Photography by Jessica Williams
With so many choices available on your wedding day, we're here to make your entertainment plans simpler. Luckily, with over a decade of experience as an award-winning roaming band The Travelling Hands, we've performed for hundreds of couples during their wedding celebrations and we happen to know a thing or two about planning music for weddings too! From the city wedding to the countryside estates & even destination weddings, there are some key timings to weddings that we need to explore to make your celebration incredible.
Let's have a look at how to plan the music for your wedding day to ensure that you and your guests have an incredible experience.
Meet the Author: Tom Warner, founder of The Travelling Hands.
"I launched The Travelling Hands back in 2011, and I’ve been working directly with our clients to ensure that their weddings, parties and events are brought to life with music, laughter, and energy.
The Travelling Hands have performed at weddings worldwide from central London ballrooms to the beaches of Bali & we would love your celebration to be the next stop on our global tour."
Let's look at the two most popular options for timing!
The Party Set - The Wedding Breakfast
THIS is where the magic happens. The wedding breakfast performance is what The Travelling Hands are best known for and the time we encourage our wedding couples to book our sets within their weddings too. So what makes this time so special?
Photography by Colony Digital / Brad Simmons
By the time of the wedding breakfast (often sometime between the hours of 3-8pm), guests are fully relaxed. They have had their catch ups, they have often enjoyed a drink or two in the afternoon and the formalities of the ceremony have concluded. This is the time for each of your guests to enjoy the incredible menu that you've selected for them amongst your favourite people in the world.
THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE is a very special part of our performances that we bring to wedding breakfast performances. If this is the first time we are performing in your celebrations, imagine the surprise on your guests faces when 5 or 6 chaps come strolling in, wearing sharp matching suits, holding acoustic instruments, and performing singalong songs carefully designed for all ages. It's an incredibly fun moment for wedding guests, for you, and to be honest for us too. This is a really special moment where your guests know they are in for a treat and all thanks to you!
UNITE YOUR GUESTS - Our performance will consist of a carefully constructed setlist of songs for all ages. Our performance style is fairly unique. A band wandering around dinner tables is not a normal thing after all, and this brings with it a need for a certain style of song to be performed. The songs known by all ages are the real gems that we bring into our sets. Whilst we also play numbers from certain decades for certain tables of guests, the goal is to ignite the celebrations and ensure that all of your guests throughout the wedding breakfast are energised, excited and ultimately united to celebrate with you before their feet have even touched the dance-floor.
TRANSFORM YOUR DINNER - If you're looking for a gentle and peaceful meal perhaps with a soft playlist, then with honesty in mind, we are the wrong band for you. We know that the end of a wedding dinner can typically feel a little sleepy, and so our sets are designed to make your dinner the counter opposite of this and to make your guests feel fired up and ready to party with you into the evening.
PARTY INTO THE NIGHT - When we ignite a wedding breakfast, and when guests are singing and dancing with us (often on their chairs) during dinner, there are more benefits after we finish. Guests are not falling asleep into their dessert, but they are excited and ready to celebrate with you long into the night. Think of us as your personal hype team to help guests feel re-fuelled and ready to celebrate at this point of your celebrations.
The Afternoon Drinks - The Cocktail Hour
We know we know - why have we placed this section second in our blog piece when it comes before the wedding breakfast? Well quite simply we wanted you to focus on the wedding breakfast as the top choice for The Travelling Hands performances. We can't recommend it enough as the best time to let us do what we do. However - if you've read this far, then perhaps you are considering one or more set to be placed within afternoon drinks. This is the next most popular time for our performances, and these hours often bring a cocktail hour or champagne reception as guests settle into your day after the ceremony.
THE FOCUS - Let's jump into the minds of your guests here. At this point of the day, many guests have yet to say hello to one another. They are catching up, looking their best and slowly easing into your big day. Whilst we often discover a few guests ready to have a little sing with us this early in your wedding day, the focus here is primarily on conversation.
THE ROLE OF MUSIC here is to help your guests relax into your wedding celebrations. A gentle acoustic soundtrack for your guests to enjoy can add a great touch to this time of the day. In The Travelling Hands, we can add a great ambience to these casual moments, having the freedom to move around your guests as they mingle. Here we would opt for more relaxed tunes and some subtle fan favourites from our repertoire before we hit the party anthems later in the wedding breakfast.
The Blend = Cocktail Hour + Wedding Breakfast
Photography by Damian Milan
Can you combine the afternoon set and the wedding breakfast set? Absolutely. For this choice we would recommend placing a shorter set in the afternoon whilst guests are catching up and then adding one or two sets within the wedding breakfast for the peak performance time.
Photography by Brett Harkness
Now it's over to you! We know that each wedding is unique and it's incredibly important that you can put your trust in your wedding suppliers. When we become a part of your wedding team, we want you to feel comfortable, and that's why we offer and suggest a relaxed video call as the first step. If we can't provide what you're looking for then we won't pretend that we can. If you like the look of The Travelling Hands and think that we could be the right fit for your celebrations, then book a call with us to say hello, put the kettle on and let's explore everything together. To book your call simply click on the link below!