How To: Choose A Live Sound, Lighting Design & Entertainment Vendor For Your Wedding

05 Aug How To: Choose A Live Sound, Lighting Design & Entertainment Vendor For Your Wedding

Your wedding is one of the most important days of your life, and as such you plan every little detail of it. However, when it comes to sound and entertainment, you often find that you do not have much information on the technical aspects, not like buying a dress or a suit that you can determine what you like from the first look. So how does one go about this because this too needs to be perfect? Assuming your wedding is about 6-8hours long, your live sound provider will probably influence 4-5 hours of your big day. Here are some sure fire tips to help you choose the right vendor.

1. Experience is Key

Hire a vendor who’s experienced providing live sound services at weddings and other events. You need a vendor who knows what it means to cater to different clientele and has the experience to bring you the best on your big day, one who can provide something original, entertain the crowd, pick up the mood and keep it high. Checking testimonials on service providers is key. Ask the supplier to give you recommendations/ references from former clients and if possible attend one of their events.

2. Check for the high-quality sound system.

Discuss with your vendor about the equipment s/he has. Talk about how the equipment will serve with the acoustics of your venue. Find out about the vendors backup system and how that kicks in in the event of any eventualities.

3. Look for a Vendor that are charismatic & energetic to keep your event at high gear

A great sound vendor stands not just for good music, blending and mixing, but also for an energetic dancing crowd of guests having the time of their life at the event. There’re numerous incentives a truly professional wedding sound vendor can do to understand the crowd and the moods, encourage different people, including the ones who’re not typically the stars of the dance floors, to come up and join the fun, as well as keep the atmosphere up throughout the entire reception. So, ask prospective vendors how they tend to interact with crowds, how they manage to hype up the energy and keep people pumped to make sure that your vendor of choice is a good one and has good entertainment skills.

4. Site Inspection is A Must

Your vendor should pay a visit to the reception venue to plan for the acoustics, meet up with other vendors (Tents/décor suppliers) to talk about the equipment set-up plan and conduct a song check at least a few days before the big day. This will avert a huge sound disaster, as well as save your vendors time on adjusting lighting and sound equipment and ensuring its proper performance and interplay.

5. Talk about must-play and do-not-ever-play tracks.

Any professional sound provider will say that it’s the bride and groom, but not a DJ, who’s in control of the music for an event. But, bearing that in mind, you need to spare some time to communicate to your entertainer and customize the music for your reception, agree on the theme and the list of songs to play, their order, etc. If you’re determined that certain songs should not be heard during your reception and if you want to incorporate your favorite music into the playlist, make sure to let the DJ of your choice know about that. Using our Event Prep Form at Onyx we ensure that your wedding playlist is customized to your tatstes and prefences.

6. Additional services

Ask if your Sound vendor can provide additional services, like a band, professional MC services, lighting effects, video screens, photo booths, projectors, karaoke and fog/smoke/bubble machines to enhance your reception, make it more entertaining, engaging and spectacular.

7. Deal with organisational details to reach mutual understanding and avoid music confusions.

For instance, your wedding sound provider needs to know when to play the processional music, first dance, cake cutting, bridal bouquet toss songs, as well as when to start playing reception mix. So, provide your vendor with a schedule of your wedding so that he’s able to develop a music plan around it. Ask if you need to supply anything in addition to the equipment they already have, let him know how you want him to treat guest music requests, discuss the payment and the dress-code. Sign a written contract, you need to clear up mutual expectations and responsibilities not to let organisation bugs ruin your wedding experience.

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