February weddings for us stood for fathers????, food????, fitness????, and flowers????

We have read some fantastic February blogs by other amazing wedding bands from our Tailored Entertainment family (did you know that a two-hour show for a musician can burn up to 1500 calories?!? - The Full House), so are feeling fully inspired to spring in to March (get it?). Somehow, summer seems to be right around the corner once again, and we are excited. Sun please!

We thought that we would write a little segment about the special, secret, seldom-seen, pearl of the wedding reception; the Father Daughter Dance.

Hes the proudest man in the room. She is still his little girl. He may have walked her up the aisle, but he doesnt want to give her up just yet.

Having a Father Daughter Dance is a special time to celebrate family, an emotional hand-over and protective nod to the Groom, and it also gives the Bride a little more lime light. Win-win. This tends to be a song from Dads era, and as a band, it can sometimes be even more special to perform than a couples first dance. Its a lovely moment to consider including before your party really kicks off, but dont worry if youve got two left feet, there are plenty of dance experts able to help make this dance extra special - check out Wedding Day Dance to help you choreograph the perfect routine!

Here are 10 songs that make the perfect Father Daughter Dance:

1. Isnt She Lovely - Stevie Wonder

2. Youve Got A Friend - James Taylor

3. My Girl - The Temptations

4. Ill Be There - Jackson 4

5. Aint No Mountain High Enough - Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

6. Youre My Best Friend - Queen

7. Make You Feel My Love - Adele

8. Can You Feel The Love Tonight - Elton John

9. Youll Be In My Heart - Phil Collins

10. Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles

And for fun... Sweet Child O Mine - Guns N Roses

We hope this list has given you some ideas! Are you welling up yet? We are. Just to wrap up... here are 5 rules to be guided by for a successful dad dance:

1. If you feel uncomfortable about the concept, dont do it! Its not imperative and your dad WILL still love you. If you feel uneasy, it will look uneasy.

2. Read through the lyrics! You dont want anything inappropriate when your guests are focussed on you and you could hear a pin drop. Awkward.

3. Go light-hearted and upbeat, or emotive and slow. It depends on your own personal relationship with your father, and whatever you are both comfortable with! Dont be afraid to pick a song that only you both know.

4. Nobody wants to feel left out. Do invite your mother in. Your brother. Your in-laws. Your dog. This special moment is all about family!

5. It does not have to be cringey! It can be fun and silly. Think outside the box and ultimately have a great time, even if youre not just a daddys girl. Embrace the time for your parents to shine and feel loved on your big day.

Thats all folks!

Heres to spring ????????

Love Chartz x

We thought as we are about to enter another summer season, we would talk to you all about little things that can make a huuuge difference to your wedding bands success on the night! If you and the venue consider just a few important factors, you can really make the most out of your live music, and we want to help you do just that!

Hitched shared a great post highlighting 10 tips for Hiring Wedding Entertainment. This is a great and imperative read because the most important thing to every professional wedding band is to do the best job possible for the couple, and unfortunately that cant always happen due to reasons out of their control.

We are going to summarise the two most critical things for us to be able to do the most successful job for you to make you happy!

1) Some venues have sound limitations. This could be either in volume level or with time restraints, and its something that can have a large impact to the atmosphere and general enjoyment of your evening if its not what you want. Sometimes we are not allowed to make (beautiful) noise past a certain time, and this can be a real party pooper for your guests. Who wants to call it a night at 10pm??! Not us! We dont want to have to turn down your requests for an encore, but we do have to respect these times and work alongside the venue to make everybody happy. If you want a longer reception, take note of the limits of the venue! With volume, depending on the venues neighbours, licences, or even the building itself, there are sometimes decibel readers that can cut the power to the room if the sound is too loud. This not only can ruin our professional equipment, but will obviously interrupt your evening and puts a momentary stop to what could be your favourite song. Even though we try our absolute best to abide to the volume level permitted by the staff, certain frequencies can set it off more than others, and we have to tread carefully and cut a lot of bass and drum sounds from our songs, which means that we feel we cant easily do the performance justice for you. When youre in a club, you want the kick drum to beat through your chest, and generally for it to be loouudddd. We want you and your guests to have the best time, and although we are not the style of band to play super rowdy or raucous music, we do like to have control over our sound and to be able to give you our full energy. If it cant be right, its simply not as good, and we want to give you the best versions of ourselves. Having said all of this, we have performed in many a venue with limitations, and we do always make the best out of the situation and work hard to deliver a set that you will go home buzzing from.

2) No wedding that we have ever attended has run precisely to the dot with the schedule! Its nothing to worry about and nobodys fault, but depending on the weather, the catering, the speeches etc etc etc there is a lot that can push the first dance back. We always aim to arrive early and set up as quickly, efficiently and safely as physically possible to make up time and try to keep everybody relaxed. However, there is a lot for us to do, and there is nothing unfortunately that can be cut off our list: unpack the van, bring all the gear in to the venue, liaise with the staff or you lovely couples yourselves regarding setting up, unloading in to the space to assemble the PA and our instruments, wire up, begin making a little noise when appropriate, sound-checking together and moulding the sound to the room (YEP thats a thing). It takes us a nice round 90 minutes to do our job properly. As much as we wish it was as simple as plug in and play, believe us when we tell you that we have done this a thousand times and we need that time to give you the best band we can be. Plus we are pretty speedy - watch us go haha! It is important that you guys know that we will always be delivering our best for you, and that no wedding is the same.

Trust your band and youll have a great night!

Loads of love, Chartz x