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Working With A Wedding Band

I had the unique opportunity to work with a band recently. Most times as a DJ, when we work with a band, we act as Master of Ceremonies and the band just plays sets of music between our sets of music. This time, I was just providing an LCD projector and screen as a rental to the client. There was no DJ at this wedding.

The band sounded great and their mix of music was not bad. As a DJ, if I were to play a song then leave a 2 minute gap between the end of one song and the start of the next, people would look at me funny and wonder what the technical problem was. For this band, this was just the way they worked. The music was so loud for dinner time, that no one could talk. Bands are just loud and LOUDER. There is no background volume level for them for some reason.

Social hour was upstairs, so the band setup and did their sound checks as guests peeked into the room during social hour. I was surprised that the band was more concerned about placing their 10 (yes I said ten) meal orders than they were about setting up prior to guest arrival. Some of the band members had never met other band members so they were busy figuring out how to play certain songs and deciding who would do what (?@&*).

The thing that got me was social hour was over at 7:30 and guests were all in the room ready for introductions to occur. The problem was that the band acting as Master of Ceremonies took over a ½ an hour to organize introductions. There was a lot of cheese coming through the microphone as the band attempted to professionally introduce the bridal party. Word inflection and many times, word pronunciation were off as guests yelled out the corrections to the band. By the time I packed up the video presentation, it was already 10pm and the meal was not done being served, the band had only played about 6 songs (it’s amazing how a band can make a 3 minute adult contemporary song into a 12 minute dragged out version of a bad song to start with). At 10pm with only an hour and a half left to go with this reception, people had not finished eating, the band had not taken their 10 meal break, nothing had been done except the bride and groom’s first dance. No parent dances. Just a couple of VERY LOUD slow songs had been played during the 1^st and 2^nd course and the slide show was presented.

Because the band could not quickly and efficiently organize introductions and because they needed to break for 10 meals (did I mention that they were going to sit and eat 10 meals???), this wedding was being reduced to less than an hour of open dancing. How terrible. Make sure you know that your entertainment – band or DJ is capable of performing as your Master of Ceremonies. Ask to hear a recording of them doing introductions. You owe it to yourself and your guests. CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW OR IS THE BAND TOO LOUD?