Friday night saw me at Lanwades Hall in Suffolk to help celebrate the wedding of Kimberley and Jason.

The venue

What can I say?

What a lovely venue! It was my first time here, and after visiting with Kimberley and her mum a couple of weeks before the wedding, I was looking forward to this one.

The venue is a Tudor style Manor House just outside the racing capital of Newmarket. It has a marriage license, so you can hold your entire wedding there right from the ceremony to the evening reception.

The reception

I arrived shortly after 6pm to setup and prepare for the evening’s entertainment. The plan was for a quick “Shoe Game” featuring Kimberley and Jason, before moving on to the cake cutting and the first dance. I’ll add now that the photographs the official photographer took of the cake with the hearts on the floor were a LOT better than my efforts!

What’s the Shoe Game?

It’s a form of wedding entertainment which is rapidly travelling across to the UK from the United States. In a nutshell, the Bride and Groom are sat back to back and have either a blue and a pink “paddle”, or one of each other’s shoes (hence the name Shoe Game). They’re then asked a series of questions about their relationship and give their answer by raising the pink paddle/brides shoe if they think the answer relates to the bride, or the blue paddle/groom’s show if the answer relates to the groom.

Still confused? Here’s a short video clip of the start of the game (which actually lasted for 35 questions)

The cake cutting was down to a countdown from 5-1 (obviously the guests are encouraged to join in with this), and then onto the First Dance which in this case was Van Morrison’s “Someone Like You”.

We actually had the choice of three different First Dance tracks because Kimberley and Jason couldn’t decide which one they’d like on the day. This really isn’t a problem so long as I’m aware before the day so that I can make sure I have them to hand.

The guests were invited to join Kimberley and Jason on the dance floor once the photographer had captured the moment, and literally stayed there for the duration of the evening!

The music was wide and varied….everything from the 60s to Motown, classic 70s disco, a little 80s, some Rock and of course current chart hits. Everything was well received, with even the teenagers dancing along to the 70s disco hits! Plenty of requests from the guests made sure I wasn’t short of ideas, and as promised in our pre-wedding meeting….no cheese was played!

Midnight and time for carriages came around far too quickly, and it was soon time to end the night (the evening always seems to pass really quickly from my side of the booth when the floor is full for the night!).

The music?

I’m often asked by prospective wedding couples for examples of playlists I’ve used at previous weddings. This is always difficult because I don’t actually HAVE set playlists, preferring instead to play music which the guests on the night are dancing to, and responding to guest requests. I don’t turn up and press play on a “standard” wedding playlist because it really doesn’t work!

Last night was a mixed bag from the old to the new, and everything went down an absolute treat!

A few photos from the night