Wedding - Premier Disco Scotland

10 Things you should know to make your wedding a party

1 5th September 2017 by James Veal

How to Make Your Wedding a Party: 10 Tips From James Veal

Tips to make your wedding a party — Premier Disco wedding DJ Scotland

Premier Disco are wedding professionals, and after years performing at weddings throughout the country every single week of every year, we know exactly what it takes to make your wedding a party your guests still talk about. We see what works and what doesn’t, and we’re there to make every party special by keeping the dance floor full. Your wedding day is special to you and it should be as you wish. We trust you wish it to be a day for everyone attending to remember fondly.

To help us out, you will find below a list of 10 things you really should know.

1. Give us your music request list.

Requests definitely make our job easier. We are well able to provide your soundtrack for your wedding day without any help but your list will let us know what you would like to hear. We limit the number of requests you make so we can use our experience, after all that is what you are paying for, to add variety.

By playing the right songs your party will be great but give us the flexibility to use your list to build the night and your night will be even better. Contrary to popular belief, we do actually structure your night to have a flow of music to best keep the dance floor full for the whole night.

We have many years of experience judging how a night will flow, so a scripted list of music to play at set times does not work in the flow — see The Wedding Secret’s step-by-step wedding music guide for a good overview of how the day’s music typically builds. Let us know what you would like and let us best decide when to play it.

Hire an experienced Wedding DJ

2. Don’t ask your guests for suggestions on your invitations.

We try to discourage our brides and grooms from asking guests for a music track they would like to hear when they send out the invitations. Guests will ask for all sorts: songs as a joke, tracks that just won’t fit your reception, or the occasional inappropriate suggestion.

As part of our service, your guests can ask for up to 5 songs each. On your planner site there is a link and password details you can send to some of your guests. We keep their requests separate from yours so we know exactly what you would like. This gives us a big list of music, but we also check it over properly to make sure anything we play is appropriate. Guest requests come second to yours, but we give them proper consideration. We don’t guarantee that every submitted request gets played.

3. Encourage your venue to have the bar and seating in the same room as the dance floor.

Our experience of venues where the bar and seating are in a separate room from the dance floor is that guests will go to the bar or for a seat and often not come back for a considerable time. It is more difficult for them to hear the music, so they are less likely to dance. The distance detaches them from the positive energy the DJ is generating, and nothing he does can inspire them to return to the dance floor.

A certain way to kill the party is to separate your guests from the entertainment.

4. Don’t stop the flow

Your DJ will have a plan for the development and structure of your night. This is very fluid and he can change his mind many times a minute. Be positive, make sure your formalities are over before your DJ begins his part of the night.

Asking to stop the music in the middle of a set so someone can make a speech or take a photo will immediately kill any energy already built up. It is then far more difficult for the DJ to get the audience motivated or back to the same level of energy before the interruption.

Don’t stop the DJ to let a guest sing, if you want a singer then let the DJ know at the start. Give him all the information about music and times so he can plan.

5. Consider your guests when allocating seating

Don’t put very young or older people in front of the speakers. Reserve these areas for your younger, party going or clubbing guests.

Don’t sit older people directly opposite the DJ.

Young and old do not like the music too loud or lights shining in their eyes. Position them appropriately at the sides of the room or as far away as possible.

The loudest area is right in front of the speakers, plan ahead so everyone can enjoy the night.

6. Wedding games?

We all want a busy dance floor. Having games in other parts of the room will detract from the dancing. Dancers are like magnets, the more dancers you have, the more people will want to dance. If your guests are busy playing casino at the other side of the room, nobody will want to dance.

If you have games, put them early in your night and well out of the way once the party gets started.

7. The Bride and Groom MUST dance!

Every last guest is there because you invited them. They are there to party. As the bride and groom you are the centre of attention. If you are on the dance floor then your guest will join you. If you are outside or at the bar then that is where your guests will also be.

8. Time for Dancing.

This is your day. This is the best day of your life up to this point. There are certain formalities and technicalities that need to take place so do your best to have them done properly and in good time.

There are many events on the day which can easily run over time. The photos, the speeches, the meal, the venue change over. Try to make sure everything happens when it is meant to.

