equipment down the side of the building and store it in a side room adjacent to the stage, this just makes set up a little less time consuming once you gain access to the room so make the most of your downtime beforehand. The room is a lovely large size with side doors leading out onto a patio area, I noticed a gazebo area which I presume had been used to stage the actual wedding earlier in the day. The room is draped very nicely which definately adds something a bit special to the room, the drapes are positioned between the part of the room where the wedding breakfast is staged and the black dance floor which sits in front of the staged area.

bride Zoe

There is some built in lighting fixed to the ceiling that is spotted onto the stage but you wont have any control over this and if you use a decent lightshow then you are probably better off using your own equipment that you can control. The room has nice white walls in addition to the drapes making it a light room, also giving great opportunities for uplighting …however the venue has built in coloured ceiling spot lights around the side which look great anyway and become very effective once it starts to get dark outside. There are plenty of plug sockets under the flap at the back of the stage and the venue also has a decent PA for your speeches and background music during the meal if required.

Fixed to the wall behind the stage is are some lovely leather panels which really stand out once the coloured spotlights starts to catch them. There is no sound limiter fitted to the venue and no issues with sensible use of haze effects as the ceiling is quite high. All switches for the main lighting in the room is located behind the bar but the venue are more than happy to adapt the lighting if you let them know. The bar is at the entrance end of the room …so not directly inside the room but near enough for guests not to become too detached from the music. This was quite an intimate wedding with guest numbers around 60 but I would guess that the room could hold upto 300 for an evening reception.

shots at the bar

Zoe, who looked stunning in her dress took her first dance with Nicky at around 830 and on another glorious day in England the evening was lit up with a hint of orange with the majority of the guests having made the reasonably short trip over from Holland. The newleyweds both live in Holland and work as personal trainers but one guest who had travelled even further was Zoe’s sister who had arrived recently from Australia following a 24hr flight to be with her sister for the big day. Unfortunately in the build up to the wedding Nicky’s mum had become quite ill so his parents were missing although I believe a Skype call was set up during the speeches which was a thoughtful touch but plans for the mother and son dance had to be changed with Nicky’s sister standing in for the dance, it proved to be an emotional few minutes …hopefully Nicky’s mum got to watch some of the moments throughout the evening which were filmed on an iPad by one particular guest.

The bride and groom had planned originally to go with a night of r&b, house and trance music to suit their tastes but with it being quite a small crowd the most important thing for them on the night was that people danced, so we mainly played commercial charts, dance and r&b for the younger section of the crowd combined with some 70s, 80s and 90’s for Zoe’s dad and older guests. Most importantly the floor ticked over all evening and with plenty of requests coming in from the Dutch guests.

With just a short while remaining Zoe let us know they were leaving, apparantly Nicky had had one too many shots at the bar and was on the brink …as she dragged him towards the exit the inevitable happen and down he went in a heap complete with a couple of mates on top of him 😀 …so it was quite an international weekend with the South African feel yesterday and Dutch tonight, a tiring but excellent couple of days wrapped up by the win in the tennis making it a great weekend all round.

All the best to Zoe & Nicky, hope the grooms head wasn’t too sore for the trip back 😀 Next week we are at Holly & Danny’s wedding at a very “interesting” venue, in fact its going to be the last wedding staged at the venue, we are going to be there from 11 in the morning so make sure to check back for a review of that one which is going to includes lots of new lighting shots and video.

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