Your DJ will have to set up equipment before your reception. This takes time, usually up to one hour, and no amount of pressure to speed it up because ‘the breakfast was late’ can make it happen any faster. Getting the timings right is one of the simplest ways to make your wedding a party rather than just an event running to a schedule.

Maybe this can be done before your wedding breakfast or maybe your DJ will provide a full day service. In these cases this is not a problem. If your wedding is due to start at 730pm but doesn’t start until 9pm, your evening party will be a lot shorter.

You will be glad you made sure everything runs as planned, maybe get your Best Man to take the responsibility of keeping to time, or as close as.

9. Plan in advance.

Your online planning page is a fantastic resource for providing information about timings, music and much more. Please make sure you use it to your advantage.

So we can get everything planned, or even rehearsed, your access to the planner closes 7 days before your wedding. Please do not ask for changes after this time.

Your DJ will be co-coordinating with venue staff, caterers, photographers and any other suppliers you have on your day. Any single, seemingly simple change can create confusion and miscommunication, a recipe for disaster.

Keep it simple, keep it planned, keep it right.

10. ENJOY YOURSELF

Simple as that, enjoy!

Ready to make your wedding a party your guests won’t stop talking about? Explore our full range of wedding entertainment.

The £100 DJ

1 5th December 2016 by James Veal

The £100 DJ, and what to expect!

Back in the day, a DJ needed a good strong back. Not just for equipment but to lift and shift their music collection. The modern-day DJ can now carry a massive music collection on a small hard drive. This is the era of DJ technology making the life of a DJ easier. But it also brings the wannabe DJ out of the bedroom and into the wedding market. Meet the cheap wedding DJ Scotland weddings are increasingly seeing: the £100 DJ.

DJ technology has made the ‘playing’ of music easier.

DJ software search engines mean anyone can source and play a tune within seconds. Unfortunately, this results in a hoard of people thinking they can DJ at a wedding. All they need is a laptop, suitable software and a music collection, and they assume that’s enough to play to an audience.

Standards Are Slipping

Just at the time when people expect an experienced, knowledgeable DJ who knows exactly what to do and when to do it, the market is bursting with newbies. We all need to start somewhere, but many of these DJs simply lack the skills for such an important event as a wedding.

Hire an experienced Wedding DJ

Because they know most people are looking to save money, they’re willing to play for as cheaply as possible. Worse still, they shop around to see what other DJs are charging, then undercut their fees. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of competition, but you end up with newbies charging just below the rates of fully experienced DJs. This is not good. You’ll have heard the saying ‘you get what you pay for’ — with a cheap wedding DJ, that turns out to be exactly true.

A typical budget DJ will illegally download their music, often poor quality, from Youtube. That circumvents the rights of the musicians and cheats them out of their deserved income — the same rights PPL PRS’s TheMusicLicence exists to protect. Some will stream the music from legal or illegal online sources until the internet in the venue fails or gets slow.

The Hidden Cost of a Cheap Wedding DJ in Scotland

Cheap DJ’s will use budget equipment where the audio sounds cheap and nasty. Even if it doesn’t, it will most certainly give you a sore head. Cheap speakers perform loudly in certain frequency ranges and do not provide a balanced or pleasant listening experience. Their playout systems will typically be low cost and low quality — often because they haven’t made the time or financial investment it takes to provide a decent sound.

Dotty lights? Cheap, price-driven lighting produces those dots darting all over the room. Quality and good visual impact are seriously lacking with these.

Worse still, a cheap DJ will often have no insurance or safety test certificates, putting your event — and possibly your safety — at risk. They often won’t provide you with a contract or have any backup system for equipment or personnel.

Their communications skills are likely to be lacking, some are even scared to use a microphone and will simply blurt out general announcements.

A professional wedding DJ setup, not a cheap wedding DJ Scotland couples might risk instead — Premier Disco

For Your Important day, make sure you do yourself proud

A wedding can cost anything from say £5000 to £50,000. Of course, the ceremony is the most important part of the day for the bride, groom and family members. But don’t fall short at your reception — all the important people in your lives will be there, so make sure you make the correct decision.

Make sure you hire a DJ with principles, one who invests time and money into a great service. One who can use a microphone to enhance your event, takes pride in their appearance and performance, and makes sure you get what you expect.

For an investment of about 2.5% of your wedding budget, you can get great disco entertainment. Most importantly, you can get a DJ who is professional and will do anything to make sure people remember your event for the right reasons.

For a cost equivalent of 1% to 4%, depending on your total budget, you CAN make yourselves and your guests proud.

As always, please let me know what you think on this subject below.

A cheap wedding DJ rarely saves you anything once the night goes wrong. See what Premier Disco offers for your wedding day — find out what a professional wedding DJ actually includes.

Wedding Vows — How to Back Them Up and Keep Them Safe

1 20th September 2016 by James Veal

A proper wedding vows backup Scotland couples can trust starts with one simple rule: never rely on a single piece of paper. You’ve spent weeks writing your vows. You’ve rehearsed them in front of the mirror, edited them at midnight, and read them back to yourself more times than you can count. They’re one of the most personal things you’ll ever write — and one of the most important things you’ll say out loud. Losing them, even briefly, is the last thing you need on your wedding day.

As wedding DJs who’ve been present at hundreds of Scottish ceremonies, we’ve seen what happens when the nerves kick in. Minds go blank. Hands shake. That carefully folded piece of paper suddenly feels very small. Having your vows safely backed up isn’t overcautious — it’s just good planning.

Handwritten wedding vows on paper — backing up your wedding vows digitally ensures you never lose them before the ceremony — Your vows deserve more than a single piece of paper

Why Backing Up Your Vows Matters More Than You Think

Most couples write their vows on a phone, laptop or tablet — then print them out and consider the job done. The problem is that a single printed copy is a single point of failure. It can be left at home, dropped in a puddle, crumpled beyond reading in a nervous pocket, or simply lost in the chaos of a wedding morning. Any of these things can and do happen.

The solution is straightforward: treat your vows the way you’d treat anything irreplaceable. Make multiple copies in multiple places.

Wedding Vows Backup Scotland: The Best Ways to Back Up Your Vows

1. Cloud Storage — Your Most Reliable Safety Net

Storing your vows in a cloud service means you can access them from any device, anywhere, as long as you have a signal. Google Docs, Apple Notes, Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox all work well. Type your vows directly into the document, give it a clear filename, and make sure it’s synced before the wedding day. If you lose your printed copy, you can pull it up on your phone within seconds.

2. Email Them to Yourself — and Someone You Trust

Email is simple, reliable, and searchable. Send a copy to yourself and to your maid of honour, best man, or a trusted family member. That way, even if your phone dies and your partner’s phone dies, there’s still someone in the room who can pull them up. Do this a few days before the wedding, not the morning of.

3. Read Them From Your Phone at the Ceremony

Many couples now choose to read their vows directly from a phone or tablet rather than a card. There’s nothing wrong with this — it’s practical, it means you always have a backup, and it avoids the risk of a piece of paper becoming illegible if your hands are shaking. If you go this route, put the device on Do Not Disturb, make sure it’s charged, and have the document open before the ceremony begins.

4. Keep a Printed Backup Separately

Even if you plan to read from your phone, print a copy and give it to someone else to carry. Your best man, maid of honour or registrar can hold it as a last resort. Having it in a different bag or pocket from your own means one mishap can’t wipe out both copies.

A Simple Checklist for the Week Before Your Wedding

Finalise your vows and save them to a cloud document
Email a copy to yourself and one trusted person
Print at least two copies — one for you, one for your backup person
If reading from your phone, test the document opens correctly and put the phone on Do Not Disturb
Run through them out loud one final time the evening before

One More Thing — Your Ceremony Music

Your vows are the heart of your ceremony, but the music around them sets the entire emotional tone — from the moment you walk in to the second you walk out as a married couple. A complete wedding vows backup Scotland plan is worth pairing with the rest of your day’s planning, including the music. Getting that right matters just as much as the words you say. Take a look at our Weddings page for everything we cover, or our Wedding Ceremony page if you’re planning your ceremony music in Scotland — either way, we can help make every moment land perfectly